“What do you think, Sakunosuke?”
“About what?” I replied before he even asked.
But in reality, I didn’t say a word because Gide heard my answer in a vision and replied before I could even get a word out.
“This is the world I searched for… I lived for this moment.”
We didn’t actually speak because our skills were predicting what the other would say, and we would think how we would reply. The moment we came up with an answer, the other would foresee it in a vision and then come up with his own reply.
“What are you after?”
“Why did you quit killing?”
It was a brief moment of eternity—a short passage of time that hardly existed. Our visions and reality meshed, creating a world that transcended our world, making it impossible to know how much was real and how much was our skill. It was a world only we could exist in. It was a world we could find only through killing each other.
“I wanted to be a novelist. Someone once told me I should.”
“A novelist…” Gide smiled inside our still world. “I’m sure you could have done it.”
“Yeah.” Maybe there existed a world where that was possible. “This man I talked to gave me a novel. It was the last volume to a series I’d been looking everywhere for. Before I read it, he warned me that it was terrible.”
“How was it?”
“It was…”
“Boss, you started putting this scheme into motion years ago to get that license,” Dazai continued, standing in front of the boss’s desk. “I’m guessing this plan first took shape two years back when Ango went to Europe for business. You did some searching and found that Mimic would be the most promising enemy for your plan, so you had Ango contact them. I was wondering how Mimic escaped Europe and sneaked into Japan so easily, but the answer was rather simple. The Port Mafia helped them illegally enter the country. To send the Special Division for Unusual Powers into a panic and make them get off their butts, you purposely invited the enemy organization to Yokohama.”
“Dazai.” Ougai, who had been listening in silence, cut Dazai off for the first time. “What remarkable inference. There is nothing that needs correcting. I have just one thing I’d like to ask: What’s wrong with that?”
“……”
“I told you—I am always thinking about the organization as a whole. Just like you see here, I received a Skilled Business Permit, so the government has more or less given us approval to conduct our illegal activities. And right now, Sakunosuke Oda is risking his life to eliminate a troublesome, violent group. It’s a win-win situation. So why are you so angry?”
Dazai didn’t say a word. That was just about the first time he’d ever been unable to articulate his feelings.
“I…”
—“There is nothing worth pursuing at the cost of prolonging a life of suffering.”
—“Awaken me from this oxidizing world of a dream.”
“I just…” His voice came out strained. “I just don’t get it. You were the one who tipped Mimic off about the orphans’ safe house. No one else could’ve found out about the location I chose. You killed those kids to get Odasaku to fight Mimic’s leader because he is the only one who can defeat him.”
“My answer is the same, Dazai. I will do anything for the benefit of the organization. Besides, we are the Port Mafia. We have always brought darkness, violence, and cruelty to this city. Why is that a problem now?”
Dazai knew. He knew Ougai’s calculations, his mentality, and the rationale behind the plan. That was just the kind of organization the Port Mafia was. Logically speaking, Ougai was right, and Dazai was wrong.
“But…”
He turned on his heel, then began walking toward the door. Immediately, Ougai’s guards pointed their guns at him.
“You cannot go, Dazai,” Ougai called out to stop him. “Stay. Or do you have a logical reason for going to him?”
“There are two things I want to say, Boss.” Dazai turned around and glared at Ougai. “First—you’re not going to shoot me, and you’re not going to have your men shoot me, either.”
“Why is that? Because you wish to be shot?”
“No. Because it wouldn’t benefit you in any way.”