Baccano! - Volume 12 - Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

ALL THE PASSENGERS DANCE IN A GARDEN OF BULLETS

Voyage Day Two Evening, a semi-suite cabin

Czeslaw Meyer had spent the night in the private cabin of the pretty girl from the night before.

Out of context, it sounded racy—but as a matter of fact, he’d only been guarding the boys she’d caught and tied up, so it had been an exceedingly stressful night.

Czes had noticed her unusually skillful technique when she bound the boys and realized that he’d stepped on a serious land mine. Thinking he might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, Czes had decided to see this through.

If this had happened in town, he could have just made a break for it, but in the enclosed environment of the ship, there was no telling when they’d run into each other again over the course of the voyage. And in that case, it would be better to get a good, thorough grasp of the situation.

I’ve had enough of being jerked around by things I don’t understand.

With that in mind, Czes asked the girl directly. “Miss, who in the world are you?”

However, the girl just responded with a little snicker that managed to be simultaneously creepy and cute. “That’s a secret. He’ll yell at me otherwise!”

“Who will?”

“The president?”

“Of what?”

“Of my company!”

For a question that could expose her secrets, Illness’s answer was oddly confident.

When he tried to dig deeper, all she’d say was “Secret!” or “I dunno either!” so he stopped before they started going around in circles.

She’d caught three boys that time, which apparently left one more boy and a girl. That afternoon, Illness had said she’d go look for them, and she’d been scouring the ship ever since.

Czes was actually rather bored, but he couldn’t leave the captives unguarded.

Good grief. I can’t believe Ronny got me dragged into this.

At first, the three boys had planned to stay silent, but—

—suddenly, Illness had said, “I’m pretty sure I could manage some torture. The president said all I’d have to do was try the stuff they used to do to me!” Then, smiling, she’d hiked up her dress so they could see.

“Hey— …Wh-what are you doing?!” Czes yelped, eyes wide as he stood behind her. The girl had bundled her skirt up almost to her chest.

However—

—the boys who were in front of her seemed to have seen something besides her underwear.

““Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaugh!””

The tall boy and the pudgy boy shuddered, turning pale. The short black boy’s expression was still composed, but he murmured to himself, “…It looks as if it would be wiser to talk. If we’re stubborn about keeping our secrets, Bobby and Carnea may end up in deep trouble.”

And then he told them everything about why they were on the ship.

Come on, even these kids think they could handle us…?

The three boys were called Tall, Humpty, and Troy. They said they were part of a group led by Bobby Splot who made trouble on the Martillo Family’s turf, but although they committed robbery, among various other crimes, they really were kids.

If Firo’s baby face had convinced a pack of children that they stood a chance against him—children who knew that he was a gangster—then it was a force to be reckoned with, Czes thought while completely ignoring his own.

I probably shouldn’t tell him about this.

Heaving a big sigh, Czes spoke to the boys lying on the floor in front of him. “Either way, it’s all over for you. The crew may have caught Bobby and the other kid already.”

“Sh-shut up, punk! You’re pretty cocky for a shrimp!” the tall boy yelled at Czes, but with both hands and legs tied, he was less than convincing. His thumbs had also been tied together behind his back, making the bindings extra-hard to get out of.

“So what if I am? That’s one of the privileges of being a little kid—you get to gloat when you take down someone bigger than you.”

“Whoa, this brat is a pain in the ass!! He acts all grown up, and he’s a big jerk!”

Tall was struggling and kicking, but Humpty seemed to have given up.

“Ngh… If Bobby hadn’t jumped into this without a plan, this wouldn’t have happened,” he muttered.

“The minute Bobby said he was going to do something, I just gave up,” added Troy. “On life.”

So why are these kids sticking with Bobby, if that’s what he’s like?

He was genuinely curious about that, but Bobby’s ancestor Jacuzzi had acted way more pathetic, and his popularity had been inversely proportionate. When you thought of it that way, a daredevil like Bobby attracting kids his own age might be more natural.

Once Czes had reached that point in his analysis, he decided to sit tight and wait for Illness to come back.

As it turned out, the people tailing them had had nothing to do with Illness, but she’d still volunteered to go look for Bobby, who had a distant connection to Czes, and the stowaway who had no connection to any of them at all. “No, it’s fine,” Illness had said. “It looks like everything’s going well, so I’ve got too much time on my hands now anyway!”

“Still, I’m curious about that girl,” Czes muttered to himself.

“Hey, so are we,” remarked Tall.

“Th-that jerk Bobby,” Humpty moaned. “He just abandoned us, grabbed her hand, and made a break for it.”

“Of course he did. Back in our hiding place, she was pressed up against him, and I could tell she was secretly on his mind. Ever since that neighborhood streetwalker who likes ’em young messed around with him, he hasn’t let any women get close, but it may be safe to assume that springtime’s finally arrived for him. They make a good couple; they’re both stowaways.”

As Czes mulled over their replies, he decided to just say what he was thinking.

“…You’re Troy, right? Are you intentionally giving me blackmail material on Bobby?”

“Perish the thought. I simply decided that for the sake of our futures, it was about time that Bobby, the planless wonder, learned some life lessons. I bet he rushed it when we tailed you yesterday because he wanted to show off in front of the girl, too.”

“I—I see…”

“He pretends he isn’t interested, but it’s glaringly obvious. After all, Carnea has the same golden tan as the girls in the pictures he used to cut out of girlie mags.”

Czes was beginning to wonder whether this kid actually had any loyalty to his leader at all. He decided to wait quietly for Illness to return.

Come to think of it, I ended up leaving Ennis and Firo alone together almost right after we got here yesterday. I hope they manage to get even a little closer, for my own peace of mind, too.

Czes sometimes worried that his living with them might be keeping their relationship from developing. Praying they would make some progress, he smirked and turned on the TV.

The shipboard shopping mall

“Man, we slept like a couple’a logs last night, huh, Ennis?”

“We certainly did. I was concerned about falling asleep in an unfamiliar environment, but the quality of the bed and the pillow made it so easy.”

As they sat on a bench and did some people watching, Firo and Ennis were conversing quietly.

If Czes had heard what they were talking about, he would have been visibly disappointed, but he probably wouldn’t be able to say anything after seeing how happy they looked.

They were currently in front of the fountain on the lowest level of the cylindrical shopping mall atrium. A fountain inside a ship was an incredibly surreal sight, but if you ignored the rocking of the ship, the place looked just like an ordinary shopping mall on land.

The two of them were reading the signs on the various stores, when—

“Sorry. Did I keep you waiting?”

“No, we just got here.” Firo stood up, smiling thinly at the man in black who’d appeared in front of them. “Let me introduce you. This is my wife, Ennis. Ennis, this is Angelo, the guy I told you about last night.”

After Firo made the introductions, the two new acquaintances traded pleasantries.

“Um, it’s good to meet you…”

“I must say, you have a beautiful wife, Firo. I’m jealous; I’d almost trade you for mine… Hey, don’t look so upset. I won’t take her. Although I really am jealous.”

“Oh, no, please don’t flatter me like that.”

“No, no, I’m sorry for putting all those holes in your husband’s clothes yesterday.”

The tone of the conversation was friendly, but its content was less pleasant.

“You can say that again,” Firo commented. “I don’t know how many years it’s been since the last time I got shot.”

“Well, I wasted some perfectly good bullets. That makes us even.”

“…You’re full of crap, you know that?” Firo smirked, but Angelo’s smile didn’t go past his lips; his eyes were sharp.

“Still, are you sure about this?” he asked. “I’d rather not drag your wife into this mess…”

“Hey, I won’t put Ennis in danger. She’s just checking the areas only women can go into. That group has girls, too, right? Besides…we don’t feel great about having a group like that one on the ship, either. Especially when we don’t know what they’re after.”

“Well, yeah, but…”

As Angelo hesitated, Firo said what he needed to and set the other man at ease.

“Plus, we’re only helping you with the search. If a gunfight breaks out afterward, you’re on your own. I don’t have the authority to start anything with another organization without permission.”

“I know that. And you’ve got your family to take care of.”

Nodding in agreement, Firo went on. “Although if they start saying they’re going to scuttle this ship, I’ll have to jump in.”

“I’ll tell our demolition guy to be careful not to sink the boat.”

Keeping their banter short, Firo and Angelo began more seriously discussing what they were about to do.

Watching the two of them converse, Ennis thought for a while.

What on earth had happened yesterday? She hadn’t been told any of the details.

She hadn’t asked, either.

All she’d heard was that Firo had been mistaken for a Mask Maker, and this man had pulled a gun on him. He hadn’t told her about what had happened after that. From the holes in his clothes, she could tell he’d been shot at least four times.

He hadn’t given her any specifics about the shooting, though, nor how he’d cleared up the misunderstanding.

He’d said only that he had managed to smooth everything over and that the other party had found out he was immortal.

And then he’d begged her, “It’s just, now that I know the story, I gotta help, so… I’m really sorry! Tomorrow, just for a day, would you mind if I gave him a hand?!” And that was it.

However, to Ennis, that was enough reason to help.

Firo tried to act cool, as befitted a Camorra executive, but he actually tended to let his emotions fuel his actions quite often. Of course she wasn’t happy about her husband getting shot, but since he’d smiled and forgiven the man, there was nothing for her to say, and without full context, she couldn’t get angry about anything specific, either.

Really, Firo always tries to carry too much by himself.

She’d known that about him ever since 1934, when she’d learned he’d been sent to Alcatraz in order to get a crime she’d committed struck from the books—even before then, in fact, when she saw his furious reaction after she’d told him what Szilard used to do to her.

And that was why these things didn’t make her angry—at the very least, Ennis just wanted to live with him as long as she could, so she could help him carry those burdens. For her, helping him was a source of joy.

She’d come here to help him today as well, but while Firo talked with Angelo, Ennis watched his profile and thought.

Firo was really very good at getting people to do what he wanted without telling them the important things. Actually, to be precise, he was good at making them want to help him. She didn’t know whether it was deliberate or just the way he was, but she thought that over the past seventy years, Firo had refined that ability to an extraordinary degree. A fitting skill for an underworld executive, perhaps.

However—no matter the reason, whether he needed her right now or whether he didn’t and simply stayed by her side anyway—she loved Firo. She’d talked with Czes about that feeling just once, but he’d laughed at her. “Geez, is that all? Firo thinks the exact same thing. Maybe you don’t see it yourselves, but you two are peas in a pod.”

I wonder if he was right?

In order to make sure, Ennis thought back to when Firo had told her, “Let’s get married…”

“What’s wrong, Ennis? Your face is bright red. You aren’t running a fever, are you?!”

…and ended up making him worry about her, in a reversal of the day before.

In the ship’s dedicated event storeroom

“O-okay. We should be able to hide here for a while.”

As they walked among the equipment for various events in the dim storeroom, Bobby sighed in relief, squeezing Carnea’s hand tightly with his right hand.

“Ow!”

“Oh, s-sorry!” Hastily letting go, Bobby showed clear panic on his face.

“No, I’m all right. I’m sorry; that was loud, wasn’t it…?” Carnea apologized in a small voice, and Bobby could feel himself starting to blush.

However, blustering to himself that letting a girl get under his skin in a situation like this was seriously low, he shoved down his feelings and replied impassively.

“Be careful, wouldja? Just don’t hold me back, got it?”

“I—I know.” Carnea sounded ashamed, and Bobby mentally called himself a moron twenty-three times.

They’d been running around the ship in fits and starts, almost without a break, and now they were so tired even walking was tough.

After making sure they were finally completely alone, Bobby and Carnea went around behind a big set of some sort and sat down.

“I hope…those guys won’t chase us, too…if we’re here.” Bobby heaved a big sigh.

Carnea also exhaled, nodding. However, her breath sounded a little shaky, suggesting she was frightened.

The fear and anxiety they felt wasn’t inspired by the eerie girl Illness.

It wasn’t because the crew might catch them and hand them over to the police, either.

At the moment—

—they were being pursued not by Illness or the crew members but by a third party.

A few hours earlier

“Okay, okay, okay, we should be able to hide here for a while.”

Having successfully evaded both Illness and the crew, Bobby and Carnea had slipped into a linen closet that had an OUT OF ORDER sign on it. Although a malfunction on a luxury cruise ship seemed pretty pathetic, the two of them were just grateful to find a space people weren’t likely to visit.

However, they couldn’t hide in there forever.

When they looked around, trying to see if there was any way to conceal themselves more thoroughly, Bobby spotted a small grill up near the ceiling. If they could just get that grill off, the vent behind it might be big enough for a person to fit through.

It was probably a maintenance door, a way for technicians to get inside the system if there was trouble with the ventilation.

“Which means…” He checked again, and sure enough, there was a ladder lying conveniently in a corner of the room. “Jackpot!”

The stowaway thanked God for his incredibly good fortune and snatched up the ladder, elated that he’d found an absolutely safe place where he and the girl could hide.

That is, until they’d traveled a little ways down the ventilation shaft, which was even roomier than they’d thought—

… and they stumbled onto an odd machine with blinking red LEDs.

The bridge

“Huh?”

“What’s the matter?”

The first man was watching a video feed of some sort on a laptop, and the question had come from the man beside him.

“Well, uh… Somebody just bumped into one of the gizmos Life set up.”

“…Hang on a second.”

One of the Mask Maker hijackers took a two-way radio from his belt and called a specific frequency. “Hey, Life. Life, do you read me?”

“What is it?”

“Where are you right now?”

“In the hub of the ventilation shaft system. Block Three,” Life answered.

“So you’re not in front of Number Fifty-Three?” the man asked, his voice grave.

“It isn’t far, but I’m not right next to it. Is something the matter?”

“I think…we might have a rat over there.”

“…Understood. Let us hope that a rat really is nibbling on the cord.

“I’ll go right over and take a look.”

In the ventilation shaft

“? The heck is this thing?”

After crawling along for a while, Bobby discovered a peculiar machine.

“What’s the matter?” Carnea asked from behind him.

“There’s this weird thingy here,” Bobby answered tersely. He cautiously touched the device. They couldn’t afford to just crawl over it and set off an alarm or something.

He examined the device carefully, but the longer he looked at it, the less he understood it. It didn’t have wires connecting it to anything, and it seemed to be operating in isolation. It didn’t even have a power cord, so it might not be intended for permanent use.

There was a small plastic bottle attached to it, with some kind of liquid rippling inside.

“Bobby? What’s wrong? Did you find something?”

“Uh…”

Bobby had been staring and poking at the object for a while now, so he racked his brain and finally came up with an answer.

“I bet it makes a smell to chase rats away!”

And then—

“You are the rats.”

—a muffled voice echoed from the darkness ahead of Bobby.

“Waugh?!” “Eep?!”

Behind him, Carnea seemed to have detected the presence in the darkness, too, and she shrieked, backing up.

The faint red light from the machine revealed a man whose face was hidden by night vision goggles and a mask. From what Bobby had learned from movies and manga, he was perfectly dressed for a cramped space like this.

However, he didn’t have time to process any of that.

“What naughty children. I’ll have to punish you.”

Hastily, Bobby tried to back up, but before he could, the man in the night vision goggles reached out.

“Bobby!” Carnea cried behind him, and Bobby shoved the machine at the man, stubbornly refusing to go down without a fight.

“Whoa!”

The man in the night vision goggles caught and steadied the device with both hands, careful not to let the attached bottle come loose.

While he was occupied, Bobby beat a rapid retreat back into the linen cupboard.

The children had gotten away, but first Life made sure that the device was safe. Then, with a deep breath, he headed for the exit the boy and girl had used.

Flipping a switch on his night vision goggles, he cut over to the normal camera just in time to see the boy sprinting out of the linen cupboard, pulling a tanned Caucasian girl by the hand.

For a short while, Life stayed where he was, pondering something. “Well, now. Are they heroes worth worrying about, or are they simply victims?” he muttered, then took out his radio.

“It’s me. The rats were two children… And I’m sorry. They got away.”

“Why you— You think ‘They got away’ is gonna cut it?!”

“…I’m not certain the rats will report this to a security guard.”

“What?”

Life calmly informed his dubious listener of the conclusion he’d reached. “They were creeping around the vents, after all. I believe they’re stowaways.”

“……”

“I think we should dispose of them before they decide being arrested is worth it and start making a fuss.”

“Describe them.”

“A boy with short hair, about fourteen or fifteen, and a girl around the same age or perhaps a little younger… She’s white, with pretty blond hair and an equally pretty tan. I recommend searching for a pair consisting of a tanned blond girl and an ordinary boy.”

As a result, the two easily identifiable stowaways were soon common knowledge to every Mask Maker on the ship.

And now, back to the present, in the event storeroom.

As he got his breathing under control, Bobby thought back over the past few hours.

Ever since they’d run into the spy-looking guy in the ventilation shaft, their situation had taken a major turn for the worse.

They’d been doggedly pursued not by the girl in the Gothic dress, nor by crew members who’d realized they were stowaways—but by dangerous-seeming men dressed like ordinary passengers.

He’d been keeping a wary eye out for the man in the night vision goggles in case he tried to come after them, when he spotted men heading straight for them.

At times like this, Bobby’s experience with running from the police in New York came in handy. After so many crimes over the years, he’d learned to pick out policemen, plainclothes police, or men pursuing him with the intent of reclaiming stolen property after just a glance around, even in the middle of a Broadway crowd.

It wasn’t a praiseworthy skill, but it worked miraculously well for him here.

As they beat a hasty retreat, several other passengers began to chase them.

It was like they’d turned all the passengers on the boat against them.

If the crew caught them as stowaways, they’d only get turned over to the police. He didn’t know what would happen if that Gothic girl caught them, but he got the feeling she wouldn’t actually kill them.

But these people were dangerous.

The experience Bobby had acquired over the course of his short life combined with his instincts to sound a blaring alarm.

If those guys catch us, we’re probably gonna die.

Carnea seemed to have the same hunch, and the moment they were in a deserted area, she looked truly relieved as she panted for breath, shoulders heaving.

“We’ve gone far enough; we can relax here, at least for a bit.”

“I—I think you’re right… Eek?!” Carnea shrieked a little as she looked up, and Bobby stiffened.

On reflex, he followed Carnea’s gaze and saw—

—an enormous lower jaw.

It belonged to a great white shark more than thirty feet long—or rather, an animatronic made to look like one.

“Th-that scared me…”

“I-is that the robot shark that was up on deck?!”

On closer inspection, he saw that the special suit worn by the Gear, protagonist of the Mode Gears series, was beside the shark. It was made of metal and covered in gears, but apparently it was possible to put it on just like an ordinary creature suit.

There were lots of other Mode Gears–related props and sets nearby, and although they hadn’t noticed when they sat down, this seemed to be the designated prop storage area for the movie event.

“It was outside until yesterday… Why is it here?”

Bobby’s question had been directed at Carnea, but—

“…For the event at the fountain soon,” someone replied briefly.

Both stowaways froze up again. When they looked in the direction of the voice, they saw a boy with golden, coldly gleaming eyes.

“Wh-who are you?”

The boy didn’t seem to be one of their pursuers, but despite his feminine appearance, he was strangely intimidating as he spoke to Bobby and Carnea.

“…This room is…staff only…” His voice was low, but his intent was clear.

He’s going to own us.

Before he could be overwhelmed any further, Bobby did what he always did in town: He pulled a jackknife out of his hip pocket and flipped it open with a loud click.

“B-Bobby…”

He heard a mixture of fear and reproach in Carnea’s voice, but he couldn’t back down now.

“Settle down. It’s fine; as long as he doesn’t get noisy, I won’t do nothin’.”

He wasn’t used to making threats. Ordinarily, when he snatched things from tourists, he just yelled something random to confuse them, then grabbed whatever they had. He didn’t have much experience with negotiations.

It wasn’t clear what the boy thought of him, but he walked up to Bobby with no hesitation.

“E-easy, keep quiet…” Flustered, Bobby gave an upward thrust with the knife as a threat.

“…You’re the one…who needs to be quiet,” the boy muttered. He clenched his fists, crossed his forearms, passed them over the knife, then swept them downward.

“Huh?!”

Bobby’s knife hand was stopped by the other boy’s crossed wrists.

The blade swept through the space the boy had intentionally left open between his hands and torso, then stopped moving completely.

Then, in one fluid motion, the mysterious boy grabbed and pulled Bobby’s wrist toward himself, simultaneously circling around behind him and switching places with him.

“Wha—?”

If I fight him, he’ll break it.

Before his rational brain registered this, his opponent had disappeared behind him, pulling his own right hand with him—and the next thing he knew, his arm was twisted behind himself.

“…Ah! …Gah-ghk!”

It’s gonna hurt.

Bobby’s nerves made the decision for him and abruptly relaxed his hand, letting the knife drop.

Wordlessly, the boy caught the weapon by its hilt, folded it as though nothing had happened, and slipped it into his own pocket.

“Ah, aaah…”

When his arm was released, Bobby sat down hard, and something inside him audibly broke.

That’s it. We’re toast.

He still didn’t know whether his opponent was an enemy or an ally, but if he’d been alone, he definitely would have said the words out loud.

But right now, Carnea was there with him. Somehow, he had to come up with a way to get out of this.

And as Bobby racked his brains, Fate sneered at his efforts and sent him more trials.

“Hey, I bet it’s this storeroom.”

“Man, it’s big… They weren’t in the one over there, though, so… You circle around that way!”

From the depths of the storeroom, they heard voices that seemed to be hunting for them.

There were plenty of shelves and objects to obscure their view, but they were definitely coming closer.

“C-Carnea, you run for it, at least!” Bobby screamed at Carnea in a whisper.

“I—I can’t. If they catch you, they’ll kill you!” Carnea whisper-screamed right back at him. It was the unpleasant truth.

Eyes still cold, the boy with Bobby’s knife listened to their conversation and the voices from elsewhere in the storeroom.

Then, slowly, he took a step forward—

—grabbed Bobby’s and Carnea’s arms, and yanked them toward him.

“Were they there?”

“No, not over h… Huh? Hey! Hey, you! Kid!” Spotting a small figure up ahead in the storeroom, one of the Mask Makers yelled. “Turn around right… Wha…?”

Then, seeing the boy’s face in the dim light, the man made a noise that was almost a shriek.

“Ch-Charon! Holy shit, it’s Charon Walken!”

“Whaaat?! Are you kidding me?!”

As they recognized the world-famous young stuntman, the two pursuers forgot their job for a moment. Their voices were trembling.

“Whooooa, no way! I’m a huge fan! Seriously, it’s an honor to meet you.”

“……”

“Wow, you really do look like your photos!”

As the tension suddenly drained from the atmosphere around him—

“……”

Bobby trembled in a cold sweat, still as tense as ever.

He was standing right beside his pursuers, completely still…

And all he could do, there inside the Gear’s suit, was shiver with despair written across his face.

A moment ago, when Charon had grabbed Bobby’s and Carnea’s arms, he’d quickly lifted Carnea and popped her into the shark’s mouth as if she weighed nothing. Then he’d put Bobby into the Gear’s suit nearby.

The shark’s mouth was unexpectedly spacious inside (as a matter of fact, during filming, they’d shot a scene where the Gear was swallowed whole), and if Carnea was alone, there was more than enough room for her to hide.

Meanwhile, although he’d tried to get Bobby completely into the suit, they hadn’t had that kind of time. Only his top half had been transformed into a gear monster, while his lower half was still wearing jeans, and there he stood, a bizarre-looking hybrid.

The storeroom was gloomy, but if they looked at him closely, they were bound to notice. He was on edge, convinced that staying like this wasn’t safe, but—

“H-hey, I hate to say this, but we’ve gotta go.”

“Oh, yeah, you’re right. Hey, Charon. You didn’t see two kids come through here, did you?”

Charon nodded, then pointed to a different door from the one the men had come in by.

“Over there, huh?! Dammit, they just cut through?!”

“Thanks, guy. They lifted our wallets, see.”

With that, the pair began to make a rapid exit, but then—

—one of the men stopped in his tracks and turned back to them.

“Whoops. That was close. I must be a complete idiot.”

He knows! I’m dead!

At the sound of the man’s voice, Bobby’s heart froze over, but…

“I have a notebook and pen on me. Could I get your autograph?”

As he spoke, the man took out a notebook, and Bobby just barely managed not to fall to his knees.

“Hey, lucky! Dammit! Oh, then could you sign this for me?”

“Whoa. That’s not really, uh…”

“Aw, who cares! Yesssss! Now I’ll be able to brag about this later!”

After the men wrapped up their conversation and left the storeroom, Bobby exhaled heavily, then finally collapsed to his knees. “Th-th-thanks. You saved our butts.”

Charon cocked his head. “…Pickpocket?”

“No! Believe me, I didn’t do any of that today!”

“……” Charon just nodded. His silence was unsettling, but the boy had saved them, so Bobby thanked him honestly.

“Sorry about that… And after I pulled a knife on you and everything.”

Bobby sounded uneasy, but Charon shook his head.

“…I’ll go…look outside,” he said, then headed for the door the men had left through.

As he watched him go, Bobby began to take big, deep breaths inside the Gear’s mask. At the same time, he looked at the shark and saw a tiny sliver of Carnea’s face peeking out.

“D-did he save us?”

“Yeah… What do we do now, though?” he murmured, troubled. He was even starting to consider turning himself in to the crew.

But there was no guarantee that those men weren’t connected to the crew themselves. Plus, even in an ideal case where they believed the story about the machine in the ventilation shaft right away, the device might be gone by now.

“What should we do…?”

Picking up the lower half of the Gear’s costume, which he hadn’t been able to get into earlier, Bobby looked down, at a loss. For now, just in case the other guys came back before Charon did, he started to pull on the costume to complete his transformation, but—

—just before he finished changing, all the lights in the storeroom flashed on, the big cargo door opened, and a whole crowd of people surged in.

“Eeep…”

Caught in the middle of putting on the final part, the right boot, Bobby was briefly paralyzed but—

Spotting Bobby, the man at the center of the group raised his voice.

“Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarvelous!” he cried with gusto.

What the heck?!

Bobby’s nerves were screaming. Every time he thought it was over, it just got worse. His heart couldn’t take much more of this.

“You didn’t come back, so we came to get you! Just look at you! Already gearing up! You really are the Gear incarnate, the son of the cog! And yet, you won’t become a cog in the wheel of society. Who are you? That’s right; you’re Charon Walken, the one and only! This is great! Really perfect!”

Following the large black man, people who seemed to be movie staff flooded into the storeroom and began to move the shark robot with Carnea still inside it.

Aaaah!

He wanted to stop them, but if he said anything, he’d out himself for sure.

Blissfully unaware of his panic, the man who seemed to be in charge thumped the gear monster’s shoulder, his mood still sky-high.

“All right, let’s go! Claudia’s already warming up the audience for us, so just do your thing and you’ll be a sensation!” It was a little ridiculous to have the leading lady warm up a venue, but the director didn’t seem to care. He tugged at the Gear’s hand, which had Bobby’s hand inside it.

Unable to protest or deny anything, Bobby was simply swept up in the current and out of the storeroom.

He didn’t even have time to imagine what might be waiting out there…

Shopping mall, lowest floor The café in front of the fountain

Just a few yards away from the fountain, a mixed group of three was drinking coffee at a table on a café terrace inside the ship.

“There’s something weird about having an outdoor café this deep inside a ship.”

“Malls often have indoor café terraces, though.”

“Once this job is over, let’s go out to the prow and drink something harder.”

“If we did that, getting drunk would be the least of our problems. We might just fall into the ocean.”

As they chatted, Firo and the others had been discussing where they should search next for the Mask Makers and what to look for, but—

Suddenly, they realized their surroundings were getting noisy.

“What’s up?”

They turned toward the sound and heard a girl’s familiar, cheerful voice from the other side of the fountain.

“Hey, is that Claudia?”

“Come to think of it…I heard they were planning to hold a promotional event for the movie on the event stage by the fountain today.”

“Huh… She’s out this close to the audience? That sounds like her, all right.”

“She’s always enjoyed this sort of thing, even before she made her debut.”

“Yeah, those kids don’t even have an agent. They take all their movies offers directly.”

Angelo noticed Firo and Ennis smiling as they discussed the young star. Intrigued, he asked, “What, are you friends with Claudia Walken?”

“We know their family. Couldn’t get rid of ’em if we wanted to.”

“I see… I’m jealous. Of her movies, I like The Wild Dog in the Wind.”

He gave an unusually gentle smile—and then, without changing that expression, quickly ran his eyes around the area.

“Hey, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I just thought they might be here to watch the event.”

“I seriously doubt they’d show themselves in front of a crowd like this,” Firo said with a little smile, but Angelo was completely serious. Still, he didn’t seem to think it was too likely, either.

“It’s just that they sounded like movie buffs. If they really are taking this voyage to let the situation cool off, they may be relaxed enough to come watch this.”

“Gotcha.”

Satisfied by the explanation, Firo let his eyes wander around the mall. He didn’t have any details to help him identify the Mask Maker members, so for now, he was just looking for underworld types.

As someone who’d been an executive for seventy years, he could more or less tell by instinct whether the people around were on the level or not. Naturally, plenty of people could skillfully hide it, but from what he’d heard from Angelo, this group didn’t fall into that category.

I thought I was pretty good at hiding, too, but I guess not.

After Angelo had read him like a book the previous day, Firo was determined to prove himself again and ferret out these underworld businessmen.

For a little while, the three of them monitored the situation around the event.

Then an especially loud cheer went up, and from the corridor that connected the shopping mall with the shipboard storerooms, an enormous shark appeared.

“Whoa. They brought that shark robot inside?”

As the shark twisted and writhed like the real thing, a grotesque, gear-covered hero was standing next to it and waving both hands enthusiastically in response to the cheers.

“Hey, Charon’s really into this.”

“He seems a little more awkward than usual, doesn’t he?”

“Eh, he’s probably just nervous. I bet this is his first time at an event like this.”

Ennis had noticed that something was odd, but Firo just watched the gear monster with a warm smile.

“Reminds you that he’s human, too, y’know? It’s kind of a relief.”

Outside, at the top of the ship By the pool

At the outdoor pool, affluent men and women were lounging around in swimsuits.

In the twilight, as people enjoyed the luxury of swimming in fresh water amid an ocean of salt water, a girl in a striking yellow-and-black Gothic dress wove her way through the crowd.

“They’re not here, huh? They’re really not here.”

She’d clearly been looking in the wrong places. Even after searching for half a day, she still hadn’t found the stowaways, nor had she run into her fellow Mask Makers who were pursuing them.

According to their plan, the seajack should have been under way by now, but no one had contacted her, and the ship’s passengers seemed to be happily enjoying their voyage.

“Everything must be going well. Good, that’s good. I’m so happy for them.”

Illness had been wandering around out on deck, talking to herself, but then—

—glancing at the poolside clock, she remembered something.

“Oh, right! Claudia’s event is starting!”

Instantly, her thoughts switched over from stowaways to Claudia, and she quickly trotted away from the poolside with a strange little gait, not sparing a glance for anything else.

In front of the fountain, onstage

What do I do?

Shut inside the world’s tightest hiding place, Bobby waved his hands to move his prison around. He was bathed in cold sweat, and the unusually high humidity was wearing his spirit down even further.

In the end, the stowaway hadn’t been able to escape, and the staff had escorted him into the venue. Right beside him, the shark was waggling its fin and working its jaws. To the best of his knowledge, Carnea was still inside. He was worried she might get caught in its internal motor and injured, but at the moment, there was nothing he could do.

From inside the suit, he looked out at the surrounding crowd.

Hundreds of eyes were focused on them, not just from in front of the stage where they were standing but from every floor of the enormous shopping mall around the fountain.

Had he ever been the center of this much attention in his life? Certainly not before now and probably never again.

This was the biggest moment of his life, and he was living it as somebody else.

Still, right now, he had other, better things to worry about.

I-I’m so confused, but it looks like I don’t have to talk. His mind had gone blank, but he worked it as hard as he could as he groped for a way to get through this. Well, if I just wave a bit and nod…, he thought, looking around again, and then—

—he spotted several of the men who’d been chasing the two of them just moments ago in the audience, and his mind nearly went blank again.

Why are those thugs at an event like this?!

He very nearly yelped in protest, but there wasn’t a thing he could do about it.

He was terrified that the large director or the girl talking next to him would tell him, Okay, take off the mask now.

But time kept ticking by, and nothing happened. Bobby was beginning to wonder if he was going to be on display permanently.

Maybe this was actually a dream.

Maybe he was still in the lifeboat, asleep. Maybe the pressure from the gear suit was really Humpty or Tall leaning on him. He was very close to believing it, too, but then Carnea would have been a dream.

No, let Carnea stay. Let the rest of it be a dream, though.

Hey, it might a dream I’m having after Carnea crawled in with us—

The moment he started hoping for this, although even he knew it was a stretch, the girl onstage with him forcibly yanked him back to reality.

“So… You’re not Charon, are you?”

“ !”

They were posing for pictures, and the girl, who seemed to be about his age, had gone behind him and twined her arms around his neck. She’d set down her mic and rested her face right by his ear, so only Bobby could hear her quiet murmur.

“For goodness’ sake. It’s completely obvious to me. I get the feeling the director’s noticed it, too, but he’s keeping the cameras rolling in case it turns into something interesting.”

“…Uh…”

“I wonder what he’d do if you were an assassin here to kill me or a deranged fan… Still, I really doubt Charon would let assassins and fans steal his clothes, so I’m guessing there’s something else going on.” Giggling, the girl directed a fearless smile at this mysterious individual. “Fine. You’re in luck; I’ll keep quiet about it for now.”

“Huh…?”

Bobby almost turned to look at the girl in spite of himself, but she checked him in a whisper: “Don’t move.” Then the star on the stage gave an order to the boy in the suit.

She wore the confident, genuine smile of a girl who ruled the world itself.

“I only ask for one thing. As long as you’re wearing that suit—make sure you act like a real hero from start to finish, all right?”

“Ha-ha-ha! Charon’s pretty tense up there, isn’t he?”

The Gear really was acting a little awkward. Firo smiled, apparently amused.

Beside him, Angelo was wearing a similar expression, but he was still casing the area. “…Bingo,” he finally murmured, so low only Firo and Ennis could hear. “Found ’em.”

“Seriously?”

Keeping their expressions as natural as possible, Firo and Ennis quietly switched mental gears.

Angelo nodded softly. “Stay calm and listen.”

Quietly darting his eyes toward the targets, he told them:

“…They’re the group who just sat down next to us.”

“Ahh, dammit. We can only see their backs from here.”

“Kevin and Baum sure are lucky bastards. They waltzed in and got Charon Walken’s autograph.”

“Still, it doesn’t look like we’ll be able to get around the front of the stage at this point. Want to go to a higher floor?”

“That’s an idea. Argh… Damn those stowaway brats.”

Two of the Mask Makers who’d attacked the restaurant the other day were muttering to each other, their eyes fixed on the stage.

Angelo and company watched them from behind. It sounded as though the two might head upstairs, and after a whispered conference, they decided to follow them if that happened.

(“And I’ll take over from here. I don’t mind if you want to bow out now.”)

(“Well, let us see it through, at least.”)

As they talked, Firo was feeling relieved. This was looking a lot less complicated than he’d anticipated. He leaned back in his chair, ready to see what Angelo could do, when—

—a shriek echoed across the café terrace, breaking through all the excitement.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

It sounded like it belonged to a young girl, and it had come from right beside Firo.

“You! You’re that really cool gunman from earlier! It is you, right? C’mon, tell me! I’m right, aren’t I?!”

Firo and the others hastily turned and saw the girl in the yellow-and-black Gothic dress from yesterday, eyes round, pointing at Angelo.

“Wow, what an incredible coincidence! …Oh!” she shouted again, apparently startled. “Hey, wait, are you here to kill everybody?”

She was holding a cup of cocoa, probably purchased at the café. After all, this café was the quickest place to get something to eat or drink during the event.

There were several other shops, but the girl had gotten here so late that this café on the wrong side of the stage had been her only viable option.

Firo and the others had no way of knowing this, however; they were just bewildered by the abrupt intruder. And then, coming to themselves with a jolt, they whipped around to look the other way.

The Mask Makers were already drawing their guns.

Angelo was reaching into his jacket, too. With his quick draw, he could probably nail the two of them, but not before they got off shots of their own. By the time Firo had consciously realized this, he had already knocked over his chair and lunged forward.

Shots rang out.

Even as Firo passed in front of him, Angelo accurately plugged both of his enemies in their shoulders.

The bullets tore through their flesh and right out the other side, embedding themselves in the wall of the ship.

Meanwhile, the small-caliber bullets from the Mask Makers had been headed for Angelo’s skull, but at the last second, Firo had put himself between them, and the shots pierced his shoulder without punching all the way through.

“Firo!”

Ennis was the first to respond. She leaped to her feet, kicking up the table they’d been sitting at; then without lowering her leg again, she slammed the airborne piece of furniture at the two enemies.

The table mowed the pair down.

That was when the passengers finally realized the sounds had been gunshots and started screaming.

Instantly, everyone around the fountain descended into panic, and the bodyguards on the movie staff evacuated Claudia, the director, and the Gear into a maintenance corridor.

As he watched Claudia make her escape unharmed, Firo breathed a sigh of relief, then began thinking about what to do.

I could tell the security guards that those two suddenly fired at me…then pretend I don’t know Angelo, I guess? Is that the only alternative? He looked around to see whether there were any crew members or security personnel nearby—and instead, he spotted a passenger who was glaring at them, traveling against the flow of the fleeing crowd.

He was obviously a criminal type, and his hand was already reaching into his suit jacket.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me.” As the regeneration gradually dulled the fierce pain radiating from his shoulder into the rest of his body, Firo grabbed Ennis and dived into the café.

Angelo tumbled in right on their heels.

A moment later, gunshots rang out, and the café’s windows shattered with a loud crash.

“Dammit! Aaaaaaaaah! He shot me! Dammit to hell!”

Meanwhile, the men who’d been hit by the table were clutching their wounded shoulders and rolling around on the floor.

“Are you okay?” Illness didn’t sound particularly concerned.

The sight of her seemed to infuriate the men, and their pain turned into anger that they vented on her.

“Shaddup! Just get outta here!”

“Shoulda called you Plague, since that’s what you are!”

Even though they were in the middle of a firefight, Illness puffed out her cheeks and pouted at this injustice. “I am not! If I hadn’t screamed, that gunslinger would have turned you into Swiss cheese for sure! Besides, I can help in a gunfight!” She didn’t seem to be taking this as seriously as she should, and the increasingly annoyed men yelled at her.

“Shove it! What can you do? You’re unarmed!”

“You’re useless without a weapon, so go get your equipment, then get your ass over here and back us up!”

As they shouted at her, an odd expression rose to Illness’s face. It was hard to tell whether she was about to fly into a rage or burst into tears.

“Who cares about you?!” she screamed, then ran off like a little child.

She melted into the crowd stampeding away from the gunshots and immediately vanished.

Then, as if to replace her, several Mask Makers filtered out of the flood of passengers and into the mall, and suddenly the fight was on.

The bridge

“Hey, what’s going on?” asked the masked man gravely. He could tell the call from his comrade was urgent.

As he listened to the report, his face grew paler and paler beneath his mask.

“…You’re telling me that gunslinger is on this ship?”

Even worse, the gunfight was already in progress. Clicking his tongue in irritation, he issued matter-of-fact instructions to his subordinate.

“Keep him pinned down for a while. I’ll contact the communications room and have them intercept any SOSs from the passengers. In the meantime—”

“—I’m sending Life over to you right now.”

“Sorry. Guess I dragged you into a gunfight after all.”

“Don’t worry about it. It’s not your fault.”

In the midst of the gunshots and screams, Firo and the others hid in the café, monitoring the situation in the mall. The customers and café staff had already escaped out the back door, so Firo, Angelo, and Ennis were the only people inside. Angelo was the only one with a gun; Firo and Ennis were completely unarmed.

“Is your shoulder all right?”

“Like hell it is. How many suits am I going to have to wreck on this trip?” Firo grinned wryly, and Angelo returned the smile with some relief.

“Sorry about that,” he said, then stuck his arm and face out from the cover of the wall and fired off several shots.

From out in the mall, they heard a groan. One down, it sounded like.

“Did you kill him?”

“No. I shot his arm. If he doesn’t stop the bleeding soon, though, he might die.”

“You got his arm? You say that like it’s nothing.”

Under the circumstances, aiming at an opponent’s arm with a handgun was insane, and being able to actually hit it required extraordinary abilities.

“I can’t have them dying too easily,” Angelo replied matter-of-factly.

Firo shook his head wearily. “I’d love to hire you as our bodyguard,” he muttered, and he meant every word.

“Sorry. As I said yesterday, I’ve pledged loyalty to my current boss.”

“Yeah, I know. I just meant— Well, frankly, I’m jealous of your boss.”

A few minutes later—

“Dammit, how many of them are there?”

—bullets flew toward them from every corner of the mall, and Firo gulped quietly.

Angelo’s bullets had already incapacitated several enemies or even killed them, but they were still popping up one after another.

Even so, Angelo was coolly whittling down their numbers.

It seemed as if it was going to be a simple matter of which was greater, the number of enemies or Angelo’s stock of bullets, but then—

—a roar thundered through the mall, shattering the moment of calm.

Angelo stuck his head out to see what was up, and the next instant, whatever he’d seen sent him diving back behind the counter.

A moment later, a violent budda, budda, budda echoed around them—

And the flooring near the café’s entrance started sending chips flying in every direction.

Firo peered cautiously out the window. “…Whoa, c’mon. Handguns are one thing, but how’d they get one of those on board?”

Four levels up from the ground floor where they were, someone was standing in front of a high-class boutique with an assault rifle. Whoever it was had attacked them, so it was safe to assume this was one of the Mask Makers, but this one looked nothing like the rest of them. They were dressed in a full-body black combat suit and a full-face silicone mask, with mechanical goggles on top of that.

It was a man, but he was covered so completely, it would have been easy to believe he was a cyborg.

“You should get farther back, Ennis,” Firo said to his wife next to him, sounding exhausted. “We’ve got a new nutjob out there.” Then he turned to his other side and directed a question at Angelo. “So. Who’s the jerk who just walked out of a video game?”

“…There were two of them at the restaurant they attacked earlier. I got rid of one, but…this guy looks new.”

“Meaning there’s at least one more?”

“Yeah, a little girl who looks like she should go back to her stuffed animals. You met her just a minute ago.”

What? “A minute ago”… Does he mean the girl in the Gothic Lolita dress?

Firo wanted to ask for more details, but now wasn’t the time. If they left the café, they’d get picked off, but they couldn’t stay holed up in there, either.

When he took another look out the window, the man with the night vision goggles was pacing back and forth along the railing in front of the boutique, monitoring them, and ducking out of sight from time to time.

Should they beat a temporary retreat out the back door or take the man out here? Firo decided to let Angelo make that call.

Either way, he was planning to send Ennis out the back door to safety.

Just then, as the pressure to make a rapid decision mounted—Angelo’s cell phone suddenly vibrated.

He took the phone out of his jacket, saw that it was the demolition guy, and answered immediately.

“Heya, Mr. Angelo. How’s it going?”

“You’re already watching this from somewhere anyway, aren’t you? You think we’re going to be all right?”

“Nah, it looks like you’re in deep shit. And why’s the casino guy from yesterday with you?”

“Tell you later. If you can’t back me up, you’re wasting my time. I’m hanging up.” As Angelo talked, he took cover behind the wall.

The demolition guy gave a coarse laugh, then offered a solution. “Backup, huh? Basically, you need somebody to shut down ole Goggles on the fourth floor, right?”

“Can you?”

“Yeah, there’s no civilians around, so if I go right now, I can do it.”

“…What?”

As Angelo listened to his buddy cackling away, a terrible premonition ran through him. “Hey, wait, don’t tell me you’re going to—”

“I set these puppies up all over the boat. Have fun watching ’em run around in a panic, boss!”

Immediately afterward, the call ended—

And a powerful explosion roared through the shipboard atrium.

Although nothing seemed to be on fire, the blast wind swept past Firo’s group as well.

The open center of the mall served as an echo chamber for the roar. A few passengers had been frozen nearby, paralyzed by the sound of the gunshots, and now they were falling over each other in their haste to get back to their cabins or out on deck. They just wanted to get as far away from the mall as they could.

When Firo cautiously peeked out through the thick smoke, he saw that the area around the fourth-floor boutique had collapsed, cutting off access to the corridor at the rear. The man in the night vision goggles was gone.

Either he was under the rubble, or he’d retreated into the corridor and couldn’t get back out.

For a short while after the explosion, the guns in the shopping mall fell silent. Maybe the other Mask Makers had temporarily retreated, too. Even when Firo stuck his head out, nobody shot at him.

Just in case, he retreated into the café, then turned to Angelo. “Hey… Was that your pal who called just now? What the hell did he do?”

Angelo was gripping the phone so hard he seemed likely to shatter it, and his voice was furious. “He says don’t worry; he’s planted bombs like that all over the ship.”

“…Mind if I deck your friend later?”

“Maybe after I’ve shot him first.”

As the gunman answered, his face was expressionless. Firo had nothing to say to that, and he turned back to the mall again.

And then—

“What the… Charon?!”

—on the lowest floor of the mall, where the gunshots had fallen silent, the gear monster was running toward the shark robot, which had been abandoned in front of the fountain.

“That idiot! He’s gonna get himself killed!”

Without thinking, Firo dashed outside. Angelo and Ennis called after him.

“Hey!”

“Firo!”

But Firo didn’t stop running. He circled around the fountain and grabbed the shoulder of the Gear, who was reaching into the shark’s mouth.

“Charon, what are you doing?! It’s not safe out here; hurry up and—”

At that, the Gear costume flinched and gave a small shriek. “F-Firo!”

Huh? That’s…not Charon’s voice…

And then Firo saw it.

Beyond the Gear’s outstretched hands, deep inside the shark robot’s big mouth, he could make out the slight figure of a girl.

“Wha…? What’s going on? Hey, are you okay?!”

What’s a girl doing in here?!

Hastily, Firo reached in and pulled the girl out of the shark’s jaws.

Carefully picking her up so that she wouldn’t hurt herself on the shark’s teeth, he gently set her down below the robot.

“Are you okay?”

“H-hey, you okay?!”

Firo and the Gear yelled at the exact same time, and at that point, Firo was positive that whoever was beside him, it wasn’t Charon.

The girl must’ve been stunned by the noise of the explosion; she was staring vacantly at Firo and the Gear.

“The shooting could start back up any second now. C’mon, we’re taking her over there.”

Scooping the girl up in his arms, Firo sprinted back toward the café.

Whoever was in the Gear costume followed him and slid into the building.

Firo laid the girl down in the back of the café, and Angelo and Ennis came over.

For some reason, Angelo’s eyes were wide with shock. Firo hadn’t thought he was even capable of such an expression; he wondered what was up, but—

“Ngh, nnngh…”

The shaken girl’s mind was clearing up, so for now, he made her his top priority.

“Hey, pull yourself together,” he said.

However, the girl looked past Firo. Her eyes widened, and then—

“Angelo! Oh, oh, Angelo! It really is you!”

—she bolted to her feet and clung to the man.

As he watched the scene play out, the boy inside the Gear thought:

Huh? Wh-what? What’s going on? Who’s the big guy…? Um…

Then he remembered why the girl had been on the ship in the first place.

That’s right; she said she was looking for her father figure or something…

S-so that’s him? That wild-looking dude?

He couldn’t process this situation. His eyes were swimming with confusion, but when he heard what Angelo said next, he was more confused than he’d ever been in his life.

“No… Why…?”

“I’m so glad… I’m so glad you’re okay, Angelo!”

Eyes still wide, Angelo hugged the trembling girl’s shoulders tightly—

And his voice was still full of disbelief as he revealed a certain fact.

A fact that shocked Firo and Ennis as well.

“Why…?”

“Why are you here, boss?!”

The bridge

“Captain! Why aren’t you responding to— What the…? Ah…”

The masked men pointed their guns at the crew member who’d just entered the room.

“Look, this isn’t a roach motel. If you people don’t knock it off, we’re gonna run out of room to put your tied-up carcasses. Got it?”

It had been just a bit over five minutes since the report that a gunfight had broken out.

Crew members who didn’t know about the situation on the bridge had been coming to the captain’s room, one after another, only to become new hostages.

The ship’s channels of communication were in chaos, and the fact that they couldn’t send messages to the outside world had spurred on their panic.

“I tell ya, we had the communications room shut off satellite transmissions, which is great, but… It’s not gonna be too much longer before we can’t keep this situation under wraps.”

The masked man heaved an exhausted sigh.

Beside him, the bound captain growled angrily, “You frauds. You said you wouldn’t lay a finger on the passengers.”

“We haven’t shot any passengers dead yet, and we’re not planning to. We were just trying to get rid of a dangerous individual who brought a gun on board. We’re helping you here.”

The man scoffed, and the captain went on cursing him internally.

Averting their eyes from their enraged hostage, the masked men lazily conversed among themselves.

“Still. This coulda gone better.”

“Who’d have thought that gunslinger bastard would chase us all the way here?”

“Yeah… I wasn’t there; is this the guy who killed Death?”

“How’d he know we’d be on this ship? He brought his gun on with him and everything.”

“Dammit, I knew it. We lost because we didn’t have Hannibal Lecter. Or Anthony Hopkins. That’s definitely it.”

“If Dr. Lecter was here, though, he’d eat us up.”

“First, he’d take our spotlight, and then he’d take our lives.”

They didn’t seem as worried as they should be, and the conversation seemed about to continue in this vein for a while yet, but—

“…Is it true that Illness was over there, too?”

“Yeah, although I hear she ran off.”

“I see. Well, she’s unarmed right now anyway.”

Voice turning serious, the man who’d first gotten the weapons from Life issued orders to his surrounding companions.

“Go call Illness. Tell her to suit up… No, she can stay in her street clothes; just give her a weapon. Have her go pin down that gunman.”

“Even when Life’s having trouble with him?” asked one of the hijackers uneasily. He hadn’t been involved in the restaurant assault the other day.

The first man had been on the scene when Death and several of his other companions were killed, and he smirked unpleasantly behind his mask.

“Our badass gunslinger’s a bit old-fashioned, see. Apparently, he doesn’t kill women or children.”

A few minutes later Illness’s cabin

“Hey, Illness! Are you asleep, you idiot?!”

After failing to reach Illness on her radio, one of the Mask Makers finally opened the door with a master key he’d brought from the bridge.

“Yo, Illness! It’s your…turn…?”

Inside, he saw a boy sitting in a chair, with three other boys tied up in front of him.

The sight was actually rather unsettling, and the man flinched. “Wh-who the hell are you?! How’d you get in here?” he shouted at the children. “You’d better not be friends of those stowaways!”

At the word stowaways, the boys looked at one another, wondering what was up, but—

“Who’re you, mister? So, um, I was at the pool? And this lady said I should come play with her!” The boy who seemed to be the youngest of the group explained with an innocent smile. “And then, um, Miss Ill said she was gonna play with these kids later, so I have to watch them.”

“She what…?”

“And if I do, she says she’s gonna give me a reeeally neat reward afterward! Just for me!”

It wasn’t clear what exactly the man was imagining, but he ground his teeth.

“Th-that little brat. I knew she was sick, but this is just fucked-up!” he growled. “Too bad, kids! Playtime’s over, so run on back to your mommies!”

The man untied the boys, one after another, then shooed them out of the room.

“That bitch left her radio in here…! Not only that, but the damn thing’s turned off!”

Glancing at the howling man out of the corner of his eye, Czes followed the other boys out of the room.

The stowaways were running wordlessly down the hall, but Czes caught up to them and told them gravely, “I don’t know what’s going on, but it’s bad. For now, we need to run for it.”

“Huh…?”

“If you don’t want to die, you should probably choose your next steps carefully. If my room will do, you’re free to borrow it.”

Czes didn’t sound like a child at all anymore, and Tall yelled at him, bewildered.

“Y-you aren’t just acting like a grown-up, you’re kinda acting like an actual grown-up!”

“That wasn’t even a real sentence, Tall.”

“Shut up, Troy! You’re Fake Mature Guy the First!”

“Aww, don’t fight, you guys.”

Still yelling whatever they wanted to, the boys chose to run away for the moment, following Czes.

As Czes hurried ahead at the head of the group of boys, he heaved a deep internal sigh.

I knew it. I had a bad feeling about all this. There was that damned village last year, too. Nothing good has happened since we hit the twenty-first century!

He’d felt something was very wrong ever since he boarded the ship. It was probably entirely linked to the present situation, he thought—

—and a chill ran down his spine again.

…?

What is it?

There’s still something…creepy. I can’t shake it. Something’s off…

No, forget it.

Shaking his head and telling himself it was all in his head, he just ran for now. He would do what he could. He’d hide the boys in his cabin, then meet up with Firo and Ennis.

With no time to even think about what he stood to gain or lose—

Czes just followed his instincts and took a step into the bullet-ridden fray.

He had no way of knowing what lay in store for him.

A few minutes later

As the people on the ship felt uneasy about the gunshots that were echoing from somewhere on board—

—suddenly, out of nowhere, a man’s coarse voice sounded from every speaker on the vessel.

“Okay, okay, okay, attention, all passengers, this is an impromptu shipboard announcement. English only. There will be no foreign language dubbing or subtitles, so those of you who don’t speak English, just watch the visuals and enjoy. So, yeah, we’re a mysterious group of seajackers; it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance. We’ve got everything from brassieres to missiles—no airplanes, alas, but I hope you can forgive us for that. As far as you passengers are concerned, our objectives and true identities are a total mystery! How’s that? You havin’ fun yet?”

The man sounded strangely worked up about all this, and most people still suspected this was part of director John Drox’s event.

However, deep down, due to the gunshots and other noise that had been going on for the past few minutes, everyone knew.

This wasn’t an event or a joke.

Even so, they wanted to believe.

They wanted to think that their voyage was safe, if nothing else.

But after the little demonstration that came next, that illusion was easily shattered far too easily.

“Okay, okay, okay. If I laid out all the details, like the bombs all over the ship or the poison gas we could launch at any time, I don’t think it would feel all that real to you, the passengers. So if I may, allow me to show you some quick proof that we have indeed hijacked your ship. Right, this is where you applaud! …Now then, members of the audience! Take a look out your windows! Those on the port side, look to your left; those on the starboard side, look right! I’m telling you, ladies and gentlemen, to look at the sides of the damn boat, so get the lead out and look, maggots, if you’d be so kind!”

Swinging wildly between courtesy and rudeness, the voice giving the broadcast issued directions to the audience with increasing enthusiasm.

Then, when the people looked out the windows as they’d been instructed—

“H-hey! Over there.”

“That’s… Aren’t those the lifeboats?!”

The boats hung from the sides of the ship, suspended by dedicated cranes, and every one of them was being lowered, empty, into the ocean.

That sight was enough to trigger a panic all by itself, but the showman on the PA had even more stunts in store for them.

“Okay, okay, and now it’s time for some fireworks! It’s not quite dark out, but your wild applause is appreciated all the same!”

And then—

—as the boats drifted back along the starboard and port sides, lights wreathed in smoke arced out toward them from somewhere on the ship—

Flash

Boom

Light

Fire

—And flames.

Two lifeboats, one each on the right and left, were shot and exploded into blazing infernos.

The remaining boats were also drifting away on the waves, never to return.

This was all the information the passengers—the audience—had been given.

What sort of weapon was that? How many people were involved? What was the culprits’ objective? They couldn’t even begin to answer such questions.

But what they’d just seen was far more than enough to let them understand their situation.

“And so, passengers and members of the crew, we ask that you refrain from wandering around without permission. Please stay in your cabins or workstations and behave. Oh, and before I forget—several of us are in among you, blending with the audience, so let the paranoia fest begin.”

Then, a few seconds after everyone had managed to process the situation completely—

—screams echoed through the city on the ocean.

The bridge

After the detailed PA announcement, they wrapped up their rather grudging notice of their takeover. It wasn’t very good, as far as announcements went, but as far as they were concerned, this seajack had always been nothing more than a bargaining chip for their real targets on the Exit. As long as they had an escape route, they didn’t feel they needed to handle this all that carefully.

Although their actions were hardly professional, the masked men didn’t seem worried. Maybe this was more their style anyway.

“See, the truth is, we didn’t actually want to pull something like this. Hey, don’t worry; we’re not out to massacre the passengers. Worst case, the company that operates the ship might go a little bankrupt trying to compensate for damages. Ha-ha-ha,” one of the Mask Makers muttered with a smirk behind his mask, switching off the shipboard PA.

The bound captain ground his teeth wordlessly.

The masked man saw him, spread his arms contentedly, and shook his head.

“If you’re going to hold a grudge, hold it against the badass gunman and his friends who happened to be on this boat. I know we don’t have room to talk, but I do wonder how he got those weapons on board. I mean, there’s no way the security around here could be that bad, huh?”

“Silence! You monsters… You’re not planning to massacre everyone? How can you say that with a straight face?! You just set the lifeboats adrift?!”

“Nah, we’re not planning to sink the ship or anything. We’ve got a way off the ship for later, too. If anybody starts a rebellion, though— The people in that area might find some very mysterious smoke coming through their vents.”

“You goddamned…!”

But the captain’s curses went in one ear and out the other. The man just switched on his two-way radio, humming as he did so.

“Heeey, communications room. It’s about time to contact the Exit. Can you open the satellite comm link again but only to that ship?”

“Oh yeah, like it’s that easy… But not impossible, and if everything’s going according to plan over there, they should be doing the same thing.”

“Good to know we can count on our staff.”

Then, after a short wait, the man got a call on his radio: “Patching you through now.” He stopped humming and picked up his cell phone.

“All right. Let’s find out how Aging’s doing.”

Cheerfully hitting the speed-dial button on his phone, he waited for the call to go through the satellite link, and then—

“Yeah. Speaking.”

“Hey! Aging! How’re things on the Exit? We had a bit of trouble on this end, but the ship’s safely under our control now.”

Brazenly leaving out the business with Angelo, the masked man made his report.

On the other end of the call, Aging guffawed. “Oh yeah? That’s great! I tell ya, you folks wouldn’t believe the party we’re having over here!”

“Good for you. How’s everybody doing?” the man asked, envious of his comrades. Aw, man. Did it all go like clockwork on their end, and they’re taking turns going to the casino or something?

Apparently having a grand old time, the voice on the other end of the line replied, “Yep, the president’s hanging in there, just barely! Everybody else is dead!”

“I see, I see, come to think of it, the president was over there, t—” The beginnings of a smile froze on his face. “What?”

“The only ones still alive are me and the president! How’s that for a situation? What a blast, huh?”

“Hey, whoa, hold on a minute.”

Breaking out in a cold sweat, the man calmly tried to parse the information he’d been given.

Due to the fact that the president would also be on the Exit, the sister ship, they’d assigned a larger group to it.

And that group was all dead? What kind of joke was this?

“Hang on… Don’t tell me you sold us out, took the president hostage, and killed them all yourself.”

“That wouldn’t have been nearly as much fun. Maybe it’s ’cause Death bought the farm a little while back, and he’s pulling the rest of us into the grave after him! Gwah-ha-ha-ha!”

“Hold it! What is it?! What happened?! Did you have Steven Seagal or Jet Li or somebody on board over there?! Or did those guys catch on before you started the operation?!”

“Nah, I imagine the ones we’re after still haven’t tumbled to the fact that we’re here. Besides, even if they did, massacring everybody in a preemptive strike isn’t their style.”

He was missing something; none of his guesses were right. As his anxiety mounted, the masked man peppered the other party with more questions.

“Then what?! Did you get attacked by a tentacle monster like in Deep Rising?!”

“No, no, it’s— Well, let’s see… In terms of those movies you folks love so much…”

Aging was apparently thoroughly enjoying the situation—

—but the rest of that sentence shocked the team on the Entrance and plunged them into terror.

“Maybe two hundred zombies, couple Jasons, couple Freddys. That’s about the size of it! Gah-ha-ha!”

A shipboard corridor

Illness was running.

She didn’t know where to. She just ran and ran.

“Hmph! I’m ‘useless,’ am I?! If we’re not up against the police, then it’s not my job! I won’t help them no matter what! They can just go let the gunman shoot them!” She understood most of what was happening on the ship. She’d seen the exploding lifeboats, too, from an exterior corridor. “Honestly! I can’t believe them! Don’t give me that crap about how seajacks should be cool! This is awful! If they ruin all the lifeboats, how is Claudia’s group supposed to get away?!”

She was running as her emotions dictated, not bothering to hide her anger at her companions, but she didn’t have any particular destination in mind. For now, she’d just run around until she bumped into someone she knew, and then she’d decide what to do based on who it was.

Oh, I wonder if Claudia’s okay.

I’ve got to do something about Mr. Gunman.

Is Czes safe?

Are those stowaway kids still on the run?

Argh, what am I supposed to do?! What do I do?!

It’s all their fault! All of it!

Illness decided that if she ran into a Mask Maker, the first thing she’d do would be to land a dropkick on their face.

The cell phone she wore at her waist vibrated, and she slowed to a halt for a moment.

Come to think of it, I guess I left my radio in my room, she remembered. She hid around a corner of the corridor and pressed the TALK button.

The fact that the number was withheld concerned her a bit, but any calls to this phone had to be from a Mask Maker.

Illness sucked in a deep breath, then put the phone to her ear, intending to really let them have it.

However—

—as it turned out, it was a while before she let that breath out.

“…Death is a neighbor to be feared.”

“ ”

Her breathing stopped.

“…Life is kin to be dreaded.”

“ ”

Time stopped.

“…Agony abides with light…fury and shame dwell in shadow…in their illustrious presence, I simply…consume a single leaf from the garden…”

“ !”

The girl was hyperventilating now, and before she managed to get her breathing under control, she dashed the cell phone against the wall.

“No…”

Before her breathing returned to normal, all she could manage were screams.

“No, no, no, no, no, oh, oh, oooooh…! …oh……Nooooonono! No! NooooOOooooOooo, wh—…? Why…? Wha…? Why…?”

Those were the only words she could form.

As she began breathing again, acid welled up heavy and thick from the depths of her throat, and she spat it out.

She hadn’t eaten anything for a while, but the pure bile forced its way up and out of her mouth.

The string of words she’d heard over the phone had been like a prose poem.

What did it mean to her?

Illness staggered a few steps, then crumpled to the floor and burst into terrified tears.

She sounded like a child, younger than ten, who’d lost her parents and started wailing with panic.

But those cries only blended into the rest of the commotion on the ship. They reverberated off the walls, over and over, then vanished.

There in that lonely hallway, her despair echoed around her with no one to hear.

Gunslinger Demolition guy And their boss

The young stowaways

The Mask Makers Illness Life

Movie star Stuntman Director and staff

And a family of immortals who’d only wanted to enjoy their voyage.

With all these people aboard, the ship pressed forward.

It was an enormous, wide-open prison cut off from the world…

…and with everyone’s thoughts and emotions trapped inside, it simply sped over the ocean, sending screams echoing across the water, far and wide.

And as for where the ship would lead them…