Count me out

Chapter 4

"What your saying is, that the Port MAFIA asked us to look into the slums to see if any of the gangs have info on a supposed organisation targeting a mafia executive?" Naomi asked, with a raised eyebrow, as if this entire situation was the weirdest thing she could think of. "And you need my brother's help.. without me." Clinging onto her brother's arm. Kunikida sighed.

Naomi was a genial girl, but was so besotted by her older brother that she couldn't do anything without him and was so unadaptable to the point of it being stupid. She was very unwilling to do things without him but one could not deny she was a lovely girls whose reputation was marred by the unfortunate obsession of hers

"That's precisely what I'm saying, his ability may be useful when in the slums. You're just going to have to cope with the separation until we come back unfortunately." Kunikida responded, attempting to placate the girl. While it was sometimes irritating to deal with the two, he understood their codependency and sympathised for them - they had quite a difficult upbringing, the president told him. Deeming the conversation done, Kunikida turned towards Ranpo.

Today was the day after the meeting with Hirotsu, the agency was in full swing and had devised a plan to start investigating. Atsushi had filled the siblings as well as the kids what was happening as they had not been present.

True to his word, Hirotsu had sent over a file containing all the information they had in the situation. Kunikida had not yet had the chance to look at its contents as Dazai had been the first to skim through it with Ranpo.

"Ranpo, don't you also wonder what 'events' that transpired for the mafia to come to the conclusion that they have a mole?" Kunikida questioned "I know we were told to not concern ourselves on that and instead just find the organisation against Nakahara san, but I can't help but want to know"

"I have a feeling it was serious" Ranpo hummed, "I'm sure Dazai already asked, so I suggest you ask him"

"Right." Kunikida gritted his teeth, he always felt uncomfortable about the casualness between the bandaged idiot and the mafia, but he ignored it to call out
"Dazai! Did you get any information from our client?"

Dazai, who had been slinking around the office without direction, responded with a lazy drawl, "Turns out the reason they believe there's a mole is because, Hirotsu said that Chuuya went on a solo confidential mission. Very few people knew about it, so it was suspicious when he was ambushed there. He defeated them all, the brute, but it was made clear someone was after him." He flopped onto his chair, humming to himself.

So, a supposed mole had fed the information of Nakahara's mission to some group in order to ambush him.. but why?

Kunikuda finally went over to Dazai's desk where the file was and looked through it. It was a small case file - only containing a paragraph detailing the events of what occurred as well as a non disclosure agreement which prevented the agency to talk about this case. There were multiple photos in the case file of an indistinguishable area, surrounded by rubble, grime and rubbish. It was obviously somewhere in the slums but Kunikida couldn't tell where. The area had a small hut like building, looking obviously abandoned, with rusted roof shingles and crumbling walls. On the waste-like material of the wall, a sentence in red was graffitied:

"WE WILL GET YOU"

With a small message written by under the large threat - "For the Tainted Sorrow in languor dreams of death"

"Dazai. What part of this message alludes to the Port Mafia? All I can see is some poetic writing" Kunikida asked in confusion

"Upon the Tainted Sorrow is the name of Chuuya's ability." Dazai responded from his seat, "Honestly Kunikida, how come you didn't know? I expected you of all people to be knowledgeable about our sworn enemies."

"Have you checked the report?" Ranpo asked, perched on his desk waving his lollipop around.

Choosing to ignore Dazai's obvious attempts to get a rise out of him, Kunikida flipped the page onto the report Ranpo mentioned. Skimming the contents he frowned, this report was written by that hellhound, Akutaguwa Ryuunosuke, for the Port Mafia boss. Some of the content was blackened out, understandably so, but one comment stood out to him

"It has been reported that none of the children within proximity of the message saw it being written. However, message is in a non territorial space, surrounded by two rival gangs." Kunikida read aloud. "How could no one see it being put up? And we've got to find out what gangs the report is talking about. It will make locating the message more easily."

"That's a lot to figure out Kunikida san..." Atsushi murmured, he couldn't help but feel exhausted already. There was so much to do.

"Well, then we better get started".

It was around lunchtime when Chuuya walked into the building. Each Port Mafia member moved in the same direction, with the goal to go out for lunch.
The entrance had people trickling in and out, with many men talking to each other in the mundane, real way Chuuya could not help but adore. Listening to people wax on about celebrating their children's birthdays or the activities they did over the weekend was amazing. The crowds of unknown grunts had live of their own, the hustle and bustle reminded Chuuya of shoals of fishes: breathtaking and common.

Chuuya walked by the secretaries, nodding at them politely. He was here because Mori had requested an executive meeting; most likely to discuss the recent events. Chuuya obviously had a target on his back.
Mori had told him after that ambush to start staying more at home. That had been almost three weeks ago, the day he comes back (which had been a week ago) to carry out a mission, they had found the message. Today was his first day back from the event.

He couldn't help but scoff at the idea of a meeting to discuss it, what could they do? The idea that this whole situation was being taken serious was ridiculous; he was the mafia's right hand man. Of course, people would not like him. Yeah, it was confusing as to how they knew him, but Chuuya would kill anyone who stood in his way. Also, meetings were a pain in the ass - boring as hell and too much to pay attention to. Chuuya scowled at the idea of sitting down for the next few hours

Suddenly, a loud cannon-type sound boomed across the headquarters, it was so vivid.
It reverberated causing everyone in the building to fall silent. Chuuya turned around, instinctively tensing and activating his ability, it sounded like a motorcycle backfiring or firecrackers going off.

Staring right at his face was a bullet.
Suspended  in the air by the pulsing red light, that was his ability.
Everyone was silent, and Chuuya could feel all eyes on him.

Silently, he raised his hand up, stretching his gloved palm outwards, allowing the bullet to fall onto it.

Pocketing the bullet, he turned towards the elevator, walking into it after passing the silent, still grunts. As he pressed the highest button on the elevator panel, and as it shut close, Chuuya clenched his jaw.
Seems like the executive meeting will be an interesting one.