Bungo Stray Dogs - Volume 4 Chapter 3 Part 4

Chapter 3 Part 4

Atsushi hated pain.
But pain had been an intimate part of his life for as long as he could remember. The pain of being stabbed, the pain from being punched, the pain of his hands numbing in the cold, pain inside his head, the pain of hunger—suffering clung to Atsushi like clothing, shaping him. Pain made Atsushi feel like himself. He didn’t know any other way to experience this feeling.
After joining the detective agency, the nature of the pain changed, he got hurt less often, and he stopped feeling miserable. Instead, the crushing pressure of necessity tore at Atsushi’s flesh. It split open his shoulder, pierced his chest, and snapped off his leg. The agony was so unbearable that it was as if he could feel his soul leaving his body, but even then, he fought through the pain because it was worth it. He knew he could stubbornly resist the pain no matter how bad it got.
There’s a beast inside me, thought Atsushi. And that’s not a metaphor. There’s a literal beast inside me. Right now, he’s howling and wildly feasting as he rampages. For some reason or another, he seems to have the power to negate wounds. Not the power to heal them or to recover but to negate. The reason he’s able to do this isn’t totally unrelated to my birth, probably. It’s not unrelated to the suffering I’ve had to bear all these years.
The beast—the tiger—is a manifestation of something within me. I still don’t know what that something is, but if he commands me to stand, then I can’t not stand—just like if he negates my wounds, then my wounds have no choice but to disappear.

Atsushi sprang to his feet. The wound on his chest had already stopped bleeding. There was still blood coming from the bullet wound on his neck, but it was nothing serious enough to hinder his movement.
“What?!”
The colonel raised his pistol and shot. A bullet pierced Atsushi in the thigh, tearing away at his flesh. It felt as if someone had taken a saw and cut through his nerves, but it wasn’t enough to prevent him from moving. Atsushi charged forward, baring his fangs. The colonel backed up, seemingly overwhelmed by his spirit. Transforming his arms and legs into the claws of a white tiger, Atsushi’s muscles exploded in size as his white fur stood up on end.
“So you’re a skill user as well…!”
The colonel retreated while shooting his pistol, but Atsushi lifted his arms and blocked the bullets. With the briefcase in hand, the colonel disappeared around the hallway corner. If Atsushi were to leave him alone for too long, he would undoubtedly activate the weapon. Ignoring the pain in his leg, he chased after the colonel. An ill-omened creak echoed down the hallway. Atsushi immediately rushed around the corner, only to find that a shutter was rising between the colonel and him. The colonel must have had manually inputted something into the control panel on the wall.
“You’re not getting away from me!”
His tiger fur rose; his muscles groaned like iron wire being twisted together, accelerating his body. One step. Another step forward. The shutter had already closed halfway as it rose from the bottom. Atsushi’s wounds foamed as they closed. His walking turned into jogging. His jogging transformed into sprinting. Atsushi jumped. As if he were doing the high jump in a competition, he twisted his body in the air as the shutter was close to completely closing. Brushing against the ceiling, he slipped over the rising shutter, but only then did he realize his mistake.

Damn…
The colonel was no longer there, and only the briefcase lay where he once was. Because…he was right under Atsushi. With his body leaning against the shutter, he aimed his pistol into the air.
“Welcome.”
And with that greeting, he instantly unloaded his entire magazine on Atsushi. With no way to dodge midair, Atsushi was hit in the stomach. Fresh blood spewed onto the ceiling. Furthermore, after losing momentum midjump, Atsushi’s leg—namely everything below the knee—got caught in the closing shutter.
“GWAAAAAAH!!”
Like the closing jaws of a beast, the shutter slipped into the ceiling. Not even Atsushi’s powerful tiger leg could withstand the watertight seal designed to endure hydraulic pressure. The bones in his leg snapped as the sound of meat being crushed reverberated from the ceiling.
“I heard that Yokohama was a city of demons,” said the colonel as he loaded a new magazine into his gun, “but I never expected to be this close to losing everything to a young man with a skill such as yours.”
Atsushi hung upside down by his leg caught in the shutter. He wriggled and tried to pull himself free, but his tiger leg was simply too powerful to tear off and escape.
“Do you know why this zone exists?” asked the colonel as he reached for the briefcase. “This island was created as a symbol for peace after the war. Three deranged nations—countries who fought one another, killed one another, and soon even forgot why they started the war in the first place— created this island with what little sanity they had as a stage for peaceful negotiations. However…”
The colonel sat on the floor and reached for the briefcase’s lock.
“They don’t understand a thing. A few handshakes and papers signed aren’t enough to stop the war. The nightmares—the evils—created in that hell must be brought to light…or my men’s souls will never be saved.”
“Stop… You can’t…!” moaned Atsushi.
“Noon was the time my men were given orders to attack. By our own headquarters, even. But it was all just a scheme to turn them into war criminals—traitors. They ran for their lives while people called them the Mimic soldiers, and eventually…they drifted to Yokohama and died in vain,

from what I hear… I could have stopped that fool’s scheme, but I did nothing. This is my atonement.”
Atsushi let out an indescribable scream. Agonizing pain clouded his vision.
“You people did nothing wrong, but without these colossal fireworks, my words will never reach another soul… With the activation of this weapon, the truth about my men who died will be revealed to the world. If the Yokohama Settlement and the various nations’ military parties within it are wiped off the face of the earth, there will be no way for their governments to hide the truth.”
Nothing I say will change his mind. He plans on dying for a cause that nobody else could possibly understand…along with four million others. I have to stop him, even if I tear off my leg in the process.
Atsushi placed both hands on the wall and tried to push himself forward. As his bones and tendons creaked, the colonel looked up at him with a sorrowful smile, briefcase in hand.
I can’t—!
After clicking free the toggle, the colonel opened the briefcase—
—and white smoke spewed out from inside. “…?!”
Both Atsushi and the colonel let out a shout of surprise. Something set off a trap to release gas inside, which immediately enshrouded the colonel’s entire body. He coughed.
“Impossible… This isn’t it…?!”
Atsushi had no idea what was going on. The white smoke filling the hallway soon reached him as well. After breathing in a whiff of the gas through his nose, Atsushi’s consciousness immediately started to waver. It was poisonous gas—knockout gas.
Don’t tell me…
“Whew. I’m sure glad I had a backup plan.”
He heard a familiar voice from the other side of the smoke. It was… “Da…zai…?”
Atsushi could hear the shutter move as he faded out of consciousness.

After it finally released his leg, he fell to the floor.
“I predicted early on that the person behind this was one of the higher- ups on the island. Therefore, it was extremely likely the weapon was hidden somewhere only he could go. That’s why I used bait.”
The shutter on the fifth basement floor that automatically opened and the door to the armory… It was all too easy. Furthermore, the security cameras’ returning to normal was all too convenient. Everything was part of Dazai’s plan. He had Atsushi carry a fake and purposely let the enemy steal that from him.
“Atsushi, feel free to take a nap and just leave the rest to us.”
Atsushi’s consciousness rapidly began to depart this world. The silhouette said to let them handle it, so there was nothing to worry about anymore. Atsushi felt as if he had said something in return, but before he could even comprehend what that was, his consciousness was swallowed up by the blinding darkness.
When Atsushi came to, he found himself in a bed somewhere. “You awake?”
He heard a voice next to him. It was Kunikida’s. Atsushi had no idea where he was or what he was doing for the first few moments he was awake. It was an odd feeling, as if he had a dream where he’d left behind something very dear to him and then fell into a deep slumber before eventually waking up.
Where am I? What was I dreaming about? I was shot, got my leg caught in something, and breathed in some sort of gas…
Gas. Weapon. Four million people.
“What time is it?!” Atsushi jumped out of bed.
“Relax,” Kunikida suggested while writing something in his notebook at Atsushi’s bedside.
When Atsushi took a closer look, he realized he was in his room at the hotel they’d come to when they first arrived.
“Dr. Yosano took care of your injuries. You really did a number on yourself back there.”

That was when Atsushi noticed that his bullet wounds and almost- severed leg were back to normal. He looked around. There was nobody else in the room. He felt déjà vu. He hurt his leg, woke up, and found Kunikida at his side. When did all that happen? He couldn’t remember.
“Yokohama avoided destruction thanks to your strenuous efforts,” said Kunikida with his eyes still looking down at his notebook. “The colonel was arrested and put under confinement. The thieves were also captured. The guards caught them strolling around outside with the jeweled truffles.”
They got caught…
Atsushi imagined the boss and his men walking around town, proudly showing off their spoils of war.
“Now for the weapon—the real weapon is still being kept in an isolated shelter at the end of the fifth basement floor. The colonel made a full confession, but the weapon was hidden inside a special safe that can apparently only be opened with a password and the colonel’s fingerprint. In other words, your mission to find and secure the weapon was impossible from the start.”
An impossible mission…
But the threat was prevented all because the colonel fell for the fake briefcase.
“So Dazai set that trap because he knew that was going to happen?” “Yes.” Kunikida slightly lifted his gaze and stared off into space. “This
is how Dazai explained it: The enemy was cautious, and he would do anything to prevent the weapon from being stolen. If getting the weapon wasn’t possible, then capturing the enemy was our only choice. Therefore, he used the captain to place a fake briefcase in the armory. Then Dazai would have you steal that one, fix the security cameras, and show the footage to the enemy. And just like he planned, the colonel didn’t realize the briefcase was a fake. He opened it and was knocked out by the gas inside.”
Now that he mentioned it, the colonel did say something about the security cameras returning to normal and seeing Atsushi walking around the fourth basement floor. Atsushi hadn’t really put much thought into it at the time, but Dazai arranged for that to happen to purposely show the colonel that Atsushi had stolen the briefcase. He lured the colonel into a trap, making him believe it was the real thing. Both Atsushi and the colonel were dancing in the palm of Dazai’s hand from the beginning.
I wish he’d at least told me the truth…
While Atsushi wasn’t without disappointment, he knew he would’ve never been able to pull off this brilliant performance if Dazai had, in fact, asked him to make the enemy think the briefcase was the real thing. The truth would be written all over his face. No way a seasoned colonel wouldn’t notice.
At any rate, the case had been solved, and the detective agency’s work was done. All that was left was to pack up and leave the island. Nevertheless, Atsushi wondered if he could do a little sightseeing before going. He’d packed with the expectation of staying the night, after all.
Maybe an overnight sugoroku tournament with all the agency members…
“Now…,” Kunikida suddenly said as he stood up and closed his notebook. “I’m off to go pick up the weapon. The captain and Dazai should be in the basement by now. The special operations division gave us orders to retrieve the weapon and bring it back. Sigh… We just can’t catch a break.”
Kunikida then looked over at Atsushi to see how he was doing. “Want to come?”
Atsushi hesitated for a few moments.
“No, I’m fine,” he replied while shaking his head. Atsushi already had somewhere he wanted to go.