Osamu Dazai and the Dark Era (Bungo Stray Dogs 2)

“New guy, the Mafia doesn’t threaten. We murder. Oh, Odasaku, take the right side, will ya?”

“Sure thing.”

“W-wait! These are my best clothes! S-stop! You’re going to make me angr— Aaah!”

…………

We all gathered at the bar after that and got to know one another. There were no bosses or subordinates present; the three of us basically acted as equals. We drank, and we talked. That’s it. We talked about the city, about liquor, about the people we’ve met. It wasn’t as if we were passionately discussing some special topic we wanted to share, but even then, we didn’t run out of things to chat about. We were like soldiers who had by chance run into one another on the desert battlefield, crowded around a campfire together, quietly exchanging something or other and drinking, just sharing a moment of one another’s time.

In the world we live in, finding these types of relationships are rare, like coming upon a golden palace in the middle of a dense forest. If this relationship were to ever be broken, there would be no second chance to build something like this with anyone else ever again.

But then…

The old-fashioned pistol. The code to the safe.

Our relationship was beginning to visibly crumble at an alarming rate.

Dazai walked down a set of stairs leading to a dim basement. A white mist silently seeped in through the cracks in the stone wall, making the chamber hazy as if it were underwater. The walls were moist and black, dimly glittering after absorbing countless screams and despair.

This was the Mafia’s underground prison. Many entered alive, but very few left that way. Scores of people were taken down here for various reasons, among them the large number of instruments of torture available, the extreme difficulty involved in rescuing prisoners, and the simple fact that it was just a bit easier to clean up any mess and blood in the basement.

Dazai walked through the prison in silence as he headed toward the special prisoners’ cell. It was nothing more than a single room of around thirty-six square yards. The only entrance and exit was a short iron door; there wasn’t even a window to let the light in. Shackles and chains like those of a medieval jail hung from the wall.

There were three dead bodies in the middle of the cell—all relatively fresh. Their blood slowly spread across the floor, as if fruitlessly struggling to escape from the gloomy chamber. The ones who died here were Mimic soldiers. They had lost consciousness after breathing in knockout gas at the casino, and the Mafia had taken them here to be tortured.

“Tell me what happened,” Dazai said.

Four Mafia members were also in the cell, three of whom were Dazai’s subordinates who had helped fight against the sniper in the back alley. The fourth was a short, lean boy robed in a black overcoat.

“We used sleeping gas to knock out the Mimic’s vanguard when they attacked our casino, and then we brought them here,” one suited subordinate replied, pushing up his sunglasses. “We planned on torturing them for info on their allegiances, and we even removed the poison tucked away in their molars so they couldn’t kill themselves.”

“Yes, I’ve got that much. This was my plan, after all. What I want to know is what happened next.”

“One of the soldiers woke up quicker than we expected…” The one in sunglasses started stumbling over his words. “Before we could shackle him…he grabbed one of our guns and killed his men…just to make sure they wouldn’t talk. Then he attacked us, and—”

“I executed him.” The young boy in the black overcoat finished the mafioso’s sentence. Dazai looked at the boy, whose wide eyes glared back. “Is there a problem?”

“I see… No, there’s no problem.” Staring right into the boy’s eyes, Dazai continued, “You defeated an unyielding, formidable enemy and protected your allies, Akutagawa. Good work.”

Dazai began walking toward the boy in the black overcoat, the one he’d called Akutagawa. “Only your skill can defeat such a powerful enemy in one hit. Impressive. I wouldn’t expect any less from a subordinate of mine. Thanks to you, all three of the enemies we captured are dead—enemies I set a trap for and worked really hard to capture alive. Now we’re back to square one without a clue. If at least one of them were still living, we could’ve gotten some valuable information: where their base is, what they want, what’s their next target, who their leader is, where this leader came from, what this leader’s skill is… You really did us a favor.”

“Information? I’ll just slice every one of them into pieces until—”

Dazai suddenly punched Akutagawa in the face, preventing him from finishing his sentence. Akutagawa flew back onto the ground, his head bouncing off the stone flooring with a thud.

“Perhaps I made it look like I wanted to hear excuses. Sorry for the misunderstanding,” Dazai said while rubbing his knuckles.

“Urgh…”

Akutagawa moaned. He’d hit his head so hard that he couldn’t even stagger to his feet.

“Give me your gun,” Dazai ordered one of his men. The subordinate was hesitant but nonetheless handed over his weapon. Next, Dazai removed the magazine from the automatic pistol, took out all but three bullets, and then put the magazine back in. He immediately pointed the gun at Akutagawa, who was still on the ground.

“I have this friend who’s supporting several orphans all on his own, you see,” he continued, his weapon still drawn and aimed at the boy. “Akutagawa, I’m sure Odasaku would’ve been patient enough to give you the guidance you needed had he been the one who’d found you on the brink of starvation in the slums. That would have been the ‘right’ thing to do. But ‘righteousness’ doesn’t take very kindly to me. And there’s only one thing people like me do to useless subordinates.”

Dazai mercilessly pulled the trigger the moment he finished his sentence.

Three gunshots. Three flashes of light. Three empty shells tinkled across the floor.