Bungo Stray Dogs - Volume 4 Chapter 3 Part 1

Chapter 3 Part 1

Atsushi was walking down the same path he’d used to chase the thieves last time. The four of them were heading to the art museum’s basement. They traveled through the sterile white hallway before stopping in front of a familiar automatic door. Right to the side of the door was an authentication panel used for security. The door would, in theory, open if they were to hold a gold coin over the panel.
Waiting for them behind the door was a gold-coin area.
“This door oughta be less than two inches thick, Boss,” claimed Atsushi while tapping on the door.
“Guess there’s only one way to find out.”
The boss opened his large hand and placed it on the automatic door. His hand then sank into it while radiating a faint light until he was wrist-deep

inside as if the door didn’t even exist.
“All right, we’re good. Matasaburo, hold my hand.” “Huh?” Atsushi instinctively squeaked.
“Whaddaya mean, ‘huh’? You know about my skill. Hurry up.”
After seeing the boss wave him over, Atsushi suddenly remembered that the boss’s skill allowed not only him but anyone he touched to go through walls. In other words, all four of them needed to hold hands to go through the wall.
“Hurry up, new guy. What, got a problem with holdin’ the boss’s hand or somethin’?” Gab urged him on.
Atsushi thereupon took the boss’s hand with grim determination. The boss smirked. Atsushi then took Gab’s hand on his other side, while Gab took Virgo’s in his. Hand in hand, the three of them leaped through the door as if they were jumping into water. The feeling of walking through walls was a lot subtler than Atsushi had imagined. It was like walking through a thin piece of film and was over in the blink of an eye. He unconsciously had his eyes closed.
And just like that, Atsushi was finally able to sneak into a gold-coin area
—and so easily, since it had the reputation of essentially being a military facility.
He was finally here, but the problem was what came next. He had to go to the fifth basement floor where the briefcase—where Annihilation—was.
“Atsushi, can you hear me?” asked Dazai in a cheerful voice. “We just had a pleasant conversation with the captain, and he apparently doesn’t know a thing about the briefcase. Fortunately, though, he was kind enough to tell us about the secret zone’s layout and guards.”
“He was kind enough to tell us”? Atsushi wondered.
He had thought about that as well: Perhaps the captain could give them some secret information on the zone. However, they would need to somehow convince him to help, since he would be violating the law of the island, so they needed information worthy of gaining his trust and time to persuade him. Surely he wouldn’t even believe them if they asked him to break the rules because Yokohama was going to be vaporized.
“Did you tell him the island was going to be destroyed?” asked Atsushi.
“Well, we did, but he didn’t believe us. That’s why we had to give him a little more incentive to be cooperative.”

What kind of incentive…?
Inside a hotel room, Dazai and Kunikida stood before the wireless transceiver while talking to Atsushi.
“Well, we did, but he didn’t believe us. That’s why we had to give him a little more incentive to be cooperative,” Dazai cheerfully replied.
In the center of the room behind him was a chair—and sitting in it was the poor captain with his arms and legs tightly bound together.
“What exactly…did you do to him?” Atsushi’s curious voice asked over the transceiver.
“Surprisingly enough, our captain here just loves pudding, so we gave him some to put him in a good mood.”
The captain tied to the chair tearfully cried, “Pudding?! Please…! No more pudding! I’ll do anything you want me to! So please… Please get that pudding away from meeeeee!”
“You’re a demon in human skin. You know that?” expressed Kunikida in utter disgust as he stood by Dazai’s side.
“Hey, uh…? What did you do to him…?” Atsushi sounded tense.
“Ha-ha! It’s a secret. More importantly, the armory on the fifth basement floor seems to be our best bet so far. Records apparently show that something was brought there not too long ago,” reported Dazai in an amused manner. “The jeweled truffles the thieves are after are in the vault on the fourth basement floor. When you reach that floor, go straight to the fifth basement floor while they head to the vault.”
“Roger.”
“Good luck, Atsushi,” said Dazai before hanging up. He then turned around and faced the captain once more. His eyes were smiling.
“W-wait! Please, no more pudding! Anything but that!” The captain screamed like a little girl while trembling in the chair he was tied to, rocking it with him.
“Don’t worry, Captain. Everything’s gonna be okay. But could you do me a favor in return?” Dazai’s smile deepened even further. “Heh-heh… It’s not like you have a choice, though. You know what’ll happen if you say no, right?”

The captain trembled with fear, and a piercing cry echoed throughout the hotel room.
Atsushi swiftly started to run with hushed footsteps until he silently made it to the corner of the hallway. After peeking his head out and making sure there were no guards, he immediately gave the signal to the others behind him.
“Heh. You may be young, but you’re silent and quick, too. You’ll make a fine thief one day, Matasaburo.”
The boss came strolling up as he spoke in a loud, confident voice as if he didn’t even care if anyone heard. They were in the top secret zone, but everything about the hallway didn’t seem all that different from the silver- coin area they came from. The floor and walls were white, and there were far fewer guards on patrol and armed soldiers than Atsushi had predicted. He was expecting the colonel leading countless fully equipped soldiers to be blocking their way just like last time, so it was a little anticlimactic. Perhaps it was such a secretive, important area that they wouldn’t even allow that many guards inside. Instead, there were security cameras placed all over the ceiling as if to cover any blind spots. Nevertheless, all the cameras were showing now was the same footage of an empty hallway on repeat.
The gold-coin area extended from the second basement floor to the fourth basement floor. The captain apparently had given them a brief explanation of the layout (thanks to Dazai’s incentive). Regardless, Atsushi had to find a way downstairs. That was his first hurdle. After he’d led the group down the hallway for a short while, something suddenly caught Atsushi’s eye.
“Dazai, I found an elevator,” Atsushi whispered into the microphone. “There’s a staircase next to it, too.”
“You should probably stay away from the elevator,” cautioned Dazai. “The surveillance camera in there is part of the silver-coin area, which means it’s still working properly. I know it’s not ideal, but you need to use the stairs.”

“Roger.”
“What’re you mumbling about?” asked Gab, who was suddenly standing right behind him. Atsushi jumped.
“N-nothing! Nothing at all!”
“Hmph. There’s somethin’ strange about you.” Gab glared at Atsushi. “No offense, but you don’t look like a thief to me, Matasaburo. I’ve been stealing just to survive my entire life, and you don’t smell like one of us.”
“There’s a smell?”
“The smell of desperation. The smell that says you would do anything to survive.”
Atsushi inwardly disagreed.
You’re wrong. I’m just as desperate as you are to survive—maybe even more so, actually. My body’s covered in scars—remnants of my past. The only reason why I don’t give off that scent anymore is because they helped rid me of it.
“Gab, was it?” said Atsushi. “Do you want to be a great thief like the boss, too?”
“I don’t care about that,” Gab frankly replied. “I don’t care what the job is. I just want to work with someone amazing like the boss… Wait. I don’t remember telling you my name.”
Oh, right… Oops.
Atsushi tried to laugh it off, but all of a sudden, he heard a noise. Somebody was coming up the stairs. Thanks to his tiger skills, which improved his sense of hearing, he was able to make out the sound of footsteps. There was one—no, two pairs of footsteps. Judging by their heavy steps, they probably belonged to two soldiers wearing military boots. Atsushi suddenly had flashbacks of the armed soldiers with their massive submachine guns and bulletproof vests. He would be able to escape, but the other three were sitting ducks.
What should I do?
“Gab! Two soldiers are heading this way,” Atsushi quickly whispered. “Go tell the boss and Virgo. Now.”
“S-s-soldiers?! S-s-s-s-seriously?!” Gab suddenly began to panic. “O- okay, relax, Gab! It’s gonna be okay,” he reassured himself. “It’s exactly times like this where I just need to take some deep breaths and count my

fingers! One, two, three… Huh? I’m only counting nine!”
“Gab, calm down!!” Atsushi shook his shoulders. “This hallway is a straight path; there’s nowhere to hide. You need to tell the boss what I told you and find a wall you guys can go into. Now, go!”
“B-but what about you?!”
“I…” Sweat dripped down Atsushi’s temple. “I’ll take care of the soldiers!”
“H-hey?!” Gab screamed in the background as Atsushi rushed toward the footsteps.
The staircase before him was U-shaped with a half-space landing in the middle. It went stairs, landing, right-angle turn to the next staircase, another landing, and another right-angle turn to the next staircase. The soldiers were approaching the second flight of stairs, and Atsushi could see their heads from where he was standing. He jumped.
“Hey, did you hear that?” “Hmm? Hear what?”
The soldiers looked at the staircase, dumbfounded. They couldn’t see Atsushi, but he could see them—the crowns of their heads, to be exact, for Atsushi was hanging from the ceiling right above them with his claws. He’d dug all of his claws into the ceiling to support his weight. He had kicked off the wall on the floor above them and grabbed on to the ceiling in an upside- down position. The soldiers had trained to fight against other people, so they didn’t have a habit of looking straight up.
“It was probably just my imagination, but go check if there are any intruders up ahead. I’ll back you up from down here.”
“Roger.”
As Atsushi clung to the ceiling, a drop of sweat ran down his cheek. He never exercised this much caution against criminals and thugs in Yokohama, but these were professional soldiers. They swiftly held out their guns, ready to fire at anything that showed up before them. One of the soldiers ran up the staircase. Even with Atsushi’s skill, he wouldn’t survive unscathed if he attacked them head-on.
Atsushi let go of the ceiling and dropped down toward the soldier’s head. While he was falling, he wrapped his legs around the soldier’s arms while sliding his arm around the soldier’s neck. Atsushi’s legs prevented the soldier from using his gun as he put him in a rear naked choke.

Applying enough pressure in this move stimulated something known as the carotid sinus reflex, which created a sudden decrease in blood sent to the brain via the carotid arteries, thus depriving the brain of oxygen and making the opponent lose consciousness within seconds. The only way to swiftly take out a soldier with a protective mask and bulletproof armor on was to go after the one part of his body not protected: the neck. The soldier was unable to even yell as the tiger arm powerfully squeezed his neck, nor could he fight back because of the tiger legs around his arms. He passed out just before he could react. Hearing his partner collapse, the soldier up ahead instantly turned around.
“What the…?!”
He immediately pointed his gun at Atsushi, but Atsushi leaped forward like a speeding bullet, closing the distance between them in the blink of an eye. He then slapped the soldier’s gun before he could even fire, sending the weapon flying into the air as if it had been hit with a giant hammer. The soldier’s finger released the trigger. All Atsushi had left to do was take his opponent’s back again and put him in a choke hold. Only when he saw a glittering silver light did he realize how naive his strategy was. The soldier immediately took out a gun he had strapped to his waist. His sidearm was a 9mm pistol. Atsushi could clearly see the muzzle pointing at him out of the corner of his eye, but his body was still midmotion from his first attack, leaving him with no way to dodge.
He’s gonna hit me. I shouldn’t have underestimated a seasoned soldier, thought Atsushi as the muzzle pointed right at him.
“Hi-yaaaaaa!”
But the bullet didn’t hit him. Gab hurled himself right into the soldier from behind.
“Wha—?!”
There wasn’t even a moment for the soldier to react. Gab and the enemy became entangled as they rolled down the stairs. Even after crashing into the wall at the landing, they continued to fight. Gab pulled the dagger out of his pocket, but the soldier grabbed his wrist and twisted it into the air. Gab’s brief scream echoed throughout the stairwell’s landing. The soldier then twisted his arm around his back, pushed him to the ground, and sat on top of him, robbing him of all movement. It was a well-practiced move. An amateur engaging in close-quarters combat against an experienced soldier
one-on-one was suicide—that was, if Gab really was alone. Atsushi kicked off the stairs and instantly launched toward the soldier, twisting his body in midair before throwing a backfist. His massive tiger arm connected with the soldier’s chin in a blur of speed. His chin wildly swung to the other side of his body, giving him a concussion. The soldier fell to his back.
“Phew…!”
After making sure the enemy was out cold, Atsushi deeply exhaled while wiping the sweat off his head.
“Did you kill him?” Gab timidly asked.
“No, he’s just unconscious,” Atsushi pointed out while getting back to his feet. “Can you stand?”
Atsushi offered a hand—which had already transformed back to normal
—to Gab, who sluggishly took it and stood up.
“Ouch… Man, I got a lump on my head now,” Gab grumbled, scowling. “Anyway, what was that? Your arms were freakin’ terrifying for a moment there.”
This was the first time Atsushi had shown his tiger skill to Gab this time around.
“Oh, that? It’s just a little something I can do,” Atsushi said with a slightly bashful laugh. “Anyway, we’re lucky we defeated them before they called for help, but we should probably tie them up and lock them in a room somewhere for safe measure.”
“Hey, uh…” Gab stared at Atsushi while furrowing his brow. “Yeah?”
“Is it just me, or are you actin’ kinda different?”
Oops. I completely forgot about Matasaburo.
“Eh, whatever. Anyway, would it kill ya to thank me? I saved your life.” “Now that you mention it…” As if he had just realized it, Atsushi asked,
“Why did you come back to save me?”
“Huh? I did it for the boss. Duh. I felt uneasy letting you go alone, so the boss’s number one disciple came back to save your ass. Besides, all the walls were thicker than two inches, so we couldn’t use the boss’s skill anyway.”
It made sense. Without a hiding place, taking out these enemies was their only option.
“Anyway, those were some nice moves you pulled off there. I might be
the boss’s number one disciple, but I think you could be his second—nah, too dangerous—you could be a far third? Fourth? Reserve a spot now, and you might even be his fifth-best disciple within the next six or so months.”
“Why does it sound like I’m buying airplane tickets…?”
Noticing Atsushi’s troubled look, Gab rubbed his chin as if to say, “In that case…”
“If you really wanna be number one, then fine. I’m the boss’s number one disciple, so I’ll just make you my number one disciple! You’re the disciple of the Great Phantom Thief’s disciple! Must be a real honor. Feel free to brag to everyone.”
“All right, let’s go with that,” replied Atsushi. “What are you two doing?! Gab! Matasaburo!”
They heard a deep voice coming from the top of the stairs. It was the boss.
“What happened to that soldier on the ground? If you’re lookin’ for someone to cuddle, then wait until we get our hands on that treasure and some women! Now, come on!”
Atsushi replied to the thunderous roar and began to walk.