Osamu Dazai and the Dark Era

by Kafka Asagiri

  The black wooden stool in the corner of the room—it looked out of place. It didn’t seem as though it belonged in this hotel, and there wasn’t even a desk around to make use of it.

  I approached the stool to examine it. It was your average mass-produced article. I flipped it over in hopes that there might be an important clue underneath, but there was nothing really out of the ordinary.

  I returned once more to where I had been standing, then crouched down and stared fixedly at the stool. That was when I saw it—the seat was scuffed ever so slightly, even though the stool itself didn’t appear to be particularly old or worn out. Upon further inspection, I noticed that not only was it a little scuffed, but it also had what appeared to be a white footprint left by a leather shoe. I scanned the room once more.

  —The ceiling air vent.

  I took the stool and pushed it under the vent. Standing atop the stool, I could just barely touch the ceiling. There was some white plastic netting covering the air vent, making it difficult to see inside. It took some maneuvering, but I managed to remove the net. Inside the air duct, the ventilation fan was still spinning quietly. I felt around the fan with my fingers for a while until they just barely caught on to something, which I then pulled toward me. It scraped noisily across the metal duct and turned out to be a small safe. After getting off the stool, I held the safe in my hands and brushed the dust off. It was white and small enough that I could easily hold it in both hands. The safe was locked, but if I could find the key or something to pick it with, I could get it open. I took the box in both hands and violently shook it in front of my chest. Something metal, but not particularly heavy, rattled inside.

  That was when a vision played out in my head.

  The white safe in my hands was dyed crimson in the blink of an eye, along with the wall and floor. Something gushed out, clinging to the surfaces before me.

  It was blood. My blood.

  Right as I looked down at my chest, another spurt of blood gushed out of it. Something entered my back and pierced through my chest. I turned around just as the window shattered and the shards fell to the floor. Something—a sniper rifle’s scope, perhaps—glittered in the sunlight from a far-off building.

  I reached for the gun at my side, but my arm was hit back by a high-speed bullet, spinning me around and producing a spray of blood. Feeling the warm liquid crawl up my throat, I twisted and fell to the ground. Everything before me faded to black.

  The vision ended there.

  I found myself standing with the safe, still wearing the exact same clothes I was a second ago.

  The safe was white.

  The window wasn’t broken.

  I threw myself to the carpeted floor with the safe still in my hands, and almost instantly, I heard glass shatter. One, then two dark holes appeared in the wall in front of me. Crawling on the floor, I moved away from the window until I couldn’t see the high-rise building outside. Then I took the gun out of my side holster and got into position with my back against the wall. There was a mirror on the table, so I reached out with my fingers and managed to grab it. My hands were so sweaty that I almost dropped it, but I somehow got a grip around the mirror to angle it so I could see outside.

  When I looked at the room in the building I’d seen in my vision, I noticed a shadowy figure moving in the reflection. I couldn’t tell what they were wearing, though; the figure promptly gathered their belongings before completely disappearing. The moment I put my gun down was the moment I noticed I hadn’t been breathing.

  A sniper.

  What in the world was in this room? What happened to Ango? I was sniped and killed. I couldn’t see the muzzle flash, and I didn’t even hear the bullet being fired. Plus, once the perpetrator saw that they had missed the target, they immediately escaped. This was clearly the work of a professional.

  I’d died only a few moments ago—sniped in the chest and shot dead.

  Or at least I would have been, if I hadn’t had my skill.

  I practically slid down the staircase banister to get out of there. The sniper couldn’t have gotten far, and I needed to find out who they were. Shoving past innocent customers in the hotel, I made my way outside. I ran toward the building the sniper was in while pulling my cell phone out of my pocket.

  A seasoned sniper can pierce their target’s heart from even a mile away, but from the looks of it, the sniping point wasn’t all that far off. I knew the building they were in. In fact, I knew everything about this city, even the uncharted back alleys, so I was naturally able to narrow down the sniper’s path of escape to a few possibilities.

  As I sprinted, I punched in Dazai’s phone number.

  “Dazai?”

  “Wow, it’s not often I get a call from you, Odasaku. I’ve got a feeling this is big! Hmm. Allow me to use my genius brain to guess the situation! You suddenly thought of a hilarious joke, and it was so funny that you had to call me to—”

  “Someone tried to snipe me.”

  Dazai immediately stopped midsentence as if the air had been sucked out of his lungs.

  “I was in Ango’s room. I’m going after the sniper right now. He fired from a high-rise building across from the secondhand book row. From there, he could’ve fled through Kokuyou-ji Temple or the service entrance to the wharf, or taken one of the Mifune shopping district’s back streets.”

  “You want me to help block his path of escape, right?”

  I hesitated for a moment. The reason I called Dazai was because he was the only one I could turn to with confidence on such short notice. However, he was one of the five executives, making him only second to the boss in terms of the Mafia hierarchy. Under normal circumstances, I would’ve had to send someone to ask permission to even meet with Dazai, then wait at least a month before getting an answer. Calling someone like him and giving orders is like asking the president to walk your dog.

  “Dazai, I have a Silver Oracle with me. If you don’t mind—”

  “Quit it. You don’t need that to ask me for help. You’re in a fix, right?” Dazai said brightly. “I’ll have my men blockade the roads immediately. I’m gonna head over, too. Just don’t follow the guy too far, Odasaku.”

  I thanked him and hung up, then focused everything I had on getting my legs to move as quickly as possible.

  Who was the shooter? Snipers are exceedingly cautious and patient. Strategy is their religion. Once they decide on the optimal position for taking out the target, they wait for days without moving a muscle until the target appears within range of their scope. A sniper will satisfy their hunger with ready-made meals, and when they run out of food, they just don’t eat.

  The fact that there was a sniper in the building meant he knew someone was coming.

  The most obvious, logical reason would be that Ango himself was the target. The sniper was probably planning on shooting Ango once he cluelessly returned home. However, that then begged the question: Why did the sniper change his plan and try to shoot me? I’d only decided to go to Ango’s room a few hours prior, and that was just a desperate attempt to find some clues. Moreover, the sniper only pulled the trigger after I found the white safe. If he’d wanted to just kill me, he would’ve shot me the moment I walked into the room. Maybe the sniper didn’t have a firm target; maybe he would’ve shot anyone who walked in there. Or maybe he would’ve shot anyone who found the white safe.

  Only one thing was clear: Ango was apparently stuck in the middle of something big. I thought about his bespectacled visage, his cool, aloof demeanor, as I ran.

  No matter how deeply I inhaled, I couldn’t seem to get enough oxygen into my body. Right as my field of vision started turning spotty, I arrived at one of the routes I predicted the sniper would use to escape. It was a dark, narrow back alley littered with scraps of food left by the city crows.

  I’d cut through two residential yards and leaped over three private garages to get there. It wouldn’t have been out of the question to catch sight of the enemy right then and there if
they weren’t familiar with the area. The moment the thought crossed my mind, a man with a knife tried to grab me from a gap between the buildings. A blade practically the size of a meat cleaver sliced through the air, and I swerved my head to dodge the strike. The tip of the blade grazed the corner of my ear, leaving a cold, sharp pain. I found myself in a deadlock as he rammed into me, and I thrust my foot into his torso as hard as I could. I ended up getting thrown onto the trash-covered ground, but I was at least able to get him off.

  I looked at the assailant.

  He was a man of unknown ethnicity dressed in tattered gray clothes. At first glance, his filthy appearance made him look like a vagrant, but my finger happened to leave a mark in the dirt on his face. It was as if he’d put it there on purpose. The assailant swayed back and forth as he flipped the knife over from his right hand to his left. Next, he raised both elbows so that his right hand was guarding his face. It was a stance that allowed a person to quickly counter any close-range blows with minimal movement while protecting one’s vitals. The bloodlust radiating from this guy was like that of a seasoned fighting dog.

  I could assume several things from watching him: one, that he knew I was with the Mafia, and he was not going to cower or create an opening to be attacked; two, that he was probably the sniper I saw in the mirror’s reflection; and three, that he probably planned on killing me there without even giving me the chance to wonder.

  The man came at me with his left hand aloft, gripping the knife. If he were to hit me, he would split my face right open, but if I were to try to run away or fight him, that knife would tear me to shreds. I leaned my weight against the wall behind me and used the rebound to leap in the opposite direction and create some distance between us. Then, spinning around, I drew the gun from my holster and almost immediately pulled the trigger. The bullet landed just inches before his toes—right where he was about to step. The man stopped. Only a fraction of a second had gone by from the moment I drew my gun to the moment I fired. If he knew anything about how to fight, then he’d understand that I didn’t shoot randomly, but rather precisely where I wanted to.

  Raising my gun, I pointed the muzzle right between his eyes, letting him know I could pull the trigger whenever I wanted. He should’ve had more than enough time to figure that much out, and yet, he took another step forward. His knife sliced through the air, and I leaped backward, dodging the slash. Then I fired another warning shot, and the sound of the blast echoed throughout the narrow alleyway. But it seemed to have affected him no differently than a cool breeze; the man had locked away all his fear into a tiny box in the corner of his mind and thrown away the key.

  He reached out, but it wasn’t me he was aiming for. I swiftly pulled the white safe under my left arm away, leaving him only air to grab, but he promptly regained his footing before pulling back with his knife.

  The man was after the safe.

  He’d pretended to flee in order to lure me here, in which case I might have been better off taking the safe and running away as quickly as my legs could take me. I couldn’t even imagine who this guy was or the kind of value this safe had. To make matters worse, he was an expert with the knife. Gunshots didn’t even faze him. On top of that, I—

  The enemy thrust forward with the knife. I shot at the wall in hope that he’d flinch, but he knew where I was aiming. He didn’t back off—he got even closer. I sensed there was someone else behind me, so I threw myself forward and dropped to the ground. Gunfire lit up the alleyway. The metallic clatter of the shots echoed as bullets—ones I didn’t fire—glided past my ear.

  My body froze. Although I couldn’t look back, I immediately knew what was going on—there was another enemy behind me.

  Snipers typically have people called spotters to back them up. Spotters and snipers always work in pairs, and a spotter will help the sniper readjust his aim or time the shot. Sometimes they’ll also scout the area and dispose of any nearby enemies. I should’ve seen this coming the moment the sniper went on the counterattack. There were two enemies.

  The second enemy fired his gun; he didn’t use a sniper rifle, but an old-fashioned pistol. I created an off-the-cuff smoke screen by hurling the nearby garbage bags into the line of fire, then wildly shot at the wall in an attempt to use the ricochet in place of a barrage. The man with the knife closed in, giving me no time to check if my stratagem had worked. Our weapons collided, creating sparks. The base of the metal trigger guard screeched as the knife sawed into it.

  I swept my opponent’s ankle, knocking him off-balance, but he managed to put his hand out to catch his fall. Almost reflexively, I tossed aside the safe and drew my other gun. I walked with my two pistols aimed in both directions and almost unconsciously placed the muzzles right before the enemies’ eyes with one quick motion. I wouldn’t miss this close up. If I pulled the trigger, they’d instantly perish before even getting the chance to think of something meaningful. They wouldn’t even have a second to feel pain. Their brains and consciousnesses would smear the alley walls, and their lives would then disappear into thin air like a magic trick.

  I didn’t shoot. I simply rolled out of the way to create a bit of distance, keeping both opponents in my sight with both weapons drawn.

  “Odasaku, get down!”

  That was when I heard Dazai’s voice.

  I already knew it was coming, which was why I threw myself to the ground face-first. Barely a moment later, an explosion followed by a flash of light illuminated the narrow alleyway. My skill was to thank for alerting me to what was going to happen; I lay on the ground, plugging my ears and shutting my eyes until the light faded. The enemies, on the other hand, were caught off guard by the flash grenade and subsequently blinded, preventing them from dodging the next attack.

  A thunderous roar seemingly from the heavens itself burst through the back alley. First came a flash of light, followed by an explosive bang—then a metal-splitting screech and the sound of the ground and walls being smashed to pieces. A shower of 9mm ammo zoomed over my head. Four men in black suits rushed down the alleyway right past me, each with a submachine gun at their waist. It was the Port Mafia.

  With nothing to hide behind in the narrow alley, not even the most seasoned warriors could escape the submachine guns’ hellish onslaught. I heard the two men in tattered cloaks briefly scream as the gunfire buffeted them like a violent gust of wind. When I turned around, I saw blood spewing out of their bodies, enveloping them like a deep crimson mist. Then I heard a splat as they were thrown against the walls.

  “You’re a real piece of work, Odasaku. You could have easily killed them in an instant, if you wanted to.”

  Dazai lightly trotted over, looking as if he were about to whistle or something. The roar of submachine guns filling an alleyway was no different from the hubbub of a shopping mall on a holiday for him.

  I accepted his extended hand and stood up before surveying the alley.

  “You killed them?” I asked, looking down at the two fallen assassins.

  “Yep. Capturing them and trying to get them to talk would’ve just been a waste of time. I mean, these guys love the taste of their interdental poison.”

  I didn’t reply. It felt as if there were a lump about the size of a boulder in my stomach. Dazai faintly smiled, then said, “I know. That’s not what you were asking, right? But, Odasaku, these men were professional assassins. It doesn’t matter how good you are. Killing them was the only option.”

  “I know.”

  I nodded. Dazai was always right, and I was always doing the wrong thing.

  “I can see you’re not happy… I’m sorry for compromising your principles.”

  His smile weakened as he spoke. Dazai usually never apologized to anyone, which was why what he said really rang true.

  “Thanks. I mean it. I would’ve died if you hadn’t come to save me.”

  “Sakunosuke Oda, a peculiar mafioso who believes killing is never the answer.” Dazai shook his head in exasperation. “The Mafia t
reats you like an errand boy thanks to that perplexing belief of yours, Odasaku, your considerable capabilities notwithstanding—”

  I shook my head in silence.

  “I’ve heard that complaint so many times that I’m starting to despise myself. More importantly, about the attackers…,” I continued while indicating the fallen assailants with my gaze.

  “You said they shot at you while you were in Ango’s room?”

  Dazai listened attentively as I briefly explained what had happened at the hotel.

  “I see. That sniper rifle was probably stolen from our armory,” he claimed once I’d finished. “Look at his waist. He’s carrying an old-fashioned pistol, right?”

  When I looked down at the attackers, I noticed they both had early-model pistols hidden under their ragged clothes—gray handguns with narrow muzzles.

  “These are rather old European pistols. Given their low accuracy and firing rate, they’re not ideal for narrow alleys like this.”

  He took the gun off one of the bodies and stared at it with great interest.

  “This pistol is probably more like an emblem to these men—something that indicates who they are.”

  Dazai seemed to be much more knowledgeable about the attackers than I was.

  “Just who are they?” I asked.

  “Mimic.”

  “‘Mimic’…?”

  I’d never heard of an organization by that name before.

  “I don’t know much about them yet, but they’re apparently a European criminal organization. All I can say right now is that they came to Japan for some reason and that they’re in conflict with the Port Mafia.”

  Rivalries between the Port Mafia and other criminal organizations weren’t uncommon. Even in and around Yokohama, there were groups that competed with the Mafia over turf. Outside the reaches of the government’s watchful eyes, the Yokohama Settlement was inhabited by countless outlaws who fought over territory. Dirty money came to this tax haven from all over the world to be cleaned, helping corporate crime and mercenary businesses thrive. It wouldn’t be strange for a criminal organization from abroad to come over to make easy profits. But how many crime syndicates in the world had a professional sniper with a spotter?