“It all boils down to this, Chuuya. That was a yoke keeping you attached to humans,” Verlaine said gently as he held Chuuya up by his neck. “I understand where you’re coming from, but it’s too dangerous. You shouldn’t linger in that position.” Verlaine stuck his free hand in Chuuya’s pocket in search of something. His fingers emitted a gravitational pulse that acted like radar, helping him find what he was looking for. “So this is the picture your so-called friends gave you?” It was the photograph of Chuuya as a child wearing a yukata by the ocean. “I understand more than you realize how you must have felt when you saw it. And I understand how you trusted the people who gave this to you. Really, I do. But your trust in them will only cause you to suffer because they will continue to feed you these lies. ‘You’re human. Have hope. He’s lying to you,’ is what they’d say, poisoning your mind.” Verlaine flicked his wrist and threw the photo like a projectile with unbelievable speed until it pierced Adam’s shoulder like a knife. Adam groaned in pain, dropping his pistol that he had been waiting for a chance to fire. “Why do you think they’d lie to you?” asked Verlaine. He looked straight at Chuuya, entirely uninterested in whatever Adam was doing. “It’s because your powers are useful to them. They want to use you. I know because it happened to me, too.” “I don’t give a damn… You’re gonna pay…,” Chuuya rasped, breathing heavily as he hung by his neck, unable to move. “Such a troublesome boy.” Verlaine sighed. He paused after every few words as if he were talking to a small child. “But well, I figured you wouldn’t be so soft that a mere few words would convince you. That’s why I’m going to use my actions instead. I am going to cut the strings, one by one, that manipulate you like a marionette. And then you will be free. This is the greatest gift of brotherly love and the only thing that will bring you happiness.” Then he added, as if it were the most natural thing in the world: “I am going to kill every human who matters to you.” There was nothing but elegance and kindness in his voice. Yet in his eyes, a fire was burning. They held the pale-blue flames of hell’s gatekeeper, capable of freezing the souls of all humankind before scorching them into ash. “You’re wrong,” Adam suddenly chimed in. “What you are doing is not love. According to the definitions of human emotion I have installed, what you have is a lust for domination.” “And how’s that any different?” Verlaine asked, smiling sweetly. Numerous emotions appeared in Chuuya’s eyes as they talked: surprise, trepidation, bewilderment, fear… But they were only brief flashes that ended up swallowed by an overpowering fire: the flames of rage. “I won’t let you.” Chuuya’s throat shook like the rumbling of the earth. “I’m not gonna let you have your way, no matter what.” Verlaine gave a refreshed smile. He acknowledged and accepted those feelings. “That’s fine.” There was even a note of affection and tenderness about him. “You need time to choose, ruminate, and come to terms with reality, but you will do as I say in the end. Allow me to show you why.” The unusual sensation started the moment Verlaine gently placed his free hand on Chuuya’s cheek. “Gwah…!” The air vibrated before bursting open. An invisible electric discharge caused his eyes to spark reddish-black. Chuuya opened his mouth, but he couldn’t breathe. His throat refused to suck in air…because something terrifying was trying to crawl out. “I’m going to open your Gate just a little,” Verlaine cooed as if he were singing a lullaby. “But not by much. Only about a hairbreadth, nothing more. The opening will be small enough to close in the blink of an eye—but that’s all it will take for you to see the truth.” The wind howled. It was not of this world, however. It was coming from inside Chuuya—from an unknown, frightening place the human eye could not reach. The wind caused the surrounding buildings to creak and the earth to shake. Adam struggled to remain standing as he observed Chuuya with his eyes nearly squinted shut. “Detecting a skill-phase expansion. Hawking radiation–esque high-energy rays observed. Values steadily increasing.” Adam was automatically outputting the details of the calamity. “Phase transition is causing heat to emerge from the space of annihilation… Oh no!” he yelled while emptying the clip in his pistol. The special antipersonnel bullets slammed into Verlaine’s forehead, eyes, throat, and elbows. However… “Would the audience please refrain from touching the actors?” The bullets lightly grazed his skin and froze in place. A powerful gravitational force almost immediately shot them back in the opposite direction, piercing Adam’s shoulder. He cried out in pain and fell to the ground. That was when Chuuya screamed at the top of his lungs. This soulless shriek wasn’t Chuuya’s own; it wasn’t even human. It was neither something of this world nor even a sound. It was the black flames. “Am I too late…?! Activating heat- and impact-resistant shield!” Adam shouted from the ground, raising his left arm. His elbow immediately split in half and expanded into a glittering silver shield. The superalloy shield, made with a nickel base, chrome, iron, molybdenum, and titanium, completely enshrouded Adam as he jumped to his feet and retreated. “Now, Chuuya. Do you still think you’re human?” Space began to warp. And then—hell was unleashed. Black flames. The scorching torrent that had melted the ground and created Suribachi City. It was just as Verlaine had said. The gate to hell was open for a mere 0.3 seconds, but that was more than long enough The extreme heat erupting from the alley melted a utility pole and boiled the asphalt until it began flowing over to the main road like a surging wave. That, however, was nothing more than the opening act for the true hell that unfolded. Everything around Chuuya began to disappear—like paint that had melted and was being sucked away. Only a black sphere remained. The air trembled. One side of a nearby eight-story building vanished as if it had been chewed off. The steel frame, concrete walls, floors, ceiling, the fixtures—it was all gone. It was neither destroyed nor melted. It had simply disappeared. And not just the building, either. Melted streetlights, parked cars, asphalt, and even the ground beneath it—everything was being absorbed into the swelling black sphere. The annihilation spread. Buildings turned into rubble, soil into dust, and the nearby cars, utility poles, and fire hydrants all toppled over before the sphere swallowed them up. While it appeared black, the sphere in fact had no pigment. An extremely powerful gravitational force was pulling the surrounding light inside and preventing it from escaping—that was what made the sphere look black. This was a calamity far more fearsome than any explosion or chemical reaction. It involved space itself. A black hole. The eye of the darkest demon had opened and was effortlessly chewing up and swallowing the street. The phenomenon was over almost instantaneously. The black sphere vanished just as soon as it appeared. That was why the people a few buildings away were not harmed, surprisingly enough. But they were still witness to a nightmarish scene, one that saw the nearby townscape devoured by darkness. In the center of this hell was Chuuya—suffering. Yet this was no ordinary suffering. He felt as if his skin was being twisted until it split apart; his eyes seemed to rupture in their sockets while his organs were being crushed. Only some otherworldly beast could cause such agony. But Chuuya couldn’t even so much as scream. The ground vanished as if it had been scooped out with a giant spoon. At the resulting crater’s center lay Chuuya curled on the ground. The air shimmered in the extreme heat. When the black hole eventually disappeared, a powerful gamma ray burst, flooding the environs with blindingly bright light before scorching and melting the earth. Particles of evaporated metals sparkled in the air as they wandered the skies. The shimmer created by the heat made everything in sight beautifully contort and dance. A utility pole melting in the distance leaned over as if it were bowing in apology. Although the black hole had closed, the aftereffects continued to cause irregularities in the gravitational field. The space around Chuuya suddenly warped before closing. Like aftershocks of an earthquake, space intermittently convulsed and gouged out the earth before returning to normal again. These fluctuations made Chuuya suffer. A shadowy figure approached him and stopped by his side. A mysterious figure, too short to be an adult, was dressed in a black coat, and had bandages wrapped around his head. Most mysterious was the fact that he stood calm and composed, despite the irregularities in the gravitational field. “You’re a mess, Chuuya.” The teenager effortlessly grabbed Chuuya’s arm and lifted it. That same moment, the gravitational irregularities vanished along with Chuuya’s suffering. “Tsk… Had to be you, huh…?” “You can’t even go out with good grace, can you?” the youth said bluntly before hoisting Chuuya onto his shoulders. He began to walk. The overpowering gravity was gone, as was the pain, causing Chuuya to rapidly lose consciousness. But before his eyes gave in to the darkness, he looked back at the youth and muttered in frustration: “Dazai…” Meaningless images flooded his vision. There was the first time he met with Piano Man and the others at that pool hall. They played pool until the next morning to see who could win the most rounds, fighting over the most trivial of things while throwing champagne bottles at each other. Chuuya himself had forgotten this memory. It was hard to even know if their laughter was real. The memories faintly overlapped with the young man carrying him on his back until the young man eventually dumped him on the ground and walked away. It was Dazai’s dark figure. Chuuya tried calling out to him, straining his voice, until he finally regained consciousness. He was lying in front of that pool hall: Old World. He was no longer focused on Dazai but the inside of the hall. The undeniable stench of blood filled the air. Chuuya staggered to his feet. He tried to walk, but his legs wouldn’t listen, and he clumsily fell to the ground. He crawled forward into the building. Piano Man, Iceman, Albatross, Doc. They were all dead. The inside of the pool hall was in ruins as if a tornado had swept by. The windows were shattered, a pool table was stuck in the wall, and broken bottles of alcohol colorfully littered the floor. It was the result of a gravity-manipulating skill ravaging the inside of the building. Four bodies were lying in the center. A quick glance was enough to know there was no saving them. Broken was a more fitting description than killed. It would have been more difficult to find a part of them that wasn’t in pieces. “Chuuya…” A voice as thin as a string startled Chuuya, and he rushed over in its direction. “Are you okay?!” he yelled. The voice was coming from Albatross. Blood trickled out of his mouth. “I’m gonna save you! Hold on!” It was evident that there was no saving him, even without getting closer for a better look. His abdomen was torn open, exposing his ribcage. “I’m sorry, Chuuya… He got me. I can’t see… I can’t even feel my legs anymore,” Albatross gurgled in a whisper. His eyes were no longer seeing the world of the living. His legs were crushed from the knees down as well. “But I saved Doc. I grabbed him by the collar and pulled him out of the attack’s way,” said Albatross. “Everyone else is dead. And I’m gonna die, too. But Doc… He needs your help…” Albatross’s right hand was clutching onto Doc’s collar like a treasure he held dear. Doc’s eyes were closed as if he were sleeping, and he didn’t have a scratch on his body—his upper body, that is. There was nothing left of Doc from the waist down. “…” Chuuya groaned and clenched his jaw tight. He had to consciously fight the urge to scream. “All right,” Chuuya replied evenly, keeping his emotions at bay. “I’ll take care of Doc. He’s gonna be okay thanks to you. You always were amazing like that. You should be proud.” “Thank goodness.” Albatross let out a deep sigh of relief, and the stress vanished from his face. “Chuuya… There’s a motorcycle in the garage. I used it for work. It’s my prized possession… Feel free…to use it…” Albatross’s tensed hand went limp and dropped to the floor. Albatross, Doc, Piano Man, Iceman, and Lippmann were all dead. Chuuya lowered his gaze and didn’t say a word for a few moments. After standing back up, he walked around his comrades’ bodies as if to take in each of their faces. There was no telling how much time went by when he suddenly heard footsteps at the entrance. “Chuuya.” It was Adam, scorched from head to toe. He was missing an eye, and functional fluid leaked from his body. But he was still walking on his own two feet. “Tell me, tin man,” Chuuya suddenly stated, his voice devoid of all emotion. “Why did they die?” “That is because…Verlaine killed them.” “Then why did he kill them?” Chuuya’s tone gradually sharpened like a gemstone on the verge of cracking. “I believe verbalizing the reason would be meaningless.” “Answer me!” shouted Chuuya, still staring at the floor. “You’re a machine, aren’t you?! Then give me a perfect, objective answer!” Adam remained silent for a few seconds with a blank look on his face, much like how a human being would hesitate. However, he eventually replied: “Because of you, Chuuya.” His voice was monotonous. “This happened because you decided to stay with the Mafia. Verlaine believed these five men were the reason why you wished to stay, so he killed them, and he will mostly likely continue to kill for the same reason.” Silence. “Yeah, it is my fault,” Chuuya suddenly said before turning around and looking at Adam. Chuuya’s eyes were vacant, hollow. “All right, tin man. I’ll help you with your job.” He began walking, one step at a time. His feet struck the floor slowly. “I’m gonna find him, but I won’t let you arrest him. I’m gonna kill the man myself.” He then spoke in a different, unusual voice. It wasn’t even of this world. It was a pitch-black mantra that burst out from the depths of hell, a foreboding declaration that could never be taken back. “You murder someone’s family, the Mafia’s gonna make you pay.”
Chapter 105
13 min read