The arena lights stabbed my eyes. A heavy roar battered my ears as Achille and Riccardo dragged me along, and I narrowed my eyes.

The pale corridor had ended before I knew it. We had reached the contestants’ waiting area, separated from the arena by bars: a room with three or four milky-white plastic benches, iron bars across the front, and a solid wall at the back. A couple of hollow-eyed contestants sat inside.

The gangsters shoved us in.

SLAM!

The door crashed shut. Bobby frowned and looked back, but the two seniors supporting me paid it no mind. Without a backward glance, they dragged me to a bench in the corner and soon had me seated.

“Thank you,” I said, pleased that my vision was lurching less. “I’m all right now.”

Riccardo snorted. Achille ignored me completely, too. The silver-haired senior turned away from me to look at Riccardo.

The former detective asked calmly, “They’ll have us fight individually, I assume.”

“I imagine so... That’s how they’ve always done it...”

[“Ladies and gentlemen!”]

The emcee’s voice came from beyond the bars. Everyone in the waiting room turned to look. I, too, squinted out at the arena, flooded with brilliant light. I couldn’t see him, but his booming voice rang clear in my ears.

[“We have special guests today!”]

Ugh... This was already getting trite. I wished he would get to the point, but no such luck.

The emcee, presumably hovering in the air, cried out excitedly.

[“A match that will never come again! An epic showdown you can only see here, today! The sight you’ve been craving from the very depths of your hearts!”]

Bobby finished inspecting the door and came over looking sullen. Touching her lashes, she flopped down beside me. She crossed her legs and picked at the mascara on her eyebrows with a long fingernail.

Achille watched the arena with his arms folded, while Riccardo fished out a cigarette. We rolled our eyes and waited for the emcee to finish.

The preamble dragged on, a torrent of flowery words. Eye-catching, impossible to look away from, sensational, thrilling...

[“The Black Badgers!”]

RAAAAAH!

The arena shook. Listening to the flood of cheers, I abruptly asked, “Will they give us weapons?”

“Not us, I’d say.” Riccardo put the unlit cigarette between his lips. “It’ll make for a more sensational show...”

“If they haven’t set the order, I’ll go first.”

Achille joined the conversation without taking his eyes off the arena. I looked into those vivid blue eyes, seething with cold fury.

“If they give us a choice.”

[“First, let me introduce the contestants!”]

The emcee’s shout drowned out Achille’s voice.

“My ears hurt,” Bobby grumbled irritably beside me. I wholeheartedly agreed as I craned my neck. There was a TV screen amid the stands, and something seemed to have appeared on that enormous display. It was so absurdly large that I thought I might be able to make out the contents from a bench near the bars.

I rose unsteadily from the bench, and my seniors whipped their heads around to look at me. Oh, come on. I was fine now.

“I’m just going to that bench up front.”

[“Our first Black Badger contestant!”]

It was too loud to hold a conversation.

[“Bobby Winter!”]

My seniors stiffened. I froze in place, too, staring wide-eyed at the screen beyond the bars. Standing up, I could see part of it. The screen in the middle of the arena showed a photograph of someone familiar, her bright blond hair swept into an elegant updo.

Bobby slowly rose.

“What is that?” Her voice trembled faintly. “What are they doing?”

[“Bobby Winter. Physical age: twenty-eight. Actual age: fifty-four.”]

Crazy bastards...

My stomach twisted. I had known we were in the hands of vile people. I had known our lives would be in danger. I had considered the possibility that I might have to watch one of my seniors die. But I hadn’t prepared myself for this. I had expected humiliation, but not this kind.

The emcee’s voice reverberated through the arena.

[“Yes, that’s right! Bobby Winter, a Black Badger who joined through open recruitment. She is the daughter of Claudio Winter, owner of several restaurant chains, including Gawker, Walden Pie, and Humble! Few people still remember that this young woman, born with wealth in her grasp from the moment she lay in her cradle, kept failing modeling auditions until she was twenty-three. After all, that was already thirty-one years ago!”]

“What is this? What the hell is this?”

“Shut it out... Nothing good will come of listening.”

“Please, don’t pay any attention to them.”

[“But some of you may know this! The rich blond girl who wanted to be a model but never made it—who fortunately managed to preserve her youthful skin by becoming a Badger—strikes poses on every mission inside the core to make sure the paparazzi get a good shot!”]

Derisive laughter poured down.

[“Unable to let go of her modeling dreams, she posts glamorous photos on social media after every mission!”]

Photographs of Bobby began flashing across the screen: casual selfies uploaded to social media, paparazzi shots taken during missions, news photographs. Who knew when they had scraped them all together? They flickered past at a dizzying speed.

I felt sick. I whipped my head toward her, then moved to block her view of the screen.

“Don’t listen to them, ma’am.”

“I don’t do that.”

Her face bright red, Bobby gritted her teeth. Her furious eyes glared fiercely at the arena, her clenched fists trembling. Breathing hard, she shouted, “I’ve never once paid attention to a camera during a mission! I’m not good enough to spare the attention!”

“They’re mocking you over this because you haven’t actually done anything wrong,” Riccardo answered in a rigid voice. Hatred and contempt stood stark in his deep green eyes. “They had nothing else to throw to the crowd... Winter, shut it out.”

[“Ah, but perhaps you’ll find this man more exciting than her. He is far, far more famous than the rich young lady who struggled to become a model thirty-one years ago!”]

When I got out of here, I would make Jaeyeon pay. I clenched my fists, barely swallowing the fury rising inside me.

That did nothing to stop the vulgar mockery. Bobby shook with rage and burst out swearing, but the emcee’s smooth voice drowned her out.

[“Our second contestant. The traitor to the police, Achille Fisker!”]

RAAAAAH!

We pretended not to notice Achille flinch, hating the fact that we couldn’t punch the emcee in the face and shut him up.

That loathsome voice rang through the arena.

[“That’s right. Dear Achille Fisker. Our beloved Achille Fisker! Look at this photograph. Look at him standing dazed at the scene of the police commissioner’s assassination. That composition, that expression! Haven’t I told you time and again that it deserves a Pulitzer? Yes, that’s him. The detective who failed to prevent the contract killing of the police commissioner! The traitor who failed miserably at his protection duty and scurried off to join the Badgers! He was the sole survivor at the scene! The commissioner died, his partner died, but he alone walked away without a scratch!”]

My God. Jaeyeon had been his partner then.

Amid the jeers and cheers, I stood as if someone had struck me over the head. The moment I saw Achille’s bloodless face, I knew what he had been through.

Jaeyeon... No, Colton had killed the police commissioner. Using Jaeyeon’s hands.

And Achille must have witnessed the truth. He should have died alongside the commissioner, but one of Jaeyeon’s characteristic whims must have left him the sole survivor.

Yet no one would have believed him when he told them what he had seen. Those who did would have died for inexplicable reasons or vanished without a trace. In the end, only those who accused him of making pathetic excuses or denounced him as insane would have remained.

So at some point, he had left the police, carrying a truth no one believed all by himself.

Numbly, I looked at the senior standing before me. Achille was furious, standing motionless as a plaster statue, his face drained of blood.

The others hardly moved, either. Riccardo frowned as he studied Achille’s condition but said nothing. Bobby had gone ashen, a hand clamped over her mouth.

It took me a long time to move, too. Looking into Achille’s blazing blue eyes, I scraped out the words.

“I believe you.”

Achille blinked. As he looked at me in puzzlement, I couldn’t promise to find and arrest the culprit, not even as empty reassurance. But I said the best thing I could.

“The truth you witnessed alone.”

His eyes widened. But he couldn’t speak to me, and I had no time to respond to his questioning, startled gaze. The jeers, cheers, and vulgar commentary continued without pause.

[“Our third contestant. Riccardo Sordi!”]

RAAAAAH!

Cheers more fervent than any before shook the arena. Achille and I turned at the same time. We looked at our senior, watching the arena with his arms folded. The most senior member on this mission. A war hero who had survived the Second War.

He stood utterly still, looking through the bars at the empty arena awash in brilliant white light, the enormous screen amid the stands, and the old photograph it displayed. A photograph clearly taken somewhere other than Center Core.

He gazed quietly at the photograph, a smile curving his lips. His eyes weren’t smiling at all.

[“A war hero who fought in and survived the Second War. Riccardo Sordi. A celebrity. Even those of you who have never heard the names Achille Fisker or Bobby Winter will have heard of Riccardo Sordi.”]

The emcee wasn’t shouting this time. But the subtle pleasure underlying his voice sickened me.

[“The pride of the Black Badgers, renowned for his exceptional skills both inside and outside the cores! Many of you must have become fans after seeing his prowess with guns and spears. His impeccable fashion sense and deep green eyes that curve into crescents are part of his charm, too.”]

Jeers and whistles rained down. The emcee’s repulsive voice drowned out the whistling. It made my skin crawl.

[“But few of you will know that he is the biological son of a Mafia boss who was based in Sicily.”]

Ah. I thought of Ska. So that was what he had meant. I hadn’t wanted to learn this much. My eyes had been on the arena, and I kept them there. I didn’t have the courage to look at Riccardo’s face just then. Even what Ska had told me had been a little hard to bear.

A private history I had not been given permission to hear echoed through the arena.

[“Giovanni Sordi was a legendary capo who revived a declining Mafia.”]

A photograph appeared of a man I presumed was Giovanni Sordi.

[“Though merciless toward his rivals, this man loved his family more than anyone.”]

The emcee began recounting Giovanni Sordi’s life. Moneylending, drugs, the sex trade, gambling. His countless crimes were laid out in lavish detail, followed by a series of anecdotes of familial devotion that stood in stark contrast to them.

Throughout the lurid account, Riccardo stayed deathly silent. He neither lost his temper nor showed any particular expression.

Only after the emcee cheerfully concluded that “the legendary capo perished in the flames of war” did my green-eyed senior make a sound. Riccardo gave a quiet laugh.

“They’ve done their homework...”

“Sir.”

I couldn’t stop myself from calling to him. He raised one eyebrow, his face otherwise expressionless. Just as I was about to speak to the senior who had taken an interest in me from the moment I had landed on Earth, the microphone boomed.

[“And our final contestant!”]

Ah.

[“The much-talked-about rookie!”]

I turned my head. The enormous screen had gone black. It was so dark that it was hard to believe it had been brightly lit until a moment ago.

[“A man of mystery, with not a single photograph from his past to be found!”]

The screen showed no sign of lighting up.

[“A man whose parents, birthplace, and even search history are nowhere to be found!”]

As if to convey that there was nothing to display. A second life built on deception.

The cheers grew louder. I kept gazing at the screen that would not light up, as the spectators shouted at the empty display, until the emcee’s booming voice drowned them out.

An impassioned cry.

[“Hildebert Taleb!”]

My name rang through the painfully bright arena.