"Just heard that some crazed assassin is trying to kill Mori-San," Dazai hummed from your lap. "That Paul Verlaine guy from last year."
"We should let him die," you shrugged, running your fingers through his hair.
"Definitely," Dazai snorted. "Except then we won't have money."
"..... alright then how do you plan on turning this around?" You sighed.
And so, Dazai got to work, deceiving anyone that attempted to target Mori. It wasn't long before things had progressed as he wanted them to, and Dazai dragged you off to a military facility where Verlaine's target was held. The problem? Verlaine's target was Chuuya, and the ginger was accompanied by a former Sheep friend called Shirase as well as a mechanical investigator.
The two of you came in just as a soldier aimed his gun at the machine in the middle of the massacre. Both of its hands were on the ground, meaning it was completely defenseless, unable to think up any way out.
The soldier's body sprung up.
His body convulsed with the bursting sound of an electrical shock and he dropped his gun. After a few seconds of agonized sounds, he lost all power and fell to the ground.
From the back of the corridor behind the soldier, someone appeared.
"How boring," that person said, dropping the taser gun that was typically used to disperse riots. "Even with electricity, killing people is just killing people. I'm so bored of it."
"You're... From the Port Mafia."
Dazai Osamu.
The person who dragged Chuuya-sama into the Port Mafia.
"Nice to meet you, Investigator-san. Where's Chuuya-kun?" You greeted, stepping out from behind Dazai.
Dazai threw away the taser gun with indifference, and turned to face the investigator.
"Chuuya-sama is..."
"Has he already been captured? Or maybe it's around the time you've rescued him." Dazai stepped over the incapcitated soldiers and walked over to the machine. "That's not any fun. That means I missed Chuuya being tortured and bawling his eyes out."
"Tortured? Chuuya-sama?" The Investigator gaped.
"'Why has he come here', you ask? I'll tell you," Dazai began. "I'm here because this is part of the plan. 'What plan', you ask? I'll tell you. Everything. From beginning to end, the events of this Verlaine incident have been in the palm of my hand. 'What do you mean', you ask?"
"Osamu, stop being a pain and get to the point," you groaned, rubbing your temples.
"I'll tell you. Everything, literally everything—from Verlaine's targets, to Detective-san, to Researcher-san—has been based on the information I gave him," Dazai confessed, much to the investigator's surprise. "In other words, the protocol for his assassination plan has also been the protocol for my plan. Now you want to ask, 'Why would you do such a thing?'"
The investigator seemed to struggle to process this, even with his computer brain, as he attempted to run through all the possibilities of Dazai and Verlaine's relationship to one another.
"It was to earn time before he reached his biggest assassination target. His final target is the Port Mafia's boss, Mori Ougai. Mori-san was originally going to be the first one killed, but I manipulated the information so he was last on the list," Dazai smirked. "Thanks to the time I earned, the preparations for his inverse assassination are almost done. But before that, we need to make the final touches."
Dazai smiled and held out his hand to help the investigator stand up. He saw through everything with the eyes of a sage, seeming to stare at a place that wasn't anywhere on Earth.
"At this rate, Chuuya will kill N and if that happens, he will no longer be a human being. But I want to see Chuuya suffer as a human being. So, let's go stop him," Dazai trilled.
"Well then, Investigator-San," you began, handing him a slip of paper. "I've got a job for you to do."
----------
Security alarms resounded like a disaster that could spell the end of the world had come.
The red emergency lights flashed, completely changing the scenery of the facility. It was like you were inside a monster's stomach.
All of the radio alerts intended for the general personnel were being set off, firing repeatedly on all lines.
"Intruder alert. All internal intelligence staff dispose of the designated documents and promptly evacuate. Tactics team, deploy our best equipment. This is not a drill. This is not a drill."
The investigator continued to selectively release clamorous alarms for the staff to hear.
He locked up the fainted Shirase in an equipment storage room, shutting the door and pressing the electronic lock.
"I changed the lock here to need a time fluctuating type encryption key. This should keep Shirase-san safe for a while," he announced.
"Good work. Next is Chuuya-kun," you nodded.
Dazai and you started walking ahead, without a care in the world for Shirase.
"Please wait, Dazai-San, L/N-Dono," he called out to your backs. "When talking about Chuuya-sama earlier, you said, 'as a human being'. Do you know whether or not Chuuya-sama is human?"
Dazai hesitated, before finally replying.
"I don't know," Dazai admitted. "Both N and Verlaine said that Chuuya wasn't a human. I didn't think that was the case, so I read this notebook, 'Rimbaud's notes'—you could say the entire incident started because of this."
As Dazai said that, he took an old, leather bound notebook from his pocket.
Rimbaud's notes.
Rimbaud's notes was a log of sorts that the now deceased gifted spy Rimbaud secretly wrote. It's a mass of state secrets since it contains information related to missions done during the Great War, but even though it was rumored to exist, there was no information floating around surrounding it's discovery.
"How did you manage to get it?" The Investigator asked.
"You're more than welcome to try to find out, but no matter what I'll only tell you lies. I'm a liar, after all."
Dazai-san wore an enigmatic smile on his face. The machine clearly attempted to scrutinize him, only to become more shocked due to whatever the scans revealed.
"We don't really have time to hold a tea party and chat. First comes finding Chuuya-kun," you sighed, gently nudging Dazai ahead.
"How will we do that?"
"Finding Chuuya is always easy." Dazai-san smiled as if he could see through any and everything. "If you head towards whatever is making the loudest noise, he'll be there."
The three of you walked down the corridors, pushing past the throngs of panicking researchers as they evacuated the area.
"There's no evidence saying Chuuya is a human, but there's also no evidence saying Chuuya isn't one." Dazai said as he walked. "Verlaine's an outsider, so to speak, who wanted to steal Chuuya. It's not like he directly confirmed that Chuuya was a man-made ability. As for N, he could very well be lying."
"Why would he be lying?" The investigator asked.
"Who knows? But a good liar hides even his reason for lying with a lie, and that man gives off the aura of a good liar. Am I wrong?" Dazai smiled.
There was a cold pleasure hiding in that smile.
Pressure you recognised all too well.
"Knowing him, he'll kill the researcher for cursing him to be the vessel of a god," you whispered to your boyfriend. "Think he'll recover from that?"
"There, the panic room!" You spotted as soon as the three of you turned the corner.
There were several defeated guards surrounding the door.
"I'm going on ahead!" The investigator informed.
He jumped over the mountain of security guards in a single leap, leaving Dazai and you behind. However, it wasn't long before he returned, a look of sheer panic in his eyes.
It didn't take a genius to understand that you were too late.
"The facility's automatic self-destruct system is underway. 68% of the facilities have blacked out. Before the remaining systems shut down, we need to find the room Chuuya-sama is in," the investigator explained, trying to hack into the facility's system.
It was the only thing you could do since you'd lost sight of Chuuya. Hacking into the security system using the panic room's terminal and determining where the battle was taking place from there was the only option left.
Due to the nature of the evacuation room, a line to the security system was built so that the evacuated VIP could take command. However, the security was strict because this was a secret military line and since the facility was starting to blackout, the terminals that should be acting as hubs were falling here and there. It was like wanting to cross a suspended bridge, but the boards would break and fall one after another.
"First take control of the fuel distribution system," you said, searching for any information in the office you'd entered. "The research materials will ultimately be burned here to destroy evidence once the staff have evacuated the facility. Which is why the fuel supply system will stay up until the end. Take hold of the entire facility using that as a foothold."
"Understood."
From what you knew, it was easier to control the fuel supply system compared to the other main systems (like life support, security, and the memory storage system). From there, the investigator would issue a suppression command to the rest of the facilities using the hijacked processor and further expand our range.
"I wonder if it'll be ok," he said out loud while battling against the system.
"What will?"
Dazai looked up at him.
"Verlaine. When we find Chuuya-sama, I'm sure Verlaine will be there waiting to fight us. I wonder if we'll be able to win against him."
"Who knows?" Dazai answered with apparent interest. "Of course, I can think up a way to win, but it's not really a victory for him if we just died. There's only one thing I can say about Verlaine."
Dazai lowered his hands and looked at the investigator with eyes more mechanical than a machine.
"There isn't a single person in this world who can beat Verlaine in simple hand to hand combat."
"There isn't anyone who can beat Verlaine in hand to hand combat..." the investigator pondered over what Dazai said. "Does that mean there's no way to beat Verlaine?"
When he looked at the two of you, you said, "It's in here."
"Osamu's earned us some time to look through it." As you said that, you opened the leather-bound book Dazai retrieved— 'Rimbaud's Notes'.
"He possesses a gravity manipulation ability as well as his skills as a spy. He's got a disturbing amount of strength and doesn't have any weaknesses. But—he has something to fear," you explained.
"Something to fear?" The investigator asked.
"Himself." Dazai-san wore a mysterious smile on his face. "Just as Chuuya has Arahabaki, a singularity also exists inside of Verlaine that's out of his control. If it runs wild, he along with everything around him would cease to exist. It would be like the nightmare of Suribachi City all over again."
The nightmare of Suribachi City.
Dazai meant the explosion that happened nine years ago, during the end of the Great War. The incident where Arahabaki inside of Chuuya went ramped, blasting the earth away and destroying everything until all that remained was a crater with a two kilometer diameter. The true violence of a singularity, a manifestation of something otherworldly.
A monster that can cause that was sleeping inside of Verlaine — what a terrifying thought.
When you finally entered the room, all three of you were taken back by surprise.
The room was thoroughly destroyed. Neither the desks nor the chairs retained their original shapes, the floor was broken and wavy, and there were two human sized holes in the wall. There wasn't a single piece of furniture that had stayed in the same place, and it wasn't immediately clear what the room was for.
But that only made it easier to sense danger.
Dazai and you hid behind a wall, leaving the investigator to scope out the room first, as the two of you watched.
That's when you saw him.
The Assassin King Verlaine.