Baccano! - Volume 13 - Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

THE IMMORTALS ARE IN A TRAVELING MOOD

A day in August 2002 Yokohama Port

“It’s the ocean!”

Although he was old enough to know better, the young man threw his arms wide in a sincere show of excitement at the sea.

“Wow! The ocean’s so huge; it doesn’t get better than this! You know that saying about having ‘a heart as big as the ocean’? People think it means ‘forgiving,’ but I think it probably means it’s so big it doesn’t even notice little stuff! Okay, everybody smile!”

The man was shouting non sequiturs, and none of his companions seemed impressed.

“If we were only staring at the ocean and burst out laughing, people’d think there was something wrong with us.”

“Let me just say this: The ocean is bound to accept even a man like yourself, so go drown in it until you are satisfied.”

“Do not assume the sea is insensate. Such a mentality could result in an environmental crisis.”

The three responses were different, but none of them agreed with him. Still, the young man replied with a nod of approval.

“I know, I know. The ocean’s great, isn’t it?”

“Let me just say this: Listen when people are talking.”

“I did listen. And then I ignored you.”

“Let me just say this: Elmer, go die. In fact, I’ll venture to kill you myself.” With that, the man—a dark-skinned individual who wore the sort of mask used in festivals in South America or Southeast Asia—promptly caught Elmer’s neck with one arm and began to choke him.

“Can’t get away with anything around you, huh, Nile…? Koff!”

Even as his face turned purple, the young man—Elmer C. Albatross—kept right on smiling. The woman who was with them ran her fingers through her silver hair, smiling uncomfortably.

Stealing a glance at her bewitchingly beautiful profile, the Asian man who was standing a short distance away murmured to himself, “…How comely.”

“Hmm? Denkurou, did you say something?”

“N-no, ’twas nothing, Sylvie.” Denkurou averted his gaze, and the woman tilted her head, puzzled. She seemed to decide she’d been imagining things and looked back at the ocean.

The members of this mixed quartet were of different backgrounds and ages.

However, from another perspective, their differing ages were still very close.

After all, since they were over three hundred years old, they naturally seemed to fall into the same age bracket.

Elmer C. Albatross,

Nile,

Sylvie Lumiere,

and Denkurou Tougou.

These four had two things in common.

The first was that they had crossed the Atlantic on the same ship in 1711.

The second was that all four had unique, immortal bodies.

The moment they drank what had been termed the “elixir of immortality,” their bodies had become simultaneously human and inhuman.

They could suffer wounds or even death, but the immortals’ bodies would repair themselves whether they wanted them to or not. When a single drop of their blood was separated from its host, it would begin to wriggle like a creature with a will of its own, attempting to return to the source.

And yet, they also retained normal circulation, water balance, and nutrient supply. It was a truly convenient body to have.

Although around thirty immortals had been born on that ship in 1711, at present, only a third of them remained. Other new immortals had technically been created later on, but they didn’t count at this point.

Only immortals could kill other immortals.

If one immortal put their right hand on the head of another and thought, I want to eat, they would absorb the other’s physical body and knowledge, exactly like a vacuum cleaner.

No one knew where the mass went. Someone had theorized that it might be converted into the tremendous amount of energy it took to transfer the knowledge, but that immortal had already been absorbed by somebody else.

Ordinarily, one would have expected the immortals to grow paranoid of one another and live through eternity fearing shadows that might try to devour them—but these four, at least, seemed free of any such suspicions.

About a month ago, with the help of another immortal named Maiza Avaro, Elmer’s group had managed to reunite with the final missing immortal, Denkurou.

After that, Maiza had said he’d achieved his objective and returned to New York with another immortal, but Elmer and the other three had stayed in Japan for a relaxing break.

They hadn’t been living together, though. They’d each had their own reasons for staying in the country.

For example, Elmer had decided that Japanese games were fantastic (to use his own word) and spent days on end in arcades and toy stores. During his stay, he had studied the language through games and leveled up his language ability enough to clear visual-novel games in their original language.

The four of them had gathered again for one reason.

“Huey… He’d better not be plotting something,” Sylvie murmured suspiciously, glancing at the small booklet she was holding. It looked like a leather-bound passport, but it was in fact the needlessly fancy boarding pass for a certain luxury cruise ship.

Huey Laforet.

He was one of the surviving immortals from 1711, and for a time, he’d been notorious in America as a terrorist. They knew he’d been arrested by the police in the 1930s, but none of the four had heard anything after that.

However…

Although they had rented out separate lodgings in Japan, last week, out of nowhere, invitations had been delivered to all four of them.

Boarding passes to a luxury cruise ship had been sent in the name of Huey Laforet, accompanied by a brief message: Let’s meet on the ocean.

“Frankly, I don’t understand this at all.”

Sylvie had initially considered ripping hers up and tossing it, but just in case, she’d decided to talk it over with the other three.

As it turned out, the others had also received tickets. During the ensuing discussion, Elmer had joked, “If Huey’s involved, and we ignore these, we’ll get the same tickets again. Every single day.” That had ended up being the clincher, and they decided to take him up on the invitation.

Between making sure they had their affairs in order to leave the country and finishing all the other preparations, they’d had almost no time to spare.

As a result, Sylvie’s group hadn’t really looked into what sort of ship the Exit was…

“…I’d heard it was a luxury cruise ship, but I never dreamed it would be this grand,” Sylvie murmured in amazement as she turned to look at the black thing she’d spotted out of the corner of her eye.

Moored at the large pier of Yokohama Port, it was best described by the word alien.

Elegant, opulent, resplendent, magnificent—all those terms would have been fitting if you were only paying attention to size. But more than anything, the word that best suited the object floating on the waves was alien.

The luxury cruise ship Exit.

It was like an imperial marine stronghold, as though a fortified city had been converted into a resort after the war and set afloat on the ocean.

One of the world’s most distinguished cruise ships, it had been built a few years earlier as a joint project between enormous Japanese and American corporations.

The giant vessel was said to employ all sorts of luxuries and navigation functions that were ahead of even the most advanced ships.

Even though it was a passenger vessel, the unique ship was equipped with huge cargo bays that were used for various events and large enough to drive cars around in.

In the past, international game shows had been held on board, and it was even more famous as an event venue than a cruise ship.

However—there was one more unusual thing about the vessel.

Its sister ship, Entrance.

A second ship of the exact same type had been built, and the pair had been christened Entrance and Exit, in the sense of “Entrance to paradise” and “Exit from the ordinary,” respectively.

The most vivid display of the uniqueness of these two ships was the “Crossing” that occurred when they sailed across the Pacific or Atlantic Oceans. The ships would pass within eyeshot of each other, and each vessel would launch fireworks toward the other, wishing it well on its voyage.

“That’s incredible! What do you suppose happens when black and white ships overlap?! They might turn into that yin-yang symbol, the one that looks like a penguin’s face! Hey, what happens if it summons something?”

“Hmm. Frankly, that would be troublesome.”

As she watched Denkurou absently deal with Elmer’s antics, Sylvie ran her eyes over the ship again.

The two sister ships were the same model, so there was only one thing that distinguished them.

Their overall color.

While the Entrance was swan white, the Exit was as black as deep darkness. If the latter sailed with no lights on a dark night, it would mostly likely be hard to spot.

In contrast with its elegant white twin, the vessel had an aura of majestic power.

After looking at it, Sylvie glanced at her ticket and read about the ship’s specifications.

Full length: 1,004 feet.

Total height: 180 feet.

Total width: 171 feet.

Due to the size of the cargo bays and the event stage, its regular crew was slightly smaller than usual for a ship this large, but even so, it had the capacity to carry more than twenty-five hundred passengers and a thousand crew members.

“It even has a beauty treatment clinic. I’d like to go, but it’s bound to be expensive…” Sylvie had been murmuring to herself for some time now, possibly because the longer she looked, the more uneasy she grew. She turned to Elmer and asked him another question. “Say, are you sure this is all right? Huey hasn’t set some sort of trap so he can use us as guinea pigs for something, has he?”

“I can’t say there’s no chance of that, I guess. Huey might even kill his own flesh-and-blood daughter to satisfy his curiosity.”

“…”

“So I won’t force you. I’m going even if it is a trap, though. I do want to see Huey again; it’s been so long.” Elmer was boarding this ship not because he intended to stop Huey or felt responsible or anything. He only wanted to see his friend.

Sylvie had no way to respond to that, and she sighed. “You and Huey really are close, aren’t you? You’d think the two of you would be like oil and water.”

“Really? We’ve known each other for three centuries or so, but we’ve never fought.”

“Maybe not to you. I doubt he’d agree.”

“Yeah, Huey used to tell me the same thing all the time,” Elmer replied nonchalantly.

Sylvie fell silent, a little nonplussed.

Elmer was a guy she just couldn’t bring herself to hate.

You couldn’t hate him—but he was totally unhinged.

That was Sylvie’s impression of him.

Holding a conversation with him was possible, but sometimes she didn’t feel confident that she was talking with someone of the same species. It wasn’t clear what he was thinking, and she couldn’t read him at all.

Even so, Sylvie had decided Elmer was trustworthy. If he hadn’t been, he wouldn’t have shown himself to other immortals this openly.

Well, I wouldn’t really mind if it was a trap, either.

Sylvie’s only goal in life had been avenging the death of her lover after the tragedy of 1711.

One of the alchemists who had obtained immortality had begun to eat his companions, one after another. Back then, Sylvie hadn’t yet drunk the elixir of immortality, so she had been spared. On the other hand, a young man who’d been everything to her had vanished from the world.

Gretto…

As she remembered her lover’s name, his face, his voice, Sylvie quietly clenched her fists.

Szilard Quates, the man who’d eaten him, no longer existed. She’d completely lost sight of her goal in life, but she hadn’t lost the energy to live. She’d once been shattered by despair and had nearly given in to the feeling of emptiness—but now she was living to find a new goal.

Gretto… I’ll make sure I remember you forever.

He had definitely existed in the past, but now, he was gone.

Thinking of him, Sylvie shook her head softly.

But if that’s my goal, it would be missing the point.

I’ll find a goal that’s just for me. I’ll live on and use my remaining time well. I’ll make him proud.

Quietly, Sylvie had made up her mind. That decision had kept her from fearing this voyage, even though it could be a trap.

If I die here, then that’s that, and anyway…

…if one of my companions from that ship is planning to attempt something idiotic, I have to stop him. I’m sure Gretto would have done the same.

In the end, Sylvie realized, she hadn’t completely let go of the shadow of her past lover.

But maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing, she thought as she gazed at the luxury cruise ship, and she smiled.

It was almost time to go, and the four of them set off for the large pier, but suddenly, Elmer asked the other two the question Sylvie had asked him a moment earlier.

“What about you, Nin-Nin and Nile? Are you worried, too?”

“Let me just say this: I do not particularly care. When it comes to Huey, nothing he does would surprise me at this point.”

“I believe we’d do well to be cautious, but… Ah, wait, Elmer. Was that ‘Nin-Nin’ intended to apply to me?” As Denkurou asked his question, he thrust out a hand, palm facing outward.

Elmer responded with a breezy smile. “Well, sure. I don’t want to call you Ninja, so starting today, you’re Nin-Nin.”

“You might simply call me Denkurou, as most others would… I am not one of those shinobi ruffians.” Denkurou sighed, sounding put out.

“Aw, c’mon…,” Elmer whined, but he seemed to reluctantly agree to call him by his real name.

Relieved, Denkurou turned to look at the ship, but his eyes instead stopped on Sylvie, who was also gazing at it as she walked along a little ways ahead of them.

Hmm… Sylvie certainly is lovely, isn’t she?

If he wasn’t careful, his heart would be stolen; he rang a clear-toned bell in his mind, calming his emotions.

It was Gretto who had won Sylvie’s heart, and no doubt Sylvie still had feelings for him.

No matter. Gazing at an unobtainable blossom from afar is a diversion in its own right.

With a wry internal smile, Denkurou quietly looked up at the ship, but—

“Hmm… I was unable to see them myself, yet perhaps the infamous ‘black ships’ of which I’ve read were not dissimilar to this… Certainly, if several vessels this enormous bore down on them, the people would inevitably riot.”

“Let me just say this: I am positive they were this big.”

“No, I imagine they seemed equally strange to the people of that day.”

“Ah, I see… Denkurou. Will you be all right, traveling by ship?”

“? What are you saying? I have no recollection of suffering seasickness on the Advena Avis…”

Denkurou seemed puzzled.

“I hear you were frozen in ice in the Arctic Ocean, long ago,” Nile murmured, sounding detached.

“…I was traveling on foot at the time. I have no aversion to the ocean itself.”

“I see. That is good to hear… I rather dislike ships, personally.”

“Why is that?”

So this fellow has things he would rather avoid. Imagine that.

On that thought, Denkurou asked his question out of simple curiosity, and from behind his mask, Nile answered in the same impassive tone.

“They remind me of the Advena Avis.”

“…Ah.”

In one tragic night, they had lost many friends.

They had gained eternal life, but it had brought the worst possible results: death and murder.

“Do you regret becoming immortal, Nile?”

“Let me just say this: Immortal or not, the fact that I am alive is the same. If I have time to regret every little thing, I will use that to obey my instincts and live.”

“Instincts, you say! Indeed, that is quite like you.”

In the course of this conversation, the group had reached the entrance of the terminal on the large pier.

Inside the terminal building, there were lots of passengers who seemed to be waiting to board the same ship.

There were only a few Japanese people; the majority were white, black, or from other non-Asian races.

“We aren’t Japanese, either, but this feels odd for a ship that’s leaving Japan,” Sylvie remarked.

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it,” Elmer replied, inexplicably cheery. “I hear there are tours where people come here by plane, then return to America by ship. It’s probably hard to decide which to spend more time on, coming or going.”

“They do say Japan’s in a recession right now. Maybe people wouldn’t go out of their way to travel on such an expensive cruise ship.” She seemed convinced by her own logic, then shot a glance to the side. “Never mind that… Nile, why don’t you take off your mask here, at least? Everyone’s looking at us. Security guards included.”

Nile, who was standing tall in his usual ethnic costume and mask, objected to Sylvie’s cold glare. “What are you talking about?” he retorted. “Let me just say this: I am merely the trigger. After that, the one everyone looks at is you.”

“…”

Now that he’d brought it to her attention, Sylvie looked at the people around them.

Everyone—men and women, young and old—looked at Nile first, then turned their eyes to Sylvie, his companion. The children seemed to find Nile more unusual; they kept waving at him until their mothers pulled them away.

“Oh… I’m sorry. It looks like you’re right.”

The gazes of the men in particular seemed to twine around her in layers. This was nothing new, but the fact that she’d reproached Nile did make her feel rather awkward.

“I wonder if I should just be happy about it?” Sylvie sighed.

Denkurou fell silent, thinking, while Elmer gave his usual answer.

“Okay, for now, go on and smile! You’ll be even prettier if you smile.”

…An answer that solved nothing.

“Oh, looklooklooklook, over there. Look, Miss Lucotte. Her, it’s her…! I showed you her photo earlier, remember? That’s Miss Sylvie!”

“…Yes.”

“Magnificent… This is nothing like seeing her in a photograph! I— Well, you know how it is, uh, I mean, I just… I thought I’d picked out a particularly good picture of her! But just look! This is almost like… Uh, it almost makes you think the picture was a bad one.”

As he spoke, the man gripped the hand of the woman who stood beside him: his “wife,” Celice, who was currently going by the name Lucotte.

He sounded incredibly cheerful, and although he was speaking to Celice, his attention and gaze were riveted on Sylvie, who was sitting on a bench some distance away.

The silver-haired woman was wearing a dress designed to generously expose her arms and cleavage, with a simple jacket draped over her shoulders like a cape. The contours of her arms were slim and smooth, beautiful as those of a finely polished plaster figure.

Her willowy loveliness had a solid core reminiscent of the most graceful carnivores.

Her smooth, silken bangs fell softly over her face, and the uneven cut of her bobbed hair only served to accentuate her even features.

“What’ll I do? I’m getting nervous.”

“…Yes.”

Celice’s eyes were as vacant as a doll’s, and her only response to the man’s voice was a nod.

Bride wasn’t listening to her, though. He was gazing at Sylvie’s beauty, captivated.

By general standards, Sylvie fit into the “beautiful” category quite easily. However, her loveliness wasn’t the natural sort used to depict goddesses in pictures. She was brimming with the allure of a demon from fantasy stories, a succubus or an imp, specifically tailored to human desires.

Her beauty was the truly devilish type that charmed even members of the same sex—but Celice wasn’t moved at all. It wasn’t even clear whether she was looking in Sylvie’s direction.

However, Bride didn’t care. He completely ignored her reactions and rambled on unfiltered about his own excitement.

“Alluring, isn’t she…? She’s an Italian sculptor’s magnum opus and life’s work, a plaster figure, a sculpture. She doesn’t depict a goddess or an angel or a saint—she symbolizes a succubus or prostitute, a beauty that kindles human desires…”

“…Yes.”

“Whoops! I am technically a man of the cloth, and you may think it’s odd for me to compare her to goddesses or angels. But our doctrine acknowledges the myths of other religions as well. Only as stories based in fantasy, though.”

“…Yes.”

“What do you say? You think your beauty could never rival hers, don’t you?”

“…Yes.”

“Mm-hmm, that’s what I thought.”

“…Yes.”

“Are you jealous?”

“…Yes.”

“Are you averse to dying?”

“…Yes.”

“Are you listening to me?”

“…Yes.”

“That’s fine, then. At the earliest, you’ll be, well, you’ll be disposed of during this voyage. Do you have any last words? I am your husband, after all! Let me do that much for you!”

The question was neither mockery nor sarcasm. Bride was asking out of a sincere sense of duty and justice, a genuine belief that as her husband, he should listen to his wife’s last words.

That was what made the question especially eerie and awful, but as she was now, Celice didn’t even register that.

She couldn’t think.

You could see from her eyes that she wasn’t in her right mind, and yet she had just enough of an ego left to stand on her own and complete the departure formalities. Meanwhile, she kept repeating the same response.

“…Yes.”

“What was that?”

“…Yes.”

“Your last words are ‘…Yes,’ hmm?! I see… Acceptance itself is your last will; you accept everything, both life and death. And you’ll forgive everything, even my killing you. That’s what you meant, isn’t it?”

“…Yes.”

“Thank you… Really, Lucotte, thank you. That’s a wonderful answer. I’d expect no less of my wife. The one who’s meant to be my other half. You’re also a splendid interim priestess, Lucotte.”

For the first time, Bride turned his face toward the hollow-eyed woman, and—

—slowly, he covered her lips with his own.

For a moment, the life returned to her face.

“…N…no! NooooOOOoooo! …Ghk…!”

As Celice began to scream, one of the women who attended Bride struck her with a karate chop from behind.

Celice slumped against Bride’s chest, unconscious.

“So she still had some sanity left,” Bride muttered, still in his “timid young man” persona, holding the unconscious woman close. “How sad; it will only be painful for her… Still, that sanity will make her a better priestess for us…”

Quietly shaking his head, he handed Celice off to the big, gorilla-like man who’d been standing beside them.

That scream certainly hadn’t been a faint one.

In addition, there were families and couples and solo travelers all around them.

However…Celice’s scream and the female attendant’s knifehand strike had been completely ignored. It was as if none of it had ever happened.

The space itself was abnormal.

No, it wasn’t the space. It was the people in it.

Bride and Celice stood by the wall, surrounded by a solid semicircle of passengers.

Every one of them—adults, children, and senior citizens—had one common item in their luggage: the red-and-black sacred garments that each would wear.

They were all members of SAMPLE.

The ship’s waiting room was full of people who knew everything and who were completely on Bride’s side.

There were only about two hundred of them present, comprising less than a tenth of the people who would be on the ship.

Yet, that still meant they made up about 10 percent.

Holding both good and ill will in equal measure, for their own sakes as people who had placed their faith in themselves, even as they heard Celice’s scream in their hearts—

—every one of them wore a smile.

“Hey, buddy. Got a second?”

“…Hunh?”

Still standing tall, Nile scowled with dull irritation behind his mask.

There was a woman standing in front of him, even taller than he was.

“Yeah, sorry to bug ya. I’m just curious… Does that mask mean something? I’ve been eyeing it for a while now, and the wonderin’s driving me nuts,” she said in English.

The woman was easily over six feet tall, for one. She was covered in muscles, easily more than Nile himself, by all appearances. That said, her proportions made it easy to tell she was female, and with her big-sisterly kind of face, she was more beautiful than not.

Despite Nile’s peculiar appearance, she had marched right up to him. Perhaps she was curious, or maybe she was that sure of her own strength. Without changing the expression behind his mask, Nile muttered to her:

“…Let me just say this: I wear it for my own amusement.”

As a matter of fact, there were various reasons and circumstances involved, but there wouldn’t be any point in telling them to someone who wasn’t an immortal, or so Nile judged. Thus, he’d given a simple answer.

For a moment, the woman’s eyes went round, and then suddenly, she gave a masculine laugh.

“Gah-ha-ha! That’s real easy to understand! I getcha… For fun, huh?! Well, well! Sorry ’bout that! I couldn’t help myself; had to ask! Thanks, buddy!”

The woman raised a hand, then walked away, still laughing that distinctive staccato laugh.

“…Let me just say this: What in the world was that woman?”

“Well…I imagine any individual who is intensely curious would want to inquire into the reasons behind that mask.”

At Denkurou’s straightforward answer, Nile folded his arms for a while, then asked the other two, “Let me just say this: Is it that strange?”

“Woooow, that’s kind of a basic question, isn’t it? After all this time, you’re asking that now? Man, Nile, that was a great joke! You have my respect for that one, so I’ll give you a laugh! All right, which would you prefer, a suppressed chuckle, a snicker, or a mocking laugh?! I bet I could hit you with the best sneer in the world!”

“For now, let us skip straight to the results and simply split your sides.”

As Nile’s hand formed a claw and hit Elmer’s gut, Denkurou gave a weary sigh, not bothering to stop him, and Sylvie watched the woman’s receding back.

“She’s so toned, and her bust was still huge… That didn’t look like silicon. She must have trained very carefully.” She sounded impressed.

“Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow! Sorry, Nile, sorry! I was wrong! Hey, don’t stick your fingers between my ribs, okay?” Elmer’s apology was sincere, and once Nile had released him, his gaze followed the woman, too.

She’d already joined the crowd, but even from a distance, her six-foot frame was easy to spot.

“That woman is seriously buff. She could’ve walked straight out of a fighting game. I mean, look at those Chun-Li legs. Can’t you imagine mashing the attack button and watching her kick ’em to death?”

“Let me just say this: I do not play games, and so I do not understand what you are saying.”

“You should! Especially since you came all the way to Japan. Not that there’s all there is to the country, of course. Come to think of it, I saw you lose a fistfight for the first time, Nile. That’s a good memory, too.”

“Let me just say this: Do not talk about that.”

“Where were we when it happened? I’m pretty sure it was—”

“I warned you.”

This time, Nile’s hand-claw hit his face, and Elmer’s body rose lightly into the air.

As he listened to his own skull creaking, Elmer slapped at the hand, still smiling. “Y’know, Nile, I’m getting the feeling that since Maiza’s not here, you’re giving me enough comebacks for two. That’s its own kind of fun, but I dunno what I’m gonna do if I lose my face! I won’t be able to smile!”

“You could smile in writing,” Sylvie deadpanned as she waited for the line at the immigration control gate to thin out. Exchanges like this were routine, after all. “Still, I’m impressed that woman spoke to Nile in English. You really can’t tell where he’s from just by looking at him.”

At the same time, she took another long look at Nile—and the worry filling her heart changed into something else.

“Speaking of the way Nile looks, I always wonder: How does he get past immigration?”

“How ’bout that! Just for fun! Who’d have thought! That was dumb of me.”

As the tall woman headed for a corner of the lobby where the crowd was slightly thinner, she spotted a boy who’d been standing there and called to him.

“If we’re talking about being dumb, I’d say the dumbest thing was what you did a second ago.”

“Aw, don’t be like that! It’s been bugging me ever since I saw the photo! Why does he wear that mask?! Once we’re enemies, I won’t be able to take my time and ask him, y’know?”

As Aging cackled away, Rookie rubbed his temples and shook his head.

“What the hell. I never dreamed you’d simply walk up and talk to the targets. I never thought—”

“I getcha; you don’t have to say it twice! Gah-ha! What, have you gone senile already at your age?”

“You’re the one who’s senile!” the president hissed, struggling to keep his voice low, and Aging thumped him on the back with a laugh.

“Hey, you’re young! Don’t sweat the little things!” Her fan-sized palm knocked all the air out of his lungs.

“Gwuff!” He staggered but managed to regain his balance just before he fell over, then turned to glare coldly back at her. “That’s enough, Aging.”

“All right, all right; no need for the stink eye… And? Where’s the rest of ’em?”

“On the ship. They’ve already finished their preparations.”

“I see. Then we should probably get a move on, too, huh, President?”

Addressing the boy in the tuxedo the way she always did, Aging picked up the luggage from beside him—

—and the boy shot her a sharp glare.

“Don’t call me that. During the job, I’m Rookie, remember?”

“Picky, picky. When a girl like me calls you President, you should look away with a lil’ smile, all bashful and happy and awkward-like.”

“You are such a headache…”

Ignoring her chortling, Rookie slowly started toward immigration. Once he was away from his veteran weapon, he put on his public mask and got ready to board the ship.

And as for that public face…

“Um… You’re Mr. Rookie, right?!”

“…”

Someone called his name in his native language. When he turned around, he saw a kid of about ten who seemed to be waiting to board the same ship. A little ways away, the boy’s family was watching the two of them.

The kid came running up to Rookie and tugged at his sleeve, smiling at him innocently.

“Do some magic!” the Italian boy cried.

“…”

Rookie fell silent for a short while, as if hesitating, but then—

—with a sudden, startlingly graceful smile, he closed his fingers into a loose fist, then waved it in front of the kid.

And then—several bouncy balls appeared from his empty hand.

“Whoa! Cooool!”

“Here. They’re yours.”

“Huh?! Really?! Thanks!” The boy ducked his head in gratitude, then trotted back to his family.

The woman who was probably his mother waved at Rookie.

Luchino Campanella’s public face was the boy magician known as “Rookie Warlock” Luchino, who had gained some fame in a few countries.

Wearing his stage magician smile, the boy began to board the ship, where he would be working as an entertainer.

He’d need to pull off jobs for both his public and private personas simultaneously—

And yet, in the moment that boy had smiled because of his magic trick, half of his tension had dissolved.

Every time he killed someone, a sort of hopeless feeling seeped into his heart like mud, building up. Whenever he saw someone else smile that way, the sensation of the boiled-down sludge churning inside him eased, if only for a moment.

It’s just escapism, but…

His father had trained him in this profession to hide his darker side, but he had taken it as seriously if it had been his real trade.

Rookie had been presented with other options, but he’d chosen the unique public face of a stage magician.

No, I don’t care if it is escapism.

I can run away or go forward, but either way…I certainly can’t stand still.

It wasn’t clear whether he cursed the burden of his fate or had resigned himself to it, but before that sludge could well up to the surface, the boy forced it back down and gave the child and his family another smile.

For that one moment, he felt as if his false self could become the real one.

For Rookie, the president with public and private faces, the smiles of others were the one thing he just couldn’t part with.

After Rookie had gone, the boy proudly showed off his bouncy balls to his family.

“Heh-heh! Jealous?!”

“No faaair! That’s not faaaair!” A girl who’d been hiding in their father’s shadow stuck her hand out, pouting.

When it looked as though they might start to fight over them, their mother broke in, smiling.

“None of that. There’s more than one, you know. Share.”

“Okaaay.”

“’Kaaay.”

The boy gave his little sister one ball, then unzipped his bag so he could put away his own.

They were a cheerful-looking family; both the parents and children were happy. Their guileless smiles suited them well.

If nothing else, those smiles were real.

But inside the luggage of their oldest boy, there was an outfit.

A children’s outfit with a distinctive red-and-black pattern.

The luxury cruise ship Exit departed with a crowd of passengers, a fistful of violence, another handful of malice, and a sprinkling of immortals…

And so the enormous closed room headed out to sea.

This small world began racing over the waves of the Pacific, bound for the scheduled crossing with its sister ship.

The ocean, vast and unchanging, lay before the vessel as if it meant to swallow everything, all intentions good and ill, and their consequences—

And on board that vessel—an atrocity began unfolding, calculated for the benefit of one.

Compared with the ocean, it was far too small.

Compared with the world on board a ship, it was far too large.

In the middle of the silent ocean, entirely unnoticed, hidden from all—

—oh so quietly, the tragedy began.