Prologue
PrologueEight Years AgoBig Brother
Snip-snip-snick, snick, snip.
The scissors danced in the boy’s hands.
As if they’d gone mad.
As if they’d gone mad.
September 1925 Somewhere in New York
“I may be a child, but…I’m not here to play around, you know.”
“No, no, no, I know. I’m wellllll aware of that, sir!”
On a fall afternoon that still held drowsy heat…
Voices that were in stark contrast to each other echoed in a rather small shop.
A large cash register sat on the counter, which was stained in places. The texture of its wood made it seem weighty, but it was badly scarred, and it looked patently cheap.
Two people were facing each other across that counter.
“Well, getting right to the point…we’d like you to pay what you owe.”
The boy with almond-shaped eyes spoke his words in a way that was indistinguishable from an adult’s.
“Now, now, now. Nownownownownow! Young master! That’s not really, erm, you know… If we talk about your family’s business in my storefront, I’ll have a much harder time getting that money back to you!”
The middle-aged man, who was acting so subservient it seemed artificial, had to be at least three times the boy’s age. His face was twisted obsequiously. He wore a waistcoat that gave no sense of the season, and he was dripping with cold sweat.
Conversely, the youngster was dressed for the wrong season: Although it was only the very beginning of autumn, he was wearing a trench coat, and he had a gray fedora pulled down low on his forehead.
The man’s smile seemed to be pleading for mercy, but the boy ignored it, speaking impassively.
“How can you be unable to pay a mere $2,025.50? Especially when it’s been twenty-three days, fourteen hours, thirty-four minutes, and nineteen seconds since the date we agreed on… If your shop’s clocks are accurate, that is.”
Having said that much without a pause, the kid fell silent, sharp eyes fixed on the middle-aged man.
The man hung his head, looking uncomfortable. Only the sounds of the clocks echoed around them.
Tick-tock Tick-tock
Tick tock tick tick-tock tick-t-t-tock-tick-tock-tick-tick-tock
The clocks’ pendulums formed a strident, multilayered ensemble.
The dim space was lined with various clocks of all sizes, and it was clear at a glance that the shop’s owner was a clock maker by trade.
Although the clocks were lined up so closely that they seemed to jostle each other, there wasn’t much variety.
Brown, utilitarian wall clocks, the sort that were seen in every home. No matter which clock you looked at, it wasn’t possible to list any further characteristics. If one had had to say, the only difference was whether the clocks were large or small.
In this shop filled with nothing but wall clocks, the boy—Luck Gandor—moved the conversation along to the next stage.
“…From your attitude, it’s blindingly obvious that you don’t have the money. Well? What do you intend to do?”
He understood, but he didn’t sympathize.
Pinned by a gaze that was charged with that message, the clock maker felt a shudder run down his spine.
The man was completely overawed by the kid in front of him, and his forced smile grew drawn and tense. He was dripping with cold sweat.
“Ha…ha-ha… Well, uh, you see…”
“For now…”
Ignoring the owner’s attempt at an excuse, Luck coolly began making his “offer”:
“Two thousand dollars is two months’ salary for a mere bank clerk. If you sold this shop, I imagine you’d have that much with change to spare. You could sell off the clocks as well, but it’s because they don’t sell that you can’t pay back your loan, correct? In that case, if we assume that the clocks are worthless and calculate the price of the land only…”
“W-w-w-wait just a minute, please, young master!”
“I wish you’d stop that ‘young master’ business.”
Luck narrowed his eyes crossly, and the clock maker shook his head, speaking all in a rush.
“N-no, terribly sorry about that, young ma—Mr. Gandor! But just, just wait, wait a minute! This shop is connected to my house, so if I sell the shop, I’ll be homeless!”
“Tell me—I’m genuinely curious. Do you really think an excuse like that will work, after you borrowed money from people like us? You citizens call us the mafia; do you imagine we sympathize when our debtors end up on the streets?”
Looking sincerely mystified, Luck, the youngest Gandor Family executive, leaned in very close to the proprietor of the clock shop.
There wasn’t a trace of childlike innocence in the boy’s eyes. The only thing in them was sharp, transparent coldness.
The Gandor Family.
It was a small outfit that claimed a very, very limited tract of Manhattan as its turf. Although its territory and number of members were nothing remarkable, in all other aspects, it radiated an atmosphere that did credit to the name “mafia,” and it was respected by the neighboring organizations.
The syndicate was run by Luck’s two older brothers, Keith and Berga. Since Luck was still young, he acted as the syndicate’s lowest executive.
Although he was young, he’d already been through many bloody fights, and there was no hesitation in his eyes. If the proprietor said anything that seemed to make light of his organization, he would immediately bring terror upon him.
The boy was steeped in the underworld, and the man unconsciously drew back from him, but even then, his tongue kept moving.
“N-no, no, that’s not… Uh, I mean, I’m certainly not implying that you’re heartless, you understand! I just… I’m just saying I have no intention of trying to use naïve sentiments like that to make you wait for your money!”
And then—the shopkeeper said something Luck hadn’t anticipated.
“A-and so, I’ll make up the shortage by paying, ahem, ‘physically’!”
“…?”
For a moment, Luck couldn’t understand what the other man was trying to say. He blinked, slowly.
The man must have picked up on his question from that gesture, because he hastily waved his hands.
“Oh! No! Don’t get me wrong! I’m not saying I’ll take up streetwalking at my age or anything. You know what I mean: I hear you’re looking for people right now, Mr. Gandor!”
“…We certainly haven’t sunk so low that we’d want you as a member.”
The words were rude in the extreme, but the proprietor made no attempt to argue.
“Perish the thought! An old wreck like me! I know I’m worth nothing! So, you see, the one I’d like to sell is my son!”
“Excuse me?”
At the shopkeeper’s words, for the first time, Luck’s expression changed. He looked stunned, as if he truly couldn’t understand what the other man was saying. Realizing how dumb he currently looked, he promptly compressed his lips into a thin line.
However, the owner didn’t see the change in the boy’s expression. He turned and bellowed toward the back of the shop.
“—Tick! Tiiiick!”
Hearing the man call a name that sounded quite a bit like his own, Luck shifted his gaze to the shadows in the depths of the shop.
Then he noticed it.
From the back of a hall that was lined with nothing but clocks, he heard another noise, mixed into the sound of the pendulums.
Snick…
Snick…
It was the sound of polished metal surfaces sliding smoothly against each other. A sound that was somehow pleasant.
Luck realized what the noise was right away.
At the same time, he couldn’t fathom why he was hearing it in a clock shop.
It was like the sound of a blade being sharpened, but crisper than that, and as it came closer…
From around the corner at the very back of the hall, a small silver mass appeared.
“Whaaat? Dad—”
The boy who’d appeared around the corner was holding two pairs of scissors.
It was nothing special: He gripped dressmaker’s shears in each hand, and he was opening and closing them rhythmically, snipping and snicking away—that was all.
That was the whole of his first impression of the boy.
However, in the shadows, where the light in the shop didn’t reach, only the shears in the boy’s hands gleamed, and he was struck by the illusion that the boy’s fingers and body were being controlled by those scissors.
In fact, Luck’s gaze was riveted not on the boy—who was two or three years younger than himself—but on the movement of the silver blades he held.
“Huh? A customer?”
In contrast to the sharpness of the scissors, his tone was easygoing. It seemed to melt into the air.
The boy’s voice brought Luck back to himself, and he took another look at his face.
His build was lanky, and it was hard to tell whether he was strong just by looking at him. He was wearing a good-natured expression, smiling away, with his threadlike eyes squinched up into caret marks.
Apart from that, he had no particular distinguishing features. The only thing that would draw attention to him was the shears he held in his hands.
In a word, the boy gave off the impression that the scissors were his true form, and his body was a sort of bonus.
“Um, hello.”
The kid’s slightly drawn-out words made him seem younger than he looked. At the same time, the contrast with those shears gave him a rather eerie air.
“Erm… Shopkeeper?”
“Ah, Mr. Gandor! This here’s my son Tick! He’s got nimble fingers, and he’s clever with all sorts of things; I’m positive he’ll be useful to you. So, do you think you could take him as collateral?!”
“What sort of nonsense are you sp…?”
Ordinarily, Luck might have bellowed at him: Are you trying to make a fool of me?! However, he didn’t do that this time.
This was partly because the shopkeeper’s words had been so ludicrous that they’d flustered him, but more than that, the boy—Tick—interested him.
More accurately, what interested him were the scissors in Tick’s hands.
Forcefully interpreting Luck’s hesitation as consent, the shopkeeper rattled on, his face cheerful.
“Now, now, now! You know how it is! Didn’t you say as much when I borrowed that money?! ‘If it comes down to it,’ you said, ‘you’ll pay us back even if you have to sell your own family’!”
“That was only a figure of speech—”
“In any case! For now, just try using him, even if it’s only for a day! You see? If you decide he won’t do, well, I’m a man myself, and I’ll sell off this shop and the land and pay you back in full!”
“…That may have been naïve of me…”
As Luck went through the clock shop door, he muttered to himself with slumped shoulders. His tone held none of the maturity that had been there a moment before; he was speaking in a way that matched his age.
The sky was cloudy, and it looked as if it could rain at any minute. The street outside the shop was a broad one, and at the end of it, the Manhattan Bridge’s suspension towers loomed majestically. It was a comparatively new bridge, completed in the early 1900s, but its meticulous overall workmanship made it seem as if it had an imposing history.
The debt-ridden clock shop was on a broad avenue that led to that bridge, which had become a tourist draw. There was no problem with the location. On the contrary, one could say that the shop had been far too blessed. Luck decided that if a place like that had fallen so low it had to borrow money from the mob, either the man had very little talent for business or he’d had no luck.
For that very reason, he knew just how much this land was worth. He’d intended to put a little more pressure on him, then make him sell the lot, but—
“…By the way, why do you always carry scissors?”
“I like ’em.”
“I…I see.”
Why had this happened? Watching the boy who’d come outside with him out of the corner of his eye, Luck gave another big sigh.
“Ooooh, what’s the matter, Mr. Luck? Not feeling so good?”
The source of the drawling voice was Tick’s endlessly artless, smiling face.
As he watched Tick, whose eyes were more cheerful than necessary, Luck heaved an even bigger sigh.
No matter how I look at him, he really doesn’t seem useful.
The fact that he still had those shears in both hands was creepy, but aside from that, the boy was nothing extraordinary. His eyes seemed good-natured, but they betrayed no particular intelligence, and Luck didn’t think he’d be all that strong. Probably only about as strong as Luck was.
That was how he’d analyzed his first impression of the kid.
“Erm… Tick, wasn’t it?”
“Yeees.”
“Tick…do you understand the position you’re in?”
Tick was still smiling brightly, so Luck asked him just to make sure.
“Um, Dad’s in debt…and so he sold me to pay off that debt. To youuu, Mr. Luck.”
“…As long as you know, that’s fine.”
As far as words went, he seemed to understand, but did he truly know what it meant, deep down? Luck wasn’t so sure, but he began to walk, anyway, heading back toward his hideout.
At any rate, if this boy isn’t useful, that clock shop owner is finished. We’ll make him sell the shop, and we’ll get our money for sure.
He really didn’t think he’d be good for anything, and he could have just threatened the man there and made him sell the store, but—
Luck had been terribly intrigued by this human being. The shears were part of it, but the man’s sales pitch—“If it involves his fingers, the boy can do even the trickiest things neatly!”—had piqued his interest as well.
“Listen to me, Tick. If we decide that you will only burden the syndicate, we’ll put a demand letter on you and lob you right back at the shop.”
The reply was still easygoing, and as Luck responded, he was just a little irritated.
“Do you really get it? Helping out with our business has nothing to do with how clever you are. I’m asking if you’re prepared to get involved with dirty work.”
Carried along by momentum, Luck continued with a rather spiteful question:
“For example—if I told you to kill someone, could you kill them?”
He spoke indifferently, and his voice was cold. He’d expected the other boy to recoil, but…
“Yeees. If you say to do something, Mr. Luck, I’lllll do it.”
Tick answered without hesitation, then snipped the air with both pairs of shears.
“……”
What’s going on here? Is he soft in the head after all?
Mouth half-open, Luck started to tell him something…but in the end, he shifted his gaze to the small crowd without saying anything.
Possibly because they were expecting rain, there wasn’t much foot traffic. The only things that hurried past were horse-drawn carts transporting cargo.
When a cart crossed in front of him, Luck realized there were two figures standing on the other side.
The pair consisted of an abnormally thin man and, in contrast, a man who was round and pudgy.
Luck knew those faces.
They were members of the Martillo Family, a small organization that had turf in the same neighborhood.
“What’s this, huh? If it ain’t the little Gandor kid.”
Spotting Luck, the skinny man—Randy—spoke to him, sneering.
“Runnin’ around collecting debts for your big brothers?”
The fat man, Pezzo, also spoke, following his buddy’s lead.
“Yes, that’s right… We appreciate all your hard work.”
Luck was younger than the pair, and they were clearly not taking him seriously, but he didn’t protest.
Why? Because, even though he was still a child, he was an active member of his organization. He understood that it seemed strange, and he hadn’t picked up on any unnecessary contempt in Randy’s and Pezzo’s attitudes.
He passed the pair and kept walking, making for his own destination, but—
“Hmm? It looks like those men have business at our place, toooo.”
Tick had turned around, and at the sound of his voice, Luck stopped walking and looked back.
And right then—the pair from the Martillo Family kicked in the clock shop door.
There was a terrific noise, and then Randy and Pezzo roared in threatening voices.
“Hey, hey, hey, clock makerrr! You’re gonna cough up all our money today!”
“Yeah, you’re gonna pay back that twelve-thousand-dollar debt you racked up at our gambling hall if you have to sell this place to do it!”
They were intentionally yelling loudly enough for the people around them to hear, and when he heard what they said, Luck’s eyes went wider than those of anybody else on the avenue.
“Wha…?!”
He’d cried out in spite of himself, and he hastily clapped a hand over his mouth.
Twelve thousand dollars?! That’s nearly six times what he owes us!
The man had foisted this scissors-boy onto him, and yet he owed an even larger debt to another syndicate.
Was it possible that he’d somehow managed to scrape together enough to pay the others back? However, he hadn’t had enough money to pay Luck back as well, and so he’d tricked him by pawning off this boy on him…
The shopkeeper’s plan rose in his mind. Luck did an about-face then and there, starting back to show that smarmy shopkeeper exactly what his syndicate was made of, but—
“It’s noooo good.”
As if he’d read Luck’s mind, a drawling voice spoke from behind him.
“Dad’s aaall washed up.”
“…?”
“He never did have the money to pay anybody back. It isn’t just thooose people. He owes money to lots and looots of other people, about eight of them. So much money that, even if he sold the shop, he’d never, ever, eeever be able to pay it all back.”
Tick spoke matter-of-factly about the corner his own family had been driven into. He was still smiling.
At some point, the two of them had stopped moving, and they stood facing each other on the edge of the avenue.
“And sooo, I’m sure Dad’s all washed up. All the people who are going to come after this, all of them, they’re going to try to torment Dad, and hit him, and kill him, I think. And so, and so—”
At that point, Tick snicked his scissors, then went on. His expression hadn’t changed in the slightest.
“I think Dad’s planning to run toniiight.”
Although Luck had been listening silently, he inhaled quietly and spoke to Tick, looking mystified.
“…Run? And leave you here? You’re family.”
“Well, I have a little brother.”
The response didn’t mesh. As Luck wondered what he was talking about, Tick continued.
“His name is Tock, but he’s not like me. He’s really, reeeally smart. He’s an incredible genius, and he’s good at eeeverything he does. They say he’s a prodigy, and he’s much, muuuch more useful than an adult. So as long as he has Tock, Dad thinks things will work out somehow.”
“……”
“I hold them back, aaand they don’t need another mouth to feed, so he was planning on getting rid of me, anyway. That’s why he told me to go with youuu, Mr. Luck. To keep people from chasing him for a little while.”
Luck realized something. The boy in front of him had a far better understanding of his position than he’d thought.
“…How can you smile when you know that much? A father who’d throw you away is one thing, but do you hate your little brother as well?”
“Nooooo, I love both my dad and my brother. Why would you think that?”
“Why? …No, that doesn’t matter. Now that I know what your father’s planning, I can’t just stand by and do nothing.”
With that, Luck started back toward the clock shop again.
However— Abruptly, Tick’s slim arm caught his hand.
With a dry, metallic click, the pair of shears he’d been holding all this time fell to the ground.
“…What?”
“You haven’t done it yet, right?”
“What haven’t I done?”
“You haven’t figured out what I’m worth yet, right, Mr. Luck? You haven’t seen whether I’m enough to settle the debt yet, right? But you said, Mr. Luck. You said you’d watch me all day today. You promised my dad. You promised you’d see if I could work well enough to make up for the money he borrowed, remember?”
The smile in Tick’s voice faded slightly, and a little worry crept in to take its place.
Even then, his squinty eyes didn’t stop beaming.
This kid… Apparently, he isn’t just a fool.
From those words, Luck understood that Tick wasn’t merely an easygoing boy.
He understands the position he’s in perfectly—and he’s already steeled himself for it.
“If it turns out that we can’t use you, and the clock maker runs out on us…we’ll make you take responsibility for that debt.”
The young Gandor Family executive felt even more intrigued by this boy. Out of respect for his resolve, instead of heading for the clock shop, he turned around again.
“…I guess I really am naïve…”
With a self-deprecating smile, Luck made for his own hideout, taking the scissors-boy with him. This time, he didn’t look back at the clock shop. Instead, he headed straight for the place he needed to return to.
And from start to finish, the boy who was being sold for the equivalent of a mere month’s salary kept moving the fingers that held those shears.
The metal that twined around his long, delicate fingers snipped and snicked in time with the motion.
Cheerfully, happily, he played the scissors as if they were instruments.
Privately, as Luck watched the boy, he pitied his future.
He probably wouldn’t be able to become a member of the family. He was far too kind to be a denizen of the underworld.
Imagining what the boy’s life would probably be like, Luck asked him a question:
“But— Are you sure you’re all right with this? You’ll be parting with the family you’re trying to protect, and you left without really saying good-bye.”
“Protecting them? I’m not doing anything that impressive. It’s nothing impressive, so I’m preeetty sure I don’t have any regrets. Besides…the bonds between people aren’t thaaat easy to cut. They’re shapeless, like air, so even if you try to cut ’em, you can’t…”
The boy was still smiling that easygoing smile, and it almost made Luck smile right along with him.
However—
“But you knooow, people’s bodies are pretty easy to cut up. ’Cos they do have shapes. My scissors break ’em real, reeeal easy. That makes me sad, and it’s fun, too.”
Tick gave a dopey, innocent smile, and Luck felt a chill race down his spine.
At the time, he didn’t understand what those words meant, but he found out soon enough.
The boy snipped with the scissors in his hands, and the sound of scraping metal echoed in the avenue.
The noise didn’t melt into the hubbub of the city. It ran far, far away, down the gloomy afternoon street.
It might have been hinting at the boy’s future.
Eight years later The basement of the Gandor Family office
“Thaaat’s why I check.”
Murmuring those words, Tick beamed at the man in front of him.
The man’s response was—
“AaaaAAaaaAAaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAaaaaaAAAAAAAAaaaah
!”
A scream.
A scream like tearing cloth echoed around a small room with rough gray walls.
Smiling, Tick continued to relate his past to the man, who had begun to spasm. However, most of it was drowned out by the screams.
In an underground room, where no help could reach them, he slid his scissors through the flesh of a man whose name he didn’t even know.
The flesh split without a sound, and red appeared through the gaps.
“People’s heaaarts, people’s tiiies, those shapeless ‘booonds’ between ’em… I check to see just how much ‘pain’ they can taaake. I want to see it, and it’s fuuun… So many, many, maaany people… I’m aaalways testing it.”
With a smile that held a hint of sadness, Tick snicked his scissors closed.
“But people are straaange, you know? Some won’t sell out their obligations for aaany kind of pain, and others start blabbing away before anything hurts at aaall. Youuu’re the type that doesn’t sell out, aren’t you? That’s amazing. I really respect that.”
In the next instant, still smiling, he slid the blades…and the man’s skin split again.
He’d made the cut neatly parallel to the previous one, barely a millimeter away, transforming the man’s wound into something crueler.
“GaaaaaAAaAAAAAAaaaaaaAaaaAAAAaaah!”
As the man’s scream climbed an octave, the only door in the room opened, and Luck Gandor, a young man with eyes as sharp as knives, entered.
“Tick… Go ahead and take a break.”
“Yeeees, sir.”
Replying artlessly, Tick closed his snips with a click and left the room.
After he’d watched Tick’s back disappear through the door, Luck turned toward the center of the room again and spoke to the man who lay there, covered in blood.
“…Now, then. The length of his break will depend to a great extent on your answer.”
The man might not have had the energy to scream anymore; a wheezing sound issued from his throat, and as he forced his voice out, his teeth chattered.
“Suh… Spuh… Spare me, please, I-I-I-I’ll tell you anything! Ju—j-j-j-just keep that freak with the scissors away f-f-f-f-fro—aaaAAAaaaaAAAAAaah!”
The man hadn’t managed to put the last half into words, but what he was trying to say was painfully clear.
Sighing, Luck cracked his neck, deciding to wait for the man to calm down—but abruptly, the man screamed.
“GyaaaaaAAAAaaaaah!”
“?”
When he turned around, following the man’s gaze, there was Tick, leaning in through the door so that only his upper body was in the room.
“Oh, Tick. What is it?”
“Um… Mr. Luck? If you don’t get a doctor to treat that man soooon…he might die.”
The smile had temporarily disappeared from the young man’s squinty-eyed face, and he was gazing at the wounded man with genuine worry.
“Yes, yes, Tick, I understand. I’ll take care of the rest. Go have a snack or something upstairs, if you would.”
“Yaaaaay, that’s great to heeear.”
At that point, Tick’s smile returned, and he started up the staircase outside the room, humming.
His figure disappeared up the steps, a pair of scissors in each hand. After Luck had confirmed this, he smiled, speaking to the bloody man who was writhing on the floor as if he were making small talk.
“You’re fortunate that Tick is a kind person.”
As he spoke, Luck kicked the man’s wound, hard.
A mass of air was expelled from the man’s lungs, and his entire back spasmed violently.
“Unfortunately, I am not kind.”
Tick really was a kindhearted man.
His character was singularly unsuited to the mafia, and he seemed to be innocence personified.
That said— He had one talent.
A talent for wounding people. For causing them pain.
Was that talent based in his innocence, or was it, as some said, the scissors’ curse?
His fame as the Gandor Family’s torture fiend began to spread barely a year after he’d been sold to the outfit.
Snip, snick snickety snick snip
Every time the boy snicked his scissors, as if in accompaniment, screams rose.
Even so, the boy kept smiling.
And with that innocent smile still on his face, he—
Snip-snip-snick, snick, snip.
In the boy’s hands, the scissors danced.
As if they’d gone mad.
As if they’d gone mad.
PrologueEight Years AgoLittle Brother
September 1925 The wharf
Thick clouds covered the night sky. The stars were hidden, and not even moonlight made its presence felt.
That said, it wasn’t stormy, and the surrounding darkness was shrouded in silence.
Neither the neon light from the city streets nor the noise from the people in the speakeasies reached this place. Looking down at the river that flowed through the gloom, a boy murmured quietly:
“The world really is big.”
The water’s surface reflected no light.
Turning, he gazed up at the starless sky.
The void completely filled his vision. His face still expressionless, he went on:
“It looks like it’s going to swallow me. No, I’m sure it already has.”
I know.
I know Dad’s planning to sell my brother tomorrow.
I know he’s planning to sell him to those mafia brothers—the Gandors, or whatever their name is—for a measly two thousand dollars.
And I know he’s planning to run and take me with him. Or, no, if it comes down to it…he’s going to sell me to that Camorra group, the Martillos, for a much, much larger sum than my brother.
Apparently, I’m fairly bright.
It’s not arrogance; I’m not full of myself. From what I hear, viewed subjectively, that’s just what I am.
They called me a prodigy. I understood all my subjects at school before the teachers said anything, just from reading the textbooks. I even managed to figure out things that weren’t written in those textbooks on my own.
However, as far as I was concerned, there wasn’t much value in that.
No matter how much talent I’ve got, if I can’t get what I want, there’s no point.
I just want to live happily, but…
Since our previous dad died, I haven’t felt happy even once.
Our mom married our current dad—that good-for-nothing clock maker—and Tick and I moved to this new town. A new way of life, new encounters, new atmosphere.
The bonds of a new family formed between us and our new father, and I felt a new happiness.
…Or that’s what should have happened.
But this city, New York, was far too big.
It was just too big.
Before I got used to New York, Mom died of tuberculosis.
Our current dad didn’t feel anything for me and my brother. We were just his stepsons, and he even seemed to see us as nuisances.
However, when he heard the rumors about me, his attitude changed real fast. He probably concluded that I’d be a moneymaker in the future. That’s not the sort of family bond I want, however.
I hate the dad I have now. Money’s all he thinks about. I don’t love him, and he doesn’t love me, either.
Still, Tick sees the man as family.
That said, Dad only sees Tick as a tool.
The same. It’s exactly the same.
It doesn’t matter whether we try to love our dad or not: Our bonds with him only go one way.
My brother’s an innocent person. Too innocent. That’s what makes him so hard to deal with.
That white rat I kept as a pet.
My precious, precious white rat Jimmy. Tick killed him.
He took those sinister scissors he carries in both hands and stuck them into that snowy-white back.
I don’t know why he did it.
I don’t even want to know.
Ever since that day, I haven’t spoken to Tick once, and I don’t plan to forgive him.
Only…I wonder what Tick thinks of me. I know he acknowledges Dad as family. I’m just not sure what he thinks about me.
Tick acts that way with everybody, so there’s no way to know.
Even so—although I won’t forgive him, I did want to believe that there were family ties, the bonds of brotherhood, between Tick and me. And so, even though I do hate him, I thought I’d keep on being his family.
But that ends today, too.
Dad’s planning to use Tick as a sacrificial pawn and make a break for it tomorrow night. I don’t want to live with a dad like that; don’t want to spend my life as the goose that lays the golden eggs.
This isn’t empty conceit. At the very least, I’m confident that I can earn more money than the kind of father who goes to underground casinos and runs up the sort of debts he’d have to sell the shop to settle. Even if what I had to do was illegal.
If I’m with my current dad, though, it won’t work. No matter how much money I earn, I’ll never be happy.
Just like deriving a new equation from the answers in my textbook, the futures I might have if I lived with that man well up inside my head, one after another.
Every future I can foresee is worthless. I’m pretty sure they’re all the right answer, too.
I won’t say I did it to find happiness or anything trite like that.
This is an experiment.
Using only my own strength, how long can I keep running from the things I don’t want, from the unhappiness that’s sure to come? It’s an experiment, with myself as the guinea pig.
For that reason, no matter what results I get, I’ll have no regrets. Then, next time, I’ll change my methods and run the experiment again. Until I get the results I want.
Only…just a little bit.
There’s something I’m hoping for, too, a very tiny bit.
It’s been two hours since I left the house, and I think, just maybe, my brother might come to look for me.
Somebody might call my name, in the distance.
It’s self-centered, but I’m interested in that as well.
Do family ties really exist?
Are they…the sort of things that will smile even on scum like me, who’s shrewdly attempting to test their existence?
And so I’m hoping, just a little.
Hoping that, behind me, someone will call my name, and my experiment will come to an abrupt end.
If that happens, I’m planning on running away with him.
I hate Tick, but at the very least, between him and our current dad, he’s much, much, much—
Just then: A voice spoke to the boy.
“Tock Jefferson. Age twelve, single.”
Naturally, however, it wasn’t his big brother’s voice. It wasn’t his father’s voice, either.
“—! Who’s there?!”
When he looked back from the dark sky to the earth, he saw a dim light.
“Whoops… I suppose it’s only natural that you’d be unmarried. No, let me inquire, anyway. After all, there isn’t a single phenomenon in this world that can be tidied away with the words only natural.”
A human figure stood at the center of the dim, wavering light.
“…‘Let me,’ hmm? Come to think of it, I wonder what Nile’s up to… Ah, I’m merely talking to myself; pay no attention.”
The light was coming from a round object the figure held in its hand, but the thing didn’t look like any lantern Tock had ever seen.
It was about the size of a human head. It was shaped like a moth cocoon, a slightly elongated sphere, and its surface was covered with a type of stiff white paper. On closer inspection, there seemed to be a spring-shaped framework in its interior, with several thin ribs running up its sides in layers.
Light flickered in the object’s interior. From the looks of it, there was probably a lamp or a candle or something inside.
Tock analyzed that much from one glance. He knew this wasn’t really the time for that sort of thing, but a sudden fear had left him unable to immediately look at the face of the figure who held the lantern.
“For that reason, I’ll ask you once again: Are you single?”
Paying no attention to the boy, who’d broken out in a cold sweat, the person asked his question quietly.
When he heard the query, the kid finally shifted his gaze upward.
The candlelight that shone through the paper illuminated…an even-featured face, a face that could have belonged to an angel in a painting.
It’s a man… At least, I think it is.
Tock had based his conclusion on the way the figure spoke. The voice itself was androgynous, and if he’d seen only that face, he might have decided that the figure was a woman. The expression on the face was mature, but there was something childlike about the modeling of its physical features.
The man’s clothes were mostly white, and they reflected the light in his hand, creating the illusion that his whole body was shining.
“I suppose it’s troublesome to be confronted with a question like that out of nowhere. I’m sorry… Oh, does this light interest you? It’s called a paper lantern. I heard stories about them from an old friend of mine who came from Japan, and I tried cobbling one together myself. I’ve never seen a real one, merely heard of them, so I’m not sure how accurate it is.”
The man spoke slowly, then smiled kindly at the boy, as if to reassure him.
Tock tried to ask a question, but he couldn’t put it into words. He felt a strange pressure from the man in front of him, and it made him hesitant to speak to him.
Seeing that Tock was opening and shutting his mouth uselessly, the man took a step closer to him. He was still smiling.
“The first thing I must tell you is this: Our meeting is no coincidence.”
“Huh…?”
Tock didn’t understand what the man was getting at. In spite of himself, he took a step back.
He didn’t feel like carelessly approaching him. That said, he didn’t feel like running away, either. The atmosphere that coiled around the man, something that could have been either pressure or magnetism, simply kept him where he was.
“Not a coincidence: I think that’s very important. Yes, I was waiting for you to come. I was aware of the circumstances surrounding your family, and I anticipated that you would probably leave home today. While I did feel slightly bad about doing so, I’ve been observing your movements for the past month… I analyzed them, and as a result, here we are.”
What in the world is this man saying?
Even as Tock desperately tried to get his head around the situation, the man kept speaking.
It seemed more as if he were confirming his reasons for being there rather than addressing Tock.
“You see, you’re far more brilliant than either you or the people around you think you are. I came to this town because I’d heard rumors of a boy genius named Claire Stanfield, but apparently, he’s already left the city… And then, as if in exchange, I learned about you. You may be even more talented than young Claire, you know.”
The man came another step closer to the spot where Tock stood.
They were still several yards apart, but the man’s voice coiled around the boy’s heart as if he were whispering right in his ear.
“Your moderately unhappy situation is truly excellent. I also admire the way you’ve discarded the life you lived up to this point with no hesitation, before you saw despair. You’re quite an intriguing subject.”
“Who…are you, mister?”
Screwing up his courage, Tock finally managed to ask that question.
Once he’d spoken, the words welled up as if he’d been released from something. If he had that sort of leeway, it might have been better to run away, but Tock’s curiosity about the mysterious young man in front of him outweighed his concern for his own safety.
“Oh, me?”
Without changing his expression in the slightest, the man collapsed the lantern’s outer framework, exposing the large candle inside—and held his finger over it.
“I am—a monster.”
The man’s right hand supported the base of the lantern, and, with no hesitation, his left wandered in the candle flame.
If that had been all, Tock would have assumed it was an elementary magic trick: He’d cooled his hand with ice or something and was using the layer of moisture and air to temporarily block the heat.
However, the man’s hand had actually started to scorch and peel.
And then—the skin he was sure had burned began to regenerate at a speed he could see.
The man’s skin was still burning. However, it never burned away.
At the sight of the regeneration unfolding in the light of the flame, the boy gulped and, with calm eyes, began analyzing the situation.
“A trick…? No, but…”
After giving it a little thought, Tock used the simplest method of getting an explanation for the phenomenon.
In other words, he asked.
“I’m going to ask you one more time: What…are you?”
“Oho. If you can be that calm under these circumstances, you really are impressive. Most of the subjects who’ve met me grew emotionally disturbed. Even a fellow like Goose was startled more spectacularly… Although, with him, instead of using a lukewarm method like this one, I cut my carotid artery.”
The man had completely derailed the conversation, but as he spoke, he actually sounded happy.
“It would have been fine if you’d decided I was something eldritch and run away. That is within the predicted range of actions for human subjects, so I wouldn’t have been particularly discouraged—and in any case, I didn’t intend to let you escape.”
At that, the man shot a glance behind Tock.
As if he were being controlled, Tock turned to look behind him and saw a new figure standing there.
It was a girl about his own age, dressed in black.
Golden eyes shone from below her black bangs, and she was gazing at Tock from barely a meter away.
The girl watched Tock with emotionless, doll-like eyes.
“Chané. It looks as if he doesn’t intend to run. Go back ahead of us.”
Responding to the man’s words with a quiet nod, the girl ran off into the darkness on soundless feet.
Silence filled the area as if no one had ever been there, and in the light of the lantern, only Tock’s shadow remained in the place where the girl had been standing.
Am I dreaming?
The unrelenting abnormality of the situation had begun to give Tock the illusion that everything occurring around him was fake. He was losing his sense of reality, and it didn’t just apply to his surroundings: He felt as though even his own body were made of thin paper.
Ironically, what pulled him back was the voice of the man who seemed to be the least real thing there.
“Now then, let’s resume our introductions. My goal is to discover the limits of humans. To that end, I’m gathering a variety of subjects. Like you, for example—”
When he’d said that much, the man broke off, as if he’d remembered something.
By the time Tock turned back, both the man’s hand and the paper lantern had returned to their original states, and it seemed as though the events of a few moments ago really might have been a dream.
“That won’t do. I’d forgotten something vital.”
The man’s smile had vanished, and he was shaking his head with an expression that clearly said, I’ve blown it.
When it came to fostering a feeling of closeness in the other person, the gesture was much too perfect, and the action seemed to be entirely calculated.
“Huey. That’s my… I mean, my name is Huey Laforet.”
In addition to finally giving his name, the man stated his objective with extreme simplicity.
Just as if the useless exchange up until that point really had been a dream.
“I came from that world of happiness, the one you seek…to pick you up.”
PrologueEight Years AgoOnly Child
September 1925 A certain small village in northern Mexico
Far to the south of New York City, in a little village just across the border from America…
The sun had already set, and darkness had begun to slip over the village and its environs.
Ordinarily, there would have been a beautiful starry sky, but that sky was covered with clouds that made the darkness uniform.
The village was surrounded by farms, and with the coming of night, the pastoral atmosphere was growing more hushed.
On the outskirts of the village stood a house that blended very well with that atmosphere.
That evening, in front of a stove whose fire had gone out, an old man and a child were talking. Dinner sat ready on a table beside them, but they hadn’t touched it; they were deep in conversation.
At first glance, it looked like a heartwarming scene, but in terms of this specific house on this specific day, it was a little different from the sort of thing you’d normally imagine.
“Listen to me, Maria. This isn’t a child’s toy.”
The old man, who had a splendid beard, was crouched down in front of the girl.
In the lamplight, the two of them seemed like family, but then again, they might have been complete strangers.
“This is a weapon, an object with a soul, but it’s also just a lump of iron.”
Holding a stick-shaped object up with his right hand, the old man smiled as if to admonish the girl in front of him.
In contrast to the man’s kind smile, the girl’s eyes were full of tears. She was listening to him intently.
“It’s not the sort of thing you can treat casually, like a plaything.”
“Hic… I’m sorry… Abuelito, I’m sorry… I, I, I didn’t know that would happen…”
Desperately, the girl—Maria—spoke in a strained, tearful voice.
“I didn’t mean it! I didn’t mean to hurt you, Abuelito! And it just…! I didn’t think…hic…anything like, like…like that would happen!”
The man’s left arm was wrapped in layer upon layer of bandages.
And although those bandages should have been white, more than half their surface was covered in a dark-red stain.
The old man had been listening silently as Maria spoke, but now, dexterously, he flipped the stick-shaped thing he held in his right hand around and smacked it against his wounded left arm.
“Say, Maria. That’s your biggest mistake yet.”
“…Hic… Huh…?”
Curiously, the girl looked up at him through her tears, and the old man’s smile deepened.
It was more than just a smile. He was beaming: a pure, innocent expression, like a kid who’d just stumbled onto something fun.
“Ha-ha!”
With a laugh, the old man caught one end of the stick with his right hand. He clamped the object in his left elbow to stabilize it, and then, in a vigorous flourish, he drew the sticklike thing—a Japanese katana—from its sheath right in front of the girl.
It reflected the lamplight with excessive brightness, and for a moment, the girl’s eyes were dazzled. She squinted, and when she opened her eyes again…the tip of the long blade was trained on her, right between her eyes.
The girl stared at the silver that hovered in front of her face, not understanding what had happened.
Its sharp tip was pointing straight at her, and she felt an intense wrongness in the space between her eyes.
However, what the girl’s eyes finally came to rest on wasn’t the blade’s tip. It was the congealed red spray near the middle of the sword.
This was the katana that she’d casually swung around a little while ago.
The katana that had cut her grandfather’s left arm when he stepped in to stop her.
The blood hadn’t been wiped off. It was drying on the silver blade. The chaotic splatter seemed to be accusing her. At the very least, that was what it felt like.
However…
“Listen to me, Maria. When you use this sword, you mustn’t ever say, ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you’! When you wield it—no, the moment you draw it—always think this: ‘I’ll slash you apart!’”
Grinning, the old man began saying things that were the polar opposite of what a normal guardian would probably say.
“Look, Maria! That’s my blood on this sword! Blood from my arm, from when you cut me a minute ago! Maria, listen. This is really something, you know that?”
“…?”
“I was trying to stop you in earnest, but you—you, who were dancing around, half playing—you slipped through my hands and got me!”
Shoulders hunching, the man chuckled, then wiped off the bloodstains with a cloth that had been hanging beside the chair. Naturally, since the sword had already been resheathed once, this wasn’t enough. Blood had dripped down inside the scabbard, and it would probably damage both the scabbard and the blade.
However, the old man didn’t seem the least bit concerned about that.
“I thought I’d be able to take a sword from a kid like you with no trouble at all, even if you were waving it around. But listen, you swung that sword in a way that went far beyond my expectations! A Japanese katana! A slip of a girl like you! Maybe it’s talent. I can’t even tell you how happy that makes me!”
The man returned the sword, which he’d only wiped down briefly with the cloth, to its scabbard as if nothing had happened.
Then, firmly, he held the sword out to the flustered girl.
“Listen, Maria. Japanese swords can only cut a few people in a row. They get smeared with blood and fat, and they lose their edge before you can say Jack Robinson.”
Looking grave, the old man leaned closer to the girl.
However, abruptly, his expression shifted into a grin, and he emphatically stated his conclusion:
“—That’s what they say, but I’m sure they’re lying!”
Tossing the katana to Maria, the old man bolted up out of his chair. Then, like a drunk in a tavern, he bellowed his thoughts at the ceiling.
“If you believe, and if you’ve got the skill and the strength, you can cut human flesh with a tree branch or a scrap of paper. There’s no way a katana can’t do something even wood or a metal pipe could do, just because it has a little blood or fat on it!”
His theory was ridiculous, but there wasn’t the slightest smell of liquor about the man. His face was red because he was excited, and he was currently 100 percent sober.
If he was drunk on anything, it was on himself as he spoke of his dreams.
“In your heart, tell yourself that the phrase ‘I can’t cut that’ is a lie. Believe, all the way! Do that, and you’ll be able to cut any number of people. You’ll be able to keep cutting. Ten people, a hundred, a thousand or ten thousand, everything that exists on the land and in the sky and the sea, except you—no, including you! You’ll be able to cut down absolutely all of humanity, including yourself!”
As he spun this abnormal pipe dream, the man kept his intense gaze fixed on empty space.
“And it isn’t just people, Maria. If you want to, you can cut absolutely anything! As long as you have skills to match your belief! That’s the sort of thing that katana is!”
The man happily spread his arms wide, then thrust both hands forward and smacked the girl’s shoulders where she sat.
“Try it, try it! Cut this, that, and everything, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut— Koff!”
Running out of breath, the man choked a little.
However, he recovered quickly and, grinning, kept repeating the same word, rhythmically:
“…Cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut—cut everything!”
At the time, the girl didn’t really understand what the old man was saying.
However, under his intense eyes, at some point, her hands had clenched around the sword she held.
Her tears were already dry. Sadness, regret, and fear were all gone, and the only thing left was adoration for her grandfather’s impassioned words.
“Maria! There isn’t a single thing that Japanese katanas can’t cut! That’s true even if the thing has no shape! If you believe, you can cut anything! Even water, even air, even a vacuum, human souls, the bonds between people, pent-up resentment, even regrets and hopes—you can cut anything!”
After he’d yelled that much, the man exhaled heavily and sat back down.
“Listen, Maria. You have the right to take that sword.”
“…The right?”
“Your parents were skilled hitmen, but they gave in to the allure of guns, and they didn’t pick up that sword! As a result, your father and mother died. I cut them down with that katana!”
Viewed objectively, what the old man said might have been shocking. However, it didn’t seem to stir the girl’s feelings in any particular way, and she responded calmly.
“Uh-huh, I know! It was when I was still little, right? I don’t really remember it, but Abuelita told me all about it, lots and lots of times!”
“Yes, that’s right. Her story’s true. So you see, Maria. That sword was supposed to retire with my generation. But, Maria, when I saw you today, I changed my mind.”
Leaning far back in his chair, the old man spoke with a smile that seemed to say he was living the best moment of his life right now.
“When you saw that blood running from my arm, you got scared and started sobbing.”
“…I’m sorry.”
“I told you, don’t worry about that! What’s important is—your face.”
Pausing for just a moment, the old man grinned, showing his teeth.
“Maria, you know, when you were swinging that katana around and playing, even in the moment when you cut my arm, you looked really, truly happy! That, that is what’s important! All right, Maria. Take that sword, Murasámia—which has been handed down from person to person, without regard for family lines or teachers and students—and draw it!”
“…Okay!”
Obeying her grandfather, the girl drew the sword with the odd name. The sword left its sheath in a smooth motion that was so splendid it was hard to believe it had been drawn by a child’s short arms.
The next moment, the blade reflected the lamplight and illuminated the girl’s perfectly cloudless smile.
The old man gave an involuntary whistle, admiring the union of the girl and the blade from the bottom of his heart.
“Good, Maria! Once you draw that katana, don’t think about unnecessary stuff. Believe in cutting. Then enjoy slashing with all your heart and soul!”
“Okay! I will, Abuelito!”
No sooner had she yelled the words then the girl sprang out of her chair—
—and, with no hesitation, swung the sword at the old man in front of her.
“…Ha! Just as I thought! Maria, you’re like a fantastically, magnificently crazed angel!”
With a dinner fork from the table in his hand, the old man watched his granddaughter’s face cheerfully, delightedly.
The descending katana had been caught neatly in the tines of the fork, and the tip had stopped just before it reached the old man’s head.
“You had enough belief. You just aren’t skilled enough to cut me yet. Well, never mind; you can improve your skills starting now! Once you’ve improved, I’ll pick out another sword for you. After all, if you fight with two swords, you’ll be able to cut twice as much of all sorts of things!”
As her grandfather spouted his crazy theory, laughing, the girl lowered her head a little, her eyes wide. Her lips were slightly warped. Was it a smile, or was it frustration?
“Huh…? Why did I…just…?”
“Even you don’t know why you tried to cut me just now, do you? That’s fine! Once you draw, just cut! Cut everything! You can think about why you cut it afterward! You’re fine just like that. You and that katana shine brightest that way! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”
“Ah-ha!”
As if pulled along by the old man, who was laughing as if he’d gone nuts, Maria also began to laugh quietly.
Her expression was still childlike, but it held a stealthy, incredibly pure lunacy.
On seeing his granddaughter’s face, the old man—a hired killer—nodded, seeming satisfied.
“I’ll say it one more time, Maria. That’s no child’s toy.”
“That blade is your compañero—your partner.”
A few years later Somewhere in Manhattan
“Hey, what the hell…? What is this brat?!”
A big-city alley, shrouded in darkness.
In a place even the city lights barely reached, a lone man was screaming. Several people lay at his feet, their shapes perfectly still.
“What, huh?! What’s this; what the hell’s going on? Wh-what do you want, huh?”
Clouds covered the sky, and no moonlight reached the narrow street.
However, in the glow from the distant avenue: The man discovered that the figure in front of him was a young girl.
She held two blades, each reflecting the faint light.
As if catching the rhythm of that light, the girl, Maria, began to speak in a jaunty tone.
“Hi, amigo! I’m Maria. I’m a hired killer! Right now, I’m just starting to get famous! And, see, as a favor to this wacky young guy who believed in my skills and asked me to, I came here to kill you people!”
After introducing herself thoroughly, she began walking toward the man on soundless feet.
She stepped into the red blood that was flowing across the ground, but by virtue of the way she was moving, she didn’t make a single splash. Step by step, she was steadily closing the distance.
“And you’re the last one, amigo!”
“Y-you rotten brat! You better quit trying—”
The man immediately pulled out his gun, intending to put a bullet in his approaching adversary.
The next instant, the girl dropped into a low crouch, simultaneously swaying far to the right.
A gunshot.
At the same time, a sharp, metallic noise rang out.
The earsplitting sound seemed to surround the man—and the next thing he knew, the gun had been knocked out of his hand.
“Wha…?!”
The Japanese sword had come in much, much closer than he’d predicted and had struck the gun sharply just before he fired the bullet.
That’s nuts, the man thought, but just as he was about to say it, he remembered:
The girl had been fighting with two swords.
So he realized…
One sword had sent his gun flying.
In that case, where was the second one—?
Just as the man tried to check, the answer ran right through his throat.
There was a brief pause, and then bright blood gushed into the alley.
At some point, the girl had circled around behind the man, and the spray of her victim’s blood didn’t touch her. She was gazing quietly at a black lump on the ground.
It was the gun that she’d knocked out of the man’s hand a moment earlier. She watched it for a while, but once the dead man fell to the ground, she stepped over his back and started walking.
“Phooey… I guess I’m not good enough to cut a gun in two yet…”
After uttering a murmur that sounded sincerely disappointed, the girl disappeared without another sound into the urban darkness.
There was almost no viscera on her naked swords, and they gleamed quietly in the dim light that seeped in from the city.
Wavering, ghostlike…
As if everything about the girl’s heart, and the sharpness of her blades, were melting into the dark streets…