Bungo Stray Dogs - Volume 2 Chapter 4 Part 2

Chapter 4 Part 2

A small sightseeing ship floated in the Yokohama Bay. Gentle waves glittered in the rays of sun from a crystal-clear sky. The ship quietly drifted through the waters as it bathed in the reflected glare.
Only a few people were on board the vessel. In the center stood a young man with scholarly features and round glasses—Ango Sakaguchi, an agent with the Special Division for Unusual Powers. A man was sitting to his right.
“Ango, it’s been a while. Thanks for inviting me. How have things been since returning to your real job?”
A man with slicked-back black hair and a white coat—the Port Mafia boss, Ougai Mori—spoke to Ango in a friendly manner.
“……” Without saying a word, Ango simply lowered his gaze nervously.
“I would appreciate it if you didn’t pick on my youngster here, Mafia leader.”
Sitting on Ango’s other side was a tall, middle-aged man with white hair who towered over the rest of the people on the boat. He was Chief Taneda, the commander in chief of the Home Affairs Ministry’s Special Division for Unusual Powers.
Behind the Mafia boss and the Division chief respectively were men in black suits standing guard and the Special Forces in black. However, not a single soul was armed.
His expression strained with tension, Ango said, “Thank you for coming today. Once again, this is an unofficial meeting. All audio and visual recordings or physical intervention by anyone other than those present will be treated as acts of treachery, and the meeting will be immediately terminated.”
Ango glanced at the bay as he spoke. Men from each organization secretly, or perhaps openly, waited on land off in the distance. In the

unlikely case that one party decided to betray and kill the other during the meeting, the injured party’s subordinates on the coast would immediately annihilate the enemy. This meeting was created on a state of delicate balance with each party holding a knife to the other’s throat.
“My little Elise has been nagging me to buy her ice cream on the way home. Do you know of any good places, Chief Taneda?”
“Ha-ha-ha. Well, isn’t that sweet.” Chief Taneda laughed while cooling himself off with the fan in his hand. “Maybe I should pick something up for the bureaucrats waiting for my report back at the Home Affairs Ministry, too. They’d love to have your head, I’ll tell ya.”
Two Mafia subordinates waiting behind their boss started to shake with rage. However, the boss simply smirked with an air of indifference.
“Feigning concern for the higher-ups at the Home Affairs Ministry to boost your reputation? Government officials always seem to have something to worry about, don’t they, Chief Taneda?”
“Oh, it’s a trifling concern when compared with someone who has to hide in the sewers in fear of getting squashed by the government.”
The two men spoke and looked as if they were playing shogi under the eaves of a house together. But the designated mediator, Ango, who was standing in the middle, couldn’t stop himself from breaking into a cold sweat. If the two men before him seriously went at it, then Yokohama would become a city of corpses before three days had passed.
“Now, let’s talk business,” said Ango. Even the Division’s elite needed to exercise utmost caution when interrupting these two. “Mr. Taneda of the Special Division for Unusual Powers has two requests for Mr. Ougai of the Port Mafia. First, you are to neither concern yourself with nor inflict harm on me, Ango. Next, you are to wipe out the European crime syndicate, Mimic, that illegally entered Japan. Do you accept?”
“I have no problems with the first condition. Personally, I’m actually extremely grateful to you, Ango. You’re talented, and you supported me a great deal with my work, regardless of the fact that it was part of your job as an undercover agent. Additionally, thanks to your mediation, I was able to have this meeting with the Special Division for Unusual Powers. I almost want to embrace you and send you a bouquet of flowers.”
“Then—”
“However, I cannot make a definite promise in regard to your second

request. Mimic is a horrifying group, after all. We’re still under a lot of pressure thanks to them. If I could, I’d rather just run away crying. It’s that bad.”
Ougai looked at Taneda with an indiscernible smile. A piercing flash of light illuminated the depths of Taneda’s eyes. He closed them before giving Ango a signal with his gaze.
“Next, the Port Mafia requests that the Special Division for Unusual Powers—”
Chief Taneda let out a short, deep sigh. Then he pulled a black envelope out of his suit.

Meaningless images swirled in my head. I was standing in a white, barren hotel room. Next, I was standing in the planted forest in front of the art museum again. After that, I was on the restaurant’s second floor.
—“Sakunosuke Oda, a peculiar mafioso who believes killing is never the answer.”
I was in the waste-ridden back alley, then the quiet bar in the middle of the night; then I was riding the elevator at the Mafia headquarters. After that, I was sitting in the seat by the window at the café on a rainy day.
—“Writing novels is writing people.”
—“You’re perfectly qualified.”
I wondered if that man with the mustache was serious about what he said. Or was he just trying to make me feel better? Did I really deserve to write about people? Even if what he’d said had been true, it was all in the past. I no longer had that right.
At the site of the explosion, I somehow managed to stagger to my feet and check inside the bus. I shouldn’t have; it would’ve been easy to simply imagine what it was like inside. After that, I decided to leave the scene before it drew too much attention. I went over to the restaurant.
—“They’re an army.”
—“These men don’t know how to live outside of a battlefield. They’re known as grau geists—men with no master.”
The lights were out; it was quiet.

When I went inside, I found the owner, Pops, dead.
He was lying behind the counter on a pot and the shelf for cooking utensils. He’d been shot in the chest three times, and his eyes were still open. His hand was still gripping the curry ladle. He must’ve tried to grab on to whatever was nearby on the spur of the moment. I wondered how he’d planned on fighting against armed Mimic soldiers with only a ladle. Just what you would expect from the owner of a Mafia-affiliated restaurant.
Only when I gently closed Pops’s eyelids did he actually look dead. I could feel my soul being tightly squeezed out of my body. It was the sound the spirit makes when it is irreversibly disfigured.
A military knife was stuck in the counter, and underneath it was a map. After pulling out the knife, I looked at the map. It contained a drawing of some mountainous terrain not too far away. There was a red X on some old private property in the mountains with the words Ghost Graveyard scribbled next to it.
I was sure it was a message from Mimic—from Gide. I folded the map and tucked it away in my pocket. Then I headed up to the second floor and went into the hidden room that Pops had ready for me. An array of weapons for emergency use were stashed away in there.
I took off my clothes and put on a light bulletproof vest. Next, I slipped on a shirt, then slid my arms through the shoulder holster and buttoned it in the back.
I checked both pistols. Once I’d finished looking them over, I wiped off the dust from one gun, oiled it, and assembled everything. I made sure the sight wasn’t off. Then I took out the bullet and pulled the trigger, checking how it felt. After that, I loaded the magazine before inserting it back into the gun. I pulled the slide, sending the first bullet to the chamber. When that was done, I checked the other gun the same way before sticking them in the holsters on each side of my body.
Every precise movement I made was like a prayer. As I got myself ready, my mind separated from my body, and I wandered in my thoughts: who I used to be, what I’d sought, who I’d talked to, what I’d felt, how I’d wanted to live. All I knew in that moment was that everything I sought in the past was already gone—thrown away like a crumpled-up piece of paper. I wrapped my wrists in bands packed with spare magazines. Then I slid my arms through the sleeves of the Kevlar-woven coat, into which I stuffed

grenades and as many spare magazines as I could. I hesitated but decided to not bring any bandages or painkillers along. I wouldn’t need them.
Instead, I found a box of cigarettes from when I’d quit years ago. I headed to the adjacent room with the cigarettes and a match. It was the room the kids used to live in—the same place where we’d roughhoused together just a few days ago. It had hardly changed: the bed railing colored in with crayon, the filthy floor, the stained wallpaper. The only difference was the five shadows that should’ve been there, too.
“Good night, Kousuke,” I said as I lit a cigarette. That was the name of the oldest boy. “Good night, Katsumi. Good night, Yuu. Good night, Shinji. Good night, Sakura.”
I watched as a trail of pale smoke quietly rose from the tip. “Sleep well. I’ll avenge you.”
Holding the cigarette between my fingers, I gazed into the smoke until the cigarette burned out and the smoke disappeared.
I began to walk.

“Odasaku!”
I was stopped by a familiar voice the moment I left the restaurant. “Dazai? What’s wrong?”
“Odasaku, I know what you’re thinking, but don’t. Doing that isn’t going to—”
“Isn’t going to bring the kids back?” I asked.
Lost for words, Dazai fell silent. Then he said, “Judging by the scale of past skirmishes, I have a good idea of how many Mimic soldiers are left. There’s a little over twenty of them, and they’re resting up for battle as we speak. They’ve most likely set up base in the western mountain district. I’m gonna go look into it, and—”
“I already know where they are. They left me an invitation.”
I handed Dazai the map with the inscription Ghost Graveyard that I’d found earlier. He furrowed his brows when he looked at it.
“They’re gathering their troops all in one spot. I’m not sure the Mafia can defeat them even if we mobilize all our men.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
“Odasaku, listen. The boss had a secret meeting a few hours ago. He met

with the Special Division for Unusual Powers, and Ango was the mediator. The meeting was so secret that I couldn’t get any more information, but there’s still something fishy going on with this Mimic stuff. I can feel it. So until we know what that is—”
“‘Something’?” I looked at Dazai. “There isn’t anything, Dazai. It’s all over. Everything. Whatever else happens now is meaningless—just like what I’m about to do. Am I wrong?”
“Odasaku…,” Dazai said softly. “Forgive me for the absurd wording, but—don’t go. Find something to rely on. Expect good things to happen from here on out. There’s gotta be something… Hey, Odasaku, do you know why I joined the Mafia?”
I stared at him. We had known each other for a long time, but he’d never even attempted to talk about that.
“I joined the Mafia because of an expectation I had. I thought if I was close to death and violence—close to people giving in to their urges and desires, then I would be able to see the inner nature of humankind up close. I thought if I did that…” Dazai paused before continuing, “…I would be able to find something—a reason to live.”
I looked at him; he looked back at me.
“I wanted to be a novelist,” I said. “I thought I wouldn’t deserve such a life if I killed someone during a mission. That’s why I never killed anyone. But that’s all in the past. There’s only one thing I want now.”
“Odasaku!”
I began to walk away. Dazai yelled out, but I didn’t turn around.