Baccano! - Volume 13 - Chapter 6

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CHAPTER 6

THE VETERAN BERSERKER LAUGHS OFF DESPAIR

Luxury cruise ship Exit Voyage, day three Evening

The passengers had been expecting an elegant voyage.

The Mask Makers had planned to use their overwhelming strength to stir chaos on the ship from the shadows.

For both parties, the world turned inside out in an instant.

Up until then, time on board the Exit—an enormous oceangoing closed room—had passed peacefully, at least on the surface.

The voyage was already in its third day.

The Entrance had departed from the opposite shore of the Pacific, and in another full day, the ships were scheduled to pass each other at close range.

Around about the time when even passengers who had initially been uneasy about the prospects of a voyage had gotten used to being on the water and begun to genuinely enjoy the trip—

Their journey…

Their safety…

Their futures…

…were all shot down in the blink of an eye.

A mere thirty minutes was all it took to dye the fate of this marine palace red and black.

At the very least, those who were dragged into the middle of the colored spiral despaired equally—while only a handful of exceptions enjoyed the situation.

Those individuals took delight in flipping their inverted circumstances right-side out again by force.

On board the Exit A storeroom

“Well, hey there, President! Where are ya?”

What is this?

“…In a storeroom near the bottom of the ship. Aging, what in hell is—?” He was interrupted by a burst of static, and the two-way radio went dead. “Dammit!”

Clicking his tongue, the boy launched himself into a run, diving behind a nearby pile of cargo.

What in hell is going on?

As gunshots and screams echoed through the ship, Rookie reviewed the situation, taking a few deep breaths.

Everything had been normal until thirty minutes ago. Before that, nothing had been out of the ordinary.

Their occupation of the ship had gone smoothly.

More than five hours ago, he’d received a report that they’d taken the bridge, communications room, and engine room without a single passenger being any the wiser.

Aging had even complained, “Boooring. Somebody needs to figure it out and fight back and call a police copter so I can raise some hell.” She was completely unsuited to stealth maneuvers, so—like Illness on the other ship—she was there to buy time in the event that the police showed up.

She had so much free time on her hands that she was back in her cabin, sleeping, and the boy had been strolling through the shopping mall and around the ship in person to see how the passengers were doing.

He hadn’t spotted any marked changes among them, either.

The one thing that had seemed a little odd was that the red-and-black clothes, which he’d noticed frequently on the second day of the voyage, were nowhere to be seen today.

It probably had something to do with a movie that was showing on board, he’d assumed, and so he’d dismissed the oddity.

Now he really wished he’d been more suspicious.

He heard footsteps, then spotted a human figure in the doorway to the storeroom.

When Rookie stuck his face out to look, there was a man standing there. He wore a long red-and-black coat buttoned up in front, even though it was summer—

—and without ceremony, he pointed a submachine gun at Rookie.

The room rattled with the sound of silenced gunshots, and Rookie hastily ducked back under cover as they pulverized the floor and cargo right beside him.

Just who are these people?!

The ones who’d been attacking him for the past little while had, without exception, been wearing red and black.

From what he could tell, they weren’t all men; he thought he’d seen women among them as well.

Their ages were also all over the place, from kids who seemed only a little older than he was to white-haired old people.

Only thirty minutes ago, he was sure he hadn’t seen any of these people in red and black.

Everything, absolutely everything, had been normal.

However—as he was walking through the shipboard shopping mall, he’d suddenly heard gunshots from multiple places, inciting a wave of panic that had swept rapidly through the passengers.

Immediately afterward, groups wearing those red-and-black clothes had begun striding purposefully through the ship as though the panic around them didn’t even exist.

He couldn’t risk contacting his subordinates, and he’d been planning to make his way back to his own room, when—

—he’d realized one of those groups was looking his way. Without hiding the guns they were holding, they’d begun marching straight toward him through the milling, fleeing crowd.

It was as if they didn’t even see the passengers around them.

They were clearly the leading players in this atrocity—and yet, to Rookie, they seemed to be smiling quietly.

These expressions weren’t born of murderous glee or insanity.

That’s…relief.

After a long, unwanted journey, there’s a certain peace of mind that comes when a person lets their head sink into a familiar pillow back at home. These were the smiles that would accompany that feeling: soft, lukewarm, even hopeful, as if they had relaxed completely into themselves.

The boy came to a single conclusion instantly.

It’s me. They’re after me.

The moment the realization hit him, all the hair on his body stood on end.

Even before he understood it logically, he knew instinctively that if he didn’t run, they would kill him.

His heart was pounding nearly as loud as a bell on an alarm clock, sending pressure all the way out to the beds of his finger- and toenails.

He was sprinting as hard as he could from the very first step. If he was indecisive about getting away, he wouldn’t last long.

There was only one place he should be going. He made a beeline for the corridor that would get him out of here.

Rookie had memorized the ship’s layout before he came. He’d expected the information to come in handy if they ended up pursuing Elmer and the other immortals. He’d never dreamed he’d be using it to run away.

The bottom line was that Rookie had fled into this storeroom, and yet they’d found him easily.

From what he’d just seen, though, this wasn’t the group that had initially begun chasing him.

He was sure he’d managed to lose those first pursuers, but apparently, he couldn’t afford to ever feel relieved in this situation.

That’s a lot… Just how many of these guys are there?

He didn’t have time for an analysis.

He had to get out of here somehow, or else—

Keeping his stance low, he calmly stood up and tried to use the cargo as cover. But there was almost no cargo in the storeroom, possibly because there were no big events scheduled, and it was nearly impossible to create dead angles.

He’d made one other miscalculation.

The man in red and black came running straight toward him.

The bulk of the cargo was in shipping containers, and the object between the man and Rookie formed a wall that was easily taller than the boy.

However, still gripping the submachine gun, the man jumped up on top of that container, then ran straight toward him across it.

Footsteps were closing in on him from above, on a diagonal, and much faster than Rookie had anticipated.

It was as if there were a hurdle race taking place on top of the container, and the goal was right above him. And the runners were Olympians.

The completely unexpected act made Rookie hesitate for a bare two seconds, and immediately afterward—

—a man wearing a relieved, carefree smile like the others launched himself into the air over Rookie, still holding his submachine gun. He probably hadn’t been able to stop entirely.

I’m gonna die.

His nerves were about to snap.

To Rookie, the scene seemed to be playing out in slow motion.

The man passed in front of the light, and just as he began to aim his gun at Rookie in midleap—

—he was surprised again.

“Toh!”

The shout was a little odd, like one of the suit-wearing heroes in one of those whatever-ranger shows on TV, but the woman’s voice over Rookie’s head was familiar.

A figure sprang off the container even higher than the red-and-black man had. She looked larger than he did, even though he was closer—and she slammed an ankle like a metal baseball bat into the man’s neck.

The boy heard a crunch as something broke, and then a red-and-black mass landed right beside him, along with the submachine gun that had slipped out of the man’s hands.

The new arrival landed on the ground in a dramatic pose, although to Luchino it looked contrived.

“Huh… This is one of those times you need a catchphrase or somethin’.”

“Aging!”

At the sight of the cackling giantess, the boy was openly relieved—having her strength and combat skills right there with him restored a bit of his composure.

“Excellent save, Aging. I wish I could take my time and thank you, but…I need a report. What on earth happened?” he asked, mustering all the presidential dignity he could find.

However—

“Mm. Lemme see. I’m having a grand old time, but you probably don’t see it that way.”

—the next instant, he lost both that dignity and the composure he’d just regained.

“I got a feeling all the other Mask Makers already bought the farm.”

“…Huh?”

For a moment, Rookie’s mind refused to absorb the meaning of the words, and he blinked.

Smiling awkwardly, Aging pointed at the silencer-equipped submachine gun lying beside the twitching man, whose neck was twisted at a weird angle.

“See that gun over there? That’s one of ours. ’Bout all the weapons we got left are the machete and minigun in my room!”

Aging nonchalantly outlined the hopeless situation and gave a hearty laugh, although there was no telling what she’d found so entertaining.

“Gah-ha-ha! Tell you what, that was awful careless of us! No heroes, just a zombie horde! Didn’t see that coming! See, this is why I can’t quit this job!”

For his part, the president looked as if his soul had been sucked out of him. His face was perfectly expressionless—

—and then he collapsed weakly against Aging.

“…That’s impossible… You’re kidding…right?”

“Hey, no worries! As long as you and me are around, we still got two people! That’s enough to rebuild the company… Whoops, I completely forgot about the crew on the Entrance! Gah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Yeah, Illness is gonna pop me one for that later.”

Aging had caught the boy against her stomach more than her bosom and put her right arm around him gently in an attempt to set him at ease. Then, eyes shining with genuine glee, she began cracking the fingers of her left hand.

“Be that as it may…”

Her eyes could have belonged to a savage carnivore. Her lips were twisted in a smile, and she flicked her tongue out against them like a child who’d stumbled onto a feast.

“…I think the fun’s just gettin’ started.”

Let’s go back about thirty minutes.

“Well, now. There’s about a day left until the Crossing, right? I don’t think the time difference between us is more than two or three hours at this point.”

The man was wearing a pure-white, expressionless mask reminiscent of Italian carnivals, and he let his gun dangle cheerfully from his hand as he spoke.

The captain of the Exit shot him a resentful glare.

“Damn you… You’d better be telling the truth about not harming the passengers.”

“Hey, no worries. Just keep quiet, and once we’re done with our job, we’ll be getting off the ship, and then it’s adios. And all the fine folks aboard get to finish their swanky little trip none the wiser… That’s the plan, as I’ve told you several times already, remember?”

As on the Entrance, the Mask Makers had occupied the ship’s bridge.

Since Aging couldn’t get into the vents the way Life had, the number of devices they’d set up was much lower than on the Entrance, acting only as leverage for their threats.

To offset this fact, this ship had almost twice as many people as the Entrance did.

Although it had been nearly five hours since the actual occupation, the Mask Makers still hadn’t made a move.

“See, there’s this thing called timing. Just tough it out until the boat comes to pick us up, will ya? At least we’re not trying to ram the ship into a tanker. We’ve got a little more heart than those guys from the movies, eh?”

Apparently, they shared the Entrance team’s love of cinema, and the other masked men started cackling at the comment. They didn’t have the formality of military types, and that made the captain and staff especially anxious.

The way they were joking around suggested they’d kill people even if they didn’t have a reason, and that uncertainty kept the minds of the hostages on edge.

These people might abruptly fire their guns at random and without need, and that made them more frightening than criminals who operated like machines and would kill women and children if they had to. It was hard to believe in their promise not to harm the passengers.

The crew was still making their scheduled check-ins with headquarters—at gunpoint, of course—and apparently, the group had looked into their SOP beforehand, because they’d summarily cut off their emergency communication protocol:

“Just so you know, we’re already aware of your secret signal that you’re in trouble. So no small talk about starfish.”

As a result, the captain and the rest of the crew had been feeling powerless and frustrated, but…

Suddenly, one of the handcuffed hostages got to his feet.

“Whoa there, did I say you could stand?”

“H-hey, Roeckl?”

The chief mate had acted so abruptly that the captain stared at him, eyes wide.

Although the man hadn’t said a word in the five hours since they’d been taken hostage, he’d suddenly risen to his feet and begun to walk.

The Mask Makers froze briefly at his sheer boldness, but then one of them woke up with a jolt and hastily pointed his gun at him.

“Hey! Sit the hell down!”

“Sorry. It’s time to report in,” replied the chief mate with a candid smile.

“Huh?”

The people around them thought the fear must have sent his mind over the edge.

The Mask Maker was about to rough him up a bit and sit him back down when the man said something strange.

“You see, I have to contact the leader regularly. If I don’t, someone will come to check up on me. Since the communications room has been occupied as well, they may have already realized something’s wrong… Yes, that’s right; I’m sure they have.”

“…Huh?”

“You see, I believe there will be an order to speed up soon,” he murmured. “That means I must prepare… Yes, that’s right; I need to go get my other outfit…”

The Mask Makers looked at one another, and then—

—the door to the bridge opened, and one of the Mask Makers who’d been standing guard outside entered, bringing an odd little girl with him.

“Hey… This weird brat was hanging around out there.”

“…What?”

The man was holding the girl’s sleeve. When they saw her, everyone shared a look—both the Mask Makers and the hostages.

The girl was probably less than ten years old, and she was wearing a white outfit too simple to call a real dress. There was a black blindfold over her expressionless face and headphones on her ears.

The end of the headphone cord was connected to a pouch at her waist, and for some reason, her hands were behind her back.

“What’s with the kid?”

“Well, she’s… Here, look.”

As he spoke, the man turned the girl around—and not only were her hands behind her back, there were handcuffs on her wrists. They weren’t the type the Mask Makers used.

“…Did you do that?”

“No way! She just…came walking up to me, barefoot. She was already like this. I tried to run her off, but she can’t see or hear… I took the headphones off, but she didn’t react. I got a little creeped out.”

“So what’d you bring her in here for?!”

“Well, see…”

As the man started to explain, the girl seemed to sense something. Turning her head in a facsimile of looking around, she spoke. “Believer Roeckl. Believer Roeckl. Scheduled check-ins are. No longer. Necessary.”

“…she started saying that every so often.”

The girl finished her mechanical speech, then bowed her head and fell silent again.

“Roeckl’s the chief mate’s name, right? It gave me the willies.”

Sensing something very eerie about the girl, one of the Mask Makers shoved a gun against the chief mate’s temple. “Hey, what’s the deal with the brat?”

“She is a priestess who serves as a mouthpiece for us,” the chief mate replied, smiling. He faced the girl and knelt, then bowed his head for a while, as if waiting for something.

“…”

The pointlessness of it irritated them, but they found it more eerie than anything.

The Mask Makers didn’t know what to do with this. They spent a few seconds hesitating over whether they should bind the girl’s legs or try to get an explanation out of the chief mate, maybe even beat it out of him, but then—

—the blindfolded girl’s expression underwent an abrupt change.

Her face was still blank, but it was blank in a different way.

Before it had been listless emptiness, but in an instant, it was rigid as though hardened by some sort of pressure—

—and a monotone song echoed in the bridge.

“The answer lies within us.

Fear death.

The world lies within them.

Dread life.

Fear death.

Dread life. Dread life. Your own flesh accepts death.

Your own heart wishes for death.

Yet still you live, O noble goats.

Quell the soul that is to be devoured.

Worship pain.

We affirm our god

Who does not exist.”

Her voice was beautifully breathy and fragile, a shiver of sound so weak that a puff of wind might have blown it away.

And yet, the girl’s voice was overwhelming.

“H-hey, what is she—? What’s wrong with this kid? Stop it! Stop that chanting!”

There was no will behind her scream, but the sound nearly rendered them unable to act. Still, one of the Mask Makers managed to remove the headphones from the girl’s ears.

“What are you listening t…?”

When he put them to his own ears, although the volume was low, he could definitely hear something.

The man listened to it for a while, then turned pale and flung them to the floor. “Wh-what the hell is this?!”

“Hey, what gives?! What did you hear?!” one of his comrades asked.

The man was sweating. “…I heard screams.”

“…Huh?”

“I only listened to a little of it, but…I think it was her voice. She’s… Wait, don’t tell me she’s… Has she been listening to her own damn screams on those headphones all this time?!”

“…Wait—”

This was just bizarre.

They wanted to think the man was mistaken, but all the same, it was clear she had been listening to screams.

The man who’d brought the girl into the room was shocked. “Hold it, hold it!” he yelled. “I listened to those a bit ago, and I didn’t hear anything like…”

“Of course not. That radio only started picking up sound just now.”

“?!”

Someone had spoken from the entrance to the bridge.

A lone man had appeared in the doorway before anyone noticed, and now he was looking around.

“Our priestesses are blessed to sing the words of the prayer to the accompaniment of their own screams.”

He was probably just a shade over six feet tall. They could tell he was shorter than Aging, but even then, the man was clearly taller than anyone else present.

His features were reminiscent of a gorilla’s, but he spoke like an intellectual.

“Freeze!”

All the Mask Makers turned their guns on him at once.

In the next moment—

Krrntch.

—a spine-tingling noise echoed in the bridge.

Wondering what was going on, several people looked in the direction of the sound while keeping their attention partially focused on the big man.

And then they saw—a silent, freshly created corpse on the ground.

“…Huh? Wha…?” one of the Mask Makers said dully.

The corpse was all that was left of the person responsible for everything about the Exit: its captain.

“Wha… What the…? Who killed…?” But he didn’t even need to ask.

The one who’d twisted his head more than 180 degrees was standing right beside the corpse.

“My thanks to the destiny that kept the captain I love and respect from suffering pain,” the chief mate murmured, then knelt to the girl again.

The girl had stopped singing a few moments ago when the headphones were removed, but the chief mate was still facing her with worship in his eyes.

“No… Uh… Hang on just a minute.”

That was when the confused Mask Makers noticed that the man’s hands were free.

How had he gotten the handcuffs off?

It didn’t take long to see the answer to that.

From the wrist down, the flesh on the man’s right hand was gouged and dripping blood, and the bones in his fingers seemed to have been dislocated in several places.

He’d wrenched his way out. That was all it was.

Naturally, this wasn’t an easy task.

Some stage magicians can dislocate their joints at will and slip out of handcuffs—but no matter how you looked at it, the chief mate had broken out with brute force, at the cost of his hand.

That wasn’t the problem, though.

No, there was a far bigger question.

Why had the chief mate killed the captain? If he’d had time to break his neck, he could have fought back against the Mask Makers.

Of course, the Mask Makers had threatened them with gas, so it wouldn’t have been easy—but that still didn’t explain why he’d killed the captain.

The other bound crew members were also speechless; they couldn’t believe what they were seeing.

“You… Why…?”

“Oh, disposing of the captain and his staff was always on the agenda.”

The impassive answer came not from the chief mate, but from the well-spoken gorilla who was leaning against the wall beside the door.

“What…?”

“We’re killing those who are in our way. Why wouldn’t we?”

“Look, you’re not making any sense… What the hell’s wrong with you people? Why did you kill the captain?” The Mask Maker was pointing his gun at the chief mate and the man with the simian face by turns.

In response, the gorilla quietly shook his head and replied curtly. “It was you who killed him.”

“…What?”

“After it’s over, we’ll ask one of you about your objectives.” Despite the gun trained on him, the big man was calm and matter-of-fact. “You are the ones who killed the captain.”

“…?”

“The people who are about to die on this ship are all your victims as well. That’s what the story will be.”

“What are you talking about…? What are you…? Hey, what are you ta…?”

Then, all at once, the Mask Makers registered the abnormality that had begun to occur on the bridge.

The members of the crew had been restrained, with their hands cuffed behind them, and yet…

…several of them were standing, swaying slowly like wraiths, their hands red and black and deformed.

A few more of them were rising to their feet.

Including the chief mate, who was already unbound, a total of about ten people got to their feet, and the remaining crew members gazed at their companions with frightened eyes.

Tension raced through the Mask Makers, and they adjusted their grips on their guns.

The big man sneered at them, quietly. “Meaning if we’re going to pin all of this on you—”

He paused for a moment, then continued with a cruel smile.

“—it won’t do to have witnesses around. Nothing personal.”

“ ! Don’t screw with us!”

“Unless it’s necessary, avoid killing as much as you can.”

That had been the president’s order, but under the circumstances, they couldn’t afford not to strike first.

It wasn’t because the big man had irritated them.

They’re dangerous.

They had spent long years walking on thin ice as Mask Makers, and the experience they’d gained was sounding an alarm.

These guys are bad news.

On that thought, they leveled their guns at the crew members who’d yanked their hands out of their cuffs—

—and at the exact same time, the big man flipped some sort of switch, and screams began to issue directly from a speaker in the pouch at the girl’s waist.

“HigigakaaaAaaaaAAAah-aaah! AAAAaaaaaAAAaah! DAAaaah! WaAAaaaaaaaah! ByaaaaaaAAah-ah-ee, ee, eekyAAAAaaaaah-ah-aAAAh!”

The screams were horrible; there was no telling what had been done to her. The sound alone was enough to make people uncomfortable, reverberating off the walls of the spacious bridge.

“Death is a neighbor to be feared AAaaah-aaaaaAh! HyAAAaa aaaaAHYAAAA aaaaaaAAH! AaaAAaah Life is kin to be dreaded Hngh! Gng-gng-gng! GyaaaaAAh! Giiii! GIIiiiiiHIIiiiiAAAaaah! Our god AaaaAAIIOAaaOuOUuOOOoaaaAaaaa AAaaiiAAAaaaah! GiiiIII! Gkyaa-ah! Departs from within us NOOOooooOOOooo! HigyaaaaaAAaaAaaaAAAAaaaaAgh! WaaAAAAh! And returns to oblivion Kghhyaaaa! AuraaAAaaaah! AAaGaaNooooOOooo! NOOOOooooOO! Agony abides with light Aaah! Ghk-ghk-ghkkkAaAaaah!”

* * *

The song of the girl’s past screams joined the scream of her current song.

It was nothing but sound, yet the duet between the radio and the girl was like a cloud of red and black falling over the bridge. The perfect color for the tragedy that was about to occur—when the Mask Makers squeezed the triggers of their guns in unison.

Between the walls of the bridge and the thick glass, almost none of the noise of the silenced submachine guns escaped the room.

However—even now, as early as it was, a few individuals had noticed that something was wrong.

One of those people was a companion of the men experiencing the disaster—a giantess.

“Hmm?”

In the middle of her massage in the beauty salon, Aging picked up on the faint explosive sounds traveling through the air.

“Sorry to do this to ya when you’re workin’ so hard, young lady, but something urgent just came up. Can I get you to pick up the pace a lil’ bit?”

“Of course.” The beauty therapist was a pro as well. Aging’s muscles were not like most people’s, but she massaged them with precision, driving the fatigue from her body at a speed significantly faster than what she’d scheduled.

“…Nah. It couldn’t be…”

Fearing the worst, Aging hastily began pulling her clothes on. She smiled quietly; she’d sensed something like destiny when she ran into one of their targets—the silver-haired woman—in the salon.

“Well, I doubt they’d start firing that easy. I bet I misunderstood, but…”

Half-hopeful, half-worried, Aging left the salon, but—

—the situation on the ship was turning into something worse than she could have imagined.

Of course, as it turned out, she was delighted.

In a certain semi-suite cabin

While the bridge descended into blood and chaos…

Elmer and his friends were taking it easy in their cabin, as if they were residents of another world.

Denkurou was absorbed in Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo, which he’d found on the room’s DVD list, while Elmer had earphones in and was playing a handheld game console he’d bought in Japan.

For his part, Nile was out on the balcony, gazing out over the ocean and occasionally fooling around with the birds flying toward them from desert islands.

Sylvie was the only one who was absent. “Since I’m here,” she’d said, “I’m going to the salon. They say it’s part of a chain that’s famous in France,” and had left about an hour ago.

It had been a little over fifty hours since they boarded the ship.

There was still no word from Huey Laforet.

“Hmm… Let me just say this: This tedium is excruciating.”

“Why not watch a movie, Nile? I believe you’d find this one to your liking.”

“Let me just say this: I do not understand Japanese, and I assume you want to listen to the Japanese audio. I will watch it again later, so do not trouble yourself.”

“I never thought I’d live to see the day Nile would be so considerate… Perhaps it’s unfair of me to say, but the boredom must be weighing heavily on you.”

“Let me just say this: If you understand that, then say nothing. Traveling by ship reminds me intensely of the Advena Avis, and my mood sours when I do not stay active.” Impatient over the uneventful voyage, Nile turned his attention to Elmer. “Elmer. If these doldrums continue, what do you intend to do?”

Elmer slipped out one of the earphones so he could hear better, but he kept playing his game as he answered.

“Mm, I’m thinking we should have scraped the money together to bring Fil along, too.”

Fil was the name of the girls they’d removed from a certain village in Northern Europe the previous year.

The girls had been created as a byproduct of the elixir of immortality: one mind shared by multiple bodies.

After a minor incident, the girls (plus one) had accompanied Elmer’s group out of the forest where they’d been born, taking their first steps into the wide world.

One of them had been staying with Sylvie, but she hadn’t come along on this trip.

If it did turn out to be a trap, set by Huey or somebody else, they’d wanted to avoid dragging her into the mess. Plus, no ticket for her had been sent in the first place, so they’d temporarily left her with a trustworthy Japanese friend.

However, in the end, all was quiet.

They’d spent the first day of the voyage on their guard, expecting that something might come up, but when the second day had also passed uneventfully, Nile’s tension had been replaced by discontent. “Something happen already,” he’d said.

“…Blast Huey,” Nile was saying now. “If he stands us up, so help me, I will—”

“No, this is him we’re talking about. Maybe he coincidentally got boarding passes for the ship and gave them to us as a present.”

“Let me just say this: If that were his intent, such a roundabout approach would have been… Ah. No, it would not be unthinkable for him.”

“Huey can be pretty bashful. For a guy who sees all humans as his personal guinea pigs, he’s awful at taking a genuine compliment.” Visualizing his old friend’s familiar face, Elmer chuckled and kept pushing buttons on his controller.

“…Calling the greatest villain on the Advena Avis ‘bashful.’ That is astounding.”

“‘Villain,’ huh? Well, I don’t deny it. I bet he wouldn’t, either. I dunno if he was the biggest one, though.”

“If Szilard was scum, I imagine calling Huey a villain would be appropriate.”

“No, I mean…there was Fermet, too, y’know? If we’re talking villains.”

Fermet.

Nile looked mystified to hear the name so suddenly, while Denkurou quietly shifted his attention from the movie to the pair’s conversation.

“Let me just ask this: What are you talking about? That diffident, good-natured fellow is hardly a villain…”

“…Oh, I see. So you didn’t notice, either, huh, Nile? What about you, Denkurou?” he asked, drawing the other man into the conversation.

For his part, Denkurou answered as if he’d expected the development. “…I had noticed, such as it was.”

“Wait, what are you two saying?”

“No, erm… It’s of no importance, Nile. I would rather not speak ill of the departed.”

“Let me just say this: You scoundrels. This is going to bother me now… Well, you are correct: Vilifying someone who has already been eaten will only annoy the fellow who consumed him.”

Nile had reluctantly resigned himself, while Elmer went on, cackling.

“Speaking of Fermet, that reminds me: What do you suppose Czes is up to right about now?”

“It hasn’t yet been two months since we parted, but I would imagine he’s relaxing in New York at this point,” Denkurou replied.

Elmer laughed cheerfully. “Come to think of it, we didn’t tell Czes and Maiza about this trip. Let’s show up out of nowhere and surprise them.”

“Let me just say this: Remember that we left Fil in Japan. Sylvie may not find a journey of that length agreeable.”

“Well, let’s call Fil, too, then. Czes may want to see her. Plus, uh, I bet he probably doesn’t have much luck with women? Makes me want to add a little color to his life.”

“Let me just say this: That would be tremendously uncalled-for,” Nile replied with dismay as he returned his gaze to the ocean. “Hmm…?”

The sound the wind carried to him was a faint one.

Someone unused to hearing it probably couldn’t have identified it, and it was so very faint that unless that someone had rather well-trained ears, they wouldn’t even have heard it. It was a terribly soft series of explosive bursts.

Curious about the noise—the submachine guns—Nile wordlessly got up from his chair and headed out of the room, card key hanging from his neck.

“Huh? Where are you going?”

“I hope I am merely imagining it, but I heard sounds that concern me slightly.”

“?”

I hope I am merely imagining it—was not what Nile actually thought.

I hope I heard correctly—and that it does not turn out to be event fireworks.

Once Nile was out of the room and in the corridor, he decided to take a slow stroll through the ship.

I hope it proves to be a decent diversion.

The moment after Nile thought that—he quietly put a hand to his mask.

“…No, I mustn’t.” Out in the hall, he softly admonished himself.

Nile had once wandered from one battlefield to another, and he’d grown used to the deaths of other people. Now the beginnings of elation stirring in his chest at the prospect of combat plunged him into self-loathing.

The idea of one who is immortal wishing for battle! Am I planning to relish a one-sided massacre?

For goodness’ sake. Who am I to call Huey a villain? If this is how it stands, I am far more of a—

Behind his mask, Nile ground his teeth in irritation, but he set off anyway.

Without completely denying the “thirst” welling up inside him—

—quietly, he began walking through the boat, searching for his battlefield.

In a certain suite

“…It sounds like they’ve started.”

As he listened to the gunshots and screams issuing from his radio, Bride quietly shook his head.

In a room large enough to host a casual house party, he rested his elbows on the table in the center, murmuring with an expression of near rapture. Instead of his usual secretaries, several children in white clothes and restraints stood at his side.

The children were the “priestesses,” and they had been brought here by their own parents, each in the name of a “family trip.”

It wasn’t clear whether the children had wills of their own as they stood silently in a neat row.

Celice was still lying on the bed, and it was hard to tell whether she was awake or asleep.

If there was one other thing that was different from the day before—

—it was that Bride was wearing the red-and-black lab coat he’d worn at the church.

“Still, we can’t go back now. No, we’ve passed the point of no return. Oh, what should I do? Sheesh, what a time to run into a seajacking. Fate is truly cruel. O Bride, please grant me courage. O pain, please grant me blessings.”

With his strange prayer, the young man slowly pressed the switch he held in his hand.

At that, the sounds of each child’s “voice of agony” spilled from their headphones, and they reflexively began to sing in chorus.

The answer lies within us. Fear death.

“““The answer lies within us. Fear death.”””

The monotone canon was enough.

The world lies within them. Dread life.

“““The world lies within them. Dread life.”””

No matter where they were—whether it was a church from another religion, a shrine, or a Buddhist temple, whether they were outdoors or on the roof of a department store—as long as those voices were there, to Bride, that place was SAMPLE’s church and holy ground.

Fear death Fear death Dread life Dread life

“““Fear death Fear death Dread life Dread life”””

“You have my gratitude, my agonies. Courage has welled up within me.”

With the children’s screams in his ears, the man smiled quietly, then reached for the bag sitting on the table.

Beneath the false bottom of the attaché case were multiple syringes and needles.

There were about twenty in all, some of them already filled with liquid. Even if someone had singled his luggage out for inspection, there was nothing illegal inside but the needles themselves. After all, the liquid was a legal and completely unregulated substance.

Quietly, Bride took out two syringes, gripping one in each hand.

“Now, then… At this point, we’re sure that there are seajackers…on the bridge…in the control room…and in the communications room, hmm?”

Amid the song of the boys and girls, bliss was rising into Bride’s expression.

“In that case, shall we begin our mass?”

With no hesitation, he plunged the syringes into his neck from either side.

Your own flesh accepts death. Your own heart wishes for death.

“““Your own flesh accepts death. Your own heart wishes for death.

Yet still you live, O noble goats. Quell the soul that is to be devoured.

Worship pain. We affirm our god Who does not exist.

Death is a neighbor to be feared. Life is kin to be dreaded.

Our god departs from within us and returns to oblivion.

Agony abides with light, fury and shame dwell in shadow, in their

illustrious presence, I simply consume a single leaf from the garden.

Fear god. Fear thyself.

The acts of pity are the forgiveness we have been granted…

The acts of pity are the forgiveness we have been granted…”””

The words of the prayer never broke off. They traveled through the walls, echoing inside the ship.

Slowly and steadily—

—this prayer, this product of malice became a sweet poison permeating the vessel.

To delude, to deceive…

Meanwhile The communications room

As on the bridge, the Mask Makers had taken control of the communications room.

The five employees assigned to that area had been keeping an uneventful watch, but—

—when one of the men removed his mask and headed off to use the bathroom, a lone woman blocked his way.

She was one of the two constantly at Bride’s side, but the man wasn’t aware of that. All he knew was that she was a young woman in a red-and-black dress.

“…?”

“Good evening.”

Deciding she must be a passenger who’d wandered in by mistake, the man calmly told her, “Miss, this area is off-limits—”

He didn’t manage to finish his sentence.

With her right hand, the woman had stabbed him in the throat.

On closer inspection, she was wearing miniature gauntlets (or something like them) that covered the middle three fingers of each hand all the way to the fingertips and tapered out into a sharp point. The woman’s keen skill turned it into a deadly weapon.

There was a wheezing whistle as the man’s breath escaped the wound with a spurt of blood.

The woman didn’t react when it splashed onto her. On her red-and-black dress, the color hardly showed at all.

He was probably already dead from the blood loss. With one last glance at him, the woman left him with the words:

“May you be granted a painless death.”

She was headed for the communications room.

Following her with their eyes, several men and women peeked out of the restroom the man had been planning to enter.

They were all wearing red and black—like a coven of witches preparing to summon a devil for their dark mass.

Meanwhile The engine control room

The control room was located near the front of the ship, far nearer to the bottom than the bridge. This place single-handedly managed the ventilation system, electrical system, broadcasting equipment, and more, and the Mask Makers had assigned ten or so people to occupy it.

After all, they couldn’t let the rest of the ship realize anything was wrong.

Even after they’d taken control, they had to have their hostages perform their jobs as if everything were normal, so in a sense, it was even more necessary to make their position clear to them here than it was on the bridge.

There were several routes here: You could take the elevator or a long stairway down, or you could head over from one of the cargo rooms at the bottom of the ship.

Since it was an important location, it was equipped with a sturdy door—currently unlocked, thanks to the Mask Makers. They were taking turns keeping watch in front of it.

Anyone going to the control room had to travel down one last hallway, and there were always two lookouts stationed at the entrance. Just in case an ordinary passenger approached by accident, they kept both their masks and their guns hidden in their jackets.

“Maaan. No normal passengers would be nosy enough to come all the way down here.”

“Quit bellyaching. Remember what Mr. Death said? Even when the odds are a million to one, always be ready for the one.”

Death was the name of the “weapon” who’d died the other day, and at the mention of his name, the Mask Makers turned somber.

“Yeah… His death was a million to one, for sure.”

“Remember that El Mariachi guy Banderas played in Desperado? I hear the guy who shot him was the same kinda gunslinger.”

“That’s terrifying; don’t even joke… I can’t believe someone like that exists.”

As the pair went on with their idle talk, or perhaps their way of mourning the dead—

—a lone woman appeared in front of them.

“…?!”

She hadn’t made any noise as she approached, and the men looked at each other.

She was wearing a tight-fitting women’s suit, one of the “bodycon” types that had been popular in Japan about ten years back. The skirt was rather short, and it exposed her flawless legs to just above the knee.

The suit’s color scheme was an unsettling red and black, but even before he could think it consciously, one of the men automatically opened his mouth to say almost the exact same thing as the man who’d been killed in front of the bathroom by the communications room.

“Oh, sorry, miss, but this area’s off-limits—”

And like the other man, he didn’t get to finish the sentence.

“Gahk…?”

He’d seen her whirl around sharply, but the heavy impact that pierced his abdomen in the next instant prevented him from thinking anything else.

And pierce was indeed the right word for the sensation. The woman’s foot had literally punched right through the man’s stomach, shattering his spine.

“…Huf…afuu…afwah…”

The Mask Maker gave a foolish-sounding cry, spitting up blood.

He was still making noises, but his mind was already gone. The shock of a severed spine had stopped the man’s heart and shut down his brain.

Swiftly withdrawing her foot from the man’s stomach, the woman shifted into her next move before the second man could react.

The Mask Makers weren’t amateurs. Even when a woman’s leg was sticking out of his companion’s back, the man understood the situation in a mere two seconds and promptly reached into his jacket, but—

—the way she was moving, “amateur” or “professional” didn’t make a difference. She didn’t even seem human.

The next thing he knew, the woman had leaped, and he saw her toes heading his way in a savate-style kick.

By the time he spotted the blade sprouting from the toe of her high heel, stained with his companion’s blood—it had already slashed his throat.

The last thought in the man’s head was:

Shit. Nobody but Aging or Death could…handle this one.

It was pathetic, and the man in question wasn’t happy about it, either.

His reflex nerves had instantly tried to evade that kick; they’d even carried him part of the way.

But the woman was that much faster, and the battle was decided as she drove death directly into the man’s body.

“May you be granted a painless death.”

With that, the woman took the men’s bloodied handguns out of their coats.

She waited there for a short while, and then red-and-black-clad “believers” appeared, just as they had in the corridor by the communications room.

“Use these.”

Smiling softly, the secretary handed the guns to the believers at the front of the group.

They all had similar smiles pasted on their faces—as if, in their minds, the corpses that lay on the floor no longer existed.

Not even a few minutes later, an emergency alert went out to the radios of every Mask Maker standing by on the ship.

“This is Gelf, we have a Code F. Repeat, Code F! Goddammit!”

“Hostiles! All our occupied locations are under attack by an unknown group!”

“They’re all in red-and-black clothes! They are hostile! Repeat! They are all hostile!”

The members on standby had no idea what was going on, but when they heard the term Code F—which signaled an attack by a third party—tension ran through them.

“Nobody make contact with the president! If they take him out, we’re done f— A-aaaah… Shit, they’re here!”

The voice on the radio cut out, leaving nothing but static.

That radio alert proved to be the final trigger—

—and the world of the Exit was turned completely inside out.

In a certain semi-suite cabin

Celice still hadn’t managed to completely regain her sense of self, and the scream of the children’s song kept ringing in her ears.

Their voices brought back memories of the atrocity at that church, when she’d first met Bride.

That scene had risen in her mind and faded before, many times, but this was the first time she’d really heard the children’s song since then.

Maybe that was why the memory was becoming a vivid flashback wreaking havoc on her mind.

If you want to know what happened back then, when the Asian group had burst in—

—the answer is a very simple one.

They’d fought.

At the end of the day, that was all it was.

The believers had fought. Men and women, young and old, without any weapons…

As far as Celice was concerned, that was bizarre enough on its own, but the true insanity lay in what had come after.

The attackers had shown no mercy when the believers swarmed them, of course. They’d slashed at them one after another, and several had opened fire. But despite the wounds they inflicted, they hadn’t been able to cut them down.

The believers didn’t fall, even when they suffered clearly fatal injuries; like movie zombies, they weathered the blades and bullets to swarm the men.

But that still wasn’t the strangest thing to her.

As she watched the believers fight to the death—

—every one of them was smiling.

She didn’t know when exactly they’d started to smile. It could have been when the children’s chorus began, or even before. Perhaps those blank expressions had been faint smiles the whole time.

However, the emotion behind them wasn’t exhilaration from the thrill of battle. Their smiles were simple, genuine relief.

“What…the hell…?”

Celice had fallen onto her rear and scooted back to the wall, trying to get away.

Her confused eyes found the one they’d called leader. The man was gazing tranquilly up into empty space, raising an emotionless cry.

“Life amid death!

“Death amid life!

“Both sides of the same coin!

“What binds them together?!

“Pain—pain and nothing more!

“In agony does the body meet its end; in suffering does the heart long for death!

“Therefore, all we do…

“…must end in pain!”

Before the end of that brief speech—one that had probably been given solely for Celice’s benefit—the killing was already over.

The believers, including the wounded, were all looking toward the altar with smiles of relief—and none of the attackers was breathing anymore.

While the swarm had kept them pinned down, the two secretaries, the big man, and the bandaged man had moved, disposing of half the attackers in the blink of an eye.

The remaining half had been killed by the believers themselves.

Bride’s followers had endured the men’s attacks as though they felt no pain at all, and still smiling quietly, they had—

“It isn’t that they—that we feel no pain. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t notice when we were sick or injured, and our lives would be at risk.”

Bride had come to stand right beside Celice, who was still sitting on the floor. His eyes were as soft as a saint’s, completely free of malice.

“We merely strive not to suffer from it.”

As he spoke—Bride jabbed a syringe into Celice’s neck.

“NOOOOOOoooooooOOOOOoooooOO!”

Celice bolted up from the bed with her heart in her throat and a wave of nausea. She was hyperventilating, on the verge of a panic attack—but nothing more, she realized, and she forced herself to get her breathing under control.

The singing of the children had triggered an intense memory that had completely shocked her mind out of the empty haze.

It took twenty seconds to get her breathing to settle down. Five more seconds to remember and process the situation she was in.

Remembering where she currently was, she looked around the room.

Still…her dream might have lasted longer than she’d imagined. No one else was there.

Bride was gone, and so were the children who’d been screaming their song.

She thought with hope how wonderful it would be if all this turned out to have been an illusion and she wasn’t on a ship at all. Maybe she was actually in the hotel next to the detective agency or somewhere similar—but her hopes were dashed by the sight of the two used syringes that sat on the table.

Struggling to dispel the fatigue around her, she got down from the bed and took a step. She took a red-and-black dress out of the luggage that Bride had packed for her and swiftly began to change into it.

When she was all ready, she made her way to the door, carefully keeping an eye on her surroundings, and peeked outside.

After she’d seen no one was there—

—with firm resolution, Celice walked through the door and into the Exit.

I have to tell her…

Her ego had been blank at the time, but the memories were solidly etched in her mind.

The one that had surfaced was of the end of the young magician’s show.

Remembering the beautiful silver hair of the woman Bride had called Sylvie, Celice began to run through the vast ship, both for the sake of this stranger and for her own.

I have to hurry and let her know, get her to help me…

I have to get away from him… I have to stop him somehow…

Thus, we arrive at the storeroom where Rookie and Aging reunited.

“Well, President? How’re you doing? Feelin’ better?”

“…Yes, I’m all right.”

They’d moved to a corner of the storeroom, and Rookie was getting his breathing back under control.

Aging checked to make sure he wasn’t hurt first, and when all was well, she laughed heartily. “Damn… They saw your face and came after you, huh? Maybe they tortured one of our guys until he told ’em you were the magician in the pamphlet. Maybe they used a truth serum.”

That was the most realistic interpretation, but in that case… Had they actually believed that confession? It would have sounded like a completely random lie: The boy magician from the in-room pamphlet is our leader.

Still, maybe that was why they’d believed it—or maybe they hadn’t but decided to kill him anyway, just in case.

“What the hell are they?”

“Who knows? Not me…but there are plenty of them, far as I can tell. Plus, if they take those clothes off, there’s no way to tell ’em apart from the regular passengers. Want to slaughter everybody?”

“Oh, shut—! No, we can’t do anything that inefficient. Plus, wiping them all out isn’t our objective.” He’d almost yelled exactly what he was feeling, but at the last moment, he shoved his more childish self deep down inside.

“Well then, what? Do we tuck our tails between our legs and run? Your ancestor left you the Mask Maker name; you can’t let it die here out on the ocean. The situation being what it is, you could refund the client to save your life and the Mask Maker name, y’know?”

“…I can’t do that.”

“Oho?”

“The legacy of the Mask Makers isn’t the organization itself. It’s our resolve and determination. The immortals are here; they’re our greatest objective. Even if we cancel the job, we won’t escape from this ship until we’ve captured an immortal: Elmer C. Albatross.”

However, practically speaking, he didn’t know the status of most of his subordinates. No one was answering their radios, so if Aging’s report was to be believed, it was probably hopeless.

The boy gritted his teeth. Burying a variety of emotions inside himself for the moment, he picked out the resolve to accomplish a certain goal and pasted it on his face.

He drew a breath, then turned to face Aging straight on.

“I’m not speaking as your president now. This is a request from Luchino Campanella, the individual who inherited the name of the Mask Maker.”

“…”

Expression serious, the boy stood tall and looked up into the face of the woman, who was still far taller than he was.

“Help me, please. I know what I’m asking is reckless, but we’re going to capture the immortals, then escape from the ship. If possible, I intend to search for surviving Mask Makers as well. And I don’t know who this other group is…but if we can take care of them, we’ll do that.”

“…You just want everything, don’tcha? I see, I see. Right now, you’re not asking for this as the president, but as a kid.”

Aging gazed steadily back at the boy—

—and at last, she laughed broadly, as if to say the answer had been completely obvious all along.