INTERLUDE II
Nightfall.
Tilted on its side, a police van burns on the street alongside the coast facing the Yokohama harbor. Two officers lie dead under the shaking car.
“W-wait! Wh-what does the M-Mafia want with me?!”
Two more figures are still alive. One is a young arms dealer. He was arrested and in the middle of being transported to a military police facility when he was attacked and injured.
“You really don’t know? How absurd.”
The only other living soul, approaching the young man, is a dark shadow cloaked in a wriggling overcoat—Akutagawa.
“You disrespected the Port Mafia. You purposely fed us information on that organ-trafficking cabdriver so that we would dispose of him for you. Every person who has ever deceived us for personal gain has paid the price, and this time will be no different.”
The young man falls on his rear as Akutagawa’s black boots get closer.
“N-nobody! Nobody can kill me! Die!”
Right as the young man lifts his arm into the air, a tattoo-like pattern appears on Akutagawa’s skin. The number is “21.” Then, as he swings his arm, he swiftly accelerates Akutagawa backward. However…
“What—?!”
Although Akutagawa was knocked back, he gently stops before slowly returning to where he had been standing, unfazed.
“Is that it?”
His overcoat transformed into countless black needles that pierced the ground, acting as a cushion to support his body and soften the impact.
The two-headed beast Rashomon arises from the overcoat and soars in the arms dealer’s direction. The young man tries to dodge, but he is too late, and the cloaked hound’s razor-sharp jaws tear him apart. He screams in agony until he is nothing more than a pile of meat. Akutagawa coldly continues to watch.
“Wow, there goes my appetite.”
He turns around to see a shadowy figure behind him.
Akutagawa immediately releases Rashomon’s dark blades. The blades, sharp enough to slice through metal, shoot toward the shadowy figure’s neck but are deflected by some invisible force the moment they connect. Rashomon’s fangs claimed only a few layers of skin before they were blocked by a skill.
“Hey, where are your manners? We’re business partners, are we not?”
“That still doesn’t change the fact that you used the Port Mafia for your own personal gain.”
A middle-aged Caucasian man wearing a black cap walks out from the shadows—the same American agent Dazai and Kunikida met at the embassy. The agent scratches his neck as he addresses Akutagawa casually.
“This is some sort of misunderstanding. I’m a client of yours, in a sense. You get the foreign trade route that young arms dealer once had, and we get to say we prevented an illegal exporter from our country from stirring up trouble in Japan. It’s a fair deal if you ask me. So could you quit acting like I stole from you?”
“Deceiving and instigating is common practice for agents. I am sure you have other reasons for getting involved.”
“Well, yeah, we do. But don’t you worry about a thing. It’s over,” the agent continues with a smile. “I can’t even begin to tell you how spooked we were when the Azure King started killing people. See, one of the lawmakers he executed was an illegal collaborator we’d had in our pocket. That Azure King probably had no idea, but it would have come out if the case dragged on too long. That’s why we needed him to retire permanently…which is why we decided to investigate the case behind the scenes and tip off the Armed Detective Agency about his whereabouts. Of course, we falsified the source of the information. Then we fed the police investigation headquarters faulty intel to create confusion within the chain of command. It went exactly how we planned. The Azure King was surrounded by a few police officers, so he blew himself up and died. The truth remains shrouded in mystery, and everyone was relieved knowing the dangerous criminal was gone. A happy ending for us all.”
After taking a few moments to ruminate over what the agent said, Akutagawa opens his mouth.
“Setting aside the arms dealer, I have a hard time believing a foreign intelligence agency would kill a Japanese terrorist to protect a secret. Why did you do it?”
“Oh, it’s got nothing to do with any governmental intelligence agency. I belong to another group as well. We call ourselves the Guild.”
“A double agent? How cliché.”
“It’s a side business of mine. Every member in the Guild’s got a day job.” The agent turns on his heel, then begins to walk away. “I’ll probably be getting in touch with the Mafia again soon with another job. Until then.”
Akutagawa sternly watches the agent go. “Wait. I’d like to ask you something.”
The agent stops in his tracks.
“I’m looking for someone. He has the ability to nullify others’ skills upon contact. Know anybody like that?”
“Sorry, afraid not.”
“Then get out of my sight.”
“You got it.”
He begins to walk again before disappearing into the darkness of the evening twilight.
“…Where did you go? Why did you suddenly disappear?” Akutagawa soliloquizes, alone on the street. “For a moment, I thought you might have been the Azure King, but I was wrong. Where are you? There’s no way you’re dead. You are somewhere here in Yokohama. I just know it.”
The winds of the night collect his words and carry them away.
“I’ll find my mentor if it’s the last thing I do. I’ll find you, former Port Mafia executive Dazai.”
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