Bungo Stray Dogs - Volume 8 - Chapter 4.2

Chuuya rapidly glided, tearing through the night sky like a flash of lightning. The wind howled into his ears like a thousand wolves, but he was not afraid. His body had become an arrow that was shooting straight for Verlaine.

Verlaine looked in Chuuya’s direction. Verlaine’s eyes were clouded over with an utterly pure, transparent emotion: hatred.

He cast his overwhelmingly spiteful gaze upon all living creatures, hitting them like a wave that would make the average human lose consciousness. Chuuya, however, didn’t even blink.

Verlaine created a black sphere and threw it at Chuuya.

“Enemy projectile approaching! Calculating a change in trajectory via air pressure and gravity. Preparing to rapidly descend and evade!” Adam shouted as he switched his position.

He folded his wings, causing him and Chuuya to rapidly descend the night sky like a seagull diving into the ocean. The cannonball of gravity immediately flew over their heads, which was enough to cause them to rise.

Chuuya looked back at Verlaine. They were moving with such incredible speed; at this rate, they were bound to collide into him in only a dozen or so seconds.

Dazai’s plan was thorough. Verlaine was weak to poison just like Chuuya, but of course, Verlaine had full knowledge of this weakness. He would never carelessly eat something that could be poisonous, and he would deflect any projectiles or poison-coated bullets with his skill.

That was why Dazai purposely had Verlaine open his Gate. He wanted to rob Verlaine of his free will and judgment. Dazai said they mustn’t attack him because he would counter with an even more powerful attack. They couldn’t express any hostility, either, because they would be met with a hatred hundreds of times more powerful. Chuuya was to approach Verlaine without any ill will, pat him on the shoulder like a friend, then stuff poison into his mouth.

Adam was in charge of creating the poison. It was a very small amount of liquid in a clear pouch, less than the amount of saliva produced from spitting on the ground. And yet once ingested, it would take a mere five seconds for the target to lose consciousness and never wake up again.

“Second wave incoming!” Adam’s shout returned Chuuya’s focus to the enemy. “That was quick! The Schwarzschild radius is slowly increasing as well!”

He was not seeing things. A colossal black sphere big enough to swallow an entire car was already forming over Verlaine’s right hand. He threw it like a cannonball.

Adam, however, was still off-balance from rapidly descending a moment earlier. It wasn’t long before the sphere was right in front their faces.

“We won’t be able to dodge it…!” Adam yelled.

Chuuya opened his eyes wide.

“Ahhhhhh!” he shouted while releasing his skill in its entirety.

He grabbed onto Adam, reversing their bodies’ gravity to neutralize the black hole’s pull.

Every vein in Chuuya’s body began to bubble. His bones and muscles creaked. This domain defied common sense—nothing like it could be found on earth but only in space nearby massive celestial bodies. It was a world outside of reason that no human could ever reach alive.

Their environs distorted. Even their voices were absorbed into the black sphere. The enhanced gravity slowed the flow of time, making their surroundings appear to be moving faintly faster. Even those surroundings became warped under the gravity, making it difficult to see anything.

It seemed like an eternity had gone by until Chuuya had finally pulled them out of the giant gravitational sphere as if he were holding his breath and swimming through a giant bubble. His clothing was torn to shreds. Every blood vessel in his body ached terribly after being ripped apart, but at least he was still alive. Nothing serious.

“Incredible!” Adam cried, impressed. “Master Chuuya, you are perhaps the first person on earth to ever go through a gravitational field like that and survive!”

“What an honor.” Chuuya’s voice remained stiff. “But it’s still a little too early to be proud of myself just yet. Take a look at him.”

As he called attention to something up ahead, Adam followed his gaze. He gasped.

A myriad of black spheres was forming around Verlaine’s hands. There were probably over twenty of them around the same size as the one that just hit Chuuya and Adam. This cluster of spherical black demons was not of this world. They seemed to come from the abyss of space itself to devour the laws of physics.

Under no circumstances could the two of them afford a direct hit. No matter how they tried to evade—even if Chuuya managed to increase his gravitational output tenfold—there was no way they could survive that many gravity spheres. They’d be lucky if even a small fragment of bone somehow survived.

Chuuya and Adam were prepared to die.

But the orbs of gravity didn’t come their way…because they were heading in a different direction.

Sniper bullets, grenades, and balls of fire were being launched from the surface. The black orbs reacted by raining upon the earth, wiping out the Mafia members in droves. The terrain transformed until the dead mafiosi were sucked into the spheres.

This strategy was meant to keep the enemy’s attacks off Chuuya. The Mafia fighters were purposely being reckless, throwing their lives away.

“Those idiots…,” Chuuya moaned.

The Flags weren’t special. This was just how the Mafia was.

The only way they were going to prevent their boss’s assassination was to have Chuuya kill Verlaine with the poison he was carrying. That was why they threw their lives away, even if only to distract the enemy for a mere second.

Everyone in the Mafia felt the same way. They were a cruel, proud group. They had each other’s backs.

“Let’s do this!” shouted Chuuya as Adam closed his wings.

They began to accelerate even more with some added gravity, closing in on the enemy like a bullet.

Anticipating a collision, Verlaine automatically moved to the side. Right before they passed him, Adam shot an anchored wire out of his elbow and slung it around Verlaine’s neck. It was the same wire he used to restrain Chuuya the first day they met.

Verlaine briefly howled. The three of them were now clumped together while descending to the surface.

The monster that was Verlaine automatically went on the defensive, creating a jet-black orb, even bigger than the others, around the center of his body. The incredible suction force began swallowing Adam’s wire. His and Chuuya’s descent quickly lost speed.

“We’re gonna get sucked in, too, at this rate! Cut the wire!” Chuuya hollered.

“I cannot do that. If I cut this wire, we will never have another chance to get this close to him!” Adam hollered back. “Do not worry. Everything is going according to my calculations!”

Adam then cut the cord tying him and Chuuya together before pushing Chuuya away.

“What…?!”

Chuuya looked at Adam in astonishment. Adam simply smiled back as he was sucked into Verlaine’s black orb.

Chuuya landed on the surface, using gravity to rapidly break his fall. The sudden deceleration caused his vision to turn red. He quickly looked up.

Adam and Verlaine were entangled inside the orb of gravity as they continued descending.

The thunderous roar blew away the trees. When the cloud of dirt had cleared, it looked as if a meteorite had just created a crater with someone lying in the center. That was where Verlaine was curled up, not a scratch on his body. He’d fallen to his knees, his eyes gently closed as if he were taking a nap. The ancient runes on his body swam across his skin and shone.

There was not much left of Adam. His body from the chest down was gone in addition to his left arm, and his internal machinery was completely exposed. Artificial muscles and nerve conduction cables dangled out of him as white functional fluid leaked into the dirt. Only Adam’s gaze moved.

He looked at Chuuya. His eyes were strong. It was as if he was trying to tell him something.

Do it.

That was what his faint nod was telling Chuuya.

Chuuya made a decision. He quietly walked down the hollowed earth with neither hostility nor malice as if he were simply taking a stroll in the wilderness. He moved slowly with firm footsteps, making sure Verlaine would not consider him a threat.

The man who called himself Chuuya’s brother reflected in Chuuya’s eyes. There was no reason to hold back any hostile feelings because he strangely didn’t feel any bitterness in his heart when he looked at him.

This Verlaine was no longer human. He wasn’t even a character set anymore. He was merely a vessel of raw energy, nothing more than an automated machine that returned hate with more hate.

This is sleeping within me, too. We’re the same once you strip us of our outer shells. I finally understand why Verlaine came to me and why he invited me on a journey with him.

But I’ve gotta put an end to things once and for all.

Chuuya stood right by his brother’s side. To his own surprise, Chuuya was quite calm. Verlaine still hadn’t reacted.

Chuuya pulled the pouch out of his pocket. It was clear, disc-shaped, and roughly the size of his fingertip. Once the poison touched the inside of Verlaine’s mouth, it would quietly dissolve. Darkness would come, and then it would all be over. This was the only way to end things.

His brother’s lips were faintly parted. Chuuya didn’t resent the man. He didn’t even consider him to be a living being. This simple action was like putting an envelope in a mailbox. Like finishing a puzzle with the very last piece. Like a farewell to a memory of someone dear.

Chuuya slipped the pouch into Verlaine’s mouth in a detached manner, then let go.

He felt a sharp pang.

Not emotional pain—physical pain. Chuuya’s fingertip was bleeding.

“Heh… You never cease to surprise me, Chuuya.”

Verlaine was laughing.

Chuuya’s blood stained the corner of Verlaine’s mouth, and the next moment, Chuuya was knocked backward. He hadn’t been sucked into the gravity sphere. This was Verlaine’s typical skill that he could use to manipulate the gravity of whatever he touched. Chuuya spun through the air until he crashed into a tree trunk without even a moment to defend himself.

“Gwah…!”

“The first day we met when I opened your Gate, I left a command sequence inside you,” Verlaine revealed. He spat the poison out of his mouth and into the weeds, where it disappeared. “That command would close my Gate the moment you touched me again. You automatically closed my Gate. This is the only way to stop me, since I lose consciousness during Brutalization.”

“‘Brutalization’…?”

“It’s when you strip the persona model’s control and temporarily unleash the singularity beast. You know, what happened with me just now. Rimbaud took the name Brutalization from the verse used to break the persona’s seal.”

Verlaine slowly stood, then looked at Chuuya.

“He was the one who came up with the idea of how I could return to normal after becoming a singularity. He was always thinking about how he could help.”

“And yet you still betrayed him,” Chuuya said while staggering on his knees. “Didn’t you?”

Verlaine didn’t immediately reply as he opened his eyes wide and stared at Chuuya. His eyes were dry. He didn’t even blink.

“I did it to save you,” he eventually answered.

Chuuya managed to keep his wobbling legs straight enough to stand back up.

“Fine,” he said with a quiet gaze. “We did everything we could, but you won. There ain’t a single person left in the Mafia who can beat you. I’ll go wherever you wanna go, whether it be back to Europe or to the ends of the earth.”

Verlaine’s eyes narrowed. “Are you trying to trick me?”

“Unlike Dazai, I’m not twisted enough to do something like that. Plus, I don’t think lying to you is gonna help me, either.” Chuuya chuckled in self-derision. “Besides, I might start hating the world like you one day, too. So I figured observing you up close could help prevent that from happening.”

Verlaine gazed fixedly at Chuuya’s face as if all answers to life were written there. He then replied, “Does that mean…you do not yet resent this world?”

“There’s people I hate, but not all of ’em,” replied Chuuya as he stared off into the distance. The stars glittered in his eyes. “I know better than to try to live a solitary existence. You used to feel the same, right?”

“…”

Verlaine didn’t respond. It was as if his silence itself was his answer.

“Anyway, that’s settled, so let’s go. The Mafia’s gonna be here any second. They’re not gonna give up, even though the most powerful attacks don’t leave a scratch on you. The only kind of attack that’d work on you wouldn’t be a powerful one.”

Chuuya gestured with his chin for Verlaine to look back.

“It’d be a surprise—a real joke of an attack, one you’d never see coming… Like this.”

A hand suddenly touched Verlaine on the shoulder, and he swiftly looked behind him.

And as he turned his head, his cheek bumped right into someone’s index finger.

“What—?”

“Would you like to hear an android joke?”

A fine needle protruded from the index finger.

Adam, whose body was gone from the waist down, had one hand on Verlaine’s shoulder, injecting a solution into Verlaine’s cheek. The drug immediately triggered a neural reflex due to the sudden drop in blood pressure.

Verlaine stumbled before collapsing backward onto the ground and losing consciousness.

Adam shrugged his remaining right shoulder with a mischievous smirk. “The king of assassins was defeated by a silly children’s game. Get it? That was the android joke.”

An excerpt from Rimbaud’s journal:

Date:  

DGSS Operations Division, Special Operations Command Undercover Agent:  

Fair weather. Predawn. New moon.

I am writing a slightly longer entry today, since I will be infiltrating the enemy’s military base tomorrow. There will be no backup nor logistical support. We won’t have any insiders helping us, either.

Our mission is to steal the newest model of skill weapon. It is said to have the appearance of a young boy but is powerful enough destroy the entire world.

It’s an extremely dangerous mission. Our chances of returning home alive are slim.

Nevertheless, if anyone was to do it, you could not find a better pair than my partner, Verlaine, and me.

What could I possibly do for my partner who has always been there for me? This question has been on my mind for so long. It was only yesterday when I found my answer.

I celebrated his birthday.

Of course, he does not have an exact date of birth, but I decided to make yesterday his birthday. Exactly four years ago yesterday, Verlaine killed Pan and gained freedom.

I picked up a small pudding from a pâtissier in Paris, then headed over to Verlaine’s hideout with a bottle of wine under my arm. He seemed more suspicious than surprised. Therefore, I explained things to him.

Celebrating birthdays is a simple gesture that suggests one thing: Your birth is something worth celebrating. No matter what anyone says, you deserve to be here.

And there’s one element a birthday cannot go without. A birthday without this would be like a night sky with no moon.

That one element is: a birthday present.

I gave him a black hat. A bowler hat, to be precise.

It was nothing expensive, nor was it made by some famous haberdasher. However, the sweat-absorbent fabric lining incorporates some rather unique materials. One-tenth of that material is platinum, and another one-tenth is titanium. The rest is a rainbow-colored skill metal made primarily from gold, and it allows one to harness Pan’s skill. I took one of his experiments from his lab that he was on the verge of completing and modified it into a hat.

Once Verlaine puts on the hat, the fabric lining acts like coils, deflecting any external command sequences that could tamper with his mind. In other words, the wearer can control command sequences at will.

With this hat, Verlaine is one step closer to becoming a human with free will.

His reaction was curious. He appeared neither happy nor surprised. His gaze quiet, he simply said, “Sure, I’ll take it.” He didn’t say another word after that. We drank wine together, said good night, and went our separate ways.

Even though an entire day has already gone by, I still wonder if I did the right thing. Verlaine’s eyes were as cold and as distant as the north pole.

But I imagine I will learn the answer very soon.

Tomorrow, at the enemy’s base.

I would gladly walk through any hell for my partner’s sake. So long as there is a god in the heavens, this bond in my heart, and a future within reach.

(This was the last entry in his journal. There was nothing more written after this.)

The battle was over, but remnants of the gravitational waves were still rumbling through the woodlands. Verlaine was lying at ground zero among the trees collapsed in a radial pattern. The lingering gravity created a small whirlpool that drew in sound, wind, and leaves. Verlaine, however, still hadn’t regained consciousness.

Adam sat him up with one arm and stared at his sleeping expression.

“His pulse is stable. Breathing is faint,” observed Adam. “He is sound asleep. The lingering gravity is not powerful enough to be a danger to the human body, either.”

He then leaned forward to focus more on Verlaine’s sleeping expression. This calamitous man known as the king of assassins looked extremely gentle at rest. He wasn’t the least bit threatening.

“Say, would you like to draw something on his face while he’s asleep?” asked Adam.

“Don’t,” said Chuuya, still sitting on the ground.

“This finger actually functions as a pen as well,” added Adam as he pulled the cap off the tip of his middle finger.

“I said don’t,” Chuuya repeated, though his lips were curling into a faint smirk.

“He looks just like any ordinary human sleeping so peacefully like this,” Adam noted while placing the cap back on his fingertip.

“Asleep or not, he is just an ordinary human,” Chuuya replied indifferently. “His skill is powerful, but that’s it. He gets mad, he worries… That doesn’t seem to be enough for him, though.”

Adam quietly stared hard at Chuuya after hearing those words, but before long he smiled. “You are exactly right. It appears you have reached the conclusion you needed to arrive at.”

“Huh? The hell does that mean?”

But right as Chuuya shot a piercing glare at Adam, he suddenly heard static coming from his radio.

“Look at you two best buddies. I heard what happened.”

It was Dazai’s voice.

“You defeated Verlaine, huh? I’m impressed. When I came up with the plan, I was like, ‘Eh, Chuuya might get flattened before he even reaches the surface, but whatever. It’s just Chuuya, after all.’”

“Listen here, you little sh—”

Before Chuuya could even rip into him, the voice on the radio continued:

“But that’s not why I called you. Have you seen N?”

“Huh? N?” Chuuya furrowed his brow. “Verlaine kidnapped him, right?”

“Of course, we sent a rescue group to go get him, since we could use a brain like his. I’m especially interested in having him take a look inside you.”

Chuuya didn’t say anything for a few moments, but he eventually grabbed the radio and replied, “Oh. So that’s what you were really after, huh?”

“You just realized that?” Dazai chuckled mirthfully. “I know we had to protect Mori, and blah, blah, blah, but I’m nowhere near loyal enough to fight someone like Verlaine without a reward. That’s why I’ve come up with a plan to learn the command sequence N knows so we can modify you into our loyal company maid who—”

“Yeah, yeah. Keep talkin’ outta your ass. Anyway, get to the point. Why’d you ask me if I’d seen N?”

“Because we lost contact with the rescue squad that saved him on their way here. We can’t get in contact with N, either.”

“What?”

“Something must have happened.”

Dazai’s voice eerily faded into the night.

A black Mafia vehicle had crashed into a telephone pole.

N rolled out of the back seat of the unmoving car. His entire body was bruised and beaten, and blood filled his mouth. He was on all fours at the roadside, his breathing ragged and strained.

The front end of the car was totaled from the head-on collision with the telephone pole on the shoulder of the road, and the entire vehicle was still smoking. This quiet area was near the battleground with Verlaine; there was no traffic coming or going. Only the dark trees were watching.

“I can’t…die… Not here… Not yet…,” gasped N before vomiting blood onto the ground. He slowly managed to stand, then began walking forward to escape to safety. “Not until…I give this message…”

He pulled an old flare gun out of his pocket. It was a dull red. Although it looked very similar to a normal pistol, its thick muzzle could fire twelve-gauge flares.

Next, N began to take off his watch—an extremely ordinary silver watch. His sweaty, bloodied fingers removed the glass covering and retrieved a single gear.

That gear was the watch’s only unique feature. The metal had a mysterious glow to it; there was gold, platinum, and a rainbow-colored alloy that most people had never seen before. When the moonlight shone upon the gear, an extremely small character string emerged onto the surface for the briefest moment.

N dragged his leg along the ground as he walked to a hill with a view of the battle site. There he saw a crater surrounded by collapsed trees.

“I knew this would happen… You let the Brutalization take over, didn’t you, Verlaine?” N panted. The corner of his lips faintly curled upward. “Then even these fragile hands of mine will finally be able to reach you.”

With calm, emotionless eyes, N took the mysterious metal out of his watch and placed it inside a flare. He had the gaze of a man who’d made up his mind and was simply following procedure. He loaded the flare into the flare gun, then aimed it at the sky.

Smoke was still rising from the car behind N. Fuel was leaking from under it. There were two people inside the vehicle, but they showed no signs of moving. Both were with the Mafia.

They were dead.

The man in the driver’s seat had his face on the wheel as if he were asleep, but from the nape of his neck to his waist, both his clothing and flesh had melted, exposing his spine. Putrid white smoke was still rising from his gaping wound.

The man in the passenger seat was more or less the same. His body was melted from his right shoulder to his arm; he died the moment his spine broke when they hit the telephone pole. The chemicals poured onto him from behind had chewed his seat belt into pieces.

An empty vial was lying on the floor in the back of the car. It was clear how the occupants had died: The man sitting in the back had suddenly doused them with a chemical solution. They were taken completely by surprise. The solution melted through their bodies before they could even react, and they subsequently crashed into a telephone pole on the curb.

These two Mafia members had rescued the man in the back seat—N—from the tower crane where he’d been abandoned. They had been in the middle of taking him to Dazai.

Chuuya was carrying the sleeping assassin and half-broken android on his back. Although their combined weight and size were double that of Chuuya’s, he showed no signs of struggling, since he had manipulated their gravity to make them lighter.

“Wow. What am I going to do?” Adam said with his eyes closed. “I completed my mission to a T. All of Parliament—no, every nation in the world is going to be thanking me when I get home.”

“Uh-huh. I feel like the guy carrying you on his back right now deserves some of that praise, too, though,” replied Chuuya. He looked peeved.

“I am going to be promoted without a doubt now. It appears I’ll be able to fulfill my dream of opening an android-only detective agency even more quickly than I imagined.”

“Yeah, yeah. Good for you.”

“In the future, perfect android detectives will protect the imperfect humans, and eventually, human detectives will be deemed obsolete and phased out… No, if anything, humans will be liberated from any activity other than leisure, and with no way to take care of themselves, we androids will be in charge of them… Heh-heh-heh.”

“Quit laughing like that. You’re freaking me out.”

Just as Chuuya fixed Adam with a stern glare, a flare shot into the sky due east.

“What’s that?”

It was a glittering golden flare. The tail of smoke sharply clipped the night sky like a shooting star moving in reverse. The light illuminated the outline of the trees, carving into the earth like a scar and throwing a long, long shadow from Chuuya’s feet.

“…Did the attack unit misfire or something?” Chuuya wondered, squinting as he looked up at the newly formed sun in the night sky.

Dazai watched without even blinking. His eyes swiftly darted about in search of the flare’s source.

The angle. The current time. The current situation. The type of flare. The most likely suspect who fired it. The reason. The goal.

His eyes flashed as if he had all the answers before even a second had gone by. And then…

“This isn’t good…” The words fell from his lips in a crackling wheeze. “Everyone needs to evacuate… No… There’s no time.”

His eyes trembled with despair.

Countless peculiar fragments of rainbow-glittering metal began pouring down from the flare. Chuuya looked at the sky and saw multicolored particles finer than snow shimmering like stars. Their beautiful twinkle was reminiscent of a silent symphony.

That was when it immediately hit Chuuya: They were playing music. It was acoustic pressure, to be exact. A simple, pure musical signal that preceded a melody.

A sudden change occurred. Verlaine abruptly screamed from Chuuya’s back.

It was an unintelligible scream. Every hair on Chuuya’s body stood on end. Verlaine couldn’t possibly have woken up. Chuuya had let his guard down completely; what if he was under attack? This was the worst position he could be in. He’d have no way to evade a subsequent attack.

Chuuya swiftly leaned forward and tried to throw Verlaine off, but that was when he realized Verlaine wasn’t merely screaming. He was suffering.

His eyes became bloodshot as veins emerged on his face like a net. He clawed at his chest and fell to the ground, writhing in pain. His entire body tensed to the point that Chuuya could almost hear the muscles tear. Verlaine violently bent backward.

“Adam! What’s going on?!”

“These are not the effects of the poison I created!” Adam yelled stiffly.

That was when Chuuya noticed Verlaine’s lingering gravity was absorbing the metallic particles. That was most likely affecting him even more than if the particles simply touched his bare skin.

Someone was attacking. Verlaine was suffering because of these metallic particles.

But who could have shot that flare?

“…Got me.”

Verlaine sounded like he was trying to groan something through the unbearable pain. Chuuya looked toward him.

“He…got…me.”

There was heartbreaking regret in his strained voice.

“That researcher…lied… He knew…The Secret of the Gentle Forest…”

That was when the change occurred. The space around Verlaine began to waver.

“The change in the gravitational field is swallowing the ambient light. Observing frequency fluctuations due to the Doppler effect!” Adam’s voice resembled a high-pitched alarm. “Something is coming!”

The earth around Verlaine began to sink like an invisible giant had punched the ground, gradually creating a crater. The trees trembled as if in fear.

“Please get out of here, Master Chuuya. As quickly as you can. This gravitational wavelength pattern is exactly the same as the one recorded on that day nine years ago.”

“What?” Chuuya’s expression instantly changed. “Verlaine, answer me! What’s happening?!”

Verlaine was drowning in the gravitational wave vibrations he was producing.

Space warped until Verlaine was barely visible. The extraordinarily powerful skill-phase expansion reached a circumference of a few hundred feet. The energy potential inside the phase created successive blue flashes of lightning-like bolts.

Verlaine’s voice grew faint and weak as if it came from another dimension.

“The world…is going to end.”

He reached out with a trembling hand as if he were an old man drawing his last breath.

“Chuuya—live.”

His hand then touched Chuuya’s chest, manipulating his gravity and flinging him backward.

“Wha—?!”

Chuuya spun through the air and looked at Verlaine. He was smiling wistfully.

The rapidly expanding and diffusing matter soon caught up with Chuuya, swallowing his consciousness whole.

The heavens split. Black lightning struck the earth. The air expanded.

The mafiosi from the attack unit were preparing to evacuate when they heard it: the songs of angels. Dazai stood on a train car and heard the laughter of demons.

It was just like the calamity that occurred nine years ago. The ground boiled. Buildings evaporated. The heavens were scorched as the earth cried.

The god of destruction was emerging from the other side of this world.

But the creature burning through the forest was not Arahabaki. It was something even bigger, darker, and more sinister. The behemoth eclipsed the moon as each of its faint movements created a vacuum, splitting the land open.

Dazai looked up at the creature.

“This is a singularity? Did this power really come from a skill?” He sounded downright ecstatic. “It looks like the end of the world.”

Even his lips unconsciously curled with euphoria.

Within the first ten seconds, every tree within a mile radius had been destroyed. Ten seconds later, every bit of land in the same radius was demolished and burst into the air. Another ten seconds passed, and the hollowed earth began to boil, turning into lava that started burning the forest into nothing.

N cackled as he watched the show from atop a hill.

“Ha-ha-ha-ha! Oh, Verlaine! This is The Secret of the Gentle Forest! This is what Rimbaud removed from the files to protect you! It’s how we turn you back into your true form!”

The silhouette of a gargantuan black beast—the monster Verlaine had become—stood tall before N’s eyes.

“Even the god Arahabaki is a mere knock-off of you. You are the first living singularity to ever exist. You are the mythic beast that came from this world’s very origins. Your creator named you after the mirror image of the malevolent god, the original demon: Demonic Beast Guivre.”

The giant beast raised its head.

Its body was fire itself, as was its tail. Its highly dense jet-black physique was cold enough to freeze the night.

The monster had eight red eyes and rusty silver teeth. The high energy within was so powerful that it was difficult to make out its wavering silhouette.

The beast stood taller than a high-rise building; its jaw and general appearance were reptilian, and yet it looked nothing like any living being on this planet. This was a monster that existed only in legends, a ruler of chaos and evil itself—a malicious dragon of lore.

It was far too sinister to call a god. The soil beneath its claws boiled as the mafiosi who couldn’t escape in time screamed their deaths.

This was living, breathing chaos. A creature that only existed on a cosmic scale far beyond human comprehension, its howl of annihilation filled the air.

My main core performed an emergency reboot three times, which allowed me to somehow regain consciousness. However, I had no idea where I was. I did not even know what physical position I was in.

Swirling around me at an incredible speed was a whirlpool of darkness. The irregular gravity was causing every one of my gauges to go haywire. I could not scan my surroundings, either.

I eventually arrived at the conclusion that I was most likely inside Verlaine. There was no other explanation as to why I could not contact the outside world through any means of communication. The powerful gravitational force was trapping the radio waves in here with me.

Even my timepiece was abnormally fast. Perhaps time was moving more quickly here due to relativity.

This place was extremely dangerous.

“Master Chuuya! Where are you?!” I shouted after raising my sound pressure as high as it could go. However, my voice did not even reach my own hearing components. This was no different from being in outer space. A stormy light flashed by my eyes in intervals.

All of a sudden, the alarm went off in my core system, which was followed by a brief report in my feed.

Confirming deployment of Emergency Status Number 812. Approval to use Emergency Response Protocol B. Overriding final mission objectives and unlocking functions B1 through B12.

I remembered everything at that moment: the situation, the estimated amount of damage and casualties—and the real reason I was sent on this mission.

It appeared I really was inside Verlaine. The singularity inside him was released, which swallowed Master Chuuya and me as well, since we were closest. Master Chuuya was in trouble.

“Temporarily putting Emergency Response Protocol on hold. I must find my highest commander Master Chuuya first.”

I used a jet of air to maneuver my body forward.

“I’m coming to save you!”

The space tempest was so dark that I could not even see my own fingertips. I advanced into the chaos.

Dazai watched as the Mafia’s hopeless onslaught continued. Heat waves, fire, and rays of light enveloped the beast. The skill user waiting in the rear had started their attack. Trench mortars, anti-tank missiles, grenade launchers, and a myriad of other firearms immediately followed, covering the monster in flames.

But every attack was blocked by the bubble-like black holes emerging around the creature. Physical bullets were either swallowed by the black holes or pulverized by the light the holes released. Then, they vanished without a trace.

The ice-creating skill user produced cold air, but the beast’s energy was far too grand; the drop in temperature merely reduced the quantity of heat for a split second. The skill user who could liquefy mass tried to make the ground under the beast cave in, but the creature’s feet were far too big. It ended up doing little more than causing them to faintly sink into the ground.

All other skills bounced off the beast’s surface one after another.

“It’s hopeless,” muttered Dazai in blank amazement. “We’re no different than the citizens of Sodom who provoked God’s anger. The scales are tipped against us. It’s not even a fight anymore.”

“Dazai, sir.” Hirotsu came rushing over with a radio in hand. “The mercenaries we paid will be arriving shortly in their aviation units.”

“‘Aviation units’?”

Almost simultaneously, the deep bass of three engines could be heard approaching from the east. Massive lumps of iron—heavily armed air-to-surface attack helicopters.

These weren’t transportation vessels that had been stolen and modified to function as gunship helicopters, nor were they spotter helicopters used for scouting and attacking. These were ferocious animals designed with only one thing in mind: crushing the enemy with overwhelming firepower.

The three attack helicopters spewed flames in unison. And they weren’t being stingy with their ammo, either. Each aircraft simultaneously fired sixteen homing rockets—a total of forty-eight rockets. A single one had enough firepower to pierce a tank’s armor and turn it into dust.

The beast’s body burst into crimson flames. It howled.

The homing rockets did not explode the moment they hit their target, but instead, right when they were close enough to engulf it in the blast. This proximity fuse made it possible to attack the enemy before the missiles were absorbed into the black holes. Few, if any, skill users in the Mafia harnessed a power greater than this.

The beast shook its head in aggravation.

“What incredible power,” Hirotsu marveled, holding a hand in front of his face to block out the blinding light. “Though large, it lacks any long-range attacks. If we keep this up, then perhaps…”

A stone-faced Dazai narrowed his eyes. “No…”

The howling beast glared at the attack helicopters hovering in the sky, and the pungent stench of death began to fill the surrounding air.

“…?!”

Everyone there saw it.

The night sky was vanishing. Light from the moon and the stars was swallowed by the colossal darkness forming over the beast’s head. That darkness began to condense until it became a train car–size black orb that could fit in the beast’s mouth. It was pure nothingness; this darkness would devour all worldly logic.

And with a roar, the beast launched that dark orb.

First to vanish was the terrain. The ray of darkness bore a hole deep into the earth and moved forward as the beast lifted its head. It dug into the land, carving a perfectly straight cliff into the earth.

The torrent of darkness directly hit the first attack helicopter. It wasn’t even destroyed in the blast. It just ceased to exist after the vortex absorbed it. The second and third helicopters were pulled apart by the tidal power, simply from being too close to the torrent. Countless parts turned into fragments of what they once were before pelting the surface below.

It was over in the blink of an eye. In that brief moment, the beast did nothing more than breathe darkness, destroying three of the latest and greatest weapons.

“What…?” Hirotsu stared at the sky as if he had forgotten to even breathe. “What…was that?”

The surface was hollowed in a straight line, creating a cliff so deep that the abyss below seemed endless. The scar in the land appeared to continue all the way to the horizon.

“Ha-ha… Are you kidding me? It just shot a black hole like a laser.” Only Dazai’s lips were twisted into a smile as he stood wide-eyed. “This isn’t even a skill anymore. In fact, this shouldn’t even be possible on Earth. It’s closer to a physical phenomenon you’d only see in a galactic system or inside the sun or something. It doesn’t even feel like we’re fighting a living creature anymore. It’s useless. There’s no way we can win.”

The beast began to move.

While a single step took seconds, the sluggish speed was just enough time to produce a shock wave with the end of its foot. Nevertheless, the creature was so massive that no matter how slow it moved, it was still as fast as an express train.

It was heading toward the hill where N was standing. He was on the verge of drawing his last breath, still laughing as he looked down at the destruction he caused.

“Ha-ha-ha! Yes, this is who you are, Verlaine! You were right! You’re not human! You’re something even greater! A beast that will devour the entire world! Go forward and let your singularity ravage the city! Flatten the entire planet! Use every last bit of your power until you evaporate and disappear along with the singularity! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

The beast as it walked was reminiscent of a moving jet-black mountain. Its eyes saw nothing—not the surviving Mafia members, not N by its feet. Not one thing. All that was in its line of sight were the distant glittering city lights of Yokohama.

“Do you see that, Verlaine? That is your ending!”

N’s laughter turned shrill before eventually becoming what sounded like a scream.

“You, an unparalleled being, are going to die because of me, a pathetic human! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Die, Verlaine! This is for my little brother! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

The beast raised its foot into the air. N screamed with laughter and tears in his eyes.

The sole of its foot flattened the entire hill, N included.

Hirotsu and Dazai closely observed the beast’s movement from within the woods a slight distance away.

“It started walking,” muttered Hirotsu in disbelief. “It’s heading toward Yokohama’s residential district.”

“It’s the embodiment of hatred,” Dazai said as if he were reading a line out of a book. “It responds to attacks. In other words, it responds to hatred. Some people downtown must have noticed the attack, so it’s responding to their presence and heading toward Yokohama.”

“At this rate…”

“Yeah, millions of people will die.” Dazai took out his radio. “Looks like it’s about time to call it quits.”

He then adjusted the frequency of his radio and said, “Hey, Mori? You should probably run. He’s heading that way.”

Mori was sitting at his desk on the highest floor of the Port Mafia’s headquarters while gazing out the window. The room was dark with a clear overlook of Yokohama’s nightscape. His eyes, however, were fixed on the far distance beyond the city.

The sky was faintly flickering red; the forest fires illuminated the clouds hanging over the battleground.

“I could see that attack all the way from here,” Mori said calmly. “Some rather incredible things appear to be happening where you are, huh?”

“You don’t even know the half of it,” replied Dazai. “That thing’s another Arahabaki. Nine years ago, Arahabaki turned Suribachi City into a giant crater the moment it was awakened. If that thing unleashes that same kind of power nonstop within the city, then Yokohama’s gonna sink to the bottom of the ocean. There’s nothing more we can do.”

Mori’s expression didn’t change at all. He simply took a quiet breath before replying, “Dazai, do you know why I’m the boss?”

“Mori,” Dazai chided in exasperation. “We don’t have time for this.”

“I don’t possess an incredible skill like you or Chuuya. Instead, however, I am a little better at something than the two of you. I can always predict exactly how many men I need to send into battle. I’m naturally intuitive in that sense.”

Dazai fell silent for a few moments.

“Are you telling us to defeat that thing?”

“You told me to run, but where would I go that would allow me to escape from a monster like that?”

Mori’s tone was calm. It was the voice of a man who spoke only facts.

“I am more interested to see how you all—how Chuuya and you—overcome this danger. I’m sure the moment you pull it off will mark the beginning of a new era.”

“Yeah, no problem, boss,” replied Dazai, clearly annoyed. “Except that Chuuya’s probably dead. He was closest to the monster when it emerged, and I’m not getting any response when I try to radio him. Even if he was defending himself with his skill, he’s probably in that beast’s stomach as we speak… Do you want to know what I’m thinking?”

Mori didn’t reply. He only shrugged faintly. After waiting for a few moments, Dazai continued:

“I think this is a perfect opportunity. A skill like that would undoubtedly wipe me from existence without a trace. I wouldn’t suffer or feel any pain, and it wouldn’t leave a hideous, disfigured corpse. This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance, as far as I’m concerned.”

Mori didn’t immediately respond. From the look in his eyes, he seemed to be considering which words to choose as they lingered on his tongue. He tapped a finger against his lips in silence.

“I believe you’re correct in your assumption,” replied Mori after a few moments. “But you are going to face the beast and fight until the very end. That much I know, too.”

“Yeah, you’re right. That was a long shot. But let me hear why you think that, just for laughs.”

“My reasoning is extremely simple.” Mori smiled. “If that monster kills you, nobody will be able to save Chuuya, and he will die as well. In other words, you will finally get the death you have always yearned for but with Chuuya by your side.”

A full ten seconds of silence went by until Dazai broke it.

“Hwaaah.”

“Was that a yawn I just heard?”

“Look, I know what you’re trying to do, and it’s not gonna work. You can’t manipulate me. Good-bye.”

The radio then cut off. Mori held his radio with a faint smirk.

Dazai froze with the radio still in his hands.

He then curled into the fetal position and screamed, “With Chuuya? Anything but thaaaat!!”

Chuuya advanced through the darkness. It wasn’t clear whether he was progressing through time or space. He didn’t know if this was even a physical place or a conceptual darkness representing the afterlife.

But he could see someone in front of him.

They were obscured by the raging, disorienting darkness, but someone was definitely there. They were floating in space just beyond the faintly blue mist of darkness. It was a familiar face.

That was when Chuuya realized: It was him—a younger version of Chuuya floating in the bluish-black liquid.

He was asleep. Countless familiar tubes and cords were jammed into his spine. All of a sudden, Chuuya heard a voice coming from his side.

“Paul, hurry. The guards could be here any minute now.”

Startled, he looked in the direction of the voice and saw another familiar face: a man with long, wavy black hair and quiet eyes. He was wearing a researcher’s white lab coat to sneak into the facility.

Arthur Rimbaud was looking this way.

“Paul, what’s wrong? This child is Prototype A2-5-8. There is no question about it. What are you waiting for?”

“I know.”

It was Chuuya himself who responded.

He looked back toward the glass cylinder and could faintly see a man in its reflection. It was a man wearing a black hat—a young Paul Verlaine.

Verlaine placed a hand on the glass; he had such long fingers. At the sound of Verlaine’s voice, that hand became a fist that broke the glass. Bluish-black fluid spewed out, and Verlaine’s hand grabbed the young Chuuya, pulling him out into the world.

Time flew by.

He was in a back alley at night. The moonlight diagonally cut through the sky. The buildings were shoddy—made from blocks of wood sloppily stacked together. Rimbaud was jogging slightly ahead through the alley, a military alarm blaring somewhere far in the distance. Someone had realized Verlaine and Rimbaud had infiltrated the base.

That was when it hit Chuuya. This was a memory of nine years ago—when Verlaine and his partner, Rimbaud, broke Chuuya out of the military research facility.

But why? Why am I being shown this memory?

Chuuya thought back to the sensation of being swallowed by something powerful right after Verlaine pushed him in the woodlands. It was something dark—different from gravity. Perhaps that was why he was seeing this.

His head started hurting when he tried to focus. Something bigger than him was trying to engulf him, making it difficult to maintain his presence of mind.

But he had to hold on. There had to be a reason why he was being shown this memory.

Rimbaud was walking briskly ahead. “Our escape submarine is only five kilometers away. We have to throw them off our tail before then, or we’ll be swimming back to France,” he said, never letting his guard down. He possessed the kind of focus found only in seasoned spies.

The distance between him and Verlaine began to grow. Verlaine had slowed his pace before eventually stopping.

“What’s the matter, Paul?” Rimbaud turned around. “Hurry. The enemy is catching up.”

There was no response.

Apparently, Verlaine was carrying the young Chuuya on his shoulders, most likely because he could make the boy lighter with his skill.

“I’m not giving this child to France,” Verlaine declared succinctly.

“What?” Bewilderment colored Rimbaud’s face.

“I’m not giving him to anyone. He won’t be going back to the research facility, either. This boy is going to grow up in a quiet countryside village somewhere in secrecy, never having to know what he truly is.”

Rimbaud blinked a few moments as if he couldn’t process what was going on. Before long, however, he began walking back to Verlaine.

“Not a step closer.”

But Verlaine’s sharp voice stopped him.

“What are you talking about?” Rimbaud continued to express confusion. “This child should be taken care of and educated by the government just like you were.”

“That’s the problem.” Verlaine’s tone was tense and hostile. “Rimbaud. Just once, I want you to imagine just how much it could affect a person if you told them they weren’t human. Imagine how it feels to be told you weren’t born with God’s love, that you are nothing more than a character set someone suddenly came up with. Imagine the depths of a person’s heart pierced by those words. It’s a pitch-black abyss where the moon can’t be seen. There is no hope. There is no salvation. Do you get it? Even those feelings of despair are merely something someone designed!”

“We’ve been through this many times before, Paul.” Rimbaud took a step forward. “You’re human, no matter what anyone else thinks. The process by which you were born is inconsequential compared to how you’re here now, existing and thinking for yourself.”

“Oh, right,” Verlaine said bitterly, nodding. “‘You’re human.’ I’ve heard that countless times as well. There’s nothing I hate more in this world than hearing you say that.”

“Paul…”

“I told you to stay back,” Verlaine sternly repeated as Rimbaud tried to approach. “You can twist things however you want in your mind, but that doesn’t change the fact that I’m not human! You, a mere outsider, dare say I should calm down, that everything’s okay because I look and act just like a human? I’d feel better if you told me I’m just like a frog!”

Rimbaud frowned and shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said before turning around. “At any rate, we need to return to France. We can further discuss this matter once we arrive.”

He started walking again. Verlaine stared at his back.

“It’ll be far too late to talk then,” whispered Verlaine. “Once we’re back, our comrades from the organization will come in droves to restrain me. This is my only chance to get my way—while I’m in enemy territory.”

He raised his gun. It was an ordinary pistol, but Chuuya immediately came to a realization. To someone like Verlaine, who could manipulate the speed and weight of an object, a pistol was no different than a cannon. Its bullets could pierce the body of any skill user, even someone with a transcendent skill such as Rimbaud. That pistol was pointed at Rimbaud’s back.

“Do you really think you can shoot me, Paul?” asked Rimbaud, back still turned. “I’m the man who saved you. I granted you human life.”

“I’m sorry, Rimbaud.” It was a whisper so faint that it melted and disappeared in Verlaine’s mouth. The pain, however, was real. “But I want to save myself—I want to save the other me.”

He pulled the trigger.

The bullet soared toward Rimbaud’s back beyond the speed of sound. But before it hit him, Rimbaud swiftly turned around and activated his skill, creating a crimson cube to shield him. The bullet, however, twisted space itself with its gravity, then pierced the cube and struck the base of the hand Rimbaud was holding up to block. It went even farther, shooting through the subspace behind his hand before eventually stopping.

There wasn’t a trace of anger on Rimbaud’s face.

“So that’s what you’ve decided, Paul.”

His eyes were quiet and dry as a wasteland as he gazed back at the man who was once his best friend and partner.

“I appreciate everything you’ve done for me,” Verlaine admitted quietly. “But surely you now understand the horrible mistake you made: bringing to life a man who should never have been born.”

Gravity expanded like a blooming flower, warping their surroundings.

“It wasn’t a mistake, Paul. I am going to take you home with me, even if it means tearing off an arm or a leg first.”

Rimbaud’s subspace grew until it engulfed the back alley. The tense air of battle scorched the earth and sky.

This was no ordinary battle. It was the battle of two Transcendents with the might of a thousand trained soldiers, a battle to the death that would erode their souls. The two extraordinary powers clashed.

“Master Chuuya! Please open your eyes!”

Chuuya’s consciousness was dragged out of the past.

He was immediately plunged into darkness. Amid that raging torrent of uncanny darkness, he found himself floating. There was no telling which way was up. The contradiction in space lorded over this dark torrent.

Darkness passed by his ears along with a roar. Rainbow-colored metallic powder occasionally soared past his eyes with unbelievable speed.

He felt a strong grip on his shoulder and looked to his side to find Adam grabbing his shoulder. His grip alone was keeping Chuuya from being dragged away by the violent flow of darkness. He was so close, and yet his body was a blur beyond the swirling gloom. It was as if he were a dozen miles or so away.

Adam pushed the back of his ear and pulled out a semicircular device that he then placed on Chuuya’s ear. He could hear Adam’s voice coming from what seemed to be some sort of receiver.

“I almost thought you were not going to wake up.”

“…Where are we?” asked Chuuya as he looked around.

It was a raging stream of darkness—a space so large it completely distorted his spatial awareness.

The receiver seemed to function as a microphone as well, allowing Adam to respond to his questions.

“We are most likely inside Verlaine.” Adam’s voice was full of static. “His singularity has been fully unleashed, transforming him into a singularity life-form known as Demonic Beast Guivre. We were dragged in here when this event occurred.”

“Ah,” said Chuuya, stone-faced. “So we’re inside Verlaine. I had a feeling that was the case.”

Something whooshed past his ears, but he could no longer tell if it was matter, wind, or even the flow of time and space. One minute inside here felt like a month on the outside and yet it also felt like the blink of an eye. The concepts of distance and direction didn’t exist in this space, either. All Chuuya could do was endure the incoming, overpowering waves of energy so he didn’t lose consciousness.

“The logic of geometrical space does not apply here. The flow of time in a black hole moves like a whirlpool, and the flow differs between each location. If we get separated, we will probably never see each other again. Here. Use this.”

Adam placed a hand on the connecter at the base of his skull, then pulled out some sort of white wire. He tightly tied it around Chuuya’s waist before bringing it around his back and over his shoulders and neck. The metal wire had a clean, stable glow, even within the raging darkness.

“What is it?”

“It is an emergency axial fiber known as a time-proof cable,” Adam answered with a smile. “It might look like any ordinary string, but the inside is packed with countless connected vacuum capsules. Put simply, its structure is akin to a tube. Inside that tube are gluons—a type of boson—that move at the speed of light while triggering quantum tunneling. Generally, the flow of time slows down the closer that matter gets to the speed of light, so time will hardly move inside that cable full of gluons. That will not change regardless of whatever is happening with space-time in the outside world, so it acts as a space-time insulator.”

An incredible torrent of darkness rushed past Chuuya’s ears even while Adam explained things. The wire holding Chuuya in place slightly relieved the spatial agnosia-like discomfort he was feeling.

“In other words, you can rest assured that wire is not going to break, despite the unforeseen circumstances you are in.”

“I don’t really get the details, but…” Chuuya knit his brows. “Why the hell did you even have a wire for a situation like this in the first place?”

“Because I was designed in preparation for something like this from the very beginning.”

Chuuya’s expression stiffened. “What?”

“I remembered just a little while earlier.” There was an earnest glow in Adam’s eyes. “My knowledge on the subject was protected until the moment I recognized the situation. This cable is one of the things I remembered. European HQ predicted that the singularity inside Verlaine would go berserk, which was why they sent me, since I know how to stop this. However, we do not have much time left. I am executing Final Protocol—my secret mission—before Yokohama becomes the largest crater in the world. Do you think you could help me?”

Chuuya stared at Adam for a few moments before eventually smiling.

“I don’t have a reason not to,” he replied. “But what exactly are we gonna do to stop it?”

“We are going to use the skill weapon built inside me.”

Adam opened the loading bay inside his chest, revealing a peculiar antique camera. Connected to it were shock-absorbent resin, circuits, and a piece of parchment with strange words written on it.

“This was created in Great Britain during the final days of the war. It acts as my power source, but it originally served as a thermal weapon of mass destruction.” Adam smirked. “We are going to incinerate Demonic Beast Guivre in its entirety with this.”

“Huh?” Chuuya’s eyes opened wide. “Incinerate? In its entirety?”

“Yes. Allow me to briefly explain the protocol,” began Adam before detaching his right arm from the shoulder. “First, connect this arm to the time-proof cable’s port. I only have one arm, so I cannot do it myself.”

“Like this?”

Chuuya grabbed the arm and inserted the cable into the port in the wrist.

“Please make sure it is properly secured,” said Adam. “Next, hold on to the cable, manipulate its gravity with your skill, and throw it as far as you can.”

“How far do you want it?”

“Until it is outside this area.”

Chuuya was silent with a stern expression. He looked at Adam, peered into the darkness, then snorted. “Are you serious?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t even know where this place starts and where it ends. The strong torrent isn’t doin’ us any favors, either. There’s no guarantee I could even throw it straight. It’s pretty obvious Verlaine’s skill’s more powerful than mine.”

“Even then, I need you to do this.” Adam shook his head. “Do not worry, Master Chuuya. I know you can do it.”

“Because nothing makes me more confident than some baseless encouragement from a computer,” Chuuya said with a strained smile. Suddenly, his gaze turned serious. “Is this even long enough?”

“It should be.” Adam held up a bundle of cable he had pulled out.

“All right. Here goes nothing.”

Chuuya closed his eyes and steadied his breathing. He then raised Adam’s arm while holding the glittering wire in his other hand and peered into the emptiness ahead.

He applied lateral gravity to the arm, squeezing it until his knuckles turned white. Chuuya manipulated its gravity as much as possible, then let go. It shot forward like a meteor before being swallowed by the torrent of darkness and vanishing in the blink of an eye.

Chuuya clutched the time-proof cable as it swiftly retracted while using his skill on it. The cable and attached arm continued to accelerate, since his skill allowed him to modify the strength and direction of the gravity of whatever he touched.

The cable rapidly unwound.

“Farther!”

Chuuya’s face was covered in sweat. He had to pierce this gravitational space of absolute darkness, which swallowed even light itself, with only his own strength. It was like trying to send something into space using his skill alone.

“Haaaaaah!”

Sweat dripped from every pore in his body. Each drop was blown away by the gale of darkness before immediately disappearing into the void. Just when Chuuya was about to fade out of consciousness, and the cable was about to run out, the resistance at the end of the cable suddenly vanished.

Adam’s arm shot out of the beast’s torso. It looked no bigger than a tiny needle compared to the behemoth. The glittering cable followed like the tail of a shooting star. The arm swam through the sky, falling in an arc in the opposite direction the beast was moving.

The moment it struck the soil among the trees, Adam’s arm shot out four harpoon-like protrusions in a radial pattern. They skewered the ground to keep the arm fixed in place. Once the sturdy cable tightened, it immediately started pulling Chuuya, who was tied to the other end.

“Whoa?!”

The abrupt tug took Chuuya by surprise. The fully extended cable started winding, pulling Chuuya forward at a terrifying speed like a winch tugging a car. Adam’s arm, which acted as an anchor, was dragging Chuuya outside in the opposite direction of the moving beast.

“Heh. Now I see how we’re getting out of here.” Chuuya smiled with evident satisfaction. “So? What are we gonna do once we’re outside, and—?”

But when Chuuya turned around, he saw something strange: Adam, smiling dolefully.

Adam cut the cable tying them together.

“…Huh?”

Chuuya reflexively reached out, but Adam was blown away by the torrent of dark time, disappearing almost instantly. Chuuya, whose entire body was wrapped with cable, was still being quickly dragged outside.

“Adam! What are you doing?! Didn’t you just say we’d never find each other again if we—?”

“This is how it has to be.”

Chuuya heard Adam’s lonely voice through the receiver in his ear.

“The name of this weapon is the Shell. Its incineration range has a twenty-two-yard radius. The internal temperature is six thousand degrees Celsius. An intense heat equivalent to the temperature of the sun’s surface will erupt around me, ionizing the singularity life-form even on a molecular level. Only white smoke will remain.”

“Around…you?” A bitter realization warped Chuuya’s expression. “Hold on. Tell me you’re not planning on—”

“This is the real reason an android was sent instead of a human detective.” Adam’s voice was tender and weak. “My core, which now contains state secrets, will be incinerated along with Verlaine.”

“Don’t!” Chuuya shouted into the receiver as he was dragged through the torrent. “Are you stupid or something?! There’s gotta be another way we can do this!”

“Perhaps there is. However, I cannot protect you while simultaneously completing the mission any other way.”

“Who gives a shit about the mission?!” Chuuya yelled while being pulled with immense power. “What happened to your dream?! I thought you were gonna make an all-android detective agency!”

Two seconds went by before Adam answered.

“My dream is to protect humans.”

His voice was clear and kind like a parent protecting their child.

“And that dream is about to come true.”

Chuuya’s body was abruptly pulled out of the dark space.

He instantly passed through the powerful gravitational field at the edge of the space, then slammed into the earth. He broke his fall, skidding across the ground and getting covered in dirt.

“I get to protect you. I couldn’t ask for more.”

Adam’s contented voice came through the receiver before turning to static.

And then it was gone.

“Wait!”

A giant sphere of heat.

The crimson photosphere looked like it could touch the heavens. A flaming membrane enveloped the beast, followed by a shell of heat that covered its feet to its head like a giant bubble, which then imploded.

Everything in its path melted. Trees caught fire before almost immediately carbonizing and eventually turning into nothing more than white smoke. Even the ground underfoot boiled into flowing sludge that evaporated.

Although the inside of the fiery shell was hell itself, the outside was astonishingly quiet. The trees just beyond the shell calmly rustled in the wind; nothing but brilliant light escaped the shell’s interior.

The sphere of fire condensed and began incinerating the beast. It howled in agony, but even the air it breathed was pyrolyzed. Not a single sound leaked into the outside world.

This singularity weapon—known as Annihilation—was created by a skill user engineer in Great Britain and incinerated only whatever was inside the blast radius. Based on one skill user’s ability to traverse time, Annihilation could produce a singularity. It was one of the Three Calamities produced during the war and was known for its unparalleled thermal output with a maximum radius of a few dozen miles. Naturally, it was banned from official use.

Chuuya sat down on the ground with a thud and simply watched the event play out before his eyes.

The time-proof cable that had carried him outside was incinerated in the heat. It was originally going to be used to trigger the weapon remotely. The Shell, which used the quantum uncertainty of time and heat, triggered a fluctuation in its surroundings’ time, hence why the time-proof cable was needed. But not even the cable could withstand the bomb’s overpowering heat. Its external coating melted as the inner sealing came undone, dispersing the particles and deactivating the cable before quickly vanishing.

All that was left in front of Chuuya was Adam’s arm and the seared end of the cable. He took a quiet breath.

At last, it was over. The celestial sphere, having fulfilled its role, turned into smoke and disappeared. What remained was a perfect circle carved into the melting earth, the untouched trees outside its range of annihilation, and Demonic Beast Guivre’s burned-off black tail.

Nothing else remained—not even a mere fragment of Adam.

“Oh. Huh. Didn’t expect to see you alive, Chuuya.”

He looked back in the direction of the malicious voice to find Dazai walking over from within the trees. Dazai threw something, but Chuuya caught it before it hit him.

Verlaine’s black hat. It had flown off and disappeared right after Verlaine opened his Gate.

“Dazai.” Chuuya turned his quiet, piercing gaze on him. “I don’t feel like arguing with you right now.”

“They found N’s body,” Dazai told him, utterly disinterested in what Chuuya had to say. “The monster crushed him to death…which means the last person who knew whether you’re human is gone. Does that bother you?”

“I dunno. I…” Chuuya stared at ground zero. But before he finished his sentence, he looked back at Dazai as if he had realized something. “Hold up. I know how you work. You found a way to see whether I’m human even without N, didn’t you?”

“You know me too well.” Dazai smirked shamelessly. “We captured a few of N’s subordinates at the research facility. They may not know the truth themselves, but they at least know how to read the command sequence inside you. I only received a brief lecture, but well, I’m sure we can figure it out after I take a look inside you and analyze you for a few days.”

“I’m not gonna let a creep like you look inside me.”

“What? Oh, come on. Let me have a peek. It sounds fun. I promise I won’t show anyone else!” Dazai’s dark smile obscured his true intentions. “They also told me how to determine if you’re human. If you are, then there should be records of your life before you got taken in for research—basically, logs of the memories of your childhood with your parents that got erased. That’s how we’ll check. Sound good?”

“First of all, just imagining you being the only one who knows what’s inside my head makes me wanna puke! If anything—”

He wasn’t able to finish his sentence. The earth violently shook, then faintly trembled as if in fear.

But before Chuuya could even brace himself for what was coming, something else occurred. His head started pounding as if a bomb had gone off inside.

“Gwah?!”

Chuuya placed a hand on his head. He wasn’t injured. This headache was not caused by a physical wound.

Something was flowing into his head. Something invisible.

“Hate,” someone said.

It wasn’t a sound. It wasn’t even a word. It was a more primitive, sinister emotion.

“Hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate. It’s all so despicable.”

His headache swelled with each wave of this emotion until it was racing through his skull.

“What’s wrong, Chuuya?”

When he looked at Dazai, he realized he was the only one who could hear the voice.

It was his voice. He wasn’t dead.

The ground suddenly sloped. Chuuya and Dazai grabbed onto the ground and caught themselves from slipping. They looked around, yet the earth didn’t seem to be moving or damaged in any way. But the trees were leaning to one side and pebbles were rolling—all toward a single point.

The black tail began to bubble. Particles of darkness emerged. They heard what sounded like mud boiling as gravitons scattered about, contracting like a heartbeat, then squirming and changing shape.

Chuuya noticed that the ground wasn’t slanting—the black tail was producing a gravitational force that was pulling them in. It was merging with the earth’s own gravity to the point that it felt as if the ground was tilting downward.

“This can’t be happening.”

Adam incinerated the beast using a weapon powerful enough to alter the course of modern warfare. Or so it seemed.

And yet the tail was wriggling into a black cluster and trying to take some sort of form.

“So that’s what’s going on,” said Dazai with a stern expression while glaring at the darkness.

A fissure opened within the earth. Something was peeking out from within the lump of darkness. It resembled the face of a reptile.

“Watch out!” Chuuya yelled.

Manipulating gravity, he leaped sideways, grabbed Dazai, and rolled into the woods on the other side.

Darkness gushed through where they just were. A black torrent was radiating from something. It did not appear to be an attack, but rather as if a void had suddenly appeared within the earth.

The ground was instantly split in two. In a flash, black light passed through the soil and hit a group of buildings in the distance. A few city lights wildly flickered before eventually cutting out.

“…!”

Chuuya and Dazai were rendered speechless. Fortunately, the buildings were far from the urban area of the city, but if something like that were to hit the heart of Yokohama, millions would die in a heartbeat.

“Was that…graviton radiation?” Dazai’s face was tense. “How is that possible? Its range is even longer than before.”

A monster was emerging.

Its shoulders materialized, followed by its chest. Its head was shaped similarly to the beast Guivre, but its two glowing red eyes were positioned almost exactly like a human’s. Its arms were thick, its torso robust. The beast gradually emerged from the cluster of darkness, pulsating as its body kept on growing.

“Don’t look at it, Chuuya,” whispered Dazai. “It reacts to emotion. Do not even think about it. Look at something else.”

Chuuya slowly turned his gaze toward the ground, but the beast’s ever-growing body was gradually obscuring the moonlight. It blocked out a portion of the light until eventually it engulfed everything within view.

“You won’t be able to burn that thing with fire,” Dazai said, still looking at the ground. “No matter how powerful a skill weapon you use. That thing that looks like a giant monster—it isn’t even made out of physical matter. Limitless energy stored in the singularity is simply condensing in a single location. That beast doesn’t have any organs or vulnerabilities. It will continue moving until the singularity’s infinite energy is exhausted.”

“And how long is that gonna be?”

“Maybe a week? Maybe a year?” Dazai looked at Chuuya with a tense smile. “Maybe it’ll continue moving forever until the end of the world. Its energy is limitless, after all.”

The beast began to move, shaking their entire bodies with a single step.

Chuuya and Dazai looked up. This monstrosity was even larger than it was a moment ago. It surpassed anything a living creature was remotely capable of.

Its mouth was large enough to swallow a house whole. Its eyes glowed, and its shoulders swelled. The massive dinosaur-like body was emitting energized bolts of lightning simply due to the waves of energy produced with each step. The earth sank underfoot as the monster’s claws hollowed the ground and knocked down countless trees.

This bizarre creature that defied human imagination was Demonic Beast Guivre’s true form.

“It might’ve absorbed the singularity energy from that fiery sphere a moment ago,” Dazai muttered in blank amazement. “The researchers in Europe probably never experimented using two skill weapons against each other—and for good reason, obviously.”

Chuuya turned his gaze in the direction the monster was heading. “Damn it. It’s heading toward the city.”

“It won’t be long before people in the city see it. And once that happens, it’s going to react to their gazes and destroy everything in sight until there isn’t anyone left to look at it.”

Chuuya suddenly grabbed Dazai. “Then what’re you doing just standing there?! If Yokohama’s destroyed, there’ll be no more Port Mafia!”

“What do you want to do, then? Grow big, too, and have a fistfight with it?” Dazai’s icy gaze met Chuuya’s. “It’s hopeless. Isn’t it obvious just looking at that thing? A singularity’s like a loophole in the rules. That monster is a manifestation of something that shouldn’t exist in this world. Humans don’t stand a chance against it. There’s nothing we can do.”

“You’re wrong about that,” Chuuya said, sternly holding Dazai’s gaze for several seconds. He then let go of Dazai and stated firmly:

“There is something we can do about it. I’m sure of it.”

Dazai listlessly dropped to the ground in a seated position. “Ha-ha-ha. This is getting interesting. And what are you basing that on?”

“Verlaine—I saw a memory when I was inside him.”

“A memory?”

“It was when he broke me out of the facility and was escaping. He argued about me with Rimbaud, and then they battled. He must’ve fought Arahabaki soon after, and he survived.”

Dazai’s eyes narrowed. “Interesting. Now I see what you’re getting at.”

“Yeah, there’s a way to defeat singularity life-forms. That’s why he was showing me that memory.”

“Let’s hear the details,” Dazai said with a smirk.