Chapter Text
'Incoming!'
'Got it.' The young man turns around as he sees the red-haired girl tearing through another familiar. She looks up.
'It's moving.', The third person in the barrier, a veteran Puer Magi, keeps the small cross-shaped pendant close to his other hand. 'Get ready. I'll spread some invisible words you can stand on. When I do that, Mark that's where you come in.' The young man, apparently named Mark, just nods when he says that.
It takes shorter than he thought. As the witch approaches his group, the veteran makes a tear with one of the points of the cross through his hand. His face doesn't even contort from pain as he stretches his scarred hand that is still dripping. Words formed out of fresh blood find their way around his two teammates, and become invisible.
'Alright. Here I go.' Mark looks at his partners, who nod, as he rushes forward, carried by the invisible words. He prepares the two dolls floating next to him to land the killing blow.
Hey, Mark.
Mark gasps as he hears something in the back of his head. 'What...' he thinks. He knows he has to focus on the bigger picture: landing the last blow on the witch. As he tries to do so, it is as if the world just stops and stares at to whatever he is doing. 'Lucy...? Nate...?' He looks around, but his teammates are nowhere to be found. Instead, someone clothed in red seer robes is standing in front of him, and Mark doesn't recognize him.
But they disappear as soon as they came. 'Huh...? Where'd you go?' Mark whispers under his breath, as he quickly releases the final attack on the witch.
The barrier dissipates quickly after that. 'That was close.', Lucy slowly lets out her breath. 'You were amazing, Mark...Mark?' She pokes her partner, who awakens from his 'trance'.
'Oh, y-yeah. Sorry, I just spaced out there for a minute. I'm okay.' He picks up the Grief Seed Nate gives him and cleanses his Soul Gem. That was just my imagination, I guess.
Then, it is as if the world stops again.
Hey, Mark.
'Y-you...?', It takes a second before Mark realizes that it happens again. 'Who are you?'
Come to Yokohama.
'W-what?', Mark frowns. 'W-why should I...?' He sees that although the person doesn't move their mouth, they still speak to him.
Come to Yokohama. In Yokohama, contracted can be saved.
'...be...saved?' He gets the feeling that the situation is becoming more complicated by the minute. 'What do you mean?'
If you want to change your fate, come to Yokohama. In Yokohama, it is all possible.
And then, they are gone again. Mark shakes his head and gets back to reality. '...and I was looking forward to talk over coffee, if you'd like.', is the first thing he hears. It is from Nate, he knows. 'I tried out the cake recipe you gave me, Lucy. I don't think it's too bad for someone who doesn't know a lot about baking...'
Lucy smiles. 'I would love that.', She looks at Mark again. 'What about you?'
'Y-yeah, I'd love to do that too.' He says begrudgingly, and as Nate and Lucy trail off into another conversation, he thinks it over.
'Coming to Yokohama...', Thoughts race through his mind. 'And change my fate...our fate! But who was that person? Just...what, what in three hells is happening?' He has a lot of questions he dearly wants to be answered. 'Why Yokohama in specific? What do they mean with 'change your fate' and 'be saved'? Why am I the person who is seeing this? Is there someone fucking with me?'
He only knows the affirmative answer to that last question.
Although the rain starts to clear up, Atsushi would never say that this is his lucky day.
'So this is Yokohama...', He stares into the water running in front of his feet. 'It certainly is a lot bigger than I thought.' Atsushi looks up, at the tall buildings he associated with the city.
'It is not like I like drifting around, but...'
He puts his left arm on his knee, the silver ring with the light blue gemstone clearly visible around his middle finger. Atsushi carefully tugs at it with his other hand.
'I'm slowly starving...' he thinks, as he notices the space between the ring and his middle finger. 'But I cannot starve myself to death.'
He knows that, because Puer Magi like him cannot die under normal, human circumstances. 'I made that wish a long time ago, and if it were not for that...I certainly would be dead for a long time now.'
Atsushi peers into the distance to his left. The only thing he sees, is the other bridge, and more large glass towers. But then...
'Hey, you!'
Atsushi suddenly sees movement in the water. Judging from the size of the ripples, Atsushi knows that this may not be just a fish. Although he'd like eating fish - it is better than nothing.
'Wait!' Atsushi looks closer and sees that it is definately not an animal of some sorts. Without hesitation, he dives into the water and grabs the thing floating in the water.
As he does so, he immediately notices that it is not just something, but, rather, a someone. Using his built-in strength as a Puer Magi, he grabs the person and pulls them ashore. Once he is sure that he can breathe again, he spits out the water in his lungs.
'Come on!' Atsushi is fully ready to perform CPR when he finds that the person who he just saved, is alive. He now sees that he saved a brown-haired man with dark brown eyes, wearing a tan coat. 'He's a lot taller than me...luckily I saved him.'
Right after he thinks that, the man veers up, slightly startling Atsushi. 'What...? You...?', The man looks at Atsushi. 'You pulled me out of the water?'
Atsushi nods. 'Yes, I did. I saved you!' he says in a somewhat prideful tone. But the man seems to think differently.
'You interrupted my suicide...!' he says. 'You...wanted to die?', Atsushi suddenly is not so sure of the sanity of this man. 'That's crazy! Are you okay? Should I call someone? Do you have friends?'
'Calm down, calm down. I'm okay.', The man plucks at his clothing, his entire body having drifted in water for god knows how long. 'Who are you? I've never seen you before.'
'That can be true, because this is my first day in this town.', Atsushi admits. 'My name is Nakajima Atsushi.', He looks down at the left hand of this man. 'And you're...', His eyes grow bright as he sees the silver ring. 'A Puer Magi too?'
The man stands up and transforms in a flash of light. 'Correct!' Atsushi gasps. The man, of who Atsushi still doesn't have a name, is wearing a dark blue Puer Magi outfit. It is lined with black and grey accents, and his light blue Soul Gem is located in a golden, four-pointed star, in a bandage over his right eye. Atsushi notices that it covers him from the shoulders down, in contrast to his own magical outfit.
'You're...' Atsushi desperately seeks words in his head to string a sentence together, but doesn't find them. But the man finishes his sentence.
'I'm one of Yokohama's Puer Magi, one of the most known, in fact. My name is Dazai Osamu.'
'I'm so so sorry, I haven't heard of you before!', Atsushi averts his gaze. 'Can I get to know you?'
'Of course you can.', he says as he closes his eyes. 'We can fight together, if you want. Yokohama is full of dangers. It is different from other places. You will soon understand why.'
'Oh, okay, then...', Atsushi starts to doubt his decision to come to Yokohama. 'But I'm sure I'll learn the ropes soon...I hope...'
'Aw, whatever. I feel that we can get along.', Dazai smiles, waving away Atsushi's worries. 'Then, let's go. I want you to meet a friend of mine!'
'Oh, really?'
And so, the two walk off into the distance. Atsushi did not know that this meeting would change his entire life...