The Gravity User

Rampo sighed for the trillionth time that evening, complaining for once about having nothing to do. Kath then raised her head from her papers with a sweatdrop as she heard him.

It was truly rather boring with all of them cooped inside. Kenji went back to flirting with his plant, Yosano busied herself with keeping watch, while the president was indulging in a board game against, himself? All while reading a book.

With a shake of her head, Kath went back to her papers and scratched her head with her pen as though hoping to prompt her brain to come up with an idea. " I commend your ability to keep your imagination working even under these circumstances, Kath." Yosano looked back at her from the pew ahead, peeking slightly at the papers and notes she was scribbling on her knees.

" What can I do if my imagination refuses to work unless under such circumstances?" It sounded as though Kath herself wished to have some choice in it.

Yosano merely smiled softly as she leaned over the back of the pew, trying to read some of the disoriented and messed notes and make sense of the plot Kath was trying to put. " So this is your next masterpiece."

" I don't recall having previous ones," Kath mumbled as she jotted another idea that just came to her mind, using lines, arrows, and circles to include it in the flow of all others, slowly mapping something that she only seemed to understand.

" I can already see you having next ones though," Yosano argued, giving up on reading the talismans, she looked at Kath. Her face was covered in a pink color as she made a point of not looking up from her work.

" I assure you, that story you're working on would be a big hit, the plot looks promising," Rampo piped up while he sank deeper into his pew, hoping to find a more comfortable position. But with the pew being old and cold, it was nothing short of impossible as the board continued creaking with each attempt of him.

Kath hugged her papers tightly, her face aglow and sweating. " You… you get it?"

" Huh. It's a piece of cake for a detective of my caliber." He lifted his hat ever so slightly so he could glance at her from the corner of his eyes, as though telling her how disappointed that she was thinking lightly of him.

" R-Right…" The blonde looked down at her notes and her look went soft. It was just an attempt, something she wanted to try and didn't know if she even wanted to stick with to the very end.

A secret, maybe could fit.

Her eyes suddenly sharpened as a faint sound reached her, it wasn't one that came from within the walls of the chapel. It was a faraway sound that vibrated the length of one of her wires, traveling all the way through the old tunnel to reach her. " Someone is here…"

Rampo then sat up straight and looked at his own screen before his usually half-closed eyes opened, as though he wanted to make sure of what he was seeing. On the screen, one of the Mafia executives smirked before the camera's footage went blank.

Kath pulled her right hand, her silver strings glimmered in the light as they were stretched and, far from there, three elephant plushies moved with their snouts pointed at the man. He seemed a little befuddled before the dolls opened fire, but the bullets stopped short of touching his body.

The man smirked, then with a pulse of gravity, he crushed the three plushies, snapping their threads. They slithered back, and wrung themselves around other plushies standing by there. The moment the stuffed animals moved up to him, he spoke up. " You'd send these puppets to receive a special envoy? You're so short-staffed, I could cry. Could you send out someone that's actually alive?"

Kath clutched at the back of the pew tightly her knuckles were white before standing up. She stuffed the papers she was working on in one of her bag's pockets before sliding it over her shoulders and making to the door. Her heart was pounding fast. Even now, more of her dolls were being destroyed. The man seemed too strong for her to handle.

I might need to use it. Her eyes flicked at the thing stowed behind the last row of pews.

" Hold it up." Yosano placed a hand on her shoulder, snapping Kath of her own thought. " I'm pretty sure you didn't intend on going there on your own." The woman bore a devilish smirk as she hauled her giant blade on her shoulder.

" If we have a visitor, we will welcome him together," Kenji affirmed with his ever-so-bright smile.

Kath then nodded her head, a confident grin spreading wide across her face. " Yosh. Let's give them a warm armed welcome."

" Yeah!"

✦ -─────────- ✦

As Chuuya proceeded, undeterred by the weapon toys flung at him, four figures appeared before him. He couldn't stifle his snort when he saw them. " Only three and a giant panda toy?"

" If you're dissatisfied with your reception, come back after making an appointment," Yosano spoke calmly, not the least bit affected by the man's threatening aura.

" You think the Mafia needs an appointment to raise hell on an enemy base?"

" Oh! I don't think they do!" Kath sweatdropped at Kenji's enthusiasm. He really is an innocent big boy, isn't he?

" If you want to raise hell, have at it. But that's not what you came here for. Am I right?" Chuuya seemed to be taken by surprise by Yosano's words.

" How do you know?"

" If you so wanted it, you could have just caved this tunnel and then we would be unable to leave. That alone would seal us. But you didn't." Kath's eyes leveled with his blue ones, as if trying to read deep inside his soul.

A lot could be deduced from one's eyes, she had learned long before. They're windows to the human's inner mechanism, their souls. And the one standing before her, he was a rather complex individual. He was a ruthless man, yet, that wasn't all to him…

" Where's your president?" Kath jabbed a finger at the large panda behind her, its eye camera zooming on the man. Chuuya's smirk didn't waver as he looked directly at the massive plushie, or maybe beyond it, as if peering at the two people watching him from the other side.

" Here's a present from my boss." He held a photograph. Kath squinted her eyes at it before she recognized the people captured on it, the Guild.

" We reeled them in with bait. The time and location they'll appear is written hear." He flipped the photo, his smirk broadening. " You don't get many chances like this, do you? You can get one over that detestable Guild!"

Kath's mind raced. What was that the Port Mafia wanted by giving them such valuable information? Why didn't they deal with the Guild themselves? And how were they able to bait the notorious Guild? The gears shifted as she tried to connect the dot, a knit form in her gut as only one word was repeated in her mind.

A trap.

Kath wasn't someone who fancies making enemies. She had learned firsthand that staying low allowed you to live longer. However, with Yosano provoking Chuuya in front of her, she didn't have much choice but to follow her heed, even though she was sure Chuuya would have just stood there without lifting a finger at them if they didn't attack. The executive had no intention of fighting them, but they had a reason to.

They needed information, and a Mafia executive just appeared on a silver platter. That was a chance.

Kenji peeled away one of the railings and flailed it at Chuuya with ease as though it was a rode of some sort, all while warning the man of the upcoming attack. Foolish of an action as it might seem, Kath liked that about him. Kenji's innocence was his selling point.

Chuuya evaded, running on the rail before roundhousing Kenji, and pelting him at the wall.

When Chuuya realized, he was surrounded. Yosano with her hatchet drawn back, was standing behind him. The white and black plushie thrust a fist at him from his left flank. Kath's pistol was pointed at his right temple, trigger halfway drawn.

It was an instant. The panda punched, Kath shot, and Yosano slashed. Yet Chuuya was nowhere to be found. Where he was standing was the crater left by the panda's punch that fell down to the ground, unable to reach him. Kath's bullet ricocheted off the wall having nothing to sink in. And Yosano's blade was clean from the smallest spec of blood.

Kath looked up, finding the said man standing on the roof. Literally standing as if it became his ground, his body glowing with the color of his ability.

Gravity.

" You're Nakahara Chuuya, the gravity manipulator, aren't you?" Yosano questioned, craning her neck to look up at him.

" That damn Dazai must have blabbed…"

" Not really, no." Kath was unable to hold back her comment. " Nothing but trash and suicidal nonsense comes from that maniac's mouth."

" Ho, you think so too?"

" Please, I've been around him for less than a month and I'm this close to strangling him." She held her hand up with her index and thumb pressed together.

" There is nothing."

" Precisely."

Chuuya snorted before dropping down, causing an even bigger crater over the one panda had created using his increased weight. Kath and Yosano managed to get back before they were caught.

" I would have liked to complain some more about the damn idiot." Chuuya's smirk broadened, as though inviting them to attack. " But I still have a job to finish. Who wants to fight against gravity?"

Before any of them shifted a muscle, Fukuzawa's voice rose from the panda plushie, taking them by surprise.

" It's true that if the Detective Agency defeats the Guild, you will slash the enemy's strength without lifting a finger. If you're lucky, the Detective Agency and the Guild might even take each other out."

" But you have nothing to lose yourself. Right?"

What's with his confidence?

" If what you say is true, then yes. What are you hiding."

" Nothing."

A lie.

" What action is the Port Mafia going to take?"

A smirk, a mischievous one, tugged at Chuuya's lips. It reminded Kath that the one before her was a Mafioso.

" They don't have to take any action."

Even if he didn't seem much older than her, even if his eyes and actions betrayed a tinge of kindness, still the man before her was someone who dappled in the arts of killing and deceiving, someone who decided to drape the blackness of the underworld over his shoulders, and became one with it.

A trap. A trap. A trap. A trap!

Kath clicked her tongue. Her mind was racing, her stomach lurching and her heart throbbing rapidly. Fear, rage, worry, a mixture of emotions overcame her as she began to link the dots and draw the lines.

" What did you bait the Guild with?" Rampo's voice sounded calm. He figured it out already.

Gritting her teeth, Kath pulled out her phone and entered the coordinates that she had spotted on the back of the picture earlier. Her eyes went wide at the result that she got.

A guest house. And not any guest house, it was the very one Naomi and Haruno were staying at. How on earth did they find them?

" You used our office staff as bait?!"

" You can still get them out of there in time." There was no guilt whatsoever in his voice. " Plus, the Guild has no idea that you're about to act. It'll be an easy win."

The phone in Kath's hand creaked, threatening to snap in two from the pressure.

Chuuya laughed. He calmly laughed the moment he realized they had fallen into their trap. Now that the lives of Haruno and Naomi were on the line, of course, the Agency would mobilize their forces to save them.

" 'Even if they know it's a pitfall, the Detective Agency will still fall right into it,' my boss' words."

And he was right, admitted Kath bitterly. They were already falling head-first into that trap.

A cheap and vile method befitting the demon sitting at the top of the Mafia...