Baccano! 193X Cherry Blossom Circus (バッカーノ! 193X サクラ · サーカス Baccano! 193X Sakura Circus) is one of two short stories Ryohgo Narita wrote for the KADOKAWA Light Novel Expo 2020 Official Memorial Book (KADOKAWAライトノベルEXPO2020 公式記念本 サクラ コラボレーション！).[1]
Summary
In a certain year of the 1930s, Isaac Dian, Miria Harvent, and Jacuzzi's Gang travel to Washington D.C. to deal with certain 'business matters'. Due to 'various circumstances', Miria, Nice Holystone, and other female members of the gang—including Chané Laforet, Melody, and Chaini—separate from the male members of the gang and head to the riversides, hoping to see the cherry trees in full bloom. However, they realize they are a few days too late; most of the cherry petals have fallen, making way for green summer buds.
Miria, who had been excited to show the others the cherry blossoms, is particularly dejected on her companions' behalf. She says her last visit to Washington was made after she heard Kanshichirou Yaguruma praise the blossoms' beauty, and that the blossoms on her visit were as beautiful as promised. She speaks with Nice about cherry trees' history in America, then recalls Isaac's explanation for why people gather under the trees' branches: apparently, cherry blossom pollen can be used as medicine. Melody chimes in with a slight correction: while pollen does contain ephedrine, a stimulant with medical benefits, cherry blossom pollen contains less of it than other pollen variants.
Miria also claims that people only look at the blossoms' petals, not their leaves, because their leaves are poisonous. Melody believes this, too, is a bit of an exaggeration: Couramin can wither other plants in certain conditions, but it can be consumed by humans without deleterious effects unless the amount consumed is excessive, at which point one's liver and kidneys may suffer. Undeterred, Miria counters that the poison can be used as a medicine—a turnabout she compares to the cycle of death and rebirth. "It's aphoenix!
Nice notices Chané staring into the darkness of the riverbank opposite. Seconds later, an armed group of "street scoundrels" march into view and in their direction. With a sigh, Nice says their location must have been exposed—hopefully, Jacuzzi, Isaac, and the others have made it to safety. So saying, she hurls a homemade firecracker at the approaching rascals, who cry out in the ensuing blast. At Miria's own cry of surprise, the women follow her gaze to the river and find it is charmingly blanketed in the petals that had been strewn on the ground prior to their arrival.
Impervious to the explosion's reverberating sounds, Miria exclaims that Nice has enabled them to see the flowers after all; she cannot wait to show them to Isaac and Miria. Nice, still in bliss from the bomb twenty-eight seconds prior, meanwhile cannot resist throwing a few more in their enemies' direction. With the ensuing blasts illuminating her smile, she shouts to her friends that they had better survive so they can all return next year to see the blossoms proper. All the women scatter under a haze of petals, dust, and smoke.