Bungo Stray Dogs - Volume 8 - Chapter 1.1

  Nothing more than 2,383 lines of code some researchers wrote off the top of their heads

Chuuya Nakahara didn’t dream. For him, waking up was like a bubble emerging from within mud.

Chuuya awoke in his bedroom. It was a dreary room: just four walls, a floor, and ceiling all drenched in bluish darkness. The furnishings were extremely sparse: a bed with some sheets, a small bookshelf, a tiny safe built into the wall, a desk at the center, and a book about precious stones tossed atop it opened to a random page. That was everything.

The morning sun peeked in through a slit in the curtains like a membrane splitting the dreary room in half. Chuuya sat up, his chest coated in a faint sheen of sweat. Swirling within his chest were the remnants of some intense emotion, although he couldn’t remember what emotion, exactly. He’d been like this every day as of late.

Chuuya gave up trying to remember and left his bedroom to take a shower. He thought about who he was while the hot water poured down his body.

Chuuya Nakahara. Sixteen years old.

After joining the Port Mafia a year ago, he made a name for himself with unprecedented speed. The organization recognized this young man’s talents and thereby granted him this apartment. And yet Chuuya had no interest in money or power. They brought him no happiness because he was missing something far more important: a past.

He didn’t know who he was.

Chuuya’s earliest memories were of when he was abducted from the military research facility nine years ago. His life before that was just a curtain of darkness—pitch-black emptiness darker than the darkest night.

After drying off, Chuuya went to change. He placed a hand on the wall, and it opened without making a sound, revealing a clothing rack. Every article of clothing was high-end without a wrinkle in sight. He picked a shirt at random, slipped his arms through the sleeves, then fastened them with emerald cuff links. Once dressed, Chuuya looked at himself in the mirror and lightly clicked his tongue before leaving the room.

When he left the building, a car instantly pulled up as if it knew he was coming. A man from the Port Mafia dressed in a black suit and sunglasses was driving the black luxury car. He stopped by Chuuya’s side and opened the rear door for him without saying a word.

“The usual place.”

That was all Chuuya said to the driver before getting in the car, sitting down, and closing his eyes.

The black luxury vehicle drove smoothly through the heart of the city using the main thoroughfare. Every street and intersection was packed with commuters driving to work, but the Port Mafia car slipped past the traffic via side roads. It was as if they’d cast a spell that kept the other cars out of their way.

“Where are yesterday’s transaction records?”

“Right here.”

Chuuya skimmed the documents the driver handed him. They were printed using a special ink that made them impossible to copy or reproduce, plus they were written in code to prevent the police from using them as evidence if they ever got their hands on them.

“Looks like we’re having another good week,” Chuuya said apathetically. “What a drag.”

His job in the Port Mafia was to monitor the circulation of smuggled jewels. Per unit weight, jewels were some of the most valuable goods in the world. Amethysts, rubies, jade, diamonds: Expose a few elements to heat and pressure, and the resulting stones possess an incredible kind of magic the moment they begin changing hands. Smuggled jewels simply possessed a condensed version of said magic. They were like the shadows created by the brilliant glitter of gemstones. As long as there were jewels to be sold, stolen ones would follow. And there were countless shadowy places where contraband gemstones sprang to life.

A poverty-stricken miner in a gem-mining district would steal precious stones for a little extra cash. A burglar would break a jewelry store display with his gunstock before leaving with the goods. Then there were pirates who’d sink merchant boats carrying precious stones and loot them. Sometimes criminals would even mug celebrities and rip the necklaces right off their necks. In gem-mining districts run by anti-government forces, precious stones could even be used to purchase weapons or drugs.

Precious stones born from such darkness could not live in the world of light. That was where the Port Mafia came in and bent a few rules. First, they would shed light on all the shadowy stones that arrived at port in Yokohama; a smuggler would then bring the gems into Yokohama proper where a pawnshop would buy them before passing them over to a professional who cut them so nobody could verify where they came from. Necklaces became bracelets, bracelets became earrings, and earrings became rings, giving the gemstones a second life. The new stones were then appraised by a Mafia-backed appraiser who would make an official certificate of authenticity for each one before they were circulated to the wholesalers and sold at high-end jewelry shops.

The smuggling of precious stones was an extremely lucrative business and important source of income for the Mafia. Bypassing customs and intermediaries within mainstream distribution channels resulted in massive profits. Nevertheless, these magical stones always led to violence and bloodshed, and the only thing that could stop this violence and maintain a stable system was even more violence.

Chuuya had been filling this role perfectly as of late—almost too perfectly. Even many old-timers in the Mafia were impressed, since there wasn’t a single soul who thought a sixteen-year-old kid could manage a black market for gemstones with such ease. Yet others—although few in number—weren’t surprised in the least: those who had fought the Sheep when Chuuya was their leader. Chuuya, the Sheep King, had crushed any Mafia member who’d gotten in his way; there was nothing strange about him mastering a couple of jewelry markets. But he didn’t care about anyone’s surprise, or praise, or even envy. The one thing he wanted was something they could never give him.

Chuuya half-heartedly tossed the documents onto the seat next to him as if he were throwing a pebble.

“Who knows how many more years it’s gonna take at this rate,” he griped somewhat bitterly.

The driver pretended not to hear.

The luxury car arrived at the tranquil residential area right on time. Other than the cawing greenfinch flying low, the area was utterly silent—no trains or cars within earshot. The Mafia car quietly drove down the street until it stopped in front of one particular establishment. This brick building housed an old pool hall, and the sign outside read OLD WORLD in faded letters. The neon lights weren’t turned on, since the place wasn’t open yet.

Chuuya got out of the car, and the car left just as quietly so as not to disturb the peaceful location. He opened the door to the pool hall…

…and was met with five guns.

“We ain’t open yet,” a man growled as he pressed a handgun to Chuuya’s head.

“We’ll let corpses inside, though,” said another man. He had a sawed-off shotgun at Chuuya’s chest.

“Pretty careless to come alone, Jewel King. Wouldn’t you say?” sneered yet another man, his gun aimed at Chuuya’s side.

“Not even you would be able to block every single one of our attacks in this position,” commented another man with his pocket pistol pressed up against the back of Chuuya’s neck.

“So what’s it gonna be, Gravity Boy? I promise I’ll make it quick and painless if you start crying and apologize now,” taunted the last of the five men. This one was standing right in front of Chuuya with a long-barreled gun pointed right between his eyes.

Chuuya was deadlocked. If he attacked any one of them, the others would immediately open fire. If he tried to retreat back out the door, he would be shot from the front. If he took a step forward, he would be shot from behind.

Chuuya didn’t react. His expression didn’t even change. The tension was thick enough to cut with a knife as five index fingers tightened around their triggers.

Bang!

A hollow blast echoed through the street.

Chuuya stood stock-still as numerous bloodlike streams slid down his head—from multicolored party streamers.

“Happy one-year Port Mafia anniversary, Chuuya!”

The pool hall rang with the five men’s cheerful shouts. Chuuya looked around the room with an annoyed glare.

“…What is wrong with you people?”

White smoke was still coming out of their guns. Chuuya’s head was covered in colorful streamers, and confetti was still raining from above. The men grinned at the sight of Chuuya decked out in party goods.

The five of them were members of a peer support group within the Port Mafia. And not just any ordinary support group—they were the future of the organization, all either the same rank as Chuuya or higher. Every member was under twenty-five years old, which was why they were referred to as the Young Bloods—the young wolves of the Port Mafia.

After heaving a deep sigh, Chuuya walked toward the back of the pool hall with a distant expression, not even greeting any of the attendees.

“What’s wrong, Chuuya? Aren’t you happy?” asked the tall man behind him. “We did all this for you, y’know.”

“Who celebrates one-year anniversaries? Ridiculous,” Chuuya scoffed. “I’m not not happy. I’m indifferent.”

“C’mon, don’t be like that. You’re gonna like it. I guarantee it,” the tall man assured Chuuya as he followed him. “We’ll even be presenting you with a little anniversary gift or two later. Isn’t that exciting? Feels just like being in school again, right?”

Chuuya suddenly stopped, looked back, and glared at the man. “So you’re the one behind all this, Piano Man? You have the lamest sense of humor.”

“What can I say? I live for moments like this. Annoying people with my lame sense of humor is what gets me out of bed every morning.”

The mafioso, wearing a formal black coat and white slacks, beamed at Chuuya’s bitter remark.

Known within the Port Mafia as Piano Man, he dressed in black and white without exception. He was tall with slender fingers and always wore an amused smile. Piano Man was the Young Bloods’ founder and essentially served as its leader; plus, he’d originally invited Chuuya to join the group.

Piano Man was more of a craftsman than a mafioso, and he was most likely the only person in Yokohama who could create counterfeit money—known as supernotes—indistinguishable from the real thing. However, he could also be quite fickle, missing deadlines by months if the counterfeit notes didn’t meet his standards, even if doing so went against the boss’s orders.

Incidentally, he wasn’t nicknamed Piano Man because of his black-and-white attire. His weapon of choice was an automatic winding machine fitted with carbon steel piano wire. Once the wire was around his enemy’s neck, they were decapitated within seconds. No amount of brute strength could save them. All that would be left was a perfectly flat surface between their shoulders, copious amounts of blood, and the echoes of the victim’s final scream. This was a man of whimsy, delicacy, and cruelty, said to be the youngest mafioso closest to becoming a Port Mafia executive.

Just when Chuuya started walking into the back of the pool hall once more, another man called out to him.

“Ha-ha-ha! Chuuya, you shoulda seen your face! I was all for this little act, too, just in case you were curious! The star of the Young Bloods and former Mafia enemy: Chuuya Nakahara, the Sheep King! Just seeing that pissed-off look on your face made joining this group worth it!” said a blond young man with a vibrant laugh as he twirled his shotgun.

Chuuya glared at him. “Hmph. You’re lucky I realized it was all an act, Albatross. ’Cause if I didn’t, you’d have been the first one to die.”

“Whoa there. Sorry, but you wouldn’t be able to kill me. I’d slice off your hand with this here blade before you’d even manage to land a hit.”

Then the blond youth soundlessly pulled a kukri machete out of his coat. He cut through the air a few times with weightless speed before simply letting it go. The blade immediately pierced the floor with a heavy thud, leaving radial cracks where it landed.

The blond youth laughed. He often laughed with a cheerful look on his face, which was where he got the nickname Albatross. A talkative individual, Albatross was prone to getting carried away. Even in the middle of battle with blood and guts flying through the air, his subordinates never lost sight of him because all they ever had to do was follow his voice and laughter.

Albatross was said to have complete control over “anything that’s faster than walking.” Put simply, vehicles were his game. Whether it was trucks for transporting goods or a cargo ship that could slip past the coast guard’s radar, he was your man. He could even have a getaway car with a fake license plate ready if the situation called for it. Albatross was originally the Mafia’s wheelman, capable of piloting anything with a steering wheel more quickly and with greater precision than anyone else. There were even rumors that he once got away from the coast guard’s high-speed attack helicopter in an old, beat-up fishing boat, and not a single person in the Mafia doubted those rumors. Anyone who made him mad wouldn’t survive three days in the Port Mafia because he controlled the vehicles—in other words, he controlled the cash flow. If he hated someone, he could shut down their business and leave them with nothing in the blink of an eye.

“Hey, Chuuya, let’s make a toast!”

Albatross caught up with Chuuya and held out a champagne glass, but Chuuya only gave him a brief glance before continuing to walk away.

“Yikes, someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed today,” said Albatross. He held the champagne glass up in an exaggerated motion as if to prevent it from spilling. “We’re used to you randomly being in a bad mood once every month or so, but I gotta ask: Did something happen? A bad dream, maybe?”

A bad dream.

The instant he heard those words, Chuuya turned around, furious.

“Nothing happened!”

His rage violently shook the glasses in the pool hall.

“Sheesh, don’t scare me like that… So? What’s going on?”

After a brief moment of hesitation, Chuuya’s eyes wandered around the room until he lowered his voice slightly and said, “Day after day, you’ve been goin’ on night-long benders right above me, Albatross. That’s what’s going on. How many times do I have to tell you that your floor is my ceiling?”

“Aw, c’mon, I haven’t forgotten. I make sure to be extra noisy because I know you’re down there, neighbor.” Albatross smiled innocently.

He lived in the same high-end apartment building as Chuuya but on the next floor up. As far as Chuuya was concerned, putting Albatross on the floor above him was one of the biggest mistakes the Port Mafia had ever made. Albatross would sometimes invite himself into Chuuya’s apartment on a whim and drag him along somewhere, saying he needed help with a job. Then they would take a car, boat, or even a helicopter to some ridiculously faraway war zone. Chuuya became a really good swimmer thanks to this, since Albatross wouldn’t always have a vehicle ready to take them back home.

Chuuya ignored Albatross and continued toward the back of the pool hall. He was about to hang up his coat when a man with a champagne glass suddenly appeared by his side.

“Heh-heh… Happy one-year anniversary, Chuuya…,” the man said, chuckling. His bangs, cut in a perfectly straight line, concealed his dark gaze upon Chuuya. “I never expected you to last this long… Heh-heh.”

He was unusually skinny. His thin wrists seemed to hover between the cuffs of his collared shirt; the hand not holding a champagne glass was clutching onto a drip stand with an IV bag whose tube disappeared into his clothing. He looked extremely unwell, to put it lightly.

“Doc.”

Chuuya accepted the champagne glass handed to him, then peered inside it.

“You didn’t poison this, did you?”

“Not at all.” The man called Doc smirked grimly. “Poison wouldn’t be enough to kill you.”

“How do you know that?”

“From experience.” His eyes glowed eerily. “I’ve killed many with poison.”

Doc, the personification of unhealthy, was the Mafia’s medical supervisor. There were a lot of unlicensed quacks in the criminal underworld, but Doc was different. He was an actual doctor who got his MD in North America.

So-called back-alley doctors were highly sought after in underground society, since legitimate hospitals reported anyone who came in with wounds from torture or gunshots to the authorities. That was where these underground doctors came in, and the Port Mafia was no different.

But the similarities with other criminal organizations ended there. Doctors were highly valued in the Port Mafia and given preferential treatment. Ougai Mori, the Mafia boss, was a former back-alley doctor himself, after all. Furthermore, Doc was a top-class physician even among his extraordinary peers in the organization’s medical division. He had already saved around eight hundred lives, despite his youth. And he had purposely robbed about that many lives, too.

Doc’s goal was to bring himself one step closer to God. He personally believed that every life saved brought him that much closer to his goal. He aimed to save around two million people—the same number of people that God killed in the Bible. That was why he joined the Mafia, where he calmly waited for a massive war that would see countless people die like insects.

“What a lineup. Honestly wasn’t expecting to see you here, too, Doc,” Chuuya admitted as he looked around the hall. “Why the hell was everyone invited here just for a one-year anniversary, though?”

“Allow me to explain.”

A young man with a kind voice slowly approached him.

“It’s because the first year in the Mafia is the hardest.”

“What?”

The man smiled. It was a very sweet, attractive smile, perhaps thanks to his unusually handsome face. His captivating beauty was unparalleled. If he dressed in men’s clothing and smiled, women would be swept off their feet; the same would happen to men if he dressed in women’s clothes.

“That first year after joining the Mafia is the harshest period. It’s a dead man’s curve, so to speak. Within the first year, most people either run away, get killed on the job, or get snuffed out by the organization for causing problems. That’s why today is a day to celebrate your survival.”

“Heh. What? Didn’t think I was gonna make it, Lippmann?” asked Chuuya as he glared at him.

“Oh, no. I knew you could do it,” replied the man called Lippmann as he flashed Chuuya a captivating grin.

Lippmann’s job was extremely peculiar, even compared to the others here. He was the Mafia’s negotiator with the outside world. In other words, he met with people in the “real” world. He negotiated with front companies, met and talked with political figures, and even dealt with the press if push came to shove. If the Port Mafia had a stage face, it would be him.

Killing Lippmann would be an extremely difficult task. In a way, he’d be even harder to kill than the boss himself…because Lippmann was a movie star. He had countless passionate fans abroad. If he was murdered or went missing, all the top news agencies worldwide would rush to cover it. A news story that massive would immediately have people everywhere searching for his killer, and that was something a criminal enterprise wanted to avoid at all costs.

Furthermore, Lippmann himself was an extremely powerful skill user with an ability that reacted to and countered an attacker’s thirst for blood. Therefore, it would be impossible to kill him without leaving behind any evidence.

If his killer’s name got out, every major news organization the world over would be chomping at the bit to expose the person’s history, motive, and who was backing them. Whatever organization ordered the hit would lose any privacy it once had, and that would spell its end. Murdering Lippmann was a death trap—a bomb that would go off the moment he died—hence why nobody had the guts to lay a hand on him.

His fame wasn’t his only weapon, either. He was a born actor with the gift of gab and impeccable negotiating skills, plus a beautifully chiseled face. Lippmann was especially good when it came to negotiations with people in the “real” world and solved most of them the moment he sat down at the table.

“In fact, I wouldn’t mind at all even if you were kicked out of the organization,” Lippmann added, his smile as gentle as a feather. “Because if that happened, I would welcome you to join me with my work. Together we could take on the world as actors on the silver screen.”

“I honestly can’t think of anything I’d want to do less.” Chuuya frowned bitterly, as if he’d swallowed poison. “In fact, that might be the worst idea I’ve ever heard in my life.”

“I was against throwing you a one-year anniversary party,” came a sudden, quiet voice from the back.

It wasn’t a yell; there was nothing intimidating about it, either. And yet everyone fell silent and looked in the direction of the voice. Standing there was a man wearing very plain clothing.

“Iceman.” Chuuya spoke cautiously. “Yeah, not much for celebrations, are ya?”

The man never showed any emotion, no matter what. His presence seemed alien compared to the fiercer, flashier Young Bloods members. He didn’t come off as ambitious, nor did he leave much of an impression. If anything, he simply blended in with his environs like the quiet darkness of the night.

That was Iceman. The most senior member of the group after Piano Man, he was a quiet, expressionless individual who liked simple clothing. Even his work was extremely simple, especially in the Mafia. He was a hit man.

He didn’t use a skill to kill his target. He wouldn’t even use a gun. Iceman typically carried a knife on his person, but not even that was for work purposes. He always used something in the immediate vicinity: a pen, a bottle of booze, a lamp cord. The moment anything found its way into his hands, it became a deadly weapon, far more dangerous than a bullet. Hence why he could kill a person no matter where he was—whether it be a desert, a palace, or even a bank vault.

And Iceman had another extraordinary gift as well. He could feel it in his bones whenever someone used a skill near him. This wasn’t thanks to any special ability or technology. It was simply how his body worked. That was why he instinctively knew at a moment’s notice the best time and place to kill someone, and that made his kill ratio far higher than the average combat-type skill user. And it led the Mafia to put so much trust in him, too. Without a skill, neither the Special Division for Unusual Powers nor the military police’s Skilled Crime Task Force ever had him on their radar. No one got in his way. He was like a shadow. People in the Mafia believed that if anyone was to kill Chuuya, Iceman would be most likely to succeed.

“Wasn’t expecting you to come to a party for me, Iceman. I thought you hated me.” Chuuya flashed a provocative smile. “We went toe to toe once when I was still with the Sheep. Doesn’t help that you failed to assassinate me; bet that really hurt your rep.”

“I was against having a party, but not because I don’t like you. I don’t have any grudges, either. I just didn’t want to anger you for no good reason.” Iceman’s tone was flat and consistently unemotional. “We all knew you’d make it past your first year.”

“What?”

“We thought you were going to start a rebellion,” Iceman continued, his voice sharp enough to split a glacier in two. “You used to be the leader of the Sheep—an opposing organization. We thought you were going to betray the boss, kill him, and start a war with the Mafia. So Piano Man invited you to join the Young Bloods to make sure that didn’t happen.”

Chuuya glanced at Piano Man, who was watching the exchange with a blank expression. He neither confirmed nor denied the allegation—which meant it was true.

“…Hmph. He did, eh?” Chuuya glared at the others. “No wonder everyone was being all nice to me, makin’ sure I was okay, like I’m a newborn or something. I’m touched. You guys gave me toys, pacifiers, and rattles to keep me from getting upset. Well, I’m a big boy now thanks to you all. A big one-year-old boy. Now I see why you threw me such a big party.”

He crushed the champagne glass in his hand, sending the liquid through the air. Iceman still didn’t even blink.

“We had our reasons for being cautious,” Iceman said. “July 18. It was 3:18 PM. One of the gemstone wholesalers angered you and suffered an injury that took three months to heal. All because he asked you a certain question. A simple, thoughtless question. But the moment you heard it, you threw him all the way to the roof of a three-story building.”

“I did? Can’t remember.” Chuuya’s gaze was sharp, unlike his tone of voice. “How ’bout you ask me that same question, then, so we can check? If you’ve got the guts, that is.”

Iceman remained silent. He spent the next five seconds so expressionless that he might absorb all the emotion in the room, then replied:

“‘Where were you born?’”

Chuuya immediately grabbed Iceman by the collar and violently pulled him close. The sound of fabric ripping followed as Iceman’s shirt tore at the seams.

“What are you doing?” Iceman asked, still expressionless as he looked down at Chuuya’s hands.

“That depends on you.” Chuuya didn’t loosen his grip.

“Hey, come on. That’s enough,” Albatross pleaded anxiously from Chuuya’s side, grabbing him by the arm. “Don’t let a li’l question like that anger you, Chuuya. That’s not you.”

“That’s for me to decide, damn it. I’ll kill him if I have to.”

Chuuya swiftly knocked Albatross’s hand away, causing Albatross to stumble backward. Chuuya tried to take a step forward, but he suddenly stopped. A cue stick was pressing right against his temple like the blade of a sword.

“What’re you plannin’ to do with that stick?” Chuuya asked without a shred of emotion on his face. He remained standing completely still.

“That depends on you,” Iceman replied, cue stick in hand.

Chuuya leaned his upper body away from the cue stick, then slammed his head back into it. Countless bits of wood flew through the air, and most pieces ended up raining down on Iceman himself; one sharp splinter sliced his right temple. Blood trickled down into the corner of his eye, but he didn’t even blink.

“That’s enough,” hissed the most cold-blooded voice in the room.

Out of nowhere, Piano Man was standing right behind Chuuya with a clear piano wire extending from the sleeve of his outstretched arm. It hung around Chuuya’s neck like an expensive necklace.

“Chuuya,” Piano Man said coldly. “‘No using skills on comrades.’ That’s the first rule of this group. Did you forget?”

Although it was called a piano wire, what Piano Man wielded wasn’t the same kind of string used in instruments. It wasn’t nearly that simple. This was industrial-grade wire strong enough to lift and carry iron or concrete blocks.

And deep inside Piano Man’s sleeve was a winding machine. Once it was activated, the piano wire transformed into the world’s lightest guillotine and sliced its target’s head clean off. Chuuya could manipulate gravity and make the piano wire lighter, but he wouldn’t be able to slow down the winding machine, which meant he wouldn’t be able to prevent himself from being decapitated.

“I get that you’re in a bad mood,” Piano Man added. “It’s because you’re gonna lose to Dazai at this rate. You have to become an executive before him. After all, the only reason you joined the Mafia was because you want access to a document that only executives can see, and that document’s the only way for you to find out who you really are.”

Chuuya’s expression transformed. “How did you know that?”

“But the way things are going, it’s gonna take you another five years to become an exec.”

Chuuya’s brow furrowed deeply as he ground his teeth. “Don’t you dare say another word.”

“Sorry, but I will.” Piano Man shot Chuuya a chilly smirk. “The boss told me almost everything.”

“What?” Chuuya frowned with disgust.

“Right after I invited you to join the Young Bloods, the boss gave me orders to keep an eye on you. Told me to check if you got any new info or if you tried to sneak a peek at the Mafia’s classified files.”

“He asked you…to monitor me?”

Piano Man nodded. “Of course he did. If you didn’t need to see the documents anymore, then you might’ve turned against him. You used to be enemies with the Mafia, after all. Obviously, he told me why you’re after those documents, too. I was astonished, to say the least.”

“Stop,” Chuuya growled in a suppressed voice.

“Arahabaki. Prototype A2-5-8, an artificial skill created by the military. That’s you. You’re not even sure you’re human. You’re worried you might be nothing more than an artificial personality—and that’s because you don’t dream.”

Chuuya let out a voiceless growl.

It all happened in the blink of an eye. Chuuya had grabbed Piano Man’s arm with his right hand like a snake snatching its prey, then crushed the automatic winder. He immediately picked up a fragment of the cue stick with his left hand and pointed it straight at Piano Man’s throat.

The other four men were just as quick to react. Lippmann whipped out a submachine gun from within his coat and pointed it at Chuuya. Albatross’s kukri machete was already touching Chuuya’s wrist. Doc pulled out a syringe and had it pressed against Chuuya’s temple. Iceman had picked up a broken champagne glass and was about to aim it at Chuuya’s eye.

Everyone was still. Nobody lifted a finger. They even stopped breathing momentarily. It was like looking at a photograph; the only thing still moving was the dust glittering in the morning sunlight. Any one of the six could have taken a life with just the slightest movement—and yet nobody stirred.

“Do it,” Chuuya demanded. His voice was like a bowstring pulled taut. “I don’t care which of you goes first. Just do it.”

“Can’t we do this later? At least, wait until the party’s over,” Piano Man said calmly.

“What?”

“I told you we were giving you a one-year anniversary gift or two, right?” He then took something out of his pocket. “Here.”

Chuuya cautiously lowered his gaze…and froze.

“……………………Huh?”

With that utterance, he completely shut down. He didn’t seem to be breathing; it even looked like his heart had stopped. Chuuya’s grip loosened, and the broken piece of cue stick fell to the floor with a hollow clack. He unsteadily took what was being handed to him, apparently no longer focused on his surroundings.

It was a photograph.

“Weren’t expecting something so valuable, huh? I went through hell to get it for you.”

Chuuya drew his face closer to the photo as if he were in a trance. He couldn’t even hear Piano Man’s voice anymore. The others smirked uncomfortably as they put away their weapons, but Chuuya didn’t notice that, either.

“If anyone ever asks you that question again, just show ’em this picture.”

It was a photo of Chuuya when he was five years old.

It was taken at a beach somewhere; the ocean was visible in the background. Chuuya was wearing a linen yukata and holding hands with a young man while walking toward the photographer. The young man was smiling and faintly squinting from the sun’s bright rays. The young Chuuya was staring vacantly at whoever was taking the photo. From the look on his five-year-old face, he had no idea what was going on.

“The picture was taken at an old farming village out west,” explained Piano Man. “It’s a ghost town now, though. Nobody lives there anymore. But Doc struck gold after looking into some medical files being kept at another nearby village.” He paused. “Doc.”

“Heh-heh… People may lie, but dental records don’t.”

Doc came over with some files and a sickly smile.

“Medical professionals are obligated to keep medical records for a few years…and that obligation became our little ray of hope… Heh-heh…”

Puzzled, Chuuya looked back and forth between Doc and the files.

“Don’t act like you got those files all on your own, Doc!” Albatross whined as he held out another set of documents. “You never woulda gotten your hands on ’em if it wasn’t for me. Medical corporations usually end up being the ones that store medical records if a clinic goes under, and there’s tons upon tons of them! And guess who found the files we were looking for? Me! I threatened and begged every record keeper who seemed like they might’ve had these documents until I finally got ’em myself!”

“Of course, even the greatest explorer never reaches his destination without taking that first step,” Lippmann said with a gentle smile. He held out a different stack of documents. “I asked a lady I knew for a favor and received access to some of the government’s military files. Naturally, they immediately destroyed the most confidential files involving the research once the war ended, but I did discover that one military unit put out a call for body donations out west for use in human experimentation. That was our first clue. In other words, I contributed the most out of everyone here.”

As the situation slowly dawned on him, Chuuya timidly looked over at the final person in the group: Iceman.

“…I didn’t do anything special,” Iceman added before taking out the last set of documents. “I found records of your parents’ siblings, their family tree, where you went to school along with your grades and school photos. I found your birth records, too. Piano Man told me not to let the boss know we were looking into this, so I couldn’t go to an information broker. I had to sneak into eight different buildings myself to get these.”

“E-eight different buildings?”

Chuuya blinked in surprise while accepting the documents. Iceman nodded, then faintly smiled for the first time that day.

Very few people knew Iceman as a person, but he was actually quite soft-spoken and kind when he wasn’t on the job. He was simply a good-natured man who enjoyed coffee and listening to records in his spare time. Not many knew he had this side to him, but all five of the men here did. Chuuya looked at each of them in turn; they were all smiling.

Piano Man, Albatross, Doc, Lippmann, and Iceman: the Port Mafia’s cream of the crop.

“Why, though?” Chuuya looked at the photo. “You’re disobeying the boss by doing this.”

Keeping Chuuya’s history a secret was how the Port Mafia boss was keeping him shackled to the organization. He wouldn’t be able to betray them as long as this info was under wraps. Piano Man, however, simply shrugged.

“The boss gave me orders to keep an eye on you in case you learned the secret. He never told me to keep that secret from you, though.”

Chuuya stared hard at Piano Man in an attempt to understand what he really meant by that remark.

“Why?” A flash of uneasiness briefly colored Chuuya’s expression. “Why would you go through all this?”

“‘Why?’” Piano Man looked puzzled, as if the question didn’t make any sense. “I already told you why. Because we’re celebrating your one-year anniversary today.”

“But…”

“It’s nothing particularly serious,” said Lippmann. Baffled by Chuuya’s reaction, he eyed the rest of the group. “If we had to come up with a reason, though…”

The look on his face said this was the most natural conclusion:

“It’s because you’re our friend. Were things different with the Sheep?”

They had been. That was what Chuuya’s flustered expression was saying. Everyone in the Sheep depended on him. The contrary was unthinkable.

“How about you think about it like this, Chuuya.”

Lippmann spread his arms, his gaze softening.

“This isn’t a present. This is a flag. Ever since the days of ancient Rome, there has only been one reason to raise a flag: to tell people, ‘We are here, and we are the chosen ones.’ If any one of the six of us is ever in trouble, you remember that flag and gather under it. We’re counting on you.”

He then slightly tilted his head to the side.

“Heh-heh… What a wonderful speech,” said Doc. “That’s Lippmann for you… I have to wonder how many women have been fooled by that silver tongue of yours…” He almost seemed to be mumbling to himself.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Lippmann replied with an unbothered smirk. “Oh, right. This peer support group actually has an official name: the Flags. That’s where I got the metaphor from. Piano Man, the group’s founder, is the only one who remembers and uses the name, though.”

“The ‘Flags’?” Albatross appeared dubious. “Pretty sure this is the first I’m hearing about this.”

“Oh, come on. Don’t tell me you forgot. I told you this on your first day in the group. Right, guys?”

Piano Man looked at the others, but nobody even blinked.

“Hold up. Did you seriously all forget? It took me three whole months to come up with the name.”

Everyone averted their gaze. Only Chuuya was quietly focused on the photo in his hand as if all the answers were right there. As if the existence of the photo itself was the answer, not the people in it.

“Happy one-year Mafia anniversary, Chuuya!” the group cheered.

For the briefest moment, Chuuya wore a childlike expression as if he didn’t know what to do or how to respond. He looked at his comrades, then through the files, then at himself in the photo once more.

“What’s wrong?”

Piano Man’s voice pulled Chuuya back to reality.

“Rrgh…!”

He tried to look angry. He opened his mouth and attempted to yell something, but not a single thought came to mind. Everyone stared at Chuuya in puzzlement. He then swiftly turned around and shouted at the entrance:

“Now I get it!” His voice was unnecessarily loud. “You thought you could pull a fast one on me, showin’ me this so I’d get all weepy and apologize! That’s what’s goin’ on, isn’t it?!”

“Hmm? No, actually, we—”

“Well, it ain’t gonna work on me. Got it? That won’t work on me!”

Chuuya began storming toward the entrance and kept his head down.

“I’m goin’ home! And ya better not follow me! I don’t wanna see any of your damn faces!”

After Piano Man glanced at the others with a perplexed expression, he said to Chuuya, “Oh well. I guess if you’re leaving, you’re leaving. We were actually gonna have a billiards tournament after this, but…I guess we’ll just have to play without you.”

“Even without the guest of honor?” Lippmann raised an eyebrow.

“It’s out of our hands. We have all this nice booze we can’t let go to waste, so let’s cut loose and forget about work while we can. Whoever wins first place gets a prize!”

“That sounds wonderful.”

“Hey, Chuuya! Don’t mind us—and have a safe trip home!” Albatross waved at the entrance.

“Whatever!” barked Chuuya before kicking the front door open and leaving the pool hall. “Hmph.”

After the five comrades exchanged glances, they turned their gaze to the door. Nobody said a word. Ten, then twenty seconds of silence went by. Still, nobody spoke up. Nobody even moved a muscle.

Thirty seconds went by. Right when they were about to reach the forty-second mark, the door to the pool hall opened just a crack.

“Screw you guys. Just tell me the rules, damn it. I’m takin’ all those stupid prizes back home with me!”

Chuuya was standing there looking equally frustrated and angry.

“Now we’re talking,” Piano Man said with a smile.

After that, the pool hall was full of its usual hustle and bustle: billiard balls clacking, the shuffling of footsteps, cheering, trash-talking, groaning, clinking glasses, billiard balls dropping into the pockets, and youthful laughter. The same mundane scene you’d see anywhere else in the world.

If everyone in the room pitched in, they could afford numerous plots of land in this town, but you’d never know that just by observing them. These young men were simply chatting like usual.

“Say, who ended up in last place the last time again?”

“You won’t be talking a big game for long.”

“We need more booze.”

“Ha-ha-ha! Yeah, the drunker you get, the more your aim sucks! You’re goin’ down!”

“True, the alcohol is making it hard to keep my hands stable. I’m probably gonna sink only three times as many balls as you.”

“Oh, it’s on!”

The pool hall was full of life. Someone started playing music on the jukebox. Old woodwind music could be heard in the background as the group played pool, drank champagne, and joked around. It was a scene from any corner of any old town; something that was universally wished for but wasn’t hard to achieve. That very something could disappear in the blink of an eye, just like bubbles in a champagne glass. This was one of those moments.

“Heh… This shot’s gonna win me this whole thing.”

“By the way, I saw you walking down by the harbor with a blond woman in tow. Is that your new girlfriend?”

“H-huh? …Ack!”

“Yikes, this isn’t looking good.”

“Wow. Do you guys really wanna lose to me that badly?”

“Ack! Could the balls literally be in a worse spot?! Don’t make things easier for Chuuya! He’s already got a big enough ego as it is!”

“I have an ego?!”

“Just don’t let him win! Whoever’s next, you better not mess up!”

The stick connected with the cue ball perfectly. The follow shot’s spin twirled the white ball into a striped ball, knocking it into another numbered ball after that. The resulting combination shot hit one ball after another, each knocking themselves in a different direction. The colorful, energized balls wove complex geometrical patterns across the pool table.

“Whoa!”

Somebody gasped. The combo shot’s chain reaction, which was too intricate for the human eye to follow, continued until the final target—the yellow-and-white nine ball—began rolling toward one of the middle pockets.

The nine ball moved slowly as if it were taking in a deep breath…and fell into the pocket. A split second of silence followed, and then everyone erupted into cheers and applause.

“Incredible!”

“What was that?! You made that shot like a pro!”

“That was art.”

“Sorry, Chuuya. Looks like your championship run ends here.”

“A new king takes the throne!”

“Who made that shot anyway?”

Something bizarre had just happened. Startled, everyone started looking around to see who’d made that shot.

“Huh?”

Up until a few minutes ago, there were six people in the room…but now there were seven.

“No need to clap,” said the seventh man.

He wore a blue jacket and had long arms and legs; his dark-brown eyes perfectly complemented his black hair. His handsome face was very serious, almost to a fault as he held the cue stick like a ceremonial staff.

“I do not need any prize, either. My sole intention is to interact with the six of you and form a connection. The investigation manual stated that was the best way to get information out of humans. And it appears we have bonded over our billiards game as planned, so I will now be focusing on the mission.”

The young man’s voice was flat and sonorous, his gaze seriousness itself. That moment marked the end of the peaceful tournament.

A kukri soared toward the young man’s neck with a fiery roar.

“Oh my.”

He tilted his head, effortlessly dodging the blade while it sliced the ends of his hair.

Albatross had thrown the kukri. Undeterred, he maintained his calm expression and sank low to the ground. Iceman then emerged behind the newcomer with a cue stick. He twisted his body like a spring before shooting forward like a bullet from a sniper rifle. The young man in blue easily evaded, so Iceman followed up with a barrage of thrusts with his cue stick. The tip of the stick grazed his opponent’s skin, scorched the hair on his head, and pierced the downy hair on his ears, yet none of the attacks were a direct hit. He’d avoided them by a mere whisker.

“I’m impressed,” said Iceman.

“Ha-ha-ha! This is fun!” Albatross cheered. “You must really have a death wish, coming in here without even knocking! Lemme grant that wish for ya!”

“Despite participating in a friendly game of billiards, it appears my targets of investigation are becoming increasingly aggressive. Your actions are illogical. Why are you doing this?”

The young wolves did not have an answer for him. Right as the newcomer was thrown off-balance from dodging the cue stick, Piano Man slipped behind him and started pulling a fine, glittering radial wire from his watch.

“You can finish making excuses once you’re down on the floor.”

The wire, which would be nearly invisible if it weren’t for the faint light reflecting off it, slowly fell and wrapped around the young man’s neck. Piano Man flicked his wrist, causing the wire to rapidly constrict by the winding device in his sleeve. Chuuya had destroyed just one of the winders in his sleeves, but Piano Man had devices up both. And once they started winding, the wires transformed into guillotines that not even superhuman strength could stop.

The young man instantaneously wedged the cue stick between his neck and the wire, but the winding piano wire snapped through the wood like butter before it was perfectly flush against the man’s neck. All that was left was for the merciless wire to turn the man’s shoulders into a flat table…and yet that didn’t happen.

“What—?!”

The young man didn’t try to dodge. He didn’t even try to pull the wire off his neck. There was no need for him to because the piano wire was simply gliding around the surface of the man’s skin. The winding device screeched as the wire dug into his neck, but that was all that happened. It didn’t even leave a scratch.

“Stress in the exodermis contacts detected,” the man noted with a blank expression. “Activating escape measures in accordance with designated self-defense routine.”

He instantly spun to his side like a car wheel without any sort of windup. His leather shoes drew a perfect arch in midair as he spun so quickly and powerfully that he snapped the piano wire and destroyed the winder along with it. Fragments of the device were sent flying.

“Oh, now that is impressive,” Piano Man said as he stepped back. “A combat-type skill, huh? I can see how you infiltrated Mafia property by yourself.”

Everyone swiftly created distance between them and the man. Ordinary rules wouldn’t work on a combat-type skill user, because unlike guns or knives, this kind of opponent was unpredictable. One miscalculation could lead to a quick death. The young mafiosi immediately began getting into their anti-skilled-opponent formation.

“Please wait. I did not come here to fight you,” the young man implored the group before producing a black badge from his breast pocket. “My name is Adam. I am a Europole detective.”

The atmosphere in the room suddenly changed.

“You’re a cop?” Piano Man’s smirk was as sharp as a knife. “Oh. Then I guess that means you were right, Adam. There has been a misunderstanding. It was a mistake on your part thinking that a cop could waltz in here and make it out alive! …Lippmann!”

“Very well.”

Lippmann pulled two machine pistols from his jacket, each spitting out ten bullets per second with incredible speed. The man who introduced himself as Adam held up the back of his hand to block. Each 9 mm bullet that hit his hand ricocheted in a different direction.

“Impact detected! Rupture stress limits are at thirty-seven percent!” the detective shouted. “You are in danger of damaging an international investigator!”

“It looks like physical attacks really don’t work on him.” Piano Man calmly stared at him. “Lippmann, keep him busy. We’re gonna capture him instead.”

“Wait,” Iceman spat, cue stick in hand. “I don’t sense anything. That man…”

This was the first time Iceman’s face expressed astonishment that day.

“…doesn’t have any special powers!”

“What?”

Confusion skewed the six comrades’ faces…because what Iceman said couldn’t be possible. There was no way someone without a skill could snap Piano Man’s wire or deflect 9 mm bullets with his bare hands. That was like gravity working in reverse and causing the sun and moon to collide. But Iceman’s gut was never wrong.

The average person would have trouble holding out in battle when confronted with two completely contradicting situations. Most would devolve into chaos or flee the scene. These six mafiosi weren’t any ordinary people, though.

“Interesting.” Piano Man smirked. “Then let the game begin! Whoever beats this guy gets to be the talk of the town all next week! Everyone, you have permission to use your powers!”

“I don’t have to conceal my skill anymore? Very well.”

“Ha-ha-ha! That’s what I’m talkin’ about!”

“Heh-heh… Can’t wait to slice open his stomach.”

Numerous luminous spheres appeared out of nowhere. These fist-size orbs had neither heat nor weight. They began revolving around Adam like planets in a solar system.

That was when Adam stumbled.

“Oh?”

Adam’s leather shoe sank into the hard floor as if he were stepping into quicksand. The floor swallowed his foot and crumbled like sand; he stomped the ground with his other foot to break free, but that foot slowly began sinking as well, causing him to instinctively place his left hand on the floor. That hand, of course, was soon submerged, too.

“Hmm…?”

Adam twisted his body and tried to grab onto one of the pool table’s legs, but something sprouted from the back of his hand. It was covered in elaborate scales and had a pointed birdlike head; rows of sharp fangs filled its mouth.

It was a dinosaur. A tiny dinosaur’s head was growing from the back of Adam’s hand like a plant.

“No relevant information available in the knowledge module.” Adam appeared dubious.

The dinosaur roared and lunged its jaw at Adam’s neck. He turned his head and managed to evade, but the motion threw him off-balance, causing him to be swallowed even farther into the ground.

“Another,” said a voice.

All of a sudden, another radial wire shot out of the ceiling, wrapped itself around Adam, then instantly began pulling him up until his body slammed against the ceiling. Beige sand scattered onto the floor; parts of the ceiling came crumbling down. Adam let out a pained groan, and the wire simultaneously vanished. Gravity then dragged him back down until he crashed into the floor, causing his body to once again be swallowed by the hellish quicksand-like flooring.

“Combat evaluation module unable to process current situation.”

Piano wire once again found its way around Adam’s neck.

“Coming in here alone against the six of us was a tremendous miscalculation on your part, detective,” taunted Piano Man with a cruel smirk. He happened to have a spare winding machine. “Not even God himself would last ten seconds against all of our skills at once. Anyway, here’s your last one-year anniversary gift, Chuuya. Feel free to break his arms and legs as you please.”

“Chuuya.” Adam’s expression changed the moment he heard that name. “I knew it had to be you.”

What happened after that ended in the blink of an eye. Adam purposefully shoved his right arm into the ground, causing the dinosaur to shriek before disappearing into the floor. The inertia from his right arm allowed him to lift his left leg out of the quicksand and kick the nearby pool table, knocking the cue stick onto the ground. Adam scooped up the cue stick with his foot and kicked it upward without even glancing in its direction.

It spun in the air…and then he caught it with his left hand behind his back. After twirling the stick a few times, he slammed it into the quicksand, using the recoil to pull himself out of the floor.

“What is he, some kinda acrobat?!” Albatross shouted.

“Don’t let him move another inch!” Piano Man ordered.

Lippmann began rapidly firing his machine pistols. Adam twisted his body and dodged every bullet—each one missed him by a mere whisker. He flitted through the air, traversing the gunfire’s maze of death with minimal movement. Eventually, he landed on his feet right in front of Chuuya—the ground under the mafiosi was unaffected by the quicksand so as not to trap the six of them. Adam raised the cue stick in the air.

“Chuuya!” someone screamed.

And then…the cue stick dropped onto the floor.

“Chuuya.”

Adam got on one knee, lowered his head, and respectfully bowed as one would to royalty.

“I have come to protect you.”

“…Huh?”

Chuuya was bewildered. He looked down at the submissive European man with obvious suspicion.

“I was created by skill user engineer Dr. Wollstonecraft and am the first autonomous humanoid supercomputer in existence. My name is Adam Frankenstein, and I have come here to arrest the assassin who is after your life. The assassin’s name is Verlaine. Paul Verlaine.”

“‘Verlaine’?” Chuuya’s eyes opened wide the moment he heard that. “How do you know that name?”

“You know this guy, Chuuya?”

“An assassin?”

“Did he just call himself a computer?”

The five Flags were abuzz. Adam then stood back up with a serious look in his eyes and said:

“Chuuya, you cannot defeat Verlaine alone, which is why I was sent here. He is no ordinary assassin. Paul Verlaine is the king of assassins—and your elder brother.”