“Speaking of which, last night I ran into a rather interesting person who even used my phone to call the police.”
At Lupin bar in Tokyo’s Ginza, Osamu Dazai, currently one of the Port Mafia’s most competitive executive candidates, casually dropped this remark while chatting with his friends.
One of his friends, Sakunosuke Oda, chimed in offhandedly, “What happened?”
“It was a kidnapping, pure and simple.”
Dazai tapped lightly against his glass.
“That gang even rented a Port Mafia warehouse. I checked out the scene: there were four kidnappers in total, though only three were inside the warehouse at the time. One of them got hit in the head by a falling light fixture. The coroner said he happened to have a cerebral aneurysm that ruptured, causing instant death. The remaining two were crushed to death by items falling out of a shipping container. The only one completely unharmed was the person who was kidnapped.”
Their second friend, Ango Sakaguchi, pushed up his glasses and guessed, “Was it an Ability?”
“That’s precisely the most fascinating part—” Dazai’s eyes sparkled. “I checked, and it was entirely accidents! The light broke due to natural aging, the container’s structural integrity failed, and the side ruptured under internal pressure. No matter how you look at it, it was all pure coincidence.”
“Then it was probably just a coincidence,” Oda said flatly.
Ango, however, thought a bit deeper. “Is there something wrong with the person who was kidnapped? Otherwise, Dazai, you wouldn’t have gone out of your way to check out the scene, let alone specifically requested an autopsy…”
Dazai snapped his fingers. “Ango really gets me Exactly, that guy looked incredibly interesting.”
The scene of encountering that white-haired teenager last night had been flashing through Dazai’s mind repeatedly ever since.
He had originally just been planning to go jump in the ocean, but upon hearing a massive commotion coming from a certain warehouse, Dazai had gone over to take a look out of a sudden whim.
The situation inside the warehouse matched what he had described to his friends, but what he hadn’t mentioned was that the kidnapped boy had been laughing at the time.
He was laughing crazily.
Desperately, hysterically.
His expression was filled with fury and madness, yet completely devoid of the relief one might feel at escaping death thanks to the kidnappers perishing.
If anything, the other person hadn’t paid attention to what was happening in the warehouse at all. Even when Dazai walked right up to him, those unfocused eyes didn’t reflect his figure.
The boy radiated a nearly out-of-control, neurotic frenzy from head to toe, violently releasing the intense emotions churning inside him.
Even Dazai, merely watching him, felt almost infected by those emotions, shivering at a distortion and madness that transcended normal boundaries.
“Hahahaha!! Hahahahahaha!!! What is this? Why am I still alive?! If this is how it ends, doesn’t that mean I’ve failed? Why wasn’t I able to become hope… why didn’t I die, didn’t die, didn’t die…!!!”
Dazai had grabbed the boy’s hair, forcing the kneeling, bound figure to lift his head and unconsciously lock eyes with him.
The boy, who looked slightly younger than Dazai, possessed a rare pair of grayish-green eyes, within which lingered something deeply familiar to Dazai.
Ah, ah… that look…
His spirit seemed still trapped on the threshold of death, refusing to return to this world.
Judging by his words just moments before, it was by his own choice. Rather than being alive, he seemed to wish he were already dead.
“So, what’s wrong with that kidnapped person?”
His friend’s voice abruptly interrupted Dazai’s memory of the previous night.
“Hm? Oh, calling the police was the most fun part.” Dazai snapped back to reality and continued, “As soon as I gave his name, the cops actually recognized him! Apparently, he calls the police so often that the authorities are all familiar with him.”
“Calls the police often?” Ango’s mouth twitched. “Could it be that he gets kidnapped frequently? Is he from some wealthy family?”
“I went and checked later, it’s even more thrilling than I imagined! It could practically be made into a Hollywood blockbuster!”
Dazai said enthusiastically, “First off, the biggest accident he encountered during his elementary school years: he was flying with his parents when their plane was hijacked! Care to guess how that incident was ultimately resolved?”
Oda thought for a moment. “Were there Ability users among the passengers who saved everyone?”
Dazai shook his head. “A falling meteorite struck the hijacker.”
Oda: “…………”
Ango: “…That’s completely unexpected… Though why does this story sound a bit familiar?”
“No wonder it sounds familiar; the odds of a plane being hit by a meteorite are astronomically low. It made the news a few years ago and was reported worldwide for a while.”
Prompted by this, Oda remembered it too. “I recall a couple dying on the spot, while their child, who was sitting very close by, came out completely unharmed…”
“Spot on. That’s the guy who got kidnapped yesterday… his name is Nagito Komaeda, and the couple who died were his parents,” Dazai said cheerfully.
The atmosphere turned somewhat silent for a moment, though Dazai didn’t mind and carried on.
“Following that, he inherited a massive fortune from his parents. Everyone knows what happens when a child comes into vast wealth consequently, he got kidnapped. And I don’t mean this recent time.”
Ango sighed at such a bumpy fate. “It’s truly a miracle he’s managed to live safely until now.”
“—Then, he picked up a lottery ticket from the kidnappers’ plastic bag and won a grand prize of 300 million yen.”
Oda: “…………”
Ango: “…I somehow feel that while these events might seem ordinary on their own, when concentrated on a single person, things get a bit weird. Is it an Ability after all?”
“Right? Right? Actually, there’s more. All sorts of lucky things happen to him in everyday life. Despite occasionally running into terrible situations, he himself has managed to survive safely up to the present.”
Dazai suddenly raised his voice. “So, question! If he does possess an Ability, what do you think it would be?”
Ango retorted dryly, “Maybe something like having a button where pressing it kills someone nearby, and in exchange, he gets 100,000 yen an Ability that brings misfortune to everyone around him while only he benefits…”
“Turns out there are such Abilities out there,” Oda remarked with emotion.
“—I was joking!!! That was the cue for a punchline just now, you know!!!”
“Ah, I see.”
“Sigh… whatever. What do you think, Dazai?”
Dazai said in a breezy tone, “I thought about it and figured his Ability might just be [100% Survival Rate from Disasters]!”
Oda nodded. “Sounds quite practical.”
“I was joking too, you know,” Dazai deflated a bit. “Actually, my guess is his Ability is something like [Disaster Transfer], and it’s most likely a passive Ability completely beyond his control.”
“Indeed, the people around him are exceptionally unlucky,” Ango agreed.
Dazai concluded, “If utilized properly, this kind of Ability would be remarkably useful… Though he himself probably wouldn’t be very happy about it.”
Ango understood. “Right, considering his parents might have been killed by his own doing…”
“We can’t be sure it’s an Ability yet,” Oda said calmly. “Perhaps he’s simply exceptionally lucky.”
“Hmm…”
Dazai poked an ice cube in his glass. “This kind of luck that drags everyone around him toward sudden death… How fascinating. I hope we get to meet again.”