Baccano! - Volume 10 - Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

THE MAJOR SUPPORTING CHARACTERS PROVIDE MAJOR SUPPORT

Chicago Nebula headquarters building

“Meep!”

The strange-sounding cry suddenly echoed in a research facility in the basement of Nebula.

“What’s the matter, Director? That was a funny noise.”

A man who’d been straightening up some documents sent a questioning look at the lady responsible for it.

The woman he’d called director—Renee Parmedes Branvillier—flushed bright red and met the stares of those around her with an ingratiating smile.

“Uh, um. I held back a sneeze, and it came out weird… Someone must have been talking about me.”

Below her demure, bespectacled face, her incredibly voluptuous curves were hidden by a plain lab coat.

The subordinate who’d been organizing papers shook his head with obvious exhaustion at his boss—who might have been either appealing or drab; it was hard to say.

“Nobody’s talking about you. Just do your job, Director, and quit being full of yourself.”

“That’s so mean!!”

The mood in the research room was as peaceful as always, but…

…the room next to it was partitioned off by thick glass. Behind it was an odd sight for a lab room meant for processing special pharmaceuticals.

In the center of the room lay a body as big as a bear’s, except the limbs sticking out of the sleeves and pant legs were soft and flesh-colored, showing that this was a proper human.

Maybe he had been given an anesthetic, or maybe he wasn’t even breathing anymore. The giant boy, lying across several beds pushed together and surrounded by researchers, was as still as a stone.

Looking at the guinea pig beyond the thick glass, Renee murmured as if she’d remembered something.

“Come to think of it, it sounds as though the bombings yesterday caused a lot of trouble.”

“We’re lucky there were no deaths, but… It’s likely that the culprit was that boy we were discussing.”

“Then he’s desperate to save his friend here! That’s actually rather touching.”

“…What I’m saying is that unrelated facilities took massive damage because you messed with him and then backed out. Any thoughts on that, Director?” he asked, temples twitching.

At that, as if to deflect attention from the cold sweat that had broken out on her cheeks, Renee stared off into the distance and muttered:

“Couldn’t we just say it was the work of a passing mad bomber, nothing to do with me?”

“No, we can’t! Obviously! Even if the police fell for that, do you know what the chairman said to me this morning in person?! ‘Say, I don’t mind you doin’ what you wanna do, but don’t go causin’ grief for other departments. Go apologize to the kid with the bombs already.’ Everybody knows everything about this!”

“Yeep? Wh-why does the chairman know about Rail?” Her upset behavior betrayed a marked lack of real anxiety as she muttered, “What should we do? What should we do?”

As he looked at the woman, whose actions and overall impression were completely incompatible, one of the nearby researchers spoke wearily.

“Director, director. About what you just said.”

“What I just said? Um… Remind me what that was again?”

“You know, the bit about pinning it on a passing mad bomber. That could actually work.”

“Huh? What? Is there one?” Renee muttered, proposing an impossible scenario, and her subordinate gave an unbelievable reply.

“Yes. Yes, there is.”

“Whaaat?!”

Even though she was the one who’d suggested it, Renee looked startled when the man confirmed it.

The researcher went on, speaking impassively to his hopeless supervisor.

“A friend of mine in the general affairs section was telling me about it during my break a few minutes back. A little while ago, the police—”

Just about the time the rumor-loving researcher was telling his boss about a girl named Nice…

A man who was a specialist in handling information was seated on a cushy sofa between two girls.

One of the them was like a daughter to him…

…while the other was the fiancée of a bloodthirsty killer who was currently doing time.

Nebula headquarters The chairman’s office

“Well, you just kick back and relax.”

“You have my thanks, Chairman Cal.”

In response to the man who was sitting in the chair opposite him, Gustav St. Germain, the vice president of the information brokerage, bowed his head deeply.

“No need to be so starchy about it. Unlike last time, you’re not here on business today.”

In answer to the vice president’s reverent thanks, the elderly man—Cal Muybridge, the chairman of the Nebula group—cackled and waved his hand. Unlike the sharp-eyed Gustav, his expression made him seem truly mild, despite being one of the “winners” with some of the greatest corporate power in America.

The young girl was daunted by his presence; she clutched her camera and sat on the very edge of the sofa, shaking like a leaf. Meanwhile, the woman with long hair sitting on the opposite end of the sofa was gazing around tranquilly, as if she didn’t really understand the situation yet.

“Hey, Lil’ Miss Camera. What was your name? Carol? We already met earlier, so there’s no need to be so jittery. Last time, you looked like you was about to upchuck; you doin’ okay?”

“Eep?! Th-thank you very much! I-I’m sorry!”

Carol, the girl with the camera, shook even harder when her name was called by the concerned chairman.

Watching her out of the corner of her eye, Lua Klein—the woman with long hair—smiled at her softly.

Vice President Gustav had taken Carol and Lua and beat a hasty retreat from the gunshots at Placido’s mansion.

After that, they’d decided to find a safe place for Lua to lie low. However, Carol had uneasily suggested that there were bound to be guards at their hotel and the station. The vice president had thought, Hmm… Without a car, we are unable to leave Chicago. In that case…

And thus, Carol, Lua, and Gustav were currently sitting on a sofa in the office of Nebula’s chairman.

Yesterday, Carol had been put up in a Nebula guest bedroom before she really knew what was happening. Now, though, as she looked at the chairman of Nebula, she finally understood the plight she was in, and she was filled with regret. She wished they had gotten out of Chicago, even if they had to walk.

“Still, well, y’know. The sister with long hair over there; I hear Placido had you locked up? What a rough time that musta been. They didn’t try anything funny, did they?”

“Chairman.”

“Whoops, sorry, sorry. Not a question to ask a lady, huh. Well, I doubt that old coot has the guts. You’re his nephew…whozit, Ladd, right? You’re Ladd’s girl?”

Lua’s heart jumped at the abrupt mention of her lover’s name, and her gaze went to the old man in front of her.

At the sight of her faintly surprised expression, the chairman guffawed and went on.

“Here’s the thing: At my company, that guy’s a lil’ bit of a celebrity. Back when he was still just a greenhorn, he busted into this company by himself and made it all the way up here to the chairman’s office. Nearly died.”

“Oho. That was a narrow escape, wasn’t it?” Gustav murmured, though his expression didn’t change. The chairman smacked his own gray head, smiling back with chagrin.

“No kiddin’. But then he says, ‘Hey, mister… You’re okay with dyin’ anytime, ain’tcha? Dullsville… I’m goin’ home.’ I asked around, and it turns out he’d had a bet with his friends about whether he could pick a fight with me, or actually, with Nebula. If he was gonna do that, I wish he’d gone to Rude or Beriam or some other rich fella’s place instead. Haw-haw!”

“I-is that a story to laugh about? You’re—you’re joking, aren’t you?”

Even though she was frightened, Carol managed to put in a comeback. But beside her, Lua said, “That does sound like him…”

Seeing her blush, the girl’s hands went to her head instead of her camera.

“Well, it don’t matter. Anyway, I see what’s goin’ on real good now! You three can hole up in the employee dorm right here in this buildin’ for a while. I bet it won’t take too long for all this to settle down.”

“Thank you very much.”

Lua thanked him quietly, and the chairman grinned.

“Sweetheart, if you’re gonna thank somebody, thank that evil-lookin’ fella with the monocle over there. If he’s offerin’ to trade me for all sorts of intel money just can’t buy, then I sure can’t say no.”

“You said we’d leave business out of this, yet you keep a close eye on your cost-benefit ratio,” Gustav pointed out with some irony.

The chairman got to his feet, cackling. “Well, ask the fella from security over there about the rest of it. He used to be a Runorata Family man, and I bet he knows all sorts of ways to protect yourselves from the mafia.”

When the chairman glanced over, a black-haired man who was standing in the shadow of a pillar bowed. In his right hand, he held a jar filled with sugar cubes, and when he’d finished his bow, he extracted one and tossed it into his mouth.

As the man expressionlessly crunched away on the sugar cube, Carol felt an eerie sense of wrongness about him, but…

…after the chairman had gone, she realized the vice president was frowning, and her unease grew.

“Wh-what’s the matter, Vice President?”

“Hmm… Carol. There is something I would like to confirm with you.”

“Wh-what is it?”

The girl was as nervous as could be. The vice president narrowed his already sharp eyes and murmured:

“Is my face…really so villainous?”

A corridor at Nebula headquarters

“Hello. My name is Rubik; I’ve been put in charge of seeing to your needs. I’ll show you to the rooms where you stayed last night. If there’s anything you want, don’t hesitate to ask.”

Despite his polite words, the man kept munching on sugar cubes as Carol and the others followed him to the company’s in-house guest bedrooms.

Carol’s skin prickled and trembled at the dark mood hanging around the man, but Gustav seemed unruffled as he asked him a question.

“Mr. Rubik… If memory serves, you used to be a frequent customer of our company, correct?”

He was so calm.

Gustav said the words far too calmly.

The man crunched the sugar cube he had in his mouth between his teeth. Then, still walking, he responded to the man behind him with another question.

“…I don’t recall meeting you directly…”

“As vice president, I inevitably learn the names of our best clients.”

“…You’re right. Up until about the year before last, I was doing something like that,” Rubik answered indifferently, and Gustav continued his questions.

“You placed yourself in a variety of organizations, then sold information you acquired there to us and to hostile syndicates. However, you ceased contacting us quite abruptly. Did something happen?”

“Nothing in particular. I just didn’t feel confident that I could keep up that line of espionage work anymore… I retired. Especially after the competition showed up…”

“‘The competition’?” Carol asked in spite of herself.

The man exhaled quietly. Then, still without turning around, he mumbled the name.

“If you’re with the Daily Days, miss, I expect you know them already.”

“That bunch of monsters—there’s no telling how many there are. Call themselves Sham?”

In a train on the transcontinental railroad

Inside an enormous bullet that was traveling at more than sixty miles per hour, Isaac was chatting like an old friend with a man he’d just met.

On the train, the incredibly shady character had introduced himself as a spy. After telling Isaac he’d been watching him and Miria for quite a while, the man continued the conversation, reminiscing.

“The first time I saw you… I believe it was in New York. When you scattered all that money.”

“Oh, yeah! Wow, that takes me back! You were there, Sham?”

“While I’m ashamed to admit it, I picked up a few bills myself.”

“Hey, that’s fine! All those people picking it up meant Miria and I managed to get away from the cops!”

Isaac smiled, thinking fondly back to that time. Sham continued relating his memories.

“About a year later… You had a terrible time on the Flying Pussyfoot, didn’t you?”

“Huh?! You were on that train, too?! Aah, yeah, it was rough. I didn’t want to scare Miria, so I did my best to be brave, but I just couldn’t!”

“…No one could have wandered around on that train without some courage, you know.”

“Really? Then I bet Miria shared hers with me! …Say, where were you, Sham? In the dining car?” It was a natural thing to ask.

Sham shook his head. “No, I was in a first-class compartment.”

“I see! So you’ve got money, then.”

“Ha-ha, no. I just have a generous boss.”

Although, after that, that stowaway gal dropped me off the train.

Sham didn’t finish that sentence aloud. Instead, he said, “You’re quite friendly with Jacuzzi’s group as well, aren’t you?”

“Yes! To use The Records of the Three Kingdoms as a metaphor…uh… Aha! In terms of The Records of the Three Kingdoms, Jacuzzi is Alexander the Great!”

“That is quite an assessment.”

“Yeah! After all, he’s Great!”

Even though Isaac wasn’t necessarily being praised, he threw out his chest proudly.

The gesture was reminiscent of a little kid, childish in a way that was impossible to imagine from his apparent age.

However, Sham only narrowed his eyes in a smile, and he did nothing that seemed to mock Isaac.

“Isaac… You and Miria have encountered a wide variety of trouble, haven’t you.”

“Hmm? You think so?”

“Yes, I do. There’s the matter of the Flying Pussyfoot, for example, and the explosion at Mist Wall…”

“I dunno about that. I think those kinds of things happen to most people, don’t they?”

Isaac sounded genuinely mystified, and Sham was left unable to respond.

He really couldn’t sense anything resembling self-awareness from the young man in front of him.

He was oblivious to just how many incidents they’d set in motion, how many people they’d saved at one time or another, and how many destinies they’d sent off the rails.

It hadn’t been intentional. It was the product of pure coincidence.

Even on the Flying Pussyfoot, the absence of these two could have—to phrase it with some mild hyperbole—changed the destiny of America.

Regardless, they hadn’t done any of it on purpose, and they thought it was just a fluke. More accurately, they seemed completely unaware of the fates they’d changed.

That’s right. That’s exactly why.

As Sham whispered silently to himself, Isaac grinned and turned his eyes to the scenery outside.

The engine raced at a speed greater than sixty miles per hour, tearing across the country faster than an electric-powered train.

Getting excited over the thought of his reunion with Miria, Isaac spoke to Sham cheerfully.

“We should get there around noon tomorrow, huh! Trains are so fast. Nothing like walking!”

“…Have you ever walked across the continent?”

“No, come to think of it. I should probably try that next time, but if I wanted to compare myself to that locomotive, I guess I’d have to pull just as many train cars behind me… What’ll I do? I’m not sure I can manage that.”

“Nobody could.”

The man smiled in mild amazement. Then, his face suddenly grew serious, and he asked Isaac an odd question.

“Isaac. Do you…believe in God? Or in fate?”

“Sure I do.”

It was a startlingly frank answer. He hadn’t heard that Isaac was a devout Christian.

Before the man could inquire in more detail, Isaac began to smoothly explain.

“Old Yaguruma told me something once. According to him, the world is teeming with countless gods! They’re in all sorts of places, like pebbles and trees and mountains! Even centipedes! They’re the gods of money!”

“I see…”

Does he mean the Asian worship of the innumerable? My previous knowledge holds nothing about centipedes being gods.

“That means you can pray as much as you want to any god you want, but they can also dish out as much punishment as they want, so you’ve got to be careful! I spent a whole night talking with Miria about which offering you should make to a rock, and our working hypothesis is cold medicine…”

“Um, well, that aside…” Sensing that the conversation was headed off on a tangent, Sham hastily returned it to his own topic. “Let’s say…say you’re in an absolutely hopeless situation, people encountered an incredible coincidence, and everything worked out after all. If fate or some other fortuitous coincidence occurred, what would you think?”

“Hmm? I’m not sure I follow, but it did work out, right?”

“Yes.”

“In that case, no worries. A happy ending!”

There was no thought behind the answer. It really was just like Isaac.

On hearing it, Sham grinned for a little while, but then…

“In that case… Think of it this way. Suppose—and this is all hypothetical, mind you—there was a person who had an ability that was modestly godlike: the power to intentionally bring about such coincidences.”

“Um, uh-huh?”

“The power may not be as helpful as, say, an ability to produce food infinitely, but… It’s a power that allows him to learn a variety of things, to summon various people to various places… And for example, to bring together two people who want to meet. And to keep people apart who shouldn’t meet.”

“That’s really something. He’s the god of matchmaking and love— Roulette!”

He was probably thinking of Cupid, but Sham decided there was no need to correct him, and just nodded lightly.

“However, the only people this individual helps are his acquaintances. If he only used that power based on his personal emotions… How far do you think he could go before it’s unforgivable?”

“Huh…? I’m not sure I understand… Is anyone ever truly unforgivable?”

Sham slowly pondered Isaac’s response, then continued the conversation.

“Here’s a slightly different example. Say you’re walking through the forest, and you see a butterfly caught in a spider’s web. If you take pity on the butterfly and save it, that’s just for the sake of self-satisfaction, isn’t it? In a similar way…”

“Why?”

“Hmm?”

“You saved the butterfly. Nothing wrong with that.”

Oh, please. Do I have to explain this starting all the way back there?

Smiling in mild exasperation at the childish reply, Sham quietly continued his example.

“Well, but there is, isn’t there? From the butterfly’s perspective, you’ve done it a great favor, but from the spider’s perspective, it’s lost its meal. Thanks to a human’s arbitrary feeling that butterflies are cute, that spider may die of starvation.”

“Sure. The butterfly lucked out, and Mr. Spider didn’t, so he doesn’t get to eat! I know the feeling. Miria and I’ve had some days where we didn’t get to eat, either. Mr. Spider’s got it rough.”

“‘Mr. Spider’? …Well, you see? That’s why it’s just humans trying to satisfy themselves in the end.”

“Still, that’s fine. You saved it.”

“…”

“Even if nobody saves it, a bird might come along and gulp down the spider. Or maybe the bird would eat the butterfly. Then the butterfly would still be unlucky, and Mr. Spider would still have an empty belly. Or a tree branch might come falling down and break the web, you know? So, uh… Oh, right. It’s less about what people do than whether the luck was good or bad, isn’t it?”

Why is he calling the spider “mister” when he isn’t mister-ing anything else?

As his thoughts wandered off topic, Sham was nearly losing track of Isaac’s reply. Maybe it was profound; maybe it was shallow. If Miria had been there, would he have come to a different conclusion, or would it have sounded different?

“That’s being a little too pragmatic.”

“I-is it? Sorry. I’m really not that smart, you see.”

“Oh, no, that isn’t what I…”

Sham hastily denied it, but Isaac said, “It’s fine, it’s fine” and went on, smiling. “Still, thinking about Mr. Spider’s belly, and the forces of nature, and everything… Humans really are like gods, aren’t they? Maybe I really am a little dim. I mean, if Miria was about to get eaten by a giant Mr. Spider, I think I’d probably rescue her without worrying about the spider’s stomach.”

“…”

That’s a real leap, but he’s technically right… No, I still think that’s not quite it.

“Hmm. I don’t understand how Mr. Spider feels or how the butterfly feels, but I doubt they understand our feelings, either. I wonder if they think of us the way we think about lightning and things. What do you think?”

“That’s a good question.”

The remark made Sham think for a little while.

Huey had raised him as a human, but on the other hand, he understood that he wasn’t human. He believed he thought exactly the same way as one, but there was no way to be sure.

The only thing he was certain of was this: He was not a human, but a single enormous mind shared by many bodies.

Even as he conversed with Isaac, his myriad other hands and feet were moving freely. As they did, they were thinking different things, and that information was being amassed in one gigantic set of memories.

Could an extraordinary being such as himself say that he understood human feelings?

His doubts were endless, but right now, he didn’t have the time to give them much thought.

True, he might be something that was like a human to spiders…and like lightning to humans.

In that case, he thought, the questions only deepened.

If lightning or an earthquake had some sort of emotion toward humanity, whether it was malice or goodwill…to what extent should they be allowed to carry out their own will?

The rock that he’d set in motion was already beginning to roll.

He’d resolved to live true to himself.

Yet, he still felt some hesitation.

He wasn’t sure whether it was really all right to use a being like himself to ensnare or save people.

Isaac had, by coincidence, set the destinies of various people in motion. Sham had believed that talking with him might make for a change of pace and struck up conversation, but…

…if this went on, it would actually make his hesitation worse.

“Whoops, sorry about that. We were talking about the matchmaking god!”

“Huh? …Oh, yes. Yes, that’s right.”

“I’m a little confused. What about it?”

“Well, let’s see… In that case, let me ask you an incredibly direct question.”

He finally steeled himself and asked. He was attempting to appropriate the words of a man who’d survived by coincidence alone, in order to rid himself of his own hesitation.

“Say the god of matchmaking is attempting to make a match. But in order to bring those people together, he has to do fantastic things, things that could never pass for coincidences, over and over. If he did, the god’s friends might realize that he wasn’t human.”

“Yeah…? Can they not find out that he’s a god?”

“He’s afraid that if they learn he’s a god, not only will they not thank him, they may think he’s creepy. Maybe they won’t be his friends anymore. In that case…what should the god do?”

Sham thought he’d been as direct as it was possible to be, but he was a little worried that Isaac might not have understood.

After mulling the idea over for a bit, Isaac gave a simple answer. “I think he could just do what he wants to.”

“…” He’d half expected as much, but it was a very straightforward answer. Still, the worry that he really might not have understood welled up inside him.

“Boy, the idea that someone might hate you really can worry you sick. I get that. I worry every day about what I’d do if Miria started to hate me!”

It was possible this was a genuine concern of his, given how Isaac’s expression turned unusually gloomy as he brooded.

However, before long, he asked Sham a question, looking slightly perplexed.

“But listen, that god’s worry about the…um…about those people who need him to match them up?”

“Hmm? Yes.”

“His worry doesn’t make it wrong for him to help those people. Right?”

“…?”

As you’d think, Isaac’s sudden suggestion confused Sham.

In the silence, the clatter of the train wheels just reverberated through them.

Isaac’s answer didn’t seem to follow from what they’d said before, but…when he spoke again, Sham felt that the idea was starting to come together, very slightly.

“If they hate him, then they hate him, and he can just think of a way to make up with them later! Besides, if he didn’t save them and they found out about it afterward… That would probably be more awkward, wouldn’t it?” Isaac could be both extremely childish and very mature, but his response was so innocent that Sham was taken aback.

“That’s true. After all, if you don’t act, nothing will happen, bad or good.”

“I’m still a little confused, but I’m sure you’re right!”

Isaac’s reassurance was groundless, but Sham looked down with a weak smile.

I feel just a little better.

Isaac Dian. Talking to this man, who didn’t think at all, might have been the right move.

With that vague thought in mind, Sham decided to spend the rest of the train journey to Chicago making small talk, as he’d done earlier.

As far as this body was concerned, at least.

That doesn’t make it wrong to help.

I see. So that’s another perspective.

…

Although, in my case, I’m not saving the other party—

—I’m using them.

Meanwhile, in Chicago The abandoned factory

It was getting gloomy in the delinquents’ hideout.

The suture-scarred bomber still showed no sign of waking.

Now that they’d attracted the attention of the police, they couldn’t carelessly check around outside. They’d reached a deadlock on several different fronts at once.

And in the midst of it all, a voice rang out, breaking through the clamor.

“Jacuzzi! Jacuzzi, are you here?!”

“Eep?! I-I’m here! I’m here, so don’t hit me!”

Jacuzzi turned visibly pale at the sight of the friend who’d burst in, his face distorted with emotion. It wasn’t that they usually hit him; he just couldn’t seem to get used to his friends’ rough voices.

“Moron! You think one of us would hit you?! I’ll deck you for that!”

“Eeeeegh!”

“Never mind, just quit crying! I found him!”

“Ee… Huh? Y-you found him? Who’s ‘him’?”

The kid excitedly talking to Jacuzzi was one of the boys he’d befriended after he came to New York. His New York friends had nothing to do with the Chicago incident, but most of them had come along anyway, either for fun or because they were worried about Jacuzzi.

The guy running toward Jacuzzi was one of them, but…

“Graham!”

“?!”

At the abrupt news that Graham had been sighted, Jacuzzi’s eyes began darting around in his still-pale face.

Nice and the other delinquents all turned to look at them when they heard the name, and the mood in the factory was suddenly tense.

“R-really?! That’s terrific… We’ll have to go get him right now! Wh-where?! Where is he?!” Jacuzzi cried with delight.

The young man hesitated for a moment, but then he rapidly described the situation, as if to say this was a race against time.

“You know the place called Dolce that’s just up the road a bit?”

“N-no… Oh, I’ve never been inside, but I might have seen it. He— He’s in there?!”

“It’s an old bar. And…I dunno what’s going on, but—”

And then… The instant he’d heard his friend’s full report…Jacuzzi’s growing smile froze up completely.

“Graham’s in there in a death match against a guy who looks like a vampire and this doll in green!”

Meanwhile At Dolce

What was the situation in the bar like?

It could be summed up in a single word: trashed.

Several of the tables had been overturned, and some of the chairs lay in pieces.

“Erm, g-gentlemen? Miss?” the proprietor asked wearily, wearing a distressed smile. “You know, I believe humanity is inherently capable of mutual understanding.”

Right now, it was all he could do to say those words, but his voice was too weak and faint for anybody to hear.

Least of all the three individuals who were tearing full throttle around the bar.

“Tomorrow morning, the sun may suddenly fail to rise, and we should brace ourselves for the possibility. Still, I think we must assume that it will indeed rise tomorrow and build a future in preparation for it.”

He continued desperately, but again, nobody turned around.

Even so, the proprietor kept talking, as if the words were no longer intended to stop them, but to help him hang on to his own reason.

I hear you. I can hear you, old owner.

Responding silently in his heart, Christopher ducked under Sickle’s incoming leg.

The next instant, Graham’s enormous wrench swung down at him from above.

But even if you tell me to stop, it doesn’t look like these other two are ready to settle down.

He rolled to the side to evade the blow, thinking the whole time.

…

“Hey, Sickle, listen. I get it, I understand, and I’m sorry, so would you just put your legs away for a little bit?”

He got to his feet, but Sickle, still sullen-faced, was bounding around as though she was trying to send both Graham and Christopher flying simultaneously.

“Shut up. Just let me kick you through the air once.”

Sickle spun cleanly as she spoke, and Christopher heaved a deep sigh…

…smiling all the while.

Hmmmm. This is a problem. Let me take back what I just thought.

I actually am enjoying myself.

Yes, mortal combat is so much fun.

Maybe it’s the thrill of living on the edge. It’s what lets me…really feel death.

Tricks me into thinking that I might be a natural, living thing.

Funny, isn’t it? If you think about it in the normal way, fighting to the death for any purpose other than eating should be an unnatural act.

I wonder if it’s like how monkeys battle to be the alpha.

Christopher kept on fighting Graham, a formidable opponent, while blocking attacks from his friend.

Each wrench attack from Graham carried with it a sense of impending death.

Every time one whipped past the side of his head, he felt a thrill run through his heart, and he remembered the sensations he’d experienced a year ago.

The redheaded man he’d attacked, and who had proceeded to beat him without breaking a sweat…

…everything about him had been irregular.

Now, see, he is an unnatural being. Utterly.

At the same time, he remembered something else.

How afterward, he’d been stabbed in the back by a punk so insignificant Christopher couldn’t even remember his name, and had nearly died.

“I don’t want to die,” he remembered murmuring.

It was a past he would have liked to forget, but it was engraved inside him as fact.

And…it had brought about an unexpected change in him.

As Christopher dodged a series of wrench attacks unleashed at a terrifying speed, he thought.

If he’d only had his beloved knife-guns with him, he would probably have been able to shut Wrench Guy up…

…permanently.

But he didn’t want to.

Even if he’d had a gun— Would he have been able to put a bullet into this man’s brain, or heart, or gut?

As he jumped back farther, evading a kick from Sickle, he answered his own question.

Nope. Couldn’t do it.

Christopher was pretty surprised by the implications.

Aah, so it’s true?

Fighting was so much fun, and yet…

It may be strange to say about a change in myself…but I’m not sure I like it.

Even though, every time death skimmed by him, he was able to feel truly alive.

I really…

Sometimes a child who thinks nothing of stomping on ants becomes an adult who, for some reason, hesitates to kill even harmful insects; the change in him might have been similar.

I…can’t kill people anymore.

Christopher had once worked as a hitman on the side. He’d killed several dozen people, or maybe several hundred.

Had this change been triggered by losing to a human, or had it been his first near escape from death? Or was the cause something else entirely?

At any rate, the moment this ridiculous fact struck him—

—Christopher was smiling.

His mouth with its rows of sharp fangs was as wide as it could go while he kept dodging the silver death that closed in on him.

See? This is fun.

He couldn’t kill, but his opponent kept sending certain death his way. The odds were stacked against him, but even so, Christopher’s mind brimmed over with some sort of pleasant emotion.

This is its own kind of fun!

“Ha-ha…” In spite of himself, he laughed out loud.

“Ha-ha-ha!” Graham, who was springing around dynamically as he fought, laughed right back.

Something else about this must have seemed fun to him, too.

“…What’s so funny?”

Only Sickle glared sullenly at the two of them in turn. When they’d both burst out laughing right in the middle of a fight, she’d probably felt that they weren’t taking this seriously.

That said, it was the first time they’d all stopped moving in several minutes, and in that moment—

—a lukewarm liquid splashed over the three of them.

“““?!”””

None of them had any idea what had happened, and they wiped off their faces hastily.

At the same time, they knew what that liquid was. They couldn’t help knowing.

The acrid smell that stung their nostrils was unmistakably alcoholic.

It was almost too strong, though—probably a pretty high-proof liquor.

When they looked around, wondering what was going on…

…they saw a child standing there, cool as a cucumber.

“Ricardoooo, what are you doing?” Christopher muttered.

Ricardo gave a small sigh. “Cool your heads. Also, try striking sparks just one more time. You’ll all burn up, and that’ll be the end of it.”

“W-wait!!”

The proprietor’s cry was almost a scream, and a completely new kind of tension ran through the bar.

In the hands of the young lady dressed like a boy was a bucket whose rim was wet with alcohol— And beside her stood a row of several empty bottles of tequila, the highest-proof liquor in the bar.

When he saw those empty bottles, Christopher thought, That’s…

True, it was strong liquor, but the alcohol content of that particular beverage was generally around 50 percent. In order to ignite, it would have had to be 70 percent.

Did Ricardo know that? Information about alcohol combustion was knowledge he himself had acquired after living a long time. She’d probably seen a street performer take a swig of vodka and spit fire and learned that alcohol was flammable, or something along those lines.

Even weaker alcohol could ignite under the right conditions—but in this situation, it probably wouldn’t have been possible to set them on fire.

Still, as she’d said, the evaporating alcohol had cooled his head and body. At the same time, the mucous membranes in his nose and throat burned from the fumes he’d inhaled, so did that cancel out the effect?

As he considered these trivial things, Graham had gone silent in apparent thought as well.

How much did he know about liquor ignition? Maybe he wasn’t thinking about whether it would burn at all and instead was thinking, Fighting while on fire could be interesting, too.

Christopher was arbitrarily imagining his opponent’s thoughts, but in the course of their brief exchange, he seemed to have gotten a good handle on his personality.

Sickle also stood where she was, immobile, wearing a vinegary expression. A momentary silence descended in the bar.

However…that silence was shattered by the proprietor, who came dashing out from behind the counter.

“P-please! Please stop this!”

Making unreasonable demands of his aging body, the proprietor set his hands on the table wet with alcohol and bowed his head.

“Maybe you have good reason not to like each other! Maybe you have some old quarrel between you! Maybe there’s some terribly profound history here that a nobody like me couldn’t even begin to imagine! But still, please, calm yourselves! This may not be my fight, but this is my bar! As of today, it has been exactly thirty years since we opened this establishment! We haven’t earned much, but my wife and I have done our very best here on our own! I’m well aware that that’s nothing to do with you, sirs and miss, but I beg you, please, just for today… You don’t even need to pay us for the food, but I implore you, just stop fighting! Even if it’s only a single bite, at least—at least let my wife and me feel proud of our work today for this one order! That’s all I want! So, so please, stop fighting! I’m begging you! Please…!”

With this impassioned speech, delivered on the brink of tears, the owner’s pleas finally reached the people around him.

The phrases exactly thirty years and my wife and I…on our own made even Shaft and the Poet, who hadn’t participated in the brawl, feel an indescribable guilt.

Desperately, the proprietor kept repeating, “Please! I beg you!” Christopher looked at him, then gazed at Ricardo, whose eyes were cold. Cocking his head to one side, he murmured:

“Erm, Ricardo?”

“What?”

“Am I the scum of the earth right now?”

“Mm-hmm. Everything from your face to your behavior. And while I’m at it, so am I, for wasting that liquor.” Oddly, Ricardo looked apologetic.

Meanwhile, Shaft and the others timidly approached the unmoving Graham.

“Uh, Mr. Graham? You’re the one at fault here. Seriously, can’t you at least be considerate enough to take this stuff outside?”

“…”

“After all, Mr. Graham, you started it by throwing that wrench. The woman in green from the wanted poster woulda been one thing, but at young master Ricardo’s bodyguard? You’re always lobbin’ wrenches at us; that’s why you can’t control yourself now. Do you understand?”

As Shaft lectured him, his voice gradually regained its former tone. Thumping his own shoulder with the huge wrench, Graham murmured.

“Yeah… Let me tell you a touching, touching story.”

“Hunh?”

“Just now, the owner here didn’t tell us to get out or anything like it, not even once. What does that mean? Is he afraid of us? But if he was, he coulda just called the police and left it at that… No, he went out of his way to come out here and face this group of extremely dangerous people, and he didn’t even tell us to scram. All he said was ‘Let us feel proud of our work.’ He must hate our guts, and he’s still treating us like customers, see? How could I not call that touching?”

“No, uh, Mr. Graham? It’s really not okay for you to say that, you know.”

Shaft’s criticism was completely natural, but Graham didn’t flinch.

“Yeah, you said it! I don’t have the right to talk about it! Who’s the one who shattered that poignant emotion? Me! What bone did I have to pick with this bar? None whatsoever, and I still busted their tables and walls and the owner’s special day! If an abstract idea like self-hatred suddenly becomes visible, what should I do? Right, I should look in a mirror! What a crime… How am I supposed to—?”

Ignoring Graham’s nonsense, which seemed likely to go on for quite a while, Sickle spoke to the owner briefly. Her face was calm. “Sorry, barkeep. It’s all my fault. I’ll pay any damages you ask for.” Then, walking over to the Poet, she spoke in a low voice only he could hear. “I feel awful that I couldn’t restrain myself. This kinda thing is probably why my master refused to teach me true capoeira.”

Sickle was clearly irritated with herself, and the Poet chose to remain silent. Right now, no matter how meaningless his nonsense was, she would probably be quiet and accept it.

Which was why he kept his mouth shut.

After all, even if they were only a means to demonstrate his lunacy, he had his own small pride in his verbal stylings.

When he saw that the three of them had settled down, the proprietor just kept repeating, “Th-thank you so much! Your food is cooking right now!”

His gratitude stirred up a merciless sense of guilt in the people around him. In this situation, howling for them to get out would have been preferable, and an uncomfortable silence filled the bar.

“Hey…” Ricardo, sitting quietly at the bar, broke that silence.

The girl in boys’ clothing glanced back and forth between Graham and Christopher, and asked them a question with a sigh.

“I didn’t ask Chris, but… What was this fight about anyway?”

It was a simple enough question, and the most important one, but—

“Huh?” “Huh?”

The two both looked like pigeons who’d just been shot with a popgun.

They found it a little odd that she was calling their deadly brawl just a fight, but come to think of it, they had no real reason to try to kill each other.

“You’re both involved with the same family; you’re comrades. Why are you out for each other’s blood?”

“Well, that is true, but…”

“…Why are we? I don’t even understand the principles behind my own behavior… It is a mystery.”

They racked their brains, desperately trying to remember what had brought them into conflict in the first place, and then—

““Oh, right!””

They each smacked their knee at the same time.

“It was because this wise guy started mouthing off about protectin’ that kid with the railroad scars,” Graham said.

Christopher threw out his chest as if this were a competition and gave his own answer.

“It was me. First, I wanted to rediscover the feeling of fighting for my life, like rehab. Oh, and I’d heard he dislocated joints for Sickle and Chi, my beloved family-slash-friends, and I figured I should avenge them, I guess!”

“…You ‘guess’?” Sickle was standing near the back of the bar, and when she heard him tack on the last half of his reply as an afterthought, her temples twitched visibly. “So I’m lower on your priority list than rehab…?”

Pretending he hadn’t heard Sickle’s angry comment, Christopher averted his face and scratched his head. “Uh, well, now that I’m thinking about it, I suppose our reasons for trying to kill each other didn’t warrant doing this to the bar. I mean, um, I hope you know I do regret it?”

“Regrets won’t fix the bar,” Ricardo coldly replied, and Christopher uncomfortably turned to face the other way.

Sickle was over there, which presented a problem for Christopher, and he kept right on turning in a full circle.

As if they’d been pulled in by the spiral of his comical twirling…

…with truly excellent timing, they flew into the bar.

“Graham!”

When the tattooed kid broke into the awkward atmosphere…

“Hunh…?”

“What— What’s this?”

Graham and Christopher spoke at the exact same time.

“Jacuzzi? What’re you doing here, kid?”

“Aah! Oh, Graham, that’s terrific! You’re okay…”

Graham sounded the same as ever, and the tattooed young man was relieved— But then he fell silent.

He’d seen the vampiric man who stood in the center of the bar.

Those red eyes and that mouth full of canines made for an extremely vivid memory.

As the group of delinquents came crowding into the bar behind him, the young man with the tattoo kept opening and shutting his mouth uselessly.

Seeing the boy’s wide-eyed trembling, Christopher was now certain.

“Hi there,” he said. “It has been a while, hasn’t it? Although I don’t know your names.”

With an innocent, fang-filled smile on his face, he made a cruel remark with no malice behind it:

“You were Tim’s little pawns during the Mist Wall affair, weren’t you?”

In a dream

(“Blow it up,”) they whispered.

They’re whispering right next to my ear.

(“Blow it up.”)

Again. They said it again.

I know. You don’t have to tell me; I know already.

I want to blow it up, too. Everything. I want to take this awful world and blow away every bit of it.

“No. That’s not it, is it?”

Huh?

“It’s not that you want to blow it up. You have to. That’s what you were born to do.”

What are you talking about?

“The world appreciates explosives because they flare and burst. Perhaps that way of thinking treats the human perspective as most important, but if it weren’t for them, the concept of explosives wouldn’t exist, so we should defer to them. Had dolphins been the ones to invent explosives, the role of explosives would fall in accordance with dolphin values… Although I don’t know what dolphins would have used explosives for. The same is true of you.”

I don’t get it.

“No, I’m fairly sure you do. Your mental age was somewhere around twelve, but your comprehension and knowledge are higher than that. So you know what the words mean, you’re just unable to accept it. That’s all.”

…So I could accept it if I was an adult?

“The definition of adult is nebulous, but at the very least, they would consider whether to accept it or struggle against it.”

Like I care about that?

“True, I’m not certain that it applies to you. You aren’t human, after all; you’re something we made. Now that does lead to the question ‘What is human?’ but let’s save that debate for another time. Provided you live long enough, that is.”

No! Don’t screw with me.

Look, I may not get all of this, but I do know this much.

Right now, you’re making fun of me.

You’re insulting me.

Gah, that’s right, it’s the voice. This is the voice.

I thought it sounded familiar, and I was right. I can’t see his face, but it’s him.

Huey! Huey Laforet…!

I yelled, and the voice vanished. The feeling that someone was there has disappeared, too.

…

Oh, guess I was dreaming just now.

Yeah, it was a dream. That damn bastard Huey never said anything like that.

The ones who did were the Rhythm researchers.

My head just switched Huey with the person who said it, that’s all. But I’m positive I wasn’t wrong.

…

…

Aah, I’m scared.

I’m scared to open my eyes.

Once they’re open, I know I’ll see this awful world.

I wonder what happened to me.

…Oh yeah. Those creeps were trying to take Sham away. I blew them up, and I blew me up, too, and then some other creeps came, and I thought they were going to get in my way so I blew them up, blew them up, blew them up, blew them up, blew them up, blew them up… Aaaaaaaaaah, this is such a waste of time, and so is thinking, and so is remembering.

What should I do? What am I supposed to do?

Is blowing things up really the only way?

Blow up the world I can see. All of it, all of it, all of it!

Which means— Maybe… Maybe the best thing would be to blow myself up.

If I do, everything, all of it, every last thing would disappear, right?

…But at least…

At least I have to save Frank before that, or…or pulverize that lady with glasses, or Huey…

…By the way.

I wonder what’s happening to me right now?

The abandoned factory

When Rail nervously cracked open his eyes, he didn’t recognize where he was, but it was nostalgic all the same.

When he and Frank had traveled together, they’d often sheltered from the rain in abandoned factories.

Even when they’d been taking life one day at a time— They’d always been under Huey’s thumb.

No matter where they hid, Sham and Hilton would appear out of nowhere, bringing their next orders.

As he reflected, Rail slowly tried to get a handle on his current situation.

Apparently, he hadn’t been collared by the cops, but this wasn’t a hospital, and he didn’t think he’d just passed out back in the alley.

For one thing, this was a completely different location.

Where was he? He looked around, trying to figure it out, and just then—

“Oh! He woke up!”

He heard the voice of an innocent-sounding woman.

When he looked over toward it, a blond girl in red was peeking in at him.

“Are you okay?”

She gently dabbed at his face with a towel. Even before he could think about who she was, several young people swarmed in from behind her.

“Hey, she’s right. His eyes are open.”

“You okay?”

“Those are some wicked scars. Are you like that all over?”

“Whoa, you can’t just ask somebody that out of nowhere!”

“Does your head hurt?” “Hya-haah.” “Hya-haw?”

What? What are these people?

Rail felt his understanding of the current situation slipping even further out of reach, and an emotion that could have been labeled as either irritation or unease welled up inside him.

The warm assurances, the banter—they all just sounded like static to him.

For now…

I’ll blow them up, Rail thought, reaching into his jacket. Then he realized the contents were missing, and his whole body stiffened.

 ?!

His bombs were gone.

For Rail, those extremely dangerous, egg-shaped weapons were also his shield. At this point, the high-performance bombs might well become his means of killing himself as well— And they’d vanished without a trace.

Hastily, he checked the pouch that he always wore at his waist, but the pouch itself was gone.

“…Ah…”

Rail’s mouth flapped uselessly, and he felt sweat breaking out all over his body.

His bombs had been taken.

Were the thuggish-looking group that surrounded him the culprits? No, that didn’t matter now.

Rail understood with sickening, utter clarity:

Without his bombs, he couldn’t do a thing.

He couldn’t kill people, couldn’t escape, couldn’t end his own life.

His bombs were the one weapon he could use to destroy the world, and they’d been taken away from him. His pulse was unpleasantly loud as he took another look at his surroundings.

The people around him seemed to be a bunch of teenagers and kids. The overwhelming majority were boys, but it was hard to tell just what kind of group they were. If he’d had to say, he would have gone with “gang of delinquents,” but the woman in the red dress tending to him didn’t strike him as a hoodlum.

Now that he was awake, the woman spoke to him again.

“Are you okay? There’s nothing to be afraid of. The doctor looked at you a little bit ago, and he said you’ve just got some mild bruises and burns! They’ll be all better once you lie down for a little. That’s a relief, isn’t it?”

The way she spoke sounded fairly childish for her apparent age, and Rail wasn’t sure how to respond.

He didn’t know who they were. He couldn’t see them being in league with those men in black who’d kidnapped Sham… Well, with the white-coat-garbed group from yesterday. If they had been, he would probably be strapped down on a bed in a laboratory right about now.

“Miss…? Who are you people?”

He just barely managed to get the words out.

“I’m Miria! Nice to meet you! We’re all friends here, so you don’t have to worry! It’s okay!”

There was nothing wicked about her smile, but that itself made Rail uneasy. After all, the woman researcher in the lab coat had worn this same sort of guileless smile.

“…What…happened to me? Why am I…here…?”

He couldn’t really remember what had happened around the time he passed out. He’d probably been pretty confused. He remembered blowing up the men in black, along with Sham and himself, but…

The answer to Rail’s question came from a figure who pushed to the front of the delinquents.

“Your bomb went off. We have our reasons why we can’t hand you over to the police, so I’m afraid we just went ahead and brought you here.”

The polite explanation came from a badly scarred woman who wore glasses over an eye patch.

Hers weren’t suture scars like his. Her skin was littered with countless irregular slashes, and there were painful-looking burn scars around the eye patch over her right eye.

She’s like…me?

He felt a sort of kinship with this fellow scar-covered individual, but then those thoughts were temporarily driven from his mind.

Rail had seen his bomb pouch in the woman’s right hand.

“…—! Give that back!”

Flustered, he tried to stand, but his entire body was racked with dull pains, and he fell to his knees.

“Aah! No, no, don’t push yourself!”

The woman who’d said her name was Miria hastily hugged his shoulders, but Rail ignored her. Muttering, he repeated what he’d just said to the woman with the eye patch.

“Please…give that back.”

“I apologize for taking it without permission, but I thought it might be unwise to leave bombs and an unconscious child together.”

“So you know they’re bombs.”

She knows.

I’ll have to get rid of her…

Rail made the decision easily. Nice seemed to pick up on what he was intending; sighing, she shook her head and calmly asked him a question.

“I’ll return them to you if you’ll tell me one thing. Where on earth did you get these bombs?”

“…?”

What was she talking about? Did her group want some, too?

Like these jokers could use them right! Plus, even if they tried to get more, there probably weren’t any on the market at this point.

With that in mind, Rail decided to answer, grudgingly.

“…I just bought up some explosives that were floating around Hollywood and construction sites. I did the processing.”

Huey was the one who’d taught him how, but the fact annoyed him, so he didn’t mention his name.

But oddly, in that instant, the behavior of the delinquents around them changed.

“I knew it.” “See? What’d I tell you?” “Miz Nice is the one who ‘told us.’” “I thought so, too.” “Hya-haah.” “Uh, so then, what? Does that mean we were the ones who caused those explosions?” “No, the fellas who made those explosives did.” “You’re the one who said we should sell ’em to Hollywood.” “Can it! Not like I can control what happens to ’em after they’re sold!” “Jacuzzi’s the one who said we should steal the explosives; it’s his fault.” “Nah, Miz Nice was the one who said she wanted ’em.” “Then it’s not his fault.” “Yeah, it’s nobody’s fault.” “It was an accident.” “An unfortunate accident.” “Hya-haw.”

The stir was concluded in mere moments, and then one of the boys cleared his throat and turned to Rail.

“So, uh, verdict is, it’s nobody’s fault. Lucky, huh!”

“Wh-what is?”

“Well, uh, you were probably the one behind the mess in Chicago yesterday, yeah? And that explosion that almost blew Jacuzzi away a minute ago. But we’ve decided that none of it was your fault…is what I meant.”

“…Why?” Rail retorted involuntarily, straight-faced.

He couldn’t follow this conversation. It made him feel the same way he felt when he talked to Christopher and the Poet.

The one who answered him was the woman in the red dress.

“Hmm. I’m not sure I’m keeping up, either, but they’re saying somebody forgives you! I don’t know who it was, but you can just assume it was somebody you like.”

“…”

He really couldn’t follow this.

In a way, it was worse than a murderer thinking a confession at a church would be enough to earn forgiveness.

Who were these guys anyway?

Even as he thought this, a figure surfaced in Rail’s mind at Miria’s words.

Christopher.

Come to think of it, Christopher probably would just smile and forgive him for setting off bombs. Granted, he’d kill people himself with that very same smile on his face, so it was no reason to relax, but…

“What…are you going to do with me?”

Rail had lost his intent to kill them, and as he asked the question, his shoulders slumped quietly.

They’d taken his bombs, after all, and he had no chance of beating this group with physical strength. For now, he should probably learn about them, then come up with a way to retake his weapons.

And while those thoughts were running through his head, someone tossed his pouch to him.

“Huh?!”

Rail hastily caught the bag full of explosives. The woman with the eye patch smiled at him.

“You answered my question for me, so I’m giving them back,” she murmured quietly.

Rail quickly opened the pouch. All the egg-shaped bombs were there, including the ones he’d had in his clothes. The few that seemed to be missing were probably the ones he’d used.

“…”

Rail had recovered the weapons he’d need to vaporize everyone around him with startling ease, but that ease struck him as unsettling. He stopped.

They hadn’t done anything to the bombs, had they?

He didn’t trust these people completely, so he couldn’t be throwing them around willy-nilly just yet.

With that contradiction on his mind, Rail gulped. When he did, a jolt of pain ran through his chest and back, but it was probably from injuries he’d sustained from his own explosives.

“…You know these are bombs, right?”

“Yes. Little wonders, aren’t they?”

…Wonders?

The woman’s response struck him as odd, but Rail went on.

“You sure it’s a good idea to give bombs to kids?”

The sneer in his words sounded a bit more like himself.

For her part, Nice didn’t seem bothered by his scorn.

“Well, I wouldn’t call it a good idea, but I have no reason to take you to task for it.”

“?”

Rail looked perplexed, and the woman with the eye patch continued, calmly.

Her expression was almost rapturous, as if she was remembering some especially fond memories.

And just a little, ever so slightly…

…what she said next pulled the bomb fiend’s heart back into the world he had rejected.

“After all, when I was your age…I blew up lakes and buildings and things myself!”

At Dolce

“What’s going on? We’ve got even more loonies now.”

As she wiped the residual liquor from her face with a handkerchief, Sickle sized up the intruders.

The group of thuggish types were chattering away. A young man with a rugged tattoo on his face was at the head of the group, which included an enormous Mexican man and Asians in shady-looking costumes.

At first Sickle had thought that kid with the ink might be the ringleader, but the fact that he looked flustered, miserable, and ready to cry was giving her second thoughts.

Even stranger, the group seemed to know Christopher as well as the man in the blue coveralls.

That said, considering how frightened the tattooed one looked, the relationship was not a good one.

“Friends of yours, Chris?” Sickle asked him straight-out.

The red-eyed monster gave an awkward smile. “Hmm. They’re more Tim’s group’s friends than mine. Well, more like participants in Huey’s experiment.”

“And why does the sight of you scare them?”

“Adele and I came very close to killing them a while back.”

“…Okay, I get the picture.” Sighing with resignation, Sickle cracked her neck, then turned back to Graham. “Well, what do you wanna do? Keep fighting?”

Graham thought about it, toying with his wrench with both hands. Then he spoke, looking indifferent.

“Course I do. It’s just seein’ as today is the joint’s thirtieth anniversary, I’ll celebrate by sittin’ this one out. You?”

“I’ll call a truce on one condition: I wanna hear who hired you people. Who is that group in the lab coats?” Sickle again asked directly, somewhat calmer.

However, Graham was nonplussed. “What group in lab coats?”

“Don’t play dumb.”

“?”

Graham looked genuinely mystified, and Sickle’s temples started to twitch again. Seeing this, Shaft hastily went up to Graham and helped him out.

“You know! She means the ones who shot up Russo’s place the day before yesterday!”

“Ohh! Them, huh?! …Yeah, who were they anyway?”

“Well, uh, the top brass was goin’ on about Placido’s regular checkup, but I didn’t hear the specifics… The family’s scattered all over the place now, so there’s no way to find out.”

He was almost speaking more for Sickle’s benefit than for Graham’s. Sickle picked up on the man’s intent, and it convinced her that Graham’s posse really didn’t know anything about the group in lab coats.

Graham appeared to ponder the mystery of the white-coat-clad group for a little while. Then, as if he’d lost interest, he smacked his wrench and smiled at Sickle again.

“Well, whatever. You people were on that wanted poster, so we’re still on the clock.”

He smiled, apparently pleased by the fact that their struggle wasn’t over yet, and the tension in the bar began to build again—until a quiet, resonant voice defused it.

“About that wanted poster…”

Graham and the others turned to see Ricardo, who’d gone over to stand beside Christopher.

They hadn’t interacted with the kid much, but he was technically their employer’s grandchild. Graham was listening for the moment, and Ricardo quite calmly spoke. “We can’t get in contact with my grandpa, so I think the job probably isn’t valid anymore.”

“…”

“I have no idea where Mr. Krieck and the others went, either. Frankly, I get the feeling that Grandpa’s already dead.”

Simple as that.

Without a single pause, Ricardo had told them a member of his family was probably deceased. It made everyone else feel incredibly uncomfortable.

“…Question for you, Shaft.”

“About what?”

“What story should a man tell at a time like this?”

“None at all, probably…”

Shaft responded with a perfectly natural answer, but Graham kept on talking.

“A sad story? A fun one? The story of my fleeting first love, which combines the two? Y’see, a while back, my flesh-and-blood big sister told me, ‘We found you on the riverbank, you little skunk!’ So then I asked, ‘Then can you and me get married, sis?’ and she grabbed one of the wrenches Dad used for work, hauled off, and walloped me with it! The sparks were flyin’, I was fallin’ head over heels, and I was gettin’ dumped all in the same moment. Our romance lasted less than a second. Still, that was how she reassured me we really were blood-related siblings, and I gave up on my love, but I think if you can give it up that easy, it prob’ly ain’t love at all!”

“Pervert…” Shaft groaned, covering his face with a hand.

“Anyway, it really is better not to fight here! The police are already on alert!”

“The police… I see… The tale of my first encounter with the cops is a—”

“What’s with you anyway?! You’re even less coherent than usual! …Wait… Mr. Graham, don’t tell me… Did you get drunk from getting splashed with liquor?! Mr. Graham! Your face is bright red! Mr. Graham?!”

“Anyway, if we find some of our syndicate’s men, we’ll be able to make sense of what’s going on. If we fight here, we’ll all lose out.”

Completely ignoring Shaft and Graham’s conversation, Ricardo went on.

“Just fighting with that fellow in the coveralls was pretty fulfilling for me, you know.”

“I wasn’t including you, Chris.”

“Whaaat? We’re friends and you didn’t include me in the group? Does that mean you’re treating me as a part of you? Am I your second self?”

Paying zero attention to Christopher’s dumb joke, Ricardo turned to Sickle and the others confidently.

“I don’t have a total grasp on the situation, but I get the feeling that we’ve all been pulled into a series of events that spells some serious trouble. If nothing changes, we’ll end up destroying one another, so… I think we should join forces and put two and two together.”

“…No objections here. That guy in the coveralls aside, we need to ask Chris about Rail and Frank.”

Agreeing with Ricardo’s suggestion, Sickle let her violent aura fade.

Beside her, she noticed the Poet was frowning, but she assumed he was probably just coming up with another string of nonsense. She continued the conversation without worrying about it.

Meanwhile, the delinquents were completely lost, and they nervously approached Graham.

“Um… Uh, Graham, we have no idea what’s going on here…”

“Heya, Jacuzzi… Whoa, I sobered up… Okay, I see what’s goin’ on. Sorry for neglecting you guys. Before I ask what you’re doing here, I want to say I’m sorry. Let me deliver my apology right now!”

Oh, this is probably going to take a while.

Jacuzzi braced himself, preparing for one of Graham’s long soliloquies, but—

—as the man in question twirled his wrench, he was turning his head as well.

When his eyes landed on the proprietor, they stopped dead—and then he meekly spoke to Jacuzzi and his gang. “Uh… Jacuzzi. Before that, there’s something I’d like you to help me with.”

“Huh?”

Graham was unusually subdued. His eyes were completely hidden behind his bangs, and his lips apologetically mumbled:

“Would you…help me fix this place up?”

Watching the group of confused young delinquents from a distance, the Poet thought to himself:

There are more odd ones here now.

Their arrival wasn’t exactly coincidental; the tattooed youth seems to have been searching for Graham. However…

…no matter how raucous we were, could they really have found this establishment so quickly?

Something’s peculiar here.

We still don’t know the details of Master Huey’s experiment…and yet the situation is resolving all on its own.

What can it mean?

Why does it feel so eerie? It’s as if someone is cleverly manipulating us…

This strange feeling—it’s almost like…Sham or Hilton’s…

When he’d thought that far, the Poet quietly shook his head.

…Were we the captive Alices after all, then?

In that case…who is the White Rabbit?

As he scanned the now densely populated bar, the Poet murmured briefly, in a voice no one else could hear.

“Who…is betraying whom?”