A city street.
Every second building was destroyed.
People walked by, while vendors in open stalls sold food and goods.
There were about a hundred people on the street.
From the far end of the street, a silhouette appeared.
The figure was dressed in a black cloak.
He moved down the street, passing by the people. Only three of them took notice.
When he reached the middle of the area where the vendors' stalls were set up, he stopped and stood still for 10 seconds.
He exhaled deeply.
Then, he removed his cloak and pulled out a machine gun.
At that moment, time seemed to slow for everyone who noticed.
The man in the cloak opened fire.
He sprayed bullets at the stalls and the passersby.
The gunfire continued relentlessly for 30 seconds.
In that time, about 50 people were killed.
He continued down the street, breaking into buildings and shooting anyone he found inside.
Ten minutes later, a man with an RPG/bazooka appeared 20 meters away from him.
The man fired, and the one in the cloak noticed too late—only reacting when he heard the launch sound, just before getting hit.
His body was thrown against a wall.
His arm, torso, and both legs were shattered, and blood poured out. A third of his face was scorched. He remained motionless.
Three armed people approached him cautiously.
The man in the cloak pulled out a pistol and shot one of them.
The other two immediately fired their rifles at him.
His head was riddled with bullet holes, and half of it was blown off.
Jinory Laboratory.
Deifan opened his eyes and stepped out of the resurrection device.
He picked up an RPG from the arsenal and left the laboratory.
#
Hirayoshi walked through the deserted city.
He wore a gray cloak and military gear.
He turned a corner and stumbled upon a man wearing a black tank top and loose gray pants, who looked about 40 years old.
"My name is Saitery. I will take your life," the man said.
"Try it!" Hirayoshi replied and pulled out an assault rifle.
As he spoke, a sword pierced Hirayoshi's torso from behind, carving out a circle, and Saitery reached in with his hand to pull out Hirayoshi's heart.
Hirayoshi fell forward.
He was dead.
Waking up in a resurrection chamber, he went to the arsenal.
There, he took an assault rifle and hand grenades.
Two hours later, he arrived at the place where he had been killed.
The enemy was not there. Hirayoshi continued down the road.
Twenty minutes later, he came across a truck. He sneaked up on the driver and killed him. It wasn't Saitery.
Hirayoshi opened the gates of a warehouse and entered.
A second later, his left arm was cut off. He pulled out his rifle and started shooting into the distance. He took cover behind a column and pulled the pin from a grenade.
A sword sliced through the column, and Hirayoshi immediately dropped to the floor. Only part of his skull was cut.
The grenade slipped from his hand and exploded near the column.
Hirayoshi moved to another column, intending to run out of the warehouse.
The column was sliced through, this time taking his head off at a diagonal angle from right to left.
Hirayoshi woke up again. He prepared a stockpile of weapons.
Arriving at the location, he fired from an RPG from 500 meters away.
In an instant, his neck was severed, and his head fell.
When he woke up, he retrieved a matter-disintegrating gun created by Deifan, along with grenades with the same property.
This time, he was killed by a sword launched from 800 meters away. The sword pierced his forehead, going straight through his skull.
The next time, he used a sniper rifle.
Then corrosive acid.
Then guided drones.
Then an armored truck.
Then an armored iron suit...
Over the next 50 attempts, he tried every weapon and tactic that could logically come to mind. Nothing worked.
In the following 200 attempts, he tried using swords—different kinds of swords. Nothing worked.
For the next 500 attempts, he tried a bombing run on the entire area where he spotted any signs of life from a kilometer away. Nothing worked.
For the next 200 attempts, he tried various traps. Nothing worked.
...
Twenty-six days had passed since Hirayoshi's first death at the hands of Saitery, and he finally stopped trying to fight back.
This time, he went to the location without any weapons.
"Maybe we should settle our business without a fight. This could go on forever," Hirayoshi said.
"Do you even have the right to do that? You're not the one in charge!" Saitery replied.
"We are all God's slaves."
"Hah..."
"Back to the point. I found your employers. They will all die if I am killed here. A bomb with a timer."
"Yeah, I see… Well then, I surrender."
Hirayoshi walked toward him, who stood 10 meters away.
In an instant, a sword was driven into Hirayoshi's torso from behind.
Saitery raised the sword, slicing the upper part of Hirayoshi's body in two.
In his brain, he noticed a small blinking device.
At that moment, the bomb planted underground was activated.
An explosion.
A 500-meter-wide crater remained after it.
Hirayoshi woke up and went to a table with a map and a plan.
On the map, it was written: "Edokano. Population: 9 million souls. Territory Clearance."
#
Catacombs.
Deifan walked through the underground passages, exploring the area for possible use in a plan.
Upon entering a sealed room, he was surrounded.
Twenty people blocked his path from the front and back.
They were armed and equipped.
"So, the lackey of Jinory has arrived," one of them said.
Deifan, after surveying those around him, replied,
"I don't work for Jinory. We share the same goal, and he's in charge because he's smarter than me when it comes to achieving it."
"I see. Understood," said the one who stepped forward.
"Well, shall we begin?" Deifan said.
Deifan's gaze suddenly turned pale, his vision blurred, and he lost consciousness.
He woke up at the entrance to the catacombs. No one was there.
...
Deifan walked down a city street.
Three men in military gear approached him.
Deifan went with them.
He spent a lot of time with these guys, not understanding why he didn't just kill them. It simply felt right to go along with them each time.
These men were rebels. They seemed to be resisting the actions of various androids in Japan. Jinory was one of those androids.
Deifan soon realized this, but it didn't drive him to kill them.
For the next four months, he frequently visited the rebels.
#
In Japan, there were only two districts where real humans lived.
Deifan found himself in one of them.
He was walking down a city street in the rain. There was hardly anyone around.
He turned a corner and was approached by a young woman.
She offered to spend some time together, for a price.
"Thanks, I'm busy. Maybe another time, beautiful," Deifan said politely.
After this, he noticed a symbol on the woman's clothing—a cross inside a circle.
He grabbed her by the throat and lifted her.
That symbol belonged to a military unit responsible for attacks on critical military targets. Deifan knew that anyone bearing that mark had to be killed.
But now, instead of simply completing the task, he hesitated. The thought that people with this symbol shouldn't be killed swirled in his mind.
He didn't know where this idea came from. He couldn't recall any change in orders regarding this symbol.
His eyes began to twitch side to side. Soon, his head followed.
He couldn't choose between the two options. His stream of thoughts went, "Eliminate... Cancel... Eliminate... Command is incorrect..."
He threw the woman to the side, against a wall.
He pulled out a knife and stabbed himself in the throat, starting to cut. He sliced halfway through his neck, fell to his knees, and then collapsed onto his back.
He woke up in the laboratory.
"Again," he muttered quietly.
In the catacombs, one of the rebels had said, "When he sees that symbol, he will remember the new goal and suffer until he completes it."
It was a conditioned reflex to the symbol that led to the idea of a new goal. This new goal, as an idea, had been implanted into Deifan's mind through psychiatry and cognitive distortions.
Deifan sat, trying to make sense of it.
"I needed to see the future. That was the goal. The sooner, the better. So, if something that would naturally occur in, say, 50 years could be sped up to happen in 20 years, it should be done. But now I'm malfunctioning. Commands aren't executing. I should reset myself. But there's an idea in my head that says I mustn't do it. Right now, the dominant idea is only about my important role in history. Just doing what I've been doing won't accomplish anything significant. What is meant to happen will happen, whether I'm here or not. But by doing something that changes the course of history, I will play a crucial role. And dying for that goal is as easy as in my previous tasks if the resurrection device fails... I need to reset..."
Holding his head, he walked toward the reset button for his original personality, from which the resurrected personality, along with the transferred memories from the destroyed body, was generated.
He approached the button and slammed his fist onto the control panel.
#
A district where artificial humans live.
Deifan and Hirayoshi were driving a truck, approaching a city. Hirayoshi was at the wheel, and Deifan sat in the passenger seat.
They arrived at the outskirts of the city.
Hirayoshi got out of the truck and climbed into the trailer. Inside was a 10-ton hydrogen bomb. He began configuring the bomb, entering the necessary data on the control panel.
A man approached the truck.
"You'd better not detonate it now. Raynara Takiri is in the city," he said.
Deifan, already stepping out of the truck's cabin, replied,
"Yes, he's on the list of important potentials."
David walked up to the stranger and pulled out a gun.
"Have we started the fire?" he asked.
"Yes, the fire rises!" David replied and shot the stranger dead.
"Alright, I won't set the timer yet. First, I'll find Raynara. You take the truck to the village of Tagiri. Once I'm done, we'll continue." Hirayoshi got out of the truck, took his weapon, and headed into the city.
#
Deifan sat at a table, hands folded, legs apart.
"Only by killing Jinory is it possible. Only then can one play an important role," he thought.
He began his preparations. He set up a one-meter rifle with explosive rounds and planted bombs throughout the laboratory. He positioned the rifle at a distance and configured it to aim automatically using a laser.
The rain began to pour. Deifan stood under a roof by the laboratory. Seeing a distant figure approaching, he stepped out into the rain. Jinory was returning, walking toward the lab. He was wearing a black leather coat and military gear, carrying a bag in his right hand.
He walked past Deifan.
"I have a problem," Deifan said.
"So? You want me to change your personality parameters so there's no problem? You can do that yourself," Jinory replied, stopping two meters away from Deifan.
"That's suicide."
"So what's wrong with that? The right to suicide is objective. You couldn't have forgotten our long-ago conversation. If you're worried about suicide, then you're broken. No matter. I'm still sure there's no value in your 3GB of brain data."
Deifan aimed the laser at Jinory. He noticed the red dot on his shoulder.
A shot rang out.
Jinory's left torso was blown apart from waist to neck, leaving a crescent-shaped hole. The shot had come from behind, revealing the cybernetic fusion of mechanics and biology within the wound.
Jinory didn't fall. He continued to stand. As he stepped forward, four steel cables launched at him, coiling around his body and anchoring into the ground.
"I know you won't resurrect as long as one part of your head is intact. I'll dismantle you, leaving only the head," Deifan said.
"Stop, human. Don't become a monster," a voice called out.
Fifteen meters away, a dark figure in a cloak appeared under the rain, standing in the shadows.
Deifan pressed the button, and the bombs in the laboratory exploded.
A series of explosions ripped through the air. Flames roared violently, illuminating the entire area. The rain couldn't extinguish the fire fueled by burning chemicals.
"A monster? I was born one. Or rather, I was supposed to be," Deifan muttered.
The fire's light revealed the stranger's face—it was Hirayoshi.
A bullet flew past Deifan's face.
He rushed to a hidden rifle, grabbed it, and began firing.
Hirayoshi moved like lightning, disappearing from the line of sight.
Deifan remembered that a week a
ago, Hirayoshi had upgraded his body. Deifan hadn't done the same because it required resetting his personality.
He pulled out an RPG and started shelling the surrounding area.
"If I don't hide my head, all of this will be in vain. But if Hirayoshi stays alive, he will create a new copy of Jinory. I need to eliminate him first."
Deifan ran to a sword hidden in the grass and, as soon as he picked it up, spun it around his body because he noticed Hirayoshi attacking from below, crouching low to the ground. Sparks flew as the swords clashed, and Deifan darted to the side.
He quickly planned to maneuver Hirayoshi into a strip of traps prepared as a backup for Jinory. So, he attacked from the right, driving him sideways. He could have used firearms, but he knew they wouldn't work against Hirayoshi in his current form—he could always dodge them. Thus, the prepared trap was likely the only option.
Hirayoshi didn't notice anything, but his combat experience told him that being pushed in this direction was no accident. Gripping his sword tighter, he launched a more intense attack from the right, now pressing Deifan in the opposite direction.
Both of them recalled their days in fencing school, the time spent learning different weapons, one of which was the sword. They found a sword school and, with their quick minds, learned everything in just five days—enough to defeat the master, the best swordsman who visited the place. He was defeated on the fifth day.
On the sixth day, Hirayoshi and Deifan arranged a practice duel between themselves. In this fierce battle, Deifan emerged victorious, but only because he managed to catch his opponent with a trick. During one of Hirayoshi's strikes, he stood on a wet floor. The floor had become wet because Deifan, constantly retreating from Hirayoshi's relentless attacks, decided to employ a ruse. He had shattered a vase, spilling water across the wooden floor. Luring Hirayoshi into that spot, Deifan orchestrated it so that Hirayoshi would slip, and then he struck. Hirayoshi didn't consider it a trick. To him, it was his own lack of attention—he should have been wary of a potential trap.
But since then, Hirayoshi had acquired a superior body, and combined with the aggression he was now exhibiting, it made Deifan realize that what he was trying to accomplish wouldn't work.
In an instant, Deifan's torso was sliced diagonally, and the upper half of his body fell a meter away from the lower half.
Hirayoshi stood over his bisected body, sword in hand.
"Finally. My path is complete. The rest is up to you," he muttered quietly.
"What's up to me? You've completely lost it," Hirayoshi said, but he understood the meaning behind the words.
Perhaps all of this was orchestrated by Deifan just to die. After all, he could have been better prepared for Hirayoshi's arrival. But he had left it as it was. Perhaps he was confident he could finish everything before Hirayoshi arrived, or perhaps he hoped that if Hirayoshi did arrive, it would be a fitting end for him.
Deifan was dead.
Hirayoshi walked over to Jinory, who was still bound by the steel cables, and grabbing two of them, pulled them out of the ground. Jinory removed the remaining two himself. He then headed into the burning laboratory to salvage anything useful.
"Hirayoshi, find a meter-long case labeled 'Tortuga Enterprise.' I need to find the Stockman generator," Jinory instructed.
The two of them rummaged through the burning debris.
"I was never real, was I?" Hirayoshi asked.
"No... Neither you nor Deifan ever existed. You are artificial personalities, just like those you destroyed by detonating the hydrogen bomb."
"A person like me never existed. I checked the archives."
"That's right. Your personality is based on various characters. Or people. There's no difference between a character and a person."
"There were two people with similar biographies, and I seem to be a mix of the two."
"And what person isn't a mix of different characters?"
"Yeah, I get it."
Hirayoshi pulled the case from the ruins, and Jinory retrieved a two-meter metallic device.
Jinory sat on the ground ten meters from the burning building.
Hirayoshi approached and asked, "What's next? Maybe to Arkais?"
"The greatness of a human is in fulfilling a plan or schedule without distractions. No matter what animals plan, they will be distracted by environmental conditions and emotions. We humans can be emotionless when necessary, and of course, given the appropriate amount of knowledge."
"So, what about the plan?"
"An emotionless approach leads to objective perception, which leads to logic, which leads to the natural and fundamental sciences."
"Yeah, yeah... But what about the plan?"
"Discoveries will form the foundation. Research will push it to completion. Theories will become practice, and progress will move irresistibly forward. Someday, I will reach that summit. Someday, I will surpass him."
Jinory stood up and walked down the road.
"We need to bring the truck. We'll transport this to the base 13 km to the north."
"The nearest truck is 5 km to the south. I'll go get it," Hirayoshi said.
Franklin walked up to David's body.
I've been hiding something from you. I haven't killed people on missions. When we were sent to commit a terrorist act in that city, I was meeting with my clan in a poor settlement in the eastern part of the city. While you were preparing the terrorist act, I was evacuating people. And even to detain you, I disguised myself and fought you with three locals. Although, apart from 4 shots from behind, I didn't do anything. My goal is to complete the clan's mission. I lived for this when I was human, and I continue to do it now... We'll meet in limbo.
Over the next eleven days, a new base was established. Jinory repaired himself. Hirayoshi conducted another sweep of the area.
All that had happened before paled in comparison to the looming threat ahead.
#
At the base, Jinory was constructing robots with AI that operated purely on machine thinking. It seemed he had decided that this approach was preferable to creating or reviving humans. Nineteen days had already passed.
The main project, however, was the creation of a being capable of thinking on a broader scale, potentially infinitely, to predict and be prepared for any possible scenario. It resembled knowledge of the future. If one knew all possible outcomes and was prepared for anything, whatever happened would be to their advantage.
Jinory had been developing this project for three years.
There was an element of tension. Jinory himself was not the original. The original Jinory, also known as the Original Android, or Origin, was a super intelligence created 65 years ago. It was he who had created several copies of himself to compete with each other in achieving their goal. The goal, as previously mentioned, was either to create a being with intelligence capable of predicting all future possibilities and being prepared for them or to literally predict the exact future according to deterministic laws.
Jinory understood that when one of the androids created something that functioned well enough, the Original Android would likely decide to eliminate the copies or reformat them. When this would occur was unknown to him. He had established connections with only three other androids, none of whom had achieved the goal. However, there were others—fifteen in total.
Three days had passed. Jinory was seated at the drafting table, pondering the options for inter-neuronal interaction.
Deeply absorbed in his thoughts, he felt a tremor. The entire building shook, and a loud, metallic clang, like metal being struck by another metal piece, echoed through the structure.
Jinory stood up and went to the central chamber. Upon opening the door, he saw a two-meter-tall robot that had breached the roof and was smashing equipment. The robot was a gray metallic color.
Jinory quickly deduced that this was an exoskeleton. He grabbed a wrench and threw it at the robot to distract it from the destruction of the equipment. The attempt at conversation failed; the robot did not respond to Jinory's questions. So, Jinory went and grabbed a device designed to ensnare targets with steel cables, similar to what Deifan had used.
From a blind angle, Jinory fired at the robot. The cables wrapped around the robot and anchored into the floor and walls, pinning it down.
The robot took only five seconds to tear free from the cables and escape. It quickly closed in on Jinory and struck him in the torso with its right arm, sending him crashing into the wall of the adjacent room.
The robot's lower arm launched a series of missiles in all directions. The explosions began to dismantle the building's framework, causing it to collapse.
During this chaos, Jinory went to the underground facility, where he transferred his consciousness into a new combat-type body. Externally, it resembled a bodybuilder, but beneath the artificial skin was only metal.
The robot continued through the corridors of the crumbling building. Jinory emerged from the wall, having destroyed it, and struck the robot with a steel beam. The impact sent the robot crashing into a wall.
Jinory began to tear at the robot's arms. After slightly damaging its left arm, he was struck and thrown into the wall.
The robot fired another series of missiles from its lower arm at Jinory. In an instant, Jinory appeared at the robot's right arm and broke it.
He positioned himself four meters away from the robot, ready to continue the fight. Meanwhile, one kilometer away from the base, Hirayoshi emerged from behind a hill and saw that the base was on fire. He ran toward it.
The robot's parts opened, and a man emerged from inside. He was nearly two meters tall and appeared to be around thirty years old.
Jinory thought to himself that he had been right.
"Your time is up, Number 11," said the man.
Jinory rushed toward him at high speed and delivered a strike aimed at the right side of the man's head. At that moment, the man was already beside the strike. Jinory missed and crashed into the wall.
Jinory began a series of rapid attacks, but none of them landed successfully. The man's speed was such that Jinory began to think it wasn't speed but teleportation.
The man stopped five meters away from Jinory. Jinory contemplated his next move. The man extended his right arm forward and formed it into a gun. At the moment he mimed a shot, a large-caliber projectile struck Jinory, creating a gaping hole in his midsection.
Jinory realized this was an external shot when he saw a hole appear in the wall from the trajectory of the impact. He decided to retreat quickly. The next shot created a hole in his neck and torso. The following shot hit the right side of his head.
Jinory could no longer move.
At that moment, Hirayoshi burst into the burning and partially destroyed building, moving swiftly through the wreckage. He soon found himself ten meters away from Jinory and the man.
Hirayoshi watched as the man pierced Jinory's torso with his hand and retrieved a glowing device, presumably a nuclear fuel element.
Hirayoshi drew his sword and swiftly struck at the man. The speed of the attack kicked up a cloud of dust. When the dust settled, Hirayoshi stood holding his sword with both hands, while the man held the blade with one hand.
Hirayoshi jumped back and immediately launched a series of attacks. The man easily dodged each one. At one point, Hirayoshi feigned a downward strike but instead executed a side swipe. Confident that he would cut through the man, he did not hesitate.
Even without seeing it, the man stopped the sword with his hand. He gripped it and broke it apart.
"Your actions are predictable and lack personal originality," said the man.
Hirayoshi swung again and struck. The opponent blocked the punch with his palm.
The enemy tightened his grip on Hirayoshi's fist, forcing him to his knees. He then shaped his hand into a gun and aimed it at Hirayoshi's forehead.
Hirayoshi reached out with his right hand to grab the rifle lying beside him. He seized it and struck at the enemy. The man staggered back three steps.
Hirayoshi opened fire on him. The bullets did not penetrate the enemy's body.
The man waved his hand toward Hirayoshi, and a section of the building in front of him was obliterated by a blast. A seven-meter-wide strip, with a trench carved into the ground, sliced through the entire building in a straight line.
Once the dust settled, the man found no sign of Hirayoshi.
He left the base.
The burning ruins of the base illuminated the night sky for hundreds of meters. The moon was full.
File 105: The end.