(Kuchiba Hiro knew well that if there really was a massive organization manipulating the deaths of those experts behind the scenes, simply investigating the deceased's addresses or visiting their grief-stricken families would yield extremely limited information, and might even alert the enemy.
He needed a breakthrough—someone who truly knew the inside story and was still alive.
He quickly shifted his thinking and targeted an elderly geology expert who had just taken early retirement and was still living—Old Mr. Shibata. According to the scattered information he had found, Professor Shibata was originally several years away from official retirement but had suddenly resigned from his important university position without warning.
Around seven or eight in the evening, Kuchiba Hiro drove to a slightly aged residential area on the outskirts of Tokyo. The houses here bore the marks of time but were clean and quiet, exuding a unique atmosphere of life in an old district. He checked the house numbers and finally stopped in front of a home with a small courtyard.
Under the warm lights inside the house, a family that had just finished dinner sat around the dining table.
A white-haired old man wearing reading glasses was watching his grandchildren play in the living room with a smile. His wife was clearing the dishes, gently complaining that the old man was "getting in the way" at home after retirement. The scene exuded a simple, heartwarming feeling of peace after weathering many storms.
Kuchiba Hiro rang the doorbell.
Shortly after, Professor Shibata came to the door himself, a relaxed smile from the family atmosphere still lingering on his face: "Hello, who are you looking for?"
"Professor Shibata?" Kuchiba Hiro asked directly, his tone flat.
"I am. And you are?"
Kuchiba Hiro didn't waste time on pleasantries. He got straight to the point, handing the stack of chilling newspaper clippings to the old man: "I would like to ask for your thoughts on what's listed here."
The smile on Professor Shibata's face vanished quickly as he flipped through the clippings, replaced by a mixture of shock, fear, and a panic he tried desperately to hide. He slammed the clippings shut, his tone becoming stiff and hurried: "I don't know! I don't know anything! Young man, you have the wrong person! Please leave immediately!" As he spoke, he tried to close the door.
The thing Kuchiba Hiro was least skilled at was persistent persuasion. Facing the other's resistance, he chose the most direct method—and the only one he could effectively use at the moment. He suddenly reached out to block the door, while his other hand quickly reached into his trench coat, deliberately letting the other man see the cold barrel and structure of the black handgun.
The effect was immediate. Professor Shibata's movements froze instantly, his face turned pale in a flash, and fine beads of cold sweat broke out on his forehead.
Just then, his wife walked over and asked with concern, "Dear, who is it? Why don't you invite the guest in? It's quite rude to stand at the door..."
Professor Shibata's body trembled slightly. Suppressing his fear with all his might, he forced a smile at his wife that looked worse than crying: "It's... it's nothing! He's... a former student of mine, here to discuss some academic issues. We... we'll talk in the study! You go on with your work!"
Almost semi-forcedly and in a hurry, he let Kuchiba Hiro into the house, then practically pushed him toward the upstairs study, terrified that staying for even another second would lead to something terrible.
As soon as they entered the study and closed the door tightly, Professor Shibata immediately lost his forced composure. He leaned back against the door, looking exhausted, and whispered in a trembling voice filled with pleading and fear: "I beg you... let me go! I won't say anything, I swear! I just want to spend the rest of my days quietly with my family... I haven't done anything!"
Kuchiba Hiro put away the gun, but his eyes remained cold. In concise and direct language, he stated the mysterious death of his father, the traces of professional cleaning in his home, and the eerie newspaper clippings his father had left behind.
"I'm not here to kill you. My father is dead, and his death was unexplained. It might be related to this list. I just want to know what this is all about. What exactly needs to be covered up by killing people?"
After hearing about the experiences of Kuchiba Hiro and his father, the fear on Professor Shibata's face was gradually replaced by a complex, deep sorrow and helplessness.
He let out a long sigh, his eyes darting away as he murmured, "Child... take my advice and give up. Some truths are better left unknown. There's no point in investigating; it's useless, useless..."
Kuchiba Hiro's patience ran out. He utterly loathed this kind of cryptic, riddle-speaking behavior. He suddenly drew his gun again, this time stepping forward and pressing the cold muzzle firmly against the old man's forehead, his voice low and dangerous: "Speak."
Feeling the touch of death on his forehead, Professor Shibata slumped into his chair as if all his strength had been drained, his cloudy eyes filled with despair. He looked up at the terrifyingly stubborn youth before him and finally gave a bitter smile. In a tone almost like sleep-talking, he spoke a truth that sounded utterly absurd yet was enough to explain everything:
"The world... is really going to end. And our knowledge proved its reality."
Professor Shibata seemed to use up all his remaining strength for every word, his voice dry and despairing:
"It's not meteors, nor is it war... It's the Earth itself, child. The core... is heating up and becoming unstable in an incomprehensible way. This has triggered a chain reaction..."
He pointed a trembling finger toward the seemingly calm sky outside the window.
"Next will be unprecedented large-scale crustal movements. Supervolcano eruptions, violent plate shifts, tsunamis... they'll reach the Himalayas, just like... just like in the movie '2012', but worse, faster, and more thorough. The continental plates will be reshuffled, and all traces of existing civilization... will be wiped out. We've calculated it many times, and the result is always the same!
"Now... there are less than three years left before the great catastrophe erupts."
The old man's cloudy eyes were full of fear, as if he could already see the doomsday scene.
"We... this group of old-timers, through different research paths, almost all reached the same conclusion. Some wanted to warn the world, even if it was just a faint voice... then, they ended up on that list in your hand."
He smiled bitterly and shook his head, his tone full of powerlessness and irony.
"As for who did it? I don't know which specific department. But who else could have such massive power to make so many people 'accidentally' disappear and silence everyone... except for the machinery of The Authorities that controls everything?"
He looked at Kuchiba Hiro, his eyes holding a hint of admonition that bordered on pity.
"That's why I said it's useless. Revenge? You don't even know who the enemy is. They are everywhere, yet leave no trace. Go home. At least you can still spend a final period of peace with your family like I am now. No matter how you struggle, the end is already decided... Three years. Only three years left. What's the point of resisting a world that is doomed to end?"
After Professor Shibata finished speaking, he let out a long breath, as if he had laid down a heavy burden, or as if his soul had been completely hollowed out.
He was certain that once this youth learned the enemy was so vast and the future so hopeless, he would surely be consumed by a massive sense of powerlessness just like him and give up those unrealistic thoughts.
This truth was too heavy, too surreal, enough to crush anyone's will.)