Chapter Text
The Agency is gone.
Dazai doesn’t want to know where they are, but he does. He can’t help but count the seconds, the minutes, bloody, rusty eyes screwed shut, standing there in the room now devoid of everything but him and a cooling body, remembering, wondering how long they have until-
But, no.
That’s not how this works.
It’s not seconds, or minutes. And it’s not until.
It’s years, and it’s since.
Dazai listens to the silence, and remembers- he remembers mere minutes ago, the echo of Kunikida’s shout and Atsushi’s growly yelp as the ability grabs them both. Of the image of Kyouka and Demon Snow slashing desperately at the grasping tendrils.
He remembers years and years ago-
(no, minutes to go until, please, there’s got to be time, he can get there fast enough, Odasaku will live-)
-two places. One - a hall, a cooling body, bandages unfurling and a hand thudding limply on the ground because he wasn’t fast enough, he didn’t make it in time; and two - a chilly, dark Yokohama evening, a street bathed in dim light, blood staining his hands many times that night, of the blond man’s shout and of the white haired boy’s growly yelp. Of the image of a young, raven-haired girl with an ability so similar to his Ane-san’s crying out as her ability shatters against his.
He remembers years and years ago, like a faded dream, a corpse at his feet with fourteen holes, a group of ability users in the dim streetlight, helpless against him and his dangerous teenage whims without their abilities.
But, now, he knows, doesn’t he? Kunikida and Atsushi and Kyouka and Kenji and Yosano and Tanizaki could have defeated him, especially the young, sixteen-year-old him of the mafia, however demonic he was. If they didn’t, it wasn’t because, like he remembers thinking at the time, they were weak and undeserving and in shock of his ability taking theirs away.
Kunikida knows how to fight without his ability.
Yosano knows how to fight without her ability.
Kyouka knows how to fight without her ability.
His Agency could fight without their abilities- it was because his Agency knew him, and because they are weak (never undeserving) and moral and they knew him and wouldn’t (it was never couldn’t, oh god) willingly hurt him, put him in pain, make him suffer (like he deserves to; what has he done, what did he do), even a him set on the idea of their blood splattered on the concrete, painting the street with red, red, thick blood, the white haired boy especially seemed to have so much blood and his hands had been so red and his laughter and their screams and the echoing gunshots so loud-
Dazai shudders.
He stills.
And pulls a gun from his pocket.
(Later, Dazai goes to Chuuya, and tells him about the time traveling ability user and his bullet-ridden fate. He says, slurring, at some point in the long, long night, “I wish I’d kept him alive, Chuuya.”
Chuuya has sad, sad blue eyes. “Why?” he says.
“Because then-” Dazai coughs, and wants to cry but finds himself unable, which makes him want to cry even more, “then, maybe-”
Chuuya puts a heavy hand on his head, and pushes it back into his lap, and strokes his brown, blood-spattered locks.
“I’m sorry,” the chibi says.)