Baccano! - Volume 2 - Chapter Ep

TERMINAL

December 31, 2:00 PMNew York, Pennsylvania Station

“Man, it’s late.”

The three brothers who were the acting bosses of the Gandor Family stood in the lobby. The Flying Pussyfoot had been scheduled to arrive at noon, but that had been two hours ago, and it still wasn’t here. The middle brother, Berga Gandor, raised his voice in irritation.

“Calm down, Berga. Long-distance trains arrive a few hours late all the time.”

“…”

Luck, the youngest, reprimanded his older brother, while Keith, the oldest, remained silent.

Right beside them, another group was waiting for their friends. It was the party that was there to meet Isaac and Miria and the fellow alchemist. In specific terms, this was Firo Prochainezo, a Martillo Family executive; his rent-free lodger, Ennis; and Maiza Avaro, the Martillo contaiuolo. Of the group, Maiza was an alchemist from two centuries ago, and one of the immortals.

Firo looked over at Keith and the others, asking them a question in a voice that wouldn’t be overheard by the people around them.

“Are you guys sure? Having all three bosses in a place like this… You’re squaring off with the Runoratas, right?”

“We’re able to relax and go out because it’s us, Firo.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s true.”

Firo was convinced. Like Isaac and Miria, during a certain incident a year ago, they had also become immortal. …Although not even the Bureau of Investigation knew this yet.

“By the way, what sort of person is this alchemist, Maiza?”

The man with glasses and a gentle face answered Luck’s question:

“Let’s see… He’s the type who tries to shoulder everything himself, even though he gets lonely easily.”

“The type who can’t live a long life, then. …If he were an ordinary person, I mean.”

Luck spoke pragmatically. As if picking up the conversation, Berga began talking about the person they were waiting for.

“Claire’s kinda like that, only the other way around. The kid’s ego is way too big. Cheerful personality, so it could be worse, but y’know.”

Ennis, who was watching them, decided to ask about this person she didn’t know.

“Then Miss Claire is a wonderful woman, cheerful and lively, with a self-assured core, isn’t she?”

At that question, Firo and Luck looked at each other.

“Firo, didn’t you tell her? That’s rather important…”

“Actually, I guess I forgot. I mean, we talked about personality and things, but…”

“Hmm?”

As question marks appeared above Ennis’s head, there was an announcement that the train had arrived.

“Okay, let’s go. Ennis, once you two meet, you’ll see.”

Then they started toward the train, which was still exhilarated after its long journey, to meet the people they were waiting for.

“Huh? Something seems kinda off.”

The train that had arrived wasn’t the Flying Pussyfoot. It was a perfectly ordinary train, completely different from the luxury train they all knew.

“From what I hear, there was trouble of some sort and they replaced the carriages.”

Satisfied by Maiza’s words, everyone waited for the doors to open.

“Come to think of it… Huey Laforet, wasn’t it? They nabbed him, didn’t they, Maiza?”

At Firo’s words, Maiza’s expression clouded slightly, and he nodded. Seeing this, Keith gazed at Maiza wordlessly.

“Oh, we should tell Keith and the others, too, shouldn’t we?”

Maiza smiled as if to say there was no help for it. Then his expression tensed again, and he began to speak.

“Huey Laforet, the self-styled revolutionary who was arrested a short while ago…”

Everyone listened intently to Maiza’s words.

“… he’s an immortal as well.”

Just then, the doors opened, and the passengers began to pour out. For some reason, there were many whose expressions tended toward extremes, from faces that were flooded with relief to those that seemed strangely fatigued.

Then, after the flood of disembarking passengers’ feet had subsided and a little time had passed, a woman in coveralls appeared. She had a very vigilant air about her, and when Ennis saw her, she thought she might be Claire.

However, the woman passed right by Keith and the others. She seemed to have an injured leg; her left leg had a bandage wound around it, and she dragged it a little as she walked.

Next, a man who looked like a magician appeared. From the look of him, he could have been nothing else: He was entirely enveloped in gray cloth. The Gandors’ eyes opened wide; they thought that this weird guy had to be an alchemist for sure… But Firo’s group was also muttering, “That’s a strange outfit.”

The gray magician was followed by a man who seemed to be his assistant and was carrying his luggage. Behind him, a young man’s pitiful, tearful voice echoed through the area.

Even as he cried from the pain in his legs, inside his head, Jacuzzi kept worrying.

Where had that Ladd Russo guy disappeared to, anyway?

And why had Isaac and Miria turned into that… yo-yo-like thing?

What had happened to Czes? When he’d asked Nice, she’d only said she didn’t know and looked away.

Speaking of Nice, even though they’d detonated all those bombs, the train hadn’t stopped. Why not?

… And most of all, the red monster… No, the person in red clothes… Who had that been?

What in the world had happened on that train, in the places they hadn’t seen? He knew worrying wouldn’t solve anything, but he couldn’t help thinking about it. He would have liked to have seen Isaac and Miria, but with his legs this way, he hadn’t been able to go around looking for them.

I’ll ask at one of the local information brokers. They say there’s an information broker in this town that knows absolutely everything.

Oh, but his legs did hurt. If he didn’t let these wounds heal up first, he’d get nowhere…

Jacuzzi took a break from worrying for the time being and began whimpering about the pain again.

“I-i-it hurts, it hurts! Wa, wait a second! Go a little slower!”

A guy with bandages wound all around his body was crying and wailing. He had an impressive tattoo on his face. After him, others descended from the train: a girl who wore glasses over an eye patch, a man with a bandaged face, then a man who might as well not have been there, and finally a brown-skinned giant who was over six feet tall.

“Do you think they’re a circus or something?”

Firo and the others watched the odd group go, then continued waiting for their friends to arrive.

The disembarking figures grew few and far between, and a forlorn atmosphere began to envelop the platform.

Even so, they didn’t have the slightest doubt that the people they were waiting for would arrive.

When the station workers had begun to close the carriage doors. The very last ones to emerge from the train were 

To be continued