Somewhere in New YorkA guest room at the Runorata Family’s villa
“…In Central Park?” Melvi Dormentaire frowned.
Huey Laforet nodded, smiling faintly. “That’s right. If this goes on, I imagine it’s going to cause an uproar. Many people saw an enormous bear running through town. Since it ran into the park, the Division of Investigation is apparently getting the police to cordon it off. Even so, I doubt they’ll be able to deter the would-be spectators.”
“Damn that Salomé… Why would he do something that would draw so much attention?”
“In his own way, he probably wanted to prove the results of his research. A method of manipulating bears using sound would be rather useful… He must have planned on putting the Runorata Family in his debt,” Huey said indifferently. He was still wearing that smile.
Meanwhile, Melvi’s expression had turned sour. “Are you insinuating I’m not capable of controlling the Runoratas from the inside, Huey?”
“No, not at all. I don’t think you’re incapable, and controlling the Runoratas was never my intention in the first place. I only meant that someone else may be thinking it. I would imagine there are many Runorata Family members who find both of us a nuisance.”
“I really don’t want the remaining two days of the casino party to be canceled over this.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that. The incident in Central Park is superficially unrelated to Ra’s Lance. Even if all the people causing it have ties to the casino.”
“You may be all right with that, but—”
“Does the House of Dormentaire have a different intention?”
Huey’s words seemed like a test, and Melvi’s eyes narrowed slightly.
Don’t look down on me, you bastard. You won’t be able sneer like that much longer.
Melvi had been sent by the Dormentaires to work for Huey Laforet, but personally speaking, he had no respect for the immortal.
Do you understand at all?
You may be an old immortal, but all you’ve done is accumulate more knowledge than I have.
Really, if I put my right hand on your head right now—
✦ ✦ ✦
For a moment, Melvi’s perception of time stopped. It wasn’t only his mind that had frozen; his heart might have stopped briefly as well.
He’d realized there was something on his forehead.
The moment he recognized the sensation as Huey Laforet’s right hand, he broke out in a full-body sweat, although he couldn’t move a muscle.
That’s ridiculous. Ridiculous, ridiculous, ridiculous.
When on earth did he…? When did he—?!
“Ever since I was a boy, I’ve had a particular talent for this sort of thing. Something as simple as putting my right hand on a man in front of me takes less time than it does to blink.”
“Ah…kh…”
Melvi couldn’t even breathe properly, let alone speak. All that left his mouth was a low groan.
“You’ve left yourself completely vulnerable, Melvi. Firo Prochainezo is willing to kill you if he must. If this is all you’re capable of, he’ll eat you, and that will be the end of it. If I were you, I’d avoid being in the same room with him. Actually, I wouldn’t even enter the same building.”
“……” Melvi was silent.
Removing his hand from his forehead, Huey slowly got to his feet.
A flash of intense emotion nearly caused Melvi to lunge at Huey, right hand first—but all his nerves rejected the orders his brain was sending.
A moment later, his mind got the message as well.
He’s left no openings.
Melvi did have an explosive temper, but he wasn’t foolish enough to let it destroy him on a whim. He couldn’t have become Time’s leader otherwise.
The experience he’d accumulated over the course of his relatively long life seemed to be screaming at him that now was not the time to act.
“…Don’t worry. I won’t get careless with Firo Prochainezo.”
“I suspect there are many people besides Firo that you should be wary of. Several of them are currently causing a disturbance in Central Park.”
“It’s all right. I’ll handle them somehow, too. Personally.”
“You don’t have to be so eager, you know. Whether you succeed or fail at the casino party, the very existence of the event means my objective will be achieved.”
Shrugging, Huey left the guest room.
“As far as I’m concerned, both your animosity toward Firo Prochainezo and this uproar in Central Park are mere distractions. Meanwhile, they are your greatest objectives. I won’t interfere with the results, so…”
Huey was still smiling faintly. As he pulled the door closed behind him, he gave the petrified Melvi one last bit of encouragement.
✦ ✦ ✦
“By all means, enjoy the gamble as much as you can… Don’t leave yourself with regrets.”
Central Park
✦ ✦ ✦
“Ha-ha! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Hellooooo, Martian girl! It’s been forever!”
Ladd Russo was the first one to speak, of course.
That said, even if Chané had been able to use words freely, she had no intention of shooting the breeze with Ladd. Naturally, she wasn’t inclined to listen to him, either. The knives in her hands flashed through the air again and again.
“Man oh maaan, it really has been ages! Well, how’s it going, little girl? You finally grow up? Is your pwecious puppy love for that Huey Laforet bastard still—? Whoops!”
Still yelling enthusiastically, Ladd bent backward, and silver streaked through the air where his throat had been a moment earlier.
Ladd didn’t try to distance himself from the barrage of slashes. Instead, he flipped his torso back in the other direction, wedging himself into a gap between the blades.
“—!”
Before she could counter with another slash, Ladd slammed a punch into her.
A shock like a blow from a steel ball ran through Chané’s forehead, but she’d dodged just in time to avoid taking major damage.
“Ha-ha! I was gonna break your nose, but I missed!”
“……”
His brutal smile hadn’t changed a bit.
Chané considered Ladd her mortal enemy.
She understood she’d had the disadvantage on top of that train, and that he wasn’t a good match for her. She didn’t shrink from him, though.
Unlike in her earlier fight with Ladd, her footing wasn’t unstable here. That one difference had improved Chané’s movements dramatically.
Ladd was fighting under the same conditions, of course, but Chané had always been the type to capitalize on her speed and leap every whichway. Not only was she on stable ground now, but she had a lot more room to maneuver. This environment was much more favorable for her.
…At least that was what Chané thought, but she didn’t let herself get careless.
The stability also helped Ladd’s footwork, and being able to plant his feet let him punch harder. She couldn’t ignore either of those things.
Plotting the best trajectory for slitting Ladd’s throat, Chané ran her blade along the “track” she’d envisioned. Her blades didn’t move quite as fast as her thoughts, though; they missed Ladd’s arteries by a hair, and she only grazed his skin and drew a little blood.
Of course, she didn’t stop there.
She swept her knife through space by the shortest possible route, planning to jam her blade into his side as he bent backward, but…
“Whoa, that ain’t—safe!”
…his steel hand sent that knife flying.
Even then, Chané didn’t stop. She spun, slamming her second blade home in a follow-up attack.
Ladd caught it between the joints of his prosthetic hand.
The creak of those iron joints echoed between them, and their animus seemed to shimmer in the air around them.
“……”
“Ha-ha-ha-ha! Nice! This is great! Your moves are even sharper than before! That said, we always were pretty sharp mentally, you and me!”
Chané was pouring all the focus she’d gained by losing her speech into the fight. In contrast, Ladd flexed his strength while talking a blue streak, but she couldn’t sense any stagnation in that “strength”—that violence.
Even his taunts felt like nothing more than an outlet for his excess energy. He was grinning like a fool, but if there was such a thing as “purity” in bloodlust, Ladd Russo had to be giving off the purest stuff in New York City at the moment.
Shaft knew both of them well enough to read that much of the situation, but there was one thing he hadn’t picked up on.
The murderous aura around Ladd wasn’t lusting for Chané’s blood.
It was concentrated on Huey Laforet, Melvi Dormentaire, and Claire Stanfield. Men who weren’t even here.