Part of Your World {A Bungo Stray Dogs fanfic}

Lost and Found

I lay motionless in my prison of a bed for... I don't even know how long because I broke that stupid clock earlier. I failed. Again. It's my fault Creed got hurt. I got him into this mess.

That means I need to be the one to get him out.

When the lights shut off for the night, I take a deep breath and I force myself to get up and go to the bathroom. I splash cold water on my face and give myself a good shake. Not all that time I spent lying in bed was wasted. While I was at it, I came up with a plan.

Sitting on the floor in the bathroom, I resume my humming. Within minutes, I've got an entire colony of insects moving around the bathroom under my command. Following the sound of my whispers, they all crawl under the door and make their way up the walls. One by one they move onto the lens of the camera until it's completely blocked out. Then my little mouse friend pops out of the drain in the floor. And in his furry mouth, he holds a key- the key to my door. "Good job little buddy," I congratulate him with a scratch behind the ears. He squeaks back and returns to the drain. I listen as the pitter-patter of his tiny feet begins to fade away.

Using the key, I let myself out of the room and lock the door back. The insects remove their bodies from the camera and disperse back to wherever they came from. I don't know how long I have before they notice I'm not in the bathroom anymore, so I've got to make this quick. I move from room to room, looking and listening for any sign of Creed. "Creed! Creed where are you?" I call out in a whisper. All the way at the end of the hall I finally hear him. He's whimpering quietly, calling for me.

I find the room where they're keeping him and sneak in, closing the door behind me. What I didn't know was that there was a guard inside the room. "Hey! You're not supposed to be in here!" the guard yells at me when he notices my entrance. He lunges for me, but I've had enough. I swiftly side step his attack and slam his head into the wall of iron cages stacked beside us. He immediately blacks out and his body slides to the floor.

"Creed!" I yell as I spot him across the room. I rush over to his cage and unlock it. His face and paws have been crusted over with blood from earlier, but other than that he seems okay. I remove the ropes tied tightly around his front and back legs, then take off his muzzle. I can't help but start crying again as I get a closer look at his wounds. I rip off the end of my long skirt and use it to wrap his front paws, now clawless, as best I can. "Think you can still walk bud?" I ask him. Creed gives me a determined nod and stands up. He's a little shaky at first, but he gets the hang of it. On the way out I decide to steal the guard's gun, just in case. I'm about to walk out the door when Creed bites my skirt and pulls me back.

I look down at him asking, "What? What's wrong?"

'What about them?' he whines back at me, motioning with his head towards the other cages. Looking up at all of them, I realize Creed isn't the only animal that the Mafia has gotten a hold of. In fact, they've got quite an array here. I see a couple of other dogs, a snake, a bird, a tarantula, and some really big lizard-looking creature.

"I don't know...." I say. But then I look back down at Creed, and he's giving me his big puppy dog eyes. How am I supposed to say no to that? "Oh all right," I finally answer. I strip the guard of his big key ring and go from cage to cage, unlocking them as quickly as possible. As soon as I open the door, they all rush out in a frenzy. I guess that's one way to cause a distraction... I think to myself.

"Let's go, Creed," I tell him. Slowly but surely, Creed and I make our way up out of the basement floor. Thankfully most of the guards are busy dealing with the wild animals I just released, so we don't run into any trouble. And then an alarm goes off throughout the entire building. I guess they noticed I was missing...

The lights begin flashing red all around us, and there's a siren blaring in our ears. We hear footsteps coming from both directions in the narrow hallway. Creed and I stand back to back, ready to fight, but I know he's in no condition. I search everywhere for another option. Then I spot it- an air vent a few meters away. I rush over and use a bobby pin from my hair to unscrew it as fast as I can with my trembling hands. Just as the owners of said oncoming footsteps come into range to spot us, I shove Creed into the vent. "Go! I'll meet you outside!" I tell him. He whines at me through the grating, pleading for me to come with him. "I can't fit bud. I'll hold them off and then meet you outside. I promise," I respond, pressing my palm against the vent cap. Regretfully, he agrees and starts army crawling down the air duct. I watch as his tail swishes back and forth into the darkness.

By the time Creed moves out of my sight, the mafia members are upon me. Spinning around to face them, I whip out the guard's gun I stole earlier. There's three on the left and four on the right. Looks like we're going left then. Running straight at them, I shoot down two of the men on my left but miss one of them. And now my gun is out of ammo. This one's a big guy too, but that doesn't stop me. I throw my gun aside and continue charging directly at him. With an overly confident look plastered on his face, he doesn't even draw his weapon. Instead, he takes a wide stance and opens his arms forming a wall like he's getting ready to tackle me. Just as I move within his reach, he lunges for me, but he's too slow. I dive headfirst to the ground and roll between his legs. On my way out, I grab onto one of his ankles and give it a good yank. Humpty-Dumpty comes crashing down with a huge thud, landing flat on his face. I have to admit, I'm a little too proud about that one, but there's no time to gloat. The other four are still on my tail. I make a break for the front door. Shit. Of course they're guarding the front door. Looks like the only way left to go is up.

I rush to the stairwell. Thank God Kunikida made me do all that cardio. I run up three flights of stairs in no time. The guards haven't gotten up here yet, so I take a second to catch my breath and figure out what to do next. I'm still hunched over thinking when someone breaks the silence.

"Break's over," Akutagawa's voice sounds from behind me.

I stand up slowly to face him. "I'm not going to fight you, Akutagwa," I say, my voice slightly laced with sadness.

"Fine," he says with a shrug. Then yells out, "She's over here you idiots!" Then he has the audacity to just walk away. I would run after him and force him to talk to me, but now I've got a hoard of mafia members closing in on me, and I don't have a weapon. But at least I have a plan now. It's so crazy, it just might work...

I take off running as fast as I can away from them. They start shooting at me but I dodge them moving left and right, ducking my head and jumping. Instead of hitting me, the bullets shoot straight toward the big glass wall ahead of me- the window I'm running directly at. The stray bullets have left cracks in the glass, but the window has yet to shatter. At some point, the oncoming mafia members realize that I'm running full speed at this window and that I don't plan on stopping. When my plan becomes clear to them, they put their guns away and stop chasing me. "She's crazy!" I hear one of them say. Yeah, they're probably right about that.

The group of men watch in a mix of awe and terror as I plant my last step on the carpeted floor of the hallway and launch my body at the glass panel in front of me. I protect my head with my arms and take the brunt of the impact with my right shoulder. The window, having already been weakened by the bullets as I'd planned, shatters easily upon contact. The shards of glass sparkle beautifully in the sunlight as they plummet to the concrete below. For a moment, everything is peaceful there in mid-air. The wind rushes weightlessly past my body, whistling in my ears and blowing my hair around my face. I raise a hand to my mouth, placing my curved fingers onto moistened lips to release a crystal-clear whistle. The wind carries the sound far and wide. And then...

I'm no longer falling. I'm flying.

Upon my call, a group of Black Kite hawks swooped down and picked me up with their long sharp talons. They fly me elegantly down to the ground. I look up to see the mafia members who were chasing me watching in amazement from the broken third-floor window. I smile up at them. But then, for some unknown reason, the birds decide to release me before we've even reached the ground. For a split second, I'm falling again. I begin to panic with a loud gasp and close my eyes tight until I land in a pair of strong arms. I open them and find I'm looking into a familiar pair of brown eyes.

"Dazai," I say wrapping my arms around his neck, "you came for me!" Happy tears begin to prick the corners of my eyes.

"Of course I did."