Nader and the casino breaker both looked toward the noise at the same time.
Something was standing there in the darkness.
It was probably human, but the distance and apparently black clothing made the shape blend into the shadows, so he couldn’t tell for sure.
In the next moment—the figure dropped into a low crouch, then ran at him.
“!” The woman’s breath hitched at the shadow’s speed.
It moved more like an enormous cannonball than a black beast.
Cutting diagonally across the alley to avoid the casino breaker, the woman in black launched herself off the wall like a ricocheting bullet, closing in on Nader.
That was when he realized something.
Something he might have been better off not knowing.
Even in the dark, he recognized those superhuman movements. That killing machine.
“Cha…”
The motions of the woman who’d discarded her humanity for Huey Laforet.
“Chané…”
He couldn’t even scream. All he could do was murmur her name in a daze.
The unwavering gleam of her blade bore down on his neck.
I’m gonna die? Me? Here?
Why is Chané—? No, that’s not it.
Where did things go wrong? Oh, no, no, no, no—
Sonia.
✦ ✦ ✦
A storm of fears and questions churned in his heart, but at the end, Nader remembered the name he’d heard just a moment ago, the name of his childhood friend—
—and finally, his body moved.
He couldn’t escape, and he couldn’t dodge. He only tried to knock the knife away with his hand.
The woman in the black dress couldn’t have cared less; she tried to cut right through it.
But when the knife connected with Nader’s hand, there was a sharp metallic ring.
His prosthetic had blocked the knife.
“……”
Chané didn’t get flustered.
She didn’t need to force her knife through that hand.
She could cut through his arm below the prosthetic, or simply avoid his hand and slash his throat. With skill like hers, a false hand wasn’t much of an obstacle.
“E-eeeep!”
As Nader scrambled away, Chané stoically closed the distance between them, showing no emotion whatsoever.
✦ ✦ ✦
✦ ✦ ✦
The difference in speed was glaringly obvious, and in the space of a breath, she’d nearly overtaken Nader.
✦ ✦ ✦
For a moment, though, her movements lost their edge.
✦ ✦ ✦
She’d seen a strange object come flying out of the depths of the alley. It was shaped like an egg, and there was a small clock attached to it.
“Get back, Chané!”
The voice rang in Chané’s ears, and one of the birds from the surrounding flock plunged into a steep dive.
“…?!”
Wordlessly, Chané took a great leap backward, and the bird snatched the egg-shaped thing out of the air and soared upward with it.
A few seconds later—
✦ ✦ ✦
—the object exploded, taking the bird with it, and a bright flash and the noise of the blast reverberated in the dark street.
“……!” Chané gulped.
“What the hell?! Hey, what was that thing?!” Nader screamed, clapping his hands over his ringing ears. He had no idea what was going on, either.
The casino breaker had already taken to her heels, fleeing the scene.
Without giving them time to get a handle on the situation, a second object was tossed into the alley, and then a third.
However, these weren’t bombs. When they burst, they released enormous billows of smoke.
“Smoke bombs… I’d recognize those anywhere.” Leeza’s resentful voice echoed in the alley. “What’s the big idea, Rail?!”
But nobody answered her scream. Instead, yet another smoke bomb went off, obscuring a wide stretch of the dark street. Then the only ones left in the alley were several furious birds and Chané, who was still expressionless and on high alert in the cloud of smoke.
“Are you okay, Chané?” Leeza had reverted to speaking like herself, although she was still using that alluring voice.
Chané didn’t answer.
“……”
Leeza couldn’t sense the slightest confusion or frustration from Chané at having let her prey escape. That was scarier than anything else, and all her bodies shuddered at once.
✦ ✦ ✦
What’s this?
Who’s pulling me by the hand?
Nader kept on running through the smoke.
Who was holding his false hand? He couldn’t sense much strength behind the grip. It really felt as if a fairy or something were tugging him along as he wandered through the smoke’s white darkness.
When his hearing finally returned, Nader’s ears picked up the voice of a young child.
“Mister, can you hear me now?”
When he strained his eyes, he made out the child’s figure in the smoke.
Then, a little ways away, he heard another young voice. “That was utterly reckless!”
The juxtaposition of the boy’s childish timbre and grown-up words made an odd impression.
“Ah-ha-ha! Keep your shirt on, Czes. Can’t believe Leeza was actually birds. Priceless,” said the first child, whose exposed arms and neck were covered in suture scars. “Seriously,” the child called to someone else now, “how did you know about that, um…Mr. Shaft?”
This time, a young man spoke a little ways ahead of them. “Well, you know. One thing led to another.”
Nader recognized that voice and the name. “?! Hey… You’re Ladd’s sworn brother…”
“Well, technically, I’m Mr. Graham’s sworn brother, but yeah.” In the depths of the smoke, the man sighed. Then he went on, sounding apologetic. “Sorry about all this trouble we’re causing for you.”
“?! ?! ?!”
Nader didn’t know who any of these people really were—Shaft or the kids leading him by the hand. Yet again, he silently screamed the question that had occurred to him many times since he got out of jail.
✦ ✦ ✦
What the hell have I gotten dragged into?!
✦ ✦ ✦
“……”
In a room in the Ra’s Lance hotel, Melvi was gazing out the window at the scenery.
Looking at the increasingly dense smoke that hung around the streetlamps, he frowned very slightly. “Nothing that happened today should have sparked such a dramatic fight…”
He didn’t know yet.
The grand plot he’d designed was no more than a small piece of the magnificent crazy ruckus that had begun just a moment ago.
Fifteen minutes later
“Well, that’s one hell of an accident.”
“The driver blacked out, but he doesn’t seem to be injured all that badly.”
“What was he transporting at this hour anyway?”
Next to the alley where the explosion had occurred, a few police officers were sighing and inspecting the scene of a car crash. Startled by the smoke screen that had suddenly billowed up, the driver had yanked the steering wheel all the way to the side and rolled his truck.
“What’s with all the smoke?”
A faint haze still hung in the air. Waving it away with a hand, the officer looked at the bed of the truck, then realized that its canvas cover had been shredded. His eyebrows drew together.
“…? This didn’t happen in the accident.”
“It sort of looks like something busted through it.”
Just then, the policemen noticed something.
A wild, animalistic scent mingled with the smell of the smoke.
Breaking out in a light sweat, one of the officers muttered, “Christ… What was he carrying?”
✦ ✦ ✦
As he shambled through the night, he quietly raised his head.
The sudden impact had startled him, and he’d burst out of the truck without thinking. Now he was searching for his friends, one slow step at a time.
Even though a truck had just tipped over, the darkness and smoke screen had camouflaged him well, and almost no one had seen him. Would that prove lucky for him and the town, or unlucky?
Without even attempting to guess what lay in store, he thought of his friends and gave one brief roar.
✦ ✦ ✦
The friend Claire called Cookie and Cazze called Charlie.
The enormous grizzly, who was easily over nine feet in length, sent a lonesome roar echoing through the city streets.
✦ ✦ ✦
Destiny’s gambling den had Ra’s Lance at its heart and the whole town as its stage.
Like a loud signal that registration for this grand bet was now closed—
—the huge beast’s roar spread through the darkness, far and deep.