Chapter 16

Constantly Pushed Back to the Past, Part 2 (たえまなく過去へ押し戻されながら (後編),) is the 16th chapter of the Bungo Stray Dogs manga.

Summary
Tanizaki is dragged through the door, leaving Atsushi alone. Anne then starts chasing Atsushi and tries to capture him. Lucy is amazed by Atsushi's skills and describes him that he's like an acrobat. She also tells that his ability is very useful and people seem to make a fuss over it when he is young. She then opens up the topic of Atsushi being an orphan and tells him that she used to be an orphan too and spends her day cleaning with cold water and rag which made her fingers hurt and with ability, people find her creepy.

She then tells Atsushi that it must be lucky for him for the agency to be looking for him when he was kidnapped and the reason must be because of Atsushi's ability. Lucy then reveals that the Guild took her in because of her ability and unlike the agency, the Guild never allows mistakes and if she failed, she will be cast out of the Guild. Atsushi then tries to use the key to open the door, but it turns out to be sentient and unusable. Atsushi then clarifies that he can win if he used the key. Lucy says that if he can showing the key that moves.

Atsushi is left to keep avoiding Anne, and not knowing what to do, he tries to run out the exit to ask for help from the Agency. However, he's stopped by the other man who stayed in the room. The man, a former doctor, told him not to give up since if he leaves the room he'll forget everything that happened, and that he shouldn't give up on his friends, who never gave up on him. He also tells that a game theory research tells them that if a harmful enemy advances upon us, the optimal reply is to fight back all you can. This fires Atsushi up just as he gets caught by Anne and dragged through the door.

Atsushi gets dragged and Lucy though the only one left is the doctor so she tells him that she is grateful since he helped Atsushi not to leave the door, giving him the option to leave or let her see his anguished face once Anne grabs her. The man then responds and Lucy feels that she can't move, Anne also can't move. The doctor then tells Lucy that she had lost the fight and tells her to look at the door. It turns out that the door that she thought was closed was actually an illusion done by Tanizaki when he was dragged in, and that Atsushi was holding onto the door frame with his bare strength.

He also reveals that he tied a ribbon around her waist and pulls her to him, telling her to deactivate her ability or he'll drag her into the room, where no one, not even her, can get out. Lucy hesitates but finally releases her ability. After everyone's out, she runs away, while Kyōka runs up to greet him. He thanks the man from before for giving him advice, and is shocked to see Kyouka terrified when she sees the man. The man, who has found his Elise, is revealed to actually be the Mafia boss Ōgai Mori. He heads to a warehouse, where a large group of Mafia members is surrounding the dead body of the Guild member who had accompanied Fitzgerald to the Agency. Chūya tells Mori that he was an assassin, and he says that no matter who the enemy is, they must be thoroughly crushed and killed.