“Yo. How’ve ya been?”
I greeted the kids, each one focused intently on passing time in various ways: reading picture books, drawing, throwing a soft, fist-sized ball against the wall, playing cat’s cradle. The youngest of the bunch was a four-year-old girl, and the oldest was a nine-year-old boy. Nobody looked up.
“You guys aren’t causing too much trouble for Pops, right? He’s ex-military, really tough. So if you guys complain too much, he’s gonna—”
I was teasing the kids when I noticed something: There were supposed to be five of them, but I saw only four. I sensed something move in the bunk bed on the right. I instantly dropped my hips, lowering my posture. A nimble figure leaped out from the shadows on the bed—the fifth kid. I ducked my head and dodged him.
However, he was just a decoy. The little girl, who had been drawing, latched on to my right leg as I was caught off-balance. This was their plan from the start. I lifted my one free leg to step forward in preparation for the real attack that was about to come, but I couldn’t move; the string that was being used for cat’s cradle up until a second ago was now drawn right across my path of movement. It was a trap. My ankle got caught on the thick, taut string, and I lost my footing, causing me to flounder uselessly in midair.
I grabbed on to the bunk bed with my right hand and avoided falling to the floor, but the kids had predicted that outcome, too. They had colored in the bed’s handrails with crayons until they were slick, and my right hand slid off. Both of my hands hit the floor. I instinctively tried to get back up, but unfortunately for me, I’d left my back momentarily wide-open to the kiddie gang. There was no way they would let this opportunity go by. I could feel the seven- and eight-year-old boys lunging at me from behind. If I let them get me now, I’d soon be no different from a prisoner marching to the guillotine—I could see it. I needed to teach them just how frightening the real Mafia was.
I swiftly knocked the ball rolling by my side with the back of my hand, bouncing it off the wall and hitting the seven-year-old right in the face. Unable to see his target anymore, he landed on the floor and took cover. Next, I pulled my ankle free, tearing the string trap apart before putting my weight on my left leg. When I lifted my right leg high into the air, the kid latched on to it squealed with joy and dropped to the floor. All that was left was the eight-year-old lunging at me from behind, but he alone wouldn’t be able to hold me down. I stood up with him hanging on to my back.
The agile kid, the one who’d been hiding in the bed, was the gang’s leader. Even after witnessing the unsightly defeat of his men, he still boldly went for the attack. Since this was his plan all along, he couldn’t back down no matter how obviously hopeless it was.
I caught the leader as he tried to charge me head-on. He made an admirable attempt to grab my legs and knock me off-balance, but there was just too much of a weight difference. Seizing him under the arms, I lifted him up, turned him upside down, and shook him. He bleated like a goat with a hangover.
“Give up?” I asked.
“Never!” he screamed.
With no will to fight, the others simply watched to see how much longer their leader could maintain his dignity as commander in chief.
“Then it looks like some Mafia-style torture is in order.”
With both hands under his armpits, I tickled the kid as if there were no tomorrow.
“Hya-ha-ha! W-wai— Ha-ha-hee-hee-hee!”
It took two minutes and forty-two seconds before he agreed to my terms of surrender.
I talked to the children for some time after that. Apparently, life at the restaurant was passable for the most part, but they were rather displeased with the food menu rotating every three days. They demanded swift improvement, or at least permission to be in the kitchen.
“Pops is nice, but…,” the oldest boy said. “Like, he treats us all like kids, but we’re all adults here, ya know? Is us growin’ up so quickly a problem for the adults or something?”
I told him that it probably was.
“We’re gonna get you next time!” the kids proclaimed, to which I responded that I was looking forward to it—and I honestly was. After that, I retired from the second floor. When I returned to the restaurant, I heard a new customer’s voice—a familiar one at that.
“Whoa! This is spicy, mister! Really spicy! What’s your secret ingredient? Lava?!”
“Ha-ha-ha, ya think so? That’s what Odasaku always has. Hey, Odasaku, welcome back. How were the kids?”
“It was close, but I remain undefeated,” I replied. “However, they predicted where I would grab on to, so they colored it in with crayons to make me slip. I was really worried for a second there. You said they’d be able to hold up a bank if there were ten of them, but I bet they’d be able to pull that off in two more years with their current numbers.”
“Maybe I should recruit them…” Dazai smirked while wiping his sweat. “I heard all about it, Odasaku. You’re raising five kids, huh? And not only that, they’re orphans from the Dragon’s Head Conflict.”
Even if I’d tried to hide it, Dazai would’ve been able to figure it out with just half a day’s worth of research.
“Yeah.” I nodded.
The children were orphans. They would have all died if I hadn’t saved them. Two years ago, various syndicates, including the Port Mafia, were involved in a large-scale underground dispute known as the Dragon’s Head Conflict. A certain skill user died, leaving behind five hundred billion yen’s worth of dirty money, which led to a bloody, murderous frenzy that spread throughout the entire Kanto region. Most illegal armed organizations came close to extinction as a result.
I also participated in the struggle. It was such a bloodbath that you’d get attacked once every ten minutes just walking the streets. The result was countless scores of bodies.
The children on the second floor were kids who had nowhere to go after the incident was over.
“A Mafia member who refuses to kill, talented yet has no interest in advancing through the ranks, a man who’s raising five orphans—Sakunosuke Oda.” Dazai smirked. “You’re a strange guy. You might be the strangest guy in the entire Mafia.”
Not as long as they had Dazai.
I faced the restaurant owner once more and pulled out an envelope of bills from my coat pocket.
“Pops, this should be enough money for the kids for now.”
“You sure this is okay, Odasaku?” There was a worried tone in the owner’s voice as he wiped his fingers on his apron and accepted the envelope. “I mean, I know most of your earnings end up here… If it’s all right, I can throw in some of my money, too.”
“I really appreciate you letting us use your place, Pops. That, plus the curry here, is more than enough.”
“Odasaku, do you seriously eat this spicy curry all the time?” Dazai asked as he took a sip of water. “It’s so hot that my jaw’s about to fall off.”
“Dazai, what are you doing here anyway?” I asked.
“I have something I need to tell you about the case. A lot of things came to light after we last talked, especially about the enemy.”
There was only one case I knew of.
“Pops, sorry to ask this, but could you give us some privacy?”
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll be in the back getting things ready, so just holler if we get a customer.”
The owner seemed to have sussed out the situation from my expression alone, and he took off his apron before gleefully heading out the back door. Dazai ended up eating most of his curry while tirelessly downing his cup of water. During that time, I let myself into the kitchen, made some coffee, and poured myself a cup.
“Man, that was hot. Why does curry have to be that hot? Does it have something against mankind? More people would eat it if it were less spicy. This is negligence in food culture.”
I thought about it for a moment before answering. “If more people ate it, then nobody would eat anything else, thus completely destroying food culture as we know it.”<
br />
“Makes sense.” Dazai nodded, seemingly convinced.
“So what was it you wanted to tell me?”
“I’ll get straight to the point. It’s a foreign crime syndicate,” he started to explain while pouring another glass of water. “They’ve only been in Japan for a short while. They used to be a well-known European skilled crime syndicate, but an organization of skill users in Great Britain known as the Order of the Clock Tower drove them out of the continent, and they scurried away to Japan.”
“They’re a European criminal organization?”
Europe was home to top-class skill users employed by both the government and various criminal organizations, and as a result, those skill users built an extremely elaborate and complex power structure throughout the continent. That was why such a strict surveillance system had been put in place to prevent such individuals from escaping to other countries.
When I asked Dazai how they could have gotten here, he tilted his head and replied, “Yeah, a crime syndicate of skill users shouldn’t be able to illegally enter another country that easily. There has to be more to this than meets the eye. They might have a collaborator within Japan.”
“But what did they come all the way to Japan for anyway?”
“Beats me. The only way we’ll know is if we ask them. We can guess, though. They escaped to a foreign land without a soul to rely on. This might sound snide, but they’re dead broke. So maybe they’re trying to make it big by stealing the Port Mafia’s turf and smuggling route.”
It was possible. There’s only one thing that poor crime syndicates want: money, money, and more money. But there was just one thing bothering me. I started to open my mouth to express my concerns.
“Hold on. Hear me out until the end.” Dazai stopped me as if he could read my mind. “I know what you want to say, Odasaku. They’re way too skilled to just be a group of low-level criminals who joined forces, right? I thought the same thing. You almost never see a sniper and spotter operating in tandem around here, let alone so proficiently. Those were ex-military. According to the intel I received, the leader of their organization is a powerful skill user and soldier commanding a seasoned group of men. I should be getting more detailed information soon. Anyway, you can’t underestimate these guys. If they systematically attack with such precise tactics, then even the Port Mafia might come tumbling down.”
“Does the boss know about this?”
“I told him,” Dazai reluctantly replied. “He appointed me as commander of the front line and tasked me with devising a strategy for Mimic, so I immediately set up a few traps—simple mousetraps. I’ve got a feeling the enemy might make a move soon.”
Mimic wasn’t just going to steal some weapons and try to snipe us—only to then hang their hats up and go home. Dazai was right. They were going to strike again…and it was going to be big.
“This is a really basic question, but…,” I said, then continued, “…shouldn’t the government be cracking down on crime syndicates with skill users?”
There were more than a few people in the world with unusual powers, including Dazai and me. The type of skill differs per person, but some are highly dangerous. That was why the government established a special agency to constantly surveil these dangerous individuals in secret. Those government agents, too, are skill users, and highly capable ones at that.
“You mean the Home Affairs Ministry’s Special Division for Unusual Powers, right?” Dazai cocked his head. “But see, they’re a secret organization, so they don’t really show their faces much. Besides, the Port Mafia is a powerful crime syndicate with skill users as well. I bet nothing would make that division happier than if the Mafia and Mimic took each other out.”
Dazai had a point. If the Special Division for Unusual Powers was so obsessed with eradicating crime involving skill users, then they’d have to take out the Port Mafia first. I’d heard from Ango once before that although the Division was a government agency with experienced skill users, they had only a few elites within their ranks; that would make it difficult for them to take a massive organization such as the Port Mafia head-on and win unscathed. They would most certainly have casualties. Apparently, the Special Division for Unusual Powers was trying to avoid that at all costs, so they stuck to simply keeping an eye on the Port Mafia from a safe distance. Of course, they’d have to bestir themselves if there were a lot of civilian casualties as well.
Only one question remained, although difficult to ask.
“What about Ango?”
Dazai didn’t immediately reply, sipping on his freshly brewed cup of coffee in silence. Even he needed time to prepare an answer.
“We’re almost completely certain that Ango is the one who leaked the code to the armory,” he muttered with eyes downcast on his cup. Then he glanced over at me as if he was trying to see my reaction. I didn’t say a word.
“Everyone in the organization is issued a different passcode to avoid trouble. And—”
“The code Mimic used to open the armory matched the one given to Ango, right?”
I crossed my arms. The missing pieces of the puzzle were slowly coming together. The pattern I saw, though, was one I wish I hadn’t.
“Hey, Dazai.” I took a seat by his side. For a split second, I felt as if I were in a dream. It was as though nothing had changed—just like the other day when I was sitting with Ango and Dazai at the bar. “Is there any possibility that someone framed Ango and is pulling the strings from behind the scenes?”
“It’s not out of the question. That’s always a possibility,” Dazai answered, but he didn’t seem to believe the words coming out of his own mouth. “If someone in the Mafia was colluding with Mimic, then sure, it’s possible. But I can’t think of a single person who’d benefit from that.”
Dazai shook his head. I felt the same way. All we could do at that point was find Ango as soon as possible and ask him. Whether that would bring us the results we hoped for was anyone’s guess, though.
The Mafia’s intelligence officer—Ango Sakaguchi. Why did he betray the syndicate?
During the battle of intelligence in the previous war of the syndicates, there were various barriers preventing members of enemy organizations from turning to the opposing side: money, the opposite sex, family, pride, a sense of belonging. From what I’d heard, if all of these barriers were cleared, then the enemy would most definitely defect. So what would’ve been Ango’s reason to join Mimic?
I looked to Dazai in search of an answer. He was hanging his head, contemplating in silence. His expression was…
Dazai was…
“…Ha-ha-ha.”
…laughing.
“At first, I just thought they were your average crime syndicate, but if they’re good enough for Ango to join, then that means a little arm-twisting isn’t gonna make them cry and say they’re sorry. Plus, Ango’s no pushover as an enemy. He’s no walk in the park. This is getting exciting. I bet they’re gonna back me into a corner, then—”
“Dazai.”
He paused when I called his name. I didn’t have anything else to say, though; I simply said his name.
Nobody knew what Dazai was really thinking.
It’s an unwritten rule in the Mafia to not stick your nose where it doesn’t belong. One must never open the door to another’s heart and try to judge them for the darkness tucked within. That was one nice thing about the Mafia.
But maybe, just maybe, that was the wrong approach—or at the very least, when it came to the man sitting next to me. Somebody probably should’ve tied him up, pried his chest open, and stuffed a vacuum cleaner inside. Then, as he screamed and cried until they needed to punch him to shut him up, they’d suck every last bit out of his chest and stamp it into the ground.
But in reality, such a vacuum didn’t exist. Chests don’t open up like that, and no one is capable of such feats. What we see is everything, and everything we see, we ignore. All we can do is stand before the deep ditch between us and others and k
eep silent.
“Well, I should get going,” Dazai said before standing.
“Dazai.” He turned around when I called out to him. Rubbing my hands together, I looked down at the empty plate and coffee cup, then back up. “Are you thinking that way because—?”
Out of nowhere, Dazai’s cell phone began to ring. He lightly bowed to me before placing the phone against his ear and answering. A few moments went by as he listened to whoever was on the other side, but soon enough, his lips suddenly twisted into a grin.
“All right.”
He hung up, then faced me once more before saying:
“We caught a mouse in our trap.”
There was no distinction between day and night in the Yokohama Settlement.
What was once the living quarters for a former occupying army was now a joint settlement with strong influences left over from the foreign consul. On paper, the Japanese military police and the consul police worked together to maintain public order within the Settlement. However, the law’s particulars were incredibly ambiguous, leading to countless gray areas. Numerous military parties, financial conglomerates, and criminals gathered here from all over the world like moths to a flame in order to benefit from these loopholes.
Even the MP cannot carelessly dabble in the Settlement’s affairs. It’s virtually an extraterritorial “Demon City,” which is one reason why Yokohama gained public notoriety for acting as the largest base for criminals with skills.
In one corner of this Demon City was an underground casino run by the Port Mafia. It was neither glamorous nor luxurious, but instead rather plain and ambiguous; it basically blended into the scenery. At least, that was how it appeared. But there was a reason for that. All the gambling done inside was illegal.
Osamu Dazai and the Dark Era Page 6
