【"I will assassinate anyone who is close to you."】

His tone was elegant and kind, but there was a flame in his eyes. Those flames were the gates to hell, burning all souls with its freezing, pale flames.

"You're wrong." Adam suddenly opened his mouth. "You are not doing this out of love. According to my definition of human emotions, you are doing this for control."

"Is there a difference between the two?" Verlaine smiled sweetly.

While the two were talking, all kinds of different emotions swirled through Chuuya's mind. Shock, fear, confusion—but those common emotions were destroyed in a moment by a violent, burning flame that towered over them.

Hatred.

"I won't let you..." Chuuya's voice vibrated with a sound straight from hell. "I won't let you... do what you like..."

Verlaine accepted his feelings with a cool smile.

"That's fine." Verlaine's voice seemed to have a note of affection in it. "You still need time to come to terms with your sorrows and decide. But ultimately, you will do as I say. As proof of that, let me show you something."

Verlaine placed his free hand over Chuuya's forehead.

Then, something strange started to happen.

".... Gah..!"

The air started to tremble as the atmosphere burst. Invisible electrical discharges caused red and black sparks to shower near Chuuya's eyes.

Chuuya opened his mouth, but he couldn't breathe. His throat had completely rejected the action of breathing. It felt like something repulsive was about to crawl up out of his throat.

"We'll keep the 'gate' a little bit open from now on." Verlaine's voice held the gentleness of a lullaby. "It's not a lot, just a thin hair opening that can close in an instant. But that'll be enough. With this, you'll come to understand."

A wind was created from inside Chuuya. It was coming from a terrifying place invisible to the naked eye. The wind caused the surrounding buildings to creak and the earth to tremble.

Adam endured the tremors in the earth, staring at Chuuya as if his eyes had been glued to the scene.

"Detecting amplifications to the ability. Observing high-energy rays thought to be Hawking radiation, numbers continuously climbing." Adam automatically gave a report of the disaster. "Due to the phase transition, the quantity of heat emerging is destroying the space... Oh no!"

The shouting Adam raised his pistols and emptied the magazine. Special, deadly bullets were aimed accurately at Verlaine's forehead, eyes, elbows, and throat. But.

"Those in the audience shouldn't touch the performers."

The bullets had been stopped once it lightly touched Verlaine's skin, and it was reflected by a powerful gravitational force in the opposite direction. By chance, one of the bullets went through his shoulder.

Adam cried out in pain and rolled on the ground.

At about the same time, Chuuya let out a scream.

The voice was completely devoid of a soul. The shrieking voice didn't belong to Chuuya. It didn't even sound from this world, let alone from a human.

There was a black flame.

"We're too late...! Deploying the shock and heat resistant panel!"

Adam shouted, rolling so he could raise his left arm. His elbow split open and expanded to make a shining, silver shield. Adam hid himself under a heat and shock resistant, superalloy metal shield, made up of nickel, chromium, iron, molybdenum, and titanium. And then, he kicked the ground to retreat.

"Now then, Chuuya. Do you still think you're a human being?"

The space distorted.

And then—hell emerged.

Black flames appeared.

They were the same ones that had once scorched and melted the earth and created Suribachi City.

It was exactly as Verlaine said. The lid to hell had opened in just about... 3 seconds.

But that was enough. The high heat that burst out of the alleyway bent utility poles, boiled the surface of the road, and flowed out onto the main street like a surging sea.

Though, that was just the beginning of a true hell.

Where Chuuya stood in the center, the scenery began to disappear—like the colors had melted and were being sucked into him.

And after that, only a black sphere was left.

The space trembled.

The side of an eight story building that had been near the sphere had completely disappeared. The steel frames, the concrete walls, the floors, the ceiling, the decorations, everything.

It wasn't destroyed, it didn't melt, it just simply disappeared.

This wasn't limited to just the building.

The melted street lamps, the parked cars, the asphalt and everything underneath, all of it was sucked into the expanding black sphere and disappeared.

The range of the sphere expanded. Debris next to the building, the pulverized ground, the cars and utility poles and fire hydrants, all of it was sucked into the hole as if they had tumbled down into it.

The sphere was black, but not because it had a black color. In fact, it had no color. The pull of gravity was so strong that it pulled in the light and trapped it inside the sphere, leaving only a color that looked black.

It was a disaster in the space itself, more terrifying than any explosion or any chemical reaction.

A black hole.

And the eyes of a dark demon king.

When they opened, it easily bit through a street corner and swallowed everything in its path.

But it only lasted a moment. Just as soon as it appeared, the black sphere disappeared.

Residents who lived in some distant buildings were surprisingly safe. They were just eyewitnesses to a black space tearing apart the other houses that created a nightmarish landscape before it disappeared.

In the center of that hell—Chuuya was suffering.

Suffering didn't even begin to describe it. It was a great pain that felt like the skin on his body was twisting and turning, like his eyeball had ruptured, and like every single one of his internal organs were being pulverized. It was an intense pain that took on the form of an otherworldly beast.

And he couldn't even scream.

The ground looked like it had been scooped up and disappeared. In the middle of that scooped up crater was Chuuya, whose body was bent over and collapsed.

The surrounding air was quivering with heat. When a black hole disappears, it emits strong gamma rays to the surrounding air. The quantity of heat was brighter and stronger than any other light source, and melted its surroundings.

The evaporated pieces of metal floated in the air, making it sparkle. The heat haze that was created by the high temperatures beautifully distorted the nearby scenery as it danced. In the distance, the melted utility poles were bent and lined up, as if they were bowing in apology.

And even though the black hole had closed, there was still an anomaly in the gravitational field. The space around Chuuya in the center of the crater suddenly distorted and closed in around him. Like the aftershocks after a major earthquake, the space would sometimes convulse, gouge out a piece of the surrounding earth, then stop. Everytime it convulsed, Chuuya would feel extreme pain.

Right next to the suffering Chuuya, a single figure came to a stop.

The figure looked strange.

It had black clothes, looked too small to be an adult, and had bandages on its face.

The stranger thing was that despite the abnormal gravitational pulls, the figure stood there calmly.

"How unsightly, Chuuya."

It was a boy.

The boy casually grabbed Chuuya's arm and lifted it up.

At that moment, the abnormal gravitational field that surrounded them immediately disappeared, along with the insufferable pain Chuuya had felt.

"You..."

"Can't you at least have a pure, clean death?"

The boy spoke with a rough voice as he carried Chuuya on his shoulders.

Then, he started walking.

With both the pain and the intense gravitational pull gone, Chuuya's consciousness had rapidly diminished.

Before the darkness had taken hold, Chuuya looked over the back of the person who was carrying him, and spoke with a frustrated voice.

"Dazai..."

★

A meaningless memory played itself over in his mind.

It was about the time when he had first met Pianoman and the others completely by chance at the bar. They had spent the day playing pool and competing for points. They all fought over something trivial and threw champagne bottles at each other.

It was a memory that he had forgotten about. Their laughter was vague, and it was hard to tell whether it was real or not.

That memory started to overlap with what he was seeing. A shadow that had carried him on its back dumped him off in an alleyway before walking away.

It was Dazai's dark figure.

Chuuya's throat tightened with effort as he tried to call out, and he finally regained consciousness. Chuuya was in front of that store.

The billiards bar, "Old World".

Chuuya turned his attention from Dazai to the bar.

The stench of blood was so overwhelming that nothing could hide it.

Chuuya stood up on shaky legs. Before he had even taken a step, his legs lost their strength and he clumsily fell forward. He crawled towards the back of the bar.

Pianoman. Iceman. Albatross. Doc.

They were all dead.

The inside of the bar was destroyed as if a storm had blown through it.

The windows were shattered, the pool tables were stuck in the wall, and all the broken alcohol bottles decorated the floor. The ability of gravity was to blame for the wreckage.

Four people lay defeated in the center.

Upon first glance, you could tell that there was no hope of saving them. They looked more "broken" than "killed" and it was harder to find a part of them that hadn't sustained damage than parts that had.

"Chuuya..."

Chuuya jumped up at the voice as thin as a thread. He rushed towards the voice.

"Hey! Are you ok?!" Chuuya hurried to Albatross, who had blood dripping from his mouth. "Hang on, I'm gonna help you!"

It was obvious he was already too late. His abdomen was torn so that his bones were exposed.

"My bad, Chuuya... I was done in. I can't see anything... and I can't feel my legs..." He spoke in a whisper, his eyes unseeing of anything. His legs were completely shattered. "But I saved Doc. I grabbed his collar... And pulled him out of the way... Everyone is dead... I'm going to die... But Doc... You've got to treat him..."

In Albatross's right hand was Doc's collar. He held onto it firmly, like it was an important treasure.

Doc, who had been saved and held tight, had his eyes closed silently. He looked like he was sleeping with not a single wound on him. On the upper half of his body.

He didn't have the lower half of his body.

"......"

Chuuya made a small noise behind his clenched teeth. With a great deal of willpower, he bit back the scream that was threatening to come out.

"Yeah." Chuuya spoke in a forcefully flat tone. "Leave Doc to me. It's because of you that he's saved. That's the Albatross I know. You should be proud."

"Thank god." Albatross let out a deep sigh, like he was relieved. The tension disappeared from his face. "Chuuya... I have a motorcycle in my garage... For work.. For you... You can use it... whenever you'd..."

Albatross's hand lost its strength and fell against the floor.

Albatross, Doc, Pianoman, Iceman... and Lippmann. All of them were dead.

Chuuya kept his head down and for a while, said nothing.

He then stood up and checked everyone's faces, ascertaining that they were dead.

He wondered how long it had been. There was a sound at the entrance.

"Chuuya-san." It was Adam who appeared. His whole body was scorched, one of his eyes was broken, and some fluid was leaking out. But he was standing and walking on his own two legs.

"Tell me, toy robot." Chuuya suddenly said. His voice held no trace of emotion. "Why did they have to die?"

"That's because.... Verlaine murdered them."

"Then why did they have to be murdered?"

Chuuya's voice was growing increasingly sharp and frantic, like a creaking jewel that was on the verge of shattering.

"I don't see the point in verbalizing the reason."

"Answer me!" Chuuya shouted. He stared at the floor. "You're a machine! You're supposed to give me a perfect, objective answer!"

Adam was silent for a few seconds, his face expressionless like he had lost track of the time. But he eventually opened his mouth to speak.

"It is Chuuya-san's fault." Adam's voice lacked any intonation. "Because Chuuya-san decided to stay in the mafia. Verlaine thought it was because of their existence, and decided to kill them. And for that same reason, he will continue to kill."

Then silence. 

 "You're right. It's my fault." Chuuya abruptly said.

He then turned to look at Adam.

"Toy robot, I'll lend you a hand with your job."

Chuuya walked forward, one step at a time. Slowly, step by step, like he was trampling on the floor.

"We'll find him, but I won't let him be arrested—I'm gonna kill him."

He didn't speak in a plain, regular voice. He uttered a jet-black mantra from the deepest, darkest parts of hell. A dark mantra that once spoken, could never be taken back.

"The mafia doesn't forgive those who kill our family."