Chapter Text
These sorts of warm spring days are always bad news if you ask someone in the Armed Detective Agency. A lot of sun, clear blue sky that becomes white near the horizon. Or maybe the white bit is just the pollution every big city has, who knows.
Agency workers don’t like these sorts of days for one simple reason: it always feels like the calm moment before the storm finally hits.
There were a few clients in the morning, so Oda and Ane-san were absent when Chuuya came to the office. Long four days he spent in the North of the country, trying to get some useful information about what was going on in Yokohama with a were-tiger kid. He didn’t learn much.
Also, he barely had time to go to the dorm, take shower, and change clothes from the train. Where he didn’t sleep. It took him the whole night to get back to Yokohama. In the North, he didn’t have time to rest as well.
Of course, he could’ve just, well, fly back? It would’ve been so much faster. But lately most of the time he didn't feel like using his ability. This ‘lately’ stretched for four long years already and there was no way it’d just end somewhere about now.
Also, the tracker on his hand was a big turn down for any will to use his ability. Because it not only controlled where he was at any given moment, but also fixed when he used his ability, and if he used too much of it he had to write a report. Let’s just say, nobody likes paperwork, especially the one which goes to the government. These guys loved papers with such a passion, Chuuya was frankly worried about them.
Dead-eyed kid looking too much like Gin is not what Chuuya needs while surviving on coffee and some snacks he managed to wolf down at the metro station before the unwelcoming and way too crowded underground wolfed him in exchange.
Right, Akutagawa Ryuunosuke. The new guy. Who, for whatever insane reason, decided to throw himself at Port Mafia and by mere luck made it out alive. Chuuya wasn’t in Yokohama for less than four days, and now they have a new recruit, who already caused troubles.
“You don’t look like a client,” Akutagawa says, and Chuuya only huffs.
“Nah, I’m not, and you're rude Akutagawa.”
The guy frowned. Chuuya came to his desk, setting the coffee cup down and taking his backpack off.
“Welcome back,” Hirotsu says, still reading the newspaper. Gin and Higuchi aren’t in the office, but, judging by the open archive door, they are doing some paperwork.
“Yeah, long time no see,” Chuuya gets into his chair and leans back. He’d say something like ‘maybe I should take a nap’, but the door to the Boss' office is closed, which means he is there. And Elise has a supernaturally good hearing.
Akutagawa stops near Chuuya’s table. He heavily limps and seems like he should be still in the bed and not walking around. Chuuya is even half-sure he’s only capable of standing straight because of his ability – it wasn’t like he knows what type of the ability Akutagawa had, but he can see the soft red light around trousers and torn coat. He also had this tracking device on his wrist, so it was possible he’d have to write a report on using his ability so much.
Well, better learn to do all the paperwork now.
“You are Nakahara Chuuya,” Akutagawa says.
But before Chuuya can answer his phone vibrates.
“Yeah, so what?” Chuuya unlocks the screen to see what was that about. Boss sent him a message instead of just telling him to come in, which meant it’s something to do with the current conversation
‘He needs to learn some patience. He also mustn’t do any extensive physical exercises for two weeks.’
Oh. Well, just great. It isn’t like Chuuya doesn’t know how to teach hot-blooded people patience – Gods or whatever Entities are out there won’t let him lie that he himself was once a very hot-blooded teen – but he isn’t sure his methods are going to really work now.
Though, no, he has a few.
“I’ve heard you are the best martial arts fighter in the Agency with the strongest ability...”
“And who the fuck told ya so?” Now Chuuya is a bit confused. Hirotsu chuckles but doesn’t say anything.
“Oda-san.”
“Ugh, that asshole,” he isn’t going to take in one more Oda’s child under his wing. Gin was already bad enough, and now her brother came a mere four month after her.
“So did he lie?” Akutagawa frowns. So, he has two expressions: annoyed and blank-on-the-verge-of-killing-you-intensely.
“Nah, he didn’t.”
“Then make me stronger!” Akutagawa shouts and Chuuya flinches a bit. Jeez, this kid surely needs to work on his attitude.
“And why should I?” Chuuya growls, more to see how Akutagawa would react to the aggression, than the fact he is angry.
Akutagawa seems a bit lost. Ok, he isn’t as bad as some subordinates he had back in Mafia, but he’d get a sure notable mention. Well, then he could just press further.
“Yeah, now if you have something to say, wait until I finish reading the morning news.”
Chuuya never really reads morning news. That’s why Hirotsu chuckles behind his newspaper. Again. Goddamnit, old man, you’re going to blow all cover.
“But...”
“No buts, either stay here and wait, or go away and we are never touching this topic again.”
Yeah, Chuuya does know how much such words suck, so he is prepared to stop that beige thing that came from Akutagawa’s coat without even blinking an eye. Back when he was a teen in Mafia that was how Dazai literally trained him to be more patient. So, because Chuuya knows it would work eventually, he slips to the same patterns. And Akutagawa is right – Chuuya’s ability was the strongest in the Agency, so he could afford just look through the news without as much as moving to stop attacks or even react to them.
Surprisingly, Akutagawa stopped after that one attack. And he kept waiting. Huh, maybe, he’s not the lost cause.
Chuuya spent some more time skimming through news and then turned all his attention back to Akutagawa. He looks like he wants to kill everyone and everything, but at the same time blank. Well, that they should also at least tone down.
“So, did ya think of the reason?”
“If I became stronger it would be good for the Agency,” Akutagawa said. Hirotsu looked over his newspaper at that. Huh.
“And how would it make the Agency stronger? You're still on probation and didn’t even have your trial yet, if we make ya stronger and then ya decide to run, we’d have a stronger enemy on our hands.”
“I attacked the Port Mafia.”
“So did thousands of other criminals over the, what, twenty or even fifty years it exists, Not like they all were good guys, and it doesn’t make ya a good or even decent guy as well.”
Chuuya also attacked Port Mafia, well, not headquarters, and he only dealt with people who came to his swamp, and then with Rimbaud… but that's a completely different matter. The point was, attacking criminal organizations never really meant the attacker was good, usually they had their ulterior motifs. For Akutagawa, it was mere luck that the Agency decided to support him and give him some sort of second chance.
Akutagawa frowned, probably a bit lost. Chuuya was used to playing this sort of mind games, and Akutagawa wasn’t. Well, it didn’t seem like he had good socialization skills overall, let alone logic games with weird catches.
The sound of a helicopter right outside the window with a loud car-honks going off destroyed all the plans for conversation. Chuuya quickly got to the window, trying to see what was going on. Hirotsu, who more likely didn’t manage to finish his newspaper, slowly stood up and came close to Chuuya. Akutagawa, like a silent beige shadow, stood next to them. The helicopter parked almost in the middle of the street, surely making any other traffic impossible. In the morning. What assholes.
“Huh, Americans?” Hirotsu said, squirming a bit.
“Yeah,” Chuuya nodded, watching as a blond man jumped from the helicopter. He saw his face somewhere, but he couldn’t remember.
“Francis Fitzgerald, huh,” Hirotsu said. And this man had the nerve to say he has bad eyesight. Even Chuuya had troubles making all features our from this distance.
“Oh, it doesn’t seem good,” Boss said, leaning on the windowsill over Elise, who squeezed herself between Hirotsu and Chuuya.
“It doesn’t,” Elisa nodded calmly and Chuuya could only agree.
This guy is filthy rich, and for some time he was a diplomacy worker of the US embassy in Japan. Chuuya had only heard bad things about him, and him being there and looking directly at their curious faces meant nothing good.
Two more people jumped off the helicopter as well, a girl about nineteen years old, and some pedant looking dude. Chuuya noticed a lot of gifted had a really weird fashion sense, and these two? So far the winners in this field. Fitzgerald, surprisingly, looked normal.
“Akutagawa-kun, go to the archive, help Gin. Also, tell Higuchi to meet guests,” Boss says and fixes Elise’s hairs. “Chuuya-kun...”
“Go to Kajii and stay out of sight, got it,” Chuuya says and steps away from the window.
“Why?” Akutagawa asks.
“Because we don’t want them to see all our cards, right?” Boss smirks.
At these rare moments, people who for whatever reason forgot that Boss was a military doctor, a criminal doctor, and possibly killed the previous Port Mafia Boss background surely remembered that. And, well, not many people aside from Chuuya even knew the last bit, but anyway. Boss was dangerous. His calculating gaze more likely predicted what it all was about.
It was always calm next to Kajii, despite what other people thought. He was fast, always moving, even muttering something, but at the same time, he was completely focused on his work. Chuuya loved watching people who did their favorite activity or talked about their most passionate topics. And Kajii sure filled all the blanks for that.
Chuuya always found calmness and relief in being in a noisy environment. What was that saying… People, who were born under cannonade rumbles..? Ah, Chuuya didn’t remember.
“Oh,” Kajii said out of the blue, and Chuuya looked up at him from his phone.
“Mm?”
“I’m out of (something unpronounceable).”
“Ah, well, let’s go to the shop then. Hm… to not go twice, maybe you should write down everything you need.”
“Ah, sounds like a great idea! Wait a bit, I’ll run a short inspection!”
“Yeah, sure,” Chuuya nodded and focused back on his phone. Kajii kept muttering, going over all the stails and drawers and places Chuuya didn’t even want to know.
From time to time Kajii gave some names, and Chuuya wrote it down, mostly because he was already used to that. Kajii never recorded such things, and then surely forgot something. So far Kajii didn’t accidentally buy something wrong, despite Chuuya’s messy handwriting.
“And, that’s all I need!”
“Yeah, check the list, I’ll go get my jacket.”
Thankfully, by the time they were ready, Fitzgerald and his group left, if the sound of a helicopter flying away was an indicator. Hirotsu seemed thoughtful, and Higuchi muttered something about how ‘their guests are too rich for their instant coffee from the shop next building, so they just spent a few packs that nobody even wanted’.
Honestly, Chuuya also wouldn’t want to drink that instant poison, but Higuchi, Oda, and Boss, for whatever reason, were really fond of it.
“Ah, Chuuya-kun, just in time,” Boss said, leaving the office. “How was the trip?”
“Eh, fine,” it was barely a trip, but Chuuya wasn’t about to say so.
“Then please, come in and tell what you’ve learned,” Boss said and went back to his office. He seemed as welcoming as always, but Chuuya couldn’t ignore the feeling that this tightness around his eyes was the sign of something being pretty wrong.
“Yeah,” Chuuya said and put his jacket down. “Oi, Kajii,” he said, looking at Kajii, who just left his analysis room. “I’m gonna give a report on my trip, so will ya wait for me?”
“Ah, no, no need, I’ll go buy everything by myself,” Kajii waved him off and went towards the elevator, barely not kissing the doorjamb.
“Oh, ok,” and so Chuuya went to Boss’ office.
The office smelled of expensive perfume. This scent made Chuuya shiver a bit.
Even though there is a chair in front of the Boss’ table, Chuuya chose to stand in front of it. He still felt way too nervous from giving reports while sitting, because usually, it ended badly. So he stood straight, hands clasped behind his back.
“So, did you find anything useful?” Boss said, looking up from his papers. Chuuya couldn’t tell what they were about and didn’t even try to, looking straight ahead. One more habit he couldn’t shrug off.
“Yes and no,” Chuuya barely looked towards Elise, who moved from the window towards the exit. “As we’ve expected, the orphanage wasn’t that simple. Aside from their weird schedule and religious undertones in everything. And, well, how Atsushi killed the orphanage Headmaster last year.”
Boss hummed.
“They have a new Headmaster now, he’s a bit, how do I say it… uncooperative.”
“I hope you didn’t do something we’ll have to cover?”
“Oh, I’ve already covered everything, don’t worry.”
Boss blinked and frowned.
“That’s… not what I’ve meant,” Chuuya said, coughing softly and clenching his hands stronger. “I didn’t hit him, or bribe him, or threaten him or whatever. But I might’ve infiltrated their archive without their permission and got some information from here.”
Thankfully, when you use too little of your ability, the tracker doesn’t fix it, fo Chuuya getting in wasn’t something he would have to write a report on. It was actually sort of funny because it only noticed something big, like punching through the concrete wall, and not making yourself weight nothing to jump over the wall or pick the lock. But he wasn’t about to tell that to the Government, he needed that loophole, thank you very much.
Boss was silent for a few seconds, then nodded. “That we may just not mention. Photos?”
“Yeah, I didn’t have time to print them yet, but basically, do you know the name Shibusawa Tatsuhiko?”
Boss stiffened and nodded.
“So, from what I’ve gathered, he was the government researcher on abilities. He found Atsushi there, probably bribed the late Headmaster, and tried to do some sort of research on Atsushi’s ability, but it backfired and Tatsuhiko died in the process. There's his grave on the cemetery next to the orphanage, but I didn't check if the body as there.”
“Ah, so that’s where he disappeared,” Boss said tapping the table. “Did you learn anything else?”
“Uh, that’s a rumor I managed to get from one of the nuns. She said, back then Tatsuhiko was sure that Atsushi was some sort of a key to the ultimate ability or something like that. It’s possible he meant the Book, but that’s my assumption.”
“Hm, and how would the Guild learn about that idea and then choose to chase Atsushi, if Headmaster and Shibusawa are already dead, I wonder...”
“Current Headmaster seemed really nervous when I started asking him, so I could only assume that either Port Mafia or someone else talked to him. Then the question is why didn’t they take documents.”
Port Mafia won’t allow something so sloppy. Past of the strongest offensive ability user of the organization to lay so bare in the orphanage he came from? Nope, he doesn't believe it. They even had a deal with the Government about Chuuya, that all the things he did there won't be investigated, and they would only state the damage and kill count, not how and when. They didn't allow any mentions of Double Black as well. And that all for him staying alive and out of the organization.
Something was fishy, but Chuuya didn't have enough time to deal with that. Partly because it would require to contact Port Mafia, and that he can't do.
“And how do you know about the Book?” Boss asked almost thoughtlessly.
His words never were thoughtless.
Damn. Isn't the Book that really popular rumor every dog knows?
“Um, rumors,” Chuuya shrugged. “Seven or so years ago there was this big rumor about Arahabaki running loose, and how they knew where to find the Book, that could change the reality. Needless to say, it was just a rumor.”
“Ah, right, Port Mafia's Double Black destroyed Arahabaki,” Boss nodded. “And then Rimbaud used his body for three years, right?”
“Yeah.”
Chuuya had to unclench his hands to not break his own wrists. Thankfully, Boss didn’t ask anything else. He couldn’t possibly know about what happened back then, At least, Chuuya really hoped so.
Because everybody decided Paul Verlen was Arahabaki, and only three years later Rimbaud learned the truth. And died for that.
“Thank you for your hard work,” Mori nodded. “You are free to go. Finish the report and you have today off.”
“Huh, why?”
“Well, you have a tendency to overwork yourself, and I’m sure you’re just from the train. Get some rest, and be ready tomorrow. Unfortunately, it seems, the Guild isn’t going to let us live calmly, so we should be ready.”
“Got it,” Chuuya almost bowed. Well, this sort of behavior was almost literally beaten into him.
This whole situation stunk. Every time someone tries to find the Book, Yokohama turns into the battlefield. A bloodbath. Screams and explosions. It happened fifteen years ago. It happened seven years ago. Six. And now as well. Yes, he does need to get some rest before the shitstorm.