Experiments to chaos

Chapter 25- Battle before dawn

They all sat around in the conference room once again, but it was very much different to before. There was a very prominent air of fear and anxiety around them this time, a ticking clock was looming over all of their heads, and many figures were missing from before. Akutagawa as expected was nowhere to be seen and, though it was foreseen, it didn't put anyone else's mind at ease. The absence of monochromatic boy really worried one person in particular... Dazai. The rabid dog's old mentor had seen how Elisabeth had hurt the poor boy and a painful chill ran over his spine whenever he thought of whatever despicable things he may be being forced through. It just hurt him and many others, knowing they couldn't do anything for now. Along with the lack of the Mafia's rabid dog's presence, Ranpo was also absent. Poe, as previously mentioned, was in a critical condition and Ranpo was absolutely set on staying with him so for the seeable future he was communicating via phone. Currently the president had placed his phone on the middle of the table on speaker so Ranpo could chime in whenever he felt necessary with ease. It created some normalcy because Ranpo would unapologetically, interrupt others to talk about his important point, just like normal.  However, beside the obvious people there were two other key figures not present: Naomi and Tanizaki. The absence was definitely confusing and seeing how the current meeting was extremely important, they of course had been searched thoroughly for but ultimately remained unfound. It felt off and, when almost half the mafia were crammed into the tiny room, felt even more odd to have two key members of the agency missing.

The Tanizaki siblings were as vibrant as ever in many, preferred to remain unnamed, ways so there absence definitely left a slight weirdness in the air. It was extremely odd and off putting for everyone. The siblings were both hard-workers and tried their best to make sure they were always present at work meetings, so them being absent from the most important meeting definitely felt wrong. Also, given all the previous events leading up to this meeting, there were many negative implications for them missing which the president didn't like one bit. In order to quash the idea of anything happening to the two of them, Fukuzawa had ordered all agency members to search for the pair before the meeting could start. Seeing the serious glare of determination in Fukuzawa's eyes, everyone dropped everything and frantically started searching for them. Atsushi ran round the building and dorms in case they were just delayed or overslept; Dazai (with Chuuya trying to help) searched through Tanizaki's desk for leftover hints to where his coworker might be and Kunikida attempted to call the siblings on his phone. However, as it is now known, they were unsuccessful and when Ranpo called to start the meeting, they knew they could no longer delay the inevitable and had to get down to business.

Down to business was indeed what they did, no one wasted a single second in getting deep into the important matters and before long the meeting was on its way. It started off slowly with all new information being relayed to ensure everyone was on the same page; once that was done they moved onto the nitty gritty details that were the main reason of today's meeting. Surprisingly, for once there was no banter, no arguments between agencies or so on; everyone here recognised the grave seriousness of what was to come and perfectly understood that anything that could derail this meeting could also derail their happy future. Everyone worked together, they all had a combined desire to protect Yokohama and their futures which glowed brightly inside them. The rapid heartbeats and waves of fear could be felt by each other, letting them all know they were in this together. The meeting went on for a bit, with various issues and ideas being addressed. They knew they had to create a battle because walking into this without one would be signing their death warrants. Additionally, as well as making the battle plan they had to make it quick because they had no idea how long they had until Elisabeth enacted her plan, and if they were really unlucky she may have already started it.

"Ok to summarise the plan, the basic goal is to get me and Chuuya to Elisabeth before she finishes the ritual so i can deactivate her ability. All of you in the meantime will deal with any obstacle that she would've placed to prevent us succeeding." Dazai stated,