Bungo Stray Dogs - Volume 8 - Chapter 3.9

Shirase suddenly appeared to be in pain. He collapsed to the floor, grabbed his throat, and began writhing in agony.

“Shirase! What’s wrong?!” I asked, already running a diagnosis.

His heart rate was slowing. His blood pressure dropped. He was clammy and twitching, and he was having trouble breathing. It was a textbook example of poisoning, but the air composition was as per usual, no irregularities. I checked my logs from previous environmental scans, but there were no traces of poison gas anywhere.

I promptly gave him a shot of atropine, an anticholinergic agent, in order to alleviate the symptoms. After observing him for a while, I saw signs of improvement, so I decided to give him an even bigger dose. I had a moderate stock of drugs to combat biological and chemical weapons, since I was originally designed for use in warfare. With this drug, his life was no longer in danger.

After Shirase had settled down, I gently laid him on the floor and tried to leave the room. But I could not. The door wouldn’t open—neither the door we came from nor the door to the elevator. I could not connect to the control panel, either. I was also unable to contact anyone outside the facility since I already learned the room had electromagnetic shielding.

N had lured us into this room to trap us. That was his plan all along.

The mission’s risk level suddenly increased 38 percent. This was an extremely unfavorable position to be in. After thinking for a few moments, I rammed my body into the exit, but the iron door did not even budge. I threw a metal chair at it, but that only left a slight dent.

I was in a narrow, corridor-like room with only a chair, desk, and lockers for the employees. I could have contacted someone outside if there were a device that could take a wired connection. Furthermore, the floor and ceiling were made of extremely thick iron for the electromagnetic shielding, so breaking through them to escape would prove extremely difficult.

There was no other option.

I reached for my lower back and opened the attachment port, then felt around for the correct part before pulling it out. Next, I opened up my right hand from between my index and middle fingers down to my wrist and equipped the new part in the crevice.

It was a military-grade attachable handsaw. The rotating saw was around the size of my palm. It was typically used to chase after a suspect who escaped behind a locked door.

While rotating the blade, I pressed the saw against the locking mechanism on the door leading to the direction we came. A high-pitched, harsh noise filled the air as sparks flew onto my suit. It was going to take a while, but I had to hurry. This research facility was dangerous.

The poison was probably meant for Master Chuuya while Shirase was merely collateral damage. And now we were trapped. Master Chuuya was in danger. He might have already been killed, even. Or worse…

The room was empty. There were no tables, no chairs, no monitors, no decorations—nothing. There were only notches carved into the wall for measuring height. The room was around the size of a small school pool—in fact, it was actually a tank for storing water to be used during laboratory emergencies.

Chuuya was hanging from the wall in that room. He was held up by his wrists which were tied up with thick barbed wire that pierced his skin like a wild beast sinking its teeth into its prey. His feet barely managed to touch the floor.

His shirt had been removed, revealing the bleeding holes left by the bullets. The two deepest holes were in his chest and stomach and had large stakes stuck inside them. These stakes were connected to the ceiling with a chain that carried an electric shock through them.

Chuuya screamed. The smell of burnt flesh tickled his nose.

The electric current went through the stakes and exited through the barbed wire around his wrists. Each shock tore his muscles, nerves, and organs so excruciatingly it felt like he was being turned into mincemeat. Agony like this would make most wish they were never born.

“I’m…gonna kill you…,” Chuuya groaned while he glared at the monitor hanging from the ceiling.

Another electrical shock. He growled deeply like a wild beast once more.

N was watching from the observation room. The electric current’s white flashes were visible, but N didn’t even blink.

“Give him ten milliliters of Midazolam,” he ordered his nearby subordinate, keeping his eyes glued to the screen.

“But his heart rate…,” a young researcher said while checking the measurements on a device.

“It won’t kill him. Do it.”

A few devices suddenly moved, and a clear liquid began flowing through one of the four white tubes inserted in Chuuya’s back before disappearing into his body. His eyes opened wide and he began to groan in agony as if his innards were being twisted.

Nevertheless, N’s expression still didn’t change. He showed neither sympathy nor malice. His eyes seemed to only be seeing numerical values as he observed Chuuya.

There were around twenty chairs, several gauges, and a group of researchers in the observation room. Everyone was busily shuffling back and forth while comparing any situational changes against their notes to make sure nothing would get in the way of this important experiment.

“Does it hurt, Chuuya?” N asked into the microphone in front of him. Chuuya remained hanging lifelessly without replying.

“Sorry. I wish there was another way we could do this.” N didn’t sound remotely guilty. “But this is the only way to save you,” he added while checking the experiment’s values out of the corner of his eye. “Just like how we respect your will, we respect the will of your skill, Arahabaki, as well. But…how should I put this? Your will is tying Arahabaki down, and as long as your will is firm, we won’t be able to remove Arahabaki from you. We won’t be able to remove the only singularity in this country that we can control—the one thing that reshapes what is considered common knowledge when it comes to skills.”

After that, N cut off the microphone with the switch in his hand, then asked the subordinate next to him, “How is he reacting to the Midazolam?”

“He’s showing symptoms. It will take another two minutes before we see a significant response.”

N nodded. “Give him another twenty milliliters,” he ordered before turning the microphone back on.

“Chuuya, your persona model is clutching the reins of Arahabaki and holding it back. Basically, killing you would cause us to lose a singularity we have under control. Moreover, attempting to override the current persona model—you—with another one would make the two models clash, which could cause Arahabaki to go out of control. And we’d prefer not to have another research facility blown up.”

N snorted at his own joke so quietly that no one else heard. But his smirk immediately evaporated.

“That’s why we’ve come up with this.”

He then turned a knob on his remote control, and a heavy current immediately ran down the chains and into the stakes piercing Chuuya’s wounds.

He howled in extreme agony; it felt as if his entire body were being ripped apart. He twisted and turned to escape from the pain, but the barbed wire around his wrists only dug deeper into his flesh, causing him to bleed even more.

“We’re going to make you willingly release Arahabaki. You don’t need to think too much about it, though. All you have to do is recite the control incantation. It’s the authentication code that initializes the seal. After that, we’ll be able to input your character set, and once we confirm the control incantation, we’ll delete you and override your personality with a different one. You’ll finally be freed from all pain, including the pain you’re experiencing now, which could go on for who knows how many days… That—and the never-ending darkness you’ve inhabited for years.”

Never-ending darkness. That was the first phrase Chuuya reacted to. He hadn’t responded to anything said to him up until then, and yet those words made his neck twitch. That change did not go unnoticed by N, either.

“You’re going to repeat the following phrase. You can say it in your head if you want. It’s a simple phrase,” N told him before closing his eyes to monotonously recite the authentication code he knew by heart. It was a simple couplet.

“O grantors of dark disgrace, do not wake me again…”

“‘O grantors of dark disgrace…’”

Chuuya’s lips moved almost automatically. The drugs were taking effect, and his eyes were having trouble staying focused. They were the eyes of someone who didn’t know what he was saying. The movement of his mouth and trembling of his throat were completely involuntary.

“Good,” muttered N with a faint smirk.

“‘Do not wake………,’” Chuuya continued. “Who…am I…?”

His words listlessly fell to the floor before spreading out and cooling the room.

N frowned in disgust at the monitor. “Increase the voltage,” he ordered, never taking his eyes off the screen.

“But…”

“Do it!”

A heavy current was subsequently sent into Chuuya’s body through the stakes. An amorphous electric snake rampaged through his organs, nerves, and muscles. Chuuya howled.

My rotating saw severed the lock shaft on the door, which finally brought an end to the unpleasant sound. The saw attached to my hand had distorted due to the heat. I was not going to be able to use it again, so I decided to discard it there.

I could finally escape, but I could not abandon Shirase, who was unconscious. As an android programmed to protect humans, I did not have the option of leaving a defenseless human somewhere dangerous, regardless of the circumstances. I had to bring Shirase to a safe location before I could search for Master Chuuya.

I reached out to open the sliding door with its severed lock, but there was no need…because the door was suddenly blown away, along with me as well.

The floor was above my head, then under my feet, and then above my head once more. As I tumbled backward, I felt a strong concentration of stress in my shoulder and head. An impact had knocked me back. I had been shot.

My main priority was getting back to my feet, followed by scanning the environment with my sensor. It picked up three enemies—heavily armed soldiers. That was no surprise, considering that this was a military facility. They must have blown the door up with an explosive before rushing inside.

I analyzed where I was shot and discovered a spiral fissure in my exodermal armor. This was not good. I had been hit with a full metal jacket bullet.

Softer bullets are typically used in battles against other humans because they get lodged in their bodies and cause greater damage. However, seeing as these bullets prioritized speed and penetrating power, the enemy must have come prepared to go into battle with an inorganic target like me. This was extremely unfavorable.

My vision stabilized, which allowed me to see the door, but the three soldiers were already aiming their weapons at me. A storm of bullets was coming my way with such high precision that it would not be possible to evade.

A heart was beating. It was painfully loud, as if someone was pounding a large drum right next to his ear. Chuuya Nakahara looked in the direction of the noise, but of course, there was no heart there.

Whose heartbeat is it, then? Mine? That’s absurd. I’m not even human. Something as sophisticated as a heart wouldn’t suit me.

Another electric current sent Chuuya’s body into convulsions whether he resisted or not. It felt as if each blood vessel were being chopped into thousands of pieces and his body fluids were being boiled until nothing remained. This was far beyond the kind of pain a sixteen-year-old boy like him could endure. The only silver lining was that nobody cared how much he screamed or wailed. That was why Chuuya yelled every time he felt pain; he could taste the blood in his throat.

He hadn’t heard from N for some time. Researchers despised unproductive labor. He must have wanted to let Chuuya suffer alone in silence for a while.

Chuuya’s skill hadn’t completely disappeared, but it was extremely weak. They must have been constantly pumping poison into his body through the tubes in his back. His limbs were numb, and his head was in a daze. He could no longer tell what he was physically doing in reality versus what was just in his head. And he was being injected with other drugs as well. Some sort of truth serum or hallucinogen.

Who knew how much longer he could take it?

Obviously, I’m gonna never gonna give in. I can keep this up forever.

But for what purpose?

“I told you, Chuuya.”

He looked up in the direction of the sudden voice. It was a familiar voice, one that belonged to the person he hated most in this world.

“Your birth itself was a mistake. We’re the same. Is there really a point to suffering through all that pain for a life that isn’t even real?”

The voice was taunting him.

“Shut up,” Chuuya spat, but even he knew he was talking to himself. He was most likely hearing things due to the drugs he was given. There was nobody there, but his mind was scattered, and the voice wouldn’t stop.

“Screw you, Dazai.”

“That’s the best comeback you could come up with?”

Chuuya wanted nothing more than to slice off the ear the voice was whispering into. He could see Dazai’s wavering shadow by his side, and he wanted to gouge out his eyes.

“That’s just proof that you at least somewhat believe what I’m saying. Because deep down inside, you’re the same as me.”

“Shut up, shut up, shut up! I’m me! I’m not some piece of shit like you!”

“I figured you’d say that to him.”

Another voice, this one deeper than the last, suddenly grabbed Chuuya’s heart, freezing it over.

“But you can’t keep lying to yourself forever. Didn’t I tell you that when I welcomed you into our group?”

Chuuya looked at the individual. This was what convinced him that he was hallucinating because of the drugs.

“Piano Man…”

Chuuya’s voice was hoarse. A drop of sweat ran down his chin and fell to the floor.

Piano Man was leaning against the opposite wall with his arms crossed, languidly looking this way. It was just like how he always stood against the wall at the pool hall. Chuuya couldn’t possibly forget.

“I told you why I let you into the group, right? It was because I was worried you might start a rebellion against the organization. You looked like you wanted to destroy everything in your path, burn it all to the ground in revenge. Still do.”

Shadows began to walk through the wall past the worried Piano Man’s side: Albatross, Iceman, Lippmann, and Doc. They smiled and spoke to Chuuya as well.

“We all died ’cause of how unique you are. But we don’t hate ya for it,” said Albatross.

“We were all members of the Mafia. We knew we could die at any moment,” said Lippmann.

“Don’t be stupid! I…!”

Their smiles faded, and the next voice whispered right into Chuuya’s ear.

“So just die already.”

When Chuuya immediately turned around, alarmed, he saw Shirase’s ghastly pale face staring back at him.

“Atone for what you’ve done to your friends in the Mafia and us Sheep. Pay for it with your life.”

That was when Chuuya realized the kids from the Sheep—his old friends—were all gathered around him.

Betrayal and separation.

Dozens of children coldly glared at Chuuya.

“Chuuya, you always said you were simply fulfilling the duty of those with power. Was that a lie?”

“I thought you said you’d protect us. Did you forget how we fed you when you were on the verge of starvation? How we protected you?”

Stop.

Chuuya twisted his body and tried to cover his ears, but his arms were still chained to the ceiling.

“Hmph. You’re the king? Yeah, right. All you did was ruin our lives.”

“Chuuya, you—”

“Shut up! If you think you can become king, then do it! You can have this power!” Chuuya howled, unable to take it any longer. “To hell with power! If I didn’t have this skill, I’d still be with you guys…!”

Another electric shock. A blinding white light flashed in Chuuya’s mind, and deep within the light, he saw the impossible.

The Sheep never disbanded. They were still a group just like they always had been. Chuuya wasn’t anyone special; he didn’t have a skill, either. He was just a regular member of the group. He wasn’t the king, he had no powers, he wasn’t the center of attention—he was simply a single Sheep among the flock, chatting with his friends.

“I…”

The illusion disappeared, leaving only Chuuya and his wounded body. And then there was silence.

The next hallucination Chuuya saw was someone’s fingertips.

“Your colleagues and friends all left you. Why do you think that is, my dear brother?”

Chuuya sluggishly lifted his head. He had a good idea of who it was.

“You now, huh…?”

“Yes, me. Of course it’s me. I was created in a lab just like you. I’m the perfect person to answer your questions,” the illusion said as he adjusted his black porkpie hat.

“My questions…eh?” Chuuya repeated. “Then tell me this. What did I do wrong? When did I mess things up?”

The hallucination—Verlaine—appeared a touch sad.

“At the very beginning.” His eyes were crystal clear with no lie hidden behind them. “After all, your birth itself was a mistake, just like mine.”

Being born was a mistake.

Chuuya’s fists were trembling.

Is that really okay? Can I just let them get away with it?

“No, they can’t simply get away with it. Of course not. It is time for judgment to begin. They need to be punished.”

“Punished…”

“I’m proud of you for fighting through the pain.” There was even kindness in Verlaine’s voice. “You took responsibility for being powerful. Now it’s time for them to take responsibility for what they did. Make them pay. Only then will it all finally balance out.”

“Ha-ha… Wish I could.” Chuuya’s hollow laughter was directed at himself. “I wanna tear ’em to pieces, but that’s not possible. I can’t get out of here. I’m gonna die in pain and despair.”

“I won’t let you die.”

Verlaine approached Chuuya, then pulled a stake out of him. Chuuya’s eyes flew open. After Verlaine removed all the electrodes, he crushed them with gravity. He ripped the barbed wire off Chuuya’s wrists while pulling out all the tubes in his spine as well.

“I’m going to kill that researcher,” Verlaine said after removing all the restraints, checking Chuuya’s wounds, and getting to his feet. “Just like I originally planned. You’re free to just sit here. But if you want to make the man who ruined your life take responsibility, then…”

Verlaine extended a hand to Chuuya.

“Come with me.”

Chuuya quietly stared at the hand as if he were observing something bizarre.

“Why…?”

“I told you when we first met. I came here to save you.”

Verlaine smiled. It didn’t look like the smile of a spy or an assassin. It was the smile of a young man.

“Be angry, Chuuya. Be mad at the unfair hand you were dealt. Be enraged at the researchers who played with your life. That rage will help you take it back. Reclaim your life, Chuuya. It belongs to you. That is, unless you want to spend the rest of it as a guinea pig with a serial number.”

Of course I don’t.

The rage got Chuuya’s blood flowing, which heated his muscles. He stood and took Verlaine’s hand with a viselike grip.

“Let’s go, dear brother.” Verlaine smiled as he held Chuuya upright. “Let’s kill N and get your soul back from this irrational world.”

The incoming storm of bullets was about to land when I released the impact-resistant shield in my forearm. The umbrella-shaped shield’s surface was coated with a superalloy that was both heat and impact resistant and could defend from most lightweight attacks. It was specially created to withstand the high energy of Arahabaki.

The full metal jacket bullets slid off the shield’s surface and soared past me. Three of those shots stopped upon impact. The kinetic energy caused the alloy to peel off the surface, but the damage was minimal.

I leaped into the air with my shield still raised, then kicked off a soldier’s rifle and jumped once more. After landing on the wall behind them, I kicked off it and charged right into one of the soldier’s backs. My sensor picked up the light impact cracking his ribs. One man down.

Still atop the soldier, I swung one long leg like a scythe to sweep another soldier’s legs. When he fell to the ground, I pricked his neck with the needle in my finger and injected him with a drug. Two men down.

However, the third soldier had plenty of time to face me and fire his gun while I was handling the other two, and that was what he was about to do. My hands were on the floor, so I could not release the shield on my forearm fast enough. I rapidly searched for a solution, but nothing I found would make it in time.

I ended up not needing a solution, though.

The soldier’s body was knocked into the air. I heard a burst of electricity, and he then immediately went into convulsions, dropping his gun. Only a few seconds of pained groaning went by before he lost all strength and collapsed.

I hadn’t done a thing.

A savior had appeared from the corridor behind the soldiers. It was a very unexpected individual.

“Well, that was boring,” the individual said, yawning as he lowered the Taser in his hand. “You kill a guy with electricity, and he just dies. What a snore.”

“You’re with the Port Mafia…”

It was Osamu Dazai.

“Nice to meet you, detective. Where’s Chuuya?” Dazai asked upon tossing the Taser to the floor indifferently. He looked to be around the same age as Master Chuuya.

“Master Chuuya has been…”

“Seeing how much time has gone by, I’m guessing he’s been captured? Or did you already save him?” He stepped onto and over the unconscious soldier as he approached me. “Because I’d hate to miss out on seeing a crying Chuuya get tortured.”

“‘Tortured’? Master Chuuya?”

Was he really being tortured? It was possible, but how would this boy know that? Why was he even here?

I recalled Dazai could nullify other skills and was going to be our secret weapon against Verlaine, but he never answered his phone, no matter how many times we contacted him. So why was he here now?

“You’re going to ask me why I’m here, and I’m going to reply, ‘This was all part of the plan.’ Then you’re going to ask me, ‘What is the plan?’ And I’m going to tell you, ‘Everything. From the very beginning. It was all part of my master plan.’ After that, you’re going to say, ‘What do you mean?’”

I tried to analyze the information with my processor as high priority in order to comprehend what Dazai was saying, but his mind was quicker. It took everything I had to keep up.

“Then I’ll tell you, ‘Everything means exactly how it sounds. Everything. Verlaine’s targets, the detective, the researcher—it was all based on the information I gave Verlaine. In other words, the system he used to assassinate people was my system, too. Next, you’re gonna ask me, ‘Why would you do that?’”

He was right. That was indeed the question on my mind. What he had just said highly suggested he was working with Verlaine. It was possible that Dazai was calling the shots behind the detective’s death and the danger Master Chuuya was currently in. In other words, this was a betrayal. Another battle could be inevitable depending on what he said next.

However, Dazai’s eventual reply went far beyond anything I imagined.

“I did it to buy time before Verlaine reached his biggest target. His final target is Ougai Mori, the Port Mafia boss. Normally, he would’ve been the first to be assassinated, but after manipulating the intel a bit, I got him placed last in line. And thanks to the time I bought, I’m ready to assassinate Verlaine instead. Just need to make a few final touches to the plan first.”

Dazai then smiled and helped me stand up. After that, he stared into nothingness like some sage who saw all.

“Chuuya’s gonna kill N at this rate and lose his humanity, but I want to see him suffer as a human. That’s why I have to stop him.”

Alarms blared as if the apocalypse had arrived. Red emergency lights flashed, instantly transforming the facility into the belly of the beast. All wireless feeds for general staff were activated, and every line repeated a warning over the radio:

“Intruder detected within the facility. All intelligence officers present are to destroy specified documents, then leave the facility immediately. Ops Division members are to be armed and waiting in position. This is not a drill. I repeat. This is not a drill.”

I specifically blocked out the aggravating alarm from my hearing and continued my preparations. After putting the unconscious Shirase inside the storage room, I closed the door and electrically locked it.

“I switched the lock with an encryption key that changes after a certain amount of time. Shirase should be safe for the time being.”

“Good work. Looks like that just leaves Chuuya,” Dazai said as he began walking off, wholly uninterested in Shirase.

“Dazai, wait,” I pleaded. “You said ‘as a human’ when referring to Master Chuuya earlier. Do you know whether he is human?”

I was curiously hopeful that he would know the truth. I did not have any evidence to back it up. It was simply how I felt. It was the hubris of man to believe that machines did not have gut feelings or flashes of inspiration. Anything a human could do, a machine could do as well, of course.

“No clue,” he quickly replied, but his eyes faintly narrowed as if he was deeply speculating something. “Both N and Verlaine claim Chuuya’s not human, but I think they could be wrong. At least that’s how I feel after reading this notebook—Rimbaud’s memoirs. In a way, this whole thing started because of what was written in here,” revealed Dazai as he took an old, leather-bound notebook out of his pocket.

Rimbaud’s journal!

I immediately scanned the notebook in Dazai’s hand. Was it real? It was possible. The late spy’s notebook was a sort of diary that he wrote in secret before each mission. It was a book of national secrets in a way, since it contained information regarding his wartime missions. There were rumors of its existence, but nothing about it ever being found.

“Where did you get that?”

“You can try to get me to tell you, but you’d just be wasting your time. All I do is lie. I’m a huge pathological liar.” Dazai’s lips curled into a cryptic smile.

I used my built-in lie detector, but it failed to pick up anything. His vitals were hardly any different from a sleeping human’s. If anything, his level of output was strangely average despite the circumstances. Just who was this boy?

“Looks like we don’t have time to chat over some tea right now. We’ve gotta find Chuuya,” Dazai said drowsily while scratching the back of his neck.

“How do we even start, though?”

“With Chuuya, it’s simple, really.”

He smirked knowingly, as if he had all the answers.

“We just need to go to the noisiest place here.”

An explosion roared as the wall burst into pieces.

Chuuya rushed through the rubble and dust cloud like a cannonball, and the air-splitting shock wave dispersed the dust a few moments later. Standing before him was a group of armed facility guards prepping for battle.

“I want Shock Squad Pomegranate at the east corridor! Engineer Squad Bracken, go blow up the west corridor and seal it off! Buy as much time as you can so the intelligence officers can escape! Now, get mov—”

But the commander never finished that sentence. Chuuya’s knee had bent the man in half before sending him flying back.

Eight seasoned soldiers, carefully selected to protect a top secret military facility, immediately got into position with their guns in unison. It would be insulting to compare their skill level with the average enlisted soldiers who were hired to guard rations or equipment. Only those with the highest level of marksmanship, stamina, focus, and battle prowess were allowed to work here.

However, they were only skilled when it came to battling other ordinary humans. Never once did they imagine they’d have to fight a human-size beast that was flying toward them with the speed of the wind and the weight of a truck.

“Don’t let him through! The panic room’s just up ahead! We have to buy time until the top intelligence officers finish evacuating!”

Chuuya, low in the air, rammed his body into one of the soldiers who was about to shoot, which sent the soldier flying like a leaf in a storm. Chuuya then kicked the soldier in the stomach, knocking him into another solider on the opposite side of the room. It was as if a violent gale had passed through the narrow chamber; the soldiers bounced off the walls like billiard balls.

A mere dozen or so seconds went by until only silence and death reigned. Chuuya stepped over the guards’ bodies on the floor as if they meant nothing, then placed a hand on the door to the panic room.

It didn’t open. The door felt heavy and had an electric lock.

Chuuya used pressurized gravity on the door in an attempt to break the lock, but it still didn’t open. The poison had weakened his skill.

“Focus.”

Before Chuuya even realized, Verlaine was leaning against the wall by the door with his arms crossed.

“You’ve been poisoned. So what? You’re the beast who will end this world. Make that skill yours. Because that’s what you’ll have to do if you really wish to destroy the evil behind this door.”

“I know that…!”

Chuuya placed both hands on the door and clenched his jaw. His skill’s output gradually grew stronger.

The door—which was resistant to explosives, chemicals, and skills—was built to withstand intruders’ attacks. Most skill users wouldn’t be able to destroy it, let alone even make it creak.

“Focus. Tame the beast with your will. You will die if you don’t.”

The air distorted. Chuuya’s clothes began billowing as his skill’s glow concentrated around his fists.

Where am I?

That was the first thought Shirase had when he woke up. He was inside a weapons locker. He could barely touch the walls with his arms and legs if he stretched, but there was hardly any light. Shirase couldn’t even see his own nose.

“Chuuya? Adam?”

He called out to them, but nobody replied. He didn’t sense anyone’s presence, either.

That is, until he noticed the emergency alarm going off outside the locker along with rushing footsteps and panicked voices. He heard some people mention an intruder while others were talking about non-researchers evacuating. The facility was clearly in some sort of trouble.

Research facility. Oh yeah.

He had finally remembered what was going on.

Shirase sat up. He’d been invited into the facility and descended deep underground until all of a sudden, it was painful to even breathe, and he passed out. Gunfire could be heard in the distance. He was all alone trapped in this cramped space.

They left me here. They abandoned me.

“Damn it! Chuuya! Where’d you go?! Get me outta here!”

He kicked the door with brute strength, and it easily opened. Shirase was instantly taken aback, as he did not expect it to open, so he closed the door. He then slightly opened it again to see what was happening outside the locker and discovered numerous lockers, just like his, in what appeared to be a dark supply room. It looked like he was the only one there.

Shirase rolled out of the locker then tried to stand, but he was immediately hit by a dizzy spell that brought him to his knees. He suddenly realized he couldn’t breathe, and his heart started to hurt. Most likely poison.

Damn it. They thought I was a deadweight after I got poisoned, so they stuffed me in this room and escaped without me.

Shirase closed his fist, then opened it. He was awake and alert. He wouldn’t have a problem moving like this, which to him meant there was no reason for him to sit around here any longer.

Fortunately, there were a few white lab coats hanging on the wall for the researchers. He stood up and put one on because he remembered the voice on the intercom ordering all noncombatants to evacuate immediately.

I should be able to escape pretty easily if I pretend I’m one of the researchers. But Chuuya wouldn’t be so lucky. All the guards are keeping an eye out for him. No way he’d be able to blend in and escape. He’s probably in danger right now.

But who cares? It’s not my job to save him. It’s not…my job…

“Destroy all documents! Cut off the power to all areas except for Evac Route 8 and buy some time!” N shouted from inside one of the facility’s few panic rooms.

This long, narrow chamber shaped like a rail carriage was supplied with a communications terminal, food, a generator, bulletproof vests, and every other essential for emergencies. There was even a single-passenger elevator in the back of the room for evacuating.

N was yelling orders for each department into the terminal while simultaneously attaching a bundle of chains to a power source and carrying it toward the entrance.

“Notify the Operations Division in the control room to drag the battle out as long as possible! Then contact the general—”

The door blew clean off its hinges, nearly grazing N’s nose before piercing the wall.

“What kind of father tries to run away from his own son? Heh.”

Chuuya was standing at the entrance, glaring at N as his entire body was steaming with rage.

“Eek…!”

After the chains slipped out of N’s hand, he retreated a few steps until his back was rubbing against the wall.

“What were you doing in here? Gettin’ ready to die?”

“W-wait! I didn’t have a choice! Everything I did, I did because it’s my job! I never personally wanted to make you suffer!”

“Uh-huh. I feel bad for ya, then.”

Chuuya strode menacingly toward N, who retreated at the same pace on trembling legs. Verlaine was smiling at the entrance with his arms crossed, enjoying the show.

Chains were lying by Chuuya’s feet. N seemed to be using them for something, so Chuuya picked them up and checked their tips.

The ends of the chains had metal stakes with thick wire that ran all the way down the chains and looped through the holes. These were the electric shock devices that had been used to torture Chuuya.

“So these are what you jabbed in my stomach earlier. Now I get it… Setting up a trap to ambush me, so you could stab me one last time, eh?”

“I—I…”

Chuuya reeled in the two chains connected to a power source in two corners of the room.

“I’m gonna be honest. It hurt pretty bad. Still a valuable experience, though. I was thinking I could have you experience a hundredth of what I did,” said Chuuya while staring at the chains. But N used that brief moment to take off, running toward the door to the elevator in the back of the room until the tip of a chain pierced the hem of his coat.

“Not so fast,” Chuuya hissed with rage.

The tip of the chain went through N’s coat and pierced the wall behind him. Chuuya was already spinning the second chain, the tip almost touching the floor, as he slowly aimed at his next target. There was no way for N to run, let alone dodge the next attack, with his clothes pinned to the wall.

“Wait! You’re making a grave mistake!”

“Don’t listen to him, Chuuya,” Verlaine said over by the entrance. He checked his fingers in a bored manner. “People like him will lie about anything to survive. It was the same with me. The exact same.”

Chuuya’s eyes sharply narrowed as they glowed with transparent, ruby-red bloodlust.

“W-wait! I was only doing it because it’s my job! Really! That’s all this was!”

“Yeah, it was your job,” Chuuya spat as he got even closer to him. “You toyed with my soul because it’s your job. You locked the other me away and killed him because it’s your job. You’d do anything for your job because you’re a piece of shit. So now’s it’s time for you to die for your job.”

Gravity lifted the metal stake on the chain into the air.

Dazai and I were quickly traveling down the corridor.

“There’s no proof that Chuuya is human, but there’s no proof he’s not human, either,” Dazai told me. “All Verlaine did was steal Chuuya from that facility. That means he’s an outsider in this regard. It’s not like he saw Chuuya’s creation as an artificial skill with his own two eyes. That N guy could be lying, too.”

N could be lying?

“What would be his reason for lying?”

“Beats me. But the best liars even lie about why they lie to cover it up, and that guy smells like a first-rate liar to me. Am I wrong?”

Dazai smirked with chilling ecstasy.

However, he had a point. I scanned the vitals of every human I encountered since entering the research facility. I checked infrared intensity, heart rate, the levels of carbon dioxide exhaled, pupils, and the amount of sweat produced. Naturally, I did the same for N. Nevertheless, I did not discover any clear signs that he was going to betray us.

Master Chuuya might be a man-made creation. Or he could be human. It could go either way.

I leaned forward and increased my speed by 40 percent. If there was a 50 percent chance he was human, then I could not let him kill N. There would be no turning back if he did that.

The metal stake floated in the air, jerking the chain like a mad dog about to lunge forward.

“It’ll all be over soon.”

Chuuya was holding the chain back while it tugged in the opposite direction as if this were a game of tug-of-war. Loosening his grip only a little would send the chain flying forward like a rocket. The sharp tip of the metal stake was pointing right at N, who couldn’t move because another stake had already stapled his clothing to the wall.

“Do it, Chuuya,” urged Verlaine, crossing his arms. He sounded giddy, almost ready to start whistling a little tune. “With that much gravity, you’re not going to simply pierce his body. It’s going to blow him apart. He’ll die instantly. Isn’t that right, N?”

“Chuuya, wait! You’re going to regret this tomorrow! I guarantee it!”

“I don’t give a shit about tomorrow.” Chuuya’s eyes narrowed with ferocity. “I’ve always done what I’ve wanted. I protected those I wanted to protect and knocked down anyone who got in my way. This is no different.”

“Wait! You can’t!”

“There it is! The panic room!” shouted Dazai the moment he turned the corner. When I followed his gaze, I saw a door at the end of the hall with a few guards collapsed by its side.

“Pardon me—I’m going on ahead!”

I leaped past Dazai and straight over the pile of fallen guards before landing in front of the door. After promptly touching the door’s port, I searched for the code to unlock it. It took me 1.22 seconds to find the correct number and unlock the door.

“Master Chuuya! You must not kill him!”

I rushed into the panic room, unable to wait for the aggravatingly slow automatic door to fully open. My eyes widened in shock.

The room was empty.

Not only was it empty, but there were no signs that anyone had been there, either. When I scanned the floor, I discovered a faint buildup of dust but no footprints. It was as if the room had not been used in years.

This was not the right location. Master Chuuya was in a different panic room.

And there was no way we were going to make it in time now.

“I don’t give a shit about tomorrow.” Chuuya’s eyes narrowed with ferocity. “I’ve always done what I’ve wanted. I protected those I wanted to protect and knocked down anyone who got in my way. This is no different.”

The chain was swelling with tension like an arrow pulled taut. And then it was loosed like one.

“Wait! You can’t!” screamed N with his hands in the air. There was nothing else he could do.

Chuuya released the chain with enough power to easily run straight through an entire building.

A roar shook the room. It was emitted by the shock wave from the chain breaking the sound barrier. The speeding metal bundle soared through the air before piercing its target without even a second of hesitation. The enemy’s chest was impaled with perfect precision.

Verlaine’s chest.

“Gwah…?”

Blood spurted out of the wound.

Verlaine froze. He had slowed down the attack by manipulating its gravity, yet the stake still dug its way deep into his torso.

Chuuya had twisted his upper body and was facing Verlaine. He’d turned around the moment he released the chain, dramatically changing its trajectory.

“Don’t act like you’re the good guy here, Verlaine. Yeah, this researcher’s a piece of shit, but you’re the one who killed my friends.” Chuuya smacked himself in the chest. “I can feel their lives burning right here inside me, and till those flames die down, I can’t just do whatever I want. I’m gonna do what I need to do. That’s who I am.”

“Chuuya…!”

Verlaine grabbed the metal stake and tried to pull it out of his chest. But before he could, Chuuya sprinted to the back of the room and pulled the lever connected to the chain. The peak output current snaked through the glittering chain like a dragon before crashing into Verlaine.

“Gaaaaaah?!”

Electricity coursed through his body. Even Verlaine, who was strong against physical strikes and bullets, was no match for electric shocks—just like Chuuya.

“What you ‘need to do’?” Verlaine’s flesh blistered; he grabbed the chain while he went into convulsions. “Why don’t you get it? There isn’t anything you need to do! Live how you want to live! Destroy what you want to destroy! Because there’s only one thing we needed to do, and that was to not be born!”

Verlaine’s trembling fingers tightened around the chain as he slowly pulled it out.

“Just shut up.” Chuuya’s eyes burned with fierce determination. “Maybe that’s what you wanna do, but don’t shove your beliefs down my throat. ’Cause that ain’t how I feel at all.”

Several shadows ran through the light in his eyes:

His friends in the Sheep.

His friends in the Port Mafia.

The light in his eyes was determination. It was the powerful brilliance of humankind, something gained only through encounters and partings with other people.

“You’ve been completely wrong from the very start,” Chuuya spat in disgust. “‘Being born was a mistake’? Sounds like the kind of garbage Dazai would spew, and no way in hell am I ever gonna think the way he does!”

Verlaine pulled out the chain, then tossed it to the ground. But Chuuya simultaneously charged at him.

“Chuuyaaaaa!”

“Verlaaaaaaine!”

Verlaine threw a punch while Chuuya threw one of his own just as quickly. As their fists collided, a flash of black light exploded, filling the room.

“The facility’s automatic disposal system is in progress. Sixty-eight percent of the facilities are now dysfunctional. We have to find Master Chuuya before the rest of the operations are shut down.”

I set the room’s communications device to a preferred connection and tried to hack into the facility’s main system. There was only one thing left we could do after losing sight of Master Chuuya. I had to hack into the security system through the computer in the panic room and pinpoint where a battle was taking place.

The panic room had an established connection to the facility’s security system in order for the evacuated VIP to give orders from inside. However, being a secret military connection, the line was highly secure. Furthermore, the facility’s functions were gradually shutting down, so the rooms’ ports were rapidly disconnecting from the central hub. It was like wanting to cross a wooden suspension bridge, but the planks were gradually falling off.

“You should probably check the fuel supply system first,” suggested Dazai while spinning in a swivel chair with his hands behind his head. “All the documents in here, plus the facility itself, are gonna be burned so that there’s no evidence left. Only after the workers get out, though. That’s why the fuel supply system needs to stay put until the end, so you should still be able to hack into it.”

“Very well.”

The fuel supply system was comparatively easier to hack than the others (the life-support, security, and main memory systems). After that, I was able to send commands to other facilities through the processor I was operating, thus expanding the scope of my control.

“I wonder if we can do it,” I said as I struggled with the system.

“Do what?”

“Defeat Verlaine. Even if we do find Master Chuuya, we still have to defeat Verlaine. Will we really be able to defeat him?”

“Beats me,” replied Dazai almost indifferently. “Of course, I’ll try to come up with a way to take him down, but it doesn’t really matter if we lose. We’ll just die. There’s only one thing I can say for sure about Verlaine.”

Dazai lowered his arms and looked at me, his eyes even colder and more robotic than a machine’s.

“There isn’t a single human in this world who can defeat Verlaine in hand-to-hand combat alone.”

A storm shook the small room. Two fists clashed, producing miniature suns that disappeared almost instantly. The collision of two forces of gravity tightly compressed the space before it returned to normal. The shock wave alone ravaged the room, knocking over tables and sending electronic devices smashing into the wall.

“Is that all you’ve got, Chuuya?!” shouted Verlaine.

The plaster cracked like a piece of candy and crumbled onto the floor, simply from being in close proximity to Verlaine’s punch.

Chuuya continued to dodge the flurry of meteorite-like strikes. A single one would be enough to kill him. Right as he threw a low kick, Verlaine increased the gravity of his guard, but Chuuya suddenly switched to a middle kick.

Verlaine groaned when Chuuya’s leg struck his torso. However, Chuuya was the one who turned pale.

Verlaine had grabbed Chuuya’s face. Before Chuuya could even counter, Verlaine swiftly lifted him up and slammed him into the wall, leaving a radial crack upon impact.

Chuuya screamed in agony, but still reached out for Verlaine’s wrist to pull off his hand, though all he grabbed was air. Verlaine’s arm was no longer there; by the time Chuuya realized this, Verlaine had buried a front kick deep in his torso.

Chuuya slammed into the wall as if he had been hit by a semitruck, demolishing it and coughing up blood. The attack left him badly wounded since he was unable to leap back and weaken the impact.

He shot through the demolished wall and into another room, then crashed through two more walls as well. Chuuya was covered in dust and rubble; he couldn’t even see Verlaine anymore.

Verlaine lowered his leg, then checked his injuries. Blood was pouring out of the wound in his chest, soiling his suit. It was deep.

“Why don’t you get it, Chuuya?” Verlaine scowled at the blood staining his hand. “There’s no reason for us to fight.”

His eyes then locked onto an iron slab on the floor. It was the gray top of a broken desk. Verlaine placed his toes under it, tossed it into the air, and kicked it. The slab pierced the wall right in front of N as he tried to escape.

“Eek!”

“Did you really think I’d let you get away?”

After grabbing N by the neck, Verlaine effortlessly lifted him up and pressed him against the wall.

“You have zero chance of getting out of here alive.” His eyes shone with a light that hadn’t been there before: Rage. “I can see something sinister inside you. A darkness far deeper than any evil.”

N tensely smirked and replied hoarsely, “Is that really something…an assassin should be saying?”

“Sometimes creating is far more sinister than killing.”

Verlaine’s grip tightened around N’s neck. The gravity being emitted from his hand warped the space around it.

“W-wait…! Just listen to what I have to say!”

“No,” replied Verlaine as his fingers tightened.

However, right before the supergravity could snap N’s neck clean off his shoulders, he screamed:

“If I die, your secrets die with me!”

Verlaine stopped squeezing.

Time passed: one second, then two. Nobody said a word. Nobody moved. Nobody even blinked.

“…What?” muttered Verlaine in a deep, slightly cracked voice after five silent seconds went by.

“I’m not lying. You’ll lose everything, even what you want to know most of all: The Secret of the Gentle Forest.”

Next came the sound of a brief intake of air. It was Verlaine.

“You…!”

A fist roared. It was Verlaine’s free hand hitting the wall and causing the room to shake. He had punched right by N’s face, leaving cobweb-shaped cracks as rubble fell to the ground.

“You’d better be careful if you’re trying to outsmart me.” Verlaine’s voice was so low that it sounded as if it were coming from the pits of hell. “If I even get the feeling that you’re lying, I will peel every bone off your body while you’re still alive.”

I finished hacking into eighteen out of twenty ports and took control of the facility’s second and third computing cores. I then used their computing powers to attack the fourth and fifth cores. Everything was going smoothly. I would likely be able to obtain the necessary security systems to search for Master Chuuya at this rate.

However, the real issue would come afterward.

“Not a single human in this world can defeat Verlaine in hand-to-hand combat…” I ruminated over what Dazai said. “Does that mean there is no way to defeat him?” I asked.

When I looked over at Dazai, he replied, “Exactly.” His gaze appeared all-knowing. “I was buying time to figure that out.”

He then took a notebook out of his breast pocket. It was the leather-bound notebook from earlier—Rimbaud’s memoirs.

“Not only can he manipulate gravity with his skill, but he has experience as a spy as well. It’s insanely unfair how powerful he is. He essentially doesn’t have any weaknesses. But…there is something he fears.”

“‘Something he fears’?”

“Himself.” Dazai smiled cryptically. “Just like how Arahabaki is for Chuuya, Verlaine contains a singularity that’s beyond his control. And if it does lose control, it’ll destroy everything in sight, including him. It’d be the nightmare of Suribachi City all over again.”

The nightmare of Suribachi City.

I searched my database. Dazai was most likely referring to the explosion that happened nine years ago when Master Chuuya lost control of Arahabaki. The blast created a mile-diameter crater and left no trace of the city that was once there. That was the true power of a singularity. It was the manifestation of something that should not exist in this world.

And slumbering inside Verlaine was a beast capable of such a catastrophe…

“‘The Secret of the Gentle Forest.’” Verlaine’s voice contained a hoarse, dry anger. “How do you know about that?”

“Artificial skill user, Paul Verlaine,” N began gently, trying to avoid the question. “The darkness sleeping inside you—that’s the other Arahabaki. Unlike the Arahabaki created in the lab, the demon within you was created by a single skill user. And you killed them. With your own two hands. That’s why you lost the chance of ever knowing about the beast that sleeps inside you. You fear its manifestation.”

“And?” replied Verlaine, clearly irritated. “Are you saying you know what this thing inside me is?”

“That’s a good question. If anything, I’m the only one who’d know the answer.”

While speaking, N slowly moved his arm behind Verlaine’s arm in his blind spot. He moved as carefully as a snail while bringing his fingers closer to his pocket.

“We were able to create Arahabaki because the military secret service managed to obtain data on you from one of their connections in German intelligence. I got chills when I read the files. The man who created you was a demon. No decent human being could come up with a thing like that.”

N’s fingers grabbed onto a remote in his pocket. It was the same remote that he handed Chuuya in front of the black cylindrical tank.

“About the only evil I can do is this.”

He pressed a button, and the ceiling collapsed. Rubble rained down onto Verlaine—along with something else.

Bluish-black liquid.

Verlaine promptly raised his hands into the air and used gravity to protect himself, but something slipped between the rubble and liquid.

That something kicked Verlaine backward.

He was instantly sent slamming into the wall. Both agony and surprise simultaneously colored his expression; not a single person was capable of penetrating his gravity-manipulating guard like this.

“Did you really think those chains and a little electricity was the ace I was keeping up my sleeve?”

N smiled. The one who kicked Verlaine landed by his side.

At N’s side was a set of bleached-white bones.

Hanging from its body were bundles of infusion tubes and cords used to measure vitals. All it wore was a plastic lab garment.

It was the skeleton of the boy who died in Chuuya’s arms before the flesh melted off his bones. The original Chuuya.

Verlaine’s face darkened with rage the instant he realized who it was. “You…!”

“We aren’t copying what they did in Europe. This is our own unique technology. It destroys what I order it to. Have a look.”

The skeleton leaped forward, the wind whistling in its wake. It sped up using gravity instead of muscle power to collide into Verlaine.

Verlaine grabbed its shoulders and stopped it, but he wasn’t able to completely halt the momentum. His heels dug into the floorboards.

Verlaine’s and the skeleton’s gravity counteracted each other, which produced a small vortex of gravity in the center of the room. The skeleton opened its jaw and tried to bite Verlaine with a click of its fleshless mandible.

“Are you in pain?” Verlaine’s eyes narrowed. His voice faintly trembled with emotion. “I’m sorry…but you should no longer be in this world.”

Verlaine increased his skill’s output. The skeleton fell to its knees with an audible creak and was pinned to the floor.

“I’ll take you back to the surface with me later and find you a place to sleep where you can see the stars. But for now, I need you to stay still and wait.”

He reversed gravity, causing the skeleton to float in the air. The nearby rubble floated as well.

Verlaine let go.

The condensed gravitational field then began surging in search of an exit. Verlaine purposely limited the direction it could go, which sent the skeleton accelerating that way like a cannonball.

Even after hitting the wall, it didn’t stop. It shot through the wall and continued tumbling until it was covered in rubble and steel beams. Then it crashed through the walls and ceiling before piercing the wall in the very back, where it finally stopped.

Verlaine stood stock-still, gazing in the direction he sent the skeleton flying. His eyes clouded with countless emotions.

He clenched his teeth and punched the closest table with brute strength alone. The already beat-up and warped table bent even more until it was folded almost straight down the middle.

Verlaine looked around the room, but N was nowhere to be found. He had already escaped using the emergency elevator. After walking over to the back of the room, Verlaine forced the door to the elevator open, but the cab was already gone. N was taking it up to the surface.

Verlaine emotionlessly grabbed the cable dangling in front of him and pulled. The snapping of metal immediately followed as the shaft’s beams broke, and soon he heard the safety mechanism breaking. Verlaine caught the falling elevator cab with one hand, pried it open, and dragged N out.

“I’m going to kill you.”

There were no flames of rage in his eyes—only hatred black as boiled sludge.

“However, I’m not going to kill you with the respect I give others as an assassin. I’m going to do something different—something I’ve never done before. You will die by my hand in agony, regret, and despair. But first, I’ll give you plenty of time to suffer for what you’ve done.”

There was an intense pain in his side. His nerves were throbbing. He tried to sit up, but he felt an unpleasant stickiness at his flank.

Chuuya felt around for the source of the pain with his fingers. There was a metal pole piercing the muscle in his side. A piece of the wall must have stabbed him when it was destroyed. Only the tip of the pole was sticking out of him, but the other end was hidden under the rubble, which made it impossible to tell how long the pole was.

After Verlaine kicked him straight through several rooms, Chuuya eventually hit a wall and was buried under the debris. He hadn’t been able to manipulate gravity and protect himself from the successive impacts. Now he was bleeding all over his body, and the wound in his side was especially deep.

It was rare for him to get injured, so he wasn’t used to judging how deep a wound was from the pain or the severity of his injuries. Even if he got a little hurt during a mission, the Port Mafia’s extraordinary medical personnel had him healed within a few days.

Extraordinary doctors like Doc.

The name of Chuuya’s friend calmed him. Doc was gone now. And not just him; all of Chuuya’s friends were…

Chuuya tried to sit up, ignoring his wound and the pain. Fresh blood spewed out of his side.

“I gotta…keep moving…”

He firmly planted his feet on the ground, then tried to pull the iron bar out while swinging himself into a sitting position. But the very next moment, he was slammed back down to the ground.

He wasn’t expecting this. The metal bar deeply pierced his body once more, causing even more blood to spill out.

“Gah…!”

Chuuya looked up.

White bones. Tubes and cords. A resin lab garment. Pale bones that were only managing to stay together due to the gravity manipulating them.

The skeleton was straddling Chuuya and trying to push him down.

“Damn it…!” Chuuya grunted as he tried to withstand the pressure by using his own gravity manipulation skill. Their bodies creaked painfully under the overwhelming pressure.

“Stop doing this!” shouted Chuuya. “This doesn’t make any sense! You’re me!”

But the skeleton could not comprehend his voice. It was simply following orders to destroy the nearest skill user. Its murderous urges were clear and shapeless—and irrational.

Bones screeched. It wasn’t clear whose bones they were. The gravity the skeleton was manipulating was gradually exceeding what the human body could handle.

Cold sweat dripped down Chuuya’s forehead.

The skeleton didn’t care if it destroyed itself, but Chuuya didn’t share the sentiment. However, if they kept up this gravity-based pushing match, they would both be crushed simultaneously since their bodies were equally durable.

Chuuya had to do something. But he was fighting himself.

He was in pain. Intense pain.

Wait, wait, wait.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. The hell is that? A skeleton? You’ve gotta be kidding me.

Shirase rubbed his eyes. He wasn’t seeing things.

The world before him was warping. The irregularities in the gravitational field were causing the surrounding gravel to float. In other words, there was a gravity-manipulating skill being used, which meant Chuuya was here, too.

Shirase almost dropped the garment bags out of fear, but he promptly tightened his grip around them in a fluster. And yet—these garment bags didn’t actually contain any garments. Inside were valuables Shirase had stolen. He’d been looting whatever goods he could find while searching for an exit. After all, both security and the researchers had already left, and he could make a small fortune selling gems used in the laser transmitters or even the supercomputers.

They’re just gonna burn this place to the ground in order to destroy the evidence, Shirase thought, so why not give this stuff a new life as war funds, help rebuild the Sheep? Better than wasting them. Man, I’m a genius.

And with that in mind, Shirase started to loot before eventually realizing he was utterly lost, leading him to this room. He frantically looked around. There didn’t seem to be anyone else here besides Chuuya and the skeleton, and they appeared to be battling. Shirase caught a glance of Chuuya’s pained expression.

“Chuuya!”

He reflexively began to sprint forward before hastily stopping himself.

What am I doing? I’m gonna die if I go over there! Even I’m not stupid enough to throw myself in the middle of a battle between two monsters. I’ve always been smart about avoiding trouble, and that’s why I’m still alive.

Chuuya’s the one who did the fighting. Chuuya dealt with the pain. He was the one who showed our enemies just how much we should be feared. We took care of everything else, though. And it only made sense. He’s powerful, and he was simply fulfilling the duty he had as someone with that kind of power.

But he’s somehow weaker than usual right now. He’s covered in wounds. I’ve never seen him like that. He looks just like a regular guy my age.

Wait, no—he doesn’t just look like one. He is my age. He’s a boy just like me.

It had finally hit Shirase.

“…”

But still…

Even then, why’s that my problem?

“Who cares! I’m getting outta here! Alone if I have to! You guys can fight about war and weapons and the truth about skills yourselves! All I wanna do is have a good time, and I need to be alive to do that!”

Shirase tightly held the bags, turned his back to Chuuya, and began to walk away with a long stride, carving each footstep into the floor.

The skeleton’s weight increased. A heavy, dull sound echoed along with their creaking bones.

The floor’s foundation was caving in. Any ordinary human’s body would have easily been flattened by this point.

“Stop doing this…,” Chuuya faintly muttered as his lungs were being crushed. “You’re me, damn it…”

A glimmer of hesitation appeared in his eyes. The skeleton’s jaw rattled as it quietly looked down at Chuuya with pitch-black eye sockets. There was no light within. No emotions. Nothing. An absolute void.

And from those eye sockets—from that nothingness, Chuuya could sense what it was trying to say. Perhaps it was only his imagination, but he couldn’t stop the words from flowing into his head. They were meaningless words, but it felt like they were coming from the skeleton:

This should have been you.

“You’re me,” repeated Chuuya while he stared at the skeleton that had left its humanity far behind. His words were unconscious. Even Chuuya didn’t know what he was saying. “So…who am I?”

The gravity increased as the skeleton’s face—the face of death itself—approached Chuuya until they were nose to nose.

All of a sudden, there was a scream.

“Ahhhhhh!”

Someone had charged at the skeleton and knocked it aside. The skeleton and the shadowy figure who had lunged at it rolled on the floor in a pile.

Chuuya opened his eyes wide. He recognized the shadowy figure.

“Shirase…?!”

Shirase’s voice cracked as he screamed something unintelligible before getting back to his feet. The skeleton, which had used every bit of gravity it could to push Chuuya down, was powerless against the sidelong impact that broke off its right arm at the elbow.

But that hardly slowed it down at all. It opened its jaw to tear into Shirase’s flesh. Shirase lifted his garment bags, and the skeleton chewed right through them. The cracking of gems and electronics was painfully audible, but the gems were far harder than any bone; the skeleton’s jaw snapped in half.

“Shirase, you dumbass! Get outta here! Run!”

“Ahhhhhh!”

While Shirase wildly flailed his arms with his eyes shut, his fingers happened to get caught on one of the tubes in the skeleton’s back, pulling it out and causing a bluish-black fluid to spill onto the floor. The skeleton suddenly slumped forward and seemingly stopped moving for a few seconds.

The moment Chuuya noticed this, he yelled, “Shirase! Pull out the cables! All of them!”

Shirase once again flailed about wildly for a few moments in confusion until he realized what Chuuya was saying. Rolling in the bluish-black chemicals, he grabbed the tubes and cords—the skeleton’s “tail”—and gave them a swift, powerful tug. The bundle of tubes that continued all the way to the neighboring room popped out of the skeleton’s back.

It screamed.

But a body of only bones does not have any vocal organs. It had no throat, nothing to produce a scream. The sound it made was the remnants of gravity and its fading skill shaking its bones, resonating like a musical instrument.

It was the echo of an appalling scream, the last gasp of a crying boy.

The skeleton eventually lost the signal to its command directive and exhausted its energy reserves. It toppled over at the waist before landing on the ground headfirst. Without gravity holding its body together, its bones fell apart. The cracks the skeleton sustained from the onslaught spread throughout each bone until it was nothing but small white fragments that slowly turned to dust and vanished.

And then it was no more. It was as if no one had been there from the very start.

After staring in blank amazement for a few moments, Chuuya slowly managed to get back to his feet.

“Shirase.”

He turned his gaze toward Shirase while clutching his side.

“What?”

Chuuya stared at Shirase as if he wanted to say something. After eyeing Shirase, covered in dirt and dust and bluish-black chemicals, he eventually said:

“You’re filthy.”

“Kiss my ass!”

Chuuya held out a hand. Shirase grabbed it and stood up.

“Let’s go. We should meet up with Adam first.”

“All right.”

Shirase and Chuuya began to walk side by side. When Shirase glanced over at Chuuya, he saw just how bloody and dirty he was. Chuuya was wounded from head to toe; there were too many bruises to count, and he was still bleeding from his flank.

“Hey, Chuuya.”

Chuuya turned around. Shirase looked like he wanted to say something—like he wanted to apologize. Chuuya waited in silence until Shirase eventually told him:

“You’re filthy.”

Chuuya lowered his gaze and smiled. “Kiss my ass.”

The first thing that came to mind when I ran into the room was Did a dinosaur go on a rampage in here?

That was how wrecked the room was. It was irretrievably destroyed. The chairs and desks had been warped beyond recognition, the floor had fractured and buckled, and there was a hole in the wall roughly large enough to fit two adult humans. None of the furniture was in its original location. It was to the point that I was unable to immediately recognize what kind of room this had originally been.

Nevertheless, the wretched state of things did not hold my attention any further. There was something else I had to deal with first: Verlaine, the king of assassins.

He stood at the back of the room and looked this way with his hand wrapped around N’s neck. His grip was as casual as if he were holding a sleeping dog’s leash.

“Help… Help me…!” N called out, voice trembling.

I promptly took out my gun. “Let go of him.”

“Him?” Verlaine wore a curious expression as if he was not expecting such a proposal. “You’re not human, so surely you can think about this logically. How would you benefit from protecting scum like this? Are you really going to fight and die for this man?”

“My sole reason for existing is to protect humans from crime,” I replied with my gun still aimed at him. “I was not programmed with a function to determine if someone is scum, nor would I even want such a function.”

“I’m jealous.” Verlaine chuckled cynically and looked down at his hand. “But don’t worry. I’m not going to kill him…without making sure he suffers.”

I suddenly heard a voice coming from behind.

“You’re not going to get any information out of him, Verlaine. Not even if you take him back with you and torture him.”

Verlaine looked in the direction of the voice, mildly surprised.

“Dazai…”

“Hey. What a coincidence running into each other here, huh?” Dazai came strolling over as if he were taking a neighborhood constitutional before stopping by my side.

“Seeing as you’re here…I can only assume that means you double-crossed me,” said Verlaine.

“Hey, you make me sound like the bad guy when you put it like that. I was never on your side to begin with. I’m on their side.”

“‘Their side’? I find it hard to believe someone like you even takes sides.”

“Heh… You really are a joy to talk to.”

Dazai smirked ambiguously.

Dazai and Verlaine—the two superhumans stared at one another in silence, wearing smiles no ordinary person could understand.

During their exchange, I ran my combat evaluation module. I had a gun, but no matter how I ran the numbers, our chance of winning never exceeded 0.1 percent. Firing my weapon now would be a poor strategy. My only choice was to wait and see how the situation developed.

However, the situation changed far more quickly than I imagined.

“Hey, Verlaine,” Dazai suddenly said as if he had realized something. “You should probably keep your head down.” He lowered his head until it was chest level.

Verlaine stared dubiously, but the very next moment, two blocks of rubble flew through the air like cannonballs. One whizzed right past where Dazai’s head had been a second ago and then broke apart; the other one collided with Verlaine. Verlaine reflexively blocked with his arms, which shattered the slab of concrete into many pieces.

“The hell do you think you’re doin’, Dazai?!” came an enraged voice. “How dare you show your stupid-ass face to me without my permission!”

“Hey, Chuuya. How was the torture?” Only the corners of Dazai’s eyes lifted in a smirk. “I was planning on saving you before you got tortured, but that would’ve been way too boring, so I decided to take my time instead.”

“You what?!”

Verlaine stood in mute amazement for a few moments before nodding as if he had figured out what was going on. “Now I get it. I finally see how you two did it.”

Master Chuuya and Dazai stood side by side. There was something surprisingly perfect about it.

Two young men with completely different personalities…

“I heard that you two managed to kill Rimbaud on your own.”

“And you’re planning on avenging him, Verlaine?” asked Dazai.

“Not at all.” Verlaine shook his head, then stared off into the distance. “He was already dead long before you two killed him. To me, at least. He died nine years ago the moment I attacked him from behind.”

Dazai observed his expression, then took a step forward.

“Do you know why I’m here, Verlaine?” His gaze was clever, calculating. “Because I’m done buying time. You’re going to die. You shouldn’t have crossed the Port Mafia.”

But Verlaine simply shrugged at the chilling death threat. “We’ll see about that. I’ve been similarly threatened countless times, but they’re always wrong.”

Verlaine tightened his grip around the trembling researcher’s neck, then started to retreat. I promptly followed him, my gun still pointed at his head.

“Your skill is powerful, but I already have a good idea of what you can and can’t do,” Dazai quietly added. “All I need to do is use an even greater power to kill you.”

Verlaine burst into laughter. Blissful laughter. “You have a good idea of what my powers can do?”

Right as he raised his arms toward the ceiling, his carefree smile vanished. Every one of my gauges simultaneously went berserk.

“Oh no” was what I tried to say, but the sound was absorbed into nothingness. The light in the room vanished, and a shock wave followed shortly thereafter.

A shock wave, then a black light.

It was anyone’s guess as to how many seconds went by. The powerful electromagnetic wave temporarily shut down my external sensor, so I made sure to check my surroundings the moment I could see again.

Master Chuuya and Dazai were still safe. They hadn’t moved from their previous position, but they were staring blankly at the ceiling, their mouths agape. I quickly followed their gazes…and realized the ceiling was gone.

“Hey, dipshit. You said ya had a good idea of what he could and couldn’t do, right?”

“Yep.”

I realized there was a cold breeze blowing past us. It was coming from outside—specifically, from the sky.

“Didja know he could do that, too?”

A colossal hole was where the ceiling used to be. Dozens of floors of the underground facility had been penetrated, creating a tunnel straight back to the surface. The hollowed floors continued into the distance in a concentric pattern, and at the very end was a small cutout of the evening sky. Neither N nor Verlaine was anywhere in sight.

Nobody said a word. All we could do was look skyward as if in prayer, sensing that something not of this world was about to emerge.