Bungo Stray Dogs - Volume 4 Chapter 2 Part 5

Chapter 2 Part 5

Meanwhile, two tourists arrived at the floating city Standard Island’s port: a young woman with honey-blond hair and a man in a black overcoat. It was Higuchi and Akutagawa from the Port Mafia.
“It looks like we were able to make it on the island,” stated the young woman.
“…” Akutagawa didn’t say a word as he stood in the ocean breeze. “Akutagawa?” Higuchi turned around and looked at him.
“Higuchi,” he suddenly said while staring into the distance. “Give me the details.”
“Our targets are people who betrayed the syndicate. Yesterday, they broke into a bank branch under the Port Mafia’s patronage, picked the locks of a few safety deposit boxes, and tried to steal all the money and valuables in—”
“Do they look like businessmen in white collared shirts?”
“Hmm?” Higuchi hesitated, taken aback by the sudden question. “Um… According to the information the ferry’s crew gave me on the way here, yes, that does seem to match their description.”
“I see.”
Akutagawa didn’t say another word after that. He neither walked nor stirred. He simply continued to stare into space. Like an ominous stone statue, he continued to ponder. Ten seconds. Twenty seconds. Akutagawa still didn’t move. After thirty seconds went by, Higuchi apprehensively asked, “Um… Akutagawa, sir? Is something the matter?”
“Change of plans. Forget about the traitors,” instructed Akutagawa as he suddenly started to walk.
“What?!” Higuchi rushed after him. “But, sir, the boss ordered—” “Do not make me repeat myself.”
As Akutagawa looked straight ahead like a hound staring down its prey, Higuchi instinctively swallowed any doubts she had. Akutagawa turned his piercing gaze to the townscape in the distance. He saw the facilities, the machinations lurking within the darkness, and into the hellfire of his memories—the colossal, fiery sphere that enveloped the island and scorched the ocean.

Akutagawa dropped to his knees. The heat wave around him had already exceeded several hundred degrees Fahrenheit. He tore through space, creating multiple barriers to block the incoming heat. Nevertheless, it took no more than a puff of heat to slip through a small opening between his shields to instantly scorch his flesh and rob his throat and eyeballs of all moisture. He couldn’t even speak anymore. Surrendering his body to the flames, leaving nothing behind but ash—to Akutagawa, it was a rather beautiful ending for someone who had lived their life neck-deep in death and murder. He smiled with self-mockery.
Blistering hot air filled his lungs through his smirk, sending him into a violent fit of coughs. But at the very same time, he saw something out of the corner of his eye. There was an opened iron door leading underground. The chain used to hold the sturdy door shut was snapped in two, and the lock was ripped apart by some sort of unusual power. What caught Akutagawa’s eye was a light escaping the underground. It was a pale, inorganic light. There was something bizarre about it, as if it were ignoring spatial distance to reach here.
Was the light coming from underground? A small ripple expanded inside Akutagawa as he quietly accepted his fate. The island’s electrical equipment should all be destroyed by now. That light must be caused by some sort of skill. It would be hard to imagine that the light source had nothing to do with the destruction occurring aboveground. If the person who caused all this was down there…
Akutagawa slightly curled his lip.
Perhaps dying wouldn’t be so bad after slicing their head off.
He placed a hand on his knee and pushed himself up to his feet. The ground was shaking, the virulent winds were ravaging the landscape; there was perhaps no one left around, much less any buildings. The burning shell was getting so close that he couldn’t even directly look at it anymore. Akutagawa violently coughed, dousing the ground with his dark-red blood, which immediately evaporated. But even then, his lips were curled into an ominous smile.
Only ten more yards. The shaking ground made him stagger and trip. Five more yards. What appeared to be black rain was nothing more than melted iron framework from a building. Akutagawa silently created a barrier and protected himself from the droplets.

Two more yards. The soles of his shoes had finally started to melt. He continued to walk, fighting against the high temperatures hot enough to burn his feet to the bone.
The last yard. A wall of fire stood before him. The tears he created in space were nothing more than paper shields before this heat. The crimson barrier was like the grim reaper broadly smiling at him, and Akutagawa returned the smile to the familiar face.
With no strength left to jump in, Akutagawa collapsed into the entranceway of the underground lair as the sphere of fire in the sky immediately melted the hole behind him.

Akutagawa’s almost completely charred body fell into the light. His clouded eyes made it impossible for him to clearly see the room he was falling into, but even then, there were two things he did notice: the machine in the center of the light and two shadows. The machine grew even brighter. Akutagawa slightly squinted in its direction as he fell.
Was that…a camera?
Someone in the room spoke, but the deafening explosions outside had already robbed Akutagawa of his hearing. Nevertheless, he did recognize one of the shadowy figures. His light-colored hair, his timid mannerisms— it was the new detective at the Armed Detective Agency, a boy even younger than Akutagawa.
Man-Tiger…!
Akutagawa suddenly remembered what the traitor had said before he executed him.
“The carrier said the weapon was inside a black briefcase, and it was made of an antique camera and a detonator and stuff like that…”
The dots slowly connected in Akutagawa’s head: an antique camera, a strange light, a room mysteriously protected from destruction, and the man- tiger calmly standing in the room.
So that’s what’s going on.
So this is how it’s going to be, Man-Tiger!
But Akutagawa’s scorched throat could not scream, and the man-tiger was facing the other way—Atsushi never even saw him. The crimson storm and pale light simultaneously reached their climax, destroying the room, and thus—

“Akutagawa…? Akutagawa, sir?”
The voice calling Akutagawa dragged his consciousness out of his memories.
“Is everything okay? We could rest at the hotel if you aren’t feeling—” “Higuchi,” said Akutagawa, cutting her off, “give me the time.”
“O-okay.” She hastily checked her watch. “It’s 11:05. Why do you ask?” “Noon,” suddenly replied Akutagawa. “It was exactly noon. I can
clearly remember the clock’s hands.” “Um… Akutagawa, sir?”
Higuchi glanced at her superior with a look of concern as if she was trying to figure out what he was talking about.
“There’s not even an hour left,” Akutagawa said while surveying the island. “Using a weapon of mass destruction to destroy Yokohama… How refined of you, Man-Tiger.”
He began to walk forward with firm determination in his step.
“But thanks to that, I finally have a reason to cut your head off. Having a detestable time limit simply makes it even more exciting. I long for the day that I cut into your flesh, bones, and entrails and bathe in your blood.”
Higuchi gasped as she stared at his profile—a heartless smile, like a blood-hungry wolf staring at its prey.
“Higuchi, the man-tiger is somewhere on this island.” “‘Man-tiger’? …Do you mean that man-tiger?”
“We will find where he is and take his head before the hour is over.
Break into the island’s immigration office and get me that information.”
“T-take his head…? But why exactly are we aborting our original mission to search for the man-tiger…?”
“Why? The answer is simple.”
Akutagawa turned around and fixed Higuchi with a fiendish gaze. “Because I said so. Is that not enough?”
Higuchi stood straight up the instant she saw those eyes. “I will begin the search for the man-tiger immediately.”
Akutagawa gazed at the vast, never-ending blue summer sky.
“Just you wait, Man-Tiger. I’ll make you rue what you’ve done as I pull out your entrails and slice through your flesh. The flames of hell will not be burning this island but incinerating your innards.”