“That won’t be necessary,” I answered truthfully.

“Are you sure? He isn’t the youngest executive in history for nothing. His peers may treat him like he’s a heretic, but I believe Dazai’s capabilities are astounding. I’m sure in four or five years, he’ll have killed me and taken my place.”

The boss’s lips curled devilishly.

Although I didn’t even so much as blink, I was seriously rattled. I searched the boss’s face, but that almost childlike smirk made him impossible to read. Was this his way of joking?

“I hope to hear some good news from you.”

The boss returned the quill to its stand, and I gave him one last bow before heading for the door. The whole exchange left me oddly parched.

Hidden beneath the rapid onslaught of sudden developments was a sensation, albeit faint, in the back of my head telling me something was off. But my image of whatever was causing it was strangely hazy and blurred—like an old birthmark on my back that I couldn’t see.

“Oda.” The boss called out to me from behind right as I placed a hand on the door to leave. “That pistol hanging under your shoulder—that’s a nice model.”

I looked down at my gun. Inside the holster under my jacket was an old black pistol.

“It’s just an antique I keep around because I’m used to using it. But I’m honored.”

“I only ask you this out of slight curiosity, but rumor has it you’ve never killed anyone with it.”

I nodded. Lying wasn’t going to do me any good. “That’s right.”

“And why is that?”

I needed a few seconds to catch my breath before replying.

“Are you ordering me as the leader of this organization?” I asked.

“No, I merely ask out of personal interest.”

“Then I prefer not to answer.”

For a brief second, the boss’s eyes opened wide in astonishment. Then he crossed his arms and smiled like a teacher fed up with a poor student.

“I see. Then you may go. I anticipate good news from you.”

Meanwhile, Dazai was over at the port. After walking along the seaside for some time, he found himself in the warehouse district surrounded by a planted forest. There were lines of small ships with their registration numbers scraped off, various stolen cars of international makes, and large chromatographs for manufacturing explosives. Not only did the nearby residents stay away, but even the city police avoided going there without a good reason. The area was run by underground organizations such as the Port Mafia—a death trap, to put it another way. Three bodies had washed up on the coast that morning.

“Make sure the police don’t hear about this. Also, call the cleaner. We need to get these bodies out of here.”

Men in black suits—Port Mafia grunts—silently worked at the site where the bodies were found. These city lowlifes simply gritted their teeth and did as they were ordered. There were two reasons for this: One, these were the bodies of their colleagues—fellow mafiosi. The other reason was that one of the execs was expected to arrive on-site any minute due to the gravity of the situation.

“Look into whether any of these men had families. If they do…” The mafia member in command stopped midsentence and paused for a moment. “…I’ll explain things.”

The man in charge was a senior Port Mafia member with white hair and a cigar. He had a gentlemanly air, sporting a well-starched black overcoat and a suit. This was Ryuurou Hirotsu—one of the oldest members of the Mafia.

Hirotsu took out a gold pocket watch and checked the time.

“One of our executives will be here any minute now. Finish learning everything you can about the victims before he arrives.”

“Morning, everyone!”

Hirotsu’s orders were almost immediately followed by a voice coming from the man-made forest. Everyone turned around, looking tense. From appearances alone, the young man who arrived before them could have easily been mistaken for a child. He tottered over to the group, his hair unkempt and his head, neck, and arms covered in bandages. The young man was one of the Port Mafia’s five executives—Osamu Dazai.

Hirotsu promptly put out his cigar before tucking it away in his pocket ashtray. All the men in black suits placed a hand on their chests and respectfully bowed.

“Gimme a second, okay? I’m about to clear this really hard level— Oh, crap! He passed me! Eat this! …Ack, he dodged it!”

Dazai walked closer, struggling with a handheld video game. He was so focused on the screen that he would have face-planted if he had stepped onto even slightly more uneven ground.

“Ugh. I can’t beat this level no matter how many times I try! This curve here is the tricky part. Every time I go around it, I—Gah! He passed me again!”

“Dazai, sir.” Hirotsu timidly spoke up on behalf of the others, since they were unable to say anything. “Thank you for coming all this way. The armory guards were shot, and as of now—”

“It’s been a while since anyone’s been crazy enough to target a Port Mafia armory! How’d they do it?” Dazai asked, still focused on the video game.

“Our men were killed instantly after being hit with around ten to twenty 9mm rounds each. Then the intruders stole various firearms from the armory: forty submachine guns, eight shotguns, fifty-five pistols, two sniper rifles, and eighty grenades. They also took a total of eighteen kilograms of detonator-type high explosives. The electronic lock was opened with the passcode. How that code was leaked is still—”

“Let me have a look, then. Here, take care of this for me.”

“Huh?”

Hirotsu’s expression turned stern as Dazai handed him the game system. “The trick is in the timing. You use a booster item once you reach the straight path in the middle of the course. So where are the bodies?”

“Oh, uh, they’re lined up by the tetrapods— Wh-what buttons am I supposed to press?”

Dazai skipped off to the concrete blocks and ignored Hirotsu, who was holding the console upside down in a fluster. There lay three bodies, each wearing sunglasses and black suits. They were very tough men—up until yesterday. Soaking in the ocean for a few hours had caused their skin to swell, but they would have been in far worse condition if they had drowned; all three of them had bled out almost completely before being tossed into the ocean to sink to the bottom.

“Hmm.”

Dazai gazed disinterestedly at the corpses.

“Their weapons are still in their holsters. Well, that’s just sloppy. Also…most of the gunshots have exit wounds…which means they were fired at close range, from a submachine gun. You’d have to be pretty skilled to get this close without being noticed. I’m getting my hopes up. What about the warehouse’s surveillance footage?”

Dazai turned to Hirotsu, who simply gazed forlornly down at the game system in his hands and revealed a totaled car on the screen.

“I am deeply ashamed of myself…,” Hirotsu mumbled.

Dazai stared at him curiously, as if he had already completely forgotten that he’d passed the game to Hirotsu.

“Mr. Hirotsu.” Dazai’s eyes narrowed.

“I… I’m sure if you just give me one more chance, I could—,” Hirotsu pleaded as he gripped the game system once more.

“Anyone in the lower ranks who causes problems over narcotics should immediately be cut loose,” Dazai suddenly said.

“Narcotics?” Hirotsu turned pale. “No, nobody is involved in anything like that…including my subordinates. My men are top caliber—”

“The gun at your waist.”

Dazai pointed at him. Hirotsu swiftly covered the gun tucked away in his suit belt with his hand, although not on purpose; it was merely a natural reflex.

“Mr. Hirotsu, you don’t usually carry a gun with you, right? Plus, you’re the kind of person who takes very good care of their weapons. And yet, the sloppy way you’ve tucked it into your belt leads me to believe that it is neither yours nor merchandise. Judging by the condition it’s in, it belongs to one of your men. Am I right?”

Hirotsu stood in silence as Dazai continued.

“You have around twenty subordinates under your wing. Did you borrow that gun from one of them? No, you didn’t. There was no reason for you to use a gun at this time of the morning. You took it. Why? Because the grip was lightly stained with blood and some white powder. But there is neither powder nor blood on you, Mr. Hirotsu. One of your subordinates must have caused some trouble over drugs. Judging by the bags under your eyes, I’m going to say it happened last night. So you tied your subordinate up and took his gun because who knows what he’d do if you didn’t.”

“That’s—,” Hirotsu uttered in a muffled voice, but Dazai kept on speaking and cut him off.

“That subordinate is ignoring the syndicate’s policy, Mr. Hirotsu. Selling drugs makes a lot of money, but it also brings a lot of problems along with it. The Special Division for Unusual Powers, narcotics agents, the MP’s criminal-organization watchdogs… Government organizations are champing at the bit just waiting for us to make any sort of mistake that would give them a chance to strike. Simply taking your subordinate’s gun isn’t going to do anything.”

“But…”

“Mr. Hirotsu, I don’t know why, but I was given the lofty position of executive, and when you’re an executive, you get subordinates whether you want any or not. But I can’t produce results with a bunch of sloppy flunkies. That’s why I cut the bad ones loose early. You should do the same.”

“…I am deeply sorry,” Hirotsu mumbled, his voice strained.

In the Mafia, “cutting the bad ones loose” means killing them. Refusing executive orders is treated as betrayal and dealt with in the same fashion.

Hirotsu apologized but said no more after that. Dazai fixed him with a piercing gaze; the silence was so deafening that time nearly froze in place.

“…Ha-ha! Just kidding!” Dazai abruptly added in a cheery tone. Hirotsu stared back at him, confused. “The reason you have so many people following you is that you don’t turn your back on them. I’ll leave things in your hands. I won’t tell the boss.”

He patted Hirotsu on the shoulder and smiled. Hirotsu unconsciously rubbed his throat while he nodded. He must have been tense.

Dazai, the youngest executive in the Mafia’s history, was a living legend within the syndicate. Nothing got past him, be it from an enemy on the outside or a scandal from within the group. More importantly, nobody had even an inkling of Dazai’s desires or dislikes, or what he supported or was opposed to. Not even Hirotsu, who’d been in the Mafia for longer than most, could figure him out. No one would have been surprised if Dazai had “disposed” of Hirotsu just then.

“All right, let’s get back on topic. Is there any footage of the attackers?” Dazai asked with a snap of his fingers.

At Hirotsu’s signal, a man in a black suit brought over a total of five pictures from the security camera. Dazai took them from him and began to study them. The stills showed several men sneaking into the warehouse and stealing the Port Mafia’s firearms. The thieves were wearing worn-out sacks over their heads and dingy cloaks instead of overcoats. On the surface, they didn’t look any different than your average back-alley thug. However…

“Those are soldiers.” Dazai’s lips slightly curled the moment he laid eyes on the photos. “Seasoned ones, at that.”

He looked over the dim figures of the raggedy men several times, tilting the photos this way and that.

“They look like your run-of-the-mill ruffians at first glance, but they’re moving in a diamond formation to cover their blind spots. Mr. Hirotsu, you know what kind of gun this is?” Dazai pointed at the pistol on the waist of one of the attackers.

“It is an old model, very old. It appears to be even older than me. From the gray body and narrow muzzle, I would say it’s an old-fashioned European pistol known as a grau geist.”

“I saw this gun yesterday.” Dazai’s eyes narrowed. “That means the men who robbed the armory attacked us immediately beforehand…which means that was just a diversion. Heh. Now things are getting interesting. These guys are even more fun than I imagined.”

With the pictures still in hand, Dazai spun around, turning his back to the others before starting to walk off. He placed a thumb on his lip, muttering to himself as he paced back and forth.

“So they purposely leaked intel that they were going to attack us in the middle of our next business transaction. That way, we’d focus our manpower in one location, leaving only a few guards at the armory. Then they stole the weapons—a lot of them. But why? To resell? No, it wouldn’t need to be weapons if that were the case. I see. This is…” Dazai rambled, lost deep in thought. All the others could do was wait for him in silence.

“……”

Hirotsu’s subordinates stood stock-still as they waited for the much-younger executive to gather his thoughts.

“Y’know,” Dazai commented after a good few moments of silence, “I’m thirsty.”

“I will have someone buy you a drink.” Hirotsu gave a flick of his finger, signaling the subordinate by his side to go. The black-suited mafioso then rushed off in a fluster.

“Get me a coffee with lots of milk. Make sure to cool it off!” Dazai cheerfully yelled out as the man dashed away. “Oh, but no ice, okay? If you can get me a decaf, that’d be even better. And double the sugar, please!”

Watching the Mafia grunt depart in a cold sweat, Dazai dropped his voice to a murmur. “Mr. Hirotsu, the enemy didn’t attack just any armory. They went after one of the three major armories containing the Port Mafia’s emergency weapons supply. It’s heavily guarded, and an alarm sounds if anyone enters the area without permission. But these guys easily got past all that, and they sneaked in using the actual passcode—something only subexecutives and higher would know. So how did the enemy get their hands on such top-secret information?”

Hirotsu’s face tensed. There were only three possibilities: A Port Mafia member was tortured into talking, someone had a skill that enabled them to extract information, or there was a traitor within the organization. All three options spelled a worst-case scenario.

“This entire area is going to turn into a war zone.” Dazai gazed at the city skyscrapers and gave a small smile. “That over there is gonna end up a pillar of flames. I can already see the sky burning crimson.”

“Do you know anything about the enemy organization?” Hirotsu asked, suppressing his emotions.

“One of my men tortured the prisoner we captured yesterday, but he couldn’t get him to talk. The guy just waited for the right moment and killed himself with the poison he was hiding in between his molars. The only thing we got out of him was the enemy organization’s name.”

As if to portend the next word that would leave his mouth, Dazai shot Hirotsu a grim, piercing stare. His eyes portended an incoming storm of bloodshed and violence that would haunt the average person’s dreams for days on end.

“…Mimic.”

After receiving orders from the boss, I started tracing Ango’s steps. But there wasn’t even a single clue before me. Searching for a Mafia informant is on a completely different level from locating a missing pet cat (which I’ve actually done before, so I say this with confidence). If a cat runs away, then you can stake out a local feeding ground, but there was no way for me to even guess where Ango’s “feeding ground” might be.

With nowhere to turn, I came up with a few hypotheses. There were two possibilities for Ango’s disappearance: Either he went into hiding of his own volition, or he was abducted. If it was the former, then I was out of luck. Ango wasn’t some rebellious teenager running away from his parents. If he really wanted to, he could get himself a few million in untraceable banknotes and travel the world, bouncing from one campsite to another like a nomadic tribesman. Hence why I’d tossed out this hypothesis. The other possibility was that Ango could’ve been taken somewhere against his will. As the boss predicted, the most likely scenario was that an enemy syndicate was trying to get information out of Ango. If that was the case, then I’d want to believe he secretly left behind some sort of trail, like the bread crumbs in that one Brothers Grimm fairy tale.

I decided to start off by visiting Ango’s residence. Now that I thought about it, I knew next to nothing about his personal life. Our relationship was always like that, though. Ango and Dazai never talked about themselves. The three of us were like a band of thieves who just happened to be hiding under the eaves of the same abandoned temple to avoid the rain. We’d always just get lost in conversation, never knowing exactly who the other was.

But Ango often had to go out of town for business, and I remembered hearing him casually mention drifting from hotel to hotel during one of our chats. He must’ve stayed somewhere that had ties to the Mafia, given how many people were after his life. There were a few hotels like that within the prefecture, where privacy was of utmost importance. They each had around two dozen armed guards permanently stationed; only a select few could stay at these locations.

I began to call up some of these hotels. Once the manager realized who I worked for, his strained voice instantly softened, and he began to answer my questions courteously. If we were ever to meet face-to-face, I wouldn’t be surprised if he snuggled right into my lap.

I finally found out where Ango lived once I called the third hotel. It was an eighteen-story building with sand-colored walls, located just a little off the main drag. The surrounding neighborhood was lined with similar buildings and a park, and the entire area was steeped in a heavy stillness—or a silence, you could call it—despite the daytime hour. The silence was all too familiar for Mafia territory. It looked like just the kind of place Ango would’ve enjoyed.

After receiving the room key from the manager, I headed to Ango’s suite. According to the manager, he’d started living there around half a year ago and paid in advance. However, due to the nature of his work, he rarely returned to his room. Apparently, he would show up once every few days, then disappear once again by morning. The manager claimed that Ango never invited anyone else inside.

His room was a tidy one-bedroom suite. It’d been thoroughly cleaned—not even a speck of dust. There was hardly any furniture in the parlor, save for a small bookshelf that held a few old novels and various regional documents. In the ceiling was an air vent so cleverly hidden that it was virtually undetectable, its ventilation fan spinning almost noiselessly. A single black wooden stool sat quietly in the corner.

In the bedroom stood a short desk and a bed covered in crisp sheets. A reading light hung over the pillow upon which lay an open biography of a genius mathematician from around a century ago who had left an elegant mathematical expression.

The place practically screamed Ango—an immaculate, smart, sterile space that didn’t give a single glimpse into his life. I stood in the middle of the room and silently looked around. There was something bothering me, albeit minuscule—something I wouldn’t usually give so much as a second thought.

“Ango Sakaguchi, Mafia intelligence officer,” I said aloud. “You’re a mysterious, intellectual man. Nobody knows who you really are.”

Of course, no one was there to respond. I headed to the double-door window with its four sheets of expertly inlaid glass. Outside was a view of Yokohama. Directly below was a park that led to a line of high-rise buildings. The stars must cast a pretty reflection off the lake at night.

I turned my back to the window and made one more sweep of the room. Immediately, I realized what had been bothering me: I was a Mafia member unable to kill. That was why I mostly got stuck with the petty, troublesome jobs. But as I held my tongue while pressing on through these tasks, I started to develop a certain sense of intuition. It was like a hair-thin thread of discomfort that could snap at any moment. However, following the thread sometimes led me to unexpected truths.

The black wooden stool in the corner of the room—it looked out of place. It didn’t seem as though it belonged in this hotel, and there wasn’t even a desk around to make use of it.

I approached the stool to examine it. It was your average mass-produced article. I flipped it over in hopes that there might be an important clue underneath, but there was nothing really out of the ordinary.

I returned once more to where I had been standing, then crouched down and stared fixedly at the stool. That was when I saw it—the seat was scuffed ever so slightly, even though the stool itself didn’t appear to be particularly old or worn out. Upon further inspection, I noticed that not only was it a little scuffed, but it also had what appeared to be a white footprint left by a leather shoe. I scanned the room once more.

—The ceiling air vent.

I took the stool and pushed it under the vent. Standing atop the stool, I could just barely touch the ceiling. There was some white plastic netting covering the air vent, making it difficult to see inside. It took some maneuvering, but I managed to remove the net. Inside the air duct, the ventilation fan was still spinning quietly. I felt around the fan with my fingers for a while until they just barely caught on to something, which I then pulled toward me. It scraped noisily across the metal duct and turned out to be a small safe. After getting off the stool, I held the safe in my hands and brushed the dust off. It was white and small enough that I could easily hold it in both hands. The safe was locked, but if I could find the key or something to pick it with, I could get it open. I took the box in both hands and violently shook it in front of my chest. Something metal, but not particularly heavy, rattled inside.

That was when a vision played out in my head.

The white safe in my hands was dyed crimson in the blink of an eye, along with the wall and floor. Something gushed out, clinging to the surfaces before me.

It was blood. My blood.

Right as I looked down at my chest, another spurt of blood gushed out of it. Something entered my back and pierced through my chest. I turned around just as the window shattered and the shards fell to the floor. Something—a sniper rifle’s scope, perhaps—glittered in the sunlight from a far-off building.

I reached for the gun at my side, but my arm was hit back by a high-speed bullet, spinning me around and producing a spray of blood. Feeling the warm liquid crawl up my throat, I twisted and fell to the ground. Everything before me faded to black.

The vision ended there.

I found myself standing with the safe, still wearing the exact same clothes I was a second ago.

The safe was white.

The window wasn’t broken.

I threw myself to the carpeted floor with the safe still in my hands, and almost instantly, I heard glass shatter. One, then two dark holes appeared in the wall in front of me. Crawling on the floor, I moved away from the window until I couldn’t see the high-rise building outside. Then I took the gun out of my side holster and got into position with my back against the wall. There was a mirror on the table, so I reached out with my fingers and managed to grab it. My hands were so sweaty that I almost dropped it, but I somehow got a grip around the mirror to angle it so I could see outside.

When I looked at the room in the building I’d seen in my vision, I noticed a shadowy figure moving in the reflection. I couldn’t tell what they were wearing, though; the figure promptly gathered their belongings before completely disappearing. The moment I put my gun down was the moment I noticed I hadn’t been breathing.

A sniper.

What in the world was in this room? What happened to Ango? I was sniped and killed. I couldn’t see the muzzle flash, and I didn’t even hear the bullet being fired. Plus, once the perpetrator saw that they had missed the target, they immediately escaped. This was clearly the work of a professional.

I’d died only a few moments ago—sniped in the chest and shot dead.

Or at least I would have been, if I hadn’t had my skill.

I practically slid down the staircase banister to get out of there. The sniper couldn’t have gotten far, and I needed to find out who they were. Shoving past innocent customers in the hotel, I made my way outside. I ran toward the building the sniper was in while pulling my cell phone out of my pocket.

A seasoned sniper can pierce their target’s heart from even a mile away, but from the looks of it, the sniping point wasn’t all that far off. I knew the building they were in. In fact, I knew everything about this city, even the uncharted back alleys, so I was naturally able to narrow down the sniper’s path of escape to a few possibilities.

As I sprinted, I punched in Dazai’s phone number.

“Dazai?”

“Wow, it’s not often I get a call from you, Odasaku. I’ve got a feeling this is big! Hmm. Allow me to use my genius brain to guess the situation! You suddenly thought of a hilarious joke, and it was so funny that you had to call me to—”

“Someone tried to snipe me.”

Dazai immediately stopped midsentence as if the air had been sucked out of his lungs.

“I was in Ango’s room. I’m going after the sniper right now. He fired from a high-rise building across from the secondhand book row. From there, he could’ve fled through Kokuyou-ji Temple or the service entrance to the wharf, or taken one of the Mifune shopping district’s back streets.”

“You want me to help block his path of escape, right?”

I hesitated for a moment. The reason I called Dazai was because he was the only one I could turn to with confidence on such short notice. However, he was one of the five executives, making him only second to the boss in terms of the Mafia hierarchy. Under normal circumstances, I would’ve had to send someone to ask permission to even meet with Dazai, then wait at least a month before getting an answer. Calling someone like him and giving orders is like asking the president to walk your dog.

“Dazai, I have a Silver Oracle with me. If you don’t mind—”

“Quit it. You don’t need that to ask me for help. You’re in a fix, right?” Dazai said brightly. “I’ll have my men blockade the roads immediately. I’m gonna head over, too. Just don’t follow the guy too far, Odasaku.”

I thanked him and hung up, then focused everything I had on getting my legs to move as quickly as possible.

Who was the shooter? Snipers are exceedingly cautious and patient. Strategy is their religion. Once they decide on the optimal position for taking out the target, they wait for days without moving a muscle until the target appears within range of their scope. A sniper will satisfy their hunger with ready-made meals, and when they run out of food, they just don’t eat.

The fact that there was a sniper in the building meant he knew someone was coming.

The most obvious, logical reason would be that Ango himself was the target. The sniper was probably planning on shooting Ango once he cluelessly returned home. However, that then begged the question: Why did the sniper change his plan and try to shoot me? I’d only decided to go to Ango’s room a few hours prior, and that was just a desperate attempt to find some clues. Moreover, the sniper only pulled the trigger after I found the white safe. If he’d wanted to just kill me, he would’ve shot me the moment I walked into the room. Maybe the sniper didn’t have a firm target; maybe he would’ve shot anyone who walked in there. Or maybe he would’ve shot anyone who found the white safe.

Only one thing was clear: Ango was apparently stuck in the middle of something big. I thought about his bespectacled visage, his cool, aloof demeanor, as I ran.

No matter how deeply I inhaled, I couldn’t seem to get enough oxygen into my body. Right as my field of vision started turning spotty, I arrived at one of the routes I predicted the sniper would use to escape. It was a dark, narrow back alley littered with scraps of food left by the city crows.

I’d cut through two residential yards and leaped over three private garages to get there. It wouldn’t have been out of the question to catch sight of the enemy right then and there if they weren’t familiar with the area. The moment the thought crossed my mind, a man with a knife tried to grab me from a gap between the buildings. A blade practically the size of a meat cleaver sliced through the air, and I swerved my head to dodge the strike. The tip of the blade grazed the corner of my ear, leaving a cold, sharp pain. I found myself in a deadlock as he rammed into me, and I thrust my foot into his torso as hard as I could. I ended up getting thrown onto the trash-covered ground, but I was at least able to get him off.

I looked at the assailant.

He was a man of unknown ethnicity dressed in tattered gray clothes. At first glance, his filthy appearance made him look like a vagrant, but my finger happened to leave a mark in the dirt on his face. It was as if he’d put it there on purpose. The assailant swayed back and forth as he flipped the knife over from his right hand to his left. Next, he raised both elbows so that his right hand was guarding his face. It was a stance that allowed a person to quickly counter any close-range blows with minimal movement while protecting one’s vitals. The bloodlust radiating from this guy was like that of a seasoned fighting dog.

I could assume several things from watching him: one, that he knew I was with the Mafia, and he was not going to cower or create an opening to be attacked; two, that he was probably the sniper I saw in the mirror’s reflection; and three, that he probably planned on killing me there without even giving me the chance to wonder.

The man came at me with his left hand aloft, gripping the knife. If he were to hit me, he would split my face right open, but if I were to try to run away or fight him, that knife would tear me to shreds. I leaned my weight against the wall behind me and used the rebound to leap in the opposite direction and create some distance between us. Then, spinning around, I drew the gun from my holster and almost immediately pulled the trigger. The bullet landed just inches before his toes—right where he was about to step. The man stopped. Only a fraction of a second had gone by from the moment I drew my gun to the moment I fired. If he knew anything about how to fight, then he’d understand that I didn’t shoot randomly, but rather precisely where I wanted to.

Raising my gun, I pointed the muzzle right between his eyes, letting him know I could pull the trigger whenever I wanted. He should’ve had more than enough time to figure that much out, and yet, he took another step forward. His knife sliced through the air, and I leaped backward, dodging the slash. Then I fired another warning shot, and the sound of the blast echoed throughout the narrow alleyway. But it seemed to have affected him no differently than a cool breeze; the man had locked away all his fear into a tiny box in the corner of his mind and thrown away the key.

He reached out, but it wasn’t me he was aiming for. I swiftly pulled the white safe under my left arm away, leaving him only air to grab, but he promptly regained his footing before pulling back with his knife.

The man was after the safe.

He’d pretended to flee in order to lure me here, in which case I might have been better off taking the safe and running away as quickly as my legs could take me. I couldn’t even imagine who this guy was or the kind of value this safe had. To make matters worse, he was an expert with the knife. Gunshots didn’t even faze him. On top of that, I—

The enemy thrust forward with the knife. I shot at the wall in hope that he’d flinch, but he knew where I was aiming. He didn’t back off—he got even closer. I sensed there was someone else behind me, so I threw myself forward and dropped to the ground. Gunfire lit up the alleyway. The metallic clatter of the shots echoed as bullets—ones I didn’t fire—glided past my ear.

My body froze. Although I couldn’t look back, I immediately knew what was going on—there was another enemy behind me.

Snipers typically have people called spotters to back them up. Spotters and snipers always work in pairs, and a spotter will help the sniper readjust his aim or time the shot. Sometimes they’ll also scout the area and dispose of any nearby enemies. I should’ve seen this coming the moment the sniper went on the counterattack. There were two enemies.

The second enemy fired his gun; he didn’t use a sniper rifle, but an old-fashioned pistol. I created an off-the-cuff smoke screen by hurling the nearby garbage bags into the line of fire, then wildly shot at the wall in an attempt to use the ricochet in place of a barrage. The man with the knife closed in, giving me no time to check if my stratagem had worked. Our weapons collided, creating sparks. The base of the metal trigger guard screeched as the knife sawed into it.

I swept my opponent’s ankle, knocking him off-balance, but he managed to put his hand out to catch his fall. Almost reflexively, I tossed aside the safe and drew my other gun. I walked with my two pistols aimed in both directions and almost unconsciously placed the muzzles right before the enemies’ eyes with one quick motion. I wouldn’t miss this close up. If I pulled the trigger, they’d instantly perish before even getting the chance to think of something meaningful. They wouldn’t even have a second to feel pain. Their brains and consciousnesses would smear the alley walls, and their lives would then disappear into thin air like a magic trick.

I didn’t shoot. I simply rolled out of the way to create a bit of distance, keeping both opponents in my sight with both weapons drawn.

“Odasaku, get down!”

That was when I heard Dazai’s voice.

I already knew it was coming, which was why I threw myself to the ground face-first. Barely a moment later, an explosion followed by a flash of light illuminated the narrow alleyway. My skill was to thank for alerting me to what was going to happen; I lay on the ground, plugging my ears and shutting my eyes until the light faded. The enemies, on the other hand, were caught off guard by the flash grenade and subsequently blinded, preventing them from dodging the next attack.

A thunderous roar seemingly from the heavens itself burst through the back alley. First came a flash of light, followed by an explosive bang—then a metal-splitting screech and the sound of the ground and walls being smashed to pieces. A shower of 9mm ammo zoomed over my head. Four men in black suits rushed down the alleyway right past me, each with a submachine gun at their waist. It was the Port Mafia.

With nothing to hide behind in the narrow alley, not even the most seasoned warriors could escape the submachine guns’ hellish onslaught. I heard the two men in tattered cloaks briefly scream as the gunfire buffeted them like a violent gust of wind. When I turned around, I saw blood spewing out of their bodies, enveloping them like a deep crimson mist. Then I heard a splat as they were thrown against the walls.

“You’re a real piece of work, Odasaku. You could have easily killed them in an instant, if you wanted to.”

Dazai lightly trotted over, looking as if he were about to whistle or something. The roar of submachine guns filling an alleyway was no different from the hubbub of a shopping mall on a holiday for him.

I accepted his extended hand and stood up before surveying the alley.

“You killed them?” I asked, looking down at the two fallen assassins.

“Yep. Capturing them and trying to get them to talk would’ve just been a waste of time. I mean, these guys love the taste of their interdental poison.”

I didn’t reply. It felt as if there were a lump about the size of a boulder in my stomach. Dazai faintly smiled, then said, “I know. That’s not what you were asking, right? But, Odasaku, these men were professional assassins. It doesn’t matter how good you are. Killing them was the only option.”

“I know.”

I nodded. Dazai was always right, and I was always doing the wrong thing.

“I can see you’re not happy… I’m sorry for compromising your principles.”

His smile weakened as he spoke. Dazai usually never apologized to anyone, which was why what he said really rang true.

“Thanks. I mean it. I would’ve died if you hadn’t come to save me.”

“Sakunosuke Oda, a peculiar mafioso who believes killing is never the answer.” Dazai shook his head in exasperation. “The Mafia treats you like an errand boy thanks to that perplexing belief of yours, Odasaku, your considerable capabilities notwithstanding—”

I shook my head in silence.

“I’ve heard that complaint so many times that I’m starting to despise myself. More importantly, about the attackers…,” I continued while indicating the fallen assailants with my gaze.

“You said they shot at you while you were in Ango’s room?”

Dazai listened attentively as I briefly explained what had happened at the hotel.

“I see. That sniper rifle was probably stolen from our armory,” he claimed once I’d finished. “Look at his waist. He’s carrying an old-fashioned pistol, right?”

When I looked down at the attackers, I noticed they both had early-model pistols hidden under their ragged clothes—gray handguns with narrow muzzles.

“These are rather old European pistols. Given their low accuracy and firing rate, they’re not ideal for narrow alleys like this.”

He took the gun off one of the bodies and stared at it with great interest.

“This pistol is probably more like an emblem to these men—something that indicates who they are.”

Dazai seemed to be much more knowledgeable about the attackers than I was.

“Just who are they?” I asked.

“Mimic.”

“‘Mimic’…?”

I’d never heard of an organization by that name before.

“I don’t know much about them yet, but they’re apparently a European criminal organization. All I can say right now is that they came to Japan for some reason and that they’re in conflict with the Port Mafia.”

Rivalries between the Port Mafia and other criminal organizations weren’t uncommon. Even in and around Yokohama, there were groups that competed with the Mafia over turf. Outside the reaches of the government’s watchful eyes, the Yokohama Settlement was inhabited by countless outlaws who fought over territory. Dirty money came to this tax haven from all over the world to be cleaned, helping corporate crime and mercenary businesses thrive. It wouldn’t be strange for a criminal organization from abroad to come over to make easy profits. But how many crime syndicates in the world had a professional sniper with a spotter?

Dazai seemed to have figured out what I was thinking from the quizzical look on my face.

“In any case, I’m in the middle of investigating the specifics,” he stated with a shrug. “But maybe we’ll find something out from the fact that they had a sniper aimed at Ango’s room.”

“They wanted to get this safe back,” I said while holding up the item in question. “I found it in Ango’s room, but I can’t open it without the key. We might be able to learn something if we could just open—”

“That’s it?” Dazai gave a disappointed smile. “Piece of cake. Here, let me see it.”

I handed him the safe, which he immediately shook, listening to the sound it made. Then he shuffled through the trash on the ground until he found a safety pin. After slightly bending the tip with his finger, he stuck it in the keyhole and wiggled it around. Not even a second went by before I heard the gear inside the safe click.

“Okay, it’s open.”

This man had a gift.

“Now, let’s see what’s inside.”

Dazai opened the lid and took a peek. I could also see it from where I was standing.

.

What did this mean?

I found this safe in Ango’s room. The wooden stool, the fact that this was hidden in the air vent—I think it’s fair to say Ango knew about it. If I was being honest with myself, I’d have said the contents probably belonged to Ango.

Deep down, I’d imagined that whatever was in the safe was something valuable. I thought it was something Ango had gotten his hands on, and the attackers in gray had tried to kill me in order to steal it.

But I was wrong.

Inside the safe was an old-fashioned gray gun.

“Why…?” The word just fell off my lips. “Dazai, you said this gun was like an emblem to them, right? Something that identifies them. So what’s the meaning of this?”

Dazai didn’t immediately answer. He simply narrowed his eyes and stared quietly off into space.

“It’s still too early to come to any conclusion.” Dazai chose his words carefully. “Ango might have stolen this gun from them. Or they might have even planted it in his room to frame him. This might not even be a gun but a sign. It—”

“I get it. You’re absolutely right,” I said, cutting him off. “There’s still not enough information to go by. I’ll look into the gun. Thanks again for coming all the way out here.”

“Odasaku—”

Dazai started to say something, but I cut him off again.

“I really appreciate your help, but I should look into things a bit more. I’ll contact you if I find out anything.”

Dazai stared at me in silence, his gaze tinged with discontent. I looked away. A grim feeling came over me, as if I were submerged up to my head in a jet-black, heavy liquid that would drown me if I got too involved in this case.

“Then let me tell you something I noticed,” Dazai said, stone-faced. “Yesterday, when we were drinking at the bar, Ango said he was on his way back from a business trip, right?”

“Yeah.”

I believe he said he was coming back from business in Tokyo where he bought a smuggled antique watch.

“That was probably a lie.”

—What?

“You saw his bag, right? Starting from the top, he had cigarettes, a mini umbrella, and that antique watch he’d brought back. The umbrella was wet because he’d used it, which was why it was wrapped in cloth. And his business trip had been to Tokyo, where it had been raining.”

“So what’s the problem?” I asked. “It rained, so the umbrella was wet. Seems logical to me.”

“If Ango were telling the truth, then he wouldn’t have used that umbrella.” Dazai squinted as he spoke.

I couldn’t sense any sort of emotion from his expression.

“Ango supposedly drove to the site of the deal, so when did he use that umbrella? It wasn’t before the negotiation, since the umbrella was on top of the wrapped-up watch. And it wasn’t after the fact, either.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Given how wet his umbrella was, he didn’t use it for just two or three minutes. It must’ve been in the rain for a good half an hour, and yet, his shoes and the hems of his pants were dry. The negotiation was at eight o’clock, and we met him at eleven. If he’d used his umbrella after finishing the deal, his clothes wouldn’t have dried in just those three hours.”

“Maybe he brought something to change into.”

“He didn’t have any spare clothes or shoes in his bag, and it didn’t even have enough space to fit anything like that.”

Maybe he just went home, changed, and left his wet clothes there—but right as I was about to say as much, I held myself back. If Ango had done that, he would have left the expensive watch at home before coming to the bar.

“He didn’t use the umbrella before the transaction or afterward. And he didn’t use it during the negotiation, either. The watch was wrapped in paper, and it wasn’t even the least bit wet. Plus, moisture is basically poison to antique watches. They had to have done business indoors.”

I ruminated over what Dazai said. He was right. What Ango told us didn’t explain why the umbrella was that wet.

“So what’s the truth, then?”

“My guess is that he didn’t purchase the watch in Tokyo; it was his all along. The reason why it was stuffed deep inside his bag was because he put it in there before leaving for business. But instead of going to the negotiation site, he met with someone in the rain and talked for thirty minutes before killing some time and coming back.”

“Why do you think he met with someone?”

“Spies like Ango frequently choose rainy streets for their secret meetings. If you talk with your umbrella open, then no one can see your face, so you don’t have to worry about surveillance cameras or people noticing you. Even if someone was eavesdropping or wiretapping him, the sound of the rain would drown out any voices. It’s much better suited for confidential talks compared with inside a car or a room.”

I already knew what Dazai was trying to say and what his intentions were, and yet, I had no choice but to scrutinize his every word to find some sort of silver lining.

“Maybe Ango really was lying, but he’s an informant who deals with top-secret information on the Mafia. It’s only natural he’d have a secret meeting or two. You can’t blame him for that.”

“Then he could’ve just told us he couldn’t talk about it. If he did that, neither of us would have even brought up his work, don’t you think?”

“…”

He was right.

“But Ango lied about the deal. He even went out of his way to show us the antique watch so he could have an alibi. Why would he go that far to hide it from us that he’d met with someone in secret?”

—Maybe because he predicted that things would turn out like this?

That was what Dazai’s cold, distant gaze was saying.

—What time did the deal end?

I suddenly remembered Dazai’s seemingly random question when he saw the paper wrapping. Now that I thought about it, he was able to deduce all of this with one mere glance. He’d even asked Ango that question just to make sure.

—Ango. Mimic. Surprise attack.

Something mysterious was slowly coming to light.

“Be careful, Odasaku. Your cup is close to overflowing,” Dazai said. “If just one more thing gets thrown in there, all the water will come spilling out the top, and you won’t be able to handle the situation alone. Anyway, we’ll take care of things here. You deal with Ango.”

“Thanks.”

After exchanging glances, I began to walk down the alley toward the back streets. That’s when I noticed…

…one of the attackers was getting back up.

“Dazai!”

The attacker drew his gun practically the moment I cried out. “Don’t move,” he threatened in a muffled voice.

The enemy was too close to Dazai for either me or one of Dazai’s subordinates to shoot. Furthermore, he had his weapon pointing at Dazai. His right hand gripped the gun while his left arm hung by his side as if he couldn’t move it. With apparently no strength left to stand on his own, the enemy leaned half of his weight against the wall.

Even then, Dazai was still within his range of fire. We couldn’t afford to make any mistakes.

“Oh my.” Dazai stared at the pistol as if it were something unique and interesting. “You can still stand after so many bullets? Your mental fortitude is extraordinary.”

One of the attackers was completely unconscious, while the other was using his last bit of strength to stand so he could take Dazai with him to the grave.

“Dazai, keep still. I’ve got this.”

I stretched my fingers out to grab my gun. If the enemy got even a second to act, he was going to shoot. Since he was already aiming his old-fashioned pistol right at Dazai, even if I shot him right through the heart, the impact might cause him to pull the trigger. Timing was everything. I’m not a betting guy, but I didn’t have any other choice.

“Your organization’s called Mimic, right?” Dazai asked the man, but he didn’t reply. He didn’t even blink. “I’m not expecting an answer. To tell the truth, I admire you guys. No other organization has tried to take the Mafia head-on like this before. And nobody has ever successfully managed to point their gun at me like this with the intent to kill, either.”

Dazai faced the attacker, then began to walk toward him as if he were taking a stroll through his garden.

“Dazai, stop,” I begged in a hushed tone.

“I hope you can see the excitement in my eyes, too.” Dazai continued to address the enemy who was holding him at gunpoint. “If you just squeeze your finger ever so slightly, you can give me precisely what I crave most. The only thing I’m afraid of is that you’ll miss.”

His lips curled as he approached the man. The muzzle was now fewer than ten feet away.

“You need to aim for the heart or the head. I recommend the head. You only get one chance, though. My colleagues here won’t be kind enough to give you another.” Dazai tapped the middle of his forehead right over his eyebrows a few times. “But I know you can do it. You’re a sniper, aren’t you? I can still see the imprint from the sniper rifle on your cheek. You’re not the spotter.”

There was a slanted line traced across the attacker’s left cheek, the kind you get from peering through a scope for hours on end. Spotters just used binoculars; they wouldn’t have a mark like that.

The enemy’s fingers trembled as he pointed the gun. Just like Dazai said, he had only one shot. He couldn’t fire unless he was confident he could hit him. Dazai continued to approach the man, welcoming him to pull the trigger.

“Now shoot. Right here. You can’t miss from this close up.” Dazai grinned from ear to ear. “You’ll be killed whether or not you shoot, so just bury the enemy executive before you go.”

“Dazai!” I screamed. I felt as though we were thousands of miles apart.

“Please take me with you. Awaken me from this oxidizing world of a dream. Come, now. Shoot.”

Still pointing at his forehead, Dazai closed in on the enemy with a smile that could’ve even been described as peaceful.

The attacker bit his lip and tightened his finger around the trigger.

—He’s at his breaking point!

The sniper and I fired almost simultaneously.

Two flashes of light flooded the alley.

Shot in the arm, the man spun around.

Dazai violently bent backward after being shot point-blank.

A split second like a blue flash of lightning.

A never-ending instant.

Then time began to move again.

Immediately, Dazai’s men showered the enemy with bullets as he spun from the impact of my shot. Like a rag being pummeled by a waterfall, the man was thrown backward, scattering flesh and blood until he perished.

Leaning away, Dazai took two, three steps back before stopping.

“…………How unfortunate,” he lamented, still bent over. “Looks like I didn’t manage to die this time, either.”

Dazai lifted his head up. The skin on the side of his head, slightly above his right ear, was slit open and bleeding.

The bullet had just missed.

I looked at Dazai. There was something there invisible to the human eye. You could’ve called it demons of the mind—something that could never be seen—just something compelled to destroy all.

“Sorry to shock you like that.” Noticing my gaze, Dazai scratched the side of his head and grinned. “Pretty realistic acting, right? I knew from the start that he would miss. The imprint from the sniper rifle was on his left cheek, meaning that was the side he used to shoot. In other words, he’s left-handed, but he was holding the pistol in his right hand. So he was going to shoot with his nondominant hand, he could barely even stand on those wobbly legs, and to make matters worse, he was using that old-fashioned gun. The only way he would have hit me was if he pressed the muzzle against my body.”

I didn’t say anything. I just stared at Dazai as he explained with a smile.

“All I had to do was talk to him to buy some time until his arm got tired. If I slowly walked toward him, he wouldn’t be able to shoot straight away. The rest was in your hands, Odasaku. I knew you would do something. Pretty logical, right?”

“Yeah.”

That was all I said. I didn’t have anything else to add. Had our ranks or relations been any different, I probably would’ve punched him right then. However, I am me, and there was nothing I could do to him.

After returning my gun to its holster, I turned my back to Dazai and began walking away. With every step I took, I felt as if the ground were going to collapse, creating a bottomless hole that I would fall through for an eternity.

Dazai’s expression as he placed a finger on his forehead and approached the enemy—that of a child about to burst into tears—remained burned into my eyes.

“Dazai, what are you doing here anyway?” I asked.

“I have something I need to tell you about the case. A lot of things came to light after we last talked, especially about the enemy.”

There was only one case I knew of.

“Pops, sorry to ask this, but could you give us some privacy?”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll be in the back getting things ready, so just holler if we get a customer.”

The owner seemed to have sussed out the situation from my expression alone, and he took off his apron before gleefully heading out the back door. Dazai ended up eating most of his curry while tirelessly downing his cup of water. During that time, I let myself into the kitchen, made some coffee, and poured myself a cup.

“Man, that was hot. Why does curry have to be that hot? Does it have something against mankind? More people would eat it if it were less spicy. This is negligence in food culture.”

I thought about it for a moment before answering. “If more people ate it, then nobody would eat anything else, thus completely destroying food culture as we know it.”

“Makes sense.” Dazai nodded, seemingly convinced.

“So what was it you wanted to tell me?”

“I’ll get straight to the point. It’s a foreign crime syndicate,” he started to explain while pouring another glass of water. “They’ve only been in Japan for a short while. They used to be a well-known European skilled crime syndicate, but an organization of skill users in Great Britain known as the Order of the Clock Tower drove them out of the continent, and they scurried away to Japan.”

“They’re a European criminal organization?”

Europe was home to top-class skill users employed by both the government and various criminal organizations, and as a result, those skill users built an extremely elaborate and complex power structure throughout the continent. That was why such a strict surveillance system had been put in place to prevent such individuals from escaping to other countries.

When I asked Dazai how they could have gotten here, he tilted his head and replied, “Yeah, a crime syndicate of skill users shouldn’t be able to illegally enter another country that easily. There has to be more to this than meets the eye. They might have a collaborator within Japan.”

“But what did they come all the way to Japan for anyway?”

“Beats me. The only way we’ll know is if we ask them. We can guess, though. They escaped to a foreign land without a soul to rely on. This might sound snide, but they’re dead broke. So maybe they’re trying to make it big by stealing the Port Mafia’s turf and smuggling route.”

It was possible. There’s only one thing that poor crime syndicates want: money, money, and more money. But there was just one thing bothering me. I started to open my mouth to express my concerns.

“Hold on. Hear me out until the end.” Dazai stopped me as if he could read my mind. “I know what you want to say, Odasaku. They’re way too skilled to just be a group of low-level criminals who joined forces, right? I thought the same thing. You almost never see a sniper and spotter operating in tandem around here, let alone so proficiently. Those were ex-military. According to the intel I received, the leader of their organization is a powerful skill user and soldier commanding a seasoned group of men. I should be getting more detailed information soon. Anyway, you can’t underestimate these guys. If they systematically attack with such precise tactics, then even the Port Mafia might come tumbling down.”

“Does the boss know about this?”

“I told him,” Dazai reluctantly replied. “He appointed me as commander of the front line and tasked me with devising a strategy for Mimic, so I immediately set up a few traps—simple mousetraps. I’ve got a feeling the enemy might make a move soon.”

Mimic wasn’t just going to steal some weapons and try to snipe us—only to then hang their hats up and go home. Dazai was right. They were going to strike again…and it was going to be big.

“This is a really basic question, but…,” I said, then continued, “…shouldn’t the government be cracking down on crime syndicates with skill users?”

There were more than a few people in the world with unusual powers, including Dazai and me. The type of skill differs per person, but some are highly dangerous. That was why the government established a special agency to constantly surveil these dangerous individuals in secret. Those government agents, too, are skill users, and highly capable ones at that.

“You mean the Home Affairs Ministry’s Special Division for Unusual Powers, right?” Dazai cocked his head. “But see, they’re a secret organization, so they don’t really show their faces much. Besides, the Port Mafia is a powerful crime syndicate with skill users as well. I bet nothing would make that division happier than if the Mafia and Mimic took each other out.”

Dazai had a point. If the Special Division for Unusual Powers was so obsessed with eradicating crime involving skill users, then they’d have to take out the Port Mafia first. I’d heard from Ango once before that although the Division was a government agency with experienced skill users, they had only a few elites within their ranks; that would make it difficult for them to take a massive organization such as the Port Mafia head-on and win unscathed. They would most certainly have casualties. Apparently, the Special Division for Unusual Powers was trying to avoid that at all costs, so they stuck to simply keeping an eye on the Port Mafia from a safe distance. Of course, they’d have to bestir themselves if there were a lot of civilian casualties as well.

Only one question remained, although difficult to ask.

“What about Ango?”

Dazai didn’t immediately reply, sipping on his freshly brewed cup of coffee in silence. Even he needed time to prepare an answer.

“We’re almost completely certain that Ango is the one who leaked the code to the armory,” he muttered with eyes downcast on his cup. Then he glanced over at me as if he was trying to see my reaction. I didn’t say a word.

“Everyone in the organization is issued a different passcode to avoid trouble. And—”

“The code Mimic used to open the armory matched the one given to Ango, right?”

I crossed my arms. The missing pieces of the puzzle were slowly coming together. The pattern I saw, though, was one I wish I hadn’t.

“Hey, Dazai.” I took a seat by his side. For a split second, I felt as if I were in a dream. It was as though nothing had changed—just like the other day when I was sitting with Ango and Dazai at the bar. “Is there any possibility that someone framed Ango and is pulling the strings from behind the scenes?”

“It’s not out of the question. That’s always a possibility,” Dazai answered, but he didn’t seem to believe the words coming out of his own mouth. “If someone in the Mafia was colluding with Mimic, then sure, it’s possible. But I can’t think of a single person who’d benefit from that.”

Dazai shook his head. I felt the same way. All we could do at that point was find Ango as soon as possible and ask him. Whether that would bring us the results we hoped for was anyone’s guess, though.

The Mafia’s intelligence officer—Ango Sakaguchi. Why did he betray the syndicate?

During the battle of intelligence in the previous war of the syndicates, there were various barriers preventing members of enemy organizations from turning to the opposing side: money, the opposite sex, family, pride, a sense of belonging. From what I’d heard, if all of these barriers were cleared, then the enemy would most definitely defect. So what would’ve been Ango’s reason to join Mimic?

I looked to Dazai in search of an answer. He was hanging his head, contemplating in silence. His expression was…

Dazai was…

“…Ha-ha-ha.”

…laughing.

“At first, I just thought they were your average crime syndicate, but if they’re good enough for Ango to join, then that means a little arm-twisting isn’t gonna make them cry and say they’re sorry. Plus, Ango’s no pushover as an enemy. He’s no walk in the park. This is getting exciting. I bet they’re gonna back me into a corner, then—”

“Dazai.”

He paused when I called his name. I didn’t have anything else to say, though; I simply said his name.

Nobody knew what Dazai was really thinking.

It’s an unwritten rule in the Mafia to not stick your nose where it doesn’t belong. One must never open the door to another’s heart and try to judge them for the darkness tucked within. That was one nice thing about the Mafia.

But maybe, just maybe, that was the wrong approach—or at the very least, when it came to the man sitting next to me. Somebody probably should’ve tied him up, pried his chest open, and stuffed a vacuum cleaner inside. Then, as he screamed and cried until they needed to punch him to shut him up, they’d suck every last bit out of his chest and stamp it into the ground.

But in reality, such a vacuum didn’t exist. Chests don’t open up like that, and no one is capable of such feats. What we see is everything, and everything we see, we ignore. All we can do is stand before the deep ditch between us and others and keep silent.

“Well, I should get going,” Dazai said before standing.

“Dazai.” He turned around when I called out to him. Rubbing my hands together, I looked down at the empty plate and coffee cup, then back up. “Are you thinking that way because—?”

Out of nowhere, Dazai’s cell phone began to ring. He lightly bowed to me before placing the phone against his ear and answering. A few moments went by as he listened to whoever was on the other side, but soon enough, his lips suddenly twisted into a grin.

“All right.”

He hung up, then faced me once more before saying:

“We caught a mouse in our trap.”

There was no distinction between day and night in the Yokohama Settlement.

What was once the living quarters for a former occupying army was now a joint settlement with strong influences left over from the foreign consul. On paper, the Japanese military police and the consul police worked together to maintain public order within the Settlement. However, the law’s particulars were incredibly ambiguous, leading to countless gray areas. Numerous military parties, financial conglomerates, and criminals gathered here from all over the world like moths to a flame in order to benefit from these loopholes.

Even the MP cannot carelessly dabble in the Settlement’s affairs. It’s virtually an extraterritorial “Demon City,” which is one reason why Yokohama gained public notoriety for acting as the largest base for criminals with skills.

In one corner of this Demon City was an underground casino run by the Port Mafia. It was neither glamorous nor luxurious, but instead rather plain and ambiguous; it basically blended into the scenery. At least, that was how it appeared. But there was a reason for that. All the gambling done inside was illegal.

The casino was located beneath a shipyard and had a horde of Mafia guards on patrol. Patrons who visited were top-class financiers, politicians, military officers, and the like. The doorman wearing a double-breasted coat escorted the customers. Inside the underground casino was a chandelier, illuminating the damask wallpaper, wooden mosaic flooring, and shag carpeting. Various equipment stood like reticent sentinels: a jukebox playing jazz music from the Prohibition era, a roulette board, and a blackjack table. With their drinks in one hand, people casually squandered their money while enjoying secret conversations. A middle-aged bartender silently made cocktails behind the bar set in the corner.

That was when the unexpected suddenly happened. Soldiers draped in gray rags soundlessly appeared from the back door and began firing their submachine guns. Fragments of the chandelier and walls scattered into the air, raining over the customers’ heads. Like a flock of sheep struck by a bolt of lightning, the customers stampeded into each and every direction, wildly stomping over and on one another to escape. That was the first thing the soldiers were going for.

In the heat of the confusion, the croupiers swiftly grabbed the machine pistols they’d hidden away, but before they could even aim, the soldiers’ suppressive fire pierced their chests and brought them to their knees. The five soldiers immediately cut across the casino floor and rushed into the manager’s room in the back. They promptly disposed of the manager, then ripped the carpet off the floor.

Embedded in the floor was a large electric safe. One of the soldiers took out a notepad and punched in the numbers written in it on the electronic keypad. A gear deep inside the safe made a heavy clicking sound, and the door opened. The soldiers took a peek inside.

The safe was empty.

Their astonishment was as clear as day. Almost instantaneously, an electronic alert howled throughout the building, and fireproof shutters slammed to the ground with a heavy clang. The soldiers, aware of what was going on, shot the shutters, but the thick screens were designed to withstand bullets. After a few seconds, the ceiling sprinklers went off, sending a liquid over the soldiers, the croupiers, and even the patrons who couldn’t get away.

The liquid wasn’t water, however; it was a white substance that almost immediately evaporated when it came into contact with clothes or the floor. The patrons and employees, who had breathed in the air, began to cough violently. The soldiers promptly held their breath, but it was already too late.

One after another, everyone in the room began to collapse onto the floor. Almost no one was able to do anything of use. They simply clasped their throats, bent forward, and passed out. The white substance was just a type of knockout gas that affected the respiratory system; it wasn’t fatal.

However, the one soldier who had the most accurate grasp of the situation shot himself in the head. His blood and brain matter sprayed the wall, leaving a pattern that symbolized the last moment of his life. The remaining soldiers, on the other hand, lacked the clarity of mind to act on the spur of the moment. And just like the casino patrons, they fell to the ground.

There was only one difference between the patrons and the soldiers: The latter would never be allowed the luxury of a peaceful death.

I visited a small accounting firm by the coast. Ango used to work here in his early days before he became a top-secret intelligence agent. Everyone starts at the bottom of the pecking order sometime in their life.

Once I arrived at the office, I told them why I came. The guard and administrator both beamed as they escorted me to the back. The Mafia’s not all steel, guns, and explosives. These kinds of people are necessary, too.

This place was used as an accounting facility that washed the dirty money the Mafia brought in illegally. Three years ago, Ango was headhunted by the Mafia and worked here as an assistant.

The guard and the admin ended up bringing me to a windowless room hidden behind a wall. It was a dim space with secret Mafia assets, money-laundering ledger sheets, and other records stuffed in bookshelves lined up against the wall, plus a desk in the middle. There was nothing else except for a bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling, faintly wobbling.

“There ya go. Now if ya don’t mind, I’ll be gettin’ back to work,” came the administrator’s husky voice once he’d taken me to the bookshelves.

He claimed he had work to do, but I’d glanced into the room next door earlier and saw that his desk was covered in bonsai plants and a book on shogi—nothing else.

“Thank you very much.” I expressed my gratitude. “By the way, there’s a bit of burgeoning conflict unfolding at headquarters right now. Please be careful.”

“The only things here are old documents and stacks of securities that can’t be cashed. Attacking this place would just be a hassle.”

The administrator smirked. He had been the treasurer in charge of the Mafia’s finances for years. Perhaps he could instinctively sense where the sparks of war would land.

“This is a nice workplace.” After surveying the room, I called out to the administrator as he was leaving, “Maybe I should ask to be transferred here.”

The skin on his face crinkled as his lips curled into a grin.

“Most young’uns who say that don’t even last three days before they head for the hills. It’s boring here.”

After thanking the administrator for his time, I faced the open bookshelves once more. Ango’s records were here. Accountants have always been the epitome of meticulousness itself, but the people who manage the Mafia’s under-the-table accounts must be capable of writing out in detail everything that happens during the course of business. That way, even if they’re killed, the successor can take over for them without delay. I flipped through the business logs of the prior accountant. He was apparently well organized, even more than your average accountant, but just one single month of records alone was like reading a full-length novel—basically one long lyric poem about the underbelly of society.

I sat behind the desk in the middle of the hidden room and leafed through the documents. According to the records, Ango used to be a kind of hacker who bought and sold information. In the past, he drew out a scheme where he would work together with a gang to steal money from a corporation. They pretended they worked for the bank, opened the safe-deposit box, then swiped all the securities to exchange for cash. The plan was a complete success, so Ango and his team made quite a bit of money. But it was money stained in blood. The safe-deposit box and securities belonged to one of the Mafia’s front companies; Ango and his men basically swiped money right out of the Mafia’s pockets. Unsurprisingly, Ango was chased by hounds after that—armed mad dogs in black that tailed their prey through the night without so much as a howl or even a single sound.

Mentally exhausted and being fed misinformation, the gang grew suspicious of one another, leading to a shoot-out and their quick demise. Ango, on the other hand, continued to run. He was able to figure out in advance where the Mafia’s tracking unit would be next, allowing him to simply escape their reach throughout Yokohama. No less than six months went by.

For those six months, Ango managed to outsmart the Mafia’s tracking unit who knew Yokohama like the back of their hand, something that would’ve even put a government spy to shame. He was most likely somehow using the Mafia’s intelligence network in secret and leaking misinformation to confuse his enemies.

But there’s an end of the road for everybody. Nobody can evade the darkness of the night forever. Ango must have been prepared to die when he was captured in the slum’s underground aqueduct. Instead, he was brought before the boss, who wasn’t willing to dispose of someone with such outstanding information-manipulation skills.

That was the start of Ango’s second life.

—That was the first dramatic step of the man’s rise in the underworld. From what I can see in these files, there’s not even a shadow of Mimic in his background.

…Which meant Mimic and Ango didn’t have any contact until after this.

I flipped through the files some more until I found an account that caught my eye. Two years ago, Ango went to Europe for business after he had been in the Mafia for a year and gained their trust. His objective was to close a deal with a local stolen car broker. However, Ango ceased communication for those two months for unknown reasons. He didn’t seem any different once he returned, and he explained that some sort of misunderstanding with a local organization had led to his getting pursued as a criminal. And his story checked out, too. After looking into it, I discovered there actually was a mass arrest in Europe of organizations that smuggled stolen vehicles. The Port Mafia came to the conclusion that Ango must have gotten caught up in that, so no more questions were asked of him.

But in retrospect, it was hard to believe that Ango was on the run for two months because he couldn’t clear up such a simple misunderstanding. Nobody could confirm what Ango did during that period in Europe. With what I learned, I could only assume he used this time to meet with Mimic and come to some sort of deal—in other words, as a double agent. That would’ve meant Mimic had already been laying the groundwork to attack the Port Mafia from that moment on.

I closed the files, then sank deep into my thoughts to meditate. The room was dead silent. The only noises I heard were the sounds of passing cars, like a film far away. Something was off. Something about this scenario bothered me. Ango joined the Mafia, then secretly communicated with Mimic. From there, he waited for just the right time for both syndicates to clash. It was too perfect, like two computers playing chess. There were no signs of any unexpected actions, no curveballs…and that conversely made me uneasy.

I surveyed the room, thinking back to how Ango used to work here. That day, he had been in the same spot I was in at that very moment. Ango had been sitting in the chair with his elbows on the desk, his expression glum as he’d stared at me in silence.

This was where we first met. Ango was arrogant back then. He practically oozed displeasure, the bored expression on his face plainly illustrating that he didn’t feel he belonged in a place like this. I thought back to the way he’d looked at me. What did he say to me when we first met again? I believe it was…

“Could you please not get any closer? You smell,” he said with disgust and his elbows still on the desk. Dazai and I couldn’t even say a word as we stood stock-still by the door. An awkward silence descended over the hidden room.

I had heard around that this young man was the new guy, Ango Sakaguchi, but this was the first time I was actually meeting him. Dazai and I exchanged glances. We did indeed smell terrible. After all, we were on our way back from a mission. We must’ve reeked of oil, rust, and blood. My nose had given up sending signals to my brain a long time ago.

It was the middle of the Dragon’s Head Conflict. There was nary a night when you didn’t hear gunfire, and practically every drop of sewage water had been tainted with blood. The bodies of underground syndicate members piled up in every corner of the city. Even the MP couldn’t put a stop to it all, never mind come up with the manpower to inspect the crime scenes.

Dazai and I were given orders to clean up the fallen Port Mafia members’ bodies. We would photograph the corpses, then take their possessions back with us. We couldn’t afford to have the police take anything as evidence in their attempt to curb organized crime.

Nevertheless, it wasn’t a job you could afford to obsess over too much in the throes of war. What’s more, all the gunfights took place at the Yokohama Settlement’s waste-disposal site. That was where sludge and industrial waste oil were typically dumped illegally, and the police never went anywhere near it, let alone the neighboring residents.

And that was why Dazai and I were covered in oil and mud. The lingering stench was enough to send a stray cat on the other side of town running in the opposite direction.

At one point during our mission, Dazai had told me with an uncomfortable grimace, “It smells so bad that I want to cut my nose off.”

Glancing at us, Ango spoke bluntly. “Put their belongings on my desk, then stand back. Don’t open your mouth unless I ask you something.”

We did as we were told.

“You’re the new guy, right?” Dazai piped up. “Sorry, but can I use your shower? As you so politely pointed out, we smell awful—”

“I told you to keep quiet.”

Ango cut Dazai off, causing him to fall silent with his mouth agape. The other half of the sentence Ango had wrested from him idly hung in the air.

Regardless of how young he may have looked, Dazai was the leading candidate for the next executive. While Ango may have been a new hire at the accounting firm, that didn’t excuse his behavior.

He pulled the items out of the bags we gave him and began to inspect them one by one. IDs, keys, phones, knives, guns, pictures—he checked each item while recording them in his account book.

I had no idea what Ango was doing. I fully believed the evidence would be incinerated after checking them off with the names of the deceased. However, the new guy was inspecting each and every item, writing them down. Just what was he doing?

“What are you doing?” My curiosity got the best of me.

“How many times do I have to ask you to be quiet?” Ango replied as his pencil glided over the notepad. “Isn’t it obvious? I’m creating logs, of course.”

“I see,” I replied.

“Tell us your name!” Dazai suddenly yelled, causing me to jump in surprise. Ango’s eyes flicked over toward Dazai. Then, after a few moments of silence, he replied, “Ango…Sakaguchi.”

“Heh-heh-heh-heh…” Dazai began to chuckle, smiling from ear to ear for some reason.

“…What’s with the nauseating laugh?”

“You’re quite the interesting fellow, Ango. Doing that isn’t going to make the boss happy. In fact, it’s just going to cost more money and create extra work, never mind help you move up in the ranks.”

“Are you saying you know what I’m doing?” Ango asked with more than a hint of surprise on his face.

“You’re making records of the lives of the deceased. Am I right?”

Ango was caught off guard, his eyes wide in shock as if he’d just realized Dazai was there.

“When did you peek inside my logbooks?”

“I didn’t have to. It’s pretty obvious what you’re doing.”

I had no idea what made it so obvious, but stuff like this always happened when I was with Dazai, so I just quietly watched the scene play out. Dazai walked straight over to Ango with no regard for his reaction.

“The more violent this war becomes, the more the deceased start to just look like numbers. How many died yesterday? How many died today? The line between human losses and those of money and equipment begin to blur. There is no individual, no soul, and no dignity to death. But you’re fighting back against that. Anyway, could you read us one?”

Ango glared at Dazai in irritation for a few moments, but he eventually lowered his gaze to the files and began reading.

“Four of ours perished yesterday during the attack near the waste site: Kurehito Umeki, Shoukichi Saegusa, Miroku Ishige, and Kazuma Utagawa… Umeki was a former MP officer who was stigmatized and kicked out of the force for allegedly killing his colleague. He joined the Mafia soon after and proved to be a skilled leader in battle. He even led this small group. Umeki had already lost his parents prior to these events. He has a brother many years younger, but they haven’t been in contact. Whether he really killed his colleague is now forever a mystery never to be solved… Next is Saegusa. He succeeded his father in the Mafia and had been involved with the organization ever since he was a child. He had a way of calming situations down and was apparently loved by the shop owners on our turf. His dream was to become an executive… Now we have Ishige. She was a former sex worker who had been caring for her sick parents. She had poor eyesight but an excellent sense of hearing, which allowed her to hear the enemies coming before they attacked. Ishige likely played a huge role in the survival of many of our members… The final victim, Utagawa, was originally an assassin for an enemy syndicate that became a Mafia subsidiary when they were nearly wiped out. Utagawa is survived by his wife and kids, who do not know of his life of an assassin nor his association with the Mafia. Perhaps they will never know.”

I imagined the lives of the four departed as I listened to Ango. While I couldn’t vividly see them, I felt closer to them and their existence, which was no more.

Ango closed his book, then said, “They all found peace. Nobody can take that away from them. The information in this book is evidence of their lives and the legacy of people who will never be recorded as simply ‘four deaths’ in a report. I started collecting this data in between jobs, and I have created the same records for all eighty-four people in the Port Mafia who died since the conflict began.”

I found myself in mute amazement. It was difficult to even imagine how much work that must have been.

“Does the boss know about this—about the fact that you’re collecting and recording data that has no strategic value?” I asked.

“Yes, I gather the files together every week and shove them in the boss’s hands myself. He was annoyed at first, but now he feels that this is ‘a valuable source of information for truly understanding the state of the entire organization.’ He has come to enjoy reading them.”

What he’d started as a side project between jobs turned into his main responsibility, one directly handed to him from the boss. I guess that explained why the boss gave orders to Dazai, a candidate for the next executive, to rummage through dead bodies.

“Fascinating, isn’t it, Odasaku?” Dazai brazenly patted Ango on the back. “There’s really nobody in the Mafia like this—a true waste of talent.”

“I told you to stay back. You’re going to make me start smelling.” Ango grimaced.

“Don’t you agree, Odasaku? Don’t you just wanna read these records?”

I nodded, then replied, “Name your price. I’ll buy them off you.”

“They’re not for sale! Why are you even bothering me anyway?! I’m busy, you know! And you smell like rotten tsukudani!”

“C’mon, what’s a little rotten simmered fish between us? Besides, it goes great with sake.”

“Really? I had no idea.”

“No, they don’t! How can you lie about that so brazenly?!”

“B-but…it really does…taste good, y’know?”

“I didn’t mean you should be more timid about it!”

“I could really go for a drink now.”

“Good thinking! Let’s go to the usual place. We can even take this apprentice accountant with us while we’re at it. How does that sound?”

“Perfect.”

“I said I’m busy, so—”

“Odasaku, there’s only one way to save this man from his busyness. All we have to do is hug him tight from each side, covering him with mud, oil, and our putrid smell. That way, he physically won’t be able to work anymore today!”

“Good point.”

“Wh-what?! Are you threatening me?!”

“New guy, the Mafia doesn’t threaten. We murder. Oh, Odasaku, take the right side, will ya?”

“Sure thing.”

“W-wait! These are my best clothes! S-stop! You’re going to make me angr— Aaah!”

…………

We all gathered at the bar after that and got to know one another. There were no bosses or subordinates present; the three of us basically acted as equals. We drank, and we talked. That’s it. We talked about the city, about liquor, about the people we’ve met. It wasn’t as if we were passionately discussing some special topic we wanted to share, but even then, we didn’t run out of things to chat about. We were like soldiers who had by chance run into one another on the desert battlefield, crowded around a campfire together, quietly exchanging something or other and drinking, just sharing a moment of one another’s time.

In the world we live in, finding these types of relationships are rare, like coming upon a golden palace in the middle of a dense forest. If this relationship were to ever be broken, there would be no second chance to build something like this with anyone else ever again.

But then…

The old-fashioned pistol. The code to the safe.

Our relationship was beginning to visibly crumble at an alarming rate.

Dazai walked down a set of stairs leading to a dim basement. A white mist silently seeped in through the cracks in the stone wall, making the chamber hazy as if it were underwater. The walls were moist and black, dimly glittering after absorbing countless screams and despair.

This was the Mafia’s underground prison. Many entered alive, but very few left that way. Scores of people were taken down here for various reasons, among them the large number of instruments of torture available, the extreme difficulty involved in rescuing prisoners, and the simple fact that it was just a bit easier to clean up any mess and blood in the basement.

Dazai walked through the prison in silence as he headed toward the special prisoners’ cell. It was nothing more than a single room of around thirty-six square yards. The only entrance and exit was a short iron door; there wasn’t even a window to let the light in. Shackles and chains like those of a medieval jail hung from the wall.

There were three dead bodies in the middle of the cell—all relatively fresh. Their blood slowly spread across the floor, as if fruitlessly struggling to escape from the gloomy chamber. The ones who died here were Mimic soldiers. They had lost consciousness after breathing in knockout gas at the casino, and the Mafia had taken them here to be tortured.

“Tell me what happened,” Dazai said.

Four Mafia members were also in the cell, three of whom were Dazai’s subordinates who had helped fight against the sniper in the back alley. The fourth was a short, lean boy robed in a black overcoat.

“We used sleeping gas to knock out the Mimic’s vanguard when they attacked our casino, and then we brought them here,” one suited subordinate replied, pushing up his sunglasses. “We planned on torturing them for info on their allegiances, and we even removed the poison tucked away in their molars so they couldn’t kill themselves.”

“Yes, I’ve got that much. This was my plan, after all. What I want to know is what happened next.”

“One of the soldiers woke up quicker than we expected…” The one in sunglasses started stumbling over his words. “Before we could shackle him…he grabbed one of our guns and killed his men…just to make sure they wouldn’t talk. Then he attacked us, and—”

“I executed him.” The young boy in the black overcoat finished the mafioso’s sentence. Dazai looked at the boy, whose wide eyes glared back. “Is there a problem?”

“I see… No, there’s no problem.” Staring right into the boy’s eyes, Dazai continued, “You defeated an unyielding, formidable enemy and protected your allies, Akutagawa. Good work.”

Dazai began walking toward the boy in the black overcoat, the one he’d called Akutagawa. “Only your skill can defeat such a powerful enemy in one hit. Impressive. I wouldn’t expect any less from a subordinate of mine. Thanks to you, all three of the enemies we captured are dead—enemies I set a trap for and worked really hard to capture alive. Now we’re back to square one without a clue. If at least one of them were still living, we could’ve gotten some valuable information: where their base is, what they want, what’s their next target, who their leader is, where this leader came from, what this leader’s skill is… You really did us a favor.”

“Information? I’ll just slice every one of them into pieces until—”

Dazai suddenly punched Akutagawa in the face, preventing him from finishing his sentence. Akutagawa flew back onto the ground, his head bouncing off the stone flooring with a thud.

“Perhaps I made it look like I wanted to hear excuses. Sorry for the misunderstanding,” Dazai said while rubbing his knuckles.

“Urgh…”

Akutagawa moaned. He’d hit his head so hard that he couldn’t even stagger to his feet.

“Give me your gun,” Dazai ordered one of his men. The subordinate was hesitant but nonetheless handed over his weapon. Next, Dazai removed the magazine from the automatic pistol, took out all but three bullets, and then put the magazine back in. He immediately pointed the gun at Akutagawa, who was still on the ground.

“I have this friend who’s supporting several orphans all on his own, you see,” he continued, his weapon still drawn and aimed at the boy. “Akutagawa, I’m sure Odasaku would’ve been patient enough to give you the guidance you needed had he been the one who’d found you on the brink of starvation in the slums. That would have been the ‘right’ thing to do. But ‘righteousness’ doesn’t take very kindly to me. And there’s only one thing people like me do to useless subordinates.”

Dazai mercilessly pulled the trigger the moment he finished his sentence.

Three gunshots. Three flashes of light. Three empty shells tinkled across the floor.

“……”

Sweat dripped down Akutagawa’s forehead.

“See? You really can do it if you put your mind to it.”

The bullets were floating motionlessly right in front of Akutagawa. He had used his skill to stop them. Yet, despite that, his expression indicated he was struggling.

“I’ve told you this over and over again,” Dazai said, amused. “Your skill isn’t just for slicing up poor prisoners. You can use it to defend yourself, too.”

Akutagawa’s skill, Rashomon, allowed him to control his black overcoat like another life-form, transforming it into fangs or blades to cut through his opponents. Dazai had also theorized that his skill could even rupture space itself, thus blocking incoming bullets.

“Until now…I’ve never successfully used it to block.”

Akutagawa’s voice was lifeless, hoarse. He’d used most of his mental strength to create an interruption in space.

“But look at you now. You did it. I’m so happy for you.”

Akutagawa scowled. A look of severe tension shot across his face, almost exploding with emotion.

“Next time you mess up, I’m punching you twice and shooting five times. Got it?”

Dazai’s voice was colder than ice. Akutagawa tried to say something back, but Dazai’s stern gaze pressured him into silence.

“Now that I’m done educating my incompetent underling, it’s time to get to work. Let’s check the bodies. We might be able to find something.”

After giving orders to the three subordinates at his side, one timidly spoke up.

“So…what exactly do you want us to check?”

“Everything! Isn’t it obvious?” Dazai cried in exasperation. “We need to find something that might lead us to their hideout. Anything could be a clue: the soles of their shoes, the trash in their pocket, food crumbs from whatever they ate, adhesives stuck to their clothes—everything. Tsk… My lackeys seem to think beating the enemy to death is all the Mafia does. Odasaku’s gonna solve everything all by himself at this rate.”

“Sakunosuke Oda… I know that guy,” the subordinate with sunglasses added hesitantly. “Dazai, sir, I don’t mean to be rude, but…I saw him sweeping behind the office the other day. A man of his status isn’t qualified to be your friend, let alone contend with an enemy like this.”

Dazai stared, flabbergasted, at his underling.

“Are you joking? Odasaku’s not qualified?” Dazai asked, thoroughly surprised.

“Yes…”

The other men nodded as well.

“You fools!”

Dazai’s lips curled into a sneer in genuine disgust. “Listen, I’m telling you guys this for your own good. Do not make Odasaku angry—no matter what you do. If you were to anger him—truly, deeply upset him—then all five people in this room would be dead before anyone could even draw their guns.”

The subordinates were at a loss for words. Even Akutagawa stared at Dazai with a tense expression on his face.

“When he’s serious, Odasaku’s scarier than anyone in the entire Mafia. Akutagawa, you could train for a hundred years, and you still wouldn’t be able to beat him.”

“…That is absurd…,” Akutagawa muttered, his voice stifled. “…That’s impossible. Are you saying that I—?”

But Dazai just ignored him.

“Now, let’s get to work! Our enemy might be a pain, but if we don’t sort this out soon, the Special Division for Unusual Powers is gonna show up to put the fire out, and we don’t want that.”

His hands still on the stone floor, Akutagawa merely glared at Dazai.

“…”

His spiteful gaze was aimed at not only Dazai, but even Akutagawa himself.

I left the accounting firm thinking about Ango, the man slowly slipping into evil somewhere in town. Or perhaps we, the Mafia, were the bad guys while Ango and Mimic were on the side of justice trying to bring us down. I started to believe that this hypothesis actually made even more sense than the others. Dazai, the boss, me, everyone in the Mafia—maybe we all deserved to die burdened with sin, solitude, and remorse. For all I knew, that could’ve been proof of the righteousness of this world. Those thoughts plagued my mind from the moment I departed the firm until I got a call from Dazai not long after.

“Hey, Odasaku. I know this is sudden, but we got a clue. I need you to go somewhere for me right now.”

According to him, the Mimic soldiers’ shoes had multiple dead leaves stuck on them from a certain perennial broadleaf that didn’t lose its leaves during that period. The entire plant would have to be withering for the leaves to fall, but perennials would not die so easily. Therefore, one conceivable possibility was that an herbicide was used to kill it.

From there, Dazai’s men searched for specialists who had used herbicides to get rid of trees those past few months. As a result, they found one shop around Yokohama that did in fact remove the same kind of broadleaves. Workers had cleared a bunch of them from the side of the road for a land readjustment project, part of which included expanding a traffic tunnel.

The area was in the mountains and void of any real landmarks. The only facility nearby was a weather observation station that had been abandoned over a decade ago. Nobody dared go near. It slowly fell apart, fading with time. The building was large, isolated, and capable of storing goods and resources. It was the perfect hideout for a group like Mimic, all alone in a foreign country with no one to turn to.

Night was not far off. I drove down the highway toward my destination as violet and cerise quarreled in the sky over the horizon. Somewhere off in the distance, I heard the sound of seabirds squawking.

I stopped my car along a dirt trail that cut into the mountains and got out. From there, I trotted through the thick weedy path until I eventually saw a reinforced concrete building in the darkness, bathing in the crimson glow of twilight.

It was a three-story abandoned building. Ivy crawled up what were once white walls, which had been battered with rain, the sea breeze, and the passage of time. Most of the paint was now gone. In the center of the building was an observation tower for monitoring the sky, topped with a spherical observation room that seemed to have been added more for aesthetics than for anything else.

Since the dirt and trees absorbed most sounds, the area was completely silent as if it were floating in outer space. I didn’t get the feeling there were many people hiding inside. After a moment’s thought, I decided to investigate the run-down building myself before Dazai’s men would arrive. I had a hunch, and if this hunch was correct, then I should’ve been able to find information on Ango there, and that information was probably something I shouldn’t show anyone else in the Mafia.

Pushing through the weeds, I entered the building. There was nothing on the first floor…if you ignored the loose floor tiles, rusted chairs, and dead beetles scattered about. The evening sun peeked in through the cracks of the boarded windows, illuminating the dust particles in the air. I discovered a few footprints in the dust and gravel-littered floor—military boots. It appeared a number of people had been coming to this spot as of late.

I had placed a foot on the staircase to the second floor, which looked as if it could come crumbling down at any moment, when I heard a sound coming from somewhere in the building. It was very faint, only about as loud as a kitten rolling on its back. I strode up the staircase, but I didn’t see a soul on the second floor. No signs of anyone on the third floor, either. It was just as I thought. I rushed upstairs, climbing the observation tower that connected to the observation room.

As I entered a small room at the top of the stairs, I found someone tied to a chair and unable to move. That person yelled at me the moment they noticed I was there.

“Odasaku! Stay back!”

I ignored his command and ran over. That man—Ango—struggled to free his hands, which had been tightly tied behind his back, but the rope didn’t even budge. I slipped behind him and began trying to untie his bonds.

“Why did you come?! The enemies are using this facility as their base!”

“I just got the feeling that you wanted help.”

I started to dismantle the knots—no easy feat.

“I don’t need any help!”

“Really?”

I slipped a finger into one of the rope’s knots, then tugged at it with a viselike grip. It loosened slightly.

“Let me guess one of the reasons you’re in trouble. Mimic found out you were a spy. Am I wrong?”

“…! That’s…”

Ango fell silent.

“Everyone in the Mafia thinks you’re a Mimic spy who infiltrated the Mafia. But it’s actually the opposite; Ango Sakaguchi is a Mafia spy who infiltrated Mimic.”

Ango instinctively opened his eyes wide and looked at me.

“Mimic was watching your room through a sniper rifle scope to make sure the old pistol inside wouldn’t get stolen. But why didn’t they just snipe the Mafia’s boss and get it over with? The reason is simple: You lied and said you didn’t know where the boss was. But why did you do that? Because the boss decides everything you say and don’t say about the Mafia.”

Ango squeezed his eyes shut. Clenching his teeth, he seemed to be struggled to keep down the emotions bubbling up from within. Before long, he opened his eyes again and said, “Odasaku, please, you have to get out of here. I failed.” Ango signaled to the floor above with his chin. “There’s a time bomb upstairs. Now that they know I betrayed them, they plan on leaving no trace of me.”

“See? I knew you needed my help.” I gave up on trying to untie the knot and pulled out my gun. “Lean as far away from the chair as you can.”

I carefully aimed at the rope’s knot and fired two shots. The entire chair shook as the rope flew off.

“Let’s get out of here. How much time do we have before the bomb goes off?”

“The whole building is coming down any second now!”

Lending Ango my shoulder, we rushed down the staircase. It appeared Ango was slightly roughed up before being bound; he staggered while holding his side. But even then, we sprinted down the stairs so fast that we almost fell. The bomb went off right as we were about to run out the door. The shock wave came first, followed by blasts of hot air swooping down over us.

We leaped out the door headfirst. To be more technical about it, the blast blew us outside headfirst, and we were thrown into the thickets. All the air was squeezed out of my lungs.

Finally, rubble and debris from the building started raining down from the sky. I tried to move out of the way, but the blast from the bomb had rendered my body useless. Fortunately, no heavy chunks of concrete flew our way, and the light boards of the walls were sent flying far into the distance. Still, our backs were uncomfortably pelted with countless bits of gravel both large and small.

It took almost an entire minute before we could start breathing normally again. I coughed as I brushed the rubble off my head. My vision went back and forth from red to white.

“Ango… Are you okay?”

“Yeah, somehow.”

Ango crawled, pulling himself out of the rubble before looking back at the building. I did the same before turning around as well. The second floor up was essentially destroyed, leaving only the charred framework. Even the flooring of the room where Ango was being held prisoner had been blown away. Mimic really went all out on the explosives. They destroyed any evidence we would’ve used to go after them as well.

“How much does our boss know about this?” I asked Ango while trying to catch my breath.

“Almost everything,” he replied. “He’s the only one in the Mafia who knows I infiltrated Mimic. That’s how sensitive this mission is. More people knowing would increase the chances of a leak. This is a fundamental principle when handling secret information.”

“I’ve been had.” I got up, then took a seat on some rubble. “So that’s why the boss ordered me to find you while keeping the truth a secret.”

It was insurance in case Ango’s undercover work went south. He needed a pawn who would save him—someone who knew nothing, wouldn’t deceive anyone, and wouldn’t get suspicious no matter what happened.

“Bombs and close brushes with death aren’t really my thing.”

Ango shook his head, making his bitterness clear.

“At any rate, Mimic was as quick as an arrow to react. They didn’t even give me a chance to take measures to protect myself. Ugh. I can see rainbow-colored stars when I close my eyes. What in the world is this?”

“You get used to it.”

“I have to inform the boss of what happened.” Ango got to his feet. “Mimic’s commander is a dangerous man. He’s coolheaded, has the qualities of a leader, and seeks conflict. He plans on completely annihilating the Mafia, and his men would slit their own throats for him. I even saw someone do it.”

“What’s this leader’s name?” I asked.

“André Gide. He’s a powerful skill user himself. He should be avoided at all costs, especially by you, Odasaku. Whatever you do, do not fight him… By the way, you were the one who found the pistol in the safe in my room, were you not?”

I replied that I was.

“That gun is a symbol. There’s a special design on the hammer that proves you’re a member of Mimic. It took me a year to receive one.”

As Ango stood in the midst of the debris with wobbly legs, he quickly turned his gaze to the thickets in the mountains…as if he was trying to look for something there.

“It’s too late to stop the war between Mimic and the Mafia. Fighting is all they think about. Moreover, it doesn’t matter to them who they fight. They’d dance the jitterbug with the hound of Hades if it would take them to their next battlefield. If we don’t do something soon, the city will— Ngh!”

The skin around Ango’s temple tore, and a trail of blood slowly trickled down his cheek. I handed him a handkerchief, which he thanked me for before using it to apply pressure to the wound.

“Just who are they?”

“They’re an army…although I’m sure you already figured that out yourself. They’re remnants of an army faction defeated during the previous interorganizational war. These men don’t know how to live outside of a battlefield. They’re known as grau geists—men with no master. Even now, they’re obsessed with warfare—” Ango suddenly turned his gaze to the dirt path. “What’s that?”

I followed his eyes. A blue temari handball, the type kids use to play games, rolled down the gravel slope. Did it get blown over there during the explosion? The ball rolled to my feet, and I picked it up. It was a deep azure. The strings were coming loose, since it was rather old, but there was something about the beautiful geometric pattern that drew me in. I rolled it around in my hand, and when I put my palms together, it fit perfectly between them. I looked at the back side, but there was nothing particularly unique—

The earth suddenly shook. All of a sudden, my gaze met the ground in front of me. The next second, I realized I was falling, and I collapsed face-first, despite placing both my hands out to catch myself. My vision blurred. I felt sick. When I looked at my hands, they were covered in a sticky blue liquid; that ball had been coated in it. The parts of my hand covered in the liquid tingled uncomfortably. Major alarm bells rang wildly in my head.

The vision ended there.

I stood among the debris. The worst thing about the vision ending was that I was already holding the handball. I immediately threw it away, but it was too late. I started to feel dizzy just like a moment ago. I rubbed my palms on my coat to wipe off the blue slime, but it had already been absorbed into my skin and infiltrated my body. My skill, Flawless, allowed me to see a few seconds—more than five but less than six—into the future in my head. That was how I was able to avoid surprise attacks like sniper fire and explosions.

However, if I were to realize I was in danger after falling into the trap…there was no way for me to avoid it even if I did have a vision just like the moment before. I had been holding the handball for over six seconds. It was too late. Whoever did this knew about my skill inside and out. There weren’t many people who did. Nervously sweating, I tried to warn Ango, but I couldn’t talk. A dark shadow appeared noiselessly behind him; it was four—no, five people dressed in field tunics as dark as the night with gas masks hiding their faces. They weren’t Mimic. None of them were carrying old-fashioned gray pistols, but rather state-of-the-art precision-guided rifles. They were with the Special Forces. One of the men in black tapped Ango on the shoulder. Ango turned around and nodded as if to say he understood.

“Odasaku, I apologize for the trouble I caused you.”

Ango walked over and placed the handkerchief I had just given him in my hand. I couldn’t brace myself, never mind hold the handkerchief. Ango took a white silk glove out of his pocket, then pulled it over his right hand before picking up the blue handball.

“You are free to speak of everything that happened here. Everything I told you about Mimic was true. I just wish I could have had a drink with you and Dazai one last time at the usual place and time…”

A Special Forces soldier tapped Ango on the arm, seemingly giving him a signal. After responding with his gaze, Ango looked down at me and smiled as if he had given up.

“Take care of yourself.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ango turn his back to me before leaving with the Special Forces. I wasn’t even able to move my neck or eyes at that point. The world in front of me was slowly swallowed by darkness. My tongue numb, I called out to Ango as he left, but even I didn’t know what I was saying. An indescribable feeling of loneliness was the only thing filling my heart…as if I were floating at the end of the universe.

Even that was swallowed by darkness.

My consciousness faded to black.

Out of nowhere, I had a vision. After it was over, I lunged backward in response to what I had seen. Then, like a flash of darkness, a blade swung right through where my head just was.

“I’ve heard about you. You’re nothing more than a lackey,” Akutagawa said, panting. His eyes glowed with outrage as if he was going to pounce at me any second.

“Yep.”

“You’re ‘Dazai’s friend’?”

His penetrating gaze shot right through me. It was as if something had set his heart ablaze with utter darkness.

“Yeah,” I replied.

“Dazai told me something once. He said I could train a hundred years and still wouldn’t be able to defeat you.” Akutagawa’s murderous rage swelled and burst forth. “He wouldn’t lie, which is exactly why I can’t forgive you. I’m inferior to even you, the lowest-ranking member of the Mafia? Why? Why? Why?”

Three strips of black fabric soared toward me. Having already seen his attack in a vision, I rolled to the side and dodged. The tree behind me was sliced in two before falling down with a loud crack.

“We don’t have time to fight between ourselves. The enemy will be here any moment now.”

“Why?! Why did Dazai…?!”

I lowered my head until it was almost touching the ground. After cutting down a few trees, the black fabric behind me swung back right over my head. Immediately, a few more trees collapsed.

What a frightening skill. It had extraordinary range and speed. What was more, the blades sliced through everything they touched, making it one of the most powerful skills in the Mafia. The idea of someone this talented at this age was spine-chilling. I could see why Dazai wanted to keep him by his side to train him. However, now wasn’t the time for admiration.

As I shot my pistol at Akutagawa, he sliced the space before him with the black fabric he had apparently been storing by his side. The bullet then sank into the cut space and stopped. However, I already knew about his defense mechanism, so I used that opening to slide to his side and kicked his injured arm with everything I had.

“Gah…?!”

The excruciating pain forced Akutagawa to writhe and fall unconscious. He was already mentally drained from using his skill over and over again and from guarding multiple times with a technique he wasn’t yet accustomed to using. The kick to the gunshot wound was enough to send him over the edge.

He was barely conscious regardless.

I’d heard that Dazai’s Spartan training style was relentless, but no matter how effective it was in producing fast results, Akutagawa was still a kid. Mentally, he was already exhausted from battling the Mimic soldiers, its leader, and me all in quick succession. No one would’ve been surprised if he’d passed out on his own. Just where did that tenacity come from?

“Why?! Why did Dazai…?!”

When he’d let out that anguished cry, I caught a glimpse of something faint—something other than anger—hidden behind his expression. I couldn’t get it out of my head.

“I had a feeling…that I would find someone in this country with that skill.”

“What are you talking about?”

I turned around.

The Mimic leader stood at the forest’s entrance with three of his men. Since I could no longer hear any gunfire, you could’ve even described the man-made forest as tranquil in that moment.

“I am André Gide. We ghosts came in search of…the one who will free our souls,” the leader claimed.

He had striking features. If he were wearing a fancy suit with a glass of wine in hand, I could see him being an actor in a movie. However, there was a certain quality to the timbre of his voice that sounded like something from decades past.

“Well, I know this guy who works at a funeral home. I’m sure he’ll give you a discount if I put in a word for you.”

“That won’t be necessary…because I just found who I was looking for.”

At the same instant, Gide shot his pistol, aiming for right between my eyes. It was an extremely accurate shot, but knowing it was coming five seconds in advance made it easy to dodge.

I took half a step to my right. One bullet hit me between the eyes, the other through my heart. The assault weapon’s soft-point bullet broke through my cranium and into the back of my skull, sending me flying from the impact.

The vision ended there.

My skill showed me the future. While suppressing the panic flashing through my mind, I swerved to the left, contrary to what I did in my vision. However, the moment I dodged, a bullet was buried in my skull. The inside of my head shook from the impact, sending a soft, damp sound through my skull.

The vision ended there.

I stood in a daze. Gide hadn’t moved since he got there. He was still aiming his gun right at me and hadn’t even pulled the trigger yet. I was suddenly thrown into a deep pool of confusion.

What’s going on?

“Your confusion is my confusion as well,” Gide said after lowering the gun. “Because you can do exactly what I can. You have the skill to see danger that involves you seconds before it happens. I saw a future where you moved right, so I adjusted my aim accordingly. However, you ‘saw’ that future and swerved left instead. And I saw that future as well… Do you understand what I’m saying?”

We have the same skill?

“Your ability to observe the future is omnipotent. No one in this world can kill you…with the exception of me.” Gide’s cheeks tensed as his lips vaguely stretched to the sides. It looked as if he was smiling. “And the only one who can bury me is you. You are the sole person who can end this war.”

His smile was truly from the heart. It was as if someone had injected ice-cold poison into my veins. I almost reflexively pointed my gun at him.

“Yes. Just like that,” Gide replied as if he were begging for it. “That bullet alone can stop this war. You’re a member of the Mafia. You should want nothing more than the head of your enemy.”

The muzzle of my gun was pointed at Gide. Everything he said was true. There was no telling who would win in a match between two people who could see the future. But there wasn’t anyone else in the Mafia who could even make him sweat.

I took in a deep breath before exhaling with the muzzle still aimed right at the enemy. Then I lowered my gun.

“I’ll pass,” I replied. “I came here to save my ally. And honestly, I haven’t killed anyone in years.”

“………What?” That was the first time I heard a note of surprise in his voice. “Are you…not with the Mafia?”

“The Mafia’s full of all different kinds of people.”

“Guns are tools to kill, and this is a battlefield.” Gide gradually raised his voice. “So let us fight! Let us fight with all that we are—a battle that tears away at our souls! All a war needs is a single bullet. Even if you don’t shoot, you will have no choice but to fight back if I do!”

He aimed his gun at me. Only moments prior, I “saw” him fire.

“Everyone’s obsessed with fighting. They can’t get enough of it,” I said. “But not me. I’m interested in living. What interests me is how you guys live and what drives you to war. And if you die, that information will be forever lost.”

“There is no life more important than death!”

Gide pulled the trigger.

I had a vision.

The bullet hit me as I bent backward to dodge. I ducked, yet I was still hit. I tried swerving to the side, but the bullet connected. Each condition was superimposed as it played out through my head.

Foreseeing the future wouldn’t help me in the least like this. I plunged forward in an attempt to decrease my area of damage. The enemies’ bullets soared by, slightly grazing my temples. The Mimic soldiers shot their automatic rifles in tune with their leader; however, I was able to easily foresee it. Rolling over the dirt, I avoided their bullet shower, then fired back with both of my weapons. They were mere warning shots, purposely aimed to not hit anyone. After rolling to Akutagawa’s side, I got on one knee and raised my guns.

“You purposely…missed?” Gide’s expression darkened. “Do you…really believe this is the battle we have yearned for? What, what is it we’ve been fighting for until now…?”

“Sorry you came all the way to Japan for this, but I have my reasons for not killing anyone. Please find someone else.”

“Why?!” Gide yelled. “After that battle, we searched for a place worthy of death. We wandered the world like specters! You are our only hope! Shoot! Shoot us! If you don’t…”

His howls floated unheeded into the atmosphere. He sounded like a man deep in his grave, but also like someone who desperately wanted to live. It appeared I had no choice but to answer him. In hushed tones, I replied:

“The reason why I can’t grant your wish is that I have a dream. When I quit the Mafia and am able to do anything I want, I will sit at a desk in a room with a view of the ocean…”

—“Then you write what happens next.”

—“That’s the only way to preserve its perfection.”

“I want to be a novelist,” I continued. “I want to throw away my gun. All I want in my hands are a pen and paper… A certain man once told me that writing novels is writing people… You cannot write about someone’s life after you rob them of it. That’s why I will never kill again.”

All noises vanished in an instant. The sound of the wind, the sound of leaves rubbing together—they all disappeared, filling the world with only silence.

That was something I had never told anyone before, not even Dazai or Ango.

“Is that your answer?” Gide asked in a low voice. “Is that the reason why you refuse to stand on the battlefield before us?”

“Yes,” I answered.

I looked at Gide, and he looked back at me. Our gazes quietly crossed as we tried to read the emotions hidden deep in each other’s eyes. That was when I realized the negotiation had failed. Gide aimed his gun at Akutagawa, who was still unconscious, and pulled the trigger.

It would’ve been impossible to pick up an unconscious body and dodge a bullet at the same time, so I threw myself in front of Akutagawa. The impact hit me right in the middle of the chest. I’d jumped to the side, and the force spun me around before I collapsed onto the ground and rolled back even farther.

“To live? We are already dead. We are but soulless masses of flesh controlled by the spirits of the departed. We are nothing more than empty shells waiting for a skill user like you to reduce these bodies to ash with your gunfire.”

Each cough brought an unbearable pain in my chest. I ripped my jacket and checked the bullet to find it stuck in my bulletproof vest. Even then, my sternum ached as if I’d been hit with a hammer.

“You’re not dead.” I slowly strung my words together. “I don’t know what happened to you in the past, but you can take your time to think about how you’ll die.”

“Why don’t you understand…? You’re the only one who can…!”

As he wrung every last bit of anger out of his voice, all emotion suddenly faded from Gide’s eyes like a candle going out. And just like that, his gray eyes were empty, as if I were staring into endless ruins.

“If that is your answer, then there is nothing that can be done. You will not kill me because you do not understand my desire. Also, I will not kill you because you are the only one who can guide us into the battlefield’s sacred fire.”

Without making a sound, the personnel carrier from earlier stopped alongside the artificial forest’s entrance behind Gide. Then he and his men quietly got into the truck to the very last man. The grave tone reminded me of a funeral. As they were about to take off, Gide looked back at me once more, then said, “I will make you understand.”

His expression was pale. There was a note of sorrow in his voice that sounded like something not of this world. I couldn’t even tell where it was coming from.

“I will make you understand me. I’ll show you…,” Gide said while sternly pointing at his temple, “…what is in here. Then you will know the truth. You will understand that one of us must die.”

He silently walked away, got in the truck, and disappeared. However, at the final moment before he left, he cast a glance at me that chilled my blood. At last, he spoke.

“Look forward to it.”

Ever since that day, Mimic stopped attacking us. After getting the injured the help they needed, I talked with Dazai a little. Then I locked myself in my room and cycled through my thoughts. In that dim room, I listened only to my heartbeat as I observed the emotions bubbling up from within me like foam. I had a feeling something was going to happen, and soon. Something big. Like the violet sky before nightfall, like faraway thunder before a downpour, I had a faint sense I was about to face something colossal. This foreboding had nothing to do with being a skill user; it was the small tinge everyone gets before something’s about to happen. But realistically, there was virtually nothing I could do about it until it actually occurred and slapped me in the face. The world isn’t kind. You have to be tough.

Night fell. Dazai contacted me and asked if I could meet him to discuss our plans going forward. I grabbed my coat and left my room.

“I like the night,” Dazai said. “Nighttime is the Mafia’s time.”

The two of us took a walk through downtown Yokohama. The city residents were calmly roaming the streets. Buildings old and new equally bathed in the moist sea breeze. The golden stars in the sky flickered just like the lights on the earth’s surface.

“Where are we going now?”

“To meet someone.” Dazai smiled. “Anyway, I feel for you, Odasaku. Not only did you run into the enemy’s boss, but he made some serious advances toward you, too. At this rate, you guys will be married by the weekend.”

“That’s not what happened.” At least, I hoped not. “They’re just a group of weirdos who start wars for the sake of it.”

“Oh? I think it’s kinda cute, going to such lengths to plan another person’s death. I never would’ve thought of doing that.” There was more than a hint of amusement in his tone. “But I can’t ignore what he said to you before he left. They might try to switch up their strategy before attacking again. I need to have my men keep an eye on you.”

“How much longer is this conflict gonna last?”

“The Mimic soldiers don’t bother me so much, but the leader’s skill is a real pain. Surprise attacks won’t work, which means we need some inside information. Got any ideas?”

The Mafia was making every effort to get intel on Mimic, but so far it had been all for naught.

“Ango’s the only lead I’ve got,” I said. “He was working as a double agent for the Mafia and Mimic for years. He ought to know a lot more than what he told me the other day.”

“I agree.” Dazai nodded.

“Is there no way to find him?”

“There is,” he plainly declared.

“Oh, there is?” I nodded. Then I found myself surprised. “Wait. There is?”

“More precisely, there’s no need to search for him. He’ll be waiting for us. All right, we’re here.”

I looked up in the direction Dazai was pointing in.

“Here?” I asked.

“Where else?” Dazai wryly smirked.

Before me was a familiar bar with a white sign and a small light glowing in the darkness of the night.

Dazai and I went down the dimly lit stairs to the basement. I could hear the faint voices of people conversing as my feet were enveloped in a white cloud of cigarette smoke. Thinking back, there was always someone there. Whenever I came by, I would always mysteriously run into a friend who would immediately greet me, even if we hadn’t made plans to meet or if I’d just stopped by on a whim.

And that still hadn’t changed.

“Hey, nice to see you. I’ve already started.”

In the exact same seat, ever his usual self, Ango raised his glass and greeted us. After giving the bartender the signal with my eyes, I raised a finger. Immediately, he gave me a quick glance of acknowledgment. Dazai and I then took the seats by Ango’s side.

“You could’ve at least tried to get in touch with me,” I said.

“It took me a while to throw the pursuers off my trail.” Ango let out a bitter laugh. “I’ve had a lot of difficulties that prevented me from talking. But now there are no wiretaps, and nobody followed me here. I can drink to my heart’s content. More importantly, how did you know I was here?”

“I found a handkerchief at the site of the explosion.” Dazai grinned fiendishly. “There was a napkin from this place wrapped inside. It was completely obvious. Who would’ve thought spies used such dated methods, huh?”

Now that he mentioned it, I remembered lending Ango my handkerchief before I passed out. That must’ve been when he slipped the napkin in. I just thought I’d lost it.

“We’re the only ones who would pick up on something like that,” Ango said before letting out a small sigh. “I thought I’d never get to drink here again. I’m lucky. And I want to share this luck with my two friends.”

“Well, aren’t you being rather sentimental for an undercover agent,” Dazai coolly replied.

I looked at Ango. He didn’t immediately react to what Dazai had said, but his lips seemed to faintly curl.

“…I’m impressed,” Ango quietly admitted after a few moments went by.

“Ango, you were already somebody before you joined the Mafia. You were an agent for the Home Affairs Ministry’s Special Division for Unusual Powers, a secret government agency. Your mission was to keep an eye on the Mafia and report back to headquarters.”

“……Yes,” Ango replied after a deep sigh.

“While you may be part of a secret organization that presides over the skill users in this country, you wouldn’t make it out unscathed if you took on the Port Mafia head-on. Plus, the mission of the Special Division for Unusual Powers is to manage skill users, not wipe them out. That’s why they sent an agent to infiltrate the Mafia to keep an eye on things. It was an unavoidable measure of action. Am I right?”

That would mean the entire mess that got Ango into the Mafia was set up by the Special Division for Unusual Powers.

“That’s when Mimic came up. This criminal organization of skill users planned on coming to Japan, and they would prove to be another headache for the Special Division for Unusual Powers to deal with. Therefore, they got you to keep an eye on them…as a double agent for the Mafia. Of course, those black-clothed Special Forces—the Division’s task force—would come to your rescue if needed.”

“Being a government official was a thankless job for little money,” Ango claimed with a scowl.

“So that would mean Ango wasn’t a double agent, but a triple agent,” I said.

“Yep.” Dazai nodded. “Well, that’s about the extent of my research. Anyway, enough boring stuff. Let’s drink.”

Glasses were then gently placed before our seats. Usually, we would say cheers after that, but not this time. Perhaps that would never happen again.

Nobody spoke for a while after that. A bitter silence, more bitter than anything on the menu, filled the air between us.

“So…” Ango reluctantly spoke up since no one else would say anything. “Did you come here to affirm our abiding friendship?”

“As if.” Only the corners of Dazai’s lips curled. “We came to get information on Mimic. You knew that.”

“It’s strange. This is the same liquor I always order, yet it has no taste,” Ango muttered while staring at his glass as if he was talking to himself. Then he turned his gaze to me and asked, “The Division’s surveillance group informed us that you met Gide. Did you see his skill?”

I told him I saw that Gide could predict his enemy’s attacks.

“Even the Special Division for Unusual Powers has no way of dealing with that skill.” Ango shook his head. “The only option would be to drop a massive bomb on him…but he’s elusive. We can’t pin him down. The higher-ups apparently intend to let the Mafia deal with this case. After both crime syndicates take each other out, the Special Division for Unusual Powers can just manage whichever group survives, thus never having to sacrifice one of their own.”

Such a brilliant maneuver would be like killing two birds with one stone for the Special Division for Unusual Powers.

“How convenient.” Dazai tilted his head to the side. “But even the Mafia would have a hard time dealing with that skill.” Dazai then looked at me out of the corner of his eye. “…With the exception of one lowest-ranked mafioso, of course.”

“He’s a military veteran in command of countless powerful soldiers,” I mentioned as I stared at my reflection in my drink. “Besides, our skills merely allow us to see a few seconds into the future. Who wins depends on whoever’s more skilled in battle and with a gun.”

Being more skilled with a gun means being able to shoot your opponent from farther away with more accuracy.

“Odasaku’s marksmanship…” Dazai broke into a meaningful grin. “There’s a lot of uncertainty. Plus, there’s also the problem of a skill singularity.”

“Skill singularity?”

“Did anything unusual happen when you used your skill against Gide?”

After thinking about it for a moment, I told him something unusual did, in fact, happen. I saw multiple futures stacked on top of one another.

“It’s a phenomenon the government has started to research only recently.” Ango’s expression was stern as he spoke. “They’ve observed that when multiple skills interact, on rare occasions they’ll careen off into a completely unexpected direction. The details are unclear, but for example…let’s imagine two people are fighting, but both have the skill to always strike first… Or one has the skill to always deceive their opponent while the other has the skill to always see the truth… What would happen? The answer is we don’t know until we try. Most of the time, one skill ends up winning. However, in some rare cases, it leads to a phenomenon that isn’t initiated by either party. The Special Division for Unusual Powers calls this a singularity.”

Maybe what I saw then was a singularity. Or was a singularity something even beyond that?

“I really wasn’t supposed to tell you any of that,” Ango mentioned. “Even the fact that we met here would be a huge problem if the higher-ups in the Home Affairs Ministry ever find out. I’ll need to go into hiding for the time being.”

Dazai looked at Ango, then beamed as he said, “Oh my. It almost sounds like you think you’ll be able to leave here alive, Ango.”

The air froze. Ango’s expression slowly faded away, but Dazai was still smiling.

“I mean, you know what I’m saying, right? An elusive, secret agency of skill users shrouded in darkness—a group of mythical status that sends shivers down the spines of all criminal syndicates in the country—and one of the members from that organization is here right before my eyes. The amount of information I want out of you could create a tome thicker than the dictionary itself. Am I wrong?”

I naturally asked Dazai what was on my mind. “Do you plan on turning this place into a war zone?”

Ango didn’t even flinch. His face was frozen into an ambiguous smirk. He stared at Dazai as if his eyes were locked in place.

“It’s my fault,” Ango said as if he had given up. “I made a mistake. I assumed that this place was the one place we could meet that transcended status or rank. I wouldn’t want to cause any trouble here, so do to me as you will. I won’t resist.”

Ango ought to have known just how horrifying Mafia torture was. There was no hope for him to return to the Special Division for Unusual Powers alive. Even if I took Ango’s side there, nothing would change. There was no way to break out of Dazai’s trap around the bar’s perimeter, and the orphans at the restaurant would be killed if I betrayed the Mafia.

“Ango.” Dazai quietly spoke up, turning his hand back and forth as if to inspect both sides. “If I make just one phone call, my men will immediately surround the place. But they still haven’t made a move. Get out of here before I change my mind.”

Ango tried to say something, but he swallowed his words.

“I’m not sad. I knew from the very beginning,” Dazai said. His face was a blank mask now. “It didn’t matter whether you were with the Special Division for Unusual Powers. I always lose the things I don’t want to lose the most. That’s why I don’t feel anything anymore. The moment you get your hands on something worth going after, you lose it. That’s just how things are. There is nothing worth pursuing at the cost of prolonging a life of suffering.”

I stared at Dazai. We had known each other for a while, but this was the first time he’d ever opened up about himself. I could see a thorn the size of a harpoon wedged deeply into his life.

“Dazai, Odasaku, I am no different. As part of an underground organization whose duties must be kept secret, as a skill user who hunts other skill users, I have been engulfed in the darkness of the government for too long. I shall never walk in the light again.” Ango looked at us and continued, “If there ever comes a time when the Division and the Mafia no longer exist…if we’re ever freed from the confines of our work…do you think we can drink here again like this?”

“Don’t say any more, Ango,” a voice said nearby. It was my voice. “Just don’t.”

Ango shook his head, seemingly hurt. Then he gradually stood from his stool and slowly left the bar, his eyes downcast as if he was listening carefully to the sound of his own footsteps. I figured that was probably the last time I would ever see him. I looked to the seat he had been in to find something placed on the table next to his empty glass. After picking it up, I showed Dazai.

It was the photo we’d taken in that very bar only a few days ago. All three of us were laughing and smiling.

“Why did you stop killing, Sakunosuke?”

“Why do you search for a battlefield, Gide?”

I suddenly heard footsteps. It was the sound of many people running our way.

“Your men?”

“Your colleagues?”

The footsteps were coming from both sides of the ballroom. It sounded to be around ten people. If those were Mimic soldiers, I wasn’t gonna be able to take Gide and them on at the same time. I’d have to end Gide the moment they came bursting in, then dispose of them. The footsteps gradually got closer until the oak doors were kicked wide-open. That moment, I broke free from Gide’s grip. A gunshot echoed by my ears as gunpowder burned hair on my cheek. However, the bullet didn’t hit me. Gide evaded my bullet with the same movement.

Our arms locked like hooks. Thanks to my skill, I already knew who was coming. At the door ahead were armed Mafia members, while Mimic soldiers were at the back door. They stormed into the room at almost the same time. As Gide and I bent at the elbows while locking arms, I shot the Mimic soldiers behind him. Pelted with bullets, they flew back. I was sure the Mafia men behind me were being shot in the same manner. I knew what Gide was thinking. He wanted to take out the intruders before anything else, as did I. He grabbed my lapel and pulled me, but I returned the favor. While we used each other as a fulcrum, I faced my enemies once more. I shot. Another Mimic soldier was knocked backward.

This was a ballroom. We stood in the center while empty shells hit the ground like surrounding applause. Using each other as a point of support, we continued to shoot our enemies. Leaning against each other’s backs, we shot them. Our clothes fluttered in the air as we spun, swapping positions. Using the other’s shoulder to rest our weapons, we shot more of them. Fresh blood from the soldiers painted the walls. Our shoulders intersected as we spun, shooting each other’s allies.

The flames from the gunpowder and empty shells glittered around us. Both Gide and I approached our limits as blood gushed from our gunshot wounds. My face turned pale and my vision blurry. Only my focus was sharp. We danced together around the edge of death—a place not of this world. My skill automatically showed me the future, carving Gide’s next words into the back of my mind.

“What do you think, Sakunosuke?”

“About what?” I replied before he even asked.

But in reality, I didn’t say a word because Gide heard my answer in a vision and replied before I could even get a word out.

“This is the world I searched for… I lived for this moment.”

We didn’t actually speak because our skills were predicting what the other would say, and we would think how we would reply. The moment we came up with an answer, the other would foresee it in a vision and then come up with his own reply.

“What are you after?”

“Why did you quit killing?”

It was a brief moment of eternity—a short passage of time that hardly existed. Our visions and reality meshed, creating a world that transcended our world, making it impossible to know how much was real and how much was our skill. It was a world only we could exist in. It was a world we could find only through killing each other.

“I wanted to be a novelist. Someone once told me I should.”

“A novelist…” Gide smiled inside our still world. “I’m sure you could have done it.”

“Yeah.” Maybe there existed a world where that was possible. “This man I talked to gave me a novel. It was the last volume to a series I’d been looking everywhere for. Before I read it, he warned me that it was terrible.”

“How was it?”

“It was…”

“Boss, you started putting this scheme into motion years ago to get that license,” Dazai continued, standing in front of the boss’s desk. “I’m guessing this plan first took shape two years back when Ango went to Europe for business. You did some searching and found that Mimic would be the most promising enemy for your plan, so you had Ango contact them. I was wondering how Mimic escaped Europe and sneaked into Japan so easily, but the answer was rather simple. The Port Mafia helped them illegally enter the country. To send the Special Division for Unusual Powers into a panic and make them get off their butts, you purposely invited the enemy organization to Yokohama.”

“Dazai.” Ougai, who had been listening in silence, cut Dazai off for the first time. “What remarkable inference. There is nothing that needs correcting. I have just one thing I’d like to ask: What’s wrong with that?”

“……”

“I told you—I am always thinking about the organization as a whole. Just like you see here, I received a Skilled Business Permit, so the government has more or less given us approval to conduct our illegal activities. And right now, Sakunosuke Oda is risking his life to eliminate a troublesome, violent group. It’s a win-win situation. So why are you so angry?”

Dazai didn’t say a word. That was just about the first time he’d ever been unable to articulate his feelings.

“I…”

—“There is nothing worth pursuing at the cost of prolonging a life of suffering.”

—“Awaken me from this oxidizing world of a dream.”

“I just…” His voice came out strained. “I just don’t get it. You were the one who tipped Mimic off about the orphans’ safe house. No one else could’ve found out about the location I chose. You killed those kids to get Odasaku to fight Mimic’s leader because he is the only one who can defeat him.”

“My answer is the same, Dazai. I will do anything for the benefit of the organization. Besides, we are the Port Mafia. We have always brought darkness, violence, and cruelty to this city. Why is that a problem now?”

Dazai knew. He knew Ougai’s calculations, his mentality, and the rationale behind the plan. That was just the kind of organization the Port Mafia was. Logically speaking, Ougai was right, and Dazai was wrong.

“But…”

He turned on his heel, then began walking toward the door. Immediately, Ougai’s guards pointed their guns at him.

“You cannot go, Dazai,” Ougai called out to stop him. “Stay. Or do you have a logical reason for going to him?”

“There are two things I want to say, Boss.” Dazai turned around and glared at Ougai. “First—you’re not going to shoot me, and you’re not going to have your men shoot me, either.”

“Why is that? Because you wish to be shot?”

“No. Because it wouldn’t benefit you in any way.”

Ougai grinned. “True. However, you wouldn’t gain anything by disobeying me and going to him, either. Am I wrong?”

“That’s the second thing I wanted to say, Boss. There’s nothing in it for me. There’s only one reason why I’m going. Because he is my friend. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

The guards placed their fingers on the triggers. However, Dazai paid them no mind and simply strolled to the door as if he were going for a walk. The guards looked to Ougai as they waited for orders. Without saying a word, Ougai crossed his arms while he gazed at Dazai’s back with a faint smile. Then Dazai opened the door and walked down the hall until he could be seen no more.

“The last volume was amazing,” I said.

I’d never read a book that drew me in so much. Every word touched my heart, and I saw myself in every character. The man who gave me that book said it was awful, but I felt the complete opposite. I read it in one sitting practically without eating anything all day. The moment I finished the book, I opened it up again to read once more.

It felt as if every cell in my brain was reborn after reading that book. Once I’d finished it, the world I’d known before completely changed. Before that, all I had was killing. I would kill people for the mission—rob them of their lives. That book opened my eyes like the sun at dawn. That last volume had only one flaw. There were a few pages near the end that were torn out, so I never knew how one of the key scenes unfolded. It was a scene where one of the characters, an assassin, explained why he gave up killing.

There wasn’t enough information on the following pages to guess why he did, and not knowing caused me so much anguish. Not only was that scene an important turning point in the story, but it was also crucial to understanding the assassin. The book was nowhere to be found new or used anymore, so I couldn’t confirm that missing part. That man with the mustache never showed up again, so I couldn’t ask him, either.

After worrying about it for so long, I came to one conclusion.

—“Then you write what happens next.”

I decided to write it myself. I would become a novelist and write a story about why the man stopped killing. But to become a novelist, I needed to sincerely know what it meant to live.

So I stopped killing. There was one line in that last volume right before where the pages had been torn out. It was something the protagonist said to the assassin.

“People live to save themselves. It’s something they realize right before they die.”

I continued to think about what that meant after I vowed never to kill again. There probably wasn’t any deep meaning to it. It was more than likely just a line to connect information with more information. But whenever I read that line, I thought back to the older man who had so mysteriously given me that book. Even now.

Did he know I worked as an assassin? Had he approached me to get me to stop? Was the reason he gave me the last volume, tore out those pages, and told me to write what happens next because he wanted to tell me to save myself? That was what I believed with almost no doubt in my mind.

He had told me his name the first time we met. I had forgotten it for so long, but it was only just recently that I remembered.

His name was Souseki Natsume.

The same name as the name of the author on the cover of that novel.

“I was a hero,” Gide said.

Gide was in a war. He fought for his country and for justice. He fought for his friends who joined him by his side. During a past war that stretched the globe, he had made countless victories and saved countless allies.

Gide was a hero.

He was a soldier who protected his country, fought for its inhabitants, and believed that his destiny was to die for them. During a certain battle, Gide led a mere forty men into battle and conquered a stronghold of six hundred people. He defeated every single one of them and captured the stronghold.

However, that was a scheme thought up by his own allied base. When the country was already finishing up a peace treaty, Gide was used by military staff executive officers in an immoral ploy to crush one of the enemy’s key locations and rob them of their transport network.

Since peace had already been declared, Gide’s actions were deemed a war crime, and allied soldiers were sent to kill him for his betrayal. To ensure their survival, Gide and his forty men had no choice but to plunder the enemies’ equipment, become the enemy themselves, and break through his former allies’ siege.

Numerous soldiers came to kill the traitor. Gide and his men took the enemies’ pistols known as grau geists, donned the enemies’ military uniforms, and fought to the death against their fellow countrymen.

They mimicked the enemy soldiers and became the ghosts of the deceased. Gide and his men killed their pursuers to survive, but they didn’t have anywhere to live. They were criminals of war, dead men, a military with no master. From there, they wandered the lands. They took on dirty work as illegal mercenaries. These former heroes were no more. Their lives, which they were supposed to lay down to protect their country, were used for no one. They just dulled their senses, dirtied their hands, and lost their reputation. Several men in the group even killed themselves. Gide didn’t stop them; he lacked the words to do so.

But there were also those who didn’t die. They were soldiers at heart, and they believed killing themselves would strip them of that right. They fought, suffered wounds, and lost their friends, but they still got back up. It was proof that they were once soldiers, that their blood still drove them to be such militants. They searched for a battlefield—a place to prove they were soldiers—a place that would help them remember who they were even if it meant dying. They became ghosts who wandered the battlefield. Their homeland and pride forever lost, they became spirits of the wasteland in search of an enemy.

Time was still extending endlessly. We continued to foresee and respond to what the other was going to say. Not even a second had gone by in the real world, where I’d just killed the Mimic soldiers while Gide killed the Mafia soldiers. In this world, I got ready to point my gun at Gide, who was surely going to do the same.

“The final moment is near,” Gide said in that world of eternity.

“Tell me one thing, Gide,” I said back. “Did you never want to go after something else? Couldn’t you have changed how you lived your life somewhere down the line? Something different from searching for a battlefield or a place to die…”

“Change the way I live? There is no way I could have done that.” Gide smiled. A glimmer of sorrow flickered within his eyes. “I promised my allies that I would die as a soldier. Nothing else was possible.”

We pointed our guns at each other. However, in the world of eternity, we quietly faced each other and talked like friends. Gide looked at me. I could see the sincerity in his gaze.

“But…perhaps I could have changed my life at some point. Maybe if I had tried to change earlier in life, then perhaps I could have become something else…just like you stopped killing others. If I had the strength you had, then maybe one day I, too, could have…”

There were only two people in that massive hall still alive. Our muzzles each pointed at the other’s heart. Gide wasn’t wearing bulletproof clothing, and I’d taken mine off moments prior during battle. A shot to the chest would be fatal. The triggers had already been pulled. The bullets began to slide out of the barrels.

However, we just smiled, facing our partners as if we’d come to know everything about each other, like old friends after a long chat.

—“They’ve observed that when multiple skills interact, on rare occasions they’ll careen off into a completely unexpected direction.”

So this world was a skill singularity.

“I have one regret,” I said. “I never got to say good-bye to my friend. He was always there for me as ‘just a friend.’ He was bored of this world and always waited for death to come for him.”

“That man was in search of a place to die just like me?”

“No, not exactly,” I answered. “I thought you were similar to Dazai at first, rushing into battle and wishing for death without even considering the value of your own life. But he’s different. He’s sharp-witted with a mind like a steel trap. And he’s just a child—a sobbing child abandoned in the darkness of a world far emptier than the one we’re seeing.”

He was too smart for his own good. That was why he was always alone. The reason why Ango and I were able to be by his side was that we understood the solitude that surrounded him, and we never stepped inside it no matter how close we stood.

But in that moment, I kind of regretted not stepping in and invading that solitude.

The bullets left our guns’ barrels and slid toward our chests.

“A magnificent shot until the very end.” Gide smiled. “I’m going to go see my men. Say hello to the kids.”

The bullets reached our chests.

The singularity vanished.

The bullets penetrated the skin, cut through our clothes, and exited out our backs. At the very same time, in the very same fashion, we both fell backward.

Just then, I heard footsteps.

“Odasaku!”

Dazai rushed into the building and over to the ballroom, passing the myriad of corpses through the corridors along the way. When he burst through the oak doors, he saw his friend lying on the ground.

“Odasaku!”

“Dazai…”

Dazai rushed over to Odasaku, then checked his wounds. The bullet had pierced Odasaku’s chest, and a vast pool of blood had collected on the floor. It was clear that the wound was fatal.

“You’re such an idiot, Odasaku. The biggest idiot I know.”

“Yeah.”

“You didn’t have to do this. You didn’t have to die.”

“I know.”

Odasaku smirked with that particular satisfaction of accomplishing something worth the cost.

“Dazai… There’s something I want to say.”

“Don’t. Stop. We might still be able to save you. No, we will save you. So don’t say such—”

“Listen.” Odasaku wrapped his blood-soaked hand around Dazai’s. “You told me if you put yourself in a world of violence and bloodshed, you might be able to find a reason to live…”

“Yeah, I said that. I did. But what difference does that—?”

“You won’t find it,” Odasaku said in almost a whisper. Dazai stared at him.

“You should know that. Whether you’re on the side that takes lives or the side that saves them, nothing beyond your own expectations will happen. Nothing in this world can fill the hole that is your loneliness. You will wander the darkness for eternity.”

—“Awaken me from this oxidizing world of a dream.”

That was when Dazai first realized: Sakunosuke Oda understood him much more than he’d ever imagined—right up to his very heart, almost to the center of his mind. Dazai didn’t realize until then that someone had known him so well.

For the first time in his life, Dazai wanted from the bottom of his heart to know something. He asked the man before him:

“Odasaku… What should I do?”

“Be on the side that saves people,” Odasaku replied. “If both sides are the same, then choose to become a good person. Save the weak, protect the orphaned. You might not see a great difference between right and wrong, but…saving others is something just a bit more wonderful.”

“How do you know?”

“I know. I know better than anyone else.”

Dazai gazed into Odasaku’s eyes and saw a glow of conviction.

It was clear that those words were supported by some sort of strong basis. Whether it was past experience or someone’s advice—Odasaku was trying to show Dazai the path he himself had once tried to walk. Dazai knew that.

That was why he could bring himself to believe it.

“…Okay. I will.”

“‘People live to save themselves. It’s something they realize right before they die,’ huh…? He was…right…” The color in Odasaku’s face gradually disappeared until he was almost completely pale. He smiled. “I could really go for some of that curry…”

With trembling fingers, Odasaku reached for the cigarettes in his pocket before sluggishly placing one in his mouth. By the time he pulled out a match, his fingers were too weak to hold it anymore. Dazai took the match and lit the cigarette for him. Then Odasaku closed his eyes, smoking the cigarette as he smiled, filled to the brim with satisfaction.

The cigarette fell to the ground.

Dropping onto his knees by Odasaku’s side, Dazai looked up to the ceiling and closed his eyes. His tightly shut lips faintly trembled. The smoke from the cigarette rose straight up to the top.

Nobody said a word.