Suribachi's vagabond (english vers)

Chapter 6, last part : Suspicions.

"What a pain..."

Dazai groaned after closing his flip phone, sitting on a crate. He had just been informed that the situation would be a bit more delicate than expected, which, to his great dismay, didn't bode well for him.

Toru, who was sitting against a crate, lifted her head from the document she was reading, raising an eyebrow.
"What's going on?"

He sighed dramatically, leaning his head back to stare at the tin ceiling, where the sound of raindrops could still be heard echoing.
"Apparently, some armored guys attacked one of our weapons warehouses... And since they're heavily armed and can counter our members' abilities, they wiped the floor with them. On top of that, they've now surrounded all of our buildings..."

Toru tilted her head slightly, curious about something.
"Why does that bother you so much?"

Dazai sighed again, bringing his head back to its natural position to look at her, his expression still as dramatic as ever.
"Nothing... you'll see. Ugh... I don't even feel like working on this case when I think about it."
"But still..."
He suddenly turned serious. This kind of sudden mood shift had unsettled Toru the first few times... but it seemed she had gotten used to it.

"We won't be able to reach HQ at dawn like you planned. These guys are clearly well-informed, both about our abilities and our infrastructure," he continued.

"Given their resources and what Kaito and Sora reported, it's easy to imagine they belong to a powerful foreign organization. And with such advanced equipment, we might even think they're part of a government organization."

Toru shrugged, her gaze drifting to the flickering flames of the fire that was about to die out.
"If that's the case, they were probably kicked out or left with whatever they could take, hence the discreet vessel they arrived on."
She sighed, exhausted.

"So basically, we don't know much about them and can only make assumptions..."
She lifted her head to look at him.

"But there is one thing we can be absolutely sure of."

Dazai raised his eyebrows.
"And what's that?"

"They have an informant in our ranks," she said with certainty.
"Whether it's about the information on our abilities or our infrastructure, the fact that their intel on my powers is limited to what I've shown means their informant is from within the mafia."

Dazai then began to smile, almost innocently.
"Well, that's good news. Turns out Mori just told me we need to find their base and get our hands on their leader... That shouldn't be too hard, then."
"Plus... you've got a score to settle with them, don't you?"

Toru looked at him in silence for a moment before sighing and standing up.
"True..."
She walked over to the fire and threw the document she had been reading into it, erasing all traces of it.

"What's that?"
Dazai asked, out of simple curiosity.

"An investigation report. A guy from the department gave it to me during the prisoner exchange. It stayed in my jacket pocket," she replied simply.
"It's about a murder I was suspected of, if you must know. Apparently, the special division of the department called in the services of a 'certain detective' to solve the case, and afterward, they were sure it wasn't me... The fact is, since the special division can't interfere officially as they remain an organization using the department as a front, they didn't meddle in the official investigation."

"The investigation showed that the culprit was someone named Puchkin. They caught him and locked him up in an anti-ability prison in Europe, called Meursault, if what's written is to be believed."

"So that's why you stayed in Suribachi?"
Dazai asked.

"Yes... but that wasn't the only reason."
"I knew they were after me... I didn't know anything about Kenzaburo's plans back then, but I was warned that the incident with my parents had been planned by someone... That's why I was brought to Suribachi in the first place..."