Chapter 1

An unconventional viewing fic. Don't bother searching for this book; it's just an unwritten outline that exists in my head. I've been into viewing fics lately, so I guess this counts as two stories, lol.

An unconventional male lead and an unconventional villain.

The viewers will initially be the Bungo Stray Dogs cast, with more joining as the plot progresses.

The Bungo Stray Dogs timeline is after the end of the anime's third season, but the Hunting Dogs are watching too.

[ ] indicates the footage being watched.

[ ] indicates thoughts.

We'll go straight into the viewing. No rambling prologue.

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[This was a very chaotic world.

Special abilities, Jujutsu, flames, spiritual power.

All these different supernatural powers formed the foundations of this world-and created different conflicts.]

A train sped along. A handsome boy stared expressionlessly at his reflection in the window.

W-what was going on?! Atsushi Nakajima* stared blankly at the huge screen before him. Hadn't he been asleep? How had he suddenly ended up here?

Was it an enemy? A hand suddenly landed on his shoulder, and Atsushi Nakajima* nearly jumped out of his skin.

"Mr. Dazai?!" Atsushi Nakajima* turned around. Osamu Dazai* pointed to the side, and Atsushi took a closer look. "Huh-"

Had the entire Armed Detective Agency been caught in one fell swoop?! Wait!

Atsushi Nakajima* was dumbfounded. Looking more closely, he spotted the Port Mafia, the Special Division for Unusual Powers, and plenty of people he didn't recognize-the Hunting Dogs! What was going on?!

"Shut up, weretiger!"

At that unmistakable form of address, he found, sure enough, Ryunosuke Akutagawa* wearing a sour expression. If he hadn't already tested things and discovered he could neither leave his seat nor attack anyone, he would have taught the weretiger a lesson long ago.

Osamu Dazai* also patted Atsushi Nakajima* on the shoulder, signaling for him to calm down. Before Atsushi Nakajima* arrived, the various parties had already reached a temporary agreement. Dazai looked toward the still-playing screen, his expression unreadable.

Special abilities were one thing, but what were Jujutsu, flames, and spiritual power?

And who exactly was this person?

[Generally speaking, a world with such a complicated setup would always produce all sorts of ambitious people who wanted to do something to change it.

Most of them believed, "I'm not the one who's wrong; the world is," and wanted to turn the world into what they wished it to be.

Furthermore, utterly convinced that they were right, they would not hesitate to kill innocent people. They would call it a necessary sacrifice and feel absolutely no guilt or remorse.

People like these were usually called-villains.]

"Th-that's a pretty scathing assessment," Atsushi Nakajima couldn't help commenting.

Osamu Dazai stroked his chin with interest. "That makes perfect sense." His gaze drifted toward a certain hat-wearing Russian. Tsk, tsk. Someone just got told off.

Fyodor showed no awareness whatsoever of having been singled out. He even smiled at Osamu Dazai. Without a doubt, it was a necessary sacrifice.

Osamu Dazai made a gagging face.

[Villains like these usually held different goals and ideals.

For instance, creating a world without special abilities.

Or creating a world without ordinary people.

Or creating a world with only shamans.

And so on and so forth...

Faced with all these schemes, ordinary people could only say: perhaps these villains who wanted to create different worlds should fight each other first and settle on a winner.]

Clap, clap, clap... Osamu Dazai applauded with a beaming smile. "Well said."

Fyodor smiled without speaking, thinking that apparently his counterpart in that world had quite a few enemies.

Ranpo crunched away at his potato chips without a word. Tsk. Ordinary people had it rough.

Everyone else wanted to ask whether Mr. Ranpo really counted as an ordinary person!

[However.]

The black-haired boy looked at his blurry reflection in the glass and lowered his eyes.

[I probably had no right to criticize them.]

[By those standards, I would ordinarily be called a villain too.]

"Huh-" Atsushi Nakajima couldn't help exclaiming. Feeling everyone's eyes on him, he scratched his head awkwardly. "But he was just criticizing villains."

As it turned out, he was a villain himself.

[My name was An Xinyi, a villain with ideals and ambitions of my own.

That's right.

I wanted all of humanity to overcome death and reach the far shore of immortality.]

Osamu Dazai abruptly clutched his chest and wailed, "How could anyone be so vicious?!"

"Scum! Fiend! Military police, hurry up and arrest this heinous villain!"

"W-well..." Atsushi Nakajima laughed awkwardly. "That dream shouldn't be all that evil, should it?"

Everyone nodded, except Osamu Dazai.

"Apart from this suicide maniac, I doubt anyone doesn't want to live," Kunikida concluded. "But it really does sound a little strange. Immortality for all humanity..."

It was clearly a wonderful dream, so why did it sound so odd?

It felt utterly impossible to achieve.

True, no one wanted to die, but no one truly believed that all of humanity could live forever, either.

Even the greediest people only fantasized about immortality for themselves.

In a sense, someone who wished for all humanity to live forever ought to count as a saint.

Did someone like that qualify as a villain?

"Heh." Fyodor chuckled. "What a magnificent dream."

"Still, I think this person is even more evil and frightening than I am."

After all, the Demon's eyes were cold. Someone like this was countless times greedier than he was.

[This was a wish that could absolutely be fulfilled.]

An Xinyi got off the train and made turn after turn before entering an alley and opening a secret underground passage.

Only after a series of fingerprint, voiceprint, iris, and password checks did he open the concealed door.

Everyone silently memorized the location.

[The basic unit of life was the cell. Every human being developed through the division of a single, tiny fertilized egg cell.

Cells also aged and died. Newly divided cells continually replaced dying cells; this was the secret behind our continued growth.

However, this division was not unlimited.

In 1965, Professor Hayflick of Stanford University discovered that human cells could not replicate themselves more than 57 times. It was as though each cell contained a counter that determined when it would stop dividing and when a person would grow old. In theory, human cells could divide a maximum of 56 times. Calculations based on the cell division cycle placed the limit of the human lifespan at around 120 years. This theory was called the Hayflick Limit.

These structures played a crucial role in cell division, maintaining the integrity of chromosomes. Every time a cell divided, its telomeres shortened a little. When they became too short to protect the genetic structure, the cell would suppress its growth, stop replicating, and enter senescence.

This was the Hayflick Limit.

In other words, even if humans developed to their fullest potential, they would only reach the Hayflick Limit of 120 years-nowhere near immortality.

Faced with this string of technical terms, most of those without a basic education wore awkward smiles. Only Yosano, Mori Ougai, and a few others looked thoughtful.

But that was not all.

In 2002, Professor John Sulston of Cambridge University and two others discovered a genetic regulatory mechanism called "programmed cell death." This discovery shocked the entire medical community because it established that cell death was a physiological, active form of "suicide," like a program written by some unseen hand. In other words, humans thought aging was a natural process, but it might actually be a genetic defect. If humanity could repair that defect, there was hope of defeating aging and achieving immortality.

"That's correct in theory," said Mori Ougai, who had once been the top student at the University of Tokyo's medical school and was well qualified to comment. "But in practice, it's essentially impossible. Immortality..."

There was a touch of wistfulness in Mori Ougai's voice. It wasn't that he didn't desire immortality. In fact, immortality was the ultimate object of human pursuit. He was simply rational enough to know that such a thing could never be achieved.

Yosano Akiko clicked her tongue but didn't argue. However much she disliked Mori Ougai, she had to acknowledge his professional expertise.

Osamu Dazai, Fyodor, and Ranpo Edogawa knew little about medicine, but they listened intently to the expert's explanation.

[In theory, immortality was indeed impossible.]

An Xinyi entered his meticulously arranged laboratory, and his expressionless face finally changed. He smiled with absolute confidence in his own abilities.

[Provided I wasn't involved.]

"Welcome back, sir."

A sweet female voice suddenly rang out.

"Ah, I'm back, DD."

DD was an intelligent AI he had created. Compared with her predecessor BB, her intelligence was every bit as impressive, though her processing power fell short of the Mooncell, which could rival an entire solar system.

Why had he named her DD? Of course, it was because AA sounded bad, and BB and CC were already taken. Oh, or perhaps he was just terrible at naming things.

"Rival a solar system?" Those who understood the implications were instantly stunned. How was that possible?

Compared with that, the shock of an intelligent AI and the boy's arrogance on-screen no longer seemed worth mentioning.

Those with ulterior motives had already memorized the names Mooncell and BB, intending to investigate after they left-which was pure wishful thinking.

"DD, you've finished compiling the stem-cell aging reversal technology, haven't you?" An Xinyi carefully put on his protective suit.

"Yes, sir. According to clinical trials, depending on individual constitution, it can, at minimum, restore a sixty-year-old person's youth, making them twenty to thirty years younger."

"That's amazing..." Atsushi Nakajima didn't understand, but he was impressed.

Mori Ougai, who did understand, had already widened his eyes. "Stem-cell aging reversal-does he mean mesenchymal stem cells and hematopoietic stem cells? But no such technology has appeared yet."

Even after changing careers to become the Port Mafia's boss, Mori Ougai had not entirely abandoned his original profession. Moreover, he understood the significance of this technology better than anyone. Regaining one's youth was a temptation no one could resist.

Especially those at the top who held power and wealth. They already had everything, so the only thing they wanted even more was a long life.

It was fair to say that if he had possessed this technology over a decade ago, even the failure of the Immortal Army would not have mattered. Those higher-ups would absolutely have protected him. He could have assumed a new identity and carried on as he pleased. Why would he ever have entered the underworld?

Even now, with this technology in hand, the Port Mafia would gain endless resources, political support, and money.

At that thought, Mori Ougai's breathing grew a little heavier. His purplish-red eyes refused to miss a single image as he tried to deduce the key points of the technology.

Come to think of it, did this person exist in their world? If so, he really wanted him to join the Port Mafia. Scientific talent was so rare.

Yosano Akiko also looked interested, though in her case it was mostly professional curiosity.

["However, if you'll excuse me, sir." In her ability to raise questions of her own, DD had unquestionably surpassed every existing weak AI. "I have a question."

An Xinyi blinked. "What is it?"

"Why don't you incorporate supernatural abilities into your immortality research? According to my calculations, incorporating supernatural abilities into the technology could accelerate progress by another 45.54 percent."

"I've considered incorporating supernatural abilities before," An Xinyi said calmly. "I don't mean to look down on them. Since humans possess these abilities, they're useful tools too. They can use supernatural abilities to take shortcuts in experiments, but the final technology cannot depend entirely on the supernatural."

"We don't understand the supernatural." An Xinyi's gaze grew distant, as though he were recalling something from the past. "Whether it's medicine or physics, we can explain things through chemical changes, atoms, electrons, and other natural laws. The supernatural undoubtedly has rules of its own, but humanity hasn't deciphered them yet."

"I can use supernatural abilities in experiments, but when it comes to applying the results to human bodies, I will never use any method that carries hidden risks."

"This guy seems pretty decent." Holding a glass of red wine, Chūya Nakahara began to feel a little goodwill toward An Xinyi. Someone who could say such things was, at the very least, someone who valued life.

"Not necessarily. The slug has terrible judgment, after all." Osamu Dazai rubbed his chin.

"Dazai! You just love arguing with me, don't you?!"

Ranpo Edogawa opened his emerald eyes, unusually grave. "Good or bad? You can't describe this person in such simple terms." A saint or an utterly monstrous criminal would be more appropriate.

"Mr. Ranpo?" Osamu Dazai raised an eyebrow. Had Ranpo seen something the rest of them couldn't?

Ranpo Edogawa didn't answer.

"And besides-" An Xinyi stopped what he was doing. "My wish is immortality for all humanity. All humanity."

The black-haired boy lifted his head, his dark eyes filled with stubborn resolve. "So no one can be left out."

Even "No Longer Human" was human.

"Huh-" Atsushi Nakajima exclaimed, his neck cracking as he turned. "M-Mr. Dazai?"

Under everyone's gaze, Osamu Dazai clutched his head and wailed, "What did I ever do to him?!"

Wasn't forcing him to live forever going too far?!

But...

Osamu Dazai stared, dazed. So he was included in that man's "all humanity," too?

Did he... count as human too?

==

So please don't nitpick the technical terminology. The male lead really is a villain, a little like Amakusa. Anyone who wants to save all humanity is bound to bear an even greater sin!