Chapter 10

Watching the glitching screen, Ango Sakaguchi slowly sat back down in his chair.

"Did he... come back for revenge?"

Yes, the moment he met Kamiki Yūhaku's eyes, Ango Sakaguchi felt guilty—not as himself, but as a government official of the Special Division for Unusual Powers. He felt guilty on the government's behalf.

Kamiki Yūhaku knew everything.

Kamiki Yūhaku was a strange man. He disliked no one and could act as familiar with anyone as if he had known them for years. Although he often said things others couldn't understand and did things they couldn't comprehend, he had a particular hatred for the government alone.

That was because the human experiments conducted in the French Concession years ago were a military secret involving the government: inhuman experiments on human beings conducted for the sake of war.

Namely, the artificial ability experiments.

Besides the experiment to combine the unknown life-form Arahabaki with a human body, the facility also conducted various artificial ability experiments for military purposes.

"Prototype Otsu No. 0": ability fusion successful, trial test successful, bodily destruction test successful.

Self-healing rate: 0, defense: 100%, self-damage: 100%

Ability-user qualification rating: good.

This was classified information recorded by a government department. It concerned the only successful test subject apart from Arahabaki. Before becoming a test subject, he had a name of his own: Kamiki Yūhaku.

Kamiki Yūhaku had reason to hate the government.

No one had the right to ask Kamiki Yūhaku to forgive them.

"Why do you know someone from the Special Division for Unusual Powers?" Doppo Kunikida asked Kamiki Yūhaku as he selected his weapons.

Kamiki Yūhaku kept his eyes on the screen without so much as glancing at Doppo Kunikida. His expression was harmless, like that of an innocent angel. "Because we used to be colleagues."

"But weren't you an informant for the Port Mafia, Mr. Kamiki?" Atsushi Nakajima asked quietly. "How could you have been colleagues with someone from the Special Division for Unusual Powers?"

"I didn't lie," Kamiki Yūhaku said. "A lot of the time, the truth is harder to accept than anything you can imagine. That's why informants are necessary, and it's also the essence of what an informant is."

Doppo Kunikida guessed something and pushed up his glasses with his index finger. He then assigned tasks to Atsushi Nakajima and Kyōka Izumi. He didn't keep Kamiki Yūhaku out of the discussion, because it was obvious that Kamiki Yūhaku knew more than he had imagined. There was no need to exclude him, and doing so would only waste time.

When he finished, an explosion sounded downstairs with a bang. Doppo Kunikida frowned deeply. "They found us already."

It was his ability, "Doppo Poet."

"I'll stay here and hold them off. Atsushi, you and Kyōka go complete the assignment. And Mr. Kamiki." Doppo Kunikida looked at Kamiki Yūhaku. "If you insist on coming along, could you protect Atsushi and Kyōka to some extent?"

Kamiki Yūhaku rested his hand beneath his chin, his red eyes thoughtful. A moment later, a trace of amusement flashed in them. "Of course."

Kamiki Yūhaku had planned from the start to leave with the two children. After meeting an acquaintance, he still wanted to see Chūya Nakahara's ability up close.

Unlike his own half-baked ability, Chūya Nakahara's was the artificial ability facility's trump card. Before Kamiki Yūhaku left, he often heard the envious voices of researchers through the haze in his ears. They were jealous of their colleagues who got to study "Prototype No. 258."

Even researchers conducting the same experiments in a laboratory would compete with one another.

As the only successful test subject in the laboratory besides Chūya Nakahara, Kamiki Yūhaku often drove those researchers to exasperation with the "flaws" in his ability.

What kind of ability was it? Although Kamiki Yūhaku had learned about it long ago, he had yet to see it with his own eyes.

"Mr. Kamiki!" Atsushi Nakajima interrupted Kamiki Yūhaku's thoughts. He looked at Atsushi beside him, then noticed Atsushi staring behind him in horror. Kamiki Yūhaku turned around and saw that they were surrounded by abilities.

"Both of them are here." Kyōka Izumi gripped her dagger. "We have to get away."

"But if you keep running, you can't get your abilities back." Kamiki Yūhaku tilted his head, abruptly interrupting their thoughts and plans as usual.

Kamiki Yūhaku always seemed to be like this. He disliked making eye contact when he spoke, keeping his eyes on whatever interested him, yet he could still hear and respond to others. His voice was as light as a feather falling to the ground, giving him an indescribably strange air.

It went beyond disrespecting others; there was a sense of separation that set him completely apart from everyone else.

Atsushi Nakajima turned to Kamiki Yūhaku. "Sir, do you know how to get our abilities back?!"

"Of course." Kamiki Yūhaku raised his hand and pointed at an ability's forehead. "See it? The crystal on its forehead. Break it and you can get your ability back. But there's one thing to keep in mind: abilities might be living things."

"Huh?"

Kyōka Izumi looked at Kamiki Yūhaku. "But they keep attacking us. It's hard to get close to either the White Tiger or Demon Snow."

"That's true," Kamiki Yūhaku murmured. "Then let's do this."

Kamiki Yūhaku rolled up his sleeve and undid the bandages on his arm. He drove his fingernails straight into the wound, and blood immediately began to flow from the unhealed injury. Seemingly dissatisfied with how slowly it was flowing, Kamiki Yūhaku brought his arm to his lips and bit into the wound. Blood stained the corners of his mouth and his chin red.

Atsushi Nakajima sucked in a sharp breath, and Kyōka Izumi looked somewhat surprised as well.

"Why?"

"One phrase has followed me all my life: equivalent exchange." Kamiki Yūhaku released his bite. As always, his red eyes were full of gentleness, but his bloodstained lips made him look especially strange. The contradiction of that gentleness intertwined with bloodshed made it impossible to look away.

Blood dripped onto the ground, and a white light slowly rose from beneath his feet. Atsushi Nakajima and Kyōka Izumi looked at the pure white light, hardly able to believe it was Kamiki Yūhaku's ability.

"...An ability that requires you to hurt yourself to use it," Atsushi Nakajima muttered. "That's so familiar."

"Are you surprised?"

Kamiki Yūhaku smiled. "This isn't my ability. Naturally, there's a price to pay for using it."

Chapter 10

Blood dripped onto the ground, staining the concrete crimson. Demon Snow and the tiger lunged at them, only to be pushed back by the white light the next instant.

Kamiki Yūhaku seemed to be shoved by the recoil. He staggered back two steps and fell to the ground.

"Mr. Kamiki!" Atsushi Nakajima hurried over and tried to help him up.

"I'm fine." Kamiki Yūhaku sat on the ground, watching the abilities ahead of him without the slightest change in his tone. "Rather than worrying about me, you'd better deal with your abilities first."

"Anyway, thank you." Kyōka Izumi drew her dagger. "Atsushi, now!"

Atsushi Nakajima carefully let go of Kamiki Yūhaku and readied the gun Doppo Kunikida had given him earlier. The two children quickly lunged at their respective abilities, trying to get them back in this brief opening.

Kamiki Yūhaku used a wrecked car beside him to pull himself up. He left his wound untreated, letting the blood run down his fingers and onto the car. Without even looking at the boy and girl fighting, he turned and walked away, his steps unsteady, like a patient with little time left to live.

Humming a song, he walked step by step toward the spot he had picked out from the beginning.

From there, he could see the best show—the best seat for watching Chūya Nakahara's ability.

"Bandages. Where can I find bandages?" Kamiki Yūhaku murmured. "Does Mr. Dazai have any? As the person who hoards the most bandages in the Port Mafia, he must have a whole pile of them. But how do I get them? Should I go find him? Or find his home?"

Blood fell from Kamiki Yūhaku's arm along the way, and the heavy blood loss made him feel a little dizzy.

But he paid it no mind and simply kept walking.

Just then, he suddenly turned around, and the white ability around him activated rapidly. With a bang, the ability exploded, sending Kamiki Yūhaku flying against the wall.

"That hurts," Kamiki Yūhaku cried, though his tone was calm and his red eyes showed no trace of emotion. He slowly lowered his head and looked at the person standing before him.

The man before him looked somewhat frail, with the specks of light that only appeared on abilities around him. He wore a white coat and the fur hat he never took off, like someone who wrapped himself up at night yet still shivered from the cold, someone who could wear ten layers of clothing to ward it off.

Fyodor Dostoevsky.

"We haven't seen each other in a month, and after finally meeting again, all you can do is attack me, Fedya?" Kamiki Yūhaku complained in an almost coquettish voice.

"But you were prepared long ago and weren't afraid of my attack at all." Fyodor Dostoevsky laughed.

His laughter was distinctive. Like his voice, it had an innate elegance, its tone slightly low and husky, like that of a refined nobleman. But he was no nobleman, much less an elegant gentleman. He was a rat hiding in the shadows.

Kamiki Yūhaku pressed one hand against the wound on his arm to stop it from bleeding further. "After all, Fedya, you have a terrifying ability. To guard against you, I used my ability in advance. I suffered quite a bit on the way here."

"Is that so?" Fyodor Dostoevsky walked over and pinned Kamiki Yūhaku against the wall with one hand. "Kamiki, you were the one who deserted the Rats in the House of the Dead without permission. You can't blame me for this, can you?"

"Besides, can you really feel pain?"

Hearing this, Kamiki Yūhaku raised an eyebrow and looked at Fyodor Dostoevsky. A moment later, he gave him an exceedingly gentle smile.

"Fedya, people will dislike you for prying into their private affairs."

After getting his ability back, Chūya Nakahara received a commission from the Special Division for Unusual Powers. To be honest, he didn't care about the Special Division for Unusual Powers at all.