Baccano! - Volume 20 - Chapter 5.1

Digression

Bartolo Runorata, the don of the Runorata Family, always had a security team of twelve guards.

The group was split into three units of four members each. The teams guarded Bartolo himself and his family by turns, with one team off duty at all times.

While the guards were off duty, absolutely no one could make them work.

Not even Bartolo Runorata.

Gabriel and Juliano, twin brothers affiliated with that security team, were off duty when Cazze was kidnapped. However…

“Mr. Bartolo. Would you let Me and I handle that mission?”

“Since this is young Master Carzelio, of course I and Me should be the ones who do it.”

Gabriel spoke formally, while Juliano came off as rougher.

The pair called each other I and Me, a quirk that occasionally made conversations confusing; however, they always worked as a team, and most of the people around them saw them as “two in one.”

They’d been assigned to the security team when Carzelio—Bartolo’s first grandchild—was born, and they were often charged with guarding and taking care of him.

At first, Gabriel and Juliano had thought, We should be risking our lives to protect Bartolo, not his family. But the security team veterans had told them that they should consider Mr. Bartolo’s family part of him, so they’d continued to carry out their guard duties mechanically.

They’d changed their minds when a dozen toughs had attacked Cazze just after he turned five.

Several years earlier

“…We were told to do our best not to let the young master witness any killing, I.”

“Not even possible, Me. We did do our best, for five seconds or so.”

Standing in front of the car that held Carzelio and his father, Gabriel and Juliano cracked their necks.

The ground around them was littered with dead thugs.

Spattered with their victims’ blood, the twins looked like demons who’d crawled out of hell.

“……”

Carzelio’s father had married into the family, and the sudden attack and subsequent carnage had left him speechless. He was still showing quite a bit of courage; any ordinary person would have been curled up in a ball, screaming.

However—when Carzelio abruptly opened the car’s door and stepped out, he spoke to them with such an innocent smile. “Um… Ummm… Gabriel, Juliano, thank you very much!”

Carzelio’s eyes were shining as if he were looking at heroes from the comic books.

It was just a brief expression of gratitude.

That remark from a guileless child seemed terribly out of place here, surrounded by the stench of iron and splashes of dark red.

Nevertheless, the words definitely touched their hearts.

The pair had been called mad dogs, and everyone except for Bartolo had eyed them with fear and hatred.

This boy had seen their brutality. The smells of blood and gunsmoke were in his nostrils, yet he wasn’t the least bit scared. He genuinely thanked them. They couldn’t believe he was real. They both stood there stunned for a little while.

“Young master. You’re not afraid?” Juliano was still holding his gun, his victims’ blood dripping down his face.

Carzelio cocked his head, puzzled as to what he was supposed to be frightened of.

The twins looked at the boy, then at each other. They broke into blood-spattered smiles.

Carzelio didn’t understand why they were smiling, and he grew even more mystified. His father, who found the twins disturbing, grabbed his son by the scruff of the neck and dragged him back toward the car.

The twins paid no attention to the man’s reaction. In perfect sync, they went down on one knee and bowed their heads to Cazze.

“We thank you, young Master Carzelio.”

“We were simply doing our duty by you. Just doing our job.”

“From now on, our loyalty is not only for Mr. Bartolo.”

“To both I and Me, you are our rightful master as well.”

The twins delivered this speech by turns, alternating lines. Carzelio’s eyes shone, and his father’s eyebrows drew together, but that was all.

From that day on, a certain rumor began to circulate within the Runorata Family: An innocent sovereign had tamed two mad dogs in an instant.

It seemed the battle to decide the great Bartolo Runorata’s successor had already been decided.

…That rumor brought a complicated grimace to Carzelio’s father’s face.

And now—

Even though the two were off duty, they’d asked Bartolo to give them the mission of rescuing Carzelio.

“…You’re not working today. I don’t have the authority to give you an order,” Bartolo told them.

“Quite so,” Gabriel said. “That said…while we are off duty, provided we don’t oppose the Runorata Family, we may do whatever we like. I believe that was the rule.”

“You’re correct.” Bartolo nodded easily, and Juliano picked up the conversation.

“In other words, I and Me aren’t guards right now. We’re hunters, using our day off on a side gig.”

“Are you now?”

“If we’ve earned your confidence, Master Bartolo Runorata, would you please hire us?”

Bartolo gave the somewhat melodramatic pair an intimidating look. Then, noting that their gazes hadn’t wavered in the slightest, he sighed.

“No need for any more theatrics.

“Plus, you know security is the side gig. Hunting is your main occupation.”

The two hunters were unleashed a few minutes later.

They were hounds—or maybe mad dogs.

They were also first-class hunters.

Each hunter would scare his prey, then sink his fangs into its throat.

They sang their hunting song—proud to be able to protect their other master, and enjoying their work.

They sang against the music of motorcycle engines and sharpened their fangs to fine points.

They had no idea what sort of chaos waited for their song, their bikes, and their malice.