Bungo Stray Dogs - Volume 7 Chapter 2 Part 1

Chapter 2 Part 1

“Welcome to the Port Mafia, Chuuya Nakahara.” Mori was seated at his desk on the top floor of the Mafia headquarters.
They were in a dim, spacious room. The tinted windows blocked the outside from view. This was the Mafia leader’s office, one of the hardest, most difficult places in all Yokohama to break into. Wearing an amused smirk, Chuuya stood facing Mori in the center.
“What an honor to be invited. Heh.”
Chuuya’s arms were bound with leather straps while a massive chain used for towing boats was wrapped around his legs. His ankles were tied with construction-grade steel wire, which attached to metal fittings on the floor; his fists were tightly chained, as if to prevent him from ever opening his hands again.
Numerous red cubes surrounded his torso as well. It was a subspace skill that kept him from escaping.
The skill belonged to the guard standing next to him. But even with Chuuya restrained, the guard was still nervous. He was focusing every fiber of his being so that he’d be able to promptly act if Chuuya showed any signs of resistance. The man was an exceptional skill user, even within the Mafia, but he nonetheless looked uneasy.
“I heard you put on quite a show yesterday,” Mori said with a smile. “Apparently, you fought an entire group of my men single-handedly with the greatest of ease. Now I see why you’re the leader of the Sheep.”
“Too bad we got interrupted halfway, though. Ruined everything,” Chuuya replied with a smug look on his face. “Anyway, that’s also why you called me here, right? About that black explosion—the black flames of Arahabaki.”
The door suddenly opened.

“Scuse me. Coming in… Oh?” It was Dazai.
“Perfect,” said Mori. “I was waiting for you.”
“Ah! You’re that li’l twig from yesterday!” Chuuya practically leaped into the air. “You goddamn punk!”
“Oh wow. You seem to be doing well. I, on the other hand, got injured pretty badly, as you can see. Where does all that energy of yours come from anyway? Are you having a growth spurt? Or is that what’s happened to all the nutrients that were meant to make you smarter and taller?”
Dazai’s head was wrapped in bandages; his right arm was in a cast. All injuries he sustained fighting Chuuya and getting caught in the ensuing explosion.
“Leave my height outta this, damn it!”
“Fine… I suppose it’s pretty tasteless to criticize others’ shortcomings, after all. I promise I’ll never do it again, pip-squeak.”
“Why you…!”
“That’s enough.” Mori clapped his hands. “You two really hit it off for just having met a day ago. At any rate…yes, Chuuya, I would like to ask you about the explosion yesterday. Randou, could you leave the room for a moment?”
The skill-user guard with long, wavy black hair and unhealthy-looking bags under his eyes frowned. “I…cannot recommend that, boss. This boy is dangerous…”
“It’s fine. Dazai can nullify his skill if it comes to it. I already have other measures in place just to be on the safe side. More importantly, Randou, you look colder and paler than usual. Are you all right?”
Randou was violently shivering. “I am embarrassed to admit it…but I feel like I’m about to freeze to death…”
“You’re cold?” Chuuya cocked an eyebrow and glanced over at Randou. “Wearing that? In this weather?”
Randou’s entire outfit was sturdily insulated from his felt trench coat to his thick scarf. He also had on rabbit fur earmuffs and tall synthetic leather boots made for the cold. And this was only what could be seen; lining his clothes were dozens of heat packs. But even then, he shivered as if he were smack in the middle of the arctic circle.
“I dressed lightly for the occasion so as not to offend the boss, but… brrr…it’s so cold…”
“Randou’s medical exam showed no signs of physical or mental illness,” Mori explained. “He simply hates the cold.”
“Brrr… I want to work somewhere warm… Boss, are there any Port Mafia branches near a volcano…?”
“Afraid not.”
“Mn… I’ll be taking my leave, as you wish…”
Randou released his skill, causing the many cubes of subspace restraining Chuuya to disintegrate. He then staggered drearily out the door, the other three watching him leave.
“Believe it or not, he’s a Port Mafia sub-executive and an exceptional skill user,” Mori hastily remarked.
“Nobody asked ya to make excuses for him…,” Chuuya muttered. “Mori, do you think you can speed things up and cut to the chase?”
Dazai asked, rolling his eyes.
“Ah yes…” Mori scratched his cheek with his fountain pen. “Of course…,” he said vacantly. He looked up at the ceiling, then over to Dazai, then to Chuuya, and then at his palm. After a few moments, he continued:
“Chuuya, how would you feel about working for us?”
There was a loud roar as jagged fissures shot through the floor around Chuuya.
“…Excuse me?” came what sounded like a voice straight out of the depths of hell.
It was Chuuya’s voice. The reinforced, bulletproof flooring shattered, pieces of it scattering about the room. And yet, neither Mori nor Dazai batted an eye. They remained expressionless.
“You made me come all the way over here just to listen to you talk outta your ass?” Chuuya growled.
“Well, I can’t say I’m surprised by your reaction.” Mori watched Chuuya as if he were reading unfavorable results from a medical exam. “But from what I can see, we are essentially after the same thing. Perhaps you might consider what we can offer each other before giving an answer?” “Ha-ha. Hilarious. I had no idea the Mafia’s new boss enjoyed wastin’ people’s time like this.” Chuuya sneered, baring his teeth in the process. He looked like an animal ready to tear Mori to shreds. “You want me to join the
Mafia? Don’t tell me you forgot what your organization did to this city.”

“You’re referring to our previous boss’s atrocities, yes? I, too, am pained by what he did,” Mori replied. It was difficult to read his expression.
His predecessor’s bloody tyranny had plunged Yokohama into violence and terror, and the tragedies that occurred under that man’s reign were still fresh in everyone’s minds.
One day, a young redheaded boy was killed simply because he’d scribbled on the boss’s car. Another day, the residents of an entire housing complex died when their water tank was poisoned on the off chance that a rival organization’s executive was hiding there. And on yet another day, the previous boss issued a citywide notice that anyone who spoke ill of the Port Mafia would be put to death and anyone who reported such talk would be rewarded. The entire city spent the next several years engaged in a witch hunt with everyone suspicious of one another. Yokohama became a city of traitors; over a thousand people were executed, many of whom were apparently known at the time to be innocent.
Opposing the Port Mafia meant death. Disagreeing meant death.
The merciless tyrant of the night and his army of death—that was what people called the Port Mafia.
“But the man is dead. I cared for him when he was sick and on his deathbed,” said Mori. “If there is such a rumor that this tyrant has come back to life, wouldn’t you want to know if it’s true, to help you sleep at night?”
Chuuya fixed Mori with a piercing glare for a few moments before responding:
“That still doesn’t give you a good reason to push me around, Doc. There’s plenty of nasty rumors about you going around as well. Like how your predecessor didn’t die of illness, but you actually killed him…which you obviously did. Nobody with half a brain would ever believe the old leader spent his final moments making his personal physician the next Mafia boss. If I’m wrong, then prove it. Prove right now that you don’t have an insatiable lust for power—that you’re not just somebody who wants to become the next grim reaper. You can’t, right?”
Mori’s assassination of the previous boss was top secret even within his own organization. Only Dazai knew the truth.
“You’re right. I can’t prove it,” Mori said with a shrug. “Because…” Dazai looked at Mori and instantly noticed a change in his expression.
He immediately opened his mouth to tell Mori to stop, but before he could, Mori finished his sentence:
“Because I did kill my predecessor.”
The temperature in the room dropped by several degrees. Chuuya was speechless for the first time since he’d been there.
“I slit the great leader’s throat with a scalpel and made it look like he died from illness. What about it?”
Mori’s voice was completely calm. Neither his posture nor his expression had hardly changed, but he somehow seemed like a different person. Even Chuuya, who had never lost a fight in his life, was taken aback. There was no warmth in Mori’s eyes. His mere presence was as cold as ice. The man on the other side of the desk was a demon who devoured other demons—a grim reaper who slaughtered his own kind—evil incarnate. The stench of countless deaths seeped from his pores.