Bungo Stray Dogs - Volume 4 Chapter 1 Part 1

55 Minutes

Chapter 1 Part 1

Yokohama ceased to exist that day.

The blue buildings in the administrative district melted to the ground like sugar in a frying pan. The chemical complex on the coast instantly evaporated as if it had touched the surface of the sun. The cars nicely lined up on the pavement turned into gray hazes of heat and vanished along with the people inside as if God had suddenly revoked their existence on a mere whim.
Even the boy gazing at the vast blue sky out the window…
Even the couples holding hands while walking along the beach… Even the criminals scheming in their underground lair…
Everything, in that single moment, ceased to exist without warning. Nobody was even given a chance to experience the fear that they would be no more. Like a magic trick, everything disappeared at the drop of a hat. But unlike a magic trick, a magician’s suggestive wink could not bring it back, for the missing city with a radius of twenty-two miles and a population close to four million would never return to normal again.
At the blast’s epicenter off the coast of Yokohama, the intense heat left nothing behind. Everything was whisked far away to the land of forever. All that was left was the simmering crimson liquid crust of the earth, the haze that wavered like the lost souls of the dead, and the deep-blue summer sky that stretched all the way to the heavens.
It was eerily quiet. There was even a feeling of loneliness in the air. Only the vivid-white summertime cumulus clouds leisurely drifted across the firmament, carried by the winds possessing no concern over the disappearance of the massive city.

It was summer.
The first act in this tale of death and destruction began a mere…
…fifty-five minutes ago.
It was fifty-five minutes before Yokohama was wiped out. Atsushi Nakajima was aboard a boat in the ocean. The high-speed ferry cut through the waves, splashing white streams of water from each side. Atsushi stood at the bow, embracing the briny breeze.
The sky was blue, and the ocean seemed endless. The sunlight was hot, and the water was cold. It was such nice weather that one would have to assume something good was going to happen today.
“Atsushi, what are you doing standing on the bow?! If you fall overboard, we’re leaving you behind!”
Atsushi turned around at the sound of the voice coming from inside the vessel.
“I’ve never been on such a fast boat before, Kunikida! It feels so good!
The weather’s nice, and we’re going so fast!”
The young man with glasses called Kunikida frowned, head poking out from the cabin door.
“Thank you for stating the obvious. I have eyes, you know,” replied Kunikida as he pulled a notebook out of his pocket and opened it. “There is a zero percent chance of rainfall today. Southerly winds followed by southeasterly winds. The waves will range from three feet to five feet tall. In addition—”
“You really do write everything down in that notebook…”
“My entire schedule is written in here, and there is nothing better than everything going as planned. That said, there was one time where the weather report was wrong, so I had to break into the meteorological bureau.”
Without even batting an eye, Kunikida had admitted doing something criminal. He then closed his notebook and looked at Atsushi.
“At any rate, I need you inside. This isn’t a vacation, I’ll have you know.
We’re about to have a meeting regarding our latest job.” “O-oh, okay. Be right there.”

Atsushi hopped off the bow. Seagulls soared through the sky, squawking noisily as they chased after the boat.
He followed Kunikida into the cabin. Once he was inside, the cold air of the air conditioner brushed against his face. In the cabin was a waiting room roughly 160 square feet. Hanging on the walls were maps, life vests, and pictures of the crew together. In the center was a long desk seemingly ideal for meetings, with three milky-white couches surrounding it.
“See? The other agents are already here and waiting for you.” Kunikida pointed at the other members in the room.
“Uh… Waiting…?”
Atsushi looked around. There were four people sitting on the couches.
…You call this waiting? thought Atsushi.
“Mn…uhhh… I’m gonna throw up… Why do boats shake so much, Naomi? My world is spinning… My stomach is turning… This feeling swelling inside me—blaaarghhh!”
“Oh, Jun! My poor, sweet brother… I’m here for you, so feel free to keep throwing up until you feel better, okay? Hee-hee-hee!”
The young man limply hanging over the table in the back was Junichiro Tanizaki. He was the closest in age to Atsushi and had been at the agency a year longer than him.
Tanizaki was muttering deliriously with his pale face stuffed in a metal basin. His younger sister, Naomi, on the other hand, seemed to be eyeing him rapturously for some reason as she fussed over him. From what Atsushi had gathered during his time at the agency, Naomi always seemed happier the more trouble her brother was in. Why? Who knows.
Sitting next to them was…
“This picture’s not that good. You can’t see the lower jaw laceration well at all. Oh, but this one’s excellent. You can clearly see how the shotgun shells blew out the small intestine, pancreas, and spleen…even the sacrum that flew out of the victim’s body! That settles it. I’m gonna blow this picture up and hang it on the wall back at the office.”
The woman carefully selecting a photo out of all the developed film on the table was the agency’s in-house physician—Yosano. Each photo was of a different corpse from a brutal crime scene. One victim’s body was contorted in an extremely unnatural position, while another was headless. There were even pictures of people’s bones breaking through skin. Yosano kept rearranging dozens of photos, bringing them right up to her face, and letting out a euphoric sigh from time to time.
Next to her was…

“Mn… Mumble, mumble… Moo-Moo, you’re such a wonderful cow… Nice to look at, nice to pet, nice to eat… Mumble, mumble…”
The youngest member of the detective agency, Kenji, was sound asleep with a smile of utter bliss. Up until recently, he had lived in a remote village without even access to any electricity and had taken care of cows, but the president of the Armed Detective Agency saw something in him and brought him back to Yokohama. Kenji was much more naive and overly trusting than anyone Atsushi had ever met, but he was a good kid who still retained his countryside charm. Strangely enough, he performed really well at the agency.
Nevertheless, he was so irritable and annoyed upon waking up that even the most callous of criminals would run away in fear. Therefore, there wasn’t a single person in the agency who would dare stir Kenji from his slumber; best to let sleeping dogs lie.
Atsushi looked at the agency members one by one starting with the person on the very end, then once again in the opposite order. Next, he turned his gaze to Kunikida.
“They were waiting for me…?”
“Erm…” Kunikida’s expression slightly tensed up. “Well, I mean… Everyone…waits in their own way.”
“But Dazai doesn’t even seem to be here…,” Atsushi mentioned while looking around the room. “Where is he?”
“That idiot?” Kunikida pressed a finger to his temple. “When we met up at port, he said he was going to swim to our destination and promptly dived into the ocean. I didn’t feel like saving him, so we left without him. I’m sure the sharks are enjoying their meal as we speak.”

The man called Dazai was also a detective at the agency, specifically the one who invited Atsushi to join. However, the man was an eccentric, and nobody could predict what he would do next…which wasn’t much of a surprise, seeing as he claimed his hobby was suicide. Kunikida appeared to be trying his best to turn Dazai into a hardworking, honest person, but Atsushi didn’t believe those efforts would ever pay off, from what he could see.
The Armed Detective Agency was based in Yokohama and made up of skill users. Their work was commission based, and they took on dangerous jobs that not even the police could handle. Most of the members were skill users—people born with special abilities—and they had the trust of not only ordinary citizens but government organizations as well.
However…
“Attention, everyone! It’s time to start the meeting,” Kunikida announced loudly. However, not a single agent bothered to even look at him. Tanizaki was groaning, Yosano was absorbed in selecting her photos, Kenji was sleeping, and Naomi didn’t even acknowledge people who weren’t her brother.
No surprises here, Atsushi thought.
Because it was rather difficult to get these quirky individualists under control. The agents usually worked alone or in pairs for the most part, but as a group, Kunikida typically took the lead and all the struggles that came with it.
“Attention, everyone!”
But Kunikida’s second shout was in vain, absorbed only by the walls. Atsushi fidgeted and looked over at Kunikida, who stood completely still, waiting for everyone’s attention. Nobody responded.
“S-so, Kunikida…what’s the meeting about?” Atsushi asked while squirming.
“Very well. If you’re really that curious, then I guess I could fill you in.” Kunikida cleared his throat without even meeting Atsushi’s gaze. “As you know, our client will be waiting for us on the island, and our job will be to capture the thieves on said island.”
“‘Thieves’?”
“Yes.” Kunikida nodded. “With all of us there, I think we’ll make quite the show apprehending them.”

Kunikida and Atsushi gazed at the others in the room—the agents were passing the time in their own unique ways.
Atsushi thought: I feel bad for the thieves. They don’t even have a clue that we’ve got the Armed Detective Agency’s most elite agents here, each with their own powerful skill. With this many of them together, I bet they could even destroy an entire town. In that case, I imagine this will be as explosive of an arrest as Kunikida believes.
Apparently, the client wanted this many agents on the case. They must be either extremely cautious or extremely rich.
Atsushi observed the powerful skill users in the room once more. “Mumble, mumble… Moo-Moo… It doesn’t matter that you’re a cow
and I’m a human… We just have to be honest with our feelings, and then we’ll be able to understand each other… And if that doesn’t work out, I’ll just hit you with a bucket of water… Mumble…,” Kenji continued to mutter in his sleep.
“Urghhh… I’m gonna puke… Naomi, could you get me a glass of cold water?”
“Of course, my dear brother! In fact, I’ll give it to you mouth-to- mouth!”
“I’d prefer a glass…”
It was hard to tell if Naomi was actually trying to nurse her brother back to health or not.
“Hmm… Looking at bodies and puddles of flesh really makes me wish I had a femur to hang on the wall back at the office… Hey, Atsushi—gimme one of yours.”
“Absolutely not!”
“C’mon, it’ll grow back if you just drink a little milk.” “No it won’t!”
It would probably prove very difficult to explain to someone how amazing these people were.
“By the way, Kunikida…,” Atsushi began as if he had suddenly remembered something. “The client asked us to catch some thieves, right? Why did they come to us and not the police?”
“Did you seriously not research the island beforehand?” Kunikida asked back. “The answer is simple. The Japanese police force doesn’t have the right to investigate the territory because technically, it isn’t even part of Japan.”
…Not part of Japan?
“What do you mean?”
“It would be quicker just to see for yourself,” Kunikida claimed as he turned his gaze outside the cabin window. “We should be able to see it soon. Take a look.”
Atsushi looked at the sea beyond the window. “Is that…?!”
A mechanical island—that was Atsushi’s first impression.
It looked more like a giant metal plate floating in the ocean. In the distance stood countless stone buildings around three stories tall. Holding them afloat was not land but numerous metal plates stacked one on top of another, which were supported by an immeasurable number of metal poles submerged in the sea. Far past the pillars was a spinning turbine. There was not one thing natural about the island because in actuality, it was an unbelievably colossal machine buoyantly floating on the sea.
“The floating city of Standard Island,” Kunikida began while flipping through his notebook. “It was jointly designed by Germany, England, and France as a sailing island, and its territory is governed by all three nations. The island is entirely self-sufficient; its self-contained navigation system allows it to steer independently, and the vessel operates on ocean thermal energy conversion, wave-activated power generation, solar photoelectric generation, and offshore wind power. It functions as a resort where the upper class come to generously spend their money and boasts architecture reminiscent of Europe from the Middle Ages all the way to modern times. The island usually travels the South Pacific Ocean in pursuit of the ideal climate for generating energy, but it sometimes ends up in the waters near Yokohama like it is currently. In a way, I guess you could say it’s closer to a giant ship than an island.”
“That’s…a ship…?”
Atsushi stared vacantly at it. It was essentially an entire city floating in the water, far different from any ship in terms of sheer scale.
“That island—it’s like some sort of joke.”
“It’s not like a joke; it literally is a joke.” Kunikida shook his head. “Prepare yourself. Anything can happen once we step foot on it.”