Bungo Stray Dogs - Volume 8 Chapter 3 Part 3

Our journey brought us before a certain door. After pressing the call button next to it, the guard stated the purpose of his visit.
“Come in,” said a voice as the door automatically opened. It was the same voice that took over my vocal mechanism once before. A disgraceful voice.
Behind the door was a spacious office. The window in the back was a computer-generated view of the beach, despite the fact that we were underground. The walls were completely hidden behind floor-to-ceiling oak bookcases. Technical books from around the world dutifully lined the shelves.
At the back of the room was an antique desk with a man lying sprawled out in front of it underneath a large box. He seemed to have crawled under the box and was doing something, but I could not see his upper body. All I could see were his lower body and the soles of his shoes pointing toward the ceiling.
“Sorry. Give me a second, okay?” he requested. “Adjusting the experimental isolation tank is taking a little longer than I thought. This tub was made to induce an altered state of consciousness and raise the output of special powers, but the gauge, the most vital function, is interfering with the tub’s magnesium sulfate solution. So right now I’m trying to exchange the positron decay gamma ray detector with something more precise.”
“Why not simply implant an active marker in their blood vessels instead of relying on noninvasive measurements?” I suggested.

“I tried that,” came the cheerful reply. “But that presented us with a new problem. The subjects’ skill activity potential gets all staticky. The human body can be very nonsensical at times, unlike yours… All right, that should do it.”
The shoe soles—and the wearer of said shoes—crawled out from under the coffin-like box before wiping his hands and smiling at us.
“Now, where should I begin? I’m sure you have plenty of questions, right? And I can answer all of them. You could basically say this is the final destination of your journey.”
That face. There was no question about it.
“You… I’ve seen you before,” Master Chuuya said tensely. “I figured you’d say that first.”
Master Chuuya took a picture out of his pocket and stared at the man. It was the photo of him at five years old at the beach while holding hands with a young man in a linen yukata. The young man was smiling cheerfully, squinting from the bright sun.
“I was in charge of Project Arahabaki, and N was the nickname the military gave me. N being the first initial of Nakahara. In other words…”
The young man in the picture looked identical to the researcher in front of us.
“…I’m your father.”

The video showed a golden coin. One side was engraved with a fox, the other with the moon. It was beautiful yet somewhat melancholy.
Someone was twirling the coin between their fingers. They were young fingers, but everything past their arm was off camera, so it was impossible to see who exactly the person was. They were, however, speaking in an almost singsong manner.

“Upon the tainted sorrow,
no hope nor want of anything. Upon the tainted sorrow,
to idly dream of death.”

It was an intriguing poem. The words were not meant for anyone. They simply fell to the ground; it almost felt as if they would continue falling forever.
As the poem was being recited, the golden coin began to emit a mysterious glow.
The screen changed.
Someone was holding a glittering coin in the center of the screen, but the camera was too far away to make out their face. The only thing discernible was how oddly spacious the concrete chamber was.
The white light being emitted from the coin gradually changed into a vicious crimson until the entire screen was red.
The screen changed again.
The next video was of an observation room that looked over the large concrete chamber. One of the walls was a thick panel of Plexiglas; the chamber and the coin’s glow were visible from within.
“Confirmation of deep skill lock code within the subject. Launching protocols eight hundred and six through eight hundred and seventy-two.”
There were around a dozen researchers attending to their own calculations on this side of the Plexiglas.
“Confirming expansion of special-ability light. Gradient increase is three hundred and twenty percent over the maximum allowable value.”
“Don’t stop just yet.”
The coin’s light grew even brighter and faintly illuminated the researchers’ faces. The light began to pulsate as it turned various shades of crimson, each darker than the last, until it transformed into a pitch-black mass that swallowed the light.
“Gamma ray detector has exceeded its sensitivity limit. Internal temperatures rising.”
The space itself in the chamber began to change as well. The floor rattled as pieces peeled off and were drawn toward the coin. But before they made impact, the pieces of flooring were crushed under the gravity, then pulverized into a fine powder before disappearing. Soon the space surrounding the coin began warping.
“Visual confirmation of spatial distortion! Apparatuses two through six, ten, and fourteen have been destroyed!”
“Subject’s vitals are reaching critical levels—no, subject is now in cardiac arrest!”
The walls of the spacious test chamber were breaking away along with the floor, each piece successively crashing into the light. The room was no longer even retaining its original form.
“Abort! Begin pumping water from the emergency tank!”
All of a sudden, the space instantly contracted. The chamber itself twisted as it was drawn toward the individual with the coin.
Then came a flash of light and an impact. The screen violently shook until the Plexiglas separating the observation room and test chamber shattered into thousands of pieces and scattered everywhere. The researchers floated in midair.
There was a scream, and then the screen faded to black.

“What even are skills to begin with?” asked N as he walked us down a path even farther underground. He was taking us to an underground laboratory to tell us what Verlaine did not want us to know.
“To tell the truth, we researchers have almost no idea what skills are, either. It’s kind of embarrassing to admit after setting up such a magnificent research facility like this one.”
We listened to his monologue while descending the stairs. N was in the lead with Master Chuuya slightly behind and Shirase after him. I was in the very back.
“However, there are a few things we do know,” continued N, his tone light. “First, we know that no other organisms aside from humans can possess a skill. You won’t see a plant or a monkey with one, for example. Furthermore, humans can be born with only one type of skill. If the person with the skill dies, their skill disappears as well, for the most part. Also, no skill on its own can raze the entire planet in the blink of an eye. So in other words, there’s an output ceiling to these special abilities.”
“Yeah, even I know that,” Master Chuuya cut in apathetically.
“This is where things get interesting, though,” N said with a mischievous smirk that hid his true intent. “I said there’s an output ceiling, but the military wanted to know if there was any way they could go beyond that limit. And as it turns out, there kind of is. One method relies on skill singularities.”
Oh?
I was impressed he knew what a singularity was, and not simply in theory, either. He was a researcher who worked for the military studying the subject. Only a select few researchers in the UK knew of the phenomenon. It appeared that skill research in this country was far more advanced than previously thought.
“Only a handful of people in the government know about this, but a singularity is when multiple skills interact with each other and develop into an even higher-level skill phenomenon completely different from the original ones,” N went on. “Anyway, the rules for maximum skill output don’t apply to the skill phenomena created by a singularity. Anything can happen. You could call this extraordinary event an error of special abilities
—a skill fallacy.”
The stairs came to an end, and we found ourselves at the bottom floor. The only noise that could be heard this deep underground were the sounds of our footsteps.
In front of us stood a door. N took the key he had strapped to his waist and unlocked it.
“So where are we even headed? And where were you going with that drawn-out story, too?” Master Chuuya demanded.
“You’ll find out the answer to both of those questions very soon.” N smiled cheerfully. “This story is about the nature of your existence, so listen carefully, okay?”
He then continued his explanation.
“Now, a singularity is an extreme outlier when it comes to skill phenomena, but there’s nothing extreme about how they occur. The easiest method is to use two contradicting skills against each other. For instance, a skill that can always deceive its opponent versus a skill that always reveals the truth. Or you could have two skill users who both can see the future fight each other. Usually, one skill will beat out the other, but in some rare cases, you get a completely new skill different from the original two. This is what we call a contradictory singularity.”
When I glanced to my side, Shirase was mumbling, “Mmm… “Contradictory…’ Mmm…”

“Shirase, I understand that this is a difficult subject, but please try to stay awake while you walk,” I told him.
“Now, Chuuya…”
N was speaking to Master Chuuya by his side. He was clearly pretending like he did not even notice Shirase’s existence.
“I told you that you needed at least two skills to create a singularity, right? But some people out there can create a singularity all by themselves.”
“What?”
“They don’t need another person’s skill. Instead, they can create a point of singularity by colliding their own skill against itself,” N said before he began to twirl his index finger. “The German researcher who first discovered such an ability called it a self-contradicting skill. Hmm… Let me give you a real-life example. Once there was this boy who could amplify the skill of anyone he touched. Super convenient. So what do you think would happen if he used it on himself instead of someone else?”
“I mean, I guess he’d just amplify his own skill, right?”
“Exactly. In other words, he amplified the skill to amplify the other skill, which amplified the skill to amplify skills that amplify skills. This self- referencing continued nonstop as he endlessly amplified his own skill. The resulting infinite loop of energy violated the principles of special abilities and created a singularity. The excess energy was converted into mass, which created a high density warp in space. The boy was sucked into the giant whirlpool of gravity and taken away to the other side, never to return again.”
Interesting. It all made sense now.
“So that was the skill user with the coin from the video earlier, correct?” I asked.
“Exactly. It was a destructive skill, the kind activated just once in a lifetime.”
“…Wait. Don’t tell me that warp in space is—” Master Chuuya’s voice was stiff, his expression tense.
“Hold on. Let me finish, first,” N said, interrupting him. “A self- contradicting singularity can occur not only in Germany and Japan but all around the world as well. It happens once every few decades. In ancient times, people used to believe these phenomena were the work of God or demonic beasts, but nobody knew exactly what happened as a result. After all, the creator of the singularity would always die along with it.”
While Germany, France, and England were fighting for power on the battlefield, their military researchers were engaging in fierce competition of their own. It would be no surprise if Japan, Germany’s ally, happened to end up with some of Germany’s skill weapon research and technology.
“These skills are dangerous; they not only kill the user, but they suck in every other surrounding individual as well. And they can only be used once, to boot. That’s why you can’t really call a singularity a weapon,” N said with a stern look on his face. “But it’s also true that it provides a near- unlimited supply of energy. How would you be able to extract it as a controllable resource, though? That’s the question that jump-started the entire study. And before long, one country figured out how to actually use it as a weapon. One of the world leaders in skill research: France.”
France. A spy for the French government. The king of assassins. It finally made sense.
“They turned a singularity into a weapon? But how?” Master Chuuya asked.
“With the heart.” “What?”
“The heart. The human mind,” N intoned almost as if he were reading a poem. “Normally, you would use some sort of device if you wanted to manipulate a massive energy source, right? But as I mentioned earlier, humans are the only organisms who can use these special abilities. In basic terms, you could say that only the human soul can use the energy of a skill. That’s where a French researcher decided to use a cloned body combined with a persona model to make the skill think it was human and had a soul. Tsk… Even I’m disgusted by the idea. But they were successful— terrifyingly so. And born from their research was the spy and skill user Verlaine: a skill with a personality and the ability to manipulate gravity from a singularity. A few years went by until those of us in Japan got our hands on the French research paper and tried to create a skill singularity using the same method. And that…”
After a heavy sliding door opened, N had Master Chuuya go in first. “That was Project Arahabaki,” N revealed with a serious expression as
the door swiftly closed behind them.
Shirase and I were left standing in front of the door; it took me 0.03 seconds to realize what was going on. “Master Chuuya!”
I slammed my fist against the door, but the bulletproof and explosion- resistant material was extremely hard. There was no indication that it would give way. N’s voice came out of the intercom next to the door.
“Chuuya and I need to be alone for this,” he stated in a flat, emotionless tone. “Project Arahabaki is a national secret, after all. Plus, I only got permission for one visitor. And besides…”
A moment went by as if he was briefly thinking about what to say next.
N then continued:
“Chuuya should probably see this alone. I doubt he’d want anyone else, especially his friends, to witness this.”
All of a sudden, I felt a large object moving on the other side of the door. When I scanned the area, it appeared that the other side was an elevator. Master Chuuya and N were most likely going even deeper underground, which astonished me, since we had already traveled so far down.
I tried hacking into the elevator’s control system, but I couldn’t. Not because of some sort of defense mechanism, but because I couldn’t get any wireless signal.
That was when it hit me. This was what was commonly referred to as an electromagnetic anechoic chamber.
The concept is simple. Lining a room with plates made of conductive metal such as iron will reflect radio waves, creating an isolation chamber that electromagnetic fields cannot penetrate. It is the same principle as putting a cell phone into a microwave and finding that it doesn’t receive any signal.
The estimated safety value of this mission decreased by 7 percent. I was in a state equivalent to the human emotion of anxiety.
What was N after?