Chapter 25
"Given how much blood he's lost, he'll soon become hypothermic from blood loss and slowly die." Jōno Saigiku walked up to Kamiki Yūhaku. "You never intended to make it back alive this time."
"Why?"
Kamiki Yūhaku looked at him. "I do still want to live."
"Impossible. Someone who wanted to live wouldn't let himself bleed so freely."
"Because my ability only works when I lose blood."
Jōno Saigiku frowned slightly.
His voice hadn't trembled, his breathing hadn't quickened, and his heart hadn't even skipped a beat.
He wasn't lying. He truly believed it.
He didn't want to die, yet he was letting himself slip toward the edge of death.
"You two Hunting Dogs, have you ever had no choice but to do something?" Kamiki Yūhaku smiled at them, his voice so soft it was like snow falling from the sky, drifting for a long time before it reached the ground. "Of course, nobody really wants to die."
"But people have to stand by something."
He said, "If it weren't for you, I would probably have taken care of this place already."
It was a pity, but perhaps staying here seemed like a good choice too.
He had struggled for a long time, losing things little by little, until he finally reached this point.
Yet only after he arrived here did he realize that all he wanted was an ending.
Whether he was saved or died where he stood no longer mattered to him.
Whether he lived with pride or was buried in hell, the end of an "artificial ability user" would be a grand funeral.
At that thought, Kamiki Yūhaku smiled. Unlike his usual gentle, tranquil smile, this one was almost mad, as though he were crying out with his very life.
He looked forward to it.
Chapter 25
"The door won't open! Sir, can you contact the government?"
"No, all the signals here are blocked. There's no way to reach the government."
"Are we just supposed to wait here for the government to notice us?"
"That's not the only problem anymore!" the person shrieked. "We're underground. Now that headquarters is completely sealed off, even air can't get in. The oxygen will run out soon, and we'll all suffocate! Shouting will only make us die faster!"
The main control room was next to the conference room. Standing there, Jōno Saigiku could hear the voices next door. He frowned slightly, the usual smile gone from his lips, and looked a little worried.
The Number Seven Agency had always been secretive and unpredictable, rarely contacting the government. If the government really failed to notice what was happening here and sent no rescue, everyone here would suffocate. The Hunting Dogs had undergone human experimentation, and their bodies were many times stronger than those of ordinary people, but even they couldn't survive for long without oxygen.
"You left yourself only five hours to live so that the people here would die with you," Jōno Saigiku murmured.
"You want to watch them struggle helplessly on the brink of death, even as you die?" Ōkura Teruko frowned. "You have some perverted tastes."
Kamiki Yūhaku smiled at the two Hunting Dogs, his red eyes full of a warmth like a spring breeze. He neither denied nor admitted it.
"I only wanted them to have a taste of being unable to resist," Kamiki Yūhaku said, enunciating each word. "No matter what they do, they can't contact the outside world. Even if they smash at the door with all their might, all they can do is bloody their fists. Even breathing is a luxury. Didn't they say it was a gift?"
"Then let them enjoy this gift themselves."
Kamiki Yūhaku was so calm and unruffled that neither Ōkura Teruko nor Jōno Saigiku could find anything adequate to say.
Although they had undergone human experimentation to become stronger, they couldn't understand how someone who had once been forced to undergo it felt. It took extraordinary resolve to stamp out the source entirely at the cost of one's own life and future.
Ōkura Teruko and Jōno Saigiku exchanged a glance.
"What do we do?"
"First, find a way to open the door. Leave him here," Jōno Saigiku said. "He can't heal himself. Like I said, even if we leave him alone, he won't last more than five hours."
Ōkura Teruko clicked her tongue. "What a pain. I'd better get a raise when we get back, or I won't let this go."
She lifted her foot, and with no force pulling at him, Kamiki Yūhaku fell from the air. He caught himself on one knee. Jōno Saigiku and Ōkura Teruko paid him no more attention, turning instead to leave the conference room and search for a way out.
"It's no use," Kamiki Yūhaku murmured. He rose from the floor, his red eyes calmly fixed ahead.
"The Number Seven Agency has always been proud of its ability to stay hidden. Even its defenses run on a separate system from the government's. They're sturdy and airtight, with no blind spots."
"How could you find a weakness so easily?"
At that thought, Kamiki Yūhaku smiled. He walked out with a hand against the wall, and a crow descended from the air to perch on his shoulder. The power outside had been completely cut off, and only the emergency lights flickered faintly. Dressed all in black and accompanied by the crow, Kamiki Yūhaku looked ready to melt into the darkness.
Kamiki Yūhaku had thought before about how to bring it to an end.
He had imagined many different scenarios, but in the end, he had chosen this one.
In this sealed underground headquarters, just like the laboratory where he had once been confined, they would approach the end of their lives little by little in the terror of being unable to escape. Wasn't that the most fitting scene?
And so Kamiki Yūhaku had done it.
He thought, Wouldn't it be perfect if I died here?
It would be as though he had never escaped that laboratory all those years ago, as though he had long since been buried in the rubble after the explosion, forever remaining in the past.
Then he would never have met Dr. Kōbe, lost his sense of pain, or learned that his family had abandoned him long ago.
The crow cawed twice. The next moment, countless pitch-black crows flew in from every direction. They circled Kamiki Yūhaku and followed him into the hall. Everyone there was curled up and trembling; when they heard the crows, they couldn't help looking up and saw the scene before them.
The young man walked forward step by step, surrounded by crows. Each step left a trace of blood, and the more blood he shed, the stronger the milky-white glow around him became.
"Survival With No Hope," the ability that traded injury for injury, was consuming his blood bit by bit, growing ever stronger.
B Zero, someone mouthed silently.
Even now, they still called him B Zero, unwilling to use his name.
As though that would let them treat him as an object rather than a person.
At the entrance to the Number Seven Agency, Jōno Saigiku was the first to hear the fluttering wings and notice the strong smell of blood. He frowned but paid it no attention, continuing to try to open the door with Ōkura Teruko.
The two of them struck the same spot with all their might. Yet a force capable of stopping a small plane failed to damage the door in the slightest.
"Damn it, everything here is made of special materials. If that guy were here, we might have a chance of getting out." Ōkura Teruko struck again with all her strength, but the door didn't budge. She stopped, panting. "Damn it."
"That's out of the question, of course. He's on a mission right now." Jōno Saigiku knew who Ōkura Teruko meant.
Tachihara Michizō, the Hunting Dogs' unknown fifth member, had the ability to manipulate metal. If he were here, he might have been able to make the door a little less hard and brittle enough that, combined with the strength of two Hunting Dogs, they could break it down and get outside.
Unfortunately, Tachihara Michizō was undercover in the Port Mafia and couldn't possibly come.
Kamiki Yūhaku leaned against the wall and watched them. "You'd be better off giving up."
"Huh?" Ōkura Teruko glared at Kamiki Yūhaku and hurled her saber at him. The long blade grazed his neck and buried itself in the wall. She walked up to him. "Since you could activate the defense system, that means you can deactivate it too. Turn it off."
"Sorry." Kamiki Yūhaku stood calmly where he was, his red eyes empty. "I used a special method to activate it, making it believe there was an emergency so the program would automatically seal this place off."
"I have no way to make it shut down the defenses."
Ōkura Teruko pulled out her saber. "You should understand that if this door won't open, everyone here will die, and the crow on your shoulder won't survive either."
"Are you going to take this crow to the grave with you?"
Kamiki Yūhaku looked at Ōkura Teruko. A moment later, he smiled. "How can you be sure it can't escape?"
"So you do know a way out." Ōkura Teruko seized Kamiki Yūhaku by the neck. "You care a lot about this crow? Then I'll take care of it for you!"
"Is that so?" Kamiki Yūhaku tilted his head. "Weren't your orders to capture Little Crow alive?"
"You!"
Jōno Saigiku pulled Ōkura Teruko back, because he knew better than anyone that Kamiki Yūhaku had nothing holding him back now.
He was blind and could only rely on his other five senses to perceive the world before him. He judged a person's deepest reactions through their heartbeat, breathing, and the air. That was how he knew Kamiki Yūhaku had no other reaction at all; he was simply standing there calmly.
Watching how things here would end.
"How about we talk?" Jōno Saigiku said. "The vice-captain and I sympathize deeply with what you've been through, but the government also has ample reason to want you."
"During your five years in the Port Mafia, you obtained intelligence through illegal means. That led to the destruction of thirty-two small and midsized organizations, fighting and friction between eighteen organizations, and the collapse of fourteen government plans. Countless people were displaced as a result." Jōno Saigiku analyzed the incidents Kamiki Yūhaku had caused one by one. "Judging by that, the government's decision to arrest you was entirely justified."
Kamiki Yūhaku looked at Jōno Saigiku. "Then have you ever considered something?"
"If the government hadn't experimented on me back then, the intelligence agent named Kamiki Yūhaku wouldn't exist."