Baccano! 1931 The Grand Punk Railroad volume 2

'Baccano! 1931 The Grand Punk Railroad Vol. 2' is the second volume of the 2006 Baccano! manga adaptation, as illustrated by Ginyū Shijin and based on the original work by Ryohgo Narita. It collects the manga's latter eight chapters (referred to as chapters two through eight and the final chapter) and was published on April 26, 2008 by MediaWorks.

The manga follows the beginning of the chaos on the Flying Pussyfoot and then presents an alternate series of events in which Jacques-Rosé Boronial does not board the train; these events more closely resemble the rest of the canon.

Synopsis
Following Jon Panel's indication that the young conductor knows how to stop the Rail Tracer, Jacuzzi Splot bolts out of the dining car towards the caboose, past Donny, Jack, and Nick. Nice Holystone follows after him and sends Nick back into the dining car. Meanwhile, Ladd Russo bemoans his bad luck: Vicky, not he, won the lot to start the assault on the dining car. Lua Klein suggests that he can at least check on Vicky's situation; cheered by the thought, Ladd leaves the cabin to do just that—and recognizes Jacuzzi when Jacuzzi bumps into him in the corridor.

In first class, Goose Perkins reaffirms the Lemures' intention to sacrifice the train to save Huey Laforet. Meanwhile in the dining car, Vicky eyes the passengers and wonders whom he should attack first; he is sorely tempted by Mary Beriam. Soon enough, he, Nick, and a handful of Lemures simultaneously draw weapons on the dining car.

As the passengers in the dining car panic, Nick realizes that his knife is outclassed by Vicky's handgun and the Lemures' machine guns and withdraws. Jacques-Rosé inserts himself between Vicky and the Black Suits, asking if they are the ones making the train smell like blood and offering to be their opponent. His noble speech is cut short when the Lemures start shooting and Vicky uses him as a human shield; once he falls to the floor, Vicky mockingly says that he himself might have managed to live a good life if he had met a hero like Jacques-Rosé earlier. Ladd rushes in just in time to see the Lemures kill Vicky.

Not particularly troubled by his ally's death, Ladd then proceeds to brutally kill the Lemures in the dining car. He informs Natalie Beriam that he will return for her and her daughter after 'taking care' of all the men in black suits, and then takes his leave. With all the killers gone, the passengers in the dining car begin to openly panic; among them is first class passenger Turner, who spews racist insults at Jon and Fang Lin-Shan. When Isaac and Miria come to Jon and Fang's defense, Turner is subsequently exiled to the second class cars. Meanwhile, Jacuzzi reaches the caboose and, upon discovering the bloody corpses of the two conductors in the conductors' compartment, concludes the Rail Tracer has already reached the train.

While the White Suits decide that they get to kill a few Black Suits each, Goose decides that the presence of other hijackers on the train must be some manner of a trial. Elsewhere, a team of Lemures captures Jack, Nick, Lua, and Who and confine them to a freight hold. Natalie sends Mary and Czeslaw Meyer to hide in Second Class, though Czes is more preoccupied with plotting how to use Ladd to his advantage. Isaac and Miria leave the same way not long after, intending to find and 'rescue' Jacuzzi and Nice from whence they have vanished. Just after the couple's exit, Jacques-Rosé sits up; the turtle figurine Rosetta gave him kept the bullet from reaching his heart! He, too, leaves the dining car, determined to vanquish the evil aboard the train. Moments later, Goose enters the dining car and addresses Natalie.

Natalie tells Goose that the White Suits took Mary away—though in reality, Czes has hidden Mary in a closet and now continues to explore the train on his own. After learning that a woman in fatigues escaped the dining car when the shooting began, Goose escorts Natalie to their first class car and leaves two Lemures to maintain control of the dining car. Elsewhere, Ladd encounters the man dressed all in gray and after a brief conversation allows him to hide in the white suits' second-class cabin; the man's willingness to die has put Ladd off. Meanwhile, the Rail Tracer begins picking off the Black Suits—including those watching over their hostages in a freight hold.

Upon hearing that the someone is hunting the Black Suits, Chané Laforet leaves the Lemures' first-class car. Goose encourages Spike to let her be; she will ultimately not live past tomorrow. Nice and Donny finally catch up to Jacuzzi in the caboose and summarize what is happening on the train, much to Jacuzzi's alarm. Not far away, Ladd finally locates the freight hold in which Nick, Jack, Lua, and Who have remained tied up despite their captors' conspicuous absence. Although Ladd frees Lua, he refuses to free Nick and then injures Jack in order to test his theory that all people named Jack are good boxers. During this time, Isaac and Miria continue to wander their train with some degree of fear—and when someone approaches them, they initially assume the other is the Rail Tracer. The 'someone' instead proves to be Jacques-Rosé, who shows off how the turtle figurine saved his life before offering to go scout ahead on their behalf. On the way, he passes by Czes, who is alarmed to see him alive.

While the Rail Tracer continues to terrorize the train, killing off more Black Suits and encountering Rachel, Jacuzzi resolves to kill the Rail Tracer and the Black Suits to save the train. Mary, on the other hand, is found by a White Suit—only for Chané to kill the white suit and take her hostage. Jacques-Rosé's scouting ends when he comes across the Rail Tracer committing one of his brutal murders; although the Rail Tracer takes no interest in Jacques-Rosé, he realizes that Isaac and Miria might head in this direction and hurries back to warn them of the danger. Once again he encounters Czes on the way—but where he is relieved to find Czes alive, Czes stabs him and accuses him of being an Immortal.

As Jacques-Rosé falls to the floor, baffled by Czes' attack, he hears someone calling his name...and wakes up and falls out of bed with Rosetta leaning over him. While he tries to explain what just happened, Rosetta throws his coat at him and tells him to hurry up if he does not want to miss the Flying Pussyfoot. Confused, he lets her drive him to the station, but balks when he sees the people from his "dream" boarding the train. He elects not to board, deciding to leave the train in the hands of the Rail Tracer.

When the two of them turn to leave, however, they become embroiled in a conflict between Nader Schasschule and some members of the Russo Family; Jacques-Rosé leaps in to defend Nader, and Rosetta is forced to teleport the gun out of a Russo goon's hands to save his life. Oblivious, Jacques-Rosé continues fighting and—as he fights—reminds Nader of a childhood promise Nader made to become a hero. Nader soon shoots a Russo goon to defend Jacques-Rosé, bringing the conflict to a close. Jacques-Rosé and Rosetta decide to head over to Dolce, and the train departs.

Trivia

 * According to a bonus comic at the end of the second volume, Jacques-Rosé's name was originally supposed to be Jack-Rosé (ジャックローゼ). Since the character Jack also appears in this manga, Shijin resisted this idea and elected to make his name Jacques-Rosé instead.
 * Jacques-Rosé's conversation with Rosetta about his decision not to board the Flying Pussyfoot also appears in 1931: Another Junk Railroad - Special Express Episode. However, while the conversation overheard there fulfills the same narrative role as the conversation in the manga, the actual content of the lines do not match.