The Untold Origins of The Port Mafia

⏲ Miles To Go ⏲

It's been a month and there still has been no one found in all of Japan that comes close to touching Ranpo's olympian intelligence.

'No matter, there is still the rest of the world.' Fukuzawa sighs, shaking away the fatigue as he continues to pour over lists of the world's most intelligent. Results from trivia competitions, chess and maths tournaments, memory challenges and more. No one is good enough.

Normally he'd have mafia grunts do this type of work, but this is personal. No one else knows exactly what Ranpo needs and all affairs relating to the third mafia executive are classified anyhow.

Just as the man's eyes start to close again he spots something sticking up from the bottom of the pile. It looks different from the other perfectly white papers.

He pulls it out, careful so as not to rip it.

'What's this, a newspaper clipping? And it's American? How odd.'

He presses it against the desk with his palm to flatten it. The paper's name says it's located somewhere called Boston, and the headline reads:

"Incredible Young Author Solves Murder That Stumped Police For Years, In Three Days!"

This headline is the first thing in the pile to truly intrigue Fukuzawa. He checks the date, it's only a week old.

"How on earth did a week-old newspaper, from America of all places, get here?" he mutters to himself. The only response he gets is the soft mewing of the calico cat at his feet. Elise insisted that they just had to take the poor animal off the streets. Fukuzawa thought it looked to be doing just fine, it wasn't scrawny and its coat was glossy, but Mori couldn't deny Elise's wishes.

He reads the article, written by a woman named Gloria Montressor.

"Early Thursday morning, 19-year-old Edgar Allan Poe, the son of late Elizabeth Hopkins Poe -nee Arnold, and David Poe Jr, the founder of Usher Publishing House, sought out the local 12th police precinct for help in searching for his lost racoon, Karl. While there, he happened to see some of the evidence for the formerly ongoing Iceman serial murder case.

In exchange for finding the lost mammal, he offered to assist the police officers. At first, they were reluctant, but now they're glad they accepted. It took the incredible young writer only three days to solve the case and track down the culprit, an ability user by the name of Robert Frost.

It turned out that Frost, who appeared by all accounts to be your friendly local elder, had ever since his early twenties, been luring victims to his poetry reading and then using his time extension ability "Miles To Go Before I Sleep" to lock victims in the basement of his estate and torture them. When faced with arrest the 88-year-old, ended his own life with a gun he had in his home. His victims were all found in various states of harm, but by far the most curious thing was that, according to IDs and driver's licences found in the basement, and medical tests, every victim is far younger than they should be.

Authorities guess that the nature of Frost's ability is to slow down time and trap victims in this slowed time. They assume it is also the reason for the slow progression of the infections in their wounds. This may have spared their lives, but they will never recover these lost years. Many mourn the loss of pets and loved ones and wonder how they will ever reconnect with friends or return to their previous careers.

The hero of our story, the young Mr Poe commented that it was only fair he used his great intellect to help out, since it would hardly be any trouble for him and the police helped him reunite with his furry companion. He seemed in quite a hurry to be off and refused to offer more citing that he had to return to work on his next great mystery novel.

Thanks to this incredible boy, we can all feel a little safer, even as the threat of ability users becomes a growing concern."

'Oh, this is promising. He seems to have the same type of intelligence as Ranpo, and he writes mystery novels. He's perfect. He solved it in only three days, well, that's nowhere as fast as Ranpo, but this is as close as anyone has gotten. I ought to buy some of these novels for Ranpo. Yes, I'll do that.'

Fukuzawa can feel sleep overtaking him and decides to wait until the first thing the next morning.

-

Ever the early riser, Fukuzawa is up at 5:00 AM and having nothing urgent to do he begins the search for the novels. With the internet these days, he should be able to find them without much effort at all, not to say he wouldn't search the ends of the earth to find his son a friend.

He frowns when he doesn't find them on the Usher Publishing House website. Why wouldn't his own father's publishing company carry his son's books, dead or not?

He tries again searching: "Edgar Allan Poe novels"

Another website comes up, it's clearly a much smaller company. The banner says Rue Morgue Publishing. On the right side is a grainy, pixelated graphic of a black cat scratching digital claw marks on the screen and on the left is a raven, the gif blinking and letting out a silent caw every few seconds.

'This looks like some type of website where one would buy illegal things. Is this the dark web?' Fukuzawa thinks.

But sure enough, all of the teenaged author's books are available here, and for reasonable prices. The site claims that these novels will leave even the most erudite readers stumped until the very last detail of the solution is revealed. Fukuzawa buys a copy of each of the three novels.

'I wonder if his gift applies to fictional mysteries as well? If not this will be a nice challenge. It should entertain him for a while . . . but he's so used to knowing everything. I hope it won't be distressing for him.'

-

Pleased with himself, Fukuzawa returns to his usual routine with his morning workout.

He's only startled out of his concentration when a large weight settles on his back. He manages one more push-up before surrendering and sinking back down.

Ougai doesn't get up. "There's an incident that needs our attention."

"Well, I can hardly give any attention to anything with you sitting on me, now can I?"

"Oh, was I sitting on you, I must have forgotten! How rude of me!" the mafia leader teases, standing and extending his hand to his partner.

"Yes, very rude."

Elise mimes falling over dead. "Dying" with a dramatic, "Ugh!"

"Can this issue wait until after I freshen up?"

"I could tell you as you do,"

"That works just as well." Yukichi shakes his head as his partner falls into step beside him.