Baccano! - Volume 8 - Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5: FRONT & BACK

LET’S GET OUT OF JAIL!

Alcatraz IslandBroadwayLate at night

“What a nasty day.”

In the darkness after lights-out, Firo was curled up in his blanket, muttering to himself.

It was several days after his meeting with Huey.

Firo had gone on silently living as a convict.

Being oppressed by the low ceiling when he woke.

Head counts sixteen times a day.

Monotonous prison work.

Strict regulations.

He was sick of all of it, and he felt deep sympathy for the guys who’d been locked up on this rock for life.

After that incident, he’d experienced a night in solitary, and his frank impression had been, Maybe this is what being “merchandise” on a slave ship felt like. To be honest, he never wanted to go there again.

Except for his conversations with Isaac during meals, the only occasions he felt a bit of relief were the brief periods of free time they were given, and his encounter with a big, helpful Italian guy in the library who’d told him stories about Naples, where Firo’s father was from.

He’d considered telling Misery about the guard who was Huey’s underling, but, as a prisoner, he had no way to contact him. Misery had probably decided that it would be dangerous to summon a regular prisoner like Firo too often, but that meant Firo ended up having to live through several pointless days during which he was unable to say anything, which put him in a deeply dismal mood.

Today had come to an end as well, and as he kept an ear out for the footsteps that occasionally echoed down the corridor, he murmured to himself, half-asleep:

“Is one of those three…actually…here on orders from somebody else…?”

Firo had spoken relatively loudly, and he could technically have been heard in the next cell over, but his eyes didn’t fly open in panic.

This was probably because he knew there was nobody in the cells on either side of him right now.

Today, Dragon—who would normally have been next to him—had been taken to the Dungeon.

Firo had been there when it happened. The ghastly sight had been branded on his eyes, and he’d been splashed with the victim’s blood.

It was afternoon, in the recreation yard.

Firo had run into the gap-toothed man who’d taunted him by calling him “young lady” on that first day, and he’d been thinking about how to break his neck, when…

…he saw the guy was leering, and he seemed to be messing with Dragon.

Dragon’s lean face twisted, and he put his mouth up close to the other man’s ear.

It wasn’t clear whether he expected him to whisper something or if he was hoping he’d blow in his ear, but the gap-toothed man’s leer warped further, and just then, with no hesitation whatsoever—

—Dragon bit off that ear.

“Agh! …? Huh…? Uh…?”

There was sudden pain and a shock. The man didn’t know what had happened. As he turned around, stunned, Dragon spat the pieces of his chewed-up ear right into his gap-toothed face.

“Aaaaaah!”

The man found himself abruptly blinded by red and flesh-colored meat fragments. Panicking, he tried to wipe his face with his hands—

—but the guy bit another chunk of meat out of his arm…and a corner of the recreation yard was buried in screams and spraying blood.

The surrounding area was in an uproar, but Dragon said, “It’s tasty, but…mmf…it grosses me out to think it’s that guy.” He spat out the flesh, then turned his usual twisted smile on Firo, who’d walked up to him, wiping off the blood he’d been spattered with.

“Hey, Firo. Got some on you, huh? Sorry ’bout that.”

“Seriously, what are you doing…?”

“Well, that perv cracked some stupid joke like ‘I guess it’s true that even grown-up Asians look like little kids.’”

“So he really was one of those kinds of guys, huh?”

Firo didn’t seem particularly surprised. He just shook his head, looking disgusted.

“I figured I’d show him hell, but…”

Speaking half sarcastically and half in earnest, bloody lips still twisted in a grin, Dragon thumped Firo on the shoulder.

“Well, y’know, anybody would have worked.”

“…?”

He was about to ask what he meant, but the guards immediately came running up and surrounded them. The gap-toothed man was taken to the prison hospital, while Dragon went straight to the Dungeon.

Remembering the afternoon’s atrocity, Firo found himself quietly contemplating.

It was only natural that Dragon wasn’t here, but Gig—the big black man from the cell on his other side—hadn’t come back from the Dungeon yet, either. There were rumors that, after showing that kind of defiance, he was bound to be in there for ten days at least.

There was one more strange thing.

He hadn’t seen this directly, but he’d heard that the little white man was currently in the Dungeon as well.

Apparently, he’d been saying, “That big lug is gonna kill me…!” and had attempted a jailbreak.

When they’d fired warning shots, he’d promptly passed out, and they’d carried him right down to the Dungeon, where Gig, the guy he was afraid of, was waiting.

That said, the rooms were separated from one another with thick walls, so there probably wasn’t anything they could do to each other—and if that had been possible, it was likely that Ladd and Gig would already have been having a knock-down, drag-out fight to the death.

Still, to think that the three guys who came in with me and the first fella I became pals with are all in the Dungeon together…

On the one hand, he thought it was terrible luck, but it was true that something about it felt very strange.

If one of those three is somebody special…what do they want?

As Firo thought, footsteps echoed down the cellblock. He’d forgotten how many times people had come down that evening.

In combination with the distant sound of rifle shots, the noise formed a duet that stole through the iron bars, fraying the convicts’ nerves.

However—that warped performance stopped dead.

The rifle shots still rang out, but the sound of the footsteps had broken off as if their spring had wound down.

“…You again, huh?”

The footsteps had stopped right in front of the bars Firo lay behind. Arrogantly, their owner ordered the guards in the corridor to open the door.

With an inorganic noise, the door opened. Then his blanket was ripped away.

It was the exact same sequence of events that had woken Firo several nights ago.

When he slowly opened his eyes, he saw…

…the face of the guard from the other day, who had just taken a gleaming silver knife from the folds of the blanket.

The guard sent Firo a private, ironic smile, then spoke in the strict tones of a jailer.

“This time…you might not get out for a while.”

Alcatraz IslandThe Dungeon

In deep darkness, where not a single light reached him, Ladd was fiddling with the chains at his feet. His eyes were wide open.

Clank-clank, clank-clank, clank-clank

The only thing convicts could do in that blackness, with the exception of sleep, was make that noise.

The monotonous sound echoed in the cramped space between the brick walls, skewing the sense of distance in this dark, blind world.

At the earliest, these cells turned people into madmen in less than a week, but Ladd had spent about half of his prison life up till now in solitary.

Not only had he not gone crazy, it didn’t even seem to have weakened him. Most of the other cons had admired him for his tenacious willpower, but—

—some of the jailbirds, the ones who’d lived through many bloody massacres, had picked up on Ladd’s true nature ages ago.

That guy was crazy to begin with, and he never saw light in the first place.

The warp inside Ladd was in a completely different dimension from the lunacy brought on by darkness, enclosed spaces, and loneliness. He was already twisted to the limit—and it probably wasn’t possible for anyone to make him any crazier.

“……”

Today as always, that lunatic had been clanking his chains continuously, but…

…this time, in the darkness, an incredibly cute voice spoke.

“Say…”

“……”

“You’re Ladd Russo, aren’t you?”

As he moved the chains—clank-clank, clank-ank-ank—Ladd realized the voice was coming from right on the other side of the door.

“…Are you the Tinker Bell Isaac was talking about?”

“Tinker Bell? So that dim-looking guy was going around saying that…? He’s just like a little kid. That’s funny.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter. So…what do you want with me?”

A little girl’s voice, echoing in a prison.

Considered normally, you’d probably assume you’d gone nuts. However, ever since he’d entered this prison, Ladd had been sure of one thing: If the man he wanted to kill really existed—then anything, no matter how weird, could happen here.

And right now, he was hearing an impossible voice, right in front of him. Not only that, but his ears caught the sound of the padlock being released—and the door slowly began to swing open.

Clank, clank-ank-ank, clank-ank-ank-ank

Ladd kept right on playing with the chains. In front of him, a lantern held in a small hand appeared, its pale flame glowing…

“You’ve got a good friend named Graham Specter, right, mister?”

The black-haired, golden-eyed girl who’d appeared from behind the door gave an innocent smile and said something cruel.

“I’m about to go kill him…so I want you to be my hostage!

“And then, and then… After that, I want you to die!”

“Well, well… You’re late.”

They were below the Dungeon.

Firo, who’d been brought in by the guard, was facing the prisoner in white again.

Huey Laforet was sitting in the chair, looking just as he had the other day. When he saw Firo, he folded the newspaper he’d been holding.

“The warden here is competent, as well as strict, so I wasn’t able to look at magazines or newspapers at all. However, since Mr. Misery was placed directly in charge of me, there are more amusements in my room. It’s wonderful.”

He’d tossed the newspaper down beside him. Intriguing words danced across it—Chicago, and something about explosions and kidnappings—but Firo showed no particular interest. He just gazed straight at Huey.

Huey watched him, seeming deeply intrigued by his attitude, and broached the main subject in a matter-of-fact way.

“Well? What do you say? Did you think about it?”

“…On one condition.”

“Condition?”

“I’ve offered my life, past, and future…to my great leader, Molsa Martillo, and his syndicate. If you make this an official transaction with my organization, then I’ll cooperate as much as you want. I can’t sell what I know to somebody else based on a decision I made on my own.”

On hearing Firo’s stiff answer, Huey drew a breath, then responded:

“Then coming to this island to save Ennis wasn’t a personal decision?”

“She’s family.”

Firo made that declaration boldly, and Huey continued to face him, his expression unchanged. “I see… The idea of dealing with your organization is intriguing, but considering Maiza’s personality…it may be difficult to earn their cooperation.”

“That’s about the size of it.”

“Then you don’t need my information, either?”

“…I’ve got a pretty good idea already.”

Firo shook his head, smiling wryly, and confronted Huey with the facts he’d deduced from the strangers’ memories that slept deep in his own mind.

“Last year…your guy Christopher told me something. He said, ‘We were made using techniques stolen from Szilard.’”

“…My, my. That was indiscreet of him.”

“And so, when I saw the guard outside the door just now, I had an idea. Maybe your contact method is—”

Just as he was about to say something he was very nearly certain of…

…Firo heard the door open behind him.

When he turned on reflex—

—outside the door, the guard who’d brought Firo in was lying facedown, and a man appeared, stepping over his body.

When he saw him, Huey murmured, although there was still no change in his expression.

“Well, well. I don’t believe I summoned you here…”

Then, with a very faint smile, as if something made sense to him now, he asked the intruder a question.

“In other words…you’re the hitman Nebula sent? Felix Walken, assuming my information is correct.”

In the midst of an atmosphere that had grown a bit colder—the little white man spoke with a bitter smile.

“I sold that name to somebody else a long time ago.”

“Now…I’m nameless.”

New YorkMadison Square Park

Let’s turn back the clock a few days.

“Ah! …Ah… Dammit, hold on… Wait just a minute! Y-y-you’ve gotta be kidding me, c’mon!”

On learning the other man’s identity and the reason behind the alarms that were going off inside him, Spike’s hands tightened on the staffs he held, and he immediately issued an order to the surrounding men in black.

“R-retreat!”

“Huh…?”

The order to withdraw had been far too abrupt.

There were only two opponents here. They were retreating from a situation in which they should have had an overwhelming advantage. Confused, the men in black looked at Spike.

Possibly because he’d heard their breathing, Spike turned on his heel by himself and continued to yell for a retreat.

“Idiots! Never mind why, just fall back! I’m telling you to run for it!”

Moving at a speed that made it hard to believe he was blind, Spike took off running, and the men in black followed him, their minds filled with question marks. On seeing this, Claire cracked his neck, then broke into a run.

“C’mon, you really think I’d let you go…?”

The next instant, just as he had started to run, he flipped and rose into the air.

Before Claire was aware of it, a man in black—the former Felix Walken—had appeared beside him. He’d bent forward, and as Claire had accelerated, he’d dexterously caught his leg and then vigorously straightened back up.

Watching the scene from behind them, Chané gasped involuntarily, but things didn’t play out the way they had with her a few minutes earlier.

Claire, who’d been on the verge of revolving in midair, took his right hand, set a finger against the former Felix’s lips—and stopped the other man’s movements, simultaneously righting himself nimbly and landing in front of his opponent.

Just as Claire touched down, the man swiftly tore Claire’s finger away. Without so much as twitching an eyebrow, he spoke to the redhead in front of him.

“There’s something I’d like to ask you.”

“…You’re good.”

In response, Claire stared at the other man’s face.

He wasn’t glaring. He looked genuinely impressed.

The man in black narrowed his eyes, then simply asked his question.

“You called yourself Felix Walken. Who did you inherit that name from?”

“Me? Well, I can’t give you the details, but…I bought it from a real smooth doll who was about thirty.”

Chané was standing a short distance away, and at Claire’s words, her eyes went round.

She’d heard that he’d gotten the alias “Felix Walken” from another hitman, but from the name, she’d just assumed the other one had been male.

The man in black narrowed his eyes even further and spoke to himself.

“I see… It’s changed hands quite a bit in such a short time.”

Then the man turned his back on Claire and began walking toward Spike and the others, who were just starting their cars.

“I’ll come again someday.”

“Hey, wai—”

Claire reached out, trying to stop him, but Chané caught his arm first and held him back.

“Hmm? What’s the matter, Chané? D-does something hurt?!”

“……, …, ……, ……!”

“You’re worried about Jacuzzi’s crew? ……Yeah, that’s true… Okay.”

At the sight of Chané’s serious expression, Claire raised his hands in surrender.

Then, hugging her shoulders tightly and pulling her close, he called after the black-clad man’s retreating back.

“Hey, give your boss a message from me.”

“What is it?”

“Tell him to take a look at the other guy before he picks a fight.”

“…I’ll tell him.”

The former Felix Walken raised a hand, and the current Felix asked him something that had been bothering him a bit.

“By the way…what sort of guy did you sell it to? Your name. Felix.”

At that point, the man stopped in his tracks. He looked up at the sky, as if thinking nostalgically of his former self, and responded:

“I…didn’t sell it to one person.”

“They were an Asian man, a black man, and a white man.”

A few days laterAlcatraz IslandThe special cell

From behind the little white man appeared…

…an Asian with tattoos on both arms.

And a big black man who was covered in scars.

“Hey, Firo. We meet again, huh?”

“Dragon…”

In response to Firo’s murmur, Dragon grinned and winked at him.

The wounds the black man had gotten from Ladd didn’t seem to have healed up yet. His face was badly swollen, and he gazed at Huey wordlessly.

“…I see.”

When he saw the three men, Huey’s eyes narrowed as if something now made sense to him.

“In other words…it’s all three of you?”

“Huh?”

Looking as if he had no idea what was going on, Firo turned from the three men to Huey and back.

Ignoring Firo, the three newcomers slowly dispersed into the room.

The small man, who was standing with his back to the door, shrugged.

“Don’t ask me. You don’t need to know about that.”

The man gave a small, fearless smile. He seemed completely different from the way he’d presented himself in jail, the coward who was constantly jittery.

In response, Huey thought about the situation for a short while, and then…

“No… Someone led you here, so taking that person into account, there must be four of you.”

“You really are sharp. That figures.”

The small man snapped his fingers, and another shape emerged from the shadows of the door. It was a different guard, not the one who’d brought Firo here.

The rifle he held in his hands made the room, which should have been spacious, feel as if it couldn’t possibly be smaller.

“In terms of being sent in, then, the guard was the main thing, and not the prisoners?”

Huey smiled faintly as he spoke, and in response, four different expressions appeared on the intruders’ faces. Dragon, who was smiling thinly, answered for all of them, clicking his teeth together as he did so.

“Well, that could be it.”

“C’mon, no, wait, wait just a minute.” Firo, who was now the odd man out, spoke to Huey. He was wearing a complicated expression. “Hey…what are these guys?”

“Felix Walken. You’ve heard the name at least, haven’t you?”

“Huh? Uh… Well, yeah.”

Firo nodded with a very odd look on his face. Huey spoke to him quietly.

His expression seemed relaxed, but he might have looked that way even in a crisis.

As Firo was mulling that over, another familiar name jumped out at him. This one belonged to a company.

“They’re exclusive hitmen employed by Nebula. That said, I hadn’t learned more than the name myself, and so…I had no idea they were a group of four.”

“That intel’s not accurate.” Dragon smiled at Firo and Huey, baring his teeth, and puffed out his chest proudly. “Before, it was just a symbol for hired killers. We were the ones who created the name ‘Handymen’ in New York.”

“You’re talking too much.”

The man in the guard uniform reprimanded his companion in an intimidating voice.

Then, without relaxing that intimidation, he pointed the rifle he held at Firo and stared at him. His expression was nearly devoid of emotion in a way that was completely different from Huey’s.

“And? What’re you?”

“…I really don’t know how to explain. Any chance you’d give me a little time?”

“Sorry, but no. We’ll decide whether or not to dispose of you later. For now, you let us do our job.”

Ignoring Firo, the three men were slowly closing the distance between themselves and Huey. It wasn’t clear what kind of skills the little guy actually had, but at the very least, Dragon and Gig were definitely experienced fighters.

Huey’s face was still calm, but after thinking for a short while, he directed a rather timid question at Firo.

“I’m not good at fighting. I don’t suppose you’d help me?”

“Sorry, but no.”

When he mimicked the guard’s remark, Huey smiled with an expression that seemed to say, I thought not. Slowly, he set a hand on the chair.

Tension flashed across all the hired killers’ faces, and the air grew thin as they waited to see who would make the first move—

—but a sound intruded on that tension.

Tak…

Tak…

Tak…

It was the sound of footsteps.

A shoe-wearing enigma was approaching from the depths of the gloomy hallway.

After the guard had entered, the door had been closed partway, so there was no way for them to see what was happening outside. They could see the window, but it reflected the light from inside the room, and they couldn’t see into the dark hallway.

Tak…Tak…Tak…

It was a regular rhythm, like the hand of a clock, or a pendulum.

The mechanical noise raised the tension in the room to nearly unbearable levels. Everyone was focused on the source of that sound, and all eyes were trained on the half-open door.

In that instant—

—the footfalls stopped, and after a pause that lasted for the space of a breath, the sound of an explosive impact echoed in the room.

“ !”

The noise was so enormous that their ears and their bodies all shrank from it—but the sound wasn’t the only thing that had ricocheted.

Along with the noise of the impact, the half-open door buckled, and the broken doorknob shot off, bouncing across the floor with a pleasant metallic sound.

After that flashy moment, what appeared through the now-open door was—

“Good evening, good evening. Also, it’s nice to meet you, and on top of that, good-bye. Captive Peter Pan. Eternal boy.”

In this prison…

…more naturally than anybody…

…seeming more entertained than anybody…

…and with a smile more warped than anybody else’s, a bloodthirsty killer appeared.

There was an iron chain wrapped around his misshapen claw—and at the end of it, tangled up in the chain, was a little girl’s body.

“Leeza…”

When he saw the girl, Huey murmured. Hearing it, the killer—Ladd Russo—knew for certain which one was Huey Laforet.

Then, as if he’d just met a woman he was passionately in love with, with a smile that was filled with insanity and was also incredibly pure, he spoke clearly. His voice echoed in the underground room on the prison island.

“The ticking crocodile who ate the Captain’s hook is here—and he’s coming to eat you, too.”

A few minutes earlierThe Dungeon

“Okay, I’m not sure what you’d do to me if I went closer, so I’ll take you hostage from here!”

Standing near the door, where she assumed Ladd’s chained hands couldn’t reach her, the artless girl took several disks from some unknown place.

The shining silver disks had holes in their centers, like doughnuts, and the girl was spinning one of them on the tip of her finger.

The closer you got to the outer edge of the rings, the smoother their gleam became, and someone with keen instincts would probably have picked up on the fact that they were sharp, ring-shaped blades.

With only the light that crept in from the hallway to rely on, there was no telling whether Ladd realized this or not. He kept right on jangling the chains at his feet, just as he’d been doing before the door opened.

“How does it feel to be chained up so you can’t move?”

In time with the clanking noises, Ladd quietly muttered to the girl in front of him.

“Say…the light’s behind you, so I can’t tell real well from here, but…”

“What, hmm?”

“Right now, I bet you look like you’re sure you’ll never die.”

“…? You’re not making any sense, but that’s right. In a situation like this, there’s no way you could kill me. I’m the one who’s doing the killing right now.”

The girl gave a cackling laugh, but Ladd kept on making those clanking noises.

“I dunno what you’re fighting with Graham for, but listen—that guy doesn’t kill, but in a straight-up fight, he’s tougher’n me. You’d better watch yourself.”

Clank-clank, clank-clank, clankety-clank

“I know. That’s why I’m taking you hostage—”

“Me, though… I can kill.”

Clank-clank, clank-ank-ank

“Anybody’s fine. The point is, I can kill somebody.”

Clank-ank-ank

“Broads or rugrats—anybody who ticks me off.”

Clank…

Abruptly, the sound of the chain stopped.

Ladd had only been reeling the chain in, toward himself. However, to Leeza, the end of the chain seemed to have left the ground.

“Huh…?”

“I can kill, see.”

At the same time, Ladd stood up smoothly. Eyes shining in the gloom, he let the chain he’d wrapped around his right hand dangle to the floor, clanking.

At that point, for the first time, Leeza noticed the slight but crucial abnormality in the room.

That chain… It’s not attached to his legs—

The chain came down, forcibly shutting off her consciousness—

—and afterward, only the killer’s ferocious mutter remained.

“I can kill.”

A few minutes laterThe special cell

To Firo, the man—Ladd Russo—had appeared far too abruptly and far too unfairly, and he wore an aura that was far too violent.

Ladd spread his arms wide and grinned, then flung the girl’s body against the wall with his right hand.

With a light thud, the girl tumbled to the floor, and she didn’t move a muscle. It wasn’t clear whether she was alive or dead. However, without so much as glancing at her body, Ladd spoke words without a shred of tension in them.

“My switch got flipped.” He spoke easily, holding his arms out to either side. “That’s all.”

From the elbow down, his prosthetic left arm dangled awkwardly, but Ladd didn’t seem to care. He spread his arms even wider.

“Did you know? People have switches. Real simple switches that decide whether they can kill people or not. When those get flipped…anybody can kill. Anybody can end a life. That’s all it takes to determine whether or not somebody can kill: whether or not that switch gets flipped. Can you believe that?”

Muttering something that didn’t make much sense, Ladd put a hand to his own temple and gestured as though he were pushing something in.

“Click,” he said. Just one word.

However, he pressed his finger against his temple over and over and over.

“Click, click, click, click, click, click, c l i c k c l i c k c l i c k c l i c k c l i c k c l i c k c l i c k c l i c k c l i c k c l i c k c l i c k c l i c k c l i c k c l i c k c l i c k c l i c k c l i c k c l i c k c l i c k c l i c k c l i c k c l i c k c l i c k c l i c k c l i c k c l i c k c l i c k c l i c k c l i c k c l i c k c l i c k c l i c k c l i c k c l i c k c l i c k c l i c k c l i c k c l i c k c l i c k c l i c k, until finally it sounds like applause. The switches just keep flipping on. The many, the dozens, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of switches inside me! In other words, I’ve just gotta kill. See?”

He’s nuts.

That was Firo’s genuine impression, and around him, the Felix Walkens apparently felt the same way. They didn’t seem to know what to make of the guy.

Only Huey kept gazing at Ladd, as if he intrigued him. His attitude rubbed Ladd the wrong way; shrugging, he took a step into the room. Looking straight at Huey, he announced something simple, unfair, and completely insane:

“So, well, there you have it: Die for those hundreds of thousands of switches I just flipped. Don’t worry; you just have to die once.”

Returning Ladd’s shrug, Huey gazed at his face steadily. He was interested, but from the look in his eyes, he seemed to be trying to grasp who the other man was. “Abruptly barging into someone else’s room… You’re a pretty unreasonable fellow, aren’t you?”

“Guys who say ‘I’m about to head over to your room now’ beforehand don’t get called murderers.”

He spoke with simple indifference.

“They’re just crazy.”

However, his tone gradually grew more cheerful, and Ladd let his ego bleed into the room’s atmosphere.

“My body and brain are finally warmed up.”

Cracking his neck, he pressed his right fist against his limply dangling prosthetic, and the sound of his knuckles popping echoed lightly in the room.

“Okay… Okay, okay, okay! How do you want to get killed? I’m going to kill you to death until you die. I’ll give you a choice between dying or kicking the bucket, at least, so it’d be great if you’d make your decision before I’m done taking you apart!”

At this point, Huey was all Ladd could see, and he started across the room with bold steps.

“Hey, you… What are you trying to…? Uh?”

By the time the guard with the rifle asked the question, setting his finger on the trigger—

—his target was already right in front of him.

Up until then, Ladd had been completely focused on Huey and had been walking straight toward him. However, his steps had abruptly turned light, and he’d closed in on the guard with the rifle in an instant.

“You’re in my way.”

There was a nasty noise, and all the strength went out of the guard’s body.

“Not that you were actually blocking my path or anything. Your observation of me was in my way. Your killing intent was in my way. Your voice was in my way. Your existence was in my way. Being in my way meant you were in my way, which puts you in my way, you goddamned obstacle.”

Ladd’s words penetrated the guard’s eardrums—and the pain hit him right after that.

Something had happened to his arm.

The only sensation left in that arm was pain, but before he could look at it, the muzzle of a gun appeared right in front of his face.

The black, glossy tube was the end of the rifle he’d been holding a moment ago.

“Yeah, I’ll take the rifle. Thanks, pal.”

At that point, the guard finally realized the situation he was in.

The man who’d abruptly appeared in front of him had caught the barrel of the rifle—and had wrenched it out of his hands by force.

The guard looked at his wrist and fingers, which were twisted at awkward angles, but he didn’t even have time to scream.

“Okay, I appreciate it, so die.”

Without hesitating or taking time to terrorize the guard, Ladd squeezed the trigger, and—

—a gunshot echoed in the prison.

The roar rebounded off the walls, and even Firo cringed despite being used to hearing such sounds.

This guy…!

At the same time, blood sprayed into the air—but the amount was far less than he’d been expecting.

Even though he’d been lugged with a rifle at point-blank range, the only things the human lug had lost had been consciousness and his right ear.

Ladd had shifted his aim, blowing the guard’s ear off, and the man’s upper body swiveled as he crashed to the cold floor.

The guard hadn’t fainted from pain or fear. He’d passed out from more direct causes.

As it skimmed past the guard’s ear, the rifle bullet had sent a shock through his temple directly into his brain. In combination with the roar right next to his eardrum, this had shaken the contents of his head violently.

The guard had blacked out without even understanding what had happened to him. Around him, clear wariness came into the eyes of the remaining prisoners, and they surrounded Ladd on three sides.

Even so, the three of them didn’t jump in right away. Seeing this, Firo, who was standing a little apart from the action, quietly analyzed the current situation.

They can’t jump him out of hand, that’s for sure.

The strange aura that radiated from Ladd was warped, but it was truly pure.

If letters had appeared in that atmosphere, 80 percent of the air would probably have been made up of the string of letters K-I-L-L instead of nitrogen.

Even then, strangely, Ladd wasn’t giving anybody any openings. Firo was directly behind him, but the air was clammy with the feeling that even if he leaped at his back, the next instant, he’d be staring down the muzzle of that gun.

The tension in the room skyrocketed immediately. In the midst of it, Ladd chuckled to himself, kicking the unconscious guard in the face.

“Ha! That ‘die’ was a joke. Just kidding. I wouldn’t bother killing a two-bit punk like you right now. You think I’d blow all this energy on something stupid like that?”

Ladd turned a vicious smile on the ceiling, and Dragon—who was standing right in front of him, on the other side of the guard—bared his teeth in a complicated expression.

“Hey… What the hell are you do—?”

“Okay! Shut up!”

Summarily cutting off Dragon’s remark, which had seemed likely to morph into a taunt, Ladd let the rifle hang limply, pointing at the floor.

“I get it. I don’t get you people, but I get it. Don’t talk, can it, shut your mouth and kiss the ground.”

“Wha—?”

“Shutting up is important. You know those idiots who keep handing out souvenirs for the afterlife and end up giving the other guy a chance to counterattack? I’ve seen it tons of times, in books and musicals, and in actual life-or-death fights. For some reason, even though it’s a fight to the death, the more used to stuff like that guys are, the chattier they get. The thing is, I’m that type myself! So, well, you know, I’m not looking for that stuff from you people. Frankly, I’m tired of it, so don’t talk. Swallow your souvenirs for the afterlife. Choke on ’em and die.”

That incredibly unfair sentiment left Dragon unable to put away his sharpened teeth.

Firo stared in wide-eyed amazement, and Huey was still studying Ladd with deep interest.

Then, from behind Ladd on the right, a low, heavy voice rumbled, and a huge shadow took a menacing step forward.

“Dragon…let me take this guy.”

It was the big black man, Gig. As he spoke, he’d lumbered closer to Ladd.

“I couldn’t get serious last time, see. It’s rude if I don’t hit you with everything I’ve got, right?”

No sooner had Gig finished muttering the words than he launched himself at Ladd.

He’s fast!

When Firo saw the movement, a light shock ran through him from head to toe.

With a speed that was impossible to imagine from his big frame, the giant rushed at Ladd like the wind.

This is on a whole different level from when he went berserk in the mess hall.

Moving in a way that clearly showed he practiced some sort of martial art, the big man charged straight at Ladd’s knees like a low-flying cannonball.

The rifle still hung limply. He hadn’t moved it yet.

Gig grinned, sure of his victory, and in that instant—

—the rifle fell to the ground with a clunk.

“?!”

Right before Gig’s eyes, Ladd retreated, displaying some magnificent footwork—

—and the next moment, there was a fist in front of him.

By the time Gig realized that Ladd had unleashed an uppercut on a super-low trajectory, that fist was already sinking into his face, deeper and deeper—

“Forget ‘everything you’ve got—’”

Ladd, who’d casually tossed away the weapon that gave him an absolute advantage, looked down at the silent Gig, whose nose he’d just caved in.

“You’re being rude the second you take a swing at somebody. Obviously.”

“Why, you…” “You piece of…”

The little white man and Dragon muttered at the same time, but Ladd yawned as if he was bored.

“So, what? What are you fellas?”

“You… What are you? We—”

“Yeah, don’t talk.”

Interrupting the small man, Ladd shrugged as if he wasn’t interested, then coolly spat out words that held a trace of melancholy.

“I don’t care who you are or how amazingly strong you are, so don’t talk. I don’t care if you’re way tougher than me or if you’re some kind of god or devil who could blow my head off with a one-word curse—don’t talk.”

Ladd was clearly leaving them all sorts of openings, and the small man and Dragon jumped him from both sides at once.

The small man reached for the rifle that lay at Ladd’s feet, while Dragon went for his throat, attempting to sink his fangs into it like a mad dog.

“Your pasts, your positions, your trump cards, your grudges against me, your bragging and spell chanting and fairy-tale legends—”

As Ladd spoke indifferently, his movements were completely economical and abnormally violent.

He’d been speaking slowly, and maybe they’d been fooled by the rhythm of his words: The other two waited a moment too long to deal with Ladd’s actions.

Ladd stuck his right fist out toward Dragon’s face, and grinning with eyes that seemed to say You fell for it, Dragon vigorously bit down on his hand.

His mouth was open so wide that he seemed to have unhinged his jaw, and no sooner was Ladd’s fist sucked into it than he chomped down with the force of a bear trap.

First came the impact of something striking the bones of his fist. Then pressure and pain, as if it was being squeezed in a vise.

But Ladd didn’t even flinch.

On the contrary, as if he’d been waiting for this, he gave a fiendish smile—

—and without letting it bother him, he twisted his upper and lower body to the max and cut loose with all the power he’d stored up.

“I’ll listen to all that stuff next time I kill you.”

When the small one, who’d picked up the rifle, heard that sarcastic voice and looked up—he saw a shadow bearing down on him.

It was Dragon’s face, his eyes wide with astonishment.

Dragon’s teeth were still clamped down on Ladd’s right fist. Using the man as a boxing glove…

…Ladd struck the small man’s head with a downswing that had all his might behind it.

“…? That all you got?”

The four former Felix Walkens had been taken out in a literal instant, and an odd silence fell over the room.

Huey, who had watched the whole thing, murmured to himself as a small doubt surfaced in his mind:

“A group that uses the Felix name, taken down this easily by a single human being…? Well, in this case, perhaps I should say that their opponent was beyond human…”

As Huey gazed at Ladd, murmuring, the object of that look clenched and unclenched his hand, which was dripping with blood. The killer’s smile returned to his face.

“What are you muttering about? Practicing begging for your life?”

Ladd taunted him, and Huey answered, smiling slightly.

“I’ve developed a little interest in you.”

“What a coincidence. I’ve been feeling the urge to kill you this whole time.”

In contrast to Huey, who was chuckling quietly, Ladd wore a truly chummy smile.

Firo had been completely left behind in this situation. He stood with his back to the wall in a position where he could look to either side and see one of the two, watching to see how the situation played out.

In the midst of an atmosphere that was on the verge of congealing, Huey started the conversation again.

“You…called yourself the ticking crocodile.”

“Yeah, come to think of it, I guess I did.”

“In the story of Peter Pan, Peter is a symbol of completely cruel children who ignore concepts of good and evil. In contrast, although he is evil, Captain Hook is a symbol of logical adulthood. What, then, is the role of the ticking crocodile? From what angle do you intend to turn that urge to kill on me?”

Huey wasn’t really expecting an answer, but as if to say You’re asking about that?, Ladd shook his head and stated his position without a moment’s hesitation.

“Unadulterated strength, amoral bloodlust, and unstoppable hunger. Disaster, in other words.”

“……”

“I’m a murderer, and I like killing. If heaven and hell exist, then I’m probably going to hell. I’ve never given much thought to good and evil myself, though. Say you’ve got a murderer who has no urge to kill, no malice, not even a motive. The one who decides whether he’s good or evil is the victim. The side that inflicts the damage doesn’t have the slightest intention of talking about that. They just follow their appetites, eat and spit it back out… What I mean is, I’m only thinking about me. That’s all it is. And I hear you don’t die, and I thought killing you sounded like a whole lot of fun. —Yeah, that’s all. That’s all it was.”

At that oddly calm response, Huey narrowed his eyes as if impressed and gave Ladd an honest compliment.

“I thought you were just a barbaric murderer, but you’re quite the poet.”

“Would you listen to that?! Calling the likes of me a poet… Don’t you think that’s pretty rude to poets?”

Clenching his fist, Ladd smiled that vicious smile again, exuding a sticky, murderous intent.

“Here, lemme go ahead and settle the score for those poets you just insulted.”

“Still—in that case, shouldn’t you direct some of that urge to kill somewhere else?”

“Hunh?”

“You like killing people who believe they won’t die, correct? That’s why you’re targeting me, an immortal. If that’s the case…”

After pausing for the space of a breath, Huey gave a cold smile and went on.

“Firo Prochainezo over there is immortal, just like me.”

That slimy little—!!

The one those words stunned was Firo himself.

Up until that point, he’d been a complete outsider, but he’d just been dragged right into the middle of their conversation. Huey was probably scheming to divert part of that murderous intent and forcibly turn him into an ally.

Having deduced this, Firo ground his teeth and glared at Huey. Then he sighed in resignation and turned to face Ladd.

“…Is that for real, Firo Prochainezo?” Ladd muttered.

In response, Firo slowly walked over and stood behind and to the right of Huey.

Then, deliberately, he set a fingertip against a canine and bit down hard, ripping into it.

The taste of blood spread through his mouth, and he felt a throbbing pain as that blood dripped to the floor—but it was over in an instant, and as if time were running backward, the taste of blood and the blood itself were drawn into the wound again.

Ladd was seeing the peculiarities of an immortal body for the first time, and his eyes widened slightly, but it wasn’t possible to read whatever lay in the depths of that emotion.

“Sorry. That’s how it is.”

It felt as if he was selling out a man he’d gotten close to, and that hurt, but it did seem like it would be best to cut ties with this type as soon as possible. As Firo looked at the little girl who’d been thrown into the corner, he felt some misgivings.

Meanwhile, Ladd’s face remained expressionless for a bit, and then—

“…Ha-ha.”

—he gave an abrupt bark of laughter, then spoke up loudly and happily.

“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! I see, I see, I see, so that’s what it is, huh?! Wow… Thanks, Firo! You just told me something real good!”

Huh? Did I say something just now?

Firo stood there, not understanding what he meant, and Ladd snapped his fingers, speaking as if he was really and truly enjoying himself.

“Remember what I told you? The only guys I kill are the ones who think they’re never gonna die, no matter what! And I said this, too, right? I told you that you weren’t like those soft fellas!”

“Yeah…? So what?”

“Hey, Firo. You’re immortal, too, but somewhere in there, you’re still scared of dying. Your eyes ain’t soft. Right now! Right this instant! You’re keeping a wary eye on that Huey fella over there! Like you might get killed any minute! …That tells me one thing.”

After a moment’s pause, Ladd put the certainty he’d reached into words.

“There is a way to kill you immortals. Ain’t that right?”

“…!”

“Well, whatever. For now, if you both want to jump me at once, go right ahead. While you’re doing that, I’ll grill you…about what a guy would have to do to kill an immortal…”

As he spoke, Ladd soundlessly began running through pugilists’ footwork, shadowboxing lightly right on the spot.

“If you want some time to talk it over with each other, I’ll give you that.”

“Well now…you heard him. What should we do?”

Huey directed that question at Firo, over his shoulder. He didn’t seem very troubled.

In response, Firo exhaled deeply—then spoke firmly.

“Hey. Huey Laforet.”

“What is it all of a sudden?”

“You asked me whether I thought Szilard and the other alchemists in my memories had hijacked my mind.”

Firo had abruptly said something odd, and Huey watched him curiously but didn’t stop him. He just listened to him with interest.

“Even if that’s true…I don’t care. Just as long as I don’t suddenly start thinking like that damn old gink and doing something ugly to Ennis or my friends.”

“……”

“I don’t care about myself. As long as the world around me stays peaceful, I don’t care who I am… Even if I’m just a dream somebody near me is seeing, that’s fine.”

…Come to think of it, I used to fight about that opinion with Claire a lot.

Remembering his childhood, Firo smiled, laughing at himself.

“Why would you bring that up now, under these circumstances?”

Huey was dubious—naturally—and Firo smiled a little as he responded:

“Well, we don’t know how this is going to turn out, so…”

“Either way, I wanted to make sure it got said before we parted ways.”

New YorkA police station

Three men were sitting in a New York Metropolitan Police reception room. Each wore a different expression.

The initial on-site inspections and inquiries regarding the explosion were over, and the agents had finally been released.

However, until the incident calmed down and people who were further up in the hierarchy than Victor finished their dealings with one another, practically speaking, they wouldn’t be able to leave New York.

Victor was gazing up at the reception room ceiling as if he loathed it.

“In the end…I guess Huey got us. If things are like this, I bet he either ate the kid I sent to Alcatraz or flipped him and made him his underling.”

“I’m not so sure about that.”

Edward responded to his boss’s pessimistic guess with a low mutter.

“What, Edward? Come to think of it, you started to say something right before the suicide bomber showed up.”

In response to Victor’s question, Edward was quiet for a little while, but…

Before long, as if he couldn’t take it anymore, he responded with his opinion on what had been said earlier, about not being able to expect anything from the guy.

“With all due respect, Assistant Director, that Firo kid didn’t move up in the world through sheer luck or by default.”

“…You really do think highly of him, huh. So it’s okay to hope a little?”

“No. You shouldn’t hope for anything.”

Edward had spoken decisively, and Victor scowled.

“What are you getting at?”

“I’m saying it would be better not to ignore him.”

Remembering the way that Firo punk had risen through the ranks of the city’s underworld, he spoke firmly, as if reminding himself as well.

“You really can’t expect anything from him—but you should keep your guard up.”

“After all, at the end of the day, he’s a gangster… Just a villain.”

Alcatraz Federal PenitentiaryThe special cell

“While I’m at it, there’s one more thing I want to say.”

“What is it?”

They were facing Ladd, and Huey, who was standing in front, didn’t seem to be paying much attention to Firo’s murmur.

“Listen. Earlier, when you said the Felix who’d come after you was really a group of four guys…”

“Yes?”

As Huey responded, he was watching Ladd, who’d turned ferocious murderous intent on him.

The sound of a very small thud struck his eardrums.

“…?”

The next moment, a sharp chill began to seep through his back.

“…?!”

In an instant, the cold changed to heat, then morphed into pain that shook his brain violently.

An impact as if something had pierced his spine made his whole body shudder, and immediately afterward, Huey realized that the sensation had promptly vanished.

Simultaneously, he noticed that he couldn’t move his arms or legs…

As he pitched forward, he saw Ladd staring at him, eyes round. At that point, he was certain that the other man had nothing to do with this situation.

The moment his body hit the floor, he heard Firo’s cold voice.

“…There were five of ’em, actually.”

* * *

Slowly, in order to steal Huey’s consciousness completely, Firo reached for the man’s head with his right hand.

Huey had fallen with his face turned sideways, and as he watched the shadow cover his field of vision, he thought:

I completely failed to predict this.

I thought I had a certain number of things well under control, but… Once in a while, this sort of uncertain element turns up.

Little by little, it was getting harder to breathe, and as his consciousness rapidly faded…

…thinking of his old friend’s face, Huey murmured, smiling ironically.

Elmer. It’s just as you said.

“This…is what makes the world interesting.”

In a space where silence reigned…

The small figure that had been lying in the corner of the room flinched and shivered.

“…Uu…nn……!”

As before, almost as soon as she regained consciousness, Leeza was wide-awake and upright.

How long had she been out?

She wondered for a moment, and then, in the next instant—

“A whole hour and twenty-seven minutes…!” she muttered, judging the passage of time with perfect accuracy, although there was no clock nearby.

“Father…!”

Realizing that this gloomy place was her father’s cell, Leeza immediately examined her surroundings.

The first thing she saw was the door. It was open, and she noticed a familiar guard lying facedown outside it.

However, that didn’t matter to her at all. Her searching eyes had spotted a figure in white lying on the ground, and her heart lurched violently.

“Father!”

Leeza jumped to her feet and ran over to her father, who lay on his stomach.

A knife had been plunged deep into his neck, and it looked as though his spinal cord had been completely destroyed.

“Nooo… Noooooooooo!”

Nearly crying, the girl set her hands on the knife and pulled with all her might.

With a nasty, crunching sound, the blade came free, scattering blood.

The blood that spouted from her father’s body gave the girl a significant shock—but when she saw it promptly begin to writhe and return to the wound on his neck, her heart calmed down a little.

Oh, good! He’s alive!

Even though she knew that Huey was immortal, seeing him with a knife planted in him had unsettled her quite badly.

“Nng…”

“Father, Father! Wake up… Please wake up…?!”

“Oh… Is that you, Leeza? …What about the others?”

As he asked the question, her father sat up slowly, and Leeza gasped and took another look around.

However, there was only the lone guard, collapsed in the hall. She didn’t see any other figures.

“It’s okay, Father! There’s nobody here, nobody’s here!”

“Is that right…? I just assumed he’d eat me. I’d steeled myself for it.”

Huey got up slowly, checking himself over, but…

Abruptly, he noticed that something felt wrong, and he turned to Leeza, who was beside him.

“That’s strange. My left eye won’t open… Leeza, would you look at it for me?”

He was fairly certain of the results already, but Huey had his daughter check anyway.

He simply wanted to know how the girl, who thought of him as a perfect person, would react when she saw it.

“Fa…ther…?”

Puzzled, Leeza ran her fingers over her father’s closed left eyelid—

And from below it, a hollow, dark, red cavern appeared.

The eyeball that should have been there was gone—and red-black darkness stared back at her.

As he listened to his daughter’s screams, the man forgot that his left eye had been gouged out. Impassively, he engraved the girl’s reaction into his memory.

Reflecting on his own behavior…

…Huey realized, once again, that he was a terrible human being, and—

—smiling with delight, he decided to resume his experiment.