Foreseeing the future wouldn’t help me in the least like this. I plunged forward in an attempt to decrease my area of damage. The enemies’ bullets soared by, slightly grazing my temples. The Mimic soldiers shot their automatic rifles in tune with their leader; however, I was able to easily foresee it. Rolling over the dirt, I avoided their bullet shower, then fired back with both of my weapons. They were mere warning shots, purposely aimed to not hit anyone. After rolling to Akutagawa’s side, I got on one knee and raised my guns.
“You purposely…missed?” Gide’s expression darkened. “Do you…really believe this is the battle we have yearned for? What, what is it we’ve been fighting for until now…?”
“Sorry you came all the way to Japan for this, but I have my reasons for not killing anyone. Please find someone else.”
“Why?!” Gide yelled. “After that battle, we searched for a place worthy of death. We wandered the world like specters! You are our only hope! Shoot! Shoot us! If you don’t…”
His howls floated unheeded into the atmosphere. He sounded like a man deep in his grave, but also like someone who desperately wanted to live. It appeared I had no choice but to answer him. In hushed tones, I replied:
“The reason why I can’t grant your wish is that I have a dream. When I quit the Mafia and am able to do anything I want, I will sit at a desk in a room with a view of the ocean…”
—“Then you write what happens next.”
—“That’s the only way to preserve its perfection.”
“I want to be a novelist,” I continued. “I want to throw away my gun. All I want in my hands are a pen and paper… A certain man once told me that writing novels is writing people… You cannot write about someone’s life after you rob them of it. That’s why I will never kill again.”
All noises vanished in an instant. The sound of the wind, the sound of leaves rubbing together—they all disappeared, filling the world with only silence.
That was something I had never told anyone before, not even Dazai or Ango.
“Is that your answer?” Gide asked in a low voice. “Is that the reason why you refuse to stand on the battlefield before us?”
“Yes,” I answered.
I looked at Gide, and he looked back at me. Our gazes quietly crossed as we tried to read the emotions hidden deep in each other’s eyes. That was when I realized the negotiation had failed. Gide aimed his gun at Akutagawa, who was still unconscious, and pulled the trigger.
It would’ve been impossible to pick up an unconscious body and dodge a bullet at the same time, so I threw myself in front of Akutagawa. The impact hit me right in the middle of the chest. I’d jumped to the side, and the force spun me around before I collapsed onto the ground and rolled back even farther.
“To live? We are already dead. We are but soulless masses of flesh controlled by the spirits of the departed. We are nothing more than empty shells waiting for a skill user like you to reduce these bodies to ash with your gunfire.”
Each cough brought an unbearable pain in my chest. I ripped my jacket and checked the bullet to find it stuck in my bulletproof vest. Even then, my sternum ached as if I’d been hit with a hammer.
“You’re not dead.” I slowly strung my words together. “I don’t know what happened to you in the past, but you can take your time to think about how you’ll die.”
“Why don’t you understand…? You’re the only one who can…!”
As he wrung every last bit of anger out of his voice, all emotion suddenly faded from Gide’s eyes like a candle going out. And just like that, his gray eyes were empty, as if I were staring into endless ruins.
“If that is your answer, then there is nothing that can be done. You will not kill me because you do not understand my desire. Also, I will not kill you because you are the only one who can guide us into the battlefield’s sacred fire.”
Without making a sound, the personnel carrier from earlier stopped alongside the artificial forest’s entrance behind Gide. Then he and his men quietly got into the truck to the very last man. The grave tone reminded me of a funeral. As they were about to take off, Gide looked back at me once more, then said, “I will make you understand.”
His expression was pale. There was a note of sorrow in his voice that sounded like something not of this world. I couldn’t even tell where it was coming from.
“I will make you understand me. I’ll show you…,” Gide said while sternly pointing at his temple, “…what is in here. Then you will know the truth. You will understand that one of us must die.”
&n
bsp; He silently walked away, got in the truck, and disappeared. However, at the final moment before he left, he cast a glance at me that chilled my blood. At last, he spoke.
“Look forward to it.”
Ever since that day, Mimic stopped attacking us. After getting the injured the help they needed, I talked with Dazai a little. Then I locked myself in my room and cycled through my thoughts. In that dim room, I listened only to my heartbeat as I observed the emotions bubbling up from within me like foam. I had a feeling something was going to happen, and soon. Something big. Like the violet sky before nightfall, like faraway thunder before a downpour, I had a faint sense I was about to face something colossal. This foreboding had nothing to do with being a skill user; it was the small tinge everyone gets before something’s about to happen. But realistically, there was virtually nothing I could do about it until it actually occurred and slapped me in the face. The world isn’t kind. You have to be tough.
Night fell. Dazai contacted me and asked if I could meet him to discuss our plans going forward. I grabbed my coat and left my room.
“I like the night,” Dazai said. “Nighttime is the Mafia’s time.”