Chapter Text
“I’m not here to hurt you, but can you stay quiet for two minutes, please?”
Still visibly trembling, the girl nodded.
“I’ll try my best to explain what’s going on, but firstly, what is your name?”
Name? 007 never had a name. Just numbers. That was all she was. 007.
“007.”
She had watched as the boy’s face went from shock to serious real fast, then change to a.. kinder? expression.
“Well, 007, I’m Chuuya, and me and my- uh.. friend were send here to get you and other kids out of here, so would you come with us?” Chuuya slowly extended his hand to the girl, who presumably never had a name, only numbers like a rat in lab. (like himself).
007.. had trouble choosing. On one hand, she could escape, but the other.. if she were to get caught by those scary men again..
More experiments. More electricity would run through her bone marrow. More chemicals in her bloodstream. More chains. More injections. More green liquid as food. More training with her esperer powers. More, more, more, more, more and more.
“Will those scary men come back?” she asked.
“No, if they were to come now, I’ll knock them all out. Is that enough of an answer?”
As if on cue, there were doctors heading their way.
Chuuya, sensing the footsteps, and change of expression on 007’s face, grabbed onto her hand, and climbed up to the vent, hoping he was fast enough to get at least 007 to Dazai.
Dazai had listened to Chuuya talk to (presumably) 007. When the sound of footsteps came their way, Dazai tried to sign to Chuuya about it, but Chuuya had already heard them, and was hurrying 007 to the vent, hoisting her to Dazai and leaving her in his care.
Chuuya, now facing the doctors, had an undeniable feeling that that girl might be the one of the few that were alive, as such, it would be a shame if the doctors also did stay alive.
-------
When Dazai first got the little girl shoved in his arms, he could scream. Chuuya was going to fight the doctors, while he needed to find the rest of the kids, and get the hell out there. AFTER HE JUST HAD A PANIC ATTACK. The stupid chibi always thought the only way to forward was to get up as quickly as possible, ignoring his own pains and aches. But, nevertheless, Dazai needed to get a move on.
In all honestly, after hearing his Chuuya fight his fears and trauma, it made Dazai speed up. Nevermind the girl clinging to him as lifeline as he (very speedy) crawled through the vents, but seeing no alive kids.
When he was on the fifth row of the ventilation shaft, the sixth vent, was boy with a horrible haircut. Most likely 13 or 14 years old. Except, he was alive. So, naturally, he opened the vent with ease, at spoke to boy. “There’s an lab-wide break-out happing right now, and you’re the second one alive we found. I have the other one here with me. Would you like to leave?”
“I- uuhhh, who are you?” the kid squeaked out. “You- uh- don’t look like one of the fathers.” The kid looked horrified. Now that Dazai really looked, the kid wasn’t horrified, but rather at the point where most would have already shat their pants.
“Well~” Dazai flaunted, and flicked his hands in a way that could perceived as a rich girl impression as he jumped down from the vent. “I am Dazai- nice to meet you- who are you?” Landing on the boy’s bed.
“Well- uh I’m 018, so uh- nice to meet you?” 018 spoke up. Judging (and not really caring about who 018 was) from their names being fairly low in number value, Dazai assumed the lab was moderately new. The subjects were also justly young, which supported his initial theory of the lab being somewhat new.
“So, would you like to leave?” Dazai just- asked. He knew that these types of persuasion worked best when you would laid the truth bare infront of them. In this case, escape. And, if he wanted so, if the events were to turn against them, he could just throw them both over his shoulder and skedaddle, but that’s for emergencies only.
“Uh.. sure?” the boy says, not entirely sure, unlike what he’d just said.
So, Dazai turned to the boy, who was still scared, but not ‘shitting-my-pants’ kind of scared, but rather afraid of what would happen when he’d leave. But, there is an time crunch, so Dazai will have to hurry if he wants Chuuya to not have another panic attack while fighting those doctors. So, the easy solution to all these problems, is to throw the kid to the other one, and keep close tabs on them while seeing if there are any other kids in this lab. So, that’s what Dazai decides to do.
“Hey 018, what is your ability?” The boy looked up to him. “Well uhm- I don’t know the exact specifics of it, but what I do know is uh- well I kinda turn into a weretiger- but I can’t exactly.. control it.” Huh. That would be more useless than Dazai thought.
But, with this in mind, Dazai decided that his plan was still the best course of action.
So, he asked the next logical question. “And how do you know about your ability?” a seemingly easy question, but for the demon prodigy, it’s a massive source of knowledge about the lab. It would answer how the child would know he has an ability (because the chance that the doctors would tell him about his ability would practically be zero, except if the doc’s wanted to see their fruits of the experiments. Aka; testing how his ability worked.) and if there were any reports that would be important to look over.
The kid looked to a wall, as if he was shamed. “I may- or may not have heard the fathers talk about something called ‘documents’ and ‘reports’. And the things they said tied in with the fact I once woke up with some kind of- uh.. cat claw? It was really confusing, but hearing the fathers talk about it.. well it kinda made sense.” 018 explains, but rather, he rambles. But hey! atleast Dazai got an explanation now. But now, another theory has formed in his head. Why did the kid say ‘fathers’? Trick question, there’s only one normal answer to that. That would be: the fathers are the doctors. Others would be dumb, like if the ‘fathers’ were actually the real fathers. But a ‘real’ father wouldn’t just experiment on their child, would they?
“Hm..” Dazai, still in thought, now maybe faced that the doctors were their actual fathers, even if he’d just said that those types of explanation would be dumb. But he still needed to get a move on, and needed those reports. “Hey child, are you fast with running?”
-------
So, here was 018. Running through some ventilation shaft that had only been installed for fresh air, because, yes, he was one of the oldest kids here. He had been the second one here, the first one being a girl he couldn’t remember. It felt like he has been here since his birth, for almost 14 years now. The only times he’d remember his infancy was in his dreams, and if he’s honest, his dreams are sparce. Most times he’d see a tiger, then a man he both remembered and forgot. If he was lucky, maybe his dreams included chasuke. But then he would wake up hungry the next morning.
God damnit. Now he was hungry, again. He really craved chasuke now. A bowl of rice on tea, topped with spring onions and leftover chicken, maybe hot. If he was lucky, he would find some salt to give it extra flavor. Oh how tasty that would be..
“Uhm.. 018 right? I’m 007. Your thoughts are really loud.” Oh, yeah he also had to carry 007 out of here. Great. “Well, do you have any way to shun your ability down? Elsewise I can’t exactly stop thinking.” He tried to sound nice to the girl, but his choice of word sounded really.. awful. Sarcastic. Egotistical. Oh well. Nothing he can do now.
“Well- I can, but can’t really- y’know, control it yet.” Which, yeah it makes sense, but he’s on a mission here. From what that guy said, he needs to make 3 lefts after another, then a sharp right, go forwards, and then look up. That’s where the exit’s supposed to be. But.. right now he needed to go up.
Looking up though, he sees the jump is almost 8 feet. Which is a jump he cannot make. Is this a good time to use that curse word he learned from a father? Probably not.
The vent it open though, so if he threw 007 to the open vent, she could climb out. “Are you seriously thinking to throw me?! I thought you could think of something better than that.” 007 exclaimed. “Uh- sorry? I don’t really see any better option tho- ”
… silence..
“Should we just wait here then?”
“.. sure.”
-------
Fuck.
No, scratch that.
FUCKING GODDAMN SHIT BITCHING FUCKASS PUTAIN MERDE CON KOT KACKEN クット うんち 不平を言う GODVERDOMME KUT (note: don smoke me I got the slurs from google translate) DOCTORS. Holy shit. Chuuya can’t believe these things actually thought they could bring him down. For good measures, he spits on their corpses.
As he takes off to see if there are any other locked up kids, he hears a familiar running pace coming from his right.
“The fuck?!” The source of the running, now behind him speaks up. “Good riddance.” Oh, it was Dazai. Just what Chuuya needed. “Ne chibi, can you check for any other children? I’ll look for reports ‘n stuff.” Chuuya huffs. “Okay, well I was already doing that. I heard the reports are locked tho.” This time, Dazai huffs. “I already knew that-” he held up two reports and USB drive. “how else would I have been able to get these otherwise, Chuu~ya.”
Great point. Chuuya sighed. “Well then, you can just keep doing.. that and I’ll see if there are any other kids or, if there’s doctors, knock the doc’s out.” Wait.. wasn’t Dazai the one who needed to lead the kids out? “Hold on- before you go, where are the kids you needed to look after?”
“Imayormaynothaveputthemintotheventandonlyhavegiventhemintstructionsonhowtonavigatetheventsandthenwentlookingforyou..”Dazai mumbles out. Okay, the fact that Dazai specifically went looking for him aside, “WHY THE FUCK DID YOU LET THEM GO ON THEIR OWN?” Chuuya almost yelled. More like, whisper yelled into Dazai’s ear.
“Aww is the little hattrack worried for the children~?”
“Uhm yeah, Mori also mentioned in the file that we needed to bring the kids back alive.”
…
The silence was.. thick. Not deafening, nor pregnant. Just thick.
“..Well.. the boy does have a combative ability, and the girl can read minds so-”
“Shush.” Chuuya cut him off. “I don’t wanna hear the explanation. Let’s just get out of here.”
“Sure..” Dazai grumbles under his breath, then takes off in the same fashion as when he was running towards Chuuya.
When Dazai finally left, Chuuya also took off. He send one text to Dazai.
[me]: if u find any reports on dead kids dont take them bc they will jst detail the daily experiments
Read 01:39 it said. Good. Dazai read his text atleast. Oh wait, he forgot one thing.
[me]: also I will update u if I find any alive kids
Now it’s time to find any survivors. The first few cages were nothing new, after 20 more dead kids, he ran into a another gaggle of doctors, which he beat up no problem. After 30 more cages, he ran into the mackerel again.
“You again.” Chuuya said, at this point was more tired than surprised.
“Yes, yes ofcourse~ ” Dazai said, clearly not thinking about how tired Chuuya feels. “Well~ chibi, this row we have already checked, and I have all the necessary reports and the likes, so if you have checked every other row, we’re done here.” “Well, I did check everywhere, in which YOU never helped.” “Well someone had to get the knowledge of why the lab was build!” Dazai pouted. It was kinda funny how he pouted. Almost cute, but, ofcourse, it’s Dazai, so it isn’t cute. Hmpf.
“Don’t we have a vent we y’know, need to help the only two kids through?” Chuuya asked. Dazai, now opening the vent, mutters something about needing to write a long ass report, and how he does not want do that in a Magnificent Dazainess way, and Chuuya lets him. Not the first time he’d dealt with this.
Dazai finally opens the vent, and Chuuya half-throws Dazai in there. Meaning: he’d picked him up, then very softly (in his way) threw him in there. (read: grabbing Dazai by his collar and swing him in there. Does that count as a throw?)
The only two kids that had survived this hellhole remained in the tiny corner where they’d stayed the entire time. “Well, wanna get the fuck out of here?” Chuuya said, slowly turning his ability on.
------(I want to get the fuck out of here pls)-
Mori sighed. Being a mafia boss is not as easy as many people might think. Besides, he also had to take Elise shopping today! He’s a busy man y’know!! So, when the mission he had given to Chuuya and Dazai had turned out to be- a little disappointing.. he had a new plan for himself. Getting them together- not as partners in crime, but ~in love~, was his new plan. Elise was the one who’d suggested it, and how could he say no to his dearest Elise? Alas, he did need a good gameplan, and the orphans might just be able to play a big role in his plan.
------(mori=biggest ssk shipper)-
Dazai and Chuuya were at the extraction point. With the only other two children, because that had been their mission. Now just to get to headquarters.. and it’s just their lucky day, because there had been a traffic jam and now the driver is late. So, being the very responsible adults they were, they decided to get food, because A: the kids were still starving, and B: they were also hungry.
As the quartet walked among the run-down streets, a convenience store with a neon sign could be seen just up ahead.
And it was open all night!
Before even wagering if would be a good idea, Dazai dragged Chuuya and the other two into the store. Once into the store, they went to the snacks section first. Dazai carefully looked at the snacks, deciding that sweets weren’t gonna be good for the health of the children they now needed to care for, atleast until they got to headquarters. So, instead of the array of sweet stuff or overly salty chips and the likes, he got: -‘,salted nuts!’,-
“Like hell they’re gonna eat that.” A suspiciously slug-like voice said. “’Sides, if you did care about their health, get them fruit or something like that. Maybe a fruit smoothie?” Dazai looked like he was a wet dog on the side of the street. “Well I didn’t know that!” he pouted, thinking he should’ve only looked in the snacks section. “Oh, mister Nakahara-san?” the girl asked. “Can I get a apple flavor?” Chuuya smiled. “Sure.” Then he left with both of the freshly rescued kids, leaving Dazai behind by the snacks, salted nuts still in his hand.
He got a text message.
[PM dispatcher (vrooooooom) ]: The driver is almost at your location, sir.
Perfect timing. He started hurrying after Chuuya, because despite all, he also craved a smoothie.
“Ne ne chibi~ko.” The chibi in question turned around to see Dazai, phone in hand pointing at something on it. “Driver’s almost here. We need to hurry.” Chuuya gave a huff instead of saying yes. “Kay, so did you also want a smoothie or something else?” “Oh, I did want a smoothie, yes.” Dazai grabbed the banana one. Kinda basic, but he didn’t care, because a banana smoothie is good and nothing can change his mind about that.
“Did you also have your smoothies with you?” Dazai asked the children, who beamed at him. “Ofcourse! I have the apple one!” the girl looked up to Dazai, then to 018. “And I have the kiwi one.” He answers. “Time to buy them then!”
-------
They all arrived at headquarters, smoothie in hand. Mori had asked for them to meet him in his office. Just what was that man planning? Chuuya himself had no idea, but the mackerel might. As he walked to inevitable might-be death, the man besides him was totally calm. Chuuya felt like was sweating so hard, that he might die of dehydration.
As the door to the office of his death opened, Chuuya took one breath to restabilize himself, then walking alongside Dazai, who is looking a bit paler now. Did he figure out why Mori called them here?
“Hello Chuuya, Dazai. You might be wondering why called you here instead of writing a normal report.” Chuuya indeed did. “Well, those children you rescued need a support system, and since they have grown acquainted with you two-” Oh fuck his life. “you would be a good fit to mentor and take care of the little ones. We can’t have them running around the Port Mafia, after all.” This is it. Chuuya’s going to join Dazai in a double suicide. He isn’t doing this.
“So, here is a new, long term mission.” Mori looked maniacal to the normal eye, but Chuuya and Dazai both knew that that was more than manic. It was.. insane. When Mori had a deathly strategy to get rid of a rival. Or, when he knows something will play right into his hands.
“Become their caretakers, until they are adults ofcourse.”
The silence was deafening.
“Well, unless you want me to be in charge of taking care of the girl- and the boy.” Mori smiled.
That smile, that only shows up around Elise, or any girl under 12. Mori is not getting his claws into her.
“It’s okay, we’ll accept the mission, right mackerel?” Chuuya nervously asked Dazai.
“Uh-hm” Dazai swallowed his saliva. “Sure thing, boss.”
-------
Now walking the walls of the Port Mafia’s headquarters, the usually bickering pair was oddly quiet. That was, until Dazai broke it.
“So..” Chuuya looked at his partner. “How’s your living situation?” what. Why did he want to know that? “Most of my kitchen and pantry are filled with wine, I store some of my fast weaponry in my closet, and I still need to clean my cabinets and most of my bedroom. Why?”
“Well chibiko the 3rd, we do need to take care of two mentally unstable children, so we do need a good home~”
"We are not adopting them." Chuuya cut him off.
"I would also say so buuutttt, Mori's orders are final." Dazai answered, reminding him of the duty Mori had just given them.
“How’s your home then?” Chuuya countered.
“Oh how straightforward for a not-so-romantic chibi~! Well, since you asked nicely, I should answer. In my cozy and very comfortable shipping container, the first thing you see is a lovely noose from the celling~” Chuuya internally groaned. This is gonna take long. “and when you further down the cozy cottage of the great Dazai, you will see a kitchen full of knives! In the closet not far to the left, are melatonin shots! They are a lethal dose, so don’t take too much~ under my comfy bed, are notebooks full of my woes to you, and my writings on how to commit a painless suicide~ and not to forget, the closet of methods! Don’t open it unless you want to die~.”
The bastard had just described how a apartment shouldn’t look if you had a 4-year running around.
“Well, fuck. Then we probably need a better, childsafe and NOT have suicide methods in every corner of the house, or apartment.” Chuuya thought deeply.
“Says you! Don’t leave your wine up for grabs!” Dazai added, not very helpfully.
“Ahem.” Hirotsu coughed. “The children, sirs.” Dazai and Chuuya both looked up to Hirotsu, eyes wide, and movement temporally stopped. “Uhh-” the normally sly with words Demon Prodigy was stuttering. Chuuya wanted to record and share this so badly. But his phone is broken. Curse his anger for destroying his most recent one. (which was approximately 6 minutes ago still intact.)
“Fraternizing aside, what were you two talking about, if you don’t mind me asking ofcourse.” Hirotsu was guiding the kids towards them, and slowly retreated.
“Do you happen to know if there are any good houses on the market now?” Chuuya asked.
“Hm. I’ll look into it.” Hirotsu simply replied. Pulling out a notebook he conveniently carried around, he noted his task that had now been given to him. “Ah- wait, before you lot leave, what kind of house would you need?” Dazai thought about it. “Well, it would be in our best interests to have atleast 3 bedrooms, a big enough kitchen so chibi can store his wine out of reach of these two-” he pointed to the almost sleeping girl and boy. “and enough extra room for training, a living room, a bath, with luxurious soaps ofcourse~ and maybe a bigger garden than a balcony, if it’s not too much trouble.”
“Not a bath.” Chuuya thought about how Dazai would probably drown himself if did get a bath. “But chiiiiibiiiiiiiii-”
“NO.”
“YES.”
“NO.”
“…” Dazai threw his hands up in retaliation. “Fine, it doesn’t have to have a bath.”
Hirotsu wrote all the requests down quickly. “Well, I’ll have our house contractors contacts look for one as quickly as possible.” They dismissed Hirotsu, then turned to the almost sleeping kids.
“Where are they staying tonight?” Dazai rightfully asked, thinking about his container home. “Not with you, obviously.” Chuuya answered, also rightfully. “We can’t have them discovering suicide so quickly, or do you want to fail Mori’s mission?” “Well- we can’t just leave them in your house too!” Chuuya cocked his head to the side, with a smirk. “Tell me, why is my apartment worse than yours?” “All your wine ofcourse! As much as you’d like, your huge collection is not good for children!” Dazai looked away from Chuuya, who had a answer already. “You do know that I can move the bottles out of sight for the time being- right? Or is the genius demon prodigy too dumb to know that?”
…
Dazai looked like he was about to commit murder.
Oh shit. Chuuya knew he could be stupid at times, but this is almost the peak of his stupidity. He had called Dazai, the maybe smartest person to walk Japan, no, the world, dumb. He’s cooked. Fuck. Shit. “Uh- I didn’t mean to call you dumb pleasedontkillmeinmysleep.” Chuuya pleaded. “Oh? Is the fearsome Chuuya Nakahara scared of little ol’ me? How alien of him~” Dazai annoyed Chuuya just for his reaction now, entirely different than how he just acted. “Don’t worry, but just sleep with one eye open at night, or else~”
“Uh- are we like, supposed to see this happening right now?” 018 asked.
Ah right. The orphans they now needed to care for. Dazai totally didn’t forget them. He turned to them, and asked something completely different. “Don’t you guys want any actual names?”
“Uh.. well before I got the name 018 I remember being called Atsushi but I don’t know if that’s my actual name, before the y’know-” “Well Atsushi, that’s your name now!” Dazai exclaimed.
“Oh! Oh! I want to be called Anya! Or peanut!” her eyes made a sparkle at the thought of being called her favorite food.
“Alas, you can only be called one. Which one do you prefer?” Chuuya asked.
“Hmm.. which one did you like 01- Atsushi?” the girl asked.
“I think.. Anya would suit you nicely.”
“Anya it is! Mister Nakahara-san, can we go home now?” that- that was a fast change of subject matter, but okay. “First things first, you can just call me Chuuya, and the mackerel Dazai. Secondly, yes, we’re going to my apartment, until Hirotsu finds an actual house.”
“Okay! I’m really tired, so can I sleep on the ride there pleeaaseee.” Anya made a pout that was reminiscent of a sad doggy, and who is Chuuya if not someone that always gives in when he sees something dog-like? And it’s also far past a normal 4-year old’s bedtime, it being 03:12 right now. Sigh.. this was gonna be a long mission.