Chapter 4: Bomber Blues

"Its good to see you again, Dazai" the Boss mentioned as Dazai, Rin, and Tats entered. "Where did Beo go, Tats-kun?"

"Nap" he said as he took off his shoes and laid down on the couch while turning on the TV. "She used a lot of energy today".

"I see. Well, I take it from your appearance that things were eventful".

"Indeed!" Dazai mentioned, as he looked around. "Oooh, the beautiful ladies of this branch have increased! I wonder if any of them would be willing to perform a double suicide with..."

"Give it up Dazai" Tatskumi mentioned. "No one is going to do that".

"By the way, you did a really great job, Tatsku-chan~"

"Shut up!" he shouted as he raised the volume of the TV and looked away from them.

Dazai praised me...yay! This is great!

"Anyways, what brings you down here, Dazai?"

"Running an errand for the boss" he replied. "Where is everyone else?"

"Out on a case, or working on something else" he mentioned. "That said, I hear you tangled with the Port Mafia again".

"It couldn't be helped. They were being jerks" Tatskumi mentioned.

"I am still not quite sure about what happened myself" Rin added.

"I see. Well, I hope that Rin has had a fun first day".

"Indeed. Tatskumi, you...oh dear..."

Dazai looked at the couch, and discovered he had fallen asleep already. Dazai then decided to grab Rin, and took him out of the main room and into the kitchen to make some food

"Well, I guess that is that. Looks like that is it for today..."

And then, as if jinxing it, the door to their office was suddenly kicked open, by a man strapped with bombs and a dead man's switch entered the main room.

"You freaks! I wont let you get away with what you did!"

"...oh dear..."

Dazai and Rin hid behind the counter and took cover as the mad bomber roamed around the office, his other hand taking out a gun.

"I want to see everyone, now! All of you freaks, get out of here!"

"Ahhh, this is not good..." Dazai whispered from behind the counter.

"Not good, what do you mean?"

"Its because Tatskumi-chan is asleep. If it was normal sleep, it would be fine. But remember what he said, about Beo napping? Unless the bomber makes a direct attack against him and triggers his survival instincts, he probably wont wake up. And with no one else here, no one has an ability they can use to stop this bomber".

"What about you?"

"My ability only works to nullify abilities, and your ability would just make you rampage right? The only good news is that he has not noticed us here yet, which gives us the element of surprise. If we work together, and grab that detonator before it goes off, we should be able to handle the situation".

"And the gun?"

"Ah...don't worry, everything will be just fine. We deal with problems like this all the time. Granted, we usually have Hazel-chan, or Tatskumi-chan, or Kari-kun, or Rizu-chan, or Kazuya-kun here to deal with it. Maybe Kiri-kun or Rio-kun as well, not to mention the others...but everyone else is out".

"...this sounds really bad for us".

"Oh, its absolutely terrible. But we should be fine. You can do this, right?"

Rin thought to himself for a moment. He had seen a lot of crazy things already. Things that shocked him, that scared him, that surprised him.

"...alright. Do we know who he is, or what he wants?"

"Ah, more then likely, he is probably related to someone who we caught, or maybe his family members were killed by an Ability User and this is him lashing out. Either way, its fueled by emotion. Rin, its all on you!"

"Why me?"

"Because, he would recognize the rest of us! YOu can just act like a random passerby!"

"He has a bomb and a gun!"

And that was when Dazai used his foot and pushed him out to deal with the man.

This seems very familiar...is Dazai Tatskumi's father or something?

"Ah! Who is that!"

"Ah! I am just...the food delivery boy! Please dont hurt me!" Rin shouted. Thankfully, the bomber did not even remotely question him coming from the kitchen, thanks to that excuse. "I just want to live, you know? And I dont want to die while I am hungry!"

"Shut up! Just...stay away from me, you freak!"

"Hey, I don't work here, I just deliver where my boss tells me to so I dont lose my job!"

"Well...dont get any closer!"

"But, come on! Don't you want to live as well? There is so much great food to eat!"

"Great...food? But how could I enjoy it after what happened?!"

"But dont you have food you love?! Like ramen! You like ramen right?!"

"...I mean...yeah...and my sister loves sweets".

"See! That live for your sister! Eat her favorite sweets! Don't you want that joy?!"

A few people were sort of starting to question the sanity of this conversation.

"No...no no! Stop talking!"

As he said this, however...both of their stomachs growled. Talking about food had made them both hungry.

"...you heard nothing".

"Now, come on! Clearly we both want food! Lets leave this place behind us and get some!"

"Hold it...I still have not made my point though!"

"But if you kill yourself here, if you act like this, think about how your sister might feel?!"

"Well, I..."

"You dont want to make her sad, right?!"

"...errr..."

"Come now, lets both go and enjoy delicious food together! A huge array of sweets and everything! And then, we could look for jobs that pay well to buy even more sweets! Lets live for delicious food!"

"...I mean..."

And then, that was when Dazai finally jumped into action, knocking the gun out of his hand. Unfortunately, in that instant, he let go of a detonated, and a cell phone attached to the bomb vest started to count down from three. The bomber pushed Dazai away, and he stumbled back towards Rin. And then, Rin...in a move of desperation and selflessness, grabbed the explosives and tore them off, leaping away and landing on his stomach, on top of the explosives to cover them.

And so, the count down continued...and it hit zero.

Rin closed his eyes and braced himself...however...

"...eh?"

"Congrats, Rin! You passed!"

Everyone from behind him shouted that, including the unknown bomber.

"Eh...ehhhhhh?!"

Even Tatskumi and Beo were awake now.

"Well done, Rin" Tatskumi mentioned. "It only took you one try too. It took me two".

"Thats because the first time, you focused all of the power you could to throw the explosives away from everyone, rather then doing something totally selfless" the bomber mentioned...or rather, the supposed unknown bomber, whose entire appearance began to change into a young...boy? Girl? A sixteen year old person with pink hair and blue eyes.

Kiri Kobayashi. Ability: Twenty Faces. Rin recognized him from a briefing he got, that mentioned some of the people who would help mentor him when he arrived here. Though...the profile did not clarify if it was a he or a she...

Either way, Kiri was wearing a loose grey shirt that shows off his right shoulder, black shorts, knee high black and white striped socks, and black slip on shoes. Around his neck was a black choker.

"...wait, what did I pass?"

"The entrance test. Everyone has to go through it to join the Armed Detective Agency. Its a pretty easy pass/fail thing, even if there are strange anomalies on occasion that result in undeterminable results".

"You cant hold that against me forever..."

"Actually, that time I was refering to Dazai".

"Either way, welcome, officially, to the Armed Detective Agency".

"...that is one hell of an entrance exam..."

Meanwhile, far away, as night began to emerge and those who relished in it hit the streets, there was one person who was hidden away, in his little shelter hidden from the rest, who was watching and enjoying all of it at once. He didn't look overly strong or very charismatic, a bit of a creep really, but he was someone who worked in this city as a sort of Intelligence Broker. And on the various screens in front of him, where images of his secret ways of observation and information gathering.

Name: William Golding. Ability: Lord of the Flies.

"Well now, it looks like the Armed Detective Agency seems to be celebrating" he said as he watched an image that was looking through their windows. He had tried to get eyes and ears inside the building, but some wolf kept messing or eating them, among other interferences, so he had given up on that idea.

Incidentally, he was also the one who had sold Tatskumi's location, twice, to Port Mafia people today. The first was to the group that arranged that alley ambush, and the second was to Ex for the port.

"These people, I swear...they are always so interesting".

That was when he spotted someone doing something interesting, out of context and strange.

"Well then, what is that person doing..."

And so, tomorrow morning, the news started off with an urgent broadcast. "Five people dead in hotel room, butchered to pieces".

AN: Sorry if its a bit short, but it would have felt weird to continue here and not just put it as a new chapter.