In the half-destroyed building, Randou is shivering from the wind entering through the gaps, and Dazai and Randou feed the fire with chunks of pillar and, at one point, an expensive piece of artwork.
They speak of how the GSS was trying to get rid of Randou, faithful to Mori, so that they can induce an internal war in the mafia between the predecessor faction and the Mori faction. Randou speaks of how the head of GSS has deep connections with the Guild in Northern America.
They request Randou to share of what he witnessed of Arahabaki the week before, and Randou shivers from something other than the cold. Randou begins with speaking of how they were fighting against Sheep for a long chain of reasons, when Arahabaki appeared and lay everything to waste.
In the middle of hell, there it was.
The center of the explosion-was not the predecessor. It had a figure that looked like him, but was not like him. It wasn't even human.
A beast.
A black beast.
A black beast that walked on four legs. The fur was fire. The thick tail was fire too. The pair of eyes, too, were like flames gushing out from hell.
Its size and its frame, made it look like a human with all limbs on the ground. But, everything else surpassed what humans are. More than anything else, its presence was different. Perhaps I should say it's a body in which all calamities and slaughter since time began were compressed and condensed. Or, perhaps I should say it's the form that materialised from the energies of the skies and the heavens, the energy that exists at the core of this universe.
What I can say without error is that there was no ill intent, nor was there wrath. It did not even have the tremors of emotion. It simply is, and so it exists.
Hoping for something that can explain this phenomenon in a logical way, I looked around.
Or, this could be the enemy's Ability attack. Now that I think about it, it's impossible for a single Ability user to release such an enormous amount of heat, but I was in no place to formulate any other hypothesis then.
But there were no Ability users around me. I couldn't see anything. More accurately, even scenery did not exist.
Everything on the ground was wavering from the intense heat. Even the colour of the sky couldn't be clearly seen. Much less the scenery that was much like a watercolour painting drenched in water. It was as though everything on this earth had changed into ghosts. Strangely, I remember that only Yokohama's seas, the seas gazed at from far away, were the same unchanging metal grey surface, quietly undulating.
The beast that had annihilated everything but the seas looked towards me.
0000
Before I lost consciousness, I think I heard the howl of the beast.
As expected, there was no emotion or will in it.
I was scared of that.
It was not a voice meant to strike fear. It was not an intimidation or a threat. It simply was a voice making that sound. I immediately understood. Simply by existing, it brought about such destruction.
After Randou finishes his account, Dazai says, with a smile, that he now knows the trick and the culprit.
