Bungo Stray Dogs - Volume 8 Chapter 1 Part 2

His fame wasn’t his only weapon, either. He was a born actor with the gift of gab and impeccable negotiating skills, plus a beautifully chiseled face. Lippmann was especially good when it came to negotiations with people in the “real” world and solved most of them the moment he sat down at the table.
“In fact, I wouldn’t mind at all even if you were kicked out of the organization,” Lippmann added, his smile as gentle as a feather. “Because if that happened, I would welcome you to join me with my work. Together we could take on the world as actors on the silver screen.”
“I honestly can’t think of anything I’d want to do less.” Chuuya frowned bitterly, as if he’d swallowed poison. “In fact, that might be the worst idea I’ve ever heard in my life.”
“I was against throwing you a one-year anniversary party,” came a sudden, quiet voice from the back.
It wasn’t a yell; there was nothing intimidating about it, either. And yet everyone fell silent and looked in the direction of the voice. Standing there was a man wearing very plain clothing.
“Iceman.” Chuuya spoke cautiously. “Yeah, not much for celebrations, are ya?”
The man never showed any emotion, no matter what. His presence seemed alien compared to the fiercer, flashier Young Bloods members. He didn’t come off as ambitious, nor did he leave much of an impression. If anything, he simply blended in with his environs like the quiet darkness of the night.
That was Iceman. The most senior member of the group after Piano Man, he was a quiet, expressionless individual who liked simple clothing. Even his work was extremely simple, especially in the Mafia. He was a hit man.
He didn’t use a skill to kill his target. He wouldn’t even use a gun. Iceman typically carried a knife on his person, but not even that was for work purposes. He always used something in the immediate vicinity: a pen, a bottle of booze, a lamp cord. The moment anything found its way into his hands, it became a deadly weapon, far more dangerous than a bullet. Hence why he could kill a person no matter where he was—whether it be a desert, a palace, or even a bank vault.
And Iceman had another extraordinary gift as well. He could feel it in his bones whenever someone used a skill near him. This wasn’t thanks to any special ability or technology. It was simply how his body worked. That was why he instinctively knew at a moment’s notice the best time and place to kill someone, and that made his kill ratio far higher than the average combat-type skill user. And it led the Mafia to put so much trust in him, too. Without a skill, neither the Special Division for Unusual Powers nor the military police’s Skilled Crime Task Force ever had him on their radar. No one got in his way. He was like a shadow. People in the Mafia believed that if anyone was to kill Chuuya, Iceman would be most likely to succeed.
“Wasn’t expecting you to come to a party for me, Iceman. I thought you hated me.” Chuuya flashed a provocative smile. “We went toe to toe once when I was still with the Sheep. Doesn’t help that you failed to assassinate me; bet that really hurt your rep.”
“I was against having a party, but not because I don’t like you. I don’t have any grudges, either. I just didn’t want to anger you for no good reason.” Iceman’s tone was flat and consistently unemotional. “We all knew you’d make it past your first year.” “What?”
“We thought you were going to start a rebellion,” Iceman continued, his voice sharp enough to split a glacier in two. “You used to be the leader of the Sheep—an opposing organization. We thought you were going to betray the boss, kill him, and start a war with the Mafia. So Piano Man invited you to join the Young Bloods to make sure that didn’t happen.”
Chuuya glanced at Piano Man, who was watching the exchange with a blank expression. He neither confirmed nor denied the allegation—which meant it was true.
“…Hmph. He did, eh?” Chuuya glared at the others. “No wonder everyone was being all nice to me, makin’ sure I was okay, like I’m a newborn or something. I’m touched. You guys gave me toys, pacifiers, and rattles to keep me from getting upset. Well, I’m a big boy now thanks to you all. A big one-year-old boy. Now I see why you threw me such a big party.”
He crushed the champagne glass in his hand, sending the liquid through the air. Iceman still didn’t even blink.
“We had our reasons for being cautious,” Iceman said. “July 18. It was 3:18 PM. One of the gemstone wholesalers angered you and suffered an injury that took three months to heal. All because he asked you a certain question. A simple, thoughtless question. But the moment you heard it, you threw him all the way to the roof of a three-story building.”
“I did? Can’t remember.” Chuuya’s gaze was sharp, unlike his tone of
voice. “How ’bout you ask me that same question, then, so we can check? If you’ve got the guts, that is.”
Iceman remained silent. He spent the next five seconds so expressionless that he might absorb all the emotion in the room, then replied:
“”Where were you born?’”
Chuuya immediately grabbed Iceman by the collar and violently pulled him close. The sound of fabric ripping followed as Iceman’s shirt tore at the seams.
“What are you doing?” Iceman asked, still expressionless as he looked down at Chuuya’s hands.
“That depends on you.” Chuuya didn’t loosen his grip.
“Hey, come on. That’s enough,” Albatross pleaded anxiously from Chuuya’s side, grabbing him by the arm. “Don’t let a li’l question like that anger you, Chuuya. That’s not you.”
“That’s for me to decide, damn it. I’ll kill him if I have to.”
Chuuya swiftly knocked Albatross’s hand away, causing Albatross to stumble backward. Chuuya tried to take a step forward, but he suddenly stopped. A cue stick was pressing right against his temple like the blade of a sword.
“What’re you plannin’ to do with that stick?” Chuuya asked without a shred of emotion on his face. He remained standing completely still.
“That depends on you,” Iceman replied, cue stick in hand.
Chuuya leaned his upper body away from the cue stick, then slammed his head back into it. Countless bits of wood flew through the air, and most pieces ended up raining down on Iceman himself; one sharp splinter sliced his right temple. Blood trickled down into the corner of his eye, but he didn’t even blink.
“That’s enough,” hissed the most cold-blooded voice in the room.
Out of nowhere, Piano Man was standing right behind Chuuya with a clear piano wire extending from the sleeve of his outstretched arm. It hung around Chuuya’s neck like an expensive necklace.
“Chuuya,” Piano Man said coldly. “”No using skills on comrades.’ That’s the first rule of this group. Did you forget?”
Although it was called a piano wire, what Piano Man wielded wasn’t the same kind of string used in instruments. It wasn’t nearly that simple. This was industrial-grade wire strong enough to lift and carry iron or concrete blocks.
And deep inside Piano Man’s sleeve was a winding machine. Once it was activated, the piano wire transformed into the world’s lightest guillotine and sliced its target’s head clean off. Chuuya could manipulate gravity and make the piano wire lighter, but he wouldn’t be able to slow down the winding machine, which meant he wouldn’t be able to prevent himself from being decapitated.
“I get that you’re in a bad mood,” Piano Man added. “It’s because you’re gonna lose to Dazai at this rate. You have to become an executive before him. After all, the only reason you joined the Mafia was because you want access to a document that only executives can see, and that document’s the only way for you to find out who you really are.” Chuuya’s expression transformed. “How did you know that?”
“But the way things are going, it’s gonna take you another five years to become an exec.”
Chuuya’s brow furrowed deeply as he ground his teeth. “Don’t you dare say another word.”
“Sorry, but I will.” Piano Man shot Chuuya a chilly smirk. “The boss told me almost everything.”
“What?” Chuuya frowned with disgust.
“Right after I invited you to join the Young Bloods, the boss gave me orders to keep an eye on you. Told me to check if you got any new info or if you tried to sneak a peek at the Mafia’s classified files.”
“He asked you…to monitor me?”
Piano Man nodded. “Of course he did. If you didn’t need to see the documents anymore, then you might’ve turned against him. You used to be enemies with the Mafia, after all. Obviously, he told me why you’re after those documents, too. I was astonished, to say the least.”
“Stop,” Chuuya growled in a suppressed voice.
“Arahabaki. Prototype A2-5-8, an artificial skill created by the military. That’s you. You’re not even sure you’re human. You’re worried you might be nothing more than an artificial personality—and that’s because you don’t dream.”
Chuuya let out a voiceless growl.
It all happened in the blink of an eye. Chuuya had grabbed Piano Man’s arm with his right hand like a snake snatching its prey, then crushed the automatic winder. He immediately picked up a fragment of the cue stick with his left hand and pointed it straight at Piano Man’s throat.
The other four men were just as quick to react. Lippmann whipped out a submachine gun from within his coat and pointed it at Chuuya. Albatross’s kukri machete was already touching Chuuya’s wrist. Doc pulled out a syringe and had it pressed against Chuuya’s temple. Iceman had picked up a broken champagne glass and was about to aim it at Chuuya’s eye.
Everyone was still. Nobody lifted a finger. They even stopped breathing momentarily. It was like looking at a photograph; the only thing still moving was the dust glittering in the morning sunlight. Any one of the six could have taken a life with just the slightest movement—and yet nobody

stirred.
“Do it,” Chuuya demanded. His voice was like a bowstring pulled taut. “I don’t care which of you goes first. Just do it.”
“Can’t we do this later? At least, wait until the party’s over,” Piano Man said calmly.
“What?”
“I told you we were giving you a one-year anniversary gift or two, right?” He then took something out of his pocket. “Here.”
Chuuya cautiously lowered his gaze…and froze. “ Huh?”
With that utterance, he completely shut down. He didn’t seem to be breathing; it even looked like his heart had stopped. Chuuya’s grip loosened, and the broken piece of cue stick fell to the floor with a hollow clack. He unsteadily took what was being handed to him, apparently no longer focused on his surroundings.
It was a photograph.
“Weren’t expecting something so valuable, huh? I went through hell to get it for you.”
Chuuya drew his face closer to the photo as if he were in a trance. He couldn’t even hear Piano Man’s voice anymore. The others smirked uncomfortably as they put away their weapons, but Chuuya didn’t notice that, either.
“If anyone ever asks you that question again, just show ’em this picture.”
It was a photo of Chuuya when he was five years old.
It was taken at a beach somewhere; the ocean was visible in the background. Chuuya was wearing a linen yukata and holding hands with a young man while walking toward the photographer. The young man was smiling and faintly squinting from the sun’s bright rays. The young Chuuya was staring vacantly at whoever was taking the photo. From the look on his five-year-old face, he had no idea what was going on.
“The picture was taken at an old farming village out west,” explained Piano Man. “It’s a ghost town now, though. Nobody lives there anymore. But Doc struck gold after looking into some medical files being kept at another nearby village.” He paused. “Doc.”
“Heh-heh… People may lie, but dental records don’t.”

Doc came over with some files and a sickly smile.
“Medical professionals are obligated to keep medical records for a few years…and that obligation became our little ray of hope… Heh-heh…”
Puzzled, Chuuya looked back and forth between Doc and the files. “Don’t act like you got those files all on your own, Doc!” Albatross
whined as he held out another set of documents. “You never woulda gotten your hands on ’em if it wasn’t for me. Medical corporations usually end up being the ones that store medical records if a clinic goes under, and there’s tons upon tons of them! And guess who found the files we were looking for? Me! I threatened and begged every record keeper who seemed like they might’ve had these documents until I finally got ’em myself!”
Furthermore, Lippmann himself was an extremely powerful skill user with an ability that reacted to and countered an attacker’s thirst for blood. Therefore, it would be impossible to kill him without leaving behind any evidence.
If his killer’s name got out, every major news organization the world over would be chomping at the bit to expose the person’s history, motive, and who was backing them. Whatever organization ordered the hit would lose any privacy it once had, and that would spell its end. Murdering Lippmann was a death trap—a bomb that would go off the moment he died—hence why nobody had the guts to lay a hand on him.
His fame wasn’t his only weapon, either. He was a born actor with the gift of gab and impeccable negotiating skills, plus a beautifully chiseled face. Lippmann was especially good when it came to negotiations with people in the “real” world and solved most of them the moment he sat down at the table.
“In fact, I wouldn’t mind at all even if you were kicked out of the organization,” Lippmann added, his smile as gentle as a feather. “Because if that happened, I would welcome you to join me with my work. Together we could take on the world as actors on the silver screen.”
“I honestly can’t think of anything I’d want to do less.” Chuuya frowned bitterly, as if he’d swallowed poison. “In fact, that might be the worst idea I’ve ever heard in my life.”
“I was against throwing you a one-year anniversary party,” came a sudden, quiet voice from the back.
It wasn’t a yell; there was nothing intimidating about it, either. And yet everyone fell silent and looked in the direction of the voice. Standing there was a man wearing very plain clothing.
“Iceman.” Chuuya spoke cautiously. “Yeah, not much for celebrations, are ya?”
The man never showed any emotion, no matter what. His presence seemed alien compared to the fiercer, flashier Young Bloods members. He didn’t come off as ambitious, nor did he leave much of an impression. If anything, he simply blended in with his environs like the quiet darkness of the night.
That was Iceman. The most senior member of the group after Piano Man, he was a quiet, expressionless individual who liked simple clothing. Even his work was extremely simple, especially in the Mafia. He was a hit man.
He didn’t use a skill to kill his target. He wouldn’t even use a gun. Iceman typically carried a knife on his person, but not even that was for work purposes. He always used something in the immediate vicinity: a pen, a bottle of booze, a lamp cord. The moment anything found its way into his hands, it became a deadly weapon, far more dangerous than a bullet. Hence why he could kill a person no matter where he was—whether it be a desert, a palace, or even a bank vault.
And Iceman had another extraordinary gift as well. He could feel it in his bones whenever someone used a skill near him. This wasn’t thanks to any special ability or technology. It was simply how his body worked. That was why he instinctively knew at a moment’s notice the best time and place to kill someone, and that made his kill ratio far higher than the average combat-type skill user. And it led the Mafia to put so much trust in him, too. Without a skill, neither the Special Division for Unusual Powers nor the military police’s Skilled Crime Task Force ever had him on their radar. No one got in his way. He was like a shadow. People in the Mafia believed that if anyone was to kill Chuuya, Iceman would be most likely to succeed.
“Wasn’t expecting you to come to a party for me, Iceman. I thought you hated me.” Chuuya flashed a provocative smile. “We went toe to toe once when I was still with the Sheep. Doesn’t help that you failed to assassinate me; bet that really hurt your rep.”
“I was against having a party, but not because I don’t like you. I don’t have any grudges, either. I just didn’t want to anger you for no good reason.” Iceman’s tone was flat and consistently unemotional. “We all knew you’d make it past your first year.” “What?”
“We thought you were going to start a rebellion,” Iceman continued, his voice sharp enough to split a glacier in two. “You used to be the leader of the Sheep—an opposing organization. We thought you were going to betray the boss, kill him, and start a war with the Mafia. So Piano Man invited you to join the Young Bloods to make sure that didn’t happen.”
Chuuya glanced at Piano Man, who was watching the exchange with a blank expression. He neither confirmed nor denied the allegation—which meant it was true.
“…Hmph. He did, eh?” Chuuya glared at the others. “No wonder everyone was being all nice to me, makin’ sure I was okay, like I’m a newborn or something. I’m touched. You guys gave me toys, pacifiers, and rattles to keep me from getting upset. Well, I’m a big boy now thanks to you all. A big one-year-old boy. Now I see why you threw me such a big party.”
He crushed the champagne glass in his hand, sending the liquid through the air. Iceman still didn’t even blink.
“We had our reasons for being cautious,” Iceman said. “July 18. It was 3:18 PM. One of the gemstone wholesalers angered you and suffered an injury that took three months to heal. All because he asked you a certain question. A simple, thoughtless question. But the moment you heard it, you threw him all the way to the roof of a three-story building.”
“I did? Can’t remember.” Chuuya’s gaze was sharp, unlike his tone of
voice. “How ’bout you ask me that same question, then, so we can check? If you’ve got the guts, that is.”
Iceman remained silent. He spent the next five seconds so expressionless that he might absorb all the emotion in the room, then replied:
“”Where were you born?’”
Chuuya immediately grabbed Iceman by the collar and violently pulled him close. The sound of fabric ripping followed as Iceman’s shirt tore at the seams.
“What are you doing?” Iceman asked, still expressionless as he looked down at Chuuya’s hands.
“That depends on you.” Chuuya didn’t loosen his grip.
“Hey, come on. That’s enough,” Albatross pleaded anxiously from Chuuya’s side, grabbing him by the arm. “Don’t let a li’l question like that anger you, Chuuya. That’s not you.”
“That’s for me to decide, damn it. I’ll kill him if I have to.”
Chuuya swiftly knocked Albatross’s hand away, causing Albatross to stumble backward. Chuuya tried to take a step forward, but he suddenly stopped. A cue stick was pressing right against his temple like the blade of a sword.
“What’re you plannin’ to do with that stick?” Chuuya asked without a shred of emotion on his face. He remained standing completely still.
“That depends on you,” Iceman replied, cue stick in hand.
Chuuya leaned his upper body away from the cue stick, then slammed his head back into it. Countless bits of wood flew through the air, and most pieces ended up raining down on Iceman himself; one sharp splinter sliced his right temple. Blood trickled down into the corner of his eye, but he didn’t even blink.
“That’s enough,” hissed the most cold-blooded voice in the room.
Out of nowhere, Piano Man was standing right behind Chuuya with a clear piano wire extending from the sleeve of his outstretched arm. It hung around Chuuya’s neck like an expensive necklace.
“Chuuya,” Piano Man said coldly. “”No using skills on comrades.’ That’s the first rule of this group. Did you forget?”
Although it was called a piano wire, what Piano Man wielded wasn’t the same kind of string used in instruments. It wasn’t nearly that simple. This was industrial-grade wire strong enough to lift and carry iron or concrete blocks.
And deep inside Piano Man’s sleeve was a winding machine. Once it was activated, the piano wire transformed into the world’s lightest guillotine and sliced its target’s head clean off. Chuuya could manipulate gravity and make the piano wire lighter, but he wouldn’t be able to slow down the winding machine, which meant he wouldn’t be able to prevent himself from being decapitated.
“I get that you’re in a bad mood,” Piano Man added. “It’s because you’re gonna lose to Dazai at this rate. You have to become an executive before him. After all, the only reason you joined the Mafia was because you want access to a document that only executives can see, and that document’s the only way for you to find out who you really are.” Chuuya’s expression transformed. “How did you know that?”
“But the way things are going, it’s gonna take you another five years to become an exec.”
Chuuya’s brow furrowed deeply as he ground his teeth. “Don’t you dare say another word.”
“Sorry, but I will.” Piano Man shot Chuuya a chilly smirk. “The boss told me almost everything.”
“What?” Chuuya frowned with disgust.
“Right after I invited you to join the Young Bloods, the boss gave me orders to keep an eye on you. Told me to check if you got any new info or if you tried to sneak a peek at the Mafia’s classified files.”
“He asked you…to monitor me?”
Piano Man nodded. “Of course he did. If you didn’t need to see the documents anymore, then you might’ve turned against him. You used to be enemies with the Mafia, after all. Obviously, he told me why you’re after those documents, too. I was astonished, to say the least.”
“Stop,” Chuuya growled in a suppressed voice.
“Arahabaki. Prototype A2-5-8, an artificial skill created by the military. That’s you. You’re not even sure you’re human. You’re worried you might be nothing more than an artificial personality—and that’s because you don’t dream.”
Chuuya let out a voiceless growl.
It all happened in the blink of an eye. Chuuya had grabbed Piano Man’s arm with his right hand like a snake snatching its prey, then crushed the automatic winder. He immediately picked up a fragment of the cue stick with his left hand and pointed it straight at Piano Man’s throat.
The other four men were just as quick to react. Lippmann whipped out a submachine gun from within his coat and pointed it at Chuuya. Albatross’s kukri machete was already touching Chuuya’s wrist. Doc pulled out a syringe and had it pressed against Chuuya’s temple. Iceman had picked up a broken champagne glass and was about to aim it at Chuuya’s eye.
Everyone was still. Nobody lifted a finger. They even stopped breathing momentarily. It was like looking at a photograph; the only thing still moving was the dust glittering in the morning sunlight. Any one of the six could have taken a life with just the slightest movement—and yet nobody stirred.
“Do it,” Chuuya demanded. His voice was like a bowstring pulled taut. “I don’t care which of you goes first. Just do it.”
“Can’t we do this later? At least, wait until the party’s over,” Piano Man said calmly.
“What?”
“I told you we were giving you a one-year anniversary gift or two, right?” He then took something out of his pocket. “Here.”
Chuuya cautiously lowered his gaze…and froze. “ Huh?”
With that utterance, he completely shut down. He didn’t seem to be breathing; it even looked like his heart had stopped. Chuuya’s grip loosened, and the broken piece of cue stick fell to the floor with a hollow clack. He unsteadily took what was being handed to him, apparently no longer focused on his surroundings.
It was a photograph.
“Weren’t expecting something so valuable, huh? I went through hell to get it for you.”
Chuuya drew his face closer to the photo as if he were in a trance. He couldn’t even hear Piano Man’s voice anymore. The others smirked uncomfortably as they put away their weapons, but Chuuya didn’t notice that, either.
“If anyone ever asks you that question again, just show ’em this picture.”
It was a photo of Chuuya when he was five years old.
It was taken at a beach somewhere; the ocean was visible in the background. Chuuya was wearing a linen yukata and holding hands with a young man while walking toward the photographer. The young man was smiling and faintly squinting from the sun’s bright rays. The young Chuuya was staring vacantly at whoever was taking the photo. From the look on his five-year-old face, he had no idea what was going on.
“The picture was taken at an old farming village out west,” explained Piano Man. “It’s a ghost town now, though. Nobody lives there anymore. But Doc struck gold after looking into some medical files being kept at another nearby village.” He paused. “Doc.”
“Heh-heh… People may lie, but dental records don’t.”

Doc came over with some files and a sickly smile.
“Medical professionals are obligated to keep medical records for a few years…and that obligation became our little ray of hope… Heh-heh…”
Puzzled, Chuuya looked back and forth between Doc and the files. “Don’t act like you got those files all on your own, Doc!” Albatross whined as he held out another set of documents. “You never woulda gotten your hands on ’em if it wasn’t for me. Medical corporations usually end up being the ones that store medical records if a clinic goes under, and there’s tons upon tons of them! And guess who found the files we were looking for? Me! I threatened and begged every record keeper who seemed like they might’ve had these documents until I finally got ’em myself!”