If there were a T+ rating, this fic would have that rating.

Heavy Use Of Language, but you people should expect that. This is the Fucking Black Lagoon 'verse. Sunohara and other Clannad characters are merely guests, and not exactly honored ones at that.

2: Middle of the Mire (1.)

Roanapur, the city that would put cities like Caracas, Vegas, and Macau to shame.

Roanapur, the place where all the scum of the earth settles like silt and dirt clogging a riverbed.

Roanapur, my new home.

Why the hell won't fate be honest for once and just kill me right now?

My group seemed to think it was a good idea to set up camp here, in this city of demons and death. Violence and hatred ruled these streets, and though both the Chinese Triad and a certain Russian organization share power here, there are too many places where any random person could so easily get killed. Random, innocent, trapped people like me.

As I walked the streets, having been ordered to patrol the area and see if there was anything worthwhile for our gang to break into, I kept on hearing whispers in the wind. "A Japanese guy?" "Those shades?" " Hah! Hotel Moscow took care of the Yakuza when they came here, and she can do it again!" Random voices whispering to each other, too stupid to realize that I could hear them.

I kept my sunglasses on. Blowing my cover might allow other gangs to track me a lot easier, and that would ruin my chances of staying alive. I wasn't cut out for this job, so I had to adjust as fast as I fucking could. One mistake, one blunder and I'd be sleeping with the fishes.

I wonder, though, with people talking about major criminal organizations so openly, how did my group hope to keep themselves low key? Sooner or later the Triad or this "Hotel Moscow" would come after us...

For the first few months, nothing much happened, really. We started getting into the drug trade, evading a few Latino cartels while doing so. It seems that, with the Triad and their Russian counterparts making loads of cash, they weren't too interested in bothering certain other activities. Slowly our group began to make a break for the drug trade, and we got into quite a few fights with the local "foreigners." Seems like Thai people were the least concerned with the profession we were aiming for.

As you can imagine, as newcomers to this place, these gangs hoped to get rid of us. Mercenaries were common out here, and they weren't so interested in working for groups with few local connections, like us.

So we had to fight them off...


Bullets whizzed past my head as I grabbed onto the backseat of an Audi sports car.

Apparently, they sent us out in this thing, thinking that we'd be able to outrun the guys who'd shoot at us. Well, we could go fast, all right, but we stood out like a sore thumb.

We were so obvious and so noticeable as targets that our own clients stabbed us in the back. Our client happened to work with both sides, coming to us for certain drugs that we sold cheaper than the other party, but still having to rely on our enemies for the stuff we couldn't get our hands on. It was understandable, and it wasn't like our side was going to get them for it, but obviously we had to make ourselves better dealers. A high-class sports car like the one we were using made anyone who was curious spot us quickly. People who buy drugs can't afford to stand out, or they'd obviously get caught.

Sure, this was Roanapur, you could get away with whatever shit you wanted, but the thing was that if you can do horrible things, so can everyone else... We had to make it so that it would be relatively safe for clients to buy from us, but being so out in the open with our choice in vehicles, those who felt betrayed by the loss of business would likely shoot "traitorous" customers and tricky rivals at once.

So as our client was making a purchase from a typical black BMW, the standard car for "I'm part of a stronger group and you can't fuck with me." We pull up nearby in our Audi. Now those of you who don't know cars so much can be forgiven. An Audi might not seem that different than a BMW, but here's the thing: when you have, say, a black backpack on every person in a park, and all of a sudden a guy walks along with a black duffel bag, wouldn't you find that weird? Wouldn't you pay attention to that guy? Hell, I sure would.

And so would everyone else who were in this business.

So our client spots us coming, and knows that he's in deep shit. If our enemies found out that he was dealing with us, and not just any random other gang who had connections around here and could protect him, they'd turn on him and get rid of him, so he quickly bailed, pointing at us the whole time, as though we were here to get rid of him. Well, the enemy gang wouldn't have that. This client buys a lot of drugs, obviously not for himself as he wouldn't have the cash to fork over, so they quickly rev up their own engines and charge straight for us. If we died, their client would be safe, and we're pretty much small fries around here, anyway.

So we start running, flying as fast as we can down the road with these bastards in hot pursuit. One of my partners rises next to me every few minutes to fire a blast from his shotgun, while all I've got is some crappy pistol from Springfield... I'm firing away and the thing has mediocre range, while my partner covers me every few moments with another blast. (2.) We pick off a guy or two, while nearly getting picked off ourselves, and our driver swerves back and forth as he dodges bullets and other stupid cars that, for some reason, are too stupid to get out of the way of a high-speed chase.

Thankfully, due to our Audi being, well, an Audi, we're built more for speed instead of reliability, and so we fly away from our BMW pursuers... We could hardly win this time around, but, hell, we did good with whatever we got. At least we didn't lose any guys and picked off a few of theirs.


That was the first of many problematic fights I had to go through in my new life. Drug dealing here, strippers and whores there. Sure, back when I was a kid it was a dream to meet strippers and screw one, but after you've gotten a little you feel empty inside. You have no idea how many fuckers have been with her, and what kind of diseases and shit she might have. AIDS, Chlamydia, hell the stuff that hurts like hell at least tells you that you have something bad... Some of that shit stays with you for a while, infecting everyone you fuck, until it finally eats away at you and you die just like that. Bullets get rid of you quickly. The diseases slowly eat you and everyone you touch.

The people around me... They wanted money and women and all that, and for a while I got used to them. Still, a part of me couldn't just accept this... I may have lost everything, but getting caught in a life where I'd get shot or worse every other day isn't the kind of life I dreamed of having. Sure, I was a fucking idiot, dreaming big when I was nothing but a worm, but even a worm isn't stupid enough to roll around in a fire. I knew I had to get out of here, but there was no fucking way out...


Another year flew by in my life. A year of bullets, drugs, whores, and death...

Death, heh, you business folks and you country hicks would know nothing of what it's like to be caught in this other world. You're nothing like the people who walk around, looking like they're dead. Fuck, they don't know what "dead" is.

Sure, you see some guy lying peacefully in a coffin. He's white, pale, and all that. He's dead, sure, and he can't come back. Hell, that makes him so lucky.

People like us, we're the living dead. Some people spit some crap about zombies and shit. That's stupid. Zombies are just dead people who can walk, and I sure as hell haven't seen dead men walking. But I have seen "dead" men. I'm a "dead" man. Your soul, your heart, all the things that give you life in this world, they just disappear when you're someone like me. Some poet once said that "once you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back into you." He was so fucking right. I see death every day, I become death each day, and so I walk as one of the dead.

I kill men like me, and men who are not like me, all for the sake of some shit who's sitting in a comfy chair, knowing that he's got a mob in his hands that'll kill anyone in his way. And that one Yakuza fucker who controls me knows that I can't touch him... That I have no power. I'm just a pawn in this game, fighting against other pawns. Every now and then we meet a piece, some bigshot who's killed a horde of grunts and who's got the experience to do it again, but we offed 'em too...

I'm caught in this trap, the bottom of the fucking barrel, the place where all the shit of the world collects, and I can't fucking get out...

I can't get out...


(1.) Original (and official) chapter title is Middle of the Shit Hole, but the site wants me to be kid friendly with my titles, so there you go.

(2.) Four points for anyone who recognizes the model I'm referring to, or at least the company. Granted, most of the knowledge I have of "shady" weaponry comes from C&C or the browser game Mob Wars, and we all know how accurate the latter is. (A simple hammer as a top-tier weapon? Honestly. At least the anti-tank weapon makes some sense.)

I apologize for saying that this fic is only four chapters long. The next chapter will have a different POV, from another Clannad character, no less! There you will see the beginnings of the two universes actually merging. The last will resume with characters from Black Lagoon, notably the Lagoon Company and Hotel Moscow, culminating in the ending. Yes, I don't feel like screwing with Sunohara for too long. Sorry if you're disappointed in that.