Baccano! - Volume 1 - Chapter 3

DAY TWO

As the sun rose, the town, with all makeup removed, exposed its face to the light.

Again, the day began bright and clear. The sky, which was rimed with an even stronger chill, had gone beyond crystal and now resembled transparent ice.

“That’s a problem…”

“A problem!”

Once again, Isaac and Miria were at their wits’ end.

“Who’d have thought it would be liquor…”

“Yes, it’s liquor!”

That crate they’d stolen the previous night. As they’d wondered what Mafia treasure it held, and whether its weight was the consequence of being jam-packed with Benjamins, their expectations had grown, and yet the result had been…this.

“Why would they have three guys carrying just two bottles of liquor, in the dead of night?”

“Maybe they just wanted to drink it at home and were taking it back with them?”

“Let’s not be pessimistic. We sacrificed the helmet, the mask, and the tuxedo to get this prize.”

In the end, he’d even discarded the tuxedo. Miria hadn’t been able to take off her dress, of course, but she’d changed into new clothes a little while ago, and the black dress was tucked away in her bag.

The two of them were currently dressed as a priest and a nun. Either way, they were bound to stand out in the middle of town.

“…That’s right, it must be high-grade liquor! I bet it’s a legendary liquor, the sort you can only get by defeating a dragon, the kind the gods drink!”

“That’s amazing!”

He wasn’t right, but he wasn’t far wrong.

“All right… What should we do with it?”

“Drink it?”

“Hmm…We could, but… Two bottles is a lot.”

“Sell it, then?”

“Do you think it would sell? We should probably get it looked at by a specialist first…”

Having gotten that far, Isaac seemed to hit on an idea.

“That’s it! Let’s give this to the Martillos, to thank them for that honey!”

“Oh, I see! Wow, I bet they’ll be thrilled! They said all they had there was honeyed liquor!”

“This is ‘a good thing’ for sure.”

“Yes! The dead children will be able to pass on!”

Making a variety of remarks of differing degrees of self-centeredness, the two turned their steps toward Alveare.

In the end, Ennis hadn’t returned to Szilard and the others. After thinking for a while, she’d decided to find those two and hear what they had to say, and she’d been looking for them ever since.

However, once you lost sight of someone in New York, finding them again was nearly impossible.

“If nothing changes soon, I’ll be… Master Szilard will…”

If she was much later in returning, Szilard might get suspicious and kill her. He’d be able to do it even if she was on the other side of the world.

When she gave up and started back home, she saw a priest and a nun in the distance.

Ah… Does God really exist? If he does, what would I need to do to get his help?

As she was thinking these things, she caught sight of the face of the priest up ahead.

His face was all too familiar.

If God really did exist and preside over all destinies…he was far too calculating…and cruel.

“Oh, good morning, Maiza.”

When it was just about noon, Firo stopped in at Alveare.

Even though they’d partied so much the night before, there wasn’t a trace of liquor or fatigue left on him.

“Good morning. You’ve made a new start today. What do you think?”

“It doesn’t feel real yet. …And actually, it technically starts tomorrow.”

He’d been given the day off today. They’d decided that, starting tomorrow, he’d be put in charge of a gambling den.

Firo had risen early and gone to introduce himself to the establishment’s employees. Then, with nothing in particular to do, he’d dropped in to have lunch here.

Just as he sat down to his meal…there was a noise at the entrance to the speakeasy—the door in the corridor that led to the honey shop.

At this time of day, all the liquor was hidden elsewhere, so there was no need to worry about a premises search. When Firo glanced at the opened door, he felt no tension whatsoever.

…But he hadn’t expected to see a priest and nun enter.

“Ah, there they are, that’s them. The good people.”

“It’s the good people!”

Words that didn’t match their appearances flew his way. Firo quickly recognized their countenances.

“Oh, uh… Isaac and…Miria?”

“Right on the money.”

“You’re right!”

“…I didn’t know you were a priest…”

“Huh? I’m not a priest. Why?”

“We’re not. Why?”

“……Huh?”

The pair looked truly perplexed, and Firo’s head began to ache a bit.

“Listen, we brought some liquor by today, as a sort of thank-you for yesterday. …Or, well, we’re not sure it’s liquor, but it’s definitely something good.”

“It’s a good thing!”

“What’s that supposed to me…uh?”

On seeing the crate they held out to him, Firo slowly stopped moving.

He’d seen that box before. When he saw its contents, he was sure of it.

It was the box that self-important old guy had had yesterday. And 

She’d been hesitant to call out to them on the street, so she’d followed them instead.

Then Isaac and Miria, in their clerical robes, went into a certain honey shop.

She watched it for a while, but they showed no sign of coming out.

“What should I do…?”

Having made up her mind, Ennis was on the point of going in. Just then, though, she noticed a group coming toward her from the back of the shop, and she hastily put some distance between herself and the front of the building.

As she watched from a distance, a group of four people—men and women—appeared from inside. Two of them were Isaac and Miria. And…

When she saw the faces of the other two, she thought her heart might stop.

She knew the faces of those men as well.

Or rather, she’d never actually seen them before. However, they had definitely been in the “knowledge” Szilard had given her.

One was Szilard’s former comrade. The alchemist Maiza Avaro, the one whose knowledge Szilard wanted.

The other… She didn’t know his name, but it was the boy who’d been looking for her.

The four exchanged casual good-byes. Then Isaac and Miria headed into town, while Maiza and the boy went back into the shop.

Upon confirming that Maiza and the other guy had the crate, Ennis left immediately, hurrying back to Szilard.

“I don’t really understand, but… While Isaac and Miria are away…”

The guy who’d been with Maiza. Maybe he’d been looking for her because Maiza had known about her and had sent his friend to spy.

She didn’t know what connection they had to Isaac and Miria. It was possible that Maiza had tricked them and was using them.

Either way, she hoped the two of them would be able to get away after Szilard had “eaten” Maiza.

The thought that Isaac and Miria might have been in cahoots with the alchemist and made contact with Ennis in order to spy on her never crossed her mind. This was partly due to the fact that their encounter had been sheer coincidence…but the biggest reason was that Ennis liked that ditzy couple.

That was all it was.

“Explain yourself, Ennis. Where have you been? Where is the finished product?”

When she returned to the building south of Grand Central, Szilard was the only one there.

All the old men were individuals of a certain rank. They probably couldn’t leave their workplaces for days on end. Some of them had fussed, insisting they were going to wait for the finished product to arrive, but at a glare from Szilard, they’d gone home as if they were running away.

She didn’t see Dallas’s group, either. Well, they probably couldn’t come back. But if they had returned, by now they were inside Szilard’s right hand.

Briefly, Ennis explained what had happened. She kept Isaac and Miria out of it, phrasing her story as though Maiza had been the one to steal the liquor.

“…Maiza?!”

The effect was immediate. Everything but that man had vanished from Szilard’s mind. It seemed likely that she’d get by without being cross-examined about Isaac and Miria.

“…Bring the car around, Ennis. I’ll go myself. If I’m not the one to ‘eat’ Maiza, there’ll be no point. Keh… Keh-ha-ha-ha-ha! I don’t know if he knew about me and interfered on purpose, but it doesn’t matter! I’ll ‘eat’ him if it’s the last thing I do! Make haste, Ennis! If anyone drinks that finished product, we’ll have that many more to ‘eat’ our way through!”

“Of course, but, sir… If Maiza knows about us, won’t he give that finished product to lots of his companions…?”

“No, there’s no need to worry about that. In the first place, he hates immortality more than anyone! If he finds out about the finished product, he’ll probably smash it then and there… Not that it would bother me in the least if he did!”

The alchemist Ennis had “eaten” long ago hadn’t had that particular knowledge. All he’d known was that Szilard had gone around killing his comrades, and because Maiza had awakened suddenly, half of them survived.

“…Take a gun. This time, I give you permission to cut loose a bit. Kill all the citizens of New York if you like!”

It was an insane thing to say, but compared to the Szilard who always observed everything as if it bored him, this version was far livelier.

It frightened Ennis.

The wheel of fortune tumbled down the spiral staircase. The vibrations traveled up and down its length.

“What’re we gonna do, Dallas?”

“Calm down! …For now, let’s think about blowing this town.”

Dallas and the others were in a juice joint they didn’t normally frequent. The finished product had been stolen, and it had been taken while they were recoiling from pepper, of all things. The instant they went back, they were bound to get “eaten.” Even if they fought, it was doubtful whether knives or guns would work against that Szilard guy.

“…Even if we leave town…let’s get that thing done first.”

“That thing?”

“What else would it be…? We’re gonna go off that Firo punk!”

The policemen had finally disappeared from the Gandor Family office.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! Goddammit!”

Berga, who’d been silent for a while, grabbed a nearby stool, raised it high, and smashed it against the floor.

With a dry sound of destruction, wood fragments flew across the area.

Catching one, Luck spoke.

“Calm down, Berga… Breaking chairs won’t accomplish anything.”

“Like I could calm down, you idiot?! What about you?! How can you be that calm?!”

“If we aren’t calm, we won’t be able to avenge Mike and the others. …Besides, I may be calm, but I am angry.”

He clenched his hand around the chair fragment. Blood dripped from between his fingers.

“Yes, this emotion is definitely anger. Getting angry calmly may be a contradiction, but there’s really no help for it. I’ve been trying to think of a way to quell this anger for a while now, but the answer I get never changes: revenge. I’m aware that this may be a foolish conclusion. Even so, in my mind, when I think about whether we should find the bastards who killed Mike and the others and turn them in to the cops, or whether we should get rid of them ourselves, right now I want to twist their heads off their necks with my own two hands, no matter what. Hmm… In that sense, I may not actually be calm. Still, if I stop mulling things over like this, I’ll probably grab a gun this instant and run all over the city hunting for the culprits, and I will most likely shoot and kill any police officers or civilians who get in my way. And so, right now, let me ask a favor: If it looks as though I may do that, Berga, stop me, even if you have to hit me or shoot me. So at least… This may not be a fair thought, but I want the two of you to stay calm.”

During this long speech, Luck’s expression didn’t change in the slightest. He didn’t even blink.

“…I see. Sorry about that, Luck. You’re still way calmer than me, though.”

Picking up on the dark flames burning inside his little brother, Berga calmed down.

“…”

Silently, Keith watched his younger brothers. What was he thinking? His perfect poker face made it impossible to tell.

“…In any case, the neighboring organizations are probably suspicious about the police shoving their way in here today. For the moment, let’s go around and report what happened…while we exchange information and warnings, naturally.”

Quietly, Luck spoke about what they’d do next. For now, they decided to start with the syndicate closest to them.

“Right… Let’s head over to the Martillos first. If a small outfit like ours got attacked, they might be a target as well. On the other hand, they might know something…”

“Now, then… Sad as it may be, we must take our leave of this city.”

“Yep, we’re making a break for it!”

The thieving duo was walking toward the station, preparing to get out of town.

“Still, there are an awful lot of police officers around, aren’t there?”

“Lots and lots!”

They couldn’t possibly be searching for them. Their disguises were perfect, and their faces hadn’t actually been seen.

They spotted a chap issuing orders to several police officers, so they waited until the officers had scattered, then spoke to him.

“Excuse me. Has something happened?”

The man he’d addressed, Assistant Inspector Edward Noah, nodded to the fellow dressed as a priest, then gave him a bare-bones outline of the situation.

“Good day, Father. Well… As you may already be aware, there was another gang dispute last night. Several of the Gandor men were killed.”

He told him only what would be printed in the papers. If the other man hadn’t been a priest, he might have simply ignored him.

“I am a sinful man, Father. I thought it would be best if people like them simply killed each other off. However, when actually confronted with corpses as miserable as those…I realized I felt a strong hatred for the culprits, just as I do when an ordinary citizen is killed. They were a foolish lot who steeped themselves in violence, but do at least pray for their peace after death.”

With that, Edward walked briskly away.

The couple he’d left behind looked at each other with evident despair.

Gandor men had been killed. That information alone seemed to reverberate, a lingering echo.

“…Wha… What are we going to do?! I didn’t think they’d actually die!”

“Oh… Oooooh… Maybe we used too much pepper…”

It was the ultimate misunderstanding. Not only did they think that Dallas and the others had been Gandor men, they thought they’d died because of the pepper.

“Aaaah… Now we won’t be able to look those dead children in the face…”

“Ennis, either…”

“I never dreamed it would get this serious…”

“Aaaah!”

Abruptly, Miria shouted.

“Wh-wh-what?!”

“What if—Isaac, what if—? If the police or people from the Gandors find out that Firo and the others have that box…”

“…!”

Then, instead of them, Firo and the others would be caught.

Conversely, that meant the odds of their escaping in the meantime would improve, but they weren’t that underhanded. …Or rather, it didn’t even occur to them to be so.

In any case, they’d already been in the wrong when they’d given stolen goods to somebody else as a present.

“This is awful!”

“We have to go back!”

The priest and the nun broke into a run.

They’d slipped free of the spiral of destiny once.

Although they didn’t realize it, it had swallowed them back up.

“Hey, those two…”

Since Edward had been roped in to work on an emergency incident, Donald and Bill were investigating on their own.

A man and a woman whose height difference matched the one in the report ran right past them.

“Uh… Oh, maybe… You think it could be those two?”

“What do we do?”

“Nn… Let’s leave them. We should head to Grand Central first. That’s our real mission… Once we secure the other party, we can talk to Edward, too.”

“…Right.”

“Ah… It’s like we’re lying to Edward, and I feel just terrible about it, but…”

The spiral was spinning faster and faster.

Its point was growing narrower, converging on a single result.

Destiny’s spiral staircase. All sorts of wheels of fortune were beginning to roll down that staircase, whose central support was the liquor of immortality.

Those vibrations resonated, such that the spiral tower shook violently.

Almost as if they meant to break the very staircase of destiny.

“What’s wrong, Firo? You’ve been acting strange for a while now…”

Behind Alveare’s heavy door, Maiza and Firo were having a light lunch. Several other executives were there as well. Members who weren’t executives tended to be hesitant about entering the place, so there were no associates to be seen.

“Uh… Well…”

“Is there something wrong with that crate and its liquor?” Maiza asked, sounding worried. They’d set the crate on the table, and he pointed at it with his fork as he spoke.

“No… I, uh… I was just thinking that coincidences tend to come in groups…”

“Coincidences?”

“One was running into Isaac and Miria again. Then, what they brought was—”

Just as Firo was about to answer, the door opened with a bang.

Everyone in the speakeasy turned to look in the direction of the noise.

An elderly gentleman was standing there. Nobody recognized the man’s face.

Nobody except Maiza.

“…Szilard…”

“It’s been a very long time, Maiza Avaro! A full two hundred years and more!”

“Listen, don’t even look at the other guys. We’ll just kill that punk and run. Well, we’ve got these Thompsons, and I guess if we just ice everybody on our way out, there’ll be nobody to bother us about it later… Ha-ha…”

As they walked toward Alveare, Dallas and the others checked the ammunition for their tommy guns. Counting the drum magazines, they had about a hundred shots left.

“By the way, Dallas. The Martillo Family, the one that punk’s in. Is that really their hideout?”

“Yeah… I heard it from an information dealer, after I paid him. …If the brat’s not there, we’ll just rub out the Martillo Family or whatever they’re called. We’ll leave the punk a message in blood: ‘You’re next’…”

“Ha-ha! What’re you, Jack the Ripper?”

“It fits, using a corny old gimmick on a corny punk. Ha-ha…”

The three walked down a gloomy backstreet hemmed in by old brick. The main streets were crawling with cops, so they’d decided to avoid them, but if it came down to it, they were prepared to kill coppers and even unrelated passersby. Or rather, they weren’t prepared so much as defiant.

Taking advantage of the fact that the street was deserted, they were openly checking their machine guns as they walked.

“All right… This is our last job in this apple. If we don’t make it a good one, we may end up out of work and have to take up begging, y’know.”

“Ha-ha-ha… Hey, speaking of beggars, that one a little while back was hilarious…”

“Yeah, the guy with the flowers in that paper bag? He’d saved up quite a bit.”

“And you, Dallas, you kicked him all to heck. What’d you say, something like, ‘Mugging pays better’n begging these days’…?”

“Watch that the guy’s actually a mugger now… Ha-ha… Ha-ha! Ha! Ha! Ha-ha…”

The spiral of destiny converged. As if it were not coincidence, but inevitable.

“…Mu-mugging… W-was that…? Were they talking about us?”

“I don’t think so… I mean, I just heard them over the fence.”

Isaac and Miria were wandering around a factory lot. They’d been at a loss as to what excuse to give, and then they’d managed to lose their way as well.

“B-but, you know… It could be the cops…”

“I’ll check.”

Nimbly climbing onto an oil drum that sat beside the fence, Miria peeked at the scene on the other side.

“…!”

No sooner had she hastily clambered down than she leaped at Isaac and clung to him, shivering hard.

“Wh-wh-wha, what’s wrong?”

“It’s them! Them! The ones who hit you yesterday… The ones Ennis beat up and took to the police! There’s one missing, but it’s them for sure!”

She didn’t seem to have realized it was the group they’d attacked the previous night.

“…Really?”

“Uh-huh!”

After a little thought, Isaac reached a conclusion.

“I see… Is that what it was!”

“Wh-what?”

“They must have broken out of jail!”

“Eeeeek, vicious criminals!”

“I bet…they’re planning to get revenge on Ennis.”

“This is awful! Ennis is going to die!”

As she shrieked, her face was dead white.

“It’s all right. Ennis is tough, remember? She can take those guys as often as—”

“No, no, no she can’t!”

“?”

“Because, I mean, they… They had machine guns!”

At those words, even Isaac went pale.

“…You’re kidding…”

Ennis could die. Their hero—or, no, their heroine—was on the verge of being killed. …But what could they do?

Isaac looked down for a while. Then he murmured, as if talking to himself:

“You know… By rights, I should have gotten killed by those thugs yesterday.”

“Huh?”

“But Ennis saved me, you know. That’s why, to me, Ennis is a hero.”

“To me, too…!”

“And heroes… They don’t die. They mustn’t die.”

“…”

Isaac seemed to be brooding over something. At the sight of his face, Miria gulped quietly.

“…Holmes, shot and killed when thugs he’d captured broke out of jail… Conan Doyle didn’t write a story like that. He hasn’t written one like that.”

“…Isaac…?”

“I think it’s probably…because that would be boring. Because readers who like Holmes would be sad. If he’s going to get killed, it has to be by a lifelong nemesis like Moriarty or it’s no good… Those guys aren’t big enough for that. Am I right, Miria?”

“…Uh-huh.”

It was absurd logic, but he was probably desperate, in his own way. Desperate to find the words to psych himself up.

“She’s our hero… No, our heroine…and I think we have to return the favor she did us. Listen, Miria… Maybe we can’t become good people anymore, no matter how hard we try, but…at least Ennis…”

“We absolutely positively have to save her!”

Without even listening to the end of what he was saying, Miria grabbed Isaac’s arm and began to run, chasing after Dallas and the others.

“He… H-h-h-h-hey, wait, I’m the only one who’s g-g-g-going… L-l-l-listen, we’ll be up against machine guns, and you might die too-too-too… Fnghah!”

He’d been talking as he was pulled along at a run, and he’d bitten his tongue.

Putting a hand to his mouth, Isaac thought:

Oh, I’m so glad I’m with Miria.

He smiled as if he found it funny.

A priest and a nun tore through a town of redbrick.

They had no crucifixes.

They didn’t know the words to any prayers.

Even so, they were trying to save someone.

As he gazed at the old man, Maiza was trembling. Watching the two of them quizzically, Firo spoke to his senior executive.

“…Uh… What’s with the loony old fool? Do you know him?”

Firo had been eyeing the coot suspiciously, but then he noticed a familiar form on the ground behind the codger, in the hallway that led to the honey shop.

“…Miz Seina? …Wha…? Miz Seina!”

Involuntarily, Firo stood up. Seeing his expression, the other executives also stood, one after another. In a moment, a tense atmosphere had descended over the speakeasy.

The old man laughed merrily, as if the mood didn’t bother him at all.

“…Haaaa-ha! Don’t worry, Maiza. Or you, nameless sacrifices… I only hit the woman a little and knocked her down. That said, I struck her a bit too hard, so one or two of the bones in her neck might be broken…”

“…Bastard! I’ll rip you to pieces!”

Randy, who’d been in the corner, angrily pounded the table with his fist. After a moment, Pezzo’s fat hand also struck it. The reaction jolted the plates off, and they shattered on the floor.

“My, my… There are seven bones in the neck, you know. Such a fuss over one or two…”

He gave a mocking laugh. It wasn’t only Randy now: The other executives, Firo included, were enraged as well. They started toward the old man, reaching into their jackets as they went.

“Wait! Please!”

They were checked by Maiza’s shout.

Unusually for him, cold sweat had broken out on his face.

“Men… He’s only after me. I’ll deal with him, so while I do, please escape through the back door.”

“Maiza…?”

“Hey… What’re you talking about, Maiza?!”

After a little hesitation, their leader gave a straightforward, bare-bones explanation of his connection to Szilard:

“He is the man who once…killed…thirteen of my…my companions, and…my younger brother.”

At his words, in an instant, silence fell over the room. That silence was broken by Szilard himself.

“I’ve ‘eaten’ five since then, so it’s technically eighteen. Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

“…Szilard…”

Only Firo, who was right next to him, saw it. Maiza’s face wore an expression he’d never seen before, not once in the five years since he’d met him.

Although he didn’t really understand why, the moment he saw the hot fury that blazed in those eyes, anger began boiling over inside Firo, too.

“Maiza… I don’t get any of this, but… In other words, this guy’s your enemy, right?”

“…That makes him our enemy, too, yeah?”

Picking up the thread of the conversation, Randy simultaneously launched the battle.

Even as he finished speaking, he shot Szilard with the handgun he’d pulled out of his jacket.

There was a loud bang, and a red hole opened in the right side of Szilard’s chest.

Immediately afterward, the hole was joined by another.

“And actually, he was enough of an enemy the second he laid a finger on Seina. Right, Randy?”

As he spoke, Pezzo also held a gun wreathed in smoke.

“In any case, it would be a waste to get our knives rusty on this old gink.”

“Make sure you don’t hit Seina.”

Seeing that the old man hadn’t gone down yet, the other executives drew their pieces, one after another.

Maybe they didn’t care that it could mean jail time, or maybe they’d given themselves over to rage: They didn’t show the slightest hesitation.

Dry explosions echoed through the room.

“It’s no good… Guns won’t work on him.”

Maiza’s murmur was drowned out by the thunderous roar.

The rain of bullets didn’t stop until they’d all exhausted their supply.

The bullets that had passed through Szilard’s body or missed it entirely had turned the magnificent, richly ornamented interior into something that looked like the walls of a Bronx public toilet.

“…Hey…Maiza…”

As he asked the question, Randy shook his head.

“What gives…? That old guy’s still on his feet…”

Szilard’s upper body was riddled with holes. However, once again, his mouth had twisted hugely.

Seeing this, Maiza yelled his answer:

“I’ll explain later; just run! Please!”

He was too late.

Szilard reached down toward his feet. A black case sat there. It was an expensive-looking case, about the right size for a tenor saxophone.

“I tell you, learning not to feel pain was a lot of work. There’s no point in being indestructible if I lose consciousness, after all.”

Beaming, he crouched down and opened the case with a light click.

Very few of the people in the speakeasy had managed to predict what was inside it.

Even after Maiza’s warning, not one of them made a move to run.

“If my spine or head are damaged, I stop being able to move for a little while, but… Well, on the whole, you aimed for my heart. I’m grateful for that. …Although, even if you had aimed for my head, I would have been able to dodge.”

Firo, who’d been the first to realize what was in the case, launched himself forward with all his might.

He closed the distance in one sprint and tried to kick the black case Szilard was opening away from him. Since Szilard was bending over, he was also planning to send a good kick into his face.

“You’re very young.”

Szilard’s arm stopped his leg.

“Yes… Young. That’s more aggravating than anything.”

Firo had been thrown off balance, and Szilard drove a kick into his stomach.

“Gah…!”

He was knocked backward, ending up right where he’d started…back beside Maiza.

“Firo… As contaiuolo, I’m ordering you…”

As Maiza steadied Firo, who’d come close to falling over, he gave him an order.

“You go out the back door, right now, and run… No, go tell the boss and the secretary what’s happening.”

Thinking that he wasn’t the type of person who’d run away just because someone told him to, Maiza had made up an order on the spot.

“B-but, Maiza, you—”

“I’ll be fine. I don’t intend to die yet.”

Not until I’ve killed Szilard. Maiza didn’t say the words all the way to the end, but…

“…………Understood!”

Firo had been momentarily bewildered, but when he saw the gaze Maiza fixed on him, just for an instant, he immediately broke into a run. For that one moment, the hatred had vanished from Maiza’s eyes, and they’d been smiling quietly.

They were the eyes of someone who’d made an unshakeable resolution. If a guy in our organization has eyes like that, it doesn’t matter whether his intent is right or off the mark: There’s absolutely nothing to do about it. Either listen obediently to what he has to say, or stop him if you have to kill him. It’s a straight choice between two alternatives.

And Firo believed in Maiza’s will. He’d launched himself off the wooden floor, into a run.

“Do you think I’ll let him go? Well, I could… But, Maiza, I want to cause you as much pain as possible before I ‘eat’ you. Both physically…and emotionally.”

Smiling happily, Szilard picked up the contents of the black case.

“…Hey… Is that for real…?”

It was one of the executives who’d spoken.

Firo was running for the back door. Trained on his back…was the muzzle of the military-grade submachine gun Szilard held. With absolutely no hesitation, he pulled the trigger.

When the ferocious roar exploded behind him, Firo nearly fell in spite of himself. However, there was no impact. Without looking back, Firo disappeared down the corridor that led to the speakeasy’s back door.

“…As usual, you make no sense. Is that brat really so important to you?”

Szilard looked mystified. Maiza stood in front of him, blocking his way. The machine gun had opened pitiful holes in his body, and red liquid gushed from them like a fountain.

“…So, none of the bullets that went through you hit the boy… Hmm. Was it the quality of the powder…? Or maybe that’s the best this gun can do?”

Without seeming particularly interested in Maiza’s condition, Szilard began to look appraisingly at the machine gun, which was still faintly wreathed in smoke.

“Maiza!”

“I’m…fine… Hurry and…run…plea…”

“Maiza, you moron! You think we could run when one of our guys just got shot?! I’m gonna smack you one after we get him, so don’t you go dying yet!”

As he spoke, Randy grabbed the leg of a stool and hurled it at Szilard.

“Whoops… Hmm?”

He evaded the first stool by simply moving his upper half, but Pezzo had thrown a second one right on the heels of the first. At the same time, the other executives threw stools in rapid succession.

Concluding that he couldn’t dodge them all, with no other choice, he stopped them with his hand. A strong vibration coursed through Szilard’s arm.

Taking advantage of that moment of vulnerability, Randy, Pezzo, and several other executives closed in.

They were too spread out for him to shoot them all at once, and he didn’t have time to take them out one after another.

“Pin him down!”

Drawing his knife, Randy leaped at Szilard. Szilard’s only response was to retreat slightly.

The executives who’d closed in on him from the front didn’t notice, but from Randy’s perspective, Szilard had disappeared into a dead angle: He’d backed up into the narrow hallway.

“You’ve done well, nameless sacrifices.”

“Oh, hell…”

Unable to kill their momentum, the men had fallen into a straight line.

Then a ferocious, spear-like barrage of bullets ran them through.

After the space of a breath, Pezzo—whose shirt was now dyed red—and several other executives fell near the entrance. To make sure they were dead, Szilard raked the floor with the trench-sweeper gun. He then turned the muzzle on the others who’d stayed in the room. There was a brief roar as the speakeasy that had symbolized the splendor of the Prohibition era had become something that looked like a post–Civil War ruin.

“Don’t screw with me… Bastard…”

Randy, who’d quickly hidden against the wall, had been spared by the bullets’ weak penetration through the barrier. Since Szilard had backed into the hallway, he was currently in his blind spot.

“…Hey…Pezzo… Dammit…!”

The sight of his buddy’s big body lying at the mouth of the hall nearly sent him into a rage, but he desperately calmed himself down, only to close in on the hall, crouching low. His knife was in hand, and he was prepared to take Szilard’s head off the moment he showed his face. He knew he wouldn’t actually be able to do that, but if he could at least drive it into his brain…

Suddenly, a shape darted out of the hall.

“ !”

Randy raised his knife…and froze.

The figure that had leaped out…or rather, had been thrown out by Szilard…was Seina’s unconscious body. Its head drooped limply.

In the instant he stood, frozen, the muzzle of a gun appeared from behind the falling Seina’s.

Randy, who’d been about to scream something, danced the dance of death in a spray of blood, in time to the gunfire.

This happened just as Maiza finished regenerating. A humorless comedy.

When he opened the rear door, Firo was struck by an odd sense of wrongness.

Even before he’d located the source of the feeling, he hastily leaped backward.

The next moment  Something swept past him, right in front of his nose, like the blade of a guillotine.

It took him several seconds to realize that it had been the heel of a leg, raised high. Up until then, his attention was focused on the leg’s owner.

“You’re…”

Firo knew that face. Or rather, those clothes.

“From yesterday…”

“You’re the…”

Realizing she recognized her opponent’s face, Ennis halted her attack.

It was the guy from the knowledge she’d gotten from Barnes, via Szilard. The guy who’d been going around looking for her. That was all she knew about him, but in spite of herself, she paused.

Szilard had told her to detain Maiza if he fled out the back door, so she’d launched a surprise attack the moment the door opened… But apparently the shadow of her leg falling across his face had given her away. Not only that, but to this man, of all people.

After giving it a little thought, Ennis decided to reopen her attack. This guy was probably Szilard’s enemy as well. If she let him go, she might lose her own life.

However, on the other hand, Isaac’s and Miria’s faces flickered through her mind. If Szilard ordered me to kill them, what on earth would I do?

“Waugh, hold it!”

After a few seconds’ pause, the woman in front of him launched another kick.

He managed to evade the first attack, but the second kick, propelled by a spin with the opposite leg, sank neatly into the top of Firo’s shoulder.

The impact was greater than he’d expected, and it sent him staggering into the wall behind him. Along with a light shock, he felt the cold of the bricks upon his back.

“Ghk… Careless…”

Without pausing, Ennis sent a fist his way.

Huh. That looks like the Oriental martial arts I’m learning from Yaguruma. At that conclusion, Firo naturally slipped into the motions he’d practiced with his primo voto.

“I…”

Using his own right hand, he grabbed the right wrist Ennis had thrust out. It was moving pretty fast, but compared to Yaguruma’s jabs, he’d been able to follow it with his eyes…and since her wrist was thinner than a man’s, he was able to stop it fairly easily.

Ennis’s eyes widened slightly.

“…said…”

Then he raised his left hand high, turning his back to Ennis as he pulled her closer. Firo’s body slipped past Ennis’s side, almost as if they were dancing…and for a moment, the two of them were parallel to each other.

“…wait, all right?”

Twisting his opponent’s wrist, he swept her feet out from under her. As her body tilted, he pulled her down in one move. The result was that Firo dropped into a crouch…and Ennis’s back lightly struck the ground.

Not only that, but Firo was still holding her right wrist. From this point on, no matter what move she tried to make, she’d lose the initiative to the boy in front of her. Without more “knowledge” than her mind currently held, there was nothing Ennis could do. This boy seemed to have combat training she didn’t possess.

Firo asked the woman a question. His expression was quiet.

“…Explain this, would you? You got anything to do with that old guy in there? Why is he here, and why doesn’t getting shot kill him? And most importantly… Who are you?”

On hearing this, Ennis was a bit startled. This guy didn’t know anything about her. Not only that, he didn’t even know about Maiza and Szilard… In which case, why had he been looking for her?

“Listen. Please… I don’t know a thing, and I’m the only one. If things stay that way, I’ll look like an idiot.”

Doesn’t know a thing… That was exactly the way she’d been, once. The world as it had been before she’d “eaten” the alchemist rose again inside Ennis. Herself, given only the bare minimum of knowledge. The memories of that time made her feel nauseated, even though it was herself she was remembering. After she’d learned everything, she’d felt, and continued to feel, the pain of not knowing.

“……You won’t regret it?”

“…Huh?”

“Once you know…you may not be able to go back. Do you still want to know…even so?”

For the space of a few breaths, there was silence. After thinking briefly, Firo spoke.

“You know… They said something similar to me at the ritual last night.”

“…Pardon?”

“Tell me. I might regret it, but I’m good at forgetting stuff. …I’m no genius.”

With that, he let go of Ennis’s right arm and stood.

For a moment, Ennis looked blank. Then she followed suit, a mystified expression on her face.

“…You don’t think I’ll run away?”

Her eyes were fixed steadily on Firo’s.

After another short pause, Firo answered. If the situation hadn’t been what it was… If the two of them had met normally, he might have blushed a bit.

“Don’t worry about it. I’m just dumb, that’s all.”

“You really are a dull-witted man, Maiza.”

Szilard gave Maiza a pitying look.

The smell of blood filled the speakeasy. The only ones standing were Szilard and Maiza.

“I’m not as dumb as you are.”

At this point, both Maiza’s polite tone and the smile that put people at ease were gone.

“Back then… When you managed to summon the demon on the ship, I should have stolen the privilege from you, even if I had to kill you to do it.”

In contrast, Szilard preserved a persistent calm. Though facing another immortal, he didn’t seem to doubt his absolute advantage.

Even as the terrible scene around him inspired white-hot rage, Maiza squashed it down and spoke, casting about for a way to break out of the situation as he did so.

“That demon… If I’d died, no doubt he would have gone straight home. He’s rather conscientious about things like that.”

“Ha! You speak as if you and the demon are friends. You, who’d researched alchemy, ultimately betrayed the way of science by turning your hand to magic, and then, not satisfied with even that, summoned a demon. And in front of our band of thirty companions, the demon said, ‘I’ll give you knowledge’!”

Almost like the narrator of a silent film, Szilard began to speak in a tone that made it sound as if he was watching that long-ago scene.

“You, a companion… Don’t make me laugh.”

“You said, ‘I want to know about eternal life.’ We were given a cup of elixir that resembled liquor, and we all drank, sharing it among ourselves. …That was where our current lives began. And you learned the method for preparing this elixir of immortality! In other words, you also obtained the right to spread immortality around the world!”

He spoke loudly, commending Maiza’s great achievement. Then he changed completely, shaking his head and lowering his voice.

“…But… The very next day, you began to spout nonsense about sealing the elixir’s production method. I will have you explain yourself now, Maiza. At first, I thought you were planning to monopolize the method…but you seem to have a loathing for immortality itself.”

Slowly and clearly, Maiza answered the question that had been tossed at him.

“One reason…is that there was a flaw in this immortality.”

“A flaw?”

“Our immortality…ends when an immortal is ‘eaten’ by someone who has the same power.”

“Hmm… But the demon said that was a system he’d created out of kindness, did he not?”

“No. It truly is a ‘demonic’ system. It can provoke murder not only among those who hate, but even among those who love each other. Think about it: Even you want to dispose of those who could kill you…myself and our other comrades. That’s what I mean. Even those who’ve overcome death by old age fear dying more than ever before. We each try to become ‘the last one.’ If even one other such person appears, inevitably we see danger where none exists, and immortals begin slaughtering one another.”

“…………”

“Even those who love each other… At some point in the midst of eternity, they may think they want to know everything about the other…whether their partner truly loves them, for example. There is one sure way ‘to know everything about the other’… By ‘eating’ them, one can unlock the deepest secrets of another’s heart. If they are unable to resist this temptation…”

“People that foolish should consume one another and die.”

“I wonder. The thought may be foolish now. However, if immortality were to spread… If it permeated the world, the world’s ethics, religions, and laws would change completely. Before long, thoughts like this would no doubt surface: ‘If you take all the other’s knowledge into yourself, it can be said that that person lives in you.’ If, in the future, the world naturally evolves into that sort of world, I don’t mind. However, I don’t want to be the one to create it. I like this world, you see.”

“…Hmph. In that case, you may rest easy. Giving this power to the thickheaded masses isn’t my inten—”

“And the greatest reason is—”

Maiza spoke firmly, interrupting Szilard.

“—because people like you exist.”

“In order to increase his own knowledge, Master Szilard began to ‘eat’ the alchemists on the ship, those who had been his companions. Maiza’s younger brother was ‘eaten’ as well, because my master mistook him for Maiza. Immediately afterward, the survivors surrounded Master Szilard, and he threw himself into the ocean… The surviving alchemists drifted to New York. Master Szilard also reached the American continent without succumbing to death.”

Firo was captivated by Ennis’s story. He’d never even heard of this “alchemy” field before, and then, on top of that, there was the business about immortality. It sounded completely crazy, but after seeing Szilard riddled with holes and still smiling, he had no choice but to believe it.

Come to think of it, that must have been why Maiza’s bloodstain had disappeared the previous night. As various things clicked into place, Firo listened attentively.

“…Look, don’t call a jerk like him master, all right? What are you to him?”

Darker shadows crossed Ennis’s face.

“…I’m… You might say I am Szilard himself.”

“And anyway… Why do you want to know how to make the elixir of immortality? You’ll only increase the number of people who can kill you.”

Maiza asked a perfectly natural question. As he did so, he kept a regular distance between himself and Szilard.

“…Paracelsus’s homunculus could not survive outside its flask.”

“……?”

Maiza had heard Paracelsus’s name before. Homunculi were beings made by human hands. Paracelsus, the world-famous alchemist, was said to have created one. It had been a little person, small enough to fit inside a flask, and had been unable to leave that prison.

That said, after the death of Paracelsus, the homunculus had vanished as well, or so the story went.

“A perfect homunculus, born of knowledge, is in possession of all knowledge from the time of its birth. Originally, we attempted to create artificial life in the hopes of gaining that perfect knowledge. …This isn’t your field, but you do know that much, correct?”

In contrast to Maiza, Szilard remained obviously relaxed as he spoke.

“It was outside my field as well, to begin with, but… Some of the knowledge I ‘ate’ had made significant headway in that research, and so I put it to use.”

Maiza hadn’t known that one of the alchemists on the ship had progressed that far in his studies.

In any case, more than that, Maiza couldn’t forgive the fact that that knowledge—or rather, the life of the comrade who had had that knowledge—had been consumed by a man like Szilard.

Disregarding the hatred in Maiza’s eyes, Szilard cheerfully continued his explanation:

“A homunculus: a tiny, artificial life, born inside a flask. Not only that, but if not provided with a steady supply of human blood, it dies. It sounds like a very fragile creature, does it not? And so, as I am quite merciful, I had an idea: I would give these fragile beings the power of immortality.”

Abruptly, a leg fell off a mutilated chair. At the clatter, Szilard’s gaze shifted slightly.

Taking advantage of the opening, Maiza closed the distance in one sprint, thrusting his right hand out.

“Simple-minded fool.”

As if he’d anticipated the move, Szilard quickly twisted around. He was still holding the machine gun. Maiza’s right arm was caught up in that rotation…and a sound not often heard in everyday life echoed through the room.

Snnnap.

“Among the knowledge Szilard acquired was information related to homunculi… To artificial life. In simple terms, it’s, um…the creation of a person without intercourse between a man and woman. Two types of cells were used as catalysts in my creation: Szilard’s own immortal cells…and cells from a woman. Apparently he kidnapped one about my own age. It seems to have been quite different from the original production method the man called Paracelsus used…”

At that point, Ennis paused for breath. She turned to Firo and went on:

“Technically, those cells should have returned to Szilard immediately, but… Possibly because he used the failed product as culture liquid when he created me, I grew to the same age as my ‘mother’ inside the cultivation tank. Then, as my physical nature was the same as Szilard’s, I stopped growing.”

“…Uh… In other words?”

“As an independently mobile colony, I am able to receive knowledge from Szilard. Conversely, Szilard can separate the composite elements of the woman’s cells inside my own cells from the composite elements of his immortal cells—”

“Wait, wait, wait. I’m not a smart guy… Use short words, all right?” Firo begged, putting his hands to his head.

“If Szilard is the company’s main store, I am a branch store. Think of each colony’s intellect as the managers of those respective stores. The main store can fire my intellect, the manager of the branch store, at any time.”

“…Meaning…what?”

“…Meaning, if Szilard wills it, I’ll die very easily.”

At that, for the first time, anger flashed across Firo’s face.

“What’s up with that? That’s the most selfish thing I ever heard!”

“I think I’m something like a daughter as far as Szilard is concerned.”

“What kind of parent can kill his daughter anytime and uses that as a threat to work her like a slave?! Don’t worry, you’re way too pretty to be the daughter of a crafty old guy like him. You don’t look a thing like him. I’ll vouch for that… Well, anyway, don’t worry.”

“Huh? …But…”

“It’s fine, just don’t worry! Besides, Maiza and the other guys are probably beating that geezer like a rug right about now…”

At that point, their conversation trailed off.

“Wow. Dating in broad daylight… Punks sure do things differently these days.”

When Firo and Ennis turned, they saw a familiar face.

“Oh… You’re from yesterday…”

“Dallas… Why are you here?”

Like Firo, Ennis also seemed surprised.

“Well, well… You’re here, too, huh, doll? …That’s great. Real convenient.”

When they looked, the two behind Dallas were holding tommy guns at the ready.

“…What the hell?”

“That should be pretty obvious. They’re machine guns. Ha! Ha-ha…”

The two gunmen beside Dallas smiled wryly.

“Well, uh, just so’s you know, doll: We’re cutting ties with that guy Szilard. And as our last big event in this town, we came to rub out that punk. …Only, you did a real number on us, too, remember? So we’ll plug you while we’re at it.”

Dallas’s group had heard that Ennis was immortal as well, but they’d decided that as long as they made their getaway before she regenerated, it wouldn’t be a problem.

“Got any last words, punk?”

“I’m curious as to how you gentlemen got those guns…Dallas.”

It wasn’t Firo who’d spoken.

When Dallas turned, cautiously, toward the voice behind him, he found a gun pressed to his head. Keith and Berga had their pieces trained on the other two cronies.

“Uh… Hey, c’mon… Luck… Gimme a break, mister.”

“Just answer the question, if you would.”

Luck’s gun dug into Dallas’s forehead, right between his eyes.

What were they doing here? Without the slightest suspicion that it might be because they’d killed four people, Dallas desperately tried to think of a way to break out of the situation. If he got blown away here, Ennis might fetch Szilard while he was regenerating. That meant his advantage of immortality might as well not exist.

“The guns were… That Firo punk over there was hiding them. We found them.”

On the spur of the moment, Dallas decided to lie. He went on, talking fast, so that Ennis wouldn’t have time to deny it.

“To tell you the truth, we were watching that kid last night, planning to hit him with a surprise attack…and the punk headed over to your place with a machine gun! After that, we heard all this gunfire from your hideout…”

Dallas was trying to pin last night’s massacre on Firo. They’d catch on to the lie right away, of course, but all he had to do was distract his opponent for an instant. If he could get that muzzle to shift down slightly… If he got shot in the head, things would get nasty, but he could probably take a shot to the body without passing out. If he grabbed that chance to slash the other guy’s throat with his knife…

“…How do you know about the incident last night? It hasn’t been in the papers yet…”

“Huh? L-like I said, we followed Firo over there to…”

“…Are you under the impression that we’re on bad terms with the Martillos?”

“Huh?”

“Last night…the three of us were with Firo.”

“Wha…?”

“We grew up in the same tenement. Our precious sworn brother was being promoted, so we attended the celebration. …That’s right, until quite late… While Mike and the others were getting killed!”

A shot rang out, and part of Dallas’s head was blown away. Immediately afterward, Keith and Berga also fired. The remaining two crumpled to the ground, heads blown off, Thompsons still in their hands.

“We’re not letting you shoulder that on your own.”

“…………”

As his two older brothers grinned at him, the youngest spoke, sounding troubled:

“I’m sorry, Berga, Keith… I was the least calm of any of us…”

“…Don’t worry about it.”

Keith used his vocal chords for the first time in about a day.

Firo, who’d been watching, spoke to the three of them:

“Thanks. You saved us.”

“No… We heard machine gun fire, and when we came around back, we found this. Firo… We have no idea what’s going on here. Could you explain what happened?”

“I absolutely will, but later. Right now, I’ve got to go find my boss, and…this…”

When he’d gotten that far, Firo realized he didn’t know her name yet.

Meanwhile, Ennis wasn’t sure what to do. Who were these three? Should she tell them about the regenerating bodies? In the first place, Firo was an enemy, too, and yet…

…Ennis was already unable to think of him as an enemy.

“Hey, Keith. How’re we gonna hide these bodies? …Hold it… Say, Luck, these guys have machine guns. Couldn’t we call it straight-up self-defense?”

“Wait, please! …First tie up those three men on the ground…”

Without thinking, her mouth went on ahead of her.

Firo and the others looked at her curiously.

“They’re also… They’re imperfect, but they are immortals.”

“…What?”

“? Hey, what’s the dame saying? These guys are perfectly dead…”

As he spoke, Berga looked over at the corpses. Then his face tensed.

“…What the…?”

The head he’d blown away had been neatly repaired.

…And its eyes were wide open.

“Wha…?”

The next instant, a huge shudder ran through Berga’s body. A storm of bullets blasted up from below, punching through him.

“Uooooh…ou…”

Gushing blood from his bullet-riddled torso, he crashed to the ground.

“Berga…?”

“…Berga!”

No one—not the other two brothers, not Firo, not even Ennis—understood what had happened.

“Why…? How can they have regenerated so quickly…?”

Ennis didn’t know it, but they’d already had their heads destroyed once, and their bodies had gotten proportionately used to regenerating. In addition, it was also possible that since their bodies were younger than the old men Ennis was used to seeing, the basic speed of regeneration was faster for them.

Maybe because they hadn’t had time to shut down the fuses in their brains (even though their heads had been cleanly blown off), Dallas and the others were conscious as soon as they regenerated.

Without the luxury of smiling, Dallas’s group turned the weapons they held on the remaining four.

A deafening roar echoed through the alley.

“You’re weak… Is that all you’ve managed in two hundred years?”

Maiza lay on the floor. His broken arm was quietly regenerating.

“You seem to have trained on your own. I used a more rational method. I gave powerful men the failed product… Ah, which is something I made based on the half of the production method you told your brother. In any case, if you give it to someone, they’ll still age, but they won’t die. And here’s the important part…”

He took one step, then another, drawing nearer to Maiza, who hadn’t yet finished regenerating.

“…They can be ‘eaten.’ Only by those of us who drank the finished product; it doesn’t work the other way around… In other words, I give that to someone powerful, and then I ‘eat’ him. Could any training method be faster or more reliable? Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

Szilard opened the crate that sat on the table, checking to make sure the amount of liquor inside hadn’t gone down.

“So you really hadn’t given it to anyone…”

“…? What are you talking about?”

“…Oho, didn’t you know? This…is the elixir of immortality, the same one we once drank. I finally managed to complete it on my own.”

The blender he’d hired had been the one who’d actually completed it, but Szilard declared he’d done it himself anyway.

“…That’s impossible!”

“I don’t know how you got this case, but I suppose I’ll find out when I ‘eat’ you. Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha…”

Laughing mechanically, Szilard looked down at Maiza, lying at his feet.

“Still… They were quite a pack of fools here, weren’t they.”

He looked around at the corpses of the executives that littered the area.

“Or did you ask the demon and manipulate their souls?”

“…You’ll…probably never understand it…”

“No, I will. In a moment, after I ‘eat’ you, I’ll understand it as a matter of course.”

Szilard bent down, slowly stretching his right hand toward Maiza’s head.

Just then, he heard a deafening roar from outside.

“What’s that…?”

He didn’t recall giving Ennis a machine gun. He’d heard three gunshots a moment ago, but he’d assumed the boy or his companions had fired them. Had reinforcements arrived, bearing machine guns?

For one brief moment, Szilard was distracted by what was happening outside.

Taking hold of the chance, Maiza grabbed both of Szilard’s ankles and simultaneously jumped to his feet. It had been sudden, and Szilard’s body made a half turn, crashing to the floor.

Maiza found himself face-to-face with his enemy’s moment of vulnerability, but he calculated he wouldn’t be able to grab Szilard’s head. Instead, using a nearby table as a step stool, he broke a window that was rather high up and leaped through it. At night, when they brought the liquor out, it was closed with a shutter, but during the day, the glass was the only barrier.

A transparent shattering sound. Maiza escaped from the speakeasy in the midst of a blizzard of glass fragments.

“You won’t get away!”

Szilard followed him, leaping out through the window.

…And was hit by a car.

“Ha-ha-ha! That was a cinch… Let’s beat it before the dame regenerates.”

Thinking that the main street would probably be in an uproar over the gunfire, Dallas’s group decided to slip out through the back of the alley.

“…Nn?”

When they’d turned the first corner and gone a little ways, they heard a noise from the far end of the alley. It sounded rather like a motor running, and something else, as if a massive object was hitting a wall.

“What’s that…?”

The source of the sound appeared around the next corner.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me…”

It was a black passenger car, so large that it barely fit into the alley.

“I-I-I-Isaac! W-w-w-we’re slamming against the waaall!”

The sound of the car’s side scraping against the bricks set Miria’s eardrums trembling violently.

“A-a-a-and anyway, Isaac, I didn’t know you could drive cars this big.”

“D-d-d-d-don’t worry! I watched my old man drive all the time, and the b-b-b-basics seem j-j-j-just like a s-s-s-s-small c-c-c-car!”

“I-i-i-i-is that right! That’s a relief-f-f!”

As they chased after Dallas’s group, the two of them had spotted the car that had hit them. It was actually Ennis’s car, but of course they didn’t realize that. Well, and it really was the car that had hit them… But in any case.

Isaac had fiddled with the auto and gotten the engine started. They’d stolen small cars to use in getaways countless times, and their skills were truly excellent. Taking the Genoard house into consideration, it was apparently safe to say that their thieving techniques—and only their thieving techniques—were top-shelf.

“We can beat those machine guns if we hit ’em with a car!”

“We sure can!”

They felt absolutely no guilt whatsoever about stealing the car that had hit them. The only trouble was that, although they’d gotten in, they’d lost track of Dallas and the others.

At that point, they’d heard the thunder of machine guns from a nearby alley.

“Found ’em, found ’em, found ’em!”

“Yes, that’s them!”

They sped up, plowing into the three in front of them.

Panicking, Dallas’s group tried to run, but they were struck the instant they turned their backs. Their momentum sent them tumbling from the hood up over the roof and around the sides, where they fell behind the car.

“We did it!”

“Isaac! The road! Watch the road!”

Maiza had suddenly appeared in their path.

“Waaaaaugh!”

Hastily, he slammed on the brakes. Maiza noticed instantly and took to his heels, so they’d somehow managed not to hit him, but…

…they sent the old man who’d jumped down right after him flying.

As a result, they accomplished their revenge for the hit-and-run, too.

Isaac and Miria hastily backed up.

They ran right up over Dallas and the others, who’d fallen behind the car, and then they were stuck.

“Uunh…”

Fully regenerated, Ennis slowly got to her feet.

“…Ah… Why…? How could this…?”

They’d been shot by Dallas’s group, and only she had survived…

Not sure what to think, she gazed at the prone corpses of Firo and the others.

And then 

When Ennis rounded the corner in pursuit of Dallas’s group, she was confronted with an odd—but, to her, appalling—sight.

Her own car was stopped farther down the narrow alley. Before it, Szilard had a knife to Isaac’s throat. Slightly closer, Maiza stood stock-still, glaring at Szilard.

“Ah, Ennis. Excellent timing.”

“Oh! Ennis!”

“Enniiis! Save Isaac!”

The three of them called her name at once.

“…What? Ennis, what is the meaning of this? Why do these two know your name?”

This was a problem. Looking disconcerted, Ennis passed by Maiza. He didn’t try to move. He only glowered at her quietly.

Apparently, Szilard had taken Isaac hostage and was keeping Maiza at bay. …Although she didn’t understand why Isaac and Miria were there.

“Ennis. I’ll hear your explanation later. …Take over for me here, until I’ve finished ‘eating’ Maiza. …If Maiza tries to resist, kill him.”

“H-hey…Ennis?”

“Ennis?”

The two of them were watching her uneasily. Shoving her agitation into the depths of her heart, Ennis spoke:

“…You don’t really need to take a hostage, do you…?”

“Ah, you know how it is. Just in case.”

“……”

Wordlessly, Ennis took the knife, then restrained Isaac.

“Waugh! Ennis, you’re kidding, right?”

“E-Ennis!”

Watching Isaac and Miria panic out of the corner of his eye, Szilard approached Maiza, preparing to complete his eagerly anticipated ritual.

The machine gun had broken when he’d been hit by the car, so he drew a gun from his coat and shot Maiza through both knees.

“Gagh…”

With the joints destroyed, Maiza fell to his knees. This put his head at the perfect height to be consumed.

“Keh-keh… You value the lives of those two? How droll. No, no, I understand emotions like love and friendship myself, and I know humans can die or show strength for their sake.”

Beaming, he took another step closer.

“It’s just that, personally, I can’t stand them.”

As she watched Szilard walk away, Ennis spoke to Isaac and Miria in a whisper.

“…When that old man touches Maiza, hurry and run from here.”

“E-Ennis…? Oh, what a relief… I knew you were really Ennis!”

“Yes, she’s Ennis!”

The pair responded, also in whispers.

But they don’t know anything about me… Once again, Ennis’s feelings were bittersweet.

“Oh… But we can’t… We have to save Maiza…”

“Have to save him!”

“…Why…?!”

“Because…he treated us to dinner yesterday. He’s a good guy, Ennis! I don’t know who that old guy is, but save him, all right?!”

“Save him! We’ll do our best, too!”

Ennis wasn’t able to hide her bewilderment, but she asked the two of them anyway, desperately calming herself down:

“…Did you…come to save that man?”

“No, we came to save you!”

“Huh?”

Her confusion deepened.

“Well, uh… You know! Those guys you took to the police yesterday broke out of jail and were walking around with machine guns! …So we thought you’d be killed…”

“But don’t worry! We hit them with the car!”

And they were currently under it.

“……”

An indescribable feeling came over Ennis. Had they known the enemy had machine guns and come anyway, not fearing even death? …Just to save her?

For the space of a breath, she contemplated. It felt long, but in terms of time, it was only three and a half seconds. She’d never thought so seriously and come to a resolution about anything before, not since she was born.

“…Isaac. Miria.”

“…Hmm?”

“What?”

Her parting words were brief.

“I’m sorry… Thank you. I’m really glad I was able to talk to you, at the end. If you’ll let me make one selfish request…”

Ennis smiled sadly, quietly lowered the knife, and released Isaac.

“Please don’t forget me.”

Without giving Isaac and Miria time to respond, Ennis broke into a run, knife in hand.

…Toward her master and “main body,” Szilard.

“To continue our earlier conversation… The girl in the suit is the homunculus I created. Well, since she’s the same size as a human, the term homunculus—‘little man’—doesn’t really apply. In addition, creating her from both male and female cells wasn’t quite the proper way to do it, but even so…”

Szilard stopped, looking down at Maiza, his expression filled with superiority. He had a gun in his left hand, and despair in his right.

“I don’t know whether it was because I used the failed product to cultivate her or whether the fundamental method was wrong, but Ennis—that girl—was born with no knowledge whatsoever. She’s useless. Once I’ve ‘eaten’ you, I may use the finished product as culture liquid… Or, no, I’ll have your knowledge anyway: I can simply summon the demon and ask him.”

After he’d conceitedly wrapped up the matter for himself, Szilard’s right hand reached for Maiza’s forehead.

“Good-bye, Maiza. And…welcome.”

In the very moment his right hand touched his prey’s forehead…

“Gakh…?”

There was a strong impact at his back, and he felt something enter his body. His sense of pain was already gone, so all that came to him was an odd undulation in the neighborhood of his skin.

When Szilard turned, there was Ennis, quiet, a sorrowful expression on her face.

The blade of the knife she held was buried deep in Szilard’s spine.

“…Ennis… What is the meaning of this? …No, never mind. The time for explanations is past.”

At the same moment, a shout went up from the corner of the alley:

“Maiza!”

Firo, who should have been dead, yelled and came running.

The noise of gunfire was still coming from Alveare.

“You four, split up and watch the ends of that alley. Don’t go in until you’re ordered to; this is our turf.”

Having received a report, Edward arrived at the scene with a large squad of policemen in tow.

“…What happened?”

When he opened the double doors and entered the shop, the proprietress was standing there in a daze.

“I, um… I don’t really know… Some strange old man just hit me, out of the blue…”

Warily, Edward entered the speakeasy. He’d heard something that sounded like machine gun fire on the way here, so he proceeded cautiously, gun at the ready.

“…What a mess.”

The place looked as if a storm had blown through and ravaged it.

Broken chairs were scattered near the entrance, and damage that seemed to have been caused by a machine gun was evident throughout the room.

After he’d scanned the area, Edward murmured, sounding vaguely relieved:

“Well, at least there weren’t any fatalities in here.”

There wasn’t a single bloodstain in the room.

“Oho… So you let that brat through, too, Ennis…?”

Slowly, Szilard turned.

“That’s unfortunate…is something I won’t be saying. I thought it was about time. I made several others before you, but the moment they acquired unnecessary knowledge, they betrayed me. I thought things might be different with a female, so I created you… But as I expected, nothing’s changed.”

She’d never heard that she’d had brothers before. …But it didn’t matter anymore.

She tried to nail Szilard with a kick, but…

“It’s useless.”

“Ah……”

Szilard closed his eyes for an instant, and for some reason, Ennis fell to the ground. It was terribly abrupt, as if she were a marionette whose strings had been cut.

In that moment, the cellular equilibrium that had been maintained by Szilard’s power collapsed, and Ennis’s physical functions began to break down.

“I won’t kill you instantly. Suffer well before you die.”

His face, which wore a mocking smile, was hit with a fistful of pepper.

“Gwah…”

The immortal man, a man who had obtained immeasurable knowledge and behaved as if he ruled the world, recoiled from a blinding powder of pepper. It was a ridiculous sight.

“Why, you! What did you do to Ennis?!”

“What did you do, huh?!”

The priest and nun threw bags of pepper at him in rapid succession. They looked ridiculous as well, but it also looked a bit as if they were throwing holy ashes at a demon.

“Gkh… You blasted…!”

Firo had run up while this was going on, and he began to drag Ennis and Maiza away from Szilard.

“Maiza! Are you okay?!”

The holes in his knees were already half healed. It might have been the first time his joints had been destroyed: Compared to Dallas and the others, the regeneration seemed slow.

“I’m…fine… Never mind me… The girl…”

Ennis’s face was already pale, and her eyes had begun to go white and cloudy at the centers. Even then, when she recognized Firo, she began to speak slowly, relying on her weak breath.

“…You’re… You also… I don’t know when it happened, but…you acquired immortality, didn’t you… When I…saw your wounds healing, back there…I knew…”

At her words, Maiza stared at Firo, startled.

“Yeah, I’ve got no idea when it happened either, but…”

“…Then…I have a request. It looks…as if I’m dying… Would you… ‘eat’ me…? I told you…how it was done…earlier…”

“Hey, what kind of crap are you spouting?”

“…I don’t know if a homunculus like me…will be able to go to heaven or hell… It frightened me…and I couldn’t even end my own life… Oh… There’s still…so much I want to tell Isaac and Miria… So…please…would you ‘eat’ me…and deliver my message…? Also…no one ever told me…I was pretty before… Thank you… I was happy… …That’s…all I wanted to tell you…”

At her words, Firo quietly clenched his fists…and shook his head.

“I don’t have any obligation to deliver a thing like that. …Besides, I’m an atheist, so I can tell you straight out: Even if you die, there’s no heaven or hell. If you die…you just disappear.”

“…Ah-ha-ha… You’re harsh…”

Ennis laughed; she seemed a little disappointed. Even as she did so, her cells were breaking, one after another. At this point, her heart was already very near to stopping. The moment Ennis died…Szilard’s share of the elements of which she was composed would probably return to him.

Straightening up, Firo spoke flatly:

“Yeah. This world is harsh, and there is no next one. …So don’t die. Forget disappearing, deliver your message yourself! Don’t worry, I won’t let you die because of that rotten old geezer. …And actually…I’m not gonna let you die at all!”

Maybe he’d had some sort of idea: Firo drew his knife and turned toward Szilard, who’d finally managed to shake off the pepper.

Szilard glared back at him with rage-filled eyes.

“Boy… What are you trying to—?”

Something was poured over his head from behind.

“…?”

A pungent, stinking liquid. It was liquid fuel, the sort that was used in lamps.

When Szilard turned around, Randy and the other executives were standing there. Their clothes were torn where they’d taken bullets, but there wasn’t a drop of blood on them.

“You! I killed you! Impossible… All the liquor was there! Besides, Maiza would never have given it to you…!”

As Szilard shouted, he looked at Maiza, only to discover that Maiza’s expression was very like his own. In other words, he couldn’t fathom what was happening here, either.

“What kind of hooey was that? Are you nuts?”

Randy was holding an empty fuel can.

“We’ve burned gloves and storehouses…”

A blazing red match flew from Pezzo’s hand.

“…But we’ve never burned a head before.”

Szilard’s whole head ignited in pale flames.

“Gwooooooooooouh…”

Since he couldn’t feel pain, he didn’t feel the excessive heat, either. However, the violently leaping flames had definitely robbed Szilard of his eyesight.

Even then, somehow, he saw the brat they’d called Firo running toward him.

Was he an immortal, too?

 If he was…

Terror took root inside Szilard.

“Ooooooooouuugh! I wooon’t alloooooow iiiiiiit!”

Swiftly, he thrust his right hand out at Firo, who was bearing down on him.

“Get that damn hand out of my way!”

Firo had drawn his knife from inside his jacket, and he brought it down in a fit of rage.

The blade ran between the index and middle fingers of Szilard’s right hand, splitting it open down to the wrist. The knife stopped, biting into the bone, and as he held it there with his left hand…

…Firo thrust his own right hand into Szilard’s blazing face.

Not caring that his own arm would be burned…

…the boy wished hard.

To devour the body in front of him, as his hatred dictated.

To gain the knowledge to save a woman whose name he didn’t know.

“Gahk…”

For a man who’d lived nearly three hundred years, it was far too abrupt a death.

And then 

The only remaining earthly traces of Szilard Quates were the bright conflagrations of clothes and shoes.

Before long, those burned to ashes as well and were scattered by the wind.

Edward opened the back door just as Szilard’s leather shoes began to burn.

“…What the hell…?”

None of the police officers, Edward included, had any idea what had happened. Shoes were on fire, the Martillo Family executives were assembled, the priest and nun from earlier were there, a car with a badly dented body was stopped farther down the alley, and the whole place stank of liquid fuel.

“What’s going on? …Explain this, Firo Prochainezo.”

He strode over to the tired-looking boy and hauled him up by his collar.

“From what I’ve seen, it doesn’t look as though anyone died, but… Are you planning to start a handgun orchestra or something?”

“…I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t play dumb with me! We’ve been getting civilian complaints about nonstop gunfire around here! You want me to haul you in for violating the Sullivan Act?!”

Just then, a roar echoed through the area.

The squad of police officers hastily ducked, shoving their hands into their jackets and looking around for the source of the noise.

On top of the car, the priest and nun had machine guns pointed at the sky. They were the tommy guns Dallas and the others had been carrying.

“Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! The Martillo Family’s treasure is ours!”

“Yes, it’s ours!”

“So long, incompetent policemen! And by the way, the Martillos haven’t done anything!”

“Not a thing!”

On that irresponsible note, they tossed the guns away and took to their heels. They’d probably spoken out of consideration for the Martillos, but the last half of that line had been synonymous with “The Martillos did something.”

“…Assistant Inspector…uh… Can we shoot?”

“No… They’re unarmed now.”

Why a priest? After giving it a little thought, he realized that something about them did ring a bell.

“…The bandaged bandits!”

“…Huh?”

“Never mind, just go after them! As long as they don’t have a gun, don’t shoot!”

Edward swiftly issued orders for their arrest to his bewildered men.

The policemen scrambled to follow them, and then Edward was the only police representative left.

“All right. You can’t hoodwink me with something like that, Firo.”

Just then, two more men appeared from inside the speakeasy.

“Ah… Edward, there you are.”

“We need your help with something. C’mere a second.”

It was Bill and Donald.

“But…”

“We’ll tell you what you want to know, too.”

“…What do you mean?”

“Come along and you’ll see,” Donald said, simply.

Edward hesitated a little, but in the end, he went with them.

After Edward had disappeared into Alveare, Bill spoke to Maiza.

“Uh… What happened to Szilard?”

At those words, Maiza gaped at the men in front of him.

Realizing who they really were, he gave them a straightforward explanation.

“Ah. He…disappeared.”

“Erm… Into you?”

Maiza smiled a bit mischievously as he answered:

“I can’t leak organization secrets to law enforcement, you know.”

After the police were gone, Maiza asked Firo:

“Firo… I don’t understand. When did you and the others become immortal? You have Szilard’s knowledge now. You do know what I’m talking about, don’t you?”

“Uh… Well…”

Nervously, Firo confessed:

“I saved this old guy yesterday.”

“I see…”

“He was carrying some liquor, and I switched it out on him on the sly. We’d bought four bottles of liquor, and I dumped out two. Then I poured the contents of the old guy’s bottles into the empties, and filled his bottles with the liquor from our last two…”

Firo had done it on a whim. If the old guy had given him a genuine thank-you, he would have told him the truth and given them back; if he cussed at him, the plan had been to keep quiet and swipe them.

“What you take, you share with the rest. I was just obeying Camorra law…”

“Don’t tell me… You passed it around to everyone at that party?”

“…Come to think of it… If I’d done it right, I probably could’ve switched two bottles and gotten by with only dumping one, couldn’t I…”

That hardly seemed to be a major problem.

“Firo…”

“Well, once I got Szilard’s knowledge, it all made sense, but… Maiza…”

At that point, Firo gave a forced smile and continued, addressing a stunned-looking Maiza:

“Coincidences really do happen, don’t they…”

The priest and nun ran at full speed, from alley to alley, toward a fleeting freedom.

The hum of the crowd was growing gradually louder. It was proof that they were close to a major street.

“This is bad.”

“Yes, it’s bad!”

Just as the mouth of the alley came into view, they realized there were two police officers standing in it.

The policemen seemed to have noticed them as well, but the pair didn’t let it faze them. Without slowing down, they yelled:

“Aaaah! Mr. Policeman, help us!”

“Save us!”

Their charade had been off-the-cuff, but thanks to their appearance, it seemed to have worked. Given their abrupt arrival, the officers hesitated.

Diving against the chest of one of the policemen, Miria trembled in an exaggerated way and cried:

“A-a-a-armed men just started chasing us!”

She wasn’t lying.

The police officers, who’d only managed to grasp about half the situation, overreacted to her words. Their hands went to their holsters, and they fixed tense eyes on the depths of the alley.

…But what appeared from around the corner was a group in familiar uniforms.

“Wha…!”

By the time the policemen had hastily turned back, the two had already broken into a run again and were weaving through the crowd.

The pair mounted the NYPD-issued police horses that had been waiting nearby and started after the two, but they were blocked by the very people they’d sworn to protect.

“Meeerry Christmaaaas!”

As Isaac shouted, he took bundles of bills from his bag and threw them high in the air, scattering them.

“Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! You’re early, too early! You’re a month early!”

As Miria laughed and whooped, the avenue was transformed into a coliseum.

The bills took flight like a storm of confetti, and under their spell, the crowd began to gather them indiscriminately.

Men holding placards that said GIVE ME A JOB, panhandlers who’d been crying that their legs were broken, fine ladies on their way home with liquor they’d purchased, cargo-truck drivers, freight wagon operators, and even the well-to-do with purses full of money—all began to converge on the extremely easy-to-understand “blessing” of money.

Grab more money, faster, more tightly… It was a battle royal in an arena governed by simple rules. Confronted with surging waves of happy hysteria, the horses were unable to overcome the murderous intent of the combatants. …Even if they had been able to overcome it, it was doubtful whether they would have been physically able to disperse that crowd.

Watching the dismayed policemen out of the corners of their eyes, Isaac and Miria kept running toward the station. Among those who robbed banks, the fact that you scattered money as you made your getaway was basic knowledge. It was effective precisely because everyone knew it… Or at least that was what Isaac believed, and in fact it had worked.

If there was any problem at all, it was that they’d scattered most of their total earnings (99 percent of which had been the Genoard legacy) by the time they reached the station.

That said, these two weren’t the type to care about something that important.

“Now, then… Where shall we run, Miria?”

“Anywhere!”

“Well, let’s see… Want to head back to LA and try digging up some gold?”

“A gold rush! But that isn’t robbery… Are we turning over a new leaf?”

“Uh… Well, no, it’s the other thing: We’ll be filching a fortune from the earth!”

“That’s amazing!”

Even as they kept up their usual sort of conversation, one thing bothered the pair:

“…We didn’t get to say good-bye to Ennis and everybody, did we?”

“…No, we didn’t.”

At the entrance to the station, the two thieves looked back once.

As they gazed at the kaleidoscopically shifting city, Isaac murmured quietly:

“This was an interesting town, wasn’t it.”

“Yes, really interesting!”

“Let’s come back again, to see Ennis and the rest.”

“Absolutely!”

Taking the last bundle of bills out of the bag, Isaac stepped into the station to buy two tickets to California.

“This is all we’ve got left.”

“Uh-huh… But we gave it away to everybody, so we did something good! I know we did!”

“I see… Yes, you’re right. I bet the late Mr. Genoard is happy, too, don’t you think?”

“And all the dead children!”

“Then let’s split the difference and wish for happiness for Mr. Genoard’s children.”

“Yes, let’s! They won’t fight over the inheritance now, and I bet they’re all living happily together as we speak!”

The two held fast to their self-serving proclamations right up to the very end. With that, the couple who had been the guests of honor at this baccano, this crazy ruckus, disappeared from New York.

Just before they boarded the train, the pair spotted a sign with WELCOME TO NYC! written on it.

To commemorate their departure from the city, on his way out, Isaac left a certain mark on that sign.

It was graffiti of a big bite mark, drawn on top of the picture of the apple that stood for New York.

When Dallas Genoard woke up, he was in a dark warehouse.

“Are you awake?”

Right in front of him were three men he was positive he’d shot to death earlier.

For his part, he’d been put into an oil drum, and his hands and feet were bound. His head was the only thing outside the drum, and he looked around, nervously. When he did, he discovered that his two buddies were in the same state.

“Ah, this place is a bit like a summer home for us. The police are prowling around our house and the hideout, you see…”

“Wh… Why… Why are you alive?!”

Luck answered Dallas’s scream, speaking for his brothers.

“That’s a very good question. Firo just called and told us a few things… But we’re under no obligation to tell you any of it. Worry about it until your lives run out.”

They’d been at that party as well. Meaning, since they’d drunk that toast, they’d also joined the ranks of the immortal. Of course, Dallas and the others had no way of knowing this.

Before Dallas could speak, Keith came up and put something into the drum.

It was a deck of cards.

“………?”

“You’re a real nice guy, Keith…,” Luck offered. “He says you’ll probably be bored on the ocean floor until you die of old age… So.”

When the meaning of those words sank in, Dallas’s group was assailed by desperate terror.

The fifty-two jokers that had been dropped into the oil drum sneered coldly at Dallas’s fate.

“You’ll be able to drown perpetually for another seventy years or so. That’s phenomenal. …It’s probably a world record, you know. Unfortunately, no one’s going to document it…”

“See, I wanted to just finish you off here and now, but you won’t die even if we slug you or drill you, so there’s no help for it… Hey, how about a radio to help kill time?”

Berga spoke, sounding entertained.

“Ha-ha-ha, the battery will die.”

“Oh, yeah. …What about a chess set, then?”

“The board will float up through the water. A Conan Doyle novel, perhaps?”

“The paper’ll get all wet.”

“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.”

“Gah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

“………Heh.”

After laughing a bit, all three looked into Dallas’s eyes.

Their gazes were terribly cold. Cold enough to bring Dallas to tears.

“Go on… Choose. Which do you want?”

The members’ meeting place. When night fell and the old men assembled, Szilard was nowhere to be seen. Instead, five or six policemen were waiting for them. Edward, Bill, and Donald were among them.

“Wha… What are you?!”

“Erm… We’re the police.”

Bill gave a terse explanation to the old men, who were howling blue murder.

“Uh… You’re under suspicion for illegally distilling liquor, so we came to investigate.”

“Wha—? On what grounds?!”

“Well… There was a fire yesterday, you see, and this turned up in the ruins.”

He took out a soot-smeared bottle. It was, beyond a doubt, one of the bottles Barnes had been in charge of.

“Hmm… It’s nothing to do with you? …Well, then.”

He moved as if to dash the bottle to the floor. The old men screamed in unison.

“Haaa… You’re terribly easy to read. That’s nice.”

“Quit playing around, Bill.”

Donald picked up the conversation:

“The Bureau has been aware of your organization for quite a while now. We knew about Szilard, too, and about the liquor you were trying to make.”

A stir ran through the old men.

“Wh…why would the Bureau know about Master Szilard…?”

“Uh… Well, you see, one of our higher-ups is extraordinarily long-lived as well… To be honest, we came to New York on orders from above…to dispose of this liquor.

“‘Never close a case.’ That’s our motto at the Bureau. According to our boss, that goes for unscientific incidents from two hundred years ago as well.”

“H-hey! Edward!”

Someone called his name. It was the man at the top of his list of irritating bosses: Police Superintendent Veld. That meant even high-ranking police officials had been among Szilard’s followers… But at the same time, it also meant Szilard hadn’t managed to grab any more power than that.

“Edward! Do something! Stop them! If we have that liquor, the world can be ours! We’ll be evolved humans! You want that privilege, too, don’t you? So… Hey, Edward! Say something!”

Edward was so exasperated that it actually calmed him down.

He even began to smile. Really, there was nothing to do but laugh.

“Superintendent… If you’d at least said, ‘We can rid the world of disease and accidental death,’ I might have thought about it, but… Frankly, you’ve disappointed me.”

“E-Edward!”

“Superintendent… If it’s a choice between personal eternity and eternity for our country, I choose the country.”

Edward took the bottle from Bill.

“And since I am a police officer, I can’t overlook something made in violation of the law.”

With no hesitation, he hurled the bottle into the corner of the room.

As the old men shrieked, the bottle smashed to bits.

Some of the old men tried to lap up the liquor spreading across the floor, but as if he’d seen this coming, Donald struck a match and tossed it to the ground.

The alcohol blazed up, illuminating the despairing faces of the old men with a beautiful, fleeting light.

The detectives splashed water onto it from a bucket one of the police officers had been holding, and both the fire and dreams of immortality disappeared in the blink of an eye. They’d intended to break the bottle in front of the men all along.

“Erm… Well, then… Do your best at your jobs until you die of old age, gentlemen. Depending on how you work, your honor may live eternally as the foundation of this country. And… Oh, and by the way, Mr. Szilard won’t be coming back.”

Saying their good-byes to the old men, who were busy fainting or bawling, Edward and the others left the basement.

As they swayed in the car Donald was driving, Edward muttered resentfully:

“…You tricked me.”

At first, he’d been unable to swallow their story of the liquor of immortality. However, when he saw the rat that had been discovered at the scene of the fire—the rat that had survived even as it burned—he’d had no choice but to believe.

“Erm… Sorry.”

“But why did you tell me everything?”

Donald answered that question briefly.

“Our boss… He isn’t at the top of the Bureau of Investigation, but he’s fairly high up. He heard you were stubborn but had a strong sense of justice, and that you wouldn’t bend to bribes or violence, and apparently he took a shine to you.”

“…How did he know about me?”

“You applied to the Bureau. We vet our applicants much more thoroughly than you’d imagine.”

“…………”

“Erm… We’ll look forward to working with you in the future.”

Bill and Donald gave sly grins.

Edward shook his head and smiled wryly, responding to the two who were slated to become his senior colleagues.

“…When that happens, no more secrets.”

Afterward, Edward became one of the leading agents at the Bureau of Investigation, which would later be known as the FBI. At this point in time, he didn’t yet know that Firo and the others had become immortal, but once he found out the whole story, he fell into the habit of declaring, “There are some fellas I have to put away for life and turn into permanent jailbirds.” …They say that he’d laugh and repeat those words whenever he remembered Firo and Maiza.

“…Oh…”

After Edward and the others had gone, Maiza slumped to his knees.

“Wh-what’s wrong, Maiza?!”

“I’ve… What have I done…?”

Now that he’d heard everything from Firo, Maiza was on the verge of being swallowed up by guilt. Because of him, his companions, Firo included, had been pulled into the eternal cycle.

“Huh? Wait… Maiza, what are you saying?!”

“The pain of living for eternity… And to you, all of you, of all people…”

“What are you talking about?! We don’t care! And actually, it feels more like, ‘We don’t have to die, yahoo!’ Right, guys?” As Firo hastily contradicted Maiza’s thoughts, he turned to Randy and the others, who were beside him, for support.

“Huh? I-I don’t really get it, but ‘yahoo.’”

“Yahoo! Cheer up, Maaaizaaa.”

Randy and Pezzo started to dance. The fact that they’d become immortal didn’t seem to have really sunk in yet. Apparently the other executives didn’t understand either: They watched the dancing pair and guffawed.

“And look, if we don’t tell the boss and Yaguruma, we can sweep it under the rug by saying, ‘Wow, you’re long-lived’!”

However, the anguish hadn’t cleared from Maiza’s expression.

“Firo… If you have Szilard’s knowledge, then you know…to be honest…I’m tired of living. Now that Szilard, my brother’s enemy, is dead, there’s no point in living any longer… Of course! Firo…would you…?”

When he’d heard him out that far, Firo’s face grew a little earnest, and he answered.

“I can’t do that. …Listen, if you’re gone, which of us is going to be able to count up the money? Maiza, are you planning to sink us?”

“…Drat, that’s a good point… Oh, but wait, if you ‘eat’ me, you’ll have my knowledge of accounting—”

“No. I’m dumb. Even if I get knowledge, I forget it right away. …As a matter of fact, I’m already starting to forget the knowledge I got from Szilard.”

“You won’t do it, no matter what…?”

“Look, Maiza. Camorra law says that if you kill a comrade, no matter the reason, you pay with your life. I don’t want to die yet, so please, gimme a break.”

“…That’s a problem… You’re making too much sense…”

Maiza smiled. Firo smiled back.

“Incidentally… If you disappear, we’ll be lonesome, so stick around. All right?” Then, at last, the two of them broke into loud laughter.

“Um…”

At the sound of a woman’s voice, they turned. A girl in a black suit was standing there.

“Why did you…save…?”

The first thing Firo had done with Szilard’s knowledge was return life to the dying Ennis. He’d taken the links of life Szilard had severed, set them resonating with his own immortal cells, and closed the links again. With that, it wasn’t too much to say that Ennis, who’d called herself part of Szilard’s body…was now a part of Firo’s.

“Oh! That’s right, of course! Edward just came out of nowhere, and I completely forgot… I’m sorry!”

Ennis only looked bewildered.

“My name is Firo Prochainezo. …I was looking for you because you were attractive. I saved you because there was something I wanted to ask you.”

“Something you wanted to ask…?”

Ennis was at a loss. Firo smiled as he spoke.

“…I want you to tell me your name.”

“Huh…?”

After a little thought, Ennis answered.

“Wasn’t it…in Szilard’s knowledge?”

Firo shook his head in an exaggerated gesture, grinning awkwardly.

“Uh…well…you know. …I want to hear it from you.”

At that, the rest of the crowd started to hoot at them. “Look, it’s not like I confessed to her or anything! What are you guys, grade-schoolers?!” Firo argued back, but nobody listened. Led by Randy and Pezzo, everyone cheerfully “yahooed,” making fun of them.

Just as if it were the happy ending to some movie…everyone there was smiling.

“That ruckus was something else. What in the world happened?”

“…From what I hear, a priest was throwing around bundles of money.”

As they walked down the broad street, which echoed with the cries of countless panhandlers, Ronny answered his leader respectfully.

“Oho… And here I thought priests only used God’s name to get money from people. That’s real admirable. Well done… Heck, God doesn’t usually save even the ones who believe in him…”

At Yaguruma’s blunt comment, Molsa reprimanded him:

“Yaguruma… Don’t sell God short. The guy’s only flaw is that…he’s incredibly capricious. That’s all.”

The upper-level executives had returned from work. For some reason, they’d seen lots of cops around the speakeasy, so they’d decided to go around back, just in case. …And there were all the executives, making a racket.

“What’s going on? Why are they horsing around outside?”

Yaguruma cocked his head, looking puzzled.

Ronny gazed at Firo and the others, looking as if he’d seen something rather unexpected.

“I noticed it during the toast last night, but…in the end, I didn’t stop it. I had the vague idea that, if it was us, we’d stick with it for a long time. …Well, never mind.”

“Nn? What was that? What are you muttering about?”

“Nothing. …They look like they’re having fun.”

“Well, it’s good to be young.”

The two of them smiled, agreeing with the words of their leader, who was holding a huge armful of pepper.

The spiral came tumbling down. When they poked their heads out of the rubble…

…they found the beginning of a new one.

There was just one difference:

This spiral went on forever.

That’s simply all there was.