He stood in the back of the room and looked towards you. His hand was wrapped around the scientist N's neck. He held N with the same amount of concern one would have for holding the collar of a sleeping dog.
"He... Help me...!" N said in a quivering voice.
The investigator quickly drew his gun. "Please release him."
"This guy?" Verlaine looked at me as if Adam had said something surprising. "You're not a human being, so think logically. What merit is there in protecting this scum? Would you fight to the death for him?"
"My whole reason for being is to protect humans against crimes." He said, aiming his gun at Verlaine. "I don't have the capability to determine whether the person I protect is scum or if I don't want to."
"I'm jealous." Verlaine said sarcastically, dropping his gaze. "Don't worry, I won't kill him... Not this easily."
"You won't get anything by taking him home and torturing him, Verlaine-san."
Verlaine looked towards the voice with a mildly surprised expression.
"Dazai-kun..."
"Hey. What a coincidence, meeting in a place like this."
Dazai strolled up next to the investigator, as if he were walking near his own home.
"You coming here must mean... I see. So I've been betrayed?"
"Please, Osamu's been on our side since the very beginning," you scoffed, showing yourself.
"'This side'? Do people like you even know what 'this side' or 'that side' means?" Verlaine snapped.
"Fufu... I knew it'd be fun talking to you." Dazai wore a vague and bottomless smile.
Dazai and Verlaine. These two powerful people silently stared at each with a kind of smile that ordinary people just could not understand.
While the two were having a conversation, the investigator and you quietly discussed the options that lay in front of you. Dazai could only use his ability upon contact with Verlaine, and you could use yours mostly just to protect yourselves, not that it would do much against gravity manipulation. Using a gun was pointless, for that would only result in your own demise. According to Adam, you had less than 0.1% chance of winning this, let alone coming out unscathed.
But the situation changed much sooner than you expected.
"Ah, Verlaine-san." Dazai sighed with a sudden realization. "I'd duck if I were you."
As he said that, Dazai casually lowered his head to about chest level. Verlaine had a dubious look on his face. Realising what it was the Dazai was talking about, you crouched as well, pulling the investigator down to your height.
The next moment, a piece of debris flew past like a cannonball.
One piece of the debris broke off above Dazai's head and the other piece crashed straight into Verlaine's arm. Verlaine reflexively brought his arm up to block, but the debris piece scattered magnificently.
"What the hell are you doing, Dazai?!" An angry voice shouted. "Don't come into my sight without my permission!"
"Hey, Chuuya. How was your torture session?" Dazai laughed at the edge of his mouth. "I had a plan to come in and save you, but decided against it cause it was boring."
"You bastard!"
"You look like shit," you commented.
"Oh shut up!" Chuuya glared, skidding to a stop between you and Dazai.
Verlaine had a blank look on his face for a while, but then he nodded in understanding. "I see. So it's you guys."
The two boys with completely different personalities, and the girl who had the misfortune of getting front row seats to the circus that came with their constant bickering.
"I heard the three of you killed Rimbaud all by yourselves."
"You want revenge, Verlaine?" You scoffed.
"Nope." Verlaine shook his head, seeming to look somewhere off in the distance. "He was dead to me long before you guys killed him—nine years ago, the minute I shot him in the back."
Dazai took one look at his expression and took a step forward. "Do you know why I came here like this, Verlaine-san?" There was a sign of sharp calculation on his face. "Because I've succeeded in earning us time. You will die for the crime of making an enemy of the Port Mafia."
Verlaine simply shrugged his shoulders at the cold death sentence. "We'll see. I've been threatened with that many times before, but I always get off in the end."
Verlaine grabbed the terrified N's neck and stepped back. Adam's gun's muzzle followed his movements. Dazai spoke in a quiet voice.
"Your ability is powerful, but I have a general understanding of it. All we have to do is crush you to death with something more powerful."
Verlaine suddenly laughed. He looked happy.
"You understand my ability?" Verlaine lifted his arms towards the ceiling. His expression was suddenly wiped off his face.
Suddenly, all sound was sucked up and vanished. All light disappeared in the room and a shockwave passed through a little after that.
A shockwave, then a black light.
The three of you looked up at the ceiling side-by-side, expressionlessly and with open mouths.
Well....
There wasn't a ceiling.
"Hey, shitty Dazai. You said you had a general understanding of his ability?"
"Yeah."
You shuddered as a cold breeze blowing through.
It was the wind.
Blowing from the outside.
"But... do you really understand?"
There was a large, cylindrical tunnel.
The tunnel continued straight up to the surface, passing through a dozen or so ceilings from these deep, underground facilities. Bits of the gouged out floor formed a concentric chain and continued much further away. Beyond that, we could see a small cut out of the evening sky.
Neither N nor Verlaine were anywhere to be seen.
No one said a word.
You could do nothing but predict the emergence of something not of this world and look up at it as if you were praying.
Suddenly, your phone sounded with a notification.
"Bingo."
Two days later, Dazai and you found yourselves rushing to the train station which Mori had bought out for his double, the one used to bait Verlaine out. Both of you parted ways, and headed towards your respective stations. Dazai had a listening device in his pocket, and handed the comm to you, allowing you to listen in on his upcoming conversation with Verlaine. With that, he could also give you any signals, should the moment call for it.
"Hey, Verlaine-San," you heard Dazai drawl as soon as you reached the top of the skyscraper.
"Dazai-kun." Verlaine said. "I've heard of the phrase, 'Intelligence isn't dependent upon your age', but... My goodness, you're terrifying."
"You did this to yourself." Dazai said dryly, as if he were admonishing him. "This time around, you moved too much in accordance with your personal feelings. I knew you'd do this much. Why are you so fixated on Chuuya?"
"Is it really so strange that an older brother fusses over his younger brother?" Verlaine hummed.
"It's really strange, actually." Dazai stated. "First of all, what makes you seriously believe that Chuuya's your younger brother?"
"...What?" Verlaine narrowed his eyes.
"You saw it too, right? Chuuya's original they experimented on. He became a skeleton and died." Dazai rambled. "They practically looked the same. Their abilities were awfully similar. They have plenty of other commonalities, too. What if instead, that skeleton was the man-made gifted lifeform and the living Chuuya, whose only redeeming factor is his vitality, was the original? Can you read through the limited documents on his past as someone not personally involved?"
"That can't be." Verlaine shook his head. "I'm not so stupid as to mistake the target for my undercover missions. There's no mistaking that he's the same artificial lifeform I took from the research facility nine years ago."
"If you look into it, you'll know right away." Dazai said nonchalantly. "Luckily, this time around, the folks over at the research facility can demonstrate how to rewrite the string of equations inside Chuuya. If I captured a researcher using the mafia's power, I'd gladly tell you what the equation said. Then we'd really know what Chuuya is. Fortunately for you, we have a lot of time."
"You're talking as if you're convinced Chuuya's a human being."
"I am convinced." Dazai sighed before laughing. "An artificial string of equations couldn't create that humanity I despise so much."
You heard Verlaine audibly sigh, likely pondering over the idea that Dazai planted into his mind.
"I would be more than happy to explain why this is all a misunderstanding, but... You have another job." Verlaine insisted. "Your job is to tell me where Mori Ougai is, not his body double. It's a backbreaking job. Literally."
"In other words, you don't feel like giving in?"
"Of course not."
"Is that so..." Dazai hummed. "Then it's your loss."
"Fire!" You ordered.
A sniper's bullet hit Verlaine directly on the head.
You could hear Verlaine fall to the ground through the device, something which gave you a shred of confidence,
"A sniper? Th—"
Before he had finished speaking, you gave the order to shoot again. Another bullet from the sniper bounced off Verlaine's forehead. He almost fell sideways and put his hand on the ground to steady himself.
"Your ability only works when you touch the target." Dazai said. "Meaning, a bullet is sure to hit you. Only, you'd stop it right away, right? Which is why if we hit you with a bullet from a high caliber sniper several times faster than a normal bullet, you'd still be struck the minute you stop it with your gravity. And—"
Dazai casually lifted his hand up.
"What a demanding little brat," you sneered.
Immediately after, the fire of guns lit up the dark night.
From the top of a hill, from gaps in the grove, from behind the leaf litter, from atop the towering trees—more than fifty sniper bullets rushed towards Verlaine at once. All the bullets hit him, causing him to cry out.
Verlaine tried to escape into the cover of the trees while using gravity to protect his body. But during his escape, he was shot at from behind. Even if he lowered his body to slip in and out of the crossfire, he'd be shot at from above the grove. There was nowhere to hide.
"He got that many snipers... in such a short amount of time...?!"
Bullets pierced through Verlaine's clothes and dug into his skin. There weren't enough to draw blood, but it was a lot nonetheless. Ten rounds per second, twenty rounds, and increasing by the minute. The air itself that shrouded his body was like an enemy attack.
Verlaine could do nothing more than cover his head with his arms and make his body seem smaller.
"You chose the wrong enemy, Verlaine-san." Dazai smiled faintly. "My countermeasures for your gravitational ability are foolproof. After all, whether asleep or awake, I'm constantly thinking up ways to annoy Chuuya."
"In you go, Ane-San," you whispered, well aware that she'd heard the signal as well.
"Don't underestimate me...!" Verlaine grit out. "You think playing a game of skipping stones is enough to kill me...?!"
"Hoho—If you look close enough, you do look like my subordinate."
The elegant voice of a woman rang out like a koto.
"But, you're just the selfish older brother that wants to take away our boy so arbitrarily. I'll forgive you once you're scrambling out of here with your limbs cut off."
Ozaki Kouyou.
The young swordswoman of the Port Mafia.