Chapter 114 Our decision, my decision.
Ango Sakaguchi's ward is in the intensive care unit. His vital signs are stable, so he doesn't need an IV. Only a few monitoring devices are installed symbolically. His heartbeat is rising and falling steadily.
"The child's temper is really bad."
Standing by the door, Edogawa Ranpo commented coldly.
"It's not hatred, it's just disgust." Qian Jianmu said softly: "But since he was sent out, he must have had enough fun."
[Time] really can't do anything to Sakaguchi Ango. He does play with time to perfection, but once he really enters the scene in person, traces of his existence will be known to Sakaguchi Ango. You know, Ango Sakaguchi can also develop special abilities with his hair.
This is the difficulty. Sakaguchi Ango's special ability makes many gameplays invalid. On the contrary, making him fall into an infinite time loop when he can't see the culprit is the most heartbreaking way.
At first, Sakaguchi Ango still remembered the boy who once existed, but with each repetition, the memories on the stone piled up infinitely, and he read the memories from the back to the front. The more times the cycle went on, the less likely he would find the abnormality in the first cycle.
"He used it on himself... You can't tell anyone about this."
With Ango Sakaguchi's resilience, he would not despair even if he was extremely close to despair. What is seen in the stone is a third-person perspective, which can reduce the sense of immersion to a certain extent. The reason why he completely collapsed was probably because he used his special ability on himself.
Can "The Theory of Depravity" really be used on humans? What will be read?
If he could really use it on humans, the Special Powers Department would never let him out. I'm afraid the Special Powers Department is not even aware of this ability. Maybe it was just an attempt, an experiment, a last-ditch effort after being on the verge of despair. He succeeded, and also succeeded in making himself collapse.
I have personally experienced hundreds and thousands of despairs, which have accumulated into a tower, and finally led to confusion and fainting.
The ability to read human supernatural powers must not be known by the government, so even though Senmaku and Edogawa Ranpo had some guesses, they could not tell anyone. They even had to cooperate and stay to act out a show to cover up the fact that he used his supernatural powers on them.
It’s not that he’s merciful, but once Sakaguchi Ango makes any mistake in their hands, Dazai Osamu will really hold a grudge and retaliate.
He can play with the lives of his friends, but he will never allow others to step on Ango Sakaguchi. If the two of them confessed everything today and disrupted Sakaguchi Ango's peaceful life, I'm afraid that in two days Dazai Osamu would go back to everyone's time and come to his house for revenge.
A stubborn, arrogant, vicious, lawless little monster with weapons.
That's why I say it's childish.
He can play with his own toys as he pleases, but will go crazy if others touch them. His emotions are extreme and he cannot touch anything, whether it is hatred or protection. If anyone touches them, he will suffer bad luck.
Naughty kid.
Edogawa Ranpo said a few words listlessly about the current situation, and was stopped by the Special Powers Agent Department as expected. He acted unhappy and reluctant, but after entering the room and closing the door, his expression instantly became natural and relaxed. He strolled around the room, and then lazily collapsed on the sofa.
“There are still 11 months until the end.”
“Eh… have you figured it out yet?”
Qian Jianmu was putting away his backpack and turned his back to respond.
"uh-huh."
The two seamlessly switched topics and began discussing the current situation of the disaster.
To eliminate a singularity, one must either crush it with force or wait for its energy to run out. However, time cannot be broken. Time Dazai Osamu has always been doing the latter, increasing the area and consuming a large amount of supernatural energy. When the energy is consumed and the supernatural conflict that replenishes the energy disappears, the singularity will naturally disappear.
Of course, if he stops expanding the area halfway, then the entire area will become his paradise.
It is not an option to avoid the problem, so after discussion, Sengenmaku and the Armed Detective Agency decided to help him expand the disaster.
Retreat to advance, no matter what choice Dazai Osamu makes in the end, he will end up with a similar destination.
——The energy consumed in manipulating time is too great, and the time disaster cannot be retained by itself, and disappears in the shortest possible time.
There may be chaos, but the preliminary arrangements have been made, and after a brief period of confusion, everything will be back on track as expected.
The larger the area of the disaster, the better. As long as this goal is achieved, all that is left is to stop time and Dazai Osamu's own supernatural singularity reaction, which is actually a very simple thing.
The only doubt is whether they can trust Dazai himself.
Edogawa Ranpo did not believe in Dazai Osamu in the early days, but in the past few months he has had a new opinion.
"He is planning to do something very big." Ranpo said: "11 months is the time that Fukuchi Sakurachi is preparing for the World Ability Conference. In any case, after eleven months, the matter will be over."
They suspected that Fukuchi Sakurachi and Dazai Osamu had reached some kind of deal, that Fukuchi Sakurachi needed Dazai Osamu to help him clear the obstacles, and Dazai Osamu needed Fukuchi Sakurachi's help to bring people to Japan, and the cooperation between the two is still in progress.
"It looks like it will be over soon..."
By this measure, it would only take him eleven months to leave Yokohama.
The time ratio between the Jujutsu world and the Yokohama parallel world is about 1:2. On the Jujutsu side, it is only five months.
"Now, it's your turn. What happened? In the past four months." Ranpo lay on the sofa, opened one green eye and looked at him, her soft black hair fell on the side of her face and slid lazily at the corner of her lips. "You seem to have changed a lot."
"Is there really such a big change?" Qian Jianmu asked in surprise.
"You feel it yourself, right? It doesn't seem like you took the initiative... Is it a negative effect? Is it something related to emotions?"
"As you can imagine, this is a pretty terrible place..."
Qian Jianmu didn't think about hiding. He brought some appropriate snacks and sat cross-legged on the ground, looking up at him. Edogawa Ranpo, who had sat up, pulled him to the sofa. Ranpo rummaged through the snacks in his arms, took out the cheese stick and opened it, looking at him with bright eyes, as if he was looking at a gift that was about to be opened:
"A world where power is born from negative emotions is nothing but violent gorillas. It's hard for me..."
**
As the young detective complained, the door was closed. The room where Sakaguchi Ango and Edogawa Ranpo were placed was next door. Security personnel from the Special Powers Department wearing suits stood at the door. The entire corridor was eerily quiet.
downstairs.
"Sister Qianjia, can you accompany me..."
The black-haired nurse blinked a little embarrassedly, and said coquettishly to the brown-haired nurse who was pushing the cart:
"They look so scary..."
Kurosawa Chika laughed.
"They are just government workers. They are not scary, right?"
"But there are so many people... My hands tend to shake when I get nervous... Sister Qianjia, can you come with me? That patient has an amazing face!"
"You can't say that, or you'll get scolded!" Kurosawa Chika whispered, patting the short girl's head as punishment: "No way, wait until I put my things away and then we'll go together. There are only two of us, right?"
"Yes!"
The cart rolled to the nurses' station, and two girls, one tall and one short, carried the medicines on a tray and went upstairs with a smile.
"But he's really handsome...eh?"
"What's wrong?" Chika Kurosawa, who was searching for a rubber band in her pocket, heard the girl's voice and raised her head belatedly: "Eh...?"
A young boy.
He was about the age of a teenager, very thin, wrapped in bandages, with only one eye exposed.
The lighting in the hospital was plenty, especially in this highly confidential floor, but the young man faced the wall with his back to the light, his forehead resting on the wall, as quiet as some kind of sculpture.
The shadow obscured his expression. Chika Kurosawa couldn't see his face clearly, but she intuitively felt that he was smiling.
A faint, odd smile, with darker strokes in the shadows.
The menopausal black-haired nurse came from Tokyo and had not yet adapted to the ecological environment of Yokohama. Before Kurosawa Chika had time to stop her, she saw her colleague walking over.
"Little brother, you can't come up here, okay? You can't play here!"
The black-haired boy turned his head, revealing one of his iris-colored eyes tinged with red. Looking at him again at this moment, that smile seemed to have disappeared again, and the corners of his mouth were calmly pursed into a straight line.
"Feel sorry."
"It's too late. What's your name? Which ward are you in? Can I take you home?"
"No need."
"Don't come here again, go back and rest?"
The young man didn't say anything. He just looked at them calmly, turned around, and walked down the stairs one step at a time.
The black-haired nurse looked at his back helplessly. Kurosawa Chika looked at the nurse, shook her head gently, and the black-haired nurse stopped talking.
Chika Kurosawa breathed a sigh of relief and watched out of the corner of her eye as the boy gradually approached and then passed by her.
In just a moment, a sense of danger made Chika Kurosawa shudder. She had also taken care of some mafia members before, and those murderers always had an lingering smell of blood. However, she felt the same oppressive sense of oppression on the boy.
Unconsciously, she held her breath.
Just as they passed each other, amid the sound of her increasingly restless heartbeat, Kurosawa Chika vaguely heard a chuckle.
“I see…”
However, when listening carefully, one could only hear light footsteps, as if it was just an illusion.
...Is it an illusion?
After the young man completely left the stairs, the younger generation who dared not speak came over.
"That's weird...are you okay, Chika-nee?"
Chika Kurosawa didn't say anything, but just put a finger to her lips. She slowly looked down through the gap in the stairs and saw the boy right below the two of them. She was about to breathe a sigh of relief when she saw the young man raise his head, look at her with dark eyes, and then reveal a weird smile.
“……!”
She took a deep breath and took a few steps back. The junior noticed something was wrong and went forward to see what was going on, but he just turned back in confusion.
"What's wrong, Chika-sister?"
“…Is he gone?”
"No one?"
This time, when Kurosawa Chika went to look again, there was no one on the stairs. The junior realized what was happening and his face turned pale.
"He went downstairs, right? It couldn't be a ghost..."
"...There's no such thing, it's just an illusion." Kurosawa Chika broke out in a cold sweat. She pretended to be calm: "Yokohama is very dangerous, don't do this next time."
"Just a child too?"
"I heard that there are teenagers among the members of the port mafia. It has nothing to do with us. Go to work?"
"……I see."
The two nurses walked side by side again and went to the guard who was in charge of the ward.
**
Late at night, at Mitsuyo Kakuta's house.
Because there was no one at home, Edogawa Sachiko stayed at his house. Fortunately, the room was big and there was still some space for each person.
Although he didn't quite understand why Sachiko had to live with him, he was still confident in taking care of a girl.
Mitsuyo Kakuta is cooking.
There were some raw fish on the table, and he lowered his head to move the vinegar rice in the wooden barrel.
"Wait a moment, Sachiko! It will be ready soon!"
As usual, there was no response, but Mitsuyo Kakuta was used to it. He put on his headphones and immersed himself in the light rock drum beats again.
Boom, boom, boom.
On the other side of the wall, Edogawa Sachiko opened the window.
Because it was a small apartment, the corridor on this floor was right outside Edogawa Sachiko's window. The spring breeze blew in, and she gently lifted her hair that was blocking her vision. Her beautiful eyes were reflected in a face that looked very similar to hers.
The young man was standing at her window, putting his hand that was about to knock on the window into his pocket, giving her a quirky smile, and looking at her quietly with his calm eyes.
"I see. I saw it, ok?"
Sachiko didn't say anything, just blinked quietly.
"Come, tell me about the other me." The young man smiled sweetly, but there was no smile in his eyes, which were like dark clouds. He spoke softly and asked in the most gentle tone: "Is this your decision?"
Sachiko still looked at him and said nothing.
The two of them were in a stalemate for a long time, and just as the young man's smile gradually flattened, the girl opened her mouth.
"zero"
"...zero?"
The girl nodded, raised her hand, and gently drew a small circle in the air. Then, she drew a circle in the opposite direction next to it.
She murmured:
"zero, zero, infinity,"
The young man nodded and repeated:
"Zero, infinite."
The girl put her hand down, as if restoring some setting, and put her hand on the window and slowly closed it.
In the gap between the closed windows, she still looked at the young man outside the window, murmuring:
"Zero."
Da, close the window.
The young man lowered his head, and a shadow covered his entire body. After a long time, he slowly sighed.
He said, “I see.”
A strong wind blew from somewhere, blowing plastic bottles to the ground. Unwrapped newspapers at the garbage disposal were blown up by the wind. The sky was full of bright stars, and the leaves rustled in the noise of the wind.
In the blink of an eye, there was no one outside the window.
Edogawa Sachiko lowered her eyes, opened her mouth, and uttered a voice that was almost a whisper:
"Mr. Mu..."
**
【
…
That makes no sense.
I know.
The meaningless accumulation often makes my heart feel cold and desolate.
Cold, deep cold.
The blood is cold.
When I pushed open the door, I imagined thousands of possibilities, but only the moment I actually pushed it open did I truly feel the belated cold.
That's pointless, I thought.
The gun fell in a pool of blood, the man hung his head, and blood splattered on the table. After a few days, it dried into dark blood spots.
Did he die of illness? Is he starving to death? Is it because of the helplessness after reaching the limit of lifespan?
No.
It was suicide.
He didn't wait for me.
Left behind again.
The slender white folds on the geometric wallpaper were interrupted by bloodstains in the cold late night. Even if I opened my mouth, I couldn't get a breath of fresh air.
I can't breathe, I can't breathe, I've...
I...
…
Why on earth am I still alive?
——Excerpt from the final chapter of Meaningless Literature, Part 1
】
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