Connecting Chapter: The Researcher Discusses Love and…

Words of Salomé Carpenter, subordinate director of Huey Laforet’s research institute, Rhythm–

When it comes to the results of this experiment, I’d still rather not talk about it. To be honest, I still have a lot of regrets.

Because of a few small mistakes, I lost one of my most important test subjects.

From then until now, that subject has been hated us for about ten years…really, it makes a person want to cry.

The subject I am referring too was named, for convenience’s sake, Rail, number 0038.

From the four digits in that number, you can see Huey was hoping to have several thousand test subjects. For a normal person like me, there would have been no way to see the results of such an experiment…but when it comes to those who are immortal, numbers don’t matter that much.

I wish I could tell you I was just speaking enigmatically(1), but I’m not.

No doubt about it, all the time I’ve spent over my life with this subject is just one part of his life – an extremely small one, at that.

And because of this, it’s even more important I make use of my time!

I’ve always been very careful around each competed experiment, but even so, I still lost number 0038…losing Rail, even now, it makes me incredibly depressed.

Right now we’re in middle of creating test subject number 0068, but among the total number of subjects, that’s not even half of what we’re working on…all of the test subjects we made ourselves, and we’ve put them all through so many horrific ordeals, a person can’t help but feel uncomfortable.

Rail was one of our creations who could tolerate a little more – no, it’d be better to describe him as someone whom chance allowed to handle a little more.

There’s a disease called analgesia – have you heard of it?

It’s a congenital disease where you lose all ability to feel pain. Rail’s sensitivity might not have advanced to that extent….but it was very close to it. Before, we used to conduct experiments on certain subjects’ brains, but when less than half of them were successful, we started to experiment on both the entire body and the body together. Rail’s present state is one of those results.

…according to my speculations, it’s possible that because the brains of artificial humans have been created without consulting evolution, they started to stop processing pain. Like a wire going over its voltage, the nerves blow their fuse.

Yes…it’s true. Back then, without any anesthesia, we took our knives and vivisected Rail.

The purpose of this experiment was to, by slowly increasing its intensity, test exactly how much pain Rail and other immortals could endure.

In a short period of time, he experienced the amount of agony most people endure in their entire life. I’ve heard New York has a famous torturer whose specialty is scissors – if I get a chance to talk to him, I’d very interested in hearing what he thinks. When it came to Rail, the pain morphed his body into the state it’s in now.

Around five years ago, Rail began to slowly lose his sense of pain. The first time it happened, Huey was the one experimenting on Rail. Yes, I remember it all very clearly. From that time on, Rail stopped screaming. The odd thing was, at the same time Rail stopped feeling pain, it was like he had come to the conclusion that he was only an object to us.

Additionally, instead of being alarmed or puzzled at losing his feeling, Rail seemed to think that someone was helping him by injecting anesthesia.

At times, his sense of pain seemed to return…but after repeated surgeries, his body slowly began to react with only numbness.

Ah, yes, you’re right. We cut Rail’s body up one time after another. The scars all over his body are the evidence of our long years of experimentation, in that sense.

Because of this…we would be very regretful if he’s not happy at having no sense of pain.

Of course, since pain is an important sign of physical danger, it’s also a kind of drawback.

What kind of existence he’ll end up having…that was another aspect I wanted to study, but seeing how the situation is what it is, it’s a pity I’ll never be able to.

I know another case similar to his, however.

But what this subject lacks is not his sense of pain, but rather what we term “emotion.”

It’s an old acquaintance of Huey’s, a man by the name of Elmer C Albatross.

I thought that Elmer was a perfect subject  for observation, but Huey stopped me.

Elmer is an important friend of mine, and I won’t allow you to perform any testing on him –  well, Huey might not have said those words when he stopped me, but that was the general sense he gave off.

At the time, I thought it was amazing that a man who saw the whole world as test subjects, even his own daughters, could utter such words…but for Huey, a line seems to divide the world and this being called “Elmer.”

…ah, I’m sorry, this time I really am talking in riddles.

Going back to the topic, even though Rail had the same experiences as Elmer, the path he chose is completely different. He hates…or rather, rejects people like us, meaning the majority of humanity.

That, then, is the type of person Rail is. However, if he ever stumbled into a white lab-coated scientist, his manner would certainly become much more timid.

That the child who naturally defies us is reduced to dread in our presence – saying it, it’s actually quite funny.

When it comes to Rail, we’re like a fixation he can’t get rid of. Or would it be an incomprehensible trauma? Ah, well, there’s no way to confirm any of this, anyways.

Hm? What did you say?

You’re asking me why I’d do such terrible things to a child?

Ah, it’s true, we also thought such they were rather excessive.

Even if we didn’t see him as human, but rather on the same level as a white lab mouse, we still went overboard –

It was unforgivable. Ah, even I don’t think our crimes can be pardoned.

Every time Rail’s cries beat against our ears, our hearts would fill with incurable guilt and regret, confusing our minds and making us question ourselves…thousands of conflicting emotions would whirl in our hearts, almost making us cry.

But in the end, we were able to overcome all those unpleasant feelings.

Why?

Do you even need to ask?

It was because we loved him, of course!

Doing such awful things to Rail made us feel indescribably guilty, of course.

But what let us overcome such obstacles, what got rid of the guilt stopping us, was our love for our test subject!

Because our hearts were filled with love, it didn’t matter how many cruel things we had to do to it, we would still do them all!

Yes…before us, there was another surgeon, an immortal who’s been documented as declaring something similar to what we feel. He said that it was only because he loved his subjects so much that he was able to bear the pain of treating them so cruelly.

Who was that person?…I’ve heard he’s already been devoured, by an immortal boy he loved. I believe I recall…he was called “Fermet”, and the immortal boy, I think his name was “Czeslaw.”

Ah, sorry, I’m speaking enigmatically again…to be truthful, if Rail were to devour or kill me, I’d welcome it as the sweetest fate possible. I suppose this is what they call “love,” then.

Concerning Rail, we were his creators, and so we might as well be the creators of god.

I’m not an atheist or an deist – I believe God exists.

And because I believe this, I know that we are gods to these homunculi.

Just as God has endless love for us, so I, too, have limitless love for Rail.

And that is why I can’t stop the tears welling from in my eyes.

Because the being that we had loved so much has suddenly been lost from our world.

~

…you want like to hear what happened after we lost him?

You want me to go back and remember, to plunge myself into that bottomless grief again?

You information brokers are all the same!

But it’s alright. I’ll tell you anyways.

In telling this story, along with our observations and our analysis of its consequences afterwards, perhaps we will be able to understand the meaning of what occurred.

Through the information Sham and Hilton collected…we were able to pinpoint the main culprits of all this, a pair who seemed to also be lovers, surrounded on all sides by a group of young delinquents.

But then again, this story also involves that crazy involves female scientist from Nebula, Christopher, the Russo family – even the man called Graham is involved one hundred and twenty percent in these events. Strictly speaking, even a certain incident that occurred to a man currently then in prison is involved – Firo Prochainezo is also connected to this story.

Alright, where should I start from…ah, well, since this is Rail’s story, I guess I’ll start where his narrative begins.

That sad experiment, after losing his friend Frank, slowly set foot on his uncontrollable path.

His steps were not fast – but slowly, he was nearing his destination.

Rail, in order to save Frank…no, it’d be more correct to say in order to snatch Frank away in revenge, moved towards for the city’s shadows. His soul, by then, was already on the verge of collapse.

Rail’s movements, then, were toward hopeless despair and resignation.

No, I think he wasn’t just giving up on himself…but also on everything else in the world.

Chapter 1!

Translator’s Note: 

First off, thanks to everyone who’s commented – I know it’s a cop-out to blame school for not responding, but rest assured that I appreciate all of your comments and support. I’m still rather nervous about my skills, but I’m glad I can be of any help to this fandom ;u;

(1) This was written as “trick question” in my copy, but I thought that wouldn’t sound quite right. Speaking enigmatically doesn’t quite flow either, so I’m open to other options?