Bungo Stray Dogs - Volume 8 Chapter 2 Part 6

The interrogation room was quiet save for the sound of paper being folded. A pair of hands folded a document in half, and a finger slid down the crease to flatten it. Then after pinching the document and making all the proper creases, the hands reopened it. Finally, the corners of the document were folded along the newly made creases.
The one creasing the document was the woolly haired detective, and the document he was folding was a plea bargain.
Chuuya watched in silence. The detective clumsily folded the paper until he had completed his paper airplane, which he then threw toward the metal garbage can in one corner of the room.
The paper airplane softly floated through the air before crash-landing nowhere near the target.
“Wow, you suck,” Chuuya jeered.
“I usually get it, though,” said the detective while scratching his head.
He stood up. “Chuuya, let’s go for a walk outside. Come with me.”

He started leaving without even looking back. Chuuya silently watched him for a few seconds, then eventually stood up after reaching a decision and followed.

The interrogation room neighbored the criminal investigation division, and it was as lively as a morning market. Numerous people greeted the detective as he passed through with Chuuya behind him.
“Hey, Mura! Thanks for the advice earlier. We managed to nab that man who assaulted his wife,” a middle-aged cop said brightly as he walked by.
“Glad to hear it. I told you, right? Guys who care that much about their reputation fall to pieces if you go after them at their workplace.”
“Detective Murase, congratulations on solving that violent murder. That was really impressive.” A young detective in a new suit complimented Murase in passing.
“I just got lucky. But hey, hopefully the victim can finally rest in peace.” After walking a little farther, a detective with thinning hair called out,
“’Ey, Mura, let’s go out drinking sometime! My treat!”
“Sure, but you better not drink too much. You’re gonna get put on desk duty if you’re late again.”
Several people from various departments offered the detective known as Murase friendly banter. Chuuya almost walked right into Detective Murase’s back multiple times because of it.
Chuuya managed to make it to the detective’s side when there was a brief break from the greetings, then coldly noted, “Well, aren’t you the popular one.”
The detective shrugged. “Because unlike you, I work for peanuts, so I at least need to make sure I’m popular, or it wouldn’t be worth it. Know what I’m saying?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Chuuya replied. His eyes faintly creased into a smile.
They walked side by side for a while, and Chuuya mulled over the things he wanted to say. It wasn’t long before he eventually faced the detective with a serious expression, his mind seemingly made up.
“Detective, listen. I don’t wanna get in the way of your work, so I’m gonna be straight with you: Leave me alone.”
He wasn’t pushing the detective away. If anything, Chuuya was being frank as he would to a friend.
“The Port Mafia ain’t like the Sheep. Even if you file charges against me, the Mafia’s lawyer’ll save my ass in the blink of an eye. I’d be found not guilty. That’s when you’ll notice the evidence has disappeared from storage, and the witnesses won’t be talkin’ anymore, either. That’s the kind of organization you’re dealing with. What you’re doing is a waste of time and effort, to be blunt.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right,” the detective breezily admitted, seemingly unbothered. “But I have my reasons.”
“Your “reasons’?”
After a brief sigh, the detective slipped his hand under his shirt collar and pulled out a thin silver chain. On the end of it was an empty brass shell casing with a hole in the center for the silver chain to run through.
“I used this on the job a long time ago.” The detective stared fondly at the necklace. “I was having money troubles when I was younger, so my brother got me a job as a security guard. I worked at this little military facility. I applied for the gig ’cause I thought I’d get paid for just standing around. I thought it was gonna be easy, but I was wrong. Dead wrong. It was a military facility near the Settlement. The boss told me not to let anyone near the place. But it was the end of the war, and there were supply shortages everywhere you went. Some kids from the Settlement appeared out of nowhere and tried to sneak inside to steal some food.”
The detective paused. He was frowning slightly, making him look like a boulder that had been weathering away in the desert for thousands of years.
“”Shoot to kill,’ the boss said,” the detective continued, his voice strained and hoarse. “Most kids’ll just run away when you threaten ’em, but these kids who were following orders from some underground syndicate… They wouldn’t. Because they’d be killed either way if they returned empty- handed. So I…”
The detective paused again, and his unspoken words simply wandered through the air and vanished. The empty shell casing glinted coldly in his hand. Chuuya remained silent for a few moments, at a loss for what to say based on his expression.
“You were just doing your job,” he eventually replied.
“Yeah. But the memory still haunts me to this day, no matter how many years go by. The one kid was around your age.”
The detective pinched the shell casing between his fingers in disgust, but the metal cartridge wouldn’t bend no matter how hard he squeezed.
“Chuuya, I’m not trying to put you away because it’s the right thing to do or something,” assured the detective in a cold, pained tone. “These criminal organizations spit kids out like disposable pawns, and the same thing is gonna happen to you eventually. That’s why I want you to return to the world of the light before that happens. Me—and the law—can help you do that.”
Chuuya met the man’s serious gaze. “So that’s why you keep coming after me…,” he said quietly.
The detective looked back at him without saying a word. And then there was silence.
A few seconds went by until Chuuya finally broke the silence. “I see.” A self-deprecating smirk played on his lips. “But, detective…”
Chuuya’s eyes had clouded over, shrouded in darkness.
“…you should probably save your sympathy for a fellow human.” All of a sudden, an alarm began blaring through the station.
“This is the security department. I repeat, this is the security department. An intruder has been spotted in the station. Number of casualties unknown. All unarmed personnel, evacuate immediately. All contracted security must be armed and in their designated positions—”
Chuuya clenched his fist and growled, “…He’s here.”

Rescuing Shirase from his cell was a success, although now I had to escape without catching anyone’s attention. But right when I was about to place a hand on the door to the exit, Shirase suddenly spoke up behind me.
“Hold up.”
It appeared he was talking to me. I turned around. “Yes?”
He was wearing a puzzled expression. “What happened…to your left leg?”
When I lowered my gaze, I noticed that my left leg was missing from the knee down. An alarm went off in my head. I lost my balance and staggered but managed to place a hand on the wall to catch myself.
“It must be hard being a robotic investigator.”
The voice echoed from the depths of the corridor, and I immediately faced its direction.
“I’m guessing they don’t give you paid sick leave even if your leg gets blown right off. They don’t even give you workers’ comp, either, huh? I feel for you.” A man walked this way, juggling my left calf like a baton and chuckling mirthfully.
“Verlaine…!”
The timing could not have been worse. He came too soon. We still hadn’t even prepared our trap.
I promptly summoned my Type I Combat Protocol. My electrical nerves’ conduction rate increased, and my battle analysis program’s execution was raised to maximum priority. I was going to be destroyed if I did not fight. That was all there was to it.
In order to make up for the loss of my leg, I began recalibrating my balance as quickly as possible when, without warning, Verlaine threw my torn-off leg in my direction at supersonic speed. I leaned my upper body to the side and managed to evade it; the tip of my foot ended up piercing the wall right behind me.
“Chuuya’s not with you? Good grief. He’s even late to important events like this.” Verlaine’s tone was casual and carefree, even. “I bet he would show up late to a first date, too. You know, as his brother, I worry about him. Sigh…”
I did not have the luxury of replying. If I lost, then that would be the end of Shirase’s life. His death would be instantaneous. In order to quickly calculate the appropriate protocol with the highest chance of survival, I could not waste time thinking about Verlaine’s statements.
I leaped as far as I could on my one leg in order to get away from Shirase—even if only a little—and I rushed toward the exit. But in spite of my efforts, Verlaine caught up with me in the blink of an eye. He grabbed my shoulders, then continued to ram me into the wall.
“Gwah…!”
The wall cracked, and my inner skeletal framework creaked.
Verlaine’s attacks did not end there. After I sensed distortion in the air near the center of my body, a gravitational force pushed me farther into the wall. It was like a finger sinking into sponge cake. The only difference was that I was the one sinking—and straight into a hard, concrete wall.
“Don’t worry. I’m not interested in breaking you. Just stay put for a bit, will you?”
I was almost completely buried in the wall. The thunderous sound of crumbling concrete reverberated throughout my body, sending overload warnings to my main processor. However, there was nothing I could do. I tried to get myself free, but Verlaine’s gravity manipulation set every piece of rubble back in its original position. I was being buried within the very place that I needed to escape from, until I found myself stuck like a house trapped in a landslide. Only my face and part of my arms stuck out of the wall.
I tried bending myself like a spring to create the necessary amount of torque to break free but it was no use. My entire body was covered in rubble.
“Now, Shirase…”
After burying me alive, Verlaine turned around and faced Shirase instead, as if he no longer had any interest in me.
“Wh-what the…?”
Shirase’s voice trembled with fear.
“I came here to see you, but it was so easy that I actually got here a little too early, so let’s talk for a moment before I finish my business.”
“Wh-what the hell? What the hell are you?!”
Shirase’s voice quavered like never before. It took everything he had to simply stand on his own two feet.
“I-I’m not Shirase! You’ve got the wrong guy!”
“Then why did you respond when I called you that name a few seconds ago?”
Verlaine curiously tilted his head to the side. His long legs strode slowly, gracefully as he approached Shirase.
I shouted a warning: “I will not allow you to get any closer to him!”
Verlaine turned around in an amused manner. “Then stop me. That is, if you can.”
His assumption was correct. I would stop him if I could. I calculated various situations: escaping, self-destructing, remote communication, et cetera. I searched every method available, but I ended up with zero results.
There were no effective measures. There was no way out of this. I even considered calling Master Chuuya, but that would be the most foolish strategy of all. We had decided to ambush Verlaine because we knew that we wouldn’t be able to defeat him in a fight head-on.
The worst thing that could happen right now would be losing Master Chuuya or me and being unable to follow with our plan to ambush Verlaine. He had two more targets remaining. There was still hope.
“Come. Have a seat,” Verlaine demanded, but Shirase was too frightened to respond. He simply looked up at Verlaine and trembled.
“Sit,” Verlaine repeated sharply.
Right as he placed a hand on Shirase’s shoulder, Shirase stumbled, and his knees gave out from under him. The ground beneath Verlaine’s feet simultaneously cracked from the intense gravity, then heaved and bulged like a tumor. Shirase’s rear dropped right on top of the protrusion. He was too astonished and afraid to even yell out.
“Shirase, I did a little research on you. As a matter of courtesy as an assassin, of course.” Verlaine’s demeanor became very civil. “And out of everyone in this city, you have known Chuuya the longest. Which is why I want to ask you this: What was Chuuya like as a child?”
Verlaine effortlessly pulled off the door to a cell as casually as one would pull off an old scab. He then bent the door in half and placed it on the ground, taking a seat on it and elegantly crossing his legs. He smiled at Shirase.
Verlaine’s skill was an aberration. It was highly doubtful any skill user in this city could do anything about him, especially after how easily he handled the Order of the Clock Tower’s knights.
I typed an internal note and sent it to Master Chuuya’s cell phone as a text message. I explained the situation and strongly warned him that there was only one thing he could do: stay away from here. I told him he needed to retreat, calculate his next objective, and get the Mafia’s help to lay out the trap, even if that meant Shirase and I would meet our demise.
Shirase was shaking. Perhaps he reached the same understanding as I did. He managed to open his quivering mouth and replied:
“I—I…”
His breathing was shallow, and his voice sounded fragile enough to break at any moment. It would be no surprise if he vomited right then and there. But if he didn’t keep talking, he would be deemed worthless and killed on the spot. Shirase had no choice but to answer the question if he wanted to live even a second longer. It was difficult to watch.
“I think we first met…under a bridge…where me and the Sheep used to hide and drink booze,” he began while glancing at me for help.
His eyes were asking me if I could find a way out of this while he bought me some time. But it was hopeless. Help was not coming. I knew buying time would not change a thing.
“He—Chuuya—was wearing a military uniform I think he stole from somewhere. He was a huge mess. His face and hair were filthy. He wasn’t wearing shoes, either,” Shirase continued, voice quavering. “We—the Sheep’s original members—thought he was some orphan living on the streets. He spoke to us first. “What’s that square thing?’ is what he said.”
Shirase looked down at the ground as if he was desperately trying to remember every detail that happened that day.
“I had no idea what he was talking about… I thought he was just weird. That’s when he said, “Tell me what that square thing is in your hand. Right now.’”
Shirase lifted his gaze and idly stared into the distance. “I was holding a slice of bread.”
A deep silence reigned over the corridor, eerily so, especially after the destruction that preceded it. Verlaine quietly listened to the story.
“When I told him it was bread, he asked, “Can you eat it?’ Then when I went “Yeah’ and tore off a piece and ate it to show him, he did the last thing I was expecting him to do. He fainted, like he was out of batteries. It wasn’t until I went over to check up on him that I noticed how skinny he was. He looked half dead. The others were weirded out and didn’t want anything to do with him, but I gave him bread and some water. After convincing the group, I took him with me to the Sheep hideout in the sewers.”
I opened my external memory database. According to my records, the Sheep were originally a mutual-aid organization that protected orphans from adults. Their infrastructure was much smaller at the time of Shirase’s story compared to their eventual peak, and they were more like a shelter for children who wanted to protect themselves from violence or kidnappers, threats of child labor, et cetera.