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The carnage-
That’s all Dazai could see.
Sucking in a breath, he carefully navigated the twisted remains of the building, sidestepping the ruined pieces of what were once walls and other detritus as the rest of the ADA followed him.
The Agency had been called to clean up the ruins of some building that had been the result of a massive Gifted fight, and the entirety of the ADA was required to attend due to just the sheer amount of damage that has been done; just about the entire twenty-floor building had been wrecked.
Dazai wrinkled his nose as he stepped over a hole through the floor, peering far down below to see near the bottom.
“Let’s locate the source of the battle and start from there,” Yosano suggested from Dazai’s left.
Humming, Dazai kicked at a piece of rubble. “I'm betting we’ll need to get to the bottom floor to find it,” he said. “They wouldn't fight all the way up at the top, most likely.”
“Are you sure?” Atsushi asked, before hissing in pain as he stubbed his toe on the melted remains of a metal desk.
Dazai heard a faint snicker from Ranpo, and turned to look at him with an eyebrow raised in amusement. “Trust me, the best place would be to be as far underground as possible,” Dazai continued.
Ranpo cleared his throat before speaking. “I agree; from the look of the damage just at the main floor, it seems like they exchanged blows in the basement.”
Dazai sighed as they picked their way toward the stairs. Boring, boring, boring.
Down down down they went, down flights and flights of identical stairs that smelled danker and rustier the further they got, but Dazai just skipped down the steps lazily with his hands in his pockets.
As they cleared the next level just above the basement, Dazai felt someone smack at his shoulder, and turned to see Yosano giving him an admonishing look. “This was the site where a bunch of people supposedly died,” she said, “shouldn't you take this a little more seriously?”
Dazai shrugged. “There's no one here now, and for all we know that's just a rumour,” he replied.
She gave him a curious look as they rounded the next flight, all of them coming to a stop in front of the double doors.
Or, where double doors should have been.
Where they should have stood was now a gaping and charred hole leading into a hallway. Ranpo whistled lowly.
“Half of you take the left wing, and the other half come with me to the right,” Kunikida ordered.
Nodding, they followed, and Dazai found himself creeping behind Kunikida as they carefully made their way down the hall.
Dazai was suddenly assaulted by the stench of gore and something burnt and nearly recoiled. From what he heard from behind him, Atsushi wasn’t expecting it either as Dazai heard him start retching.
Cautiously, Dazai slowly slunk forward around Kunikida, pausing when he saw the disfigured wall in front of him. He raised a hand and ran his fingers across the edge of the perfect hole marring it, noting how the edges looked charred. That’s not normal.
“Is that a perfect circle?” Atsushi asked weakly.
Dazai’s face went dark. “This has Mafia written all over it,” he muttered, more to himself than anything else. “Be careful.”
Eventually they made their way to the end of the room, and Dazai saw a flash of the other group reaching the other side at the same time.
However, they were not what his attention was focused on:
The room was completely destroyed, more so than the rest of the building; the walls were torn apart and extruding wires and drywall like intestines and arteries, areas of the ground shattered and ripped up. Around the massive room were more perfect circles burnt clean through solid surfaces, like a sphere of burning lava had burnt through them.
The walls were also splattered in a horrible combination of blood and something strangely burnt, like something supernatural had scorched the walls. The floors were littered with what once were probably people, now so shredded that Dazai could barely tell which parts belong to who.
It was a mosaic of horror, the medium blood and cruelty.
Yet, it was not the cadavers that caught Dazai’s attention- rather, it was the sharp smell from before now identifiable as the horribly familiar rusty-burnt smell of his past, and for that in the center of the room with an almost pristine ring clear of detritus around them, was a body-
“Chuuya.” (His words were horrified and unhinged, his stomach souring in terror and realization as his eyes widened.)
No coat, no hat, laying on his side with his back to Dazai- Dazai had a sickening thought coat the inside of his lungs crimson-
Corruption.
“No, no, no,” Dazai rushed out desperately, dropping to his knees next to Chuuya, carefully pulling him into his arms. He was too still, his eyes shut, and Dazai couldn’t feel his chest moving under his touch. (NO-)
Dazai lifted Chuuya’s wrist- his hands bare of his usual gloves- and saw that the familiar glowing marks were now black and dull like a scarred and coal-black brand spiraling over his arms and curling under his eyes.
Chuuya was limp and his skin was deathly pale, his face coated in peeling and tacky blood that had streamed from his nose, his mouth, his ears, his eyes-
He wasn’t breathing.
(Tick tock, tick tock-)
“No, no you idiot,” Dazai breathed, feeling his chest hitch and heave as his arms tightened instinctively around Chuuya, hunching over him as tears started to burn down his cheeks.
He used it without me-
Why?
He would have known I wouldn’t have been there in time to stop him.
Why?
Why, why, why, why?
(But too little too late, for corruption had long crept into these soiled heartstrings of theirs and pulled them to shreds.)
Dazai broke, his voice going raw as he screamed.
It’s all my fault-
(Time’s up, time’s run out, and Death doesn’t rewind the clock.)