“…”
His spiteful gaze was aimed at not only Dazai, but even Akutagawa himself.
I left the accounting firm thinking about Ango, the man slowly slipping into evil somewhere in town. Or perhaps we, the Mafia, were the bad guys while Ango and Mimic were on the side of justice trying to bring us down. I started to believe that this hypothesis actually made even more sense than the others. Dazai, the boss, me, everyone in the Mafia—maybe we all deserved to die burdened with sin, solitude, and remorse. For all I knew, that could’ve been proof of the righteousness of this world. Those thoughts plagued my mind from the moment I departed the firm until I got a call from Dazai not long after.
“Hey, Odasaku. I know this is sudden, but we got a clue. I need you to go somewhere for me right now.”
According to him, the Mimic soldiers’ shoes had multiple dead leaves stuck on them from a certain perennial broadleaf that didn’t lose its leaves during that period. The entire plant would have to be withering for the leaves to fall, but perennials would not die so easily. Therefore, one conceivable possibility was that an herbicide was used to kill it.
From there, Dazai’s men searched for specialists who had used herbicides to get rid of trees those past few months. As a result, they found one shop around Yokohama that did in fact remove the same kind of broadleaves. Workers had cleared a bunch of them from the side of the road for a land readjustment project, part of which included expanding a traffic tunnel.
The area was in the mountains and void of any real landmarks. The only facility nearby was a weather observation station that had been abandoned over a decade ago. Nobody dared go near. It slowly fell apart, fading with time. The building was large, isolated, and capable of storing goods and resources. It was the perfect hideout for a group like Mimic, all alone in a foreign country with no one to turn to.
Night was not far off. I drove down the highway toward my destination as violet and cerise quarreled in the sky over the horizon. Somewhere off in the distance, I heard the sound of seabirds squawking.
I stopped my car along a dirt trail that cut into the mountains and got out. From there, I trotted through the thick weedy path until I eventually saw a reinforced concrete building in the darkness, bathing in the crimson glow of twilight.
It was a three-story abandoned building. Ivy crawled up what were once white walls, which had been battered with rain, the sea breeze, and the passage of time. Most of the paint was now gone. In the center of the building was an observation tower for monitoring the sky, topped with a spherical observation room that seemed to have been added more for aesthetics than for anything else.
Since the dirt and trees absorbed most sounds, the area was completely silent as if it were floating in outer space. I didn’t get the feeling there were many people hiding inside. After a moment’s thought, I decided to investigate the run-down building myself before Dazai’s men would arrive. I had a hunch, and if this hunch was correct, then I should’ve been able to find information on Ango there, and that information was probably something I shouldn’t show anyone else in the Mafia.
Pushing through the weeds, I entered the building. There was nothing on the first floor…if you ignored the loose floor tiles, rusted chairs, and dead beetles scattered about. The evening sun peeked in through the cracks of the boarded windows, illuminating the dust particles in the air. I discovered a few footprints in the dust and gravel-littered floor—military boots. It appeared a number of people had been coming to this spot as of late.
I had placed a foot on the staircase to the second floor, which looked as if it could come crumbling down at any moment, when I heard a sound coming from somewhere in the building. It was very faint, only about as loud as a kitten rolling on its back. I strode up the staircase, but I didn’t see a soul on the second floor. No signs of anyone on the third floor, either. It was just as I thought. I rushed upstairs, climbing the observation tower that connected to the observation room.
As I entered a small room at the top of the stairs, I found someone tied to a chair and unable to move. That person yelled at me the moment they noticed I was there.
“Odasaku! Stay back!”
I ignored his command and ran over. That man—Ango—struggled to free his hands, which had been tightly tied behind his back, but the rope didn’t even budge. I slipped behind him and began trying to untie his bonds.
“Why did you come?! The enemies are using this facility as their base!”
“I just got the feeling that you wanted help.”
I started to dismantle the knots—no easy feat.
“I don’t need any help!”
“Really?”
I slipped a finger into one of the rope’s knots, then tugged at it with a viselike grip. It loosened slightly.
“Let me guess one of the reasons you’re in trouble. Mimic found out you were a spy. Am I wrong?”
“…! That’s…”
Ango fell silent.
“Everyone in the Mafia thinks you’re a Mimic spy who infiltrated the Mafia. But it’s actually the opposite; Ango Sakaguchi is a Mafia spy who infiltrated Mimic.”
Ango instinctively opened his eyes wide and looked at me.
“Mimic was watching your room through a sniper rifle scope to make sure the old pistol inside wouldn’t get stolen. But why didn’t they just snipe the Mafia’s boss and get it over with? The reason is simple: You lied
and said you didn’t know where the boss was. But why did you do that? Because the boss decides everything you say and don’t say about the Mafia.”
Ango squeezed his eyes shut. Clenching his teeth, he seemed to be struggled to keep down the emotions bubbling up from within. Before long, he opened his eyes again and said, “Odasaku, please, you have to get out of here. I failed.” Ango signaled to the floor above with his chin. “There’s a time bomb upstairs. Now that they know I betrayed them, they plan on leaving no trace of me.”