“Strength is not about having power. Nor is it about being exceptional. Nor is it being large or possessing brute force. Nor does it mean being rigid or not losing. Ultimately, strength has no bearing on any other thing. It is an independent concept in and of itself, and should you truly attempt to grasp it, you must be prepared to sacrifice all other things. Victory… glory… All of it.”

—Kirima Seiichi (Isolation and Faith)

It was a strange thing; though the limbs of the corpse were long and thin like poles, the torso was plump and round—unnaturally so.

“……….”

At this sight, a man looked down. He was short, averaging about 160cm. His clothes were a pale purple color and of a meticulous design that fit snugly to his body, like a school uniform or a Chinese silk dress. Such clothes suited him. He was thin and svelte, with relatively long limbs.

The man’s location had, at one point, been developed as a major amusement park on the outskirts of the city, but the plan had met with a hitch partway through. Now it lay abandoned, burdened with debts scattered across various enterprises among different prefectures and municipalities. There was no prospect of resuming development, and now it just lay there without purpose, just waiting for the day it would inevitably be torn down.

And, standing in a row of half-finished, peculiar feats of architecture, there was a tower that rose conspicuously above the rest. There, at its summit, the man simply looked down in silence at the strange corpse.

“………”

Ordinarily, you may think that he was a little too young to be called a “man.” His face was boyish and looked to be around 14 or 15, but there was something about him. The sharp look in his slightly slanted eyes was extremely cold, which gave an air about him were most would hesitate to call him a “boy,” regardless of his age.

The sky was clear and blue. There was not a soul around him.

“………”

The white clouds rolled on languidly. Given how serenely the man stood, it was the kind of scenery that might have looked like just another perfectly ordinary day, were it not for the incongruously placed corpse. Perhaps it implied that a death like this was just an everyday occurrence.

“…Hmph. So stupid,” Eventually, the man in pale purple muttered at the corpse before him, his tone as calm as the sky above.

For him, that implication might not have been too far off.

“It’s Fortissimo,” said the man in pale purple, speaking into his device, which seemed share the function of a phone as well. “The mission’s accomplished. He’s got zero chance of insubordination. …Hm? ‘Why?’” Here, the boyish man who called himself Fortissimo first expressed something resembling anger. His face contorted as he spoke out in disgust. “Because the idiot’s dead goddamn it! …No, it wasn’t me. You’re the ones fuckin’ killing yourselves!”

Fortissimo fixed his glare on the corpse.

“It was suicide! No reason to fight, and no reason for me to even be out here. One hell of a waste of time… What? The motive? The hell should I know?! Probably stress or something!” he roared, forcibly cutting off the connection on his side with a soldierly “Over!”

“Shit. Figured he might have at least put up a little fight. Damn you, getting my hopes up for nothing…!” With a sigh, he lightly kicked the corpse with the tip of his foot, and it rolled over.

“…Hm?” When Fortissimo caught sight of his profile, he realized something. The corpse was missing a right ear. The wound was exposed, as if it had been ripped right off.

“………” Fortissimo then took another look around the place, but nothing vaguely ear-shaped was anywhere to be seen. It seemed that it hadn’t been torn off here.

“…Hrm. So that would mean…”

Suddenly, a vivid color rose to Fortissimo’s eyes.

“Does this mean he’d been fighting someone…? He must have ran away, but seeing that there was no hope for him, he killed himself in despair, or something like that…” His eyes widened, nodding to himself over and over again as he ran through the motions.

“That’s right, our battle still isn’t decided! No matter how much you whine, saying it’s ‘your loss,’ I am not letting that fly!” And, facing the heavens, he laughed at the top of his lungs.

Afterwards, as Fortissimo was descending the tower with the cadaver, a man awaited him at the bottom. At first glance, he looked to be a perfectly average office worker.

“Oh, it’s you, Squeeze. What are you here for? This shouldn’t be your area of jurisdiction. I’m in the middle of something here.” Displeasure was painted on Fortissimo’s face.

“No, you’ve got another mission,” said the man named Squeeze quietly.

“Come on! I’m literally in the middle of finishing up a job this very moment!” Fortissimo cast a sharp glare at Squeeze, but Squeeze seemed to barely even register it.

“And that’s why I came here. It’s been dealt with,” he said plainly.

“Shit. What, I don’t even get time to take a stroll?” said Fortissimo begrudgingly.

“If you were to go out on a ‘stroll,’ it would be devastating for those around. I’d imagine that as soon as you spot anyone who might look strong, you’d be picking a fight with them.”

“I wouldn’t go all out,” said Fortissimo with a smirk. Squeeze shrugged his shoulders.

“You’d better not. If you were to go all out, your opponent would end up dust.”

At this, Fortissimo’s smile grew even wider.

“Maybe that wouldn’t happen if you were my opponent. How about it? Wanna go a round, Mr. Direct Attack Combat Type?” he said provokingly.

But Squeeze didn’t take the bait and answered with a sigh.

“I think I’ll pass. I’ll have you know I also value my life. Now, back to business.”

Squeeze handed a document written in fountain pen to Fortissimo. It was an old-fashioned way of conveying information, but – unlike electronic data – there was no worry of it being copied, so long as the creator held onto it.

Fortissimo took one glance at it and then snorted.

“An ‘egg’? You’re telling me to look for this thing?”

“That’s correct. But it is no ordinary egg. We don’t know what it’ll give birth to. It’s uncharted territory that’s impossible to predict. We need to establish a countermeasure to the best of our ability while we still can. Which is where the ‘Strongest One’ comes in.”

“Bah. You make it sound like all that. It’s probably just another pointless errand. The jobs they put me on are always the same.”

Fortissimo thrust the document back at Squeeze.

“Besides, that name is no good. ‘Embryo’? Pretty sure there’s a weird meaning behind that.”

Squeeze looked at the document nonchalantly returned to him, and was speechless for a moment.

“………?!”

There was nothing on it. The letters that should have been stained into the paper in ink had been utterly erased, leaving only a blank sheet. The thing Fortissimo had touched had been transformed from a meaningful document into a worthless scrap of paper.

W-what is this…?

As a combat-type synthetic human, Squeeze was capable of clearly spotting bullets mid-flight; and yet – even with his abilities – he hadn’t noticed Fortissimo do anything…

“………”

He was now painfully aware of why the Towa Organization acknowledged his “existence” despite the threat level.

“…Yes. The name is derived from the Ancient Greek word meaning ‘that which swells from within,’ which in turn means ‘germ that has attained life…’ And if we were to take its literal meaning, that would become ‘unhatched egg…’ It may be that’s exactly what it is, especially considering that you’ve been chosen as its opponent,” said Squeeze in a hush tone, his voice tinged with the slightest of fear.

Fortissimo then snapped his fingers, and the instant he did so, the scrap of paper turned to dust and floated away in the air.

“Haah. Looks like I’m in for another tiresome task.”

For the first time, Squeeze smirked.

“As a matter of fact, I don’t imagine it will be. There have been some strange rumors around here recently, you see. Apparently, there’s a shinigami prowling around this city, or so I’m told.”

“Shinigami? What are you on about?”

There was a notable change in Fortissimo’s expression. He turned to face Squeeze.

“There’s a legend to that effect… They say it wears a black hat, and that it comes to kill you at the peak of your beauty, before you can grow any uglier. Or so they say.”

“Is there any truth to it?”

“No idea. But, if you do happen to encounter them, perhaps you might actually find a little challenge.”

“A shinigami, eh…? As if.”

Fortissimo’s eyes still shone. He then muttered something under his breath. Squeeze couldn’t quite catch it and inquired him, but Fortissimo wouldn’t answer and simply stood there, grinning to himself.

“Oh yeah. Squeeze, go finish up the rest of my mission for me, will ya?” he said suddenly, as if he’d just remembered something.

“I’m sorry?”

“It’s an easy job… All you’ve gotta do is deliver this ‘proof’ to the usual place.”

Then, with a whirl, he flung something over to Squeeze. Squeeze took it and was again left aghast. Because the thing in his hand was presumably what had just been severed from the corpse moments ago: a fresh human finger. And, by the time he looked up again, Fortissimo was already nowhere to be seen.

“………”

While Squeeze stood there agape, at his back, the tower that the pale purple man had descended from began to crumble away as if it were a sandcastle. Every piece of evidence was being erased all at once, without a trace…

[1] Remember, these stories take place at around the turn of the century, so most cellphones still had antennas.

[2] I’m only noting this ‘cause it’s not mentioned in the official translation of Pandora, but the name Eugene is a reference to Pink Floyd’s “Careful with that Axe, Eugene.”

[3] This is a bit tough to translate. In Japanese, ‘strongest’ (最強) is a noun, so it can be used as a sort of nickname. That doesn’t go very well in English, so we have to translate it a bit differently. Normally, we’ll go with ‘Strongest One,’ but sometimes we might modify it depending on the context.