Bungo Stray Dogs - Volume SS1 - Chapter Pr

I am the one behind the recent chaos of this world. Throughout my life, I have dedicated myself to the powers of evil. I incited the turmoil during the Heiji era and cursed the imperial family to doom upon my death. Behold! For I will invoke a huge calamity across the world……

—Emperor Sutoku’s Vengeful Spirit 

“Shiramine” (White Peak) from Ugetsu Monogatari 

(Tales of Moonlight and Rain) by Akinari Ueda, 1776

PROLOGUE

The Waterfall Spirit Lord’s Waterfall / Evening / Light Rain

Two shadowy figures stood atop the cliffside over the waterfall. One was a tall young man; the other was an older gentleman with wisps of winter-white hair.

The two men faced each other in silence with hostile, piercing gazes. They were archenemies, and they both understood that there could be only one left breathing. That was their fate, after all, and that fateful showdown just so happened to be that day. They already knew that this was where they had to settle things for good…hence their silence.

The waterfall was roaring. The faint glow of the setting sun was fading. A pale, misty drizzle enveloped the forest. It shrouded the slippery rocks beneath their feet, the waterfall basin far below, and even the two men themselves.

A secluded location at twilight—the witching hour.

It was both the boundary and beyond—it was the world between this life and the next.

The younger man was the first to break the silence.

“What comes next to greet you is death. Savor it, Kyougoku.”

His chilling, sonorous voice could send a shiver down even a snake’s spine.

He wore a flat cap with sunglasses over his corpse-like fair skin. The misty drizzle hovering around him fell to the ground as if it feared the bitterly frigid air emitting from his body.

The snow-haired older gentleman cackled.

“Magnificent. Truly magnificent, Ayatsuji.”

He was robed in ragged, traditional Japanese attire, like a hermit with a millennium of knowledge trapped behind his mud-brown eyes. The dimples in his cheeks were childlike yet sinister.

However, there wasn’t a hint of rage in the carefree, amused man’s voice. He seemed like any jolly old fellow you could find on the street. But the young man called Ayatsuji angrily narrowed his eyes at the older man’s snickering.

“Quit your laughing, you foul old man. That filthy guffawing is murder on my ears. Do you even recall the number crimes you’ve committed?”

“‘Crimes’? Whatever do you mean? In fact, how dare you treat a timid, good-natured elderly man such as myself like a criminal. Have you no respect for your elders? I’ll have you know that I am a law-abiding citizen. I even wait for the light to turn green before crossing the street.”

The white-haired man’s carefree tone never faltered.

“Hilarious,” Ayatsuji drawled. “Let me remind your senile brain of the crimes you’ve committed, then. Thirty-eight counts of instigation to murder. Twenty-nine counts of extortion. Robbery, false imprisonment, assault. Counting attempted crimes would add hundreds more, from severe crimes to petty ones. Not once did you ever dirty your own hands, however. The Ox-Head Incident, the Suoudou Hall Incident—of all the crimes that shook society to its core, you are physically linked to none. The perpetrators who did your bidding never realized they were being controlled.”

The older man didn’t even attempt to deny the claims. His smile deepened, causing Ayatsuji to narrow his eyes with increasing disgust.

“The government couldn’t touch you, since you never carried out any of these crimes yourself…”

Ayatsuji swiftly raised his palm, slicing through the cold air.

“…but that ends today.”

He slid his hand into his pocket until he eventually pulled out a single copper coin.

“This is evidence that you were behind the atrocity at the museum earlier.”

He held out the coin’s front side toward Kyougoku.

“You took the coins that were on display, stuffed them into a bag, and used that to beat the victim to death. You then had the nerve to return everything. It was a trick to hide the murder weapon. But this coin had both your fingerprints and the victim’s blood on it.”

The elderly man called Kyougoku pulled his lips back in a sneer, but his mud-brown eyes weren’t smiling. His gaze quietly glowed with some sort of ingenious scheme.

“Remember this shine, Kyougoku.” Ayatsuji flipped the coin high into the air; the sun’s ever so slight twilight radiance reflected off it. “You’ll apologize to the victims of your crimes—in the underworld.”

“The underworld, you say? Interesting. But out of curiosity, Ayatsuji, I must ask you to be more specific. There are numerous depictions of the underworld, you see. The Kojiki describes Yomi-no-kuni and Ne-no-kuni, the realm of the dead and the land of roots, while Mahayana Buddhism has Naraka. Nichiren spoke of enlightenment and nirvana, and the Old Testament mentions a place of stillness and darkness known as Sheol. And then the Gospels of Matthew and Luke in the New Testament spoke of—”

“Hades,” Ayatsuji interrupted. “Call it what you will, though. They’re all one and the same.”

“Perhaps to you, they are, yes, but I happen to care about such matters.”

“You’re about to find out which underworld it is, then.”

Ayatsuji expelled a cold, corpse-like breath.

“Because you’ll be taking a one-way trip there—any moment now.”

The two stared at each other in silence for a short while after that. The thunderous roaring of the waterfall melted into the mist between them.

“Yes, but of course,” Kyougoku emotionlessly replied. “Such is the fate of anyone who confronts you, Yukito Ayatsuji—a detective even more sinister than any murderer. What a fearsome ordeal.”

Kyougoku seemed to be ridiculing him, but the cold-blooded young man simply narrowed his eyes.

“Kyougoku, this has gone on far too long for my liking.”

It was Ayatsuji who eventually broke the silence.

“But today, I’m going to be honest with you for once. I’m actually not concerned about whatever schemes or evil doings you have planned. You can scheme and kill to your heart’s content, for all I care.”

“Ah, I see. ‘If you meet the Buddha, kill him,’ yes?”

“No two lives are equal. We mourn when a good person dies but rejoice when evil meets the same fate. But in my eyes, all human life is equally meaningless. I have neither the intention nor the right to speak of the nobility of life. But even then…”

Ayatsuji flipped the copper coin, allowing the clear sound of metal to echo throughout the mountains.

“But even then, you have killed far too many.”

The coin spun in the air as it descended the waterfall. This piece of evidence, which was supposed to expose the evils of this high-profile criminal, fell into the waterfall basin’s hazy depths until it could be seen no more.

After following the coin’s path with his eyes, Kyougoku squinted. “Are you sure you won’t be needing that hard-earned evidence?”

“Not anymore. You should know that already.”

Kyougoku’s smile reached his mud-brown eyes, but he did not say another word.

He and Ayatsuji stood in the deep valley between this world and the next on top of a cliff enshrouded in deadly silence.

Ayatsuji took a step forward.

“I can see it now.” His voice was almost a whisper. “A fatal fall—that will be the cause of your death. You will accidentally fall off this cliff.”

Kyougoku peered down at the waterfall basin as if he felt compelled.

“A fatal fall,” he muttered to himself. “Falling to my death, eh? Not a bad ending.”

“You won’t survive a fall from this height.” Ayatsuji took another step forward. “It’s a straight shot from here. The military police have secured the area; they’ll have you surrounded any moment now. There is no escape. This is where you will meet your end.”

There was no hesitation in his voice. There were only the simple facts, which he stated dispassionately. Ayatsuji spoke to this criminal no differently than he did to every criminal he had exposed.

“I suppose there’s no doubting the prophecies of a famous detective.” As Kyougoku took a step back, his heel knocked small pebbles off the cliffside.

“With this, our long, long battle will finally draw to a close.”

“Indeed it will,” Kyougoku agreed. “Facing you was such a joy. But what a pity. The battle up until now was simply a precursor of this upcoming ceremony.”

“What are you talking about?”

However, Kyougoku didn’t answer. He took yet another step back, putting him as close to the edge as possible. One more step and it would be over.

“You cannot defeat me, my dear bloodthirsty detective, and you never will. This battle was doomed to fail, for a withdrawal through a mire has no victors. Enjoy your path to defeat, Ayatsuji.”

Ayatsuji didn’t move. He didn’t even lift a finger before this small, frail old man.

The presence… This presence that Kyougoku gave off—

“And allow me to show you that your final prophecy will fail to come true. An accidental death? When I die, it will be no accident. Behold.”

Kyougoku mirthfully smiled—

—and then threw himself off the cliff.

The waterfall roared.

Kyougoku’s tattered clothes fluttered as he vanished into the basin.

He cackled from beyond the mist toward distant nirvana.

“…”

Ayatsuji silently watched Kyougoku’s descent. He remained peering into the abyss, which had swallowed the phantom, until the military police eventually arrived. When they asked him what had happened, he didn’t say a word.

All he did was gaze into the roaring waters where his nemesis had vanished.

The sorcerer: Natsuhiko Kyougoku.

The detective: Yukito Ayatsuji.

This is the story of the battle between two genius skill users who used their brains as weapons and their resourcefulness as fangs to put an end to this long-drawn-out feud.