A cloudless, clear sky; an autumn morning where only the sun displayed its aloof splendor.
Birds chirped as they flew through the blue heavens, dragonflies wove between bowed heads of rice in search of insects, and the trees lining the streets, turning crimson and gold, shook their brilliant leaves in the wind.
Students walked along the streets, laughing and chattering; office workers hurried busily to their companies; cars jostled to come and go—a truly peaceful everyday scene.
In this leisurely landscape, no different from any other day, people smiled. Because they knew this peace would continue on and on, they wandered about savoring it.
“Don’t you think the number of villains has gone way down lately?”
“It was on the news this time, too. They said the number of villains suddenly decreased.”
As the two schoolgirls walking down the street were saying, one thing that had contributed to the peaceful daily life of the present was the sudden decrease in villains.
“I guess the heroes are working hard.”
“Really? On the show I watched—”
They knew the reason. The guesses spoken of on the news, the psychological analysts on TV, and the self-proclaimed experts all speculated about that reason and spoke as if they were certain.
“Hey, come on, do you really think villains would kill and tear each other apart? Those guys are the ones who go berserk trying to catch heroes.”
“Is that so?”
But the citizens did not believe it. To begin with, villains killing one another was a sight that could not be found in this world. It had never happened before, and even if it had, it would only have been some small-time rabble squabbling over territory or getting into a fight after picking a quarrel.
The story that villains had formed an organization and were moving on their own to hunt other villains was an irregularity that had never once existed until now; to people, it was nothing more than fiction.
But rumors, by nature, do not spread for no reason. Rumors are, in the end, information circulating among people. In other words, things that go around the world because there is some sort of catalyst. A rumor detailed enough to spread even to a quiet rural town like this had to be spreading for a reason.
“Well, anyway, if there are fewer villains, that’s a good thing!”
“Right!”
Those who lived ordinary lives did not notice the reason. To be precise, even if they did notice, it had nothing to do with them, so they ignored it. Human beings, by nature, are creatures who merely offer impressions unless something is happening right before their eyes. If it is not something that comes down upon them directly, they tend to think about it less. And so—
“—Cough.”
“You’re still alive. You really are strong, just as I heard.”
They had no idea that in the back alley right beside the street they were walking down, the very thing they had only gossiped about was actually taking place.
“Cough, cough!”
A man was coughing up blood. He lay sprawled on the ground, clawing at the pavement with both hands as he struggled, but he could not move forward. No matter how much he moved his hands and feet, he could not budge from that spot; from afar, it might even have seemed comical.
“Of course, that doesn’t change the fact that you’re fated to die here.”
Of course, if one saw the sight of a foot planted on the man’s back, pressing down with force, they would immediately run away or call a hero.
The man, a cigarette clenched between his lips as he exhaled smoke, looked down at the man flailing beneath him and thought so.
“Who the hell are you bastards...!”
“That’s all you have to say right before you die?”
The word death came so easily to his lips. But in a way, that was only natural.
“Why did you attack me...!”
“Did you become a villain without ever imagining someone might attack you?”
The one pinned underneath was a villain, and the one trampling him was also a villain.
Villains were people who always lived with the thought that they might die or be captured. Yet the one still struggling without giving up seemed never to have considered such a thing.
“Well, with such reliable backing, I suppose it makes sense you’d develop this kind of safety blindness.”
“...What?!”
After all, the villain currently being trampled belonged to the Brigade of Evil, the worst villain organization of all. It was a place even heroes found difficult to touch, so who would ever think of attacking someone with that sort of backing?
“You bastard, you knew who I was and still—?! No, more importantly, how?!”
“You talk too much.”
Had he attacked despite knowing he was affiliated with the Brigade of Evil? Was he not afraid of retaliation? More than that, how had he realized that he was a villain belonging to that place?
Countless questions arose, but the man did not seem to have any intention of answering. And so he turned his head and glared at the one who had attacked him—
“That face, don’t tell me—”
The moment the villain confirmed the man’s face, his complexion turned deathly pale.
“What good does realizing it do you?”
Wild brown hair, red eyes, a thick beard. It was a face he already knew. No, it was a face that villains lately could not possibly fail to know.
A villain organization that attacked its own kind. A villain group chasing after the Brigade of Evil, the worst of the worst as far as villains were concerned.
“Jewel—”
“You’re going to die anyway.”
Jewel, the villain of Repentance.
The instant he realized his identity, the villain stopped struggling and froze in place. The villain—Jewel—finished his cigarette, spat it out, immediately aimed his revolver, and smiled.
Bang.
A single gunshot rang out, a red puddle spread across the ground, and Jewel immediately lifted his foot before taking out another cigarette and putting it in his mouth.
“...Well, there’s no way someone like this would be alone.”
It was clearly an empty alley. It was a place where no one would come even if a gunshot rang out, so there should have been no others.
“Come out.”
But he immediately pulled out a lighter, lit his cigarette, and muttered without even turning around—
“Who ordered this?”
“Good grief. You know where I belong, and you’re still asking that?”
He turned his head toward the five villains who appeared behind him.
“If I’m a villain belonging to Repentance, whose orders do you think I took?”
Repentance, a villain organization that grandly held up the meaning of its name. Its leader was fixed beyond question.
“Obviously, our god’s.”
“...Kill him.”
Jewel’s expression remained bright as he spoke of god. He sneered at them, shoved one hand into his pocket, and raised the hand holding the gun toward the sky.
Had they said that where there was light, there was darkness? Just as there was a back alley like this beside a street where people peacefully passed by. But just as light had differences in brightness, darkness too had degrees of brightness.
Just as there were gaps in ability and skill among heroes, there were gaps in skill among villains as well.
“There’s something I want to ask you.”
He took the hand he had shoved into his pocket back out, flicked the coin he was holding up into the sky, and—
“What, exactly, is the percentage chance that you’ll be hit by a bullet?”
He fired his gun straight into the air.
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“God, Jewel contacted us.”
“I know. I already received the report. More importantly, I told you not to call me God.”
“What else would we call our god, if not God?”
The man and woman, the boy and girl, conversed as they walked through a dark back alley.
“I have a name. I have a villain name, too.”
The boy glared at the girl in annoyance,
“How could I call a god by his name? According to Yujin—”
“If you keep that up, I’ll kill you.”
“Oh my, how frightening. If you threaten me like that, I might kill you too, you know?”
The girl looked at the boy and smiled.
To others, it might have looked like the sight of a fresh young couple—but those watching them now broke out in cold sweat. The “kill” they spoke of was not a metaphor. If they truly became annoyed, they were people who might actually kill.
After all, the ones walking ahead right now were—
“So, Lord Guardian, where are you going now?”
“Changing the subject, Ash?”
Ash and Guardian. They were the worst villains currently rising among villains—
“Work.”
“I thought we were finally going on a date after so long, but it must be something quite serious?”
“We found a branch of the Brigade of Evil.”
“...It really was serious. No wonder Repentance came out in full force.”
They were also an executive and the leader of Repentance, whom the others followed.
“I suddenly feel like dropping out. May I use my annual leave?”
“Go if you want.”
“I’m kidding. Who would actually drop out? We’re killing those bastards. Hey! You beanpoles over there!”
At Ash’s shout, the villains instantly ran ahead. They approached a black car and opened the door, and soon she nodded in satisfaction and immediately got in—
“...Crazy bitch.”
After spitting a curse at her, he immediately followed her into the car.
As soon as they got in, a villain closed the door and ran toward another car. Once everyone else had finished boarding their respective cars, the vehicles began to move one by one toward somewhere.
After driving on and on like that, the cars eventually began stopping near a certain factory—
“Then, Boss, your orders.”
“...Kill them.”
The next day, the headline of the newspaper was an article about a factory having been reduced to ruins.