Chapter Text
Ryūnosuke Akutagawa was barely a teenager when he and his sister were recruited off the streets of Yokohama. Brought into the Port Mafia by their newly named Executive, Osamu Dazai, their lives changed like the flick of a switch. The Port Mafia provided more to the both of them than their previous situation ever could, living what felt like a life of luxury. They no longer needed to worry about keeping a roof over their heads, nor did they ever have to beg, barter or steal for their basic necessities. However, that didn’t mean everything about their new life didn’t come at its own heavy cost.
He was no older than fourteen when his lessons under the so-called “Demon Prodigy", (a name he'd learned through the whispers of his fellow colleagues), had begun. His teachings were, to put it lightly, beyond cruelty, seemingly never ending amounts of mental and physical anguish inflicted upon him in the name of training. Training he'd been told was for the sole purpose of honing his ability, learning how to control it before it learned to control him. Instead, he'd had his strings measured, cut, and tied, shaping him into what would be a beautiful addition to the Port Mafia's puppets. Imagining it was sick inducing. A boy, barely old enough to attend highschool, beaten down over and over, like a blacksmith trying to forge the perfect weapon. In the end, what Dazai created was the double edged sword known to be the Port Mafia’s rabid dog. He could complete missions flawlessly and without fail, but would continuously strike out and act on his own accord, determined- and desperate- to earn the acknowledgement his former mentor had deprived him of.
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Tension within the streets of Yokohama had increased tenfold over the past few months, leading to the rising workload on both the Port Mafia and Armed Detective Agencies plates.
Their members worked tirelessly, often leading to prolonged periods of time spent without rest, let alone other basic necessities such as food or water.
For most, ability users or otherwise, this strain had long begun taking its toll on their body. If they were lucky, adrenaline had taken over, allowing them to work through their exhaustion, along with the pain that stemmed from their newly delivered wounds.
The unfortunate were far beyond anything that adrenaline could hope to save, injuries too grave to allow them to continue fighting safely. Though, that didn’t always deter them from carrying on with their duties.
During the aftermath of another particularly gruelling battle, those who came out victorious were thankful enough for the chance to sit and catch their breath, let alone honour the luck that allowed them to live to see another day.
Port Mafian agents had shown up, albeit late, to aid the Detective Agency. Their alliance was not too recently established, but provided no comfort or reassurance to either side. Of course, no one had expected otherwise, with the countless past grievances between their members, and the conflicting morals that came with their respected lines of work. It would have been foolish to blindly put their full trust in one another, even after the declaration of their temporary truce. They fought for the city they cherished, nothing more.
Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, was one of the many talented ability users sent to arrive at the scene. His meticulous past of having completed countless successful missions was all his boss needed to trust that he could help turn the tides of this battle.
Forming an ‘truce’ with the Detective Agency was never something Akutagawa would have approved of, let alone aiding in one of their petty disputes. Despite this, he had done as told, showing up not even a second later than scheduled.
The scene before him wasn’t unlike anything he’d encountered before, although that wasn’t to say the view was pleasant. A thick fog coated the surrounding area, illuminated only by the moonlight and a few stray streetlamps shining above them. What had made it undeniably clear to him that he had arrived at the correct location was the overwhelming metallic stench that plagued the air, a result of the crimson bathing almost everyone in the nearby vicinity. It was sickening to behold, and for that he was momentarily thankful to have skipped lunch that day.
When faced with their enemy, his attacks started out as they always had, precise, fast, relentless, unpredictable. Something that, on a much weaker enemy, would have won him the battle almost instantly. However, unfortunately for his patience, the enemy they were up against was far from weak, and his allies' injuries, along with their exhaustion, kept them from being anywhere close to the ideal state to be fighting in.
On any other day, it might’ve been smarter to retreat, to allow their men to rest, recuperate, and come up with a strategy better suited for their situation. Those days had long been taken advantage of, he thought, as he took note of his own physical condition.
His lungs struggled through every breath he tried to inhale, as if he was gasping for air after being submerged in a well of thick tar. It took up far more of his focus than he would have liked to bite back the urge to turn his head and cough, knowing that if he started now, he wouldn’t be stopping anytime soon. Still, he battled through the piercing burn in his chest, having long grown accustomed to the strain his body took on everytime he chose to activate Roshōmon. As the fight grew on, and his body strained under the tire that was his workload from the past few weeks, his attacks grew sloppier and less coordinated. It was only when he had become increasingly aware of the people around him, the presence of a certain brunette Detective Agency member, along with his coworkers that rather feared or honoured him, he began to fight with the strong desperation of a rabid stray dog backed into a corner.
It was rare to see him in such a state, only the people closest to him having ever viewed it; those who knew all too well that in his truest form, Ryūnosuke Akutagawa fought with the vigour of someone who had everything to lose.
There was no other sway, bargain, or threat that could make the mafioso act out quite like putting his fear of failure on the line.
It wasn’t until the battle was finally over that he allowed himself to relax; A hand coming to tug at the white jabot that he suddenly realised was unbearably tight around his neck. His composure lasted long enough to send his subordinates on their way, directing them to inform Mori of the success their efforts had earned them. Immediately afterwards came what he had been craving for since the moment he arrived at the scene, a hand quickly moving to cover his mouth as he began to cough with a violent urgency. His lungs rattled with each harsh disperse of air, and it took little to no time before he was winded enough to send his body sinking to the dirt earth beneath him. He knelt, hunched over, wheezing into cupped hands, desperate to suck in any air that he could while his body did its best to rid him of the vile substance coating his airway.
By now, the agency members who had stuck around had begun to take notice of their allies' worsening condition. The small group had slowly made their way over, curious as to what injury the mafioso could’ve sustained that would cause this level of a reaction.
Noticing their approach, Akutagawa stubbornly held up a hand, doing his damned hardest to ward them off from coming any closer. “I’m fine.” He spat, his voice laced with venom despite his gravelly tone. “I’m not interested in your misplaced pity.”
Despite his words, it took minutes more before his coughing had finally subsided, only after having stained his hands with the blood dispersed from his lungs.
Distracted by his condition, Ryūnosuke had neglected to notice his former mentor among the people having crowded around him, kneeling down at his side, not quite close enough to touch him, but always too close for him to feel comfortable.
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To an untrained eye, the fighting style adopted by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa that evening could’ve been credited to the distressing situation their affiliations had been affected by; the risk of losing to their enemy was too great to afford.
And that would have been the case for Dazai as well, lest he forgot the grime history they shared. Osamu knew far too well what really went on in the younger man's mind while he fought. Catching a glimpse at him from across the battlefield felt as if he had blinked and opened his eyes to a view of the past, when he had first met the scared boy so desperate to be given a reason to live.
To say that he was proud of the time they had spent together couldn’t have been farther than the truth.
When he’d made the decision to leave the Port Mafia, honouring the promise he’d made to join the side of good, Dazai found himself unable to escape the relentless reminders of his past, haunting him in the form of nightmares.
They were irregular, with no pattern to them, and no way for him to know what horrific memory he would rewatch that evening. Sometimes, they brought him to dimly lit bars, where his ears filled with the ambient noise of clinking bar glasses and wooden stools scraping against the floor. It was a safe haven compared to the other sights his mind would sometimes choose to visit, yet, the comfort it provided only lasted as long as he could prevent himself from turning his head slightly to the right. On those nights, he would wake in a cold sweat, shaken to his very core. Every fibre of his being would scream and beg to carry him to the place he had once known so well, blindly hoping that maybe, just maybe; it had all been just a dream. A sick, and twisted, very cruel, dream; that would end with Odasaku in his rightful place, alive, and atop one of three well loved bar stools.
Other nights he found himself walking the halls of a building he couldn’t be more unfamiliar with. The journey to his former bosses office had always seemed endless, never to be completed without a feeling of nausea and dread swirling together in the deepest pit of his stomach. His breathing, his footsteps against the marble floor, and the pounding of his heart in his ears was all that there was to keep him company as he continuously walked forwards, unable to feel relief nor despair, as he never could reach his final destination.
In all the years since having left the Mafia, this particular dream had felt the most taunting, always holding the notion over his head that he’d never quite know if or when he would run across the monster whom he feared the most.
Though, if someone had asked him what haunted him the most during those nights, the nightmare that single handedly cost him the most countless hours without sleep, he would, without fail, always envision the time he spent training Akutagawa. Those dreams, unlike the others, always followed the same routine, a script engraved in stone, impossible to erase or rewrite. And he had tried.
God, had he tried.
No matter how much Dazai had changed since his time in the Mafia, his guilt was unwavering. There was nothing he could ever hope of doing that could make up for the irreversible damage he had inflicted upon his former student. It was inexcusable, and the way he treated Atsushi was proof enough that he always had the capability to be a worthy mentor, just not to Akutagawa.
Maybe it could be excused through the notion that the boy reflected the worst parts of himself, the pieces he refused to acknowledge, like some fucked up mirror. In Akutagawa, he saw the scared kid he once was, brought into the Mafia at a young age, only wanting anyone, anything, to give him something to live for.
Maybe the treatment he had executed stemmed from the desperate need for an outlet to release all the frustration, anger, and depression that he could never quite seem to escape.
The worst theory he had come up with as a way to find justification behind his actions was, unfortunately, the one that held the most merit. Dazai had been horrified during their first encounter, fueled by the knowledge he possessed of the amount of danger such a destructive ability could cause when its owner wasn’t in complete control. Alongside this came the idea of inviting the ability user to become one of their own, imagining the immense benefits that would come from having such a powerful gift underneath the Port Mafia’s control, in exchange only for teaching the boy how to steer his own reins.
The training they had undergone together had been a challenge, to say the least. He had imagined it being akin to playing a game made up by a toddler, the rules continuously being rewritten whenever the odds didn’t quite seem to be in their favour. No matter how hard he worked to perfect his technique, or the variety of strategies he attempted, Dazai’s teaching never seemed to amount to anything. It was as if Akutagawa had hit a roadblock in improvement, too stubborn to find another way around, and never pushing himself to be anything better.
It had been months of struggle with Akutagawa slowly wearing down his already very thin patience. During those months, the organisation had been desperately chasing after an or Mimic, spending hundreds of hours and losing dozens of men to earn the small leads they managed to come up with. So, when a report was brought to his attention, detailing that the boy had gone and killed the only remaining leads they’d managed to obtain, it was suffice to say that the brunette had been furious. Without thinking, he had drawn his pistol and shot thrice, only for the raven haired boy to surprise him, unlocking his newest ability, Devoured Space.
The way he felt looking back on that day, knowing the amount of pride and satisfaction that came from seeing the fruits of his labour finally amounting to something made his stomach churn uncomfortably. He would never forget the image of poorly concealed fear hidden behind his students' eyes, nor could he ignore the looming voice in the back of his mind reminding him of the actions that had led to deserving such a look.
He had tried to tell himself that what Akutagawa learned that day had been for the greater good, a further advancement in their powers, a way to protect themself in battle. And even though Devoured Space would become immensely useful to the boy in the future, Dazai couldn’t help but question if it had been truly worth, lest it meant making Akutagawa fear for his life so badly that his body felt the need to invent new ways to protect itself.