Chapter 10: The Disappearance of Rashomon

At the port mafia building, Sinclair walked to the door of the room that had been temporarily assigned to them.

"Miss Ryoshu, Dr. Mori gave me...?"

Sinclair opened the door holding a strangely shaped doll. Instead of the familiar figure sitting on the sofa, a very reserved little girl was curled up on it, covered in dirt.

"Excuse me, I went to the wrong place."

Sinclair silently closed the door.

The rooms in the building all looked extremely similar. The blond boy secretly blamed himself for his carelessness and then started looking at the room numbers.

Wait a minute? The house number is correct, right? He didn't go to the wrong place, so where did this child come from?

As Sinclair was contemplating life in the corridor, the small, thin girl timidly pushed open the door.

“You haven’t gone to the wrong place; it was Ms. Barbaresco who brought us back.”

Gin Akutagawa quietly observed the blond boy. He seemed to be well taken care of, and his initial unease gradually subsided.

"She took my brother to see a doctor."

It's one thing for Miss Ryoshu to pick up people, but she even takes them to see a doctor? Is the sky about to fall? The blond boy tried hard to suppress the urge to rush out the door and see if the sky was still there.

"Did she go to Mr. Mori's place too?" he wondered to himself, handing the small girl the doll Mori Ōgai had given him.

A loud bang.

With an unlit cigarette in his mouth, Barbaresco roughly kicked open the door to the doctors' lounge, holding a child whose face was flushed red from the fever, and said to Mori Ōgai, "He'll treat him."

"Does that mean he should treat this child?" Mori Ōgai tried to understand Yoshitomo's words.

"Dazai-kun, come and lend a hand," he called into the cubicle.

"Who is it, Mr. Mori?" At the same time, a fluffy brown head peeked out, and its pupils involuntarily contracted after it saw the child being held in Barbaresco's arms.

"Who is this?" the boy asked Mori Ougai as he walked out of the cubicle.

"This is Ms. Barbaresco, the companion who came with that Mr. English Whiskey."

Thinking of the blond boy who had just left, Dazai Osamu nodded thoughtfully.

He helped Mori Ougai take the boy, whose body temperature was alarmingly high, from Barbaresco's arms and laid him flat on the bed.

Looking at that face that was all too familiar, fourteen-year-old Dazai Osamu fell into thought. Wasn't this Akutagawa? How could he have been brought to the Port Mafia by a stranger at this time?

When Dazai Osamu first saw Sinclair, who had never appeared in the "book," he was suspicious. However, he was sent by an external organization to assist in the investigation and would leave soon after the investigation was completed, since there were always discrepancies between different worlds.

The problem is that Ryunosuke Akutagawa has always followed one path: he was picked up by Akutagawa when he was thirteen and joined the Port Mafia, instead of being brought to him by a strange woman at this time.

"Hmm... let's bring down his fever first, it's too high." Unlike Dazai Osamu, who was full of doubts, Mori Ōgai, as a doctor, or rather, as a patient brought by a valuable person, would still treat him with great care.

After receiving the injection, Akutagawa Ryunosuke's body temperature began to gradually decrease. After Mori Ougai confirmed the injection was effective several times, he turned to Yoshihide and asked, "Who is this child?"

Liangxiu remained silent, only looking at the boy on the bed.

Seeing that she was ignoring him, Mori Ougai wisely led Dazai Osamu away, leaving the two of them alone.

Outside the door, Dazai Osamu still looked lost in thought.

"What's wrong, Dazai-kun? Why haven't you said anything?"

Noticing Dazai Osamu's reaction when Barbaresco brought his men in, Mori Ōgai asked again, "What? You know that child?"

Dazai Osamu shook his head. "This is the first time I've met him, but Miss Barbaresco and England's accounts are completely different."

Indeed, she actually brought the children from Leibo Street back.

"How did Mr. Mori know that it was brought back from Leibo Street?" Dazai Osamu asked, following up on his question.

“Dazai-kun has never been there, has he? If you had lived there, you would have been able to tell at a glance that it was full of homeless children like that child.”

"Eh...why did Miss Barbaresco bring him back?"

“Perhaps the child caught her eye,” Mori Ougai replied.

He had no idea why. He couldn't even understand good language. Mori Ougai's few interactions with that woman were all when Sinclair was around. However, the leader liked her very much. He felt that Barbaresco, who was efficient and didn't like to talk nonsense, was the kind of subordinate he should have. Right now, his subordinates were a bunch of useless people. He didn't care at all about the colonel's bruised and purple face that was still inside the room.

Liangxiu, on the other hand, had no good feelings or pleasantries towards anyone, whether it was the old man who was on his deathbed or the doctor who was always scheming about something.

She looked at the boy lying unconscious on the bed. He was very thin, and his face was flushed with a sickly redness. She didn't know why she had brought him back.

However, her intuition told her that if she didn't do it, she might regret it for the rest of her life.

After an unknown amount of time, Ryunosuke Akutagawa, whose body temperature had returned to normal, finally regained some consciousness. He realized that he was lying on a bed, which was not soft, but even so, this was not something he and Gin, two children, could have.

Thinking of his sister, the still-dazed boy suddenly sat up in bed. No! Where was his sister?!

As far as the eye could see, there was only a short-haired woman holding a long knife dozing off. The layout here didn't resemble a hospital either, and he couldn't help but think of the increasingly rampant child trafficking rings.

He barely managed to protect Gin, who had a handsome face, thanks to his special ability. Could it be that Gin and he were both captured while he was unconscious?

Ryunosuke Akutagawa became increasingly agitated as he thought about it. His breathing became rapid, and he eventually couldn't stop coughing. He knew the sound would wake the woman, but no matter how hard he tried to hold back, the sound would still escape. In fact, the harder he tried to hold back, the louder the sound became.

Liangxiu looked at the child who woke up, looked around, imagined some terrible things, and then started coughing.

"woke up?"

Upon hearing the sound, Akutagawa knew it was all over. He tried in vain to use his supernatural ability, but whether it was because his body was too exhausted or for some other reason, his clothes remained unchanged, while the woman opposite him showed a strange expression.

Hmph, things are getting interesting. Ryosuke felt the power emanating from within his body and looked at the boy who was striking a strange pose but was panicked because nothing had happened.

"What did you do?" Liangxiu unusually didn't use good words; her patience with this child exceeded her expectations.

Akutagawa, on the other side, realized with despair that without Rashomon, there was no way he could defeat the woman who had clearly received systematic training; the long sword in her hand alone was enough to give him a hard time.

“Miss Barbaresco, are you in there?” Sinclair’s voice came from outside the door. Ever since the blond boy arrived, he had insisted on calling her by her code name.

"Enter"

The blond boy led the little girl, who had changed into clean and well-fitting clothes, into Mori Ougai's office.

"I'd like to ask, where is she sleeping tonight?"

Noticing the strange atmosphere between the two in the room, the boy looked as if the sky had fallen, while Ms. Ryoshu was very happy. Did she really like children?

"elder brother!"

Noticing that her brother was alright, Yin wanted to rush over, but she didn't move. She just looked up at her blond brother who had brought her there, as if asking for his opinion.

"Go ahead," Sinclair said, noticing the girl's hesitation, and nudged her towards the bed.

Looking at his sister, who was clean and unharmed, Akutagawa was momentarily confused about what they wanted, and what they could possibly want from him and Gin.

Could it be a special ability? But he can't use it now.

"Miss Ryoshu, do you intend to adopt them?" Sinclair asked quietly beside Ryoshu.

As he mobilized the new power that had appeared within his body, Ryosuke nodded in affirmation of Sinclair, wondering what this feeling of using his ego was all about.

"Ms. Barbaresco, you haven't left yet?"

It was already past the end of the workday when Mori Ougai looked at the room full of people and slowly typed a question mark: Why are there so many people?

Did she actually bring two children back with her?

Mori Ougai casually took out his stethoscope, intending to act as a doctor again. With a smile, he walked towards the two children who were hugging each other.

Let me hear it again.

Yin saw the middle-aged man dressed as a doctor approaching and quickly gave up her seat.

"Yes, it's pneumonia," Mori Ougai concluded after listening for a while. "If you treat it well, you'll recover quickly."

What do you want from me?

The boy, pale-faced yet flushed, asked the woman who appeared to be of the highest status in the room.

"Close your eyes and get back to the translation," Liangxiu said before heading out for a smoke.

“Ryo, Miss Barbaresco means that you two are to my liking and I intend to adopt you,” Sinclair almost blurted out Ryoshu’s name.

“Brother, this is the lady who brought you here today.” Unlike Ryunosuke Akutagawa, who still had doubts, Gin Akutagawa clearly trusted the woman who had taken them away from Leibo Street and brought her brother to see a doctor.

"Your fever is too high, I'll go outside and find someone." Ryunosuke Akutagawa, who was burning up like a piece of charcoal, couldn't help but think of her mother, who had also died from a cough and high fever. But the problem was, where in Leibo Street would anyone be willing to help a dirty little girl? And who would give her precious medicine?

Even though Gin was well protected by her brother and avoided most of the darkness, she was aware of her value in certain organizations. Just as she was about to try her luck at the most famous stronghold nearby, Ryoshu appeared in front of her carrying a long sword.

A note from the author:

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