Chapter 12

There was no sensation, nothing except the strange feeling of the needle piercing his finger.

In the end, he could never become his old self again, just as he could never return to his old home.

That experience had shattered his life to pieces, fusing him completely with the persona of a so-called "artificial ability user." He could neither escape nor resist it. No matter what he did, he would continue to move forward, step by step. This was real life, a real nightmare.

"What use is this information to you?" Kamiki Yūhaku looked at Fyodor Dostoevsky. "Or rather, what use is it to me that you know it?"

Fyodor Dostoevsky looked at him. "I was just confirming a few things."

Kamiki Yūhaku leaned against the wall. Then, in an instant, he moved. Within three seconds, he had pinned Fyodor Dostoevsky to the ground. Kamiki Yūhaku gripped a gun in his left hand, its muzzle pressed against Fyodor Dostoevsky's forehead. His hand was steady, and despite the situation, he smiled just as he always did.

"I've been thinking about something." Kamiki Yūhaku's voice was lilting, like a child chattering innocently. "Lately, I've been worrying about how to be a good person. I can't seem to manage it, and people are always wary of me."

"Isn't it perfectly normal for people to be wary of you, Kamiki?" Fyodor Dostoevsky interjected with a smile from where he was pinned to the ground.

"No interrupting." Kamiki Yūhaku stared at Fyodor Dostoevsky. "I just had a thought. If I caught a bad guy wanted by the government, that would make me a good person, wouldn't it?"

Fyodor Dostoevsky smiled up at him. "So, are you going to turn me over to the government?"

"No." Kamiki Yūhaku answered without hesitation. "Even if I killed you, I wouldn't hand you over to them."

With that, Kamiki Yūhaku fired without hesitation. Bang. There was no scream from beneath him, nor did any blood flow. There was only the sound of a gemstone shattering. Fyodor Dostoevsky was still smiling as he broke apart beneath Kamiki Yūhaku, then vanished on the wind.

After all, this Fyodor Dostoevsky had been nothing more than an ability from the start.

Kamiki Yūhaku got up from the ground, put the gun back in his pocket, and pulled out a piece of bandage to wrap around his wound.

Once the wound stopped bleeding, Kamiki Yūhaku braced himself against the wall and continued forward.

"That hurts," Kamiki Yūhaku murmured. "I keep running into troublesome people. I hope Little Crow won't stop liking me because I smell too much like blood."

In Saihai, Fyodor Dostoevsky sat in a chair. After a moment, he frowned slightly. He realized it the instant his ability returned to his body. So, as expected, even under those circumstances, he couldn't get rid of Kamiki Yūhaku.

"That was a scary look you had just now." Osamu Dazai watched Fyodor Dostoevsky, interest in his tawny eyes. "Did you discover something interesting?"

"Is a frightening situation for me something interesting to you, Dazai?" Fyodor Dostoevsky didn't even glance at him. "That's rather hurtful, Dazai."

Osamu Dazai turned his head away, apparently determined not to even look at him.

"In any case, it concerns Kamiki." Fyodor Dostoevsky leaned back in his chair, a meaningful smile on his lips. "You know that name, don't you, Dazai?"

"Of course. Yokohama's best informant. Four years ago, when Kamiki was still in Yokohama, he was quite famous."

"Then did you know Kamiki is with the Rats in the House of the Dead?"

Osamu Dazai froze for a moment and looked at Fyodor Dostoevsky. After holding his gaze for three seconds, Osamu Dazai turned away, seemingly uninterested. "Is that so? Kamiki's been away from Japan for four years. I used to wonder where he'd gone, but I didn't expect it to be Russia."

"No." Fyodor Dostoevsky calmly picked up an apple from the table, a fruit knife buried in its side. "I met him in France."

"...France?"

"Dazai, what do you suppose Kamiki went to France for?"

Osamu Dazai looked at Fyodor Dostoevsky. "We didn't come here to discuss Kamiki Yūhaku."

"It's just a topic of conversation." Fyodor Dostoevsky turned to meet Osamu Dazai's gaze. "Or do you know why Kamiki went to France? Oh, by the way, when I found him there, he'd already destroyed several organizations, big and small. What do you think he was looking for?"

Osamu Dazai ignored him, but Fyodor Dostoevsky's interest didn't wane. He continued talking to himself.

"I remember there used to be a French Concession in Yokohama. After it exploded, the depression left behind formed a peculiar street. Kamiki seemed to be deliberately seeking out the organizations that had worked with the French Concession back then."

"Interesting, isn't it?"

Kamiki Yūhaku was indeed a member of the Rats in the House of the Dead, but he wasn't under Fyodor Dostoevsky's control. Though they belonged to the same organization, their relationship was more one of mutual exploitation.

They had been in contact before Kamiki Yūhaku left Yokohama, but only to buy information from each other.

The Rats in the House of the Dead was a treacherous organization. Their information was absolutely genuine, but it also contained countless traps. Kamiki Yūhaku, however, could often extract the truth from those traps and put it to use. It was then that Fyodor Dostoevsky realized he might be a fellow professional.

He could not only obtain information, but also manipulate and trade in it.

After resigning from the Port Mafia, it was only natural for Kamiki Yūhaku to join the Rats in the House of the Dead. However, he didn't stay at their headquarters. Instead, he used their influence to enter France, where he spent three years investigating undercover.

During that time, he destroyed countless organizations, large and small.

Fyodor Dostoevsky turned a blind eye. Although Kamiki Yūhaku wasn't of one mind with him, the information he obtained in France was indeed the most reliable. That incriminating evidence was enough for the Rats in the House of the Dead to gain control over the lifelines of many organizations.

This was mutual exploitation. Kamiki Yūhaku used the influence of the Rats in the House of the Dead, and the Rats in the House of the Dead obtained his intelligence. All of it remained under Fyodor Dostoevsky's control.

That lasted until Kamiki Yūhaku single-handedly destroyed that enormous organization, after which he vanished without a trace. The Rats in the House of the Dead lost contact with him entirely. The next time they heard of him, they discovered he had already returned to Yokohama, Japan.

"I investigated the organizations Kamiki destroyed and unexpectedly found that every one of them was connected to the French Concession that exploded back then." Fyodor Dostoevsky's lips curved slightly.

"And although Kamiki destroyed those organizations, not everyone died. Some received word in advance and escaped, and as it happens, they came to Yokohama." Fyodor Dostoevsky looked at Osamu Dazai. "Have you ever wondered why he came back to Yokohama?"

"It's actually quite simple. He's hunting down someone who fled here to Yokohama."

Osamu Dazai had already thought of all this.

He had been an executive of the Port Mafia, and after defecting, he had spent two years clearing his record through arrangements made by the Armed Detective Agency. As a result, he had looked into information from both sides and knew of Kamiki Yūhaku's identity as an artificial ability user.

Back then, the French Concession had exploded because a test subject lost control. That explosion had heralded Chūya Nakahara's birth and a turning point in Kamiki Yūhaku's life. The violent blast had reduced everything there to ashes, making it extremely difficult to find any records.

Kamiki Yūhaku had spent all those years in the Port Mafia to obtain those records and determine what had caused the French Concession incident and who had been involved.

He had enough ability, enough obsession, and enough hatred to spend three years undercover in France, then turn the lives of those supporters of artificial abilities upside down in one fell swoop.

Was this

revenge

?

No.

This was merely the pale fruit borne by past causes for the human named Kamiki Yūhaku.

[Awareness increased to 78%]

Kamiki Yūhaku raised his head slightly. He looked at the transparent screen before him, a hint of surprise in his red eyes.

"Huh?" Kamiki Yūhaku murmured. "It suddenly went up so fast."

"...I suppose that's a good thing."

Chapter 12

Kamiki Yūhaku didn't dislike Chūya Nakahara.

When he was in the Port Mafia, he and Chūya Nakahara hadn't known each other. Compared with Chūya Nakahara, he was fairly familiar with Osamu Dazai, because Osamu Dazai and Ango Sakaguchi were good friends, and Ango Sakaguchi was often driven to the breaking point by him and would forcibly drag him out to clear his head.

According to Osamu Dazai, Chūya Nakahara was an annoying fellow, so much so that even a single glance at him was unbearable.

But Kamiki Yūhaku didn't dislike Chūya Nakahara.

Perhaps their similar experiences gave Kamiki Yūhaku an indescribable sense of kinship with him. At odds with the world, Kamiki Yūhaku would occasionally wonder whether he could talk to him.

Of course, Kamiki Yūhaku had never tried.

Closing the transparent screen before him, Kamiki Yūhaku sat on the rooftop and watched the enormous dragon churning through the sky, as well as Chūya Nakahara, who could hold his own against it after releasing Corruption. Countless gravity particles formed black holes in his hands, devouring the dragon before him.

He really was remarkable, both in his ability and in his character as a person.

"How nice." Kamiki Yūhaku smiled gently. "You still have a home to go back to."

Kamiki Yūhaku calmly watched Chūya Nakahara destroy the dragon. Red fog slowly spread outward, and the sounds of battle came from beside Saihai. Kamiki Yūhaku knew what was happening, but he didn't go over to look. He simply remained where he was, waiting until dawn broke and the fog dissipated with Tatsuhiko Shibusawa's death.

Sunlight fell on Kamiki Yūhaku as he watched the ordinary people left bewildered after the fog dispersed, wearing his usual gentle smile. A crow descended from the sky onto his shoulder, flapping its wings as if berating its unreliable master for disappearing all night.

"All right, all right, I'm sorry." Kamiki Yūhaku soothed the crow. "Next time, I'll be sure to let you know beforehand."

The crow cawed and gently pecked at his hair, as if there was nothing it could do with him.

"Well then, vacation time is over." Kamiki Yūhaku stood on the rooftop, the wind stirring his hair as he looked at the people below. "It's time to get to work."

The crisis that had nearly destroyed Yokohama was over. Both the Port Mafia and the Armed Detective Agency needed time to recover, while the Armed Detective Agency had to handle the aftermath. It had to explain to ordinary people why the city had changed overnight, as well as reassure those in Yokohama who had been caught up in the disaster through no fault of their own.