Chapter Text
The man is writing a story.
It is pitch black in the small room, save for a few weak bundles of moonlight filtering through the narrow window high above. They illuminate the book the man is writing in, as if lighting the old, cracked pages up with a white blazing fire.
The scribbling of the fountain pen is the only sound to be heard. Not a single motion can be detected inside the cramped house, nor the rustling of the plum trees outside. No wind disturbs the mess of crumpled papers scattered around the room, just as not a single soul is to be found in the neighborhood. It almost seems as if all beings with a sense of self-preservation had felt the need to stay away from this place tonight.
It is perfect.
The man is writing a story – no. That’s not completely true. He’s writing the outline of one, but leaving out the most intricate details and factors too small to be accounted for. The man scratches his brown locks from time to time, wiping his dark eyes to keep the drowsiness of sleep away where it’s lurking around the corner to capture him. He’s been working for hours already, but he’s not giving up before everything is finished.
It will be perfect.
Once in a while, the scratching sound of the fountain pen is interrupted by more violent strokes as the man wipes out entire sections he’s just written and starts anew, accompanied by a deep sigh that speaks of a tiredness too old to belong in such a young body. Time passes slowly, almost as if it is afraid to go too fast and risk the ire of the man.
But eventually, the man gently places the book and pen next to him and stretches his legs from his seiza sitting position, allowing his deep blue yukata to flow freely around his body. He sighs once again, but this time it is a sigh of relief, outed when one has achieved their goal after a herculean task.
Because that is exactly what it is. And now it is perfect.
The man glances up to where the moonlight shines through the window. He’s saying goodbye to this world. Not that there’s much he’ll miss from this pit of hell, but not doing so seems impolite to those who created it. So he pays his respect, before picking up the book again and placing a dot at the end of the unfinished sentence.
As the story is finished, the world slowly fades away as reality is altered. The man feels his consciousness slowly dissolve, memory after memory disappearing from his mind. A soft smile plays on his lips, and then he vanishes completely.
I hope I can make you proud, Odasaku.
Nothing but a bottomless darkness remains.
~ ~ ~
This isn’t perfect at all.
“There’s another ability user standing guard along with the four others I detected earlier,” Jouno’s haughty voice creaks through the ear piece.
They were supposed to get in, secure the lab while subduing the highly dangerous ability users and get out. As easy as it sounds. The intel they’d received beforehand had been wrong, though, and now they were facing more complications and ability users than anticipated.
Not that it’d change anything about the outcome of the mission. They were the Hunting Dogs, after all. Never had they failed even one mission as long as Chuuya could remember.
“Skill?”
“Unknown. But his aura tells me it has something to do with air.”
Chuuya hums in acknowledgement. He’d expected it to be a rather simple job, just what he needed to blow off some steam after having spent most of the week confined in a hospital bed. That’s not to say anticipation isn’t building up in his body. He can never pass up on the opportunity of a good fight, whatever silly objections Jouno may have to that.
“Take it easy, Nakahara. Lower down your excitement, I can practically feel your giddy thoughts up here. It’s highly uncomfortable.”
“Let him talk,” Tachihara heaves, standing next to Chuuya behind the corner of the long, white corridor. “He’s just pissed the Commander determined you in a good enough condition to go on missions again.”
“I hope you’re aware that I can hear you, Tachihara,” Jouno retorts, slightly irritated.
“That’s exactly why I said it.”
Chuuya chuckles at the familiar banter. He’s glad to be back in the field.
“Strategy?” Chuuya asks.
Tachihara thinks for a moment. “Let’s try Overcast. They don’t know our identity or how many are attacking. It’s probably our best chance at a quick outcome.”
He nods in agreement and grins. “See you in a minute, then.” Chuuya rounds the corner leading to a dead end within the next hundred meters, heavy steel doors separating him from his target. The five ability users Jouno mentioned are all there, clad in white, flowing yukata robes and cream okame masks. Chuuya snorts at the silly sight the masks make.
“Let’s see who wants to fight against gravity,” Chuuya mutters to no one but himself before he lets his ability loose.
The white tiles and walls tremble as Chuuya takes control of gravity in the complex and alters it to make it ten times more stronger. Cracks appear in the stone, rubble flying in every direction as the laws of nature go haywire. He lets the rubble circle close to himself as if providing a shield and then changes their vector in direction of the ability users.
Just when the stones would collide with the ability users, they bump against an invisible wall. Chuuya grins. So that was the other ability user Jouno was talking about earlier. Judging from the effect it has against his gravity manipulation, the user can probably control air currents and is now making it so that the gravity-enhanced rubble is put to a stop by a wall of solid air – as far as such a thing is possible. Now Chuuya has to figure out just how strong that ability is, and which of the five is the one blocking him. The okame masks seem all the more convenient now. It’s impossible to see the expressions of the people behind the masks, and no one in particular stands out from the others to indicate that they are the one Chuuya is looking for.
But they have overlooked the fact that Chuuya is not alone. The functioning of Overcast is simple but effective: one member distracts the enemy while the other one uses the opportunity to attack while their guard is low. Right now, all eyes are on Chuuya.
Tachihara doesn’t waste a second and speeds around the corner, momentum carrying him past Chuuya and the masked guards. Once again, their opponents are distracted by Tachihara’s sudden appearance. The ability user controlling the shield of air falters for a moment; Chuuya smirks as gravity gets the upper hand. The shock wave that follows sweeps away the masked men and provides Tachihara with the opportunity to break through their defense. Finally getting close enough to the steel doors to use his ability at full strength, Tachihara twists his wrists to bend the heavy steel with Midwinter Memento. The steel creaks and groans under the pressure. Slowly but steadily, the double doors start to open towards them.
Chuuya’s pretty much figured out the identity of the air controlling ability user now. While Tachihara served as a decoy just seconds before, the tallest among them had hesitated for a moment just when the air shield had weakened. There’s no doubt that this is the ability user they’re looking for. Chuuya’s body glows a crimson red under the exertion of Tainted as he twists the gravity of the guards against them. They all fall to the ground in one move, grunting with pain as they are held by an invisible force. Chuuya makes the extra effort to pin down the air controller a little harder than necessary. Experience has taught him you can never be too cautious in these kind of situations.
“I’ve got them,” he calls out to Tachihara. The other man merely grunts in reply. Chuuya sneaks a glance at his partner. He’s managed to open the steel doors with his ability, and behind them is the lab as they’d been informed about previously.
And it’s completely empty.
“Shit,” Chuuya curses, understanding dawning as cold dread slowly supplants the initial shock. They’ve been had, the information–
One of the guards start to laugh, despite being nearly crushed by Chuuya’s ability. A maniac laugh, both hysterically high-pitched and completely devoid of emotion at the same time.
“What’s going on?” Jouno barks through the speaker. Not quite anxious, but slightly confused at the ability user’s laughter.
“It’s a trap,” Tachihara shouts. Those words seem to awaken Chuuya from his confusion. He bolts into action, reaching his partner and forcefully grabbing his arm to pull him away, away from this place.
“We need to get out of here,” he gasps. “Quick, we can still make it if we’re fast. They obviously took everything long before we’d reach this place. These guards were just a decoy, and–“
The walls around them start shaking just as he almost finishes speaking. Tachihara curses. “It’s already starting, come on!”
Everything sways and trembles. Stones fall from the ceiling and collect in heaps of rubble on the ground. It’s difficult to keep his balance like this, even with gravity control. Still forcibly clasping Tachihara’s wrist in his hand, Chuuya alters Tainted so the stones don’t fall on them and they can speed back to the entrance. But they are deep underground, far away from the main entrance.
You’re not going to make it.
The ancient, booming voice drowns out the deafening noise of the trembling stones. No, even with this knowledge gnawing at the back of his mind, Chuuya refuses to listen to that thing again. Not like last time–
Just use me. Otherwise you won’t be able to save this other human being. It’s that easy.
He can’t give up control. He can’t… They speed to the entrance leading to yet another hallway, too far away even now. Tachihara clutches Chuuya’s arm for dear life. He screams, they are both screaming, or maybe it’s just the screaming inside Chuuya’s mind. He doesn’t really know.
And then the ceiling comes down. Chuuya can see it happen very clearly, as if his own life is rolling past like a film in minute detail. The enormous white stones will come crashing down on them, and they’ll get buried alive under the rubble for no one to find.
Chuuya makes a choice. Or rather, the thing inside him makes the choice for him; there was never really a choice for him at all. The thing takes over, and his mind, his insides, his whole being, scream the familiar, dreadful words.
Oh grantors of dark disgrace, do not wake me again…
And hell breaks loose.
~ ~ ~
Devastation.
It is the only word to describe the scene before him, Dazai thinks grimly. Devastation, as far as the eye can see. What once must have been white plaster is scattered in big stone blocks and dust across the field, mixed with earth and greenery of a once-forest before hell broke loose. But it is not the rubble nor the overthrown trees and bushes in a makeshift earthquake that make Dazai think of destruction. No, what is even more disturbing is the crimson red coating the surface, in stark contrast with the white stone, and the smell of rotten, burned flesh penetrating Dazai’s nose until he feels sick. He fights the urge to throw up, but somehow he’s able to compose himself.
He doesn’t have time for this.
His feet start walking of their own accord, as if they know the reason why lurking in some deep-forgotten part of his mind. Dazai makes his way through the rubble as fast as he can without getting stuck. He doesn’t care about the blood coating his hands, both from brushing along the stones that are already coated in the gooey crimson substance and from cutting himself on their sharp edges. His coat and sleeves keep on getting stuck in the jagged edges of the rubble, but Dazai doesn’t bother to try and remove the fabric carefully, instead pulling on it until it rips and he can advance once more. He feels numb to all of it.
I have to get to him in time.
The voice at the back of his mind urges him to move, some secret knowledge he can’t quite grasp no matter how hard he tries urging him to put one foot before the other. He has to get to that person in time before something terrible happens. Dazai doesn’t remember who, or what, or why. He only recognizes the fear in his heart, so rare these days, and that is enough a motivation for him to go on.
Faster, faster…
Dazai starts to run. His feet keep sinking into the swampy mixture of mud and blood, but he ignores his protesting muscles and uses the rocks to support himself. And then Dazai hears it.
Laughter.
But not the joyful, lighthearted laughter people let out when they hear a joke, or when they encounter something pleasant. No, if Dazai hadn’t been listening closely, he wouldn’t have guessed it came from a human being at all. The mad, untamed cackling piercing the air make the hairs on his skin stand on end. It doesn’t even feel like something out of this world. Dazai Osamu prides himself on not getting scared easily, but when he hears that sound, that vicious noise, he is frightened.
Strangely enough, that fear only strengthens his bizarre urge to move forward. Not away, but towards the thing – no, person. He turns towards the direction from where he heard the noise and catches a glimpse of its source. A blinding light of the deepest red he has ever seen, encompassed by wings like those of a fallen angel. Dazai’s heart skips a beat and he squints his eyes to get a better look–
“Dazai?”
A familiar voice shatters his vision, originating way closer to him than Dazai would’ve liked. He shakes his head, as if to get rid of the voice and bring back the gruesome scene. “Dazai?” the voice asks again, this time a little more persistent and irritated. A hand lands on his shoulder, pushing him. Limbs flailing, Dazai tumbles to the ground. He jolts and opens his eyes.
A blonde, bespectacled man stands eye to eye before him… Kunikida. Dazai frowns at the familiar sight. Already, the dream is slowly slipping from his consciousness, only leaving bits and pieces he can’t make sense of no matter how he looks at them.
“Finally!” Kunikida exclaims. “If you have time to doze off on the job, go finish your paperwork from the last three weeks instead of being a burden to society! Aren’t you ashamed, sleeping soundly while everyone else but you is working their ass off?”
Dazai’s ears ring with the sudden onslaught. He winces. There is really no stopping him when Kunikida gets into one of his fits, which Dazai – surprise! – is usually the preferred target of.
“Yes, yes, Kunikida-kun! You don’t need to worry like the mother hen you are, I assure you I’m working just as hard as everyone else!” Dazai sing-songs out of force of habit to annoy the blonde. If it’s also an effective countermeasure against the dread coiling in his gut, that’s a nice bonus.
Kunikida’s eyebrow twitches. “Since when does sleeping look like working to you?”
“On my way!” Dazai retorts cheerily. He gets up from the couch at the back room of the Agency’s offices, ignores the dizziness in his head from suddenly standing up, and makes a beeline for his desk. He leaves Kunikida fuming, waving to Atsushi who shoots him an apologetic smile.
While his head clears, the memory of the dream becomes hazier and hazier, although he can’t shake the distraught feeling coiling in his gut. It’s unusual for Dazai to get this upset over something, let alone a mere dream. And yet, it had felt so real. He decides to ignore the feeling and file the information away for later, when he can analyze it properly without the peering eyes of the Agency members. Dazai can practically feel Ranpo staring as he sits down on the office chair.
The expression of pure shock Dazai imagines Kunikida must be making at the sight of Dazai actually doing something useful is enough to bring a faint smile to his lips. He glances at the documents piling up on the side of his desk and winces. Did he really laze around so much over the past weeks that such a huge amount of paperwork accumulated? He suspects some of the Agency members just dumped the bothersome cases on his desk to be done with them, knowing that Dazai wouldn’t notice anyway with all the other papers piling up, but he doesn’t call them out on it. He doesn’t really have the energy to fake being cheerful and start a confrontation again.
Dazai picks up the file on top. It details the report on a bank robbery by armed ability users about two months earlier. Atsushi, Kunikida and Yosano had been sent to the scene. Dazai fights the urge to yawn as he reads on. Boring. As he suspected, the tedious work of inspecting finished mission reports had suspiciously landed on his desk. He flips through the other files. A few minor Mafia skirmishes around the docks, a shoot-out in an abandoned school, hostages held by terrorists in a police box. Boring. Aren’t they supposed to be the Armed Detective Agency, taking on the special cases even the police can’t handle? Then why are they dealing with–
His hand halts on one of the files. Experimentation on ability user’s equipment at underground lab. And a few paragraphs underneath, MISSION CANCELED in big, bold red letters. Dazai frowns. It sounds like the perfect job for the Agency, so why hadn’t they been called to the scene? Dazai can’t even recall Kunikida or the President ever mentioning this case in the last few weeks at all. He crosses his arms and rotates the desk chair so it is facing Ranpo.
“Say, Ranpo-kun, you happen to know anything about this ability users lab case? Sounds exactly like a job for us if you ask me, but apparently this one got cancelled.”
“Oh, that,” Ranpo-kun muses, nibbling on a strawberry Pocky. “Yes, it was initially scheduled as a job for us. But the higher-ups in the government pulled some strings and it was transferred to the military police’s special squad for ability users.”
“The government has a special squad for ability users? Then what do they need us for?” Dazai ponders out loud.
“Dunno. Not interested.” Ranpo continues reading what Dazai assumes must be the latest draft of Poe’s mystery novel.
It is strange enough that the Agency was called off the case, but the fact that the government possesses a special unit of ability users without his knowledge is even more baffling. Something is clearly going on behind the scenes, and the canceled mission is proof enough for Dazai to deduce that someone in the government is desperately trying to cover something up. Something they can’t even trust the Agency with, should the information happen to see the light of day.
Dazai grins. Seems like he found something interesting in the pile of junk after all; it’s the perfect opportunity to go out and investigate. And as a bonus he’ll be able to delay finishing the pile of paperwork for a little longer, which surely won’t fail in annoying Kunikida. Dazai needs to uphold his reputation of biggest slack-off at the Agency, after all.
He scans the office for a familiar blob of white hair. “Atsushi-kun!”
The young man in question turns around to face him, purple-golden eyes filled with curiosity, and a hint of caution, Dazai notices. A smile tugs around his lips; soon enough, he won’t be able to mess around with his protégé anymore as freely as when he first joined the Agency a few months back. Dazai rises from his chair and puts on his coat, slipping the file in its pockets.
“Come on, we’re out for an investigation.”