“What…is that guy?”
Sickle had been wondering whether she should go back Chané up, but it didn’t seem like the sort of fight anybody could break into.
Her muscle-bound Larva teammate had rushed Ladd, intending to pin his arms, but Ladd had said, “Whoa there, don’t rain on my parade, fella” and sent him flying with one arm. Soaring, really, even though the man weighed well over two hundred pounds.
When she’d seen that, Sickle had turned her attention to Graham, who was still blocking their way. “No human’s got an arm like that! What the heck is that guy?! How do you have to grow up to get like that?!”
“I’m pretty sure my man Ladd grew up in a normal family. He said he was raised in the usual way, by ordinary parents, who steered clear of the mafia. But! Ladd didn’t let them tell him who to be! He became a true-blue killer, which means he’s no ordinary fella! Before they sent him to the big house, he used shotguns and knives and what have you, but now he doesn’t even need that. He’s gonna get rid of all the knives and guns on the planet! He’s a messenger of peace!” Graham’s eyes from behind his bangs widened in crazed admiration.
Meanwhile, as Ladd evaded Chané’s knives, he said from behind Graham, “That ain’t it, Kid Graham. If I’ve got a weapon, I’ll use it. I’m just not in the mood right now is all. When I use guns, that thud of the recoil and the spray of blood give you that feeling of ‘Oh yeah, I killed somebody.’ With knives, the shunk and the heat of the other guy’s blood make you think, Wow, damn, I really killed that guy. I like ’em both just fine.”
As he dodged a string of knife strikes with footwork on the level of a pro boxer, Ladd went on smoothly. It was as if his mouth and vocal cords belonged to some completely different creature.
“Lately, I’ve missed it like you would not believe—the feeling of crunching something with my fist or the raw krxxk of snapping necks. Goddamn, give me anything, a thud or shunk or grunch or krxxk—just give me something. Anything! Here’s the thing! My urge to kill just has to get through to the other fella. If I pull out a gun, everybody knows I’m trying to kill him right off the bat, see?! They say the only ones who should kill are the ones who are prepared to be killed, but hey, I’m prepared. Now, if I don’t give the other guy a chance to be prepared, it’s rude, get me?”
“Whoa! I think we might not be talking about the same thing anymore. Still, from what you said, did I get it wrong again?!”
“Nah, the part about not needing weapons to kill people was right on the money, so you were half right. I’d give it fifty points.”
Chané leaped in as Ladd spoke, and he tumbled forward, dodging by going right under her.
As Sickle watched him, the furrow between her eyebrows got even deeper. “How is he managing to dodge knives that fast with all that yelling?”
Next to her, a man who seemed to have spawned from thin air spoke with a knowing look. “It’s the other way around. He’s using his words to set the rhythm for his body. That’s what lets him move like that.”
“……?!”
When Sickle saw who’d spoken to her, she shrieked and did a double take. “Chris?! You’re— Why are you here?!”
“The guidance of Nature. It’s been a few months, huh! All right, let’s sing! A song to celebrate our reunion and to praise Nature! ♪ Cooome, carried off by a beeear, weeee will reuniiite in its stooomaaach, la-la-laaaa. ♪ Also, sooorry, that stuff about his body and the rhythuuum was just something I pulled oooouuut oooof myyyy aaaaass. ♪”
Christopher was singing in a pointlessly operatic way by the end, and everybody else noticed him at once.
“Hrumph! There you are, you devil… I guess we’re done with both sad stories and fun stories now.”
“Oh! Miria! It’s the magician from that one building!” “You’re right!”
“Chris?!” “Christopher!” “…You’re finally here, hmm?” “Christopher! Where’s Rail?!”
As Graham, Isaac and Miria, and all of Larva cried out in astonishment, Christopher jerked his chin at Chané and Ladd, who hadn’t even noticed his arrival.
“Hey, this is peanuts. Forget this, watch the rest of that.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Hey, you wanna know somethin’? I met that Huey Laforet bastard,” Ladd said from out of nowhere.
Chané attacked anyway. “……!”
Huey had told her some of what had happened at Alcatraz, so she knew Ladd had been there as well.
“There he was, snoring away, right in front of me… If I’d been one of those immortal folks, I coulda put my right hand on him and that woulda been it. What were you doing while your precious Huey was all vulnerable, huh? Strolling around New York, sightseeing? Nice! Man, I’m jealous! You were out here enjoying the Big Apple, and all it cost was Huey’s life! Whooee!”
“……”
Ladd struck back as he taunted her. Chané jammed her knife into his fist, but it only scratched the surface a little, and then he knocked her arm away.
It’s heavy.
Chané narrowed her eyes, observing her opponent’s “weapon” without diluting her own deadly intentions.
From what she’d felt, she was sure the false hand was metal.
There was no telling how he’d trained, but even though the prosthetic came partway up his left arm, he was swinging that arm around just as rapidly as his flesh-and-blood fist.
Remembering her past humiliation, Chané was convinced: While it might be true that the man didn’t have a gun, he was actually more of a threat now than he had been on the train.
“……”
No matter which hand he used, every blow he paid out was phenomenally heavy.
If even one of those landed, she would be in trouble.
Even so, Chané darted into the gaps in that barrage of fists.
She banished the human life she’d had during the last few years, and her hopes for her own future, from her mind. Just for now, she even erased the conversations she’d had with her father over the past several days.
If she had any happiness left, she’d fear losing it.
That fear would become terror, and then her legs might go weak.
Huey had told her that to protect herself, to carry out her missions without fail, she always had to keep fear in her mind. For the moment, though, she got rid of that memory as well.
This man was using her fear as fuel.
In that case, it was fine if she was just an automaton.
On that thought, Chané mindlessly ran her blades along the best possible paths, turning herself into a system powered by killing intent.
✦ ✦ ✦
On the other hand, this only sharpened Ladd Russo’s hunger.
The woman was discarding her for Huey Laforet, and Ladd was delighted: She was a wall, and that wall would be extremely satisfying to demolish.
“Whoa! Yeah, I see!” Her knife grated against his prosthetic, and the sparks flew into Ladd’s eyes. “I thought that Huey bastard was a cool customer, but I guess he would be, huh?” He took the sparks without even blinking, and his eyes shone as he shouted, “After all, he’s got this thick, sick, slick trick of a wall!”
“……”
“So how many more layers does this wall have? How close are you to Huey? …Hey! I know you’re watching this from somewhere, bird-girl!”
When Ladd yelled that, several birds faltered in flight.
Nobody noticed, though. Most of them were busy wondering what he was talking about.
“Bird-girl! Go run a message to Huey! You tell him to line up all his walls in front of me! Tell ’im I can’t wait to see whether he can keep his cool after I’ve busted through all of them!”