Chapter 23

He was like a gust of wind, blowing erratically, with no direction or destination.

After running all the way into a deserted alley, Ango Sakaguchi looked around before leaning against the wall, gasping for breath.

"Ango, what is it?" Kamiki Yūhaku looked at Ango Sakaguchi, his red eyes holding their usual childlike innocence. "Oh, right, have you seen Little Crow? Little Crow went out to find food. Now that you've pulled me over here, he won't be able to find me when he gets back."

"If a little crow can't find his owner, he'll cry."

Ango Sakaguchi looked at Kamiki Yūhaku, his hands clenched tightly. "Before you look for that crow, could you listen to this first?"

Ango Sakaguchi pulled an earpiece from his pocket and handed it to Kamiki Yūhaku. "No matter what, please, you have to listen to it!"

"A song? I don't remember you being interested in music, Ango." Kamiki Yūhaku took the earpiece with a smile. He tapped it with a finger, and an audio recording began to play. The moment he heard it, the smile vanished from his face.

When the recording finished, he tapped the earpiece to play it again, as though to make sure.

"Where did you get this?" Kamiki Yūhaku asked. His voice had lost all its earlier lightness, and the force with which he enunciated made him sound a little flustered. "Ango?"

"The Number Seven Agency."

Ango Sakaguchi answered quietly, "What's wrong with this recording?"

"Why does the Number Seven Agency have this?" Kamiki Yūhaku tapped the earpiece again and listened to the sound. A moment later, his eyes widened slightly.

"Wait, Little Crow..."

"Yūhaku!" Ango Sakaguchi grabbed Kamiki Yūhaku as he prepared to leave. "What exactly is it? I can only help you if you tell me. Who are you going to find? The Number Seven Agency?"

Kamiki Yūhaku stopped and turned to look at Ango Sakaguchi before speaking. "That recording is a signal that the game is over."

"A signal that the game is over?"

"...Yes." Kamiki Yūhaku frowned, worry in his handsome features. "It's the signal Dr. Kōbe and Little Crow agreed on back then to end the game."

Little Crow was a crow, after all. Crows' physiology was completely different from that of humans, which kept him from fully understanding human speech. So, as they lived together, Chiba Kōbe had kept trying to train Little Crow to better understand what they meant. This was also so Kamiki Yūhaku could have a companion.

If humans were hard to trust, then he could start with animals.

Back then, Kamiki Yūhaku often played hide-and-seek with the crow. With the soul of an adult, Kamiki Yūhaku wasn't interested, but seeing how enthusiastic Chiba Kōbe was, he didn't object. Little Crow, however, didn't understand the game. He thought he had to keep searching and searching, and that he had to keep both of them in sight.

So Chiba Kōbe and Little Crow came up with a signal to end the game.

That day, Chiba Kōbe sent Kamiki Yūhaku to buy medicine and told him to take Little Crow along. It was the first time Kamiki Yūhaku had left with Little Crow.

The crow was unwilling to leave, so Dr. Kōbe told him it was a new game.

When Little Crow returned, he was to find Dr. Kōbe, who would be hiding.

Little Crow believed him. Thinking it really was a game like always, he flapped his wings and followed Kamiki Yūhaku out of Suribachi City. When he returned, all he saw was the raging fire.

But Little Crow had never heard the signal that the game was over.

Unlike Kamiki Yūhaku, the crow, having never heard the ending signal, thought the game wasn't over, simply because he hadn't found Dr. Kōbe in hiding. He couldn't understand human life and death, nor did he understand what humans called a home.

Until this game of "hide-and-seek" ended, all he wanted was to find Dr. Kōbe and win.

"Little Crow's hearing is much better than a human's. He must have flown off because he heard that sound. He thought Dr. Kōbe was telling him the game was finally over," Kamiki Yūhaku murmured. "So he went to find Dr. Kōbe, and before he left, he even told me to hurry and follow."

"Ango, where is the Number Seven Agency?"

Ango Sakaguchi looked at Kamiki Yūhaku, sadness in his eyes. "...Do you have to go?"

"The Number Seven Agency isn't like a normal government department. Even I can't find out anything about them. Yūhaku, they've set a trap to capture you. Are you really going?"

Kamiki Yūhaku met Ango Sakaguchi's gaze. After a moment, he smiled. "Ango, I think you should know what choice I'm going to make."

"All of this has to end eventually," Kamiki Yūhaku said. "Just like I said before, even if the government didn't come after me, sooner or later I would have gone after the government. We've long since passed the point of reconciliation."

"Besides, that idiot Little Crow went over there just like that. I can't leave him alone."

"...If you go to save him, who will save you?"

Kamiki Yūhaku looked calmly at Ango Sakaguchi. His laugh was soft, and so was his voice, as though he were speaking in a breath.

He said, "Then I'll save myself."

"But, Yūhaku..."

"Ango." Kamiki Yūhaku stopped Ango Sakaguchi. "Do you have a dream?"

Ango Sakaguchi froze for a moment. "A dream?"

"When I was little, my dream was to live happily with my parents. When I got older, my dream became leaving the laboratory. Later, I hoped I could have a life of my own. And now, I only hope to end all of this, so that this suffering never happens again."

"I'm twenty-four this year. Let me chase a dream for once."

Ango Sakaguchi looked at Kamiki Yūhaku, unable to say a word.

"Little Crow likes you a lot." Kamiki Yūhaku reached out and patted Ango Sakaguchi on the shoulder. "Don't let him down."

"Come on, tell me. Where is the Number Seven Agency?"

Ango Sakaguchi lowered his head, his hands trembling. He hesitated again and again before finally putting a hand in his pocket. Kamiki Yūhaku caught his wrist and took the object out of his pocket.

It was a tiny display showing a rather crude map. A red dot blinked on the map, staying in one spot.

"That's Ango for you." Kamiki Yūhaku looked at the location displayed on it. "After all these years, your tracking skills haven't gotten any worse."

"...That's not something you should praise me for," Ango Sakaguchi murmured. "I'd rather I hadn't done it."

When he met with the Number Seven Agency's agent, Ango Sakaguchi had planted a miniature tracker on him while taking the identity card. It had been invented by a Special Division ability user whose ability was suited to surveillance. Invisible to the naked eye and undetectable by electronic scanners, it was a device the Special Division had never made public.

But Ango Sakaguchi hadn't tracked down the Number Seven Agency's location to tell Kamiki Yūhaku in the first place.

He hadn't come looking for Kamiki Yūhaku to send him to his death.

Kamiki Yūhaku turned to leave. Ango Sakaguchi leaned against the wall, the light reflecting off his glasses and completely hiding his eyes. Just as Kamiki Yūhaku was about to walk out, Ango Sakaguchi spoke.

He said, "I told you where the Number Seven Agency is, Yūhaku. Can you promise me one thing?"

Kamiki Yūhaku stopped. He didn't turn around, and he neither agreed nor refused.

"Come back alive." Ango Sakaguchi's voice was very quiet. "Do your best to come back alive, all right?"

"I'm sorry." Ango Sakaguchi apologized, his voice thick with tears. "In the end, I didn't accomplish anything. I couldn't save anyone, neither Odasaku nor you, Yūhaku. I'm such an idiot."

"...Can you turn around and look at me one more time?"

Kamiki Yūhaku didn't refuse. He turned and met Ango Sakaguchi's eyes. Ango Sakaguchi smiled, a hint of resolve in his gaze, then turned and left.

An identity card lay on the ground where Ango Sakaguchi had just been standing.

Number: 137. It was Ango Sakaguchi's identity card.

Chapter 23

Before coming here, Kamiki Yūhaku had once asked the system a question.

He asked: What counted as completing the character setting? Did he have to live out this entire life? Or did he have to fit the character setting well enough?

The system said neither was necessary.

Everyone had their own choices and experiences. Everything arose from the choices you made. When you reached the end of the road you chose, that would be the end.

"Host, you are the life."

At the time, Kamiki Yūhaku hadn't understood what that meant. He was just an ordinary working man whose only goal was a house and a dog. Only now did he vaguely understand that the so-called road was to have everything beautiful shattered before your eyes, and then be made to choose whether to resist or continue along with fate.

Kamiki Yūhaku held his breath and chose a third path. He was going to take this bullshit fate down with him.

Every time the pain left him helpless, his hatred grew a little deeper. Every time he lost something, he added it to the reckoning. One day, he would burn this field of thorns to the ground, even if the price was being pierced from head to toe.

After losing two family members, Kamiki Yūhaku began refusing to form bonds with anyone.

Because this damned fate would never let him go. Everyone he loved and everyone who loved him would be hurt, and the love they poured into him would never come to a decent end. Kamiki Yūhaku understood that he had to cut off all affection and form no ties with anyone.

Even after joining the Port Mafia, even after switching over to the Rats in the House of the Dead, he remained that legendary intelligence agent.

Eccentric and impossible to communicate with, he was feared by everyone. He became someone no one trusted, a seemingly solitary ghost with a crow at his side.

So Kamiki Yūhaku really hadn't expected Ango Sakaguchi to leave his identity card for him.

Entering the government's premises required a very strict procedure. The Special Division was an agency under the government, separate from the Number Seven Agency. Even though Ango Sakaguchi had left him the identity card, he couldn't use it to enter the Number Seven Agency. Kamiki Yūhaku looked at the card, then, after a moment, placed it on the display Ango Sakaguchi had given him earlier.