The door to the interrogation room opened 1,448 seconds after Master Chuuya and I were led inside. “Hey.” It was the woolly haired detective who had been present when Shirase was arrested. He was holding a ceramic bowl containing some sort of liquid. He then sat on the other side of the desk and began pulling out a solid from said liquid with a pair of chopsticks. It was a shoestring-shaped substance mainly made from starch, gliadin, and glutenin. He promptly began to eat said substance. The detective noticed me staring and lifted his head back up. “What’s the matter, foreigner? Never seen udon before?” He smirked, then continued to eat as steam brushed against his face. “Where’s ours?” Master Chuuya bluntly asked. “What, you wanted some? I figured with all that money you’re making in the gemstone black market you wouldn’t care for peasant food like this anymore.” Master Chuuya crossed his arms and glared at the man. “‘Black market’? Hold up. True, I work at a small jewelry store, but we’re licensed. You wanna see my employee ID?” “I’m not interested in your fake ID.” The detective cocked his head and chuckled. “So who’s this foreigner with you anyway?” he asked, pointing his chopsticks at me. Master Chuuya simply shrugged without giving an answer. The detective looked back at me and said, “Hey, Chuuya. I’m saying this for your own good. The fewer outsiders who hear what we’re about to discuss, the better.” “Nice to meet you. I am a computer from—” “Oh, c’mon, detective. Don’t be like that,” Master Chuuya demanded, cutting me off. “He’s new. Just started working today. He once got in a fight and took a bat to the head, and now he thinks he’s a robot. The guy’s a real riot, too, so I’ve been taking him wherever I go. Is that gonna be a problem?” “No, I really am a computer.” “He’s one of yours? Then it’s still too soon for him to be in a place like this. Come on, I’ll show you out,” said the detective as he stood up and knocked on the door. “Get him outta here.” A large man in a police uniform entered the room without making a sound and grabbed my arm. I was right about to protest when I saw, out of the corner of my eye, Master Chuuya giving me a signal. He was bending his index finger toward the door from under the desk. Then he looked at me and faintly pointed his chin at the door. It was clearly a nonverbal signal. He was trying to tell me something that he did not want the others to hear. Perhaps that was why he made up that story to get me to leave. Hmm… Then there was only one thing for me to do. “Very well. I will be waiting outside.” I respectfully bowed before retiring from the interrogation room with the uniformed officer. Once the door closed behind me, the officer and I started walking. “Excuse me, officer,” I began after we’d taken around ten steps. “What do you think it means when someone bends their finger toward the door twice?” “…What?” The officer cocked his head curiously. “I mean a gesture where you bend your finger like this while pointing at the door,” I repeated as I pondered the situation. Master Chuuya was indirectly telling me to leave because there was something he wanted me to do out here as he himself was unable to leave the interrogation room. What we needed to do first and foremost was get Shirase out of this station, since he might be assassinated before we even got a chance to move him somewhere safely and set up the trap. However, the city police already knew we were trying to take him somewhere. That was why they were keeping Master Chuuya in the interrogation room, and— …Well, well. “I understand now.” The officer glared suspiciously at me after my sudden announcement. “And what exactly do you understand?” “That gesture was an order. Master Chuuya was trying to tell me to sneak into Shirase’s cell and save him while he distracted the other officers.” “Oh, sneak into his cell, huh?” The officer nodded. “…Hmm? ‘Sneak into his cell’?” Oops. It appeared that he was on to me. This was not ideal. “Officer, look over there.” I pointed toward the area behind the officer, and he instinctively looked in that direction. He was good at following orders. I then took my already pointed index finger and placed it right where his cheek was a moment ago. “I don’t see anyth—” He turned his head back around and was about to finish his sentence when his cheek squished right into my finger. A direct hit. My fingertips contained microscopic needles coated with a sedative. They pierced his skin and caused him to lose consciousness. I caught him with both arms before he collapsed to the floor, then scanned my surroundings. It appeared no one saw or heard a thing. “We must remain quiet. This is a police station.” I smiled as I held him up. Chuuya sat with the sourest of faces. His elbows dug into the table, his eyes only halfway open while he blankly stared at the filthy wall. Why? Because he had absolutely nothing else to do. It was the only way he could take his mind off the detective sitting across the table from him. “So I thought to myself…,” began the detective as he leaned over the table. “Everything in life’s just a bunch of udon toppings. Nothing good comes from having too much money at such a young age. You gotta work until you sweat from your brow, earn a little more dough than you did last month. Then it’s like you’ve all of a sudden got chikuwa tempura on your bare udon. See, what I’m trying to say is that all your hard work will finally pay off, and this feeling you get is…” Chuuya had already given up looking at the clock hands to determine how long he’d been listening to this story. The chatterbox detective was very preachy—and didn’t even have a point to top it off. Somewhere down the line, his preachy life story suddenly turned into complaints that suddenly turned into stories about his life growing up that suddenly turned into lectures. He talked in circles and repeated the same old anecdotes over and over again. Each time, he was peculiarly elaborate with the fine details. And no matter how many times the detective told these same stories, his eyes lit up with delight as if he were revealing truths that no one this world over had ever heard before. “So when I was assigned to this station, I thought to myself: That guy uses way too much hair gel. It looks sticky, really.” Chuuya wasn’t listening. He simply stared at a single point in space and tried to survive. This was a voluntary interrogation session, after all. They didn’t have a warrant for his arrest, so the police couldn’t legally lock him up. Chuuya could have simply gotten to his feet and left. He didn’t care. But he wouldn’t do that here. He had to buy time until Adam could save Shirase. Therefore, he needed to keep the detective’s eyes on him and him alone. He just had to endure this, telling himself over and over in desperation: I am but a pebble on the side of the road. “See, back when I was young, it felt like the end of the world,” admitted the detective, nodding with a smug look on his face. “I didn’t have a job. I was hungry. My brother got fed up and landed me a gig as a security guard, but it was rough, let me tell you. You wouldn’t even be able to imagine it, I bet. My coworkers quit almost as fast as they started. It was either that or they ran away. I managed to survive thanks to guts alone. Yeah, that’s what you need: guts.” “Hey,” said Chuuya, unable to take it anymore. “How much longer do you plan on boring me today?” The detective raised an eyebrow, then smirked as if he had been impatiently waiting for this moment. “All you need to do is sign here, and you can go. You’re free to take Shirase with you as well.” He then took out a sheet of paper from his pocket and slid it across the table. Chuuya was silent. It was a consent form asking for cooperation with evidence collection and prosecution. Specifically, Chuuya and Shirase would be released in return for confidential information. This was a plea deal. And here, confidential information meant intel Chuuya had on the Port Mafia. “You’re asking me to sell out the Mafia?” he asked quietly. “Well, you don’t wanna leave your friend here, do you?” The detective smiled, but his gaze was sharp. “Your circumstances seem complicated…but don’t worry. There’s only one thing I’m interested in: quashing the Port Mafia’s black market.” Chuuya stared blankly at the detective before looking down at the document. Then, after thinking for a few moments, he turned his gaze back to the detective. “Gimme your pen.” “Be my guest.” After grabbing the pen that was handed to him, Chuuya effortlessly scrawled something within the signature column at the bottom of the document. When the detective leaned forward to check the signature, he was met with the following words: Eat shit. Chuuya then tossed the pen on the desk, wrapped his arms behind his head, leaned back in his chair, and put his feet up. “Sorry for interrupting your li’l story,” he said coolly. “Keep going.” The detective didn’t respond. His simply glared at Chuuya with eyes akin to a heavily weathered boulder in the desert. I was heading for the jail while pondering how I was going to help Shirase escape. What I was doing was illegal, so I couldn’t ask my agency for help. Nevertheless, it would not be a problem because I knew about the protocols of investigation agencies around the world. The corridor leading to the jail was silent. There was almost nothing here, unlike the cluttered mess that was the criminal investigation division. The only traits worth mentioning: spotless cream-colored walls, uniformly placed fluorescent ceiling lights, and their equally uniform glow. There were the occasional dark-blue bulletin boards on the wall with notices of how many traffic accidents had occurred that month and reminders for medical checkups. Otherwise, this was a dull, boring corridor that could be found anywhere in the world. The holding cells were at the end of the corridor. That was where Shirase was being kept. “Pardon me.” I lightly tapped on the glass window into the main security office by the door. The head of security was sitting at the on-duty desk. He was large—muscular to the point that it would not surprise me if he used only his muscles to pass each test to become an officer. The office appeared rather small from what I could see through the window. Inside was a desk, eight screens to monitor the prisoners in their cells, and a computer. Hanging from the wall were the keys to each cell. Like the other offices here, this one had serviced the station for far more years than it could handle due to an insufficient budget. It looked dreary at best. Everything was dull and lifeless: the walls, the floor, the panels, and even the officer himself. I put on a friendly smile. “I have received orders to come pick up inmate number twenty-eight, Buichirou Shirase, for transfer.” The head of security kept his elbows on the desk while turning only his gaze at me. “And you are?” “I am a comp—ahem. I am Adam Frankenstein, an investigator with Europole,” I stated while holding out my detective badge (which was real) that I kept in my pocket. “Detective Murase has ordered a transfer.” The man stared apathetically at the badge. “What’s the transfer number?” he asked mindlessly. His voice was even more mechanical than mine. “Pardon?” “His transfer number.” His tone was assertive and dismissive. I rotated my head. “Oh, his transfer number. Yes… His transfer number. Yes. His transfer number, of course.” “You don’t have to say it three times, man.” “His transfer number is 21988126,” I replied with a grin. The guard then began checking the computer in front of him. I watched from a slight distance and hacked the police station’s network, took control of the e-mail server from a backdoor I had created while in the interrogation room, and copied an e-mail with past transfer instructions inside it. After that, I rewrote the number on the screen, which was displayed the moment the head of security’s computer searched for the requested transfer number. “21988126… Yep, you’re good to go.” The head of security seemed none the wiser as he unlocked the jail door for me using the control panel in front of him. “I appreciate it. Have a good day.” When I bowed to him, he waved me off as if he could not care less. This is why you cannot rely on humans. They are flawed. A machine would have never fallen for such a trick. It made absolutely no sense that robots always lost to humans in films before they could completely wipe them out. Nevertheless, it is because of their defective nature that I was able to continue the mission with ease. I stepped over the threshold and into the jail proper. The corridor in the cell block reminded me of a circuit board with how the cells and lights were so orderly arranged. There was nothing else here. The interior was only two tones: pale light green and white, with lines drawn onto the wall to measure a suspect’s height. It was perhaps the loneliest place in the entire police station. I almost immediately found the cell I was looking for. “Number twenty-eight. Get out. You’re being transferred,” growled a guard who seemed to have already received the transfer order. He unlocked the cell door and left. Inside was Shirase sitting on a mattress. A momentary surprise flashed across his face the instant he saw me. “Wait… You’re the guy who was with Chuuya,” he said. “What are you doing here?” “Shirase, it’s time for us to go,” I told him, but Shirase averted his gaze and pouted. “Hmph. No thanks,” he muttered, staring at the floor. “Chuuya put you up to this, right? Sorry, but I’m only here because I wanna be.” “That’s a lie,” I argued. “I detected an increase of wrinkles on your nose and upper lip. These are reflexive micro-expressions commonly found in people when exposed to uncomfortable situations. Additionally, humans tend to place a hand on their necks whenever they are feeling uncomfortable or anxious in order to calm themselves. It is a type of appeasement behavior, and it suggests the person is experiencing the opposite of how they claim they feel. Furthermore, the expression you made and how you lowered your gaze suggest that you are experiencing a sense of loneliness, inferiority, and regret. In other words, you are scared.” “I-I’m not scared!” shouted Shirase. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the guard, who was waiting by the entrance, glance this way. Hmm. We needed to get out of here before the guard grew any more suspicious. “We do not have time,” I patiently told Shirase. “If you wish to complain about me or Master Chuuya, then I will be glad to listen once we get out of here and are somewhere safe. What you need to do now, though, is stand up and follow me. I don’t believe that should be too difficult a task for a human.” “I said I’m not coming with you, and that’s that,” hissed Shirase after crossing his arms—another textbook sign of defiance. “I don’t like you. I don’t like what’s happening. I don’t like how all my guns were apparently confiscated! All of this happened because you two showed up, y’know! How are you gonna make it up to me?!” It was not our fault that his weapons were confiscated, but this was no time to argue over facts. “Why’d I even have to get dragged into your problem? I didn’t do anything to deserve being assassinated! You need to apologize, damn it! Tell me you’re sorry! And do something about my guns that got taken away! I’m gonna be the king, so show some respect!” I calmly listened to his ramblings. There was a hole in Shirase’s argument. I could point out the problem with his logic in fine detail, but I am the latest model of autonomous computers, not some out-of-date AI from a past generation. I would never waste my time arguing something so meaningless. Yes. I was perfectly calm. “Very well, Shirase.” I gave him a nod while smiling. “You are free to act as you wish. You are free to pretend to be tough, demand others to apologize, and believe that you are a king. However, I have the same amount of freedom. Therefore, I can choose to leave you here and come up with the next plan while I read in tomorrow’s newspaper about how you were killed in your cell. I’m sure the next assassination target will be much more understanding than you.” I checked my internal feed. My emotion mimicry module—an entirely irrational module, really—was buzzing with activity and appeared to be influencing my remarks. “Allow me to be straightforward. I do not care what happens to you,” I declared. “In fact, I find you extremely toxic. According to my risk-evaluation module, I would have a higher chance of success if I left you behind and started looking for the next target instead. Do you know why I’m opting not to do so?” I ran a self-diagnosis on my emotion mimicry module. Put simply, there seemed to be a shift toward “frustration.” I could have ignored this emotional designation or even severed it since I am not a defective human, but I chose not to. “There is only one reason why I am not abandoning you. You may mean nothing to me, but you mean something to Master Chuuya.” “I—I do?” “Yes.” Shirase showed signs of fear due to my sudden change of attitude. “Why would Chuuya wanna protect me?” Master Chuuya had ordered me not to divulge this information, but I felt the urge to tell Shirase. I decided to obey my artificial feelings once more. Perhaps this was what the doctor meant by Follow your heart. “It is very simple, really. The only reason Master Chuuya joined the Mafia was to protect you all—to protect the Sheep.” Shirase’s expression conveyed confusion. It appeared as if he could not process the information, so I decided to explain. One year ago, the Sheep betrayed their leader, Master Chuuya, and joined forces with a band of mercenaries known as the GSS (Gelhart Security Service). This pact between the two groups had the Port Mafia, their enemy organization, on edge. Therefore, the Mafia sent their extermination unit to deal with them before they became too powerful. The leader of the group was a young man named Dazai. Under normal circumstances, the extermination unit would have left no survivors, and the Sheep would have been slaughtered. However, Master Chuuya made a plea for the Sheep’s safety, and Dazai only agreed to accept it if Master Chuuya was willing to join the Port Mafia. Master Chuuya agreed to the deal. As a result, the Sheep were simply disbanded, and no one was killed. They were then relocated throughout Japan to prevent anyone from rebuilding the group. The Sheep—Shirase included—owed their lives to Master Chuuya. That deal was still ongoing. Master Chuuya would never be able to leave the Mafia, or his friends in the Sheep would be killed. The entire reason the Mafia left Shirase within Yokohama was so Master Chuuya would know who would be the first to die if he ever betrayed them. “To put it simply, you are all being held hostage,” I calmly told him. “Conversely, one might say that Master Chuuya would have one less reason to stay in the Mafia if you were to die. That is why we believe Verlaine is after you.” Shirase quietly stared hard at me while he listened. He wasn’t even breathing. Perhaps this was the first he had ever heard of all this. “Nobody told me anything about that… So—so selling us out wasn’t what got Chuuya into the Mafia?” “Far from it. He had to join the Mafia for your safety.” I allowed my gaze to wander. “Master Chuuya accepted this deal right after he was stabbed in the back, and of course, you remember who was holding that knife, yes?” Shirase’s expression froze as if time itself had stopped. “I cannot begin to comprehend the spectrum of human emotion, even a little,” I honestly added. “I can only offer generalizations. Master Chuuya is the kind of person who will never abandon those who have helped him, even if they end up betraying him. That is simply who he is. It would seem that was why he became the Sheep King. You, however, lack what he has. That is why you will never be King.” Shirase clenched his teeth and growled, “What’d you just say? I… Damn it! Talkin’ shit like you know me! Yeah, I’m pathetic. Wanna rub it in some more?” His words were not meant for me. Eventually, his voice lost all vigor until those words lifelessly bounced off the floor. His emotions were wandering in circles with nowhere to go. I, on the other hand, felt very relieved. It was refreshing. Being able to complain to someone without any retort was an extremely wonderful thing. With my calm and composed mind, I faced Shirase once more. “Do you understand why your life is in danger now? This is not a joke or an exaggeration. You will be killed if you stay here. The man after your life is the greatest assassin in the entire world. You won’t last another hour helplessly locked away in this cell.” I scanned Shirase’s heart rate and breathing as I spoke. It appeared his emotional levels were fluctuating. A positive trend. “Now, I must be going. You are free to do as you wish, but allow me to make another generalization before I go. I do not know what the conditions are to becoming the Sheep King in the future, but I do know the type of person unfit to become a king: the kind of man who did not rely on others and was killed in his cell today.” After saying that, I began to walk away at a relatively quick pace without looking back. However, my sonar scanner picked up on what was happening behind me. A few seconds went by until I heard footsteps wearily trudging out of the cell. I smiled. Mission accomplished. The interrogation room was quiet save for the sound of paper being folded. A pair of hands folded a document in half, and a finger slid down the crease to flatten it. Then after pinching the document and making all the proper creases, the hands reopened it. Finally, the corners of the document were folded along the newly made creases. The one creasing the document was the woolly haired detective, and the document he was folding was a plea bargain. Chuuya watched in silence. The detective clumsily folded the paper until he had completed his paper airplane, which he then threw toward the metal garbage can in one corner of the room. The paper airplane softly floated through the air before crash-landing nowhere near the target. “Wow, you suck,” Chuuya jeered. “I usually get it, though,” said the detective while scratching his head. He stood up. “Chuuya, let’s go for a walk outside. Come with me.” He started leaving without even looking back. Chuuya silently watched him for a few seconds, then eventually stood up after reaching a decision and followed. The interrogation room neighbored the criminal investigation division, and it was as lively as a morning market. Numerous people greeted the detective as he passed through with Chuuya behind him. “Hey, Mura! Thanks for the advice earlier. We managed to nab that man who assaulted his wife,” a middle-aged cop said brightly as he walked by. “Glad to hear it. I told you, right? Guys who care that much about their reputation fall to pieces if you go after them at their workplace.” “Detective Murase, congratulations on solving that violent murder. That was really impressive.” A young detective in a new suit complimented Murase in passing. “I just got lucky. But hey, hopefully the victim can finally rest in peace.” After walking a little farther, a detective with thinning hair called out, “’Ey, Mura, let’s go out drinking sometime! My treat!” “Sure, but you better not drink too much. You’re gonna get put on desk duty if you’re late again.” Several people from various departments offered the detective known as Murase friendly banter. Chuuya almost walked right into Detective Murase’s back multiple times because of it. Chuuya managed to make it to the detective’s side when there was a brief break from the greetings, then coldly noted, “Well, aren’t you the popular one.” The detective shrugged. “Because unlike you, I work for peanuts, so I at least need to make sure I’m popular, or it wouldn’t be worth it. Know what I’m saying?” “Yeah, yeah,” Chuuya replied. His eyes faintly creased into a smile. They walked side by side for a while, and Chuuya mulled over the things he wanted to say. It wasn’t long before he eventually faced the detective with a serious expression, his mind seemingly made up. “Detective, listen. I don’t wanna get in the way of your work, so I’m gonna be straight with you: Leave me alone.” He wasn’t pushing the detective away. If anything, Chuuya was being frank as he would to a friend. “The Port Mafia ain’t like the Sheep. Even if you file charges against me, the Mafia’s lawyer’ll save my ass in the blink of an eye. I’d be found not guilty. That’s when you’ll notice the evidence has disappeared from storage, and the witnesses won’t be talkin’ anymore, either. That’s the kind of organization you’re dealing with. What you’re doing is a waste of time and effort, to be blunt.” “Yeah, you’re probably right,” the detective breezily admitted, seemingly unbothered. “But I have my reasons.” “Your ‘reasons’?” After a brief sigh, the detective slipped his hand under his shirt collar and pulled out a thin silver chain. On the end of it was an empty brass shell casing with a hole in the center for the silver chain to run through. “I used this on the job a long time ago.” The detective stared fondly at the necklace. “I was having money troubles when I was younger, so my brother got me a job as a security guard. I worked at this little military facility. I applied for the gig ’cause I thought I’d get paid for just standing around. I thought it was gonna be easy, but I was wrong. Dead wrong. It was a military facility near the Settlement. The boss told me not to let anyone near the place. But it was the end of the war, and there were supply shortages everywhere you went. Some kids from the Settlement appeared out of nowhere and tried to sneak inside to steal some food.” The detective paused. He was frowning slightly, making him look like a boulder that had been weathering away in the desert for thousands of years. “‘Shoot to kill,’ the boss said,” the detective continued, his voice strained and hoarse. “Most kids’ll just run away when you threaten ’em, but these kids who were following orders from some underground syndicate… They wouldn’t. Because they’d be killed either way if they returned empty-handed. So I…” The detective paused again, and his unspoken words simply wandered through the air and vanished. The empty shell casing glinted coldly in his hand. Chuuya remained silent for a few moments, at a loss for what to say based on his expression. “You were just doing your job,” he eventually replied. “Yeah. But the memory still haunts me to this day, no matter how many years go by. The one kid was around your age.” The detective pinched the shell casing between his fingers in disgust, but the metal cartridge wouldn’t bend no matter how hard he squeezed. “Chuuya, I’m not trying to put you away because it’s the right thing to do or something,” assured the detective in a cold, pained tone. “These criminal organizations spit kids out like disposable pawns, and the same thing is gonna happen to you eventually. That’s why I want you to return to the world of the light before that happens. Me—and the law—can help you do that.” Chuuya met the man’s serious gaze. “So that’s why you keep coming after me…,” he said quietly. The detective looked back at him without saying a word. And then there was silence. A few seconds went by until Chuuya finally broke the silence. “I see.” A self-deprecating smirk played on his lips. “But, detective…” Chuuya’s eyes had clouded over, shrouded in darkness. “…you should probably save your sympathy for a fellow human.” All of a sudden, an alarm began blaring through the station. “This is the security department. I repeat, this is the security department. An intruder has been spotted in the station. Number of casualties unknown. All unarmed personnel, evacuate immediately. All contracted security must be armed and in their designated positions—” Chuuya clenched his fist and growled, “…He’s here.” Rescuing Shirase from his cell was a success, although now I had to escape without catching anyone’s attention. But right when I was about to place a hand on the door to the exit, Shirase suddenly spoke up behind me. “Hold up.” It appeared he was talking to me. I turned around. “Yes?” He was wearing a puzzled expression. “What happened…to your left leg?” When I lowered my gaze, I noticed that my left leg was missing from the knee down. An alarm went off in my head. I lost my balance and staggered but managed to place a hand on the wall to catch myself. “It must be hard being a robotic investigator.” The voice echoed from the depths of the corridor, and I immediately faced its direction. “I’m guessing they don’t give you paid sick leave even if your leg gets blown right off. They don’t even give you workers’ comp, either, huh? I feel for you.” A man walked this way, juggling my left calf like a baton and chuckling mirthfully. “Verlaine…!” The timing could not have been worse. He came too soon. We still hadn’t even prepared our trap. I promptly summoned my Type I Combat Protocol. My electrical nerves’ conduction rate increased, and my battle analysis program’s execution was raised to maximum priority. I was going to be destroyed if I did not fight. That was all there was to it. In order to make up for the loss of my leg, I began recalibrating my balance as quickly as possible when, without warning, Verlaine threw my torn-off leg in my direction at supersonic speed. I leaned my upper body to the side and managed to evade it; the tip of my foot ended up piercing the wall right behind me. “Chuuya’s not with you? Good grief. He’s even late to important events like this.” Verlaine’s tone was casual and carefree, even. “I bet he would show up late to a first date, too. You know, as his brother, I worry about him. Sigh…” I did not have the luxury of replying. If I lost, then that would be the end of Shirase’s life. His death would be instantaneous. In order to quickly calculate the appropriate protocol with the highest chance of survival, I could not waste time thinking about Verlaine’s statements. I leaped as far as I could on my one leg in order to get away from Shirase—even if only a little—and I rushed toward the exit. But in spite of my efforts, Verlaine caught up with me in the blink of an eye. He grabbed my shoulders, then continued to ram me into the wall. “Gwah…!” The wall cracked, and my inner skeletal framework creaked. Verlaine’s attacks did not end there. After I sensed distortion in the air near the center of my body, a gravitational force pushed me farther into the wall. It was like a finger sinking into sponge cake. The only difference was that I was the one sinking—and straight into a hard, concrete wall. “Don’t worry. I’m not interested in breaking you. Just stay put for a bit, will you?” I was almost completely buried in the wall. The thunderous sound of crumbling concrete reverberated throughout my body, sending overload warnings to my main processor. However, there was nothing I could do. I tried to get myself free, but Verlaine’s gravity manipulation set every piece of rubble back in its original position. I was being buried within the very place that I needed to escape from, until I found myself stuck like a house trapped in a landslide. Only my face and part of my arms stuck out of the wall. I tried bending myself like a spring to create the necessary amount of torque to break free but it was no use. My entire body was covered in rubble. “Now, Shirase…” After burying me alive, Verlaine turned around and faced Shirase instead, as if he no longer had any interest in me. “Wh-what the…?” Shirase’s voice trembled with fear. “I came here to see you, but it was so easy that I actually got here a little too early, so let’s talk for a moment before I finish my business.” “Wh-what the hell? What the hell are you?!” Shirase’s voice quavered like never before. It took everything he had to simply stand on his own two feet. “I-I’m not Shirase! You’ve got the wrong guy!” “Then why did you respond when I called you that name a few seconds ago?” Verlaine curiously tilted his head to the side. His long legs strode slowly, gracefully as he approached Shirase. I shouted a warning: “I will not allow you to get any closer to him!” Verlaine turned around in an amused manner. “Then stop me. That is, if you can.” His assumption was correct. I would stop him if I could. I calculated various situations: escaping, self-destructing, remote communication, et cetera. I searched every method available, but I ended up with zero results. There were no effective measures. There was no way out of this. I even considered calling Master Chuuya, but that would be the most foolish strategy of all. We had decided to ambush Verlaine because we knew that we wouldn’t be able to defeat him in a fight head-on. The worst thing that could happen right now would be losing Master Chuuya or me and being unable to follow with our plan to ambush Verlaine. He had two more targets remaining. There was still hope. “Come. Have a seat,” Verlaine demanded, but Shirase was too frightened to respond. He simply looked up at Verlaine and trembled. “Sit,” Verlaine repeated sharply. Right as he placed a hand on Shirase’s shoulder, Shirase stumbled, and his knees gave out from under him. The ground beneath Verlaine’s feet simultaneously cracked from the intense gravity, then heaved and bulged like a tumor. Shirase’s rear dropped right on top of the protrusion. He was too astonished and afraid to even yell out. “Shirase, I did a little research on you. As a matter of courtesy as an assassin, of course.” Verlaine’s demeanor became very civil. “And out of everyone in this city, you have known Chuuya the longest. Which is why I want to ask you this: What was Chuuya like as a child?” Verlaine effortlessly pulled off the door to a cell as casually as one would pull off an old scab. He then bent the door in half and placed it on the ground, taking a seat on it and elegantly crossing his legs. He smiled at Shirase. Verlaine’s skill was an aberration. It was highly doubtful any skill user in this city could do anything about him, especially after how easily he handled the Order of the Clock Tower’s knights. I typed an internal note and sent it to Master Chuuya’s cell phone as a text message. I explained the situation and strongly warned him that there was only one thing he could do: stay away from here. I told him he needed to retreat, calculate his next objective, and get the Mafia’s help to lay out the trap, even if that meant Shirase and I would meet our demise. Shirase was shaking. Perhaps he reached the same understanding as I did. He managed to open his quivering mouth and replied: “I—I…” His breathing was shallow, and his voice sounded fragile enough to break at any moment. It would be no surprise if he vomited right then and there. But if he didn’t keep talking, he would be deemed worthless and killed on the spot. Shirase had no choice but to answer the question if he wanted to live even a second longer. It was difficult to watch. “I think we first met…under a bridge…where me and the Sheep used to hide and drink booze,” he began while glancing at me for help. His eyes were asking me if I could find a way out of this while he bought me some time. But it was hopeless. Help was not coming. I knew buying time would not change a thing. “He—Chuuya—was wearing a military uniform I think he stole from somewhere. He was a huge mess. His face and hair were filthy. He wasn’t wearing shoes, either,” Shirase continued, voice quavering. “We—the Sheep’s original members—thought he was some orphan living on the streets. He spoke to us first. ‘What’s that square thing?’ is what he said.” Shirase looked down at the ground as if he was desperately trying to remember every detail that happened that day. “I had no idea what he was talking about… I thought he was just weird. That’s when he said, ‘Tell me what that square thing is in your hand. Right now.’” Shirase lifted his gaze and idly stared into the distance. “I was holding a slice of bread.” A deep silence reigned over the corridor, eerily so, especially after the destruction that preceded it. Verlaine quietly listened to the story. “When I told him it was bread, he asked, ‘Can you eat it?’ Then when I went ‘Yeah’ and tore off a piece and ate it to show him, he did the last thing I was expecting him to do. He fainted, like he was out of batteries. It wasn’t until I went over to check up on him that I noticed how skinny he was. He looked half dead. The others were weirded out and didn’t want anything to do with him, but I gave him bread and some water. After convincing the group, I took him with me to the Sheep hideout in the sewers.” I opened my external memory database. According to my records, the Sheep were originally a mutual-aid organization that protected orphans from adults. Their infrastructure was much smaller at the time of Shirase’s story compared to their eventual peak, and they were more like a shelter for children who wanted to protect themselves from violence or kidnappers, threats of child labor, et cetera. “We were a pretty small group back then, us Sheep. But we eventually were able to welcome Chuuya in. We couldn’t just turn our backs on a starving kid.” Shirase looked up once more, but there was a change. He was still scared, still trembling. However, there was a cold fire burning in his eyes that was not there before—the flames of a freezing rage, of an herbivore as it howled at its enemy before being eaten alive. “You’re Chuuya’s brother, right?” asked Shirase in what was practically a scream. “So why do you want to kill me? We were the only ones back then who saved kids like him from starving to death! And this is the thanks I get?!” Verlaine quietly stared at him without giving an answer. “Yeah, I know. This is just how the world works. Life’s not fair. It’s irrational, and I’m gonna die because I helped someone.” Shirase kept ranting. “Whatever. Just get it over with before I piss myself and make my corpse smell worse than it already will.” After briefly closing his eyes, Verlaine slowly opened them and got out of his seat. He walked over to Shirase. My situation assessment program calculated 168 different outcomes, and each one of them ended with Shirase’s death within the next ten seconds. It was inevitable. The least I could do was see him off until the very end. Verlaine placed a hand around Shirase’s neck, and Shirase stopped breathing. That was when my real-time scanner picked up a change in the distance. The 169th outcome. An unthinkable possibility. “Unbelievable,” I instinctively muttered. Master Chuuya’s kick knocked Verlaine straight back. Verlaine’s tall body immediately crashed into the wall before ricocheting and hitting the opposite wall, destroying it in the process. He continued ricocheting off the walls like billiard balls until he slammed into the end of the corridor and stopped. Then he slowly fell forward as if he were being peeled off the wall until he collapsed to the ground, his palms out. Master Chuuya immediately stood in front of Shirase as if to protect him and glared at Verlaine. “Chuuya…!” Shirase shouted incredulously. “Damn it, Shirase. How many times is this now?” Master Chuuya spat bitterly. “Every time you cause a problem, I gotta come clean up your mess. I’m not your damn babysitter, y’know!” “Chuuya, why’d you come here to save me?” “‘Save you’? I ain’t here to save ya. I came here to kick that guy’s ass.” I ran a diagnostic status test as I shouted, “Master Chuuya! Coming here was a mistake! You must escape! You cannot defeat him if you fight him head-on like this!” “Oh, hey, tin man. You really look like you’re right at home in that wall over there. Anyway, just shut up and watch.” Master Chuuya smirked before facing Verlaine once more. After managing to stand back up, Verlaine bent over and picked up his hat off the floor. “You’re late, my dear brother,” he commented while wiping the dust off his hat. “Ha-ha. I’m usually not the kinda guy who gets mad when someone means well, but hearing you call me brother makes me sick.” “Means well”? I quietly wondered what he meant by that. “You can feel as sick as you’d like. You have that right.” Verlaine began to leisurely approach Master Chuuya. “But I can’t say I’m a fan of your lack of strategy. What you did was foolish. Did you already forget how easily I made a fool of you just the other day?” “Yep.” Master Chuuya casually strolled toward his opponent. “How ’bout you jog my memory?” It wasn’t long until they were face-to-face, within arm’s reach of each other. Master Chuuya looked up at Verlaine; Verlaine looked down at him. The silence lasted only a split second. Verlaine threw the first punch. His right hook sliced through the air with extraordinary speed as if it were drawn into Master Chuuya’s head, but Master Chuuya turned his face and dodged it. The next moment, he struck Verlaine’s chin. “Gwah!” Verlaine’s head jerked to the side. Not even my built-in high-speed camera was able to keep up with what had happened. Only after I ran a playback analysis did I understand: When Master Chuuya dodged Verlaine’s punch, he swung his lower body and hit Verlaine’s chin with a lightning-fast high kick. It was a perfect strike from his opponent’s blind spot that would have taken any ordinary human’s head clean off. But the storm did not end there. Master Chuuya twisted his upper body further and placed a hand on the ground, thrusting his other foot right into Verlaine’s throat and causing him to groan. Verlaine fell backward and reached out a gravity-manipulated hand in an attempt to seize Master Chuuya, who dodged by a hairbreadth before throwing another high kick. He followed with a spinning back kick. A lightning-fast four-hit combination against an opponent taller than him, this superhuman feat was essentially a work of art. Verlaine could not even moan in pain. “What’s wrong? I thought ya were supposed to be stronger than me!” Verlaine manipulated gravity to prevent himself from falling and tried to grab Master Chuuya without even looking in his direction. His hand possessed a fatal amount of gravity, but Master Chuuya calmly dodged. The few strands of his hair Verlaine’s fingers did grab, however, were ripped into shreds by the pressure. Master Chuuya swiftly kneed his opponent’s arm away and followed with a backfist to the eye that snapped Verlaine’s head back. He then kicked the inside of Verlaine’s knees to bend his legs before slipping behind him and dropping a thunderous elbow on his skull, a human weak point. A roar echoed down the corridor. Verlaine moaned in agony and tried to grab Master Chuuya above him, but Master Chuuya was already gone. He had kicked off the ground to create some distance between them—too quickly for Verlaine to keep up. “Tsk…!” It was an unbelievable sight. The king of assassins, Verlaine, was being toyed with. Not one person back at European HQ could have predicted this. However, I was able to uncover how this was happening upon analyzing prior battle data. Master Chuuya had originally been using his gravity skill mainly as a method of attack, which was why he fell short against someone with the same skill but at a level higher than his. This time, however, he had changed his approach. He was sticking primarily to rapid-fire martial arts techniques. As a result, the fight had become purely a battle of hand-to-hand combat. Master Chuuya picked up a piece of rubble as he attacked and threw it at Verlaine, who swiftly reacted with a backfist that shattered the projectile into many pieces. Master Chuuya capitalized on this brief moment of poor visibility and approached his opponent before immediately throwing another kick—a powerful spinning back kick akin to a battering ram. Verlaine reflexively held up his arms to block but was sent flying backward. Only when he collided with the wall behind him did he finally stop. Shards of debris languidly floated in the air. Verlaine ever so slowly lowered his arms, then wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth. His lip must have gotten cut during the barrage of kicks earlier. He quietly observed the blood on his fingers with great interest. “It’s been a while,” Verlaine rasped. “Haven’t seen my own blood in ages.” “Congratulations. And don’t worry. There’s plenty more where that came from.” “You’re a world-class shit talker at least,” Verlaine said with a smirk. “Too bad that’s all you’re good at.” As he gently touched the wall behind him, his fingers dug into the concrete like a spoon in jelly. Master Chuuya’s expression transformed. “But while you may be able to take me by surprise with your speed, you will never be able to defeat me.” Verlaine then expelled the rubble in his hands like bullets. With his gravity-backed fists, Master Chuuya deflected the concrete projectiles, but the onslaught did not end there. Countless fragments of concrete immediately followed one after another like the volley of a submachine gun. Verlaine had his hand on the wall and was shooting pieces of it by laterally manipulating gravity. Master Chuuya continued knocking each comet-like fragment down, but there were too many of them. They were too quick, and there was seemingly an endless supply. He was stuck on the defensive. “Damn it!” Master Chuuya leaped to the side and dodged the incoming barrage of debris, but what followed him was not another concrete projectile. It was Verlaine with a lunging lariat. The bulk of his long arm hit Master Chuuya right in the chest, sending his feet straight up. The meteorite-like impact ran through the corridor as Master Chuuya’s body swiftly broke through the wall. It was an unbelievable amount of force. Outside the corridor wall was the underground car park for police vehicles, and Master Chuuya’s body slammed straight into one of them. The car bent in half and flew backward, finally coming to a stop after ramming into a few more vehicles. Master Chuuya collapsed forward onto the ground, and then there was silence. Utter silence. The only sounds that followed were crumbling debris, the station’s alarm—which could be faintly heard in the distance—and the bent police car’s anti-theft alarm. The clamor muffled Master Chuuya’s groans. “Ngh… Gah…” A single forearm strike had shifted the tides of battle. The power Verlaine was able to generate using his skill was staggering. Neither speed nor technique could compete with his simple gravity skill that he used to strengthen his body. His might was extraordinary. Verlaine walked through the newly created hole in the wall and got closer to Master Chuuya. “Wake up, Chuuya. I know you’re not dead.” He approached Master Chuuya and casually added, “Because I went easy on you.” Verlaine then grabbed him by the neck and picked him up. “Let…me…go…” “Make me.” The air surrounding Verlaine’s hand around Master Chuuya’s neck began to waver. I detected a change of index of refraction in the air due to thermal radiation. Master Chuuya was in trouble. “Master Chuuya! Run!” I increased the output of every joint actuator in my body. My joints proceeded to vibrate while I probed the resonant frequency of the debris encasing me. Objects of all kinds experience increased vibration at a particular resonant frequency. If I matched that frequency using my internal motor, I could gradually break down the rubble. However, there was not much time left. Gravitational waves were spreading from where Verlaine was gripping Master Chuuya’s neck. Heat began spewing from the invisible gates of hell. “Control yourself. Control your powers,” Verlaine demanded coldly. Master Chuuya let out a scream—and as he did, black flames began spewing from his mouth. The worst-case scenario was now reality. If Arahabaki created a black hole as it had the other day, then the entire police station would be compressed into the size of the tip of my finger before vanishing. Shirase and I were no exception. “What’s wrong, Chuuya? Everyone’s going to die at this rate. You’re going to kill them. Your shortcomings are going to kill them. Nothing will remain. Want to give this a try?” All of a sudden, there was the hollow echo of gunfire. Two bullets had lodged themselves into Verlaine’s arm. “Chuuya! Are you okay?!” someone shouted from the back of the car park. The instant Verlaine’s grip loosened, Master Chuuya kicked off his chest and broke free. He then rolled off the ground and desperately tried to catch his breath. Someone ran over to his side—the detective who had been with us in the interrogation room earlier. I believe his name was Murase. The pistol in his hand was still smoking. Master Chuuya broke into a coughing fit and shot him a harsh glare. “Detective… What are you doing?! Get outta here!” Verlaine curiously stared at his bullet-ridden arm, then looked toward the detective. “You’re finally here,” Verlaine told him. It was an odd thing to say. Verlaine faced Master Chuuya once more. Both the high-energy rays and skill phase had ceased. Master Chuuya immediately got back on guard. “Chuuya, I know you don’t need to hear this, but you have to be strong if you ever want to get anything in this world. You’ll lose if you keep fighting, and this entire building will be engulfed in Arahabaki’s flames, killing hundreds of people.” That was neither a threat nor a taunt. Verlaine’s tone of voice was perfectly level and unemotional. He was simply stating what was about to occur. “I’m not gonna let that happen,” Master Chuuya growled. “True, that won’t happen,” said Verlaine, much to my surprise. “Do you know why?” But before Master Chuuya could answer, Verlaine leaped into the air. He had erased his own gravity before landing upside down on the underground car park’s ceiling. He then hopped down and appeared behind Master Chuuya. “Because my job for the day is over now.” Verlaine’s hand was wrapped around the detective’s neck. “Don’t…!” Master Chuuya shouted at the top of his lungs. The detective’s mouth was open and moving as if he were trying to tell him something, but the words would never leave his throat. His mouth twisted to one side until there was a dull crack, and then his head was facing backward. The momentum from the detective’s twisted neck spun his body around, and he collapsed. “Shit!” Master Chuuya ran over and lifted the detective’s body, but the look on his face said everything. I ran a long-distance scan and detected no heartbeat. The detective had died instantly. “Verlaaaaaaine!” Master Chuuya leaped forward with a shout and pounded his raised right fist into Verlaine. A black beam of light exploded between Verlaine’s hands, spreading gravitons through the air in gravitational waves and distorting the surroundings into spheres. The expanded gravitational shock waves blasted the nearby vehicles backward as if they were made out of paper. Verlaine rode the shock wave until he landed at the underground car park’s exit. “That’s the best punch you’ve thrown so far,” he said with a smirk before leaping backward out the exit and vanishing into the outside world. “Wait!” Master Chuuya ran out the exit to chase after him. He was in danger. I could not allow him to fight the enemy alone. I adjusted my intrinsic vibrations while gradually breaking the concrete in order to free myself. It took another 144 seconds until I was finally able to escape from the wall. I hopped on one foot over to the detective as quickly as I could. His face was twisted as he lay on the ground with blood trickling out of his mouth. After a brief scan, it appeared that his vertebrae were broken from C2 to C6. His heart had stopped. A pupillary reflex test showed no response to light. I could have called for an ambulance with my internal transmitter, but it was already evident that the man was beyond saving. Human life is held together by a very delicate string. Unlike machines such as myself, they do not run on parts. Their kinetic systems built upon the brain and the heart lack any backups, and once either of those organs stop, it is nigh impossible to reactivate them, nor can they be replaced. In other words, humans die very easily. When I moved the detective over to scan his back, I noticed something familiar on the ground: a cross carved from white birch. Verlaine must have left it. When I began scanning it, Master Chuuya returned. “Where is Verlaine?” I asked. “Disappeared. Into the sky,” he grumbled, pointing up. Verlaine must have used gravity to launch himself into the air and escape. “You could say the same for this man,” I said with the detective’s body in my arms. “I mean that poetically, of course.” I closed the detective’s eyelids. He looked at peace. “Damn it!” shouted Master Chuuya as he hit the detective’s chest with his fist. “What happened to arresting me, detective?! I thought you were gonna show me the light…!” When he hit the detective’s chest once more, one of the man’s possessions dropped out of his coat pocket and onto the ground. It was a slightly outdated cell phone model that was blue and folded in half. I had seen it once before. It was the same blue phone that Verlaine had the smuggler get for him. I picked it up and showed Master Chuuya. The moment he realized what it was, he let out a soundless scream between clenched teeth. The assassin Verlaine’s first target was not Shirase. But…why the detective? Why did the detective have to die?
Chapter 107
48 min read