Quiet on the Train

A memory sets the stage: after slaughtering a pack of hoodlums who were tormenting a stray cat, Kashima earns only dread from onlookers instead of thanks. Adrift and unable to grasp why ridding the world of cruelty makes him a pariah, he encounters Slur, who calls him a rare good soul willing to dirty his own hands. That praise draws him into Slur's movement and its warped notion of justice.

In the present he restates his devotion, insisting anyone blocking a higher justice deserves removal, until an elderly passenger steps aboard. Sakamoto lays a hand on his shoulder, points out that he occupies a seat reserved for the aged, and hurls him against the doors before he can respond. Kashima is stunned that his engineered body cannot match the man's speed, and Sakamoto pens him into a cramped vestibule to hammer him through the fittings.

Enraged that a plain human is winning, Kashima unloads a machine gun mounted in his right arm; Sakamoto tears loose a handrail to bat the rounds aside and whip him with it. A rifle hidden in the cyborg's ribs then fires at point-blank range, blowing Sakamoto out a shattered window into the path of a train on the far track. Certain the monster is dead, Kashima daydreams about a new suit, only for Sakamoto to sprint across the passing carriage roof and drop back in from the rear.

Kashima flings commuters to slow him, but Sakamoto catches each one and returns them to their seats, remarking that he cannot fully follow the cyborg's beliefs yet refuses to let his kind near his family. A crushing strike ejects Kashima as the train pulls in, a kick pins him into a ticket gate that shorts out his circuits, and a swipe of Sakamoto's commuter pass drops the barrier he leans on. Dragging the wreck of an opponent outside, Sakamoto phones Shin to report the boss handled.

Bearing the title "Quiet on the Train" (Shanai de wa o Shizuka ni), this thirtieth chapter runs 19 pages inside the Lab Arc and is collected in the fourth volume. It first appeared on July 5, 2021, in issue 31, with Sakamoto and Kashima on the cover. The installment closes their duel and traces the cyborg's recruitment by Slur.