Chapter 6

In other words...

Chūya Nakahara rushed out of the office. Sure enough, the guard at the door was long gone, his suit jacket tossed carelessly on the floor. The elevator's floor indicator showed the first floor, but none of them had gone downstairs just now. It could only have been that guard!

Just then, Chūya Nakahara heard a faint sound. He pulled open the box beside him where weapons were collected and found two grown men crammed inside. One had been stripped down to his underwear. They stared at Chūya Nakahara in terror, then, after recognizing him, looked at him pleadingly.

Chūya Nakahara slammed his fist against the wall, gritting his teeth.

"Damn it!"

Chapter 6

After pulling the two members out of the box, then running to the roof to bring back Kajii Motojiro, who was calling for help, Chūya Nakahara returned to Mori Ougai's office, his expression cold.

"Boss."

"Thank you, Chuuya."

The two guards stood trembling at the side. One wore only his suit jacket, with nothing but underwear covering his lower half, a very improper sight. Kajii Motojiro had just been rescued and was sitting on the floor, rubbing the back of his neck. He had been struck hard there, leaving him somewhat dazed.

Kōyō Ozaki frowned at the guard without pants, but there was no time for him to go back and put some on.

"Hirotsu has had the Port Mafia's exits sealed off, and the entire Black Lizard has mobilized to find him." Mori Ougai rested his elbows on his desk and interlaced his hands beneath his chin. "Now then, did either of you see who stuffed you into the box?"

The guard shook his head. "Sorry, we didn't see anything."

"Huh?" Chūya Nakahara frowned. "Someone knocked you out, and you didn't even get a glimpse of who did it?"

"We have no idea how we passed out. When we woke up, we found ourselves tied up and stuffed into the box." Fear crept into the other guard's voice. "Neither the detection tools we carried nor our instincts gave us any indication that anyone suspicious was there, but..."

But an intruder had knocked them out all the same.

Chūya Nakahara understood that they couldn't be blamed entirely for this.

There was no doubt that the guards at Mori Ougai's office were the best. Most were outstanding survivors of the Dragon Head Conflict, with exceptional instincts honed on the battlefield and a keen sensitivity to dangerous people. Equipped with detection tools as well, they should have been almost impossible to get past into Mori Ougai's office.

"I ran into a guard when I came in. He was probably the one who knocked them out," Chūya Nakahara said. "He had a distinctive appearance: white hair and red eyes. He claimed to have taken part in the Dragon Head Conflict, but we can't rule out the possibility that he deliberately dyed his hair white and wore colored contacts."

Mori Ougai closed his eyes when he heard the description.

His suspicion had been confirmed completely.

The thoughts he had entertained many times, but which had gradually faded with the passage of time, were dragged back out and made reality.

Kamiki Yūhaku.

"What about you, Kajii Motojiro? Did you see anything?" Kōyō Ozaki seemed to have realized something too. She immediately questioned Kajii Motojiro, who was still sitting on the floor.

"...See?" Kajii Motojiro pressed his temples. "I don't know. He was wearing a hood, so I only saw the lower half of his face, but he had a crow with him."

Kōyō Ozaki's eyes widened slightly. "What did you say? A crow?"

"And he wasn't hurt, either," Kajii Motojiro shouted. "I noticed someone behind me, so I used a bomb right away, but he completely ignored its effects and even named my ability. I don't know what happened after that. When I woke up, I was hanging up there."

As he spoke, Kajii Motojiro reached into his pocket. "Oh, right, I think he stuffed a piece of paper in my pocket."

Chūya Nakahara took the note from Kajii Motojiro and saw irregular writing on the irregularly shaped scrap that had been torn off at random.

It wasn't that the writing was particularly messy, but that the characters were terribly formed, like the strokes of a preschooler, with an innocent charm to them. Rather than writing, it was more like drawing.

The man had drawn a line of words on the paper.

"Make him turn himself in, or it happens again."

"What's this?" Chūya Nakahara looked at the baffling note. "Turn himself in? Who's supposed to turn himself in?"

"Even after four years, his handwriting is as distinctive as ever. That's why you called me here, isn't it, Boss?" Kōyō Ozaki took the note from Chūya Nakahara's hand. "Didn't he leave Yokohama four years ago? He even left Japan. When did he come back?"

"I don't know, but I didn't expect him to give us such a grand present as soon as he returned to Yokohama." Mori Ougai tapped the desk with his index finger's knuckle. "He used a crow he'd raised to blow up the warehouse without leaving a trace, took advantage of the ensuing chaos to reach the top floor, and even managed to fool Chuuya along the way. Just what I'd expect from him."

Chūya Nakahara looked blankly at Kōyō Ozaki and Mori Ougai. "Boss, Big Sis Kōyō, who are you talking about?"

"Four years ago, the only intelligence agent ever to successfully resign from the Port Mafia: Kamiki Yūhaku."

"Him?"

Chūya Nakahara didn't know the intelligence agent. After all, he had been away on business when Kamiki Yūhaku resigned. Osamu Dazai was more familiar with him than Chūya was. Supposedly, Kamiki Yūhaku had been the Port Mafia's best intelligence agent, able to obtain any information within the allotted time.

When Chūya Nakahara returned from his business trip four years ago, the defection of Osamu Dazai, the youngest executive, had shocked him far more than the resignation of Kamiki Yūhaku, the intelligence agent.

Though, now that he thought about it... Kamiki Yūhaku really had worked with Chūya Nakahara during the Dragon Head Conflict. He was also the one who had found the person who started it.

Could it be that he wasn't lying, and Osamu Dazai really did come up with a code name like that?!

"Chuuya?"

"No, it's nothing." Chūya Nakahara came back to his senses. "But why would a former Port Mafia intelligence agent hang Kajii from the roof and blow up the Port Mafia's weapons warehouse?"

Mori Ougai looked at Kōyō Ozaki. "I don't know the answer to that either. Lady Kōyō, you should know him better than I do. After all, you were his top superior back then."

"I wouldn't presume." Kōyō Ozaki sat back down in her chair. "I only supervised him for a year. After that, you brought him into your Special Intelligence Agency, Boss, so he was no longer under my jurisdiction. But Kamiki is indeed harder to understand than most people."

"A man who's passionate about growing flowers and raising crows, and spends every day in the company of nonhumans, suddenly blowing up his former employer? For him, that doesn't seem particularly unusual."

Chūya Nakahara: ...

What kind of person was he for Big Sis Kōyō to consider it normal for him to do something like that?

"But if I remember correctly, he wasn't loyal." Kōyō Ozaki looked at Mori. "He even compiled a 'Port Mafia Members' Loyalty to Mori Ougai' and boldly marked his own name at zero percent."

"That's right. Incidentally, Chuuya, your loyalty was ninety-five percent."

"Huh?" Chūya Nakahara was caught off guard. Then he lowered his head and spoke bashfully. "Thank you."

"Unfortunately, Ango found the booklet and burned it," Mori Ougai said regretfully. "I really would have liked to see what he'd managed to collect."

Kajii Motojiro watched them, then raised his hand after a moment. "Wait, Boss, is that intelligence agent's ability the same as mine?"

"Of course not," Mori Ougai said. "Kamiki's ability is different from anyone else's. It's a defensive ability."

"Ah, yes. It was the first time I'd learned that such an ability existed in this world as well."

"So what is it?"

"Kamiki Yūhaku's ability is called Survival With No Hope. It's a passive defensive ability triggered when blood leaves the surface of his body. In other words, the more seriously he's injured, the stronger the ability becomes, and its powerful defense in turn protects him while he's injured."

Chūya Nakahara frowned. "Isn't that trading injury for injury?"

"That's right, an equivalent exchange," Mori Ougai said meaningfully. "A very fair equivalent exchange."

Realization dawned on Kajii Motojiro. "So that's why he cut his finger beforehand and bled so much."

"...He knew from the start that I would use a Lemon Bomb."

So why exactly did he do all this?

"Chūya, investigate this," Mori said, looking at him. "Make sure you get to the bottom of it before Kamiki Yūhaku really does come back a second time. As for you, Kajii, don't leave Port Mafia headquarters for the time being. Stay somewhere safe and watch your surroundings."

"Yes."

A crow flew out of the bushes. The Black Lizard, who had been specifically instructed to keep a close eye out for crows, were immediately drawn by its cawing. They promptly chased after it, hoping to catch its owner.

But besides returning to its owner, a crow could also be sent out by its owner to draw the enemy's attention.

Kamiki Yūhaku sat on a tree trunk, watching the crow fly farther and farther away into the sky, a gentle smile in his red eyes.

"See you in a bit," Kamiki Yūhaku mouthed soundlessly, giving a small wave toward the sky. A bandage covered one of his fingers.

Most of the people below had been drawn away, though a smaller number were still patrolling. Kamiki Yūhaku weighed his physical strength. Should he carefully avoid them, or go straight up and knock them all out? As he was deliberating, someone emerged from the nearby Port Mafia building.

He wasn't very tall. He wore a black coat and a tall hat, and the people around him made him look excessively short, but his presence surpassed anyone else's.

"Mr. Nakahara!"

"Search thoroughly. Don't miss a single spot."

"Yes, sir!"