Chapter Text
Ranpo’s head throbbed hard. He couldn't feel his hand, his mind was fuzzy and the sounds around him were nothing but static to him.
He knew that the President was fighting Fukuchi, he could hear the swords clashing against each other, their moves on the ground, and whatever they’re talking about. He can’t tell.
He knows he has to move, do something, anything. The booklet is only a few inches away from him. If he moved right now, he could go in between the two of them and shove the book in Fukuchi’s face and have him go in.
Grunting, he slowly turned to try and grab the book with his uninjured hand. But still, his arm fell and clutched on the ground from the pressure he added onto his other arm.
I can’t do anything, if I don’t do- eyes open, he feels something fall beside his hand, it’s a familiar object. One that he’d seen more than enough times in his life.
An apple. It’s color wasn’t a normal one, it was teal fading into blue at the stem.
He’d seen it so many times whenever he’d been in life threatening situations, or whenever he felt like life had cursed him specifically for nothing but fun.
From the age of fourteen when he’d woken up with it in hand and a neatly folded note. ‘ This apple can let you retry as someone meaningful.’ He didn’t believe it one bit. It hadn’t made any type of sense, there was no logic in that.
Abilities were a thing, yes, but he always knew that he was only ordinary. So there was no way this was his ability.
And ever since he’d ignored it, it appears every time and every where it wants, offering to be bit. Offering a new chance at life.
Normally, he would’ve ignored it like usual. But maybe, maybe with this he could find a way to stop the decay of angels. Maybe he could even retry anytime he wants when he fails.
He could of course just stay like this and reach for the booklet instead, but the image of the agency being harmed is taking over his mind.
He couldn’t imagine how the fight between Fukuchi and Fukuzawa is going on right now, because he knows that Fukuzawa is losing.
And if he doesn’t do anything, it’s going to be the end.
Desperate enough, his hand moves and grips the strange apple.
Without any hesitation whatsoever, and only the determination to find a way to prevent all of this from happening, he bit the apple.
The taste that immediately fills his mouth is disgusting, it’s bitter and sour, sticky against his teeth. Then what he feels is pain, the coldness of the fruit spread onto his entire body.
The world spiraled around him as it went into a full static of colors. He shuts his eyes and curls into himself, pain no longer affecting his deforming body.
It went on for god knows how long, it might’ve been from a minute to an hour. He feels his head getting crushed, his limbs stretching impossibly long, his organs are getting in each other's way—All he wants at the moment is for the pain to stop. But He doesn’t cry from the pain. He never does.
As if someone had heard his pleas, all of it stopped, the static, the noise, the pain, everything had stopped. And he was welcomed into the silence and void emptiness.
———
Edogawa Ranpo opened his eyes to find himself in an alleyway, he looked at himself and found that he had gone back to when he was just a 14 year old boy, orphaned and kicked out of the academy.
The world was as gray as he remembered, a colorless, meaningless life.
And although he went back to his younger self from the past, he still held his memories from before he bit that Apple. He still remembers everyone and everything, he never forgets.
He falls onto his knees, letting a few tears fall down his face. He threw his life away just to go back to his most hated days to start again.
He can’t control the tears, he doesn’t cry a lot—not anymore at least. However, he might have just taken over his younger body, so of course, the tears that he never let out come breaking.
As he lets the tears silently drop, he thinks of what to do. He can of course go to that interview and meet Fukuzawa once again. He’d be able to be a detective again, and he’d know the first few steps of Fyodor’s plan.
And so he got up and quickly wiped away the tears. Pocketing the apple, he made his way to the company.
———
He doesn’t remember what happened after he walked out of the alleyway, but he knows what happened. Because when he came back to his mind he was being carried by Fukuzawa as he clutched onto him with stinging eyes.
The memory that comes with this is more than welcome to make its way to his mind, he feels warm despite the freezing weather. The warmth coming from Fukuzawa is more than enough to remind him of the agency.
The warmth he feels when Yosano and him sit beside each other in comfortable silence, the moments when both he and Dazai would spend hours playing chess, eating snacks and candy with Kyouka and Kenji, hanging out with Naomi while her brother is out, the small conversations Kunikida and him would have.
He misses these days, and he misses the agency even more. He’ll gladly burn the world down for it all to go back as it was.
And he’s given more than enough time to think of every possible strategy and outcome.
He has to have the agency be formed first, let the events play out as they are, and change nothing but the plan to stop Fukuchi and Fyodor. He only has to wait.
Giving into the exhaustion, he falls asleep. He hopes that maybe it was all just imagination.
—
Years went by fast. Far too fast.
But what could Ranpo do? It’s not like he chose to be locked away as his body lives.
The agency has been formed, everyone and everything’s the same as before he got here.
If he didn’t remember everything in the past, he’d believe that it was all just a lucid dream.
As much as he’d much want to do something to prevent some of the things his colleagues had seen, he wouldn’t, it’s the things that make who they are. So he wouldn’t change that.
He… likes that he’s given a chance to retry, a chance to relive all the times with Agency. And it hurts even more to have a constant reminder of what he is doing here in the first place, a reminder of his mistake.
He hides it well, but of course, Dazai always knows something is wrong. The man is always looking at him and trying to figure him out.
“You know Ranpo-San.” Dazai, who’s slacking yet again, interrupts his thoughts. “You always have that look on your face.”
He turns to look at the younger detective, his finger flicking at the stick of the lollipop. “What look are you talking about, Dazai?” He knows what he means, he knows what ‘look’ Dazai means.
The younger detective twirls the pen in his hand, “the face you make when you’re always around the others. Like you’re guilty of something.” Dazai eyes him, almost hoping for an answer from Ranpo. Though, both of them knew that he would much rather keep to himself about these things.
It’s true, he has a guilt ridden face whenever he’s around them. While he might be living just like how he was before, it doesn’t mean that he didn’t leave the others in a destroyed world. He always has to remind himself that it’s for them and not for him.
Ranpo only snorts, finding it funny that his emotions made it out of his many façades. “It’s nothing you should worry about, trust me.” He gives off a smile, as real as he can make it.
Dazai doesn’t believe him at all, but he knows that even if he tried pushing, that won’t give a result.
He returns the smile with his own empty one. “Whatever you say, Ranpo-San.”
———
It’s happening again, Fyodor makes an appearance.
It’s like a painful stab when he sees the President under the ability called cannibalism again. And it’s another one when Kunikida crumbles and collapses into himself as he cries out about the child he let die.
He hates to see that look once again, he hates that he placed his trust in Ranpo and he failed. Again.
Once again, he goes against the President’s orders.
It doesn’t matter how many times he does, so long as Fyodor is still out there he can never rest easy.
And whatever happens next, he’ll take it; he’s planned for everything for the past 12 years.
Even if all fails, he still has the apple to restart, it's always with him.
—
Still, even after all of it. It still ended in the same way.
The Agency separated from each other, Fukuzawa on the ground bleeding. Yosano did show up to fight with Fukuchi—as planned, but she was too preoccupied to heal them.
No one can blame her, Fukuchi is a slippery bastard with his time sword.
He coughs, still laying in a pool of his own blood. This time, he’s even stabbed in the chest, he doesn’t know how he’s even still alive. It makes no sense. But when did it ever?
He thinks over everything, the plans were specifically instructed, he gave them all 57 backup plans, everything. What more did he have to do? Was it his own being he had to change, or did he need to rewrite the events?
He hears the thud of Yosano’s body as she falls unconscious and quickly gets stabbed, no doubt she’d be gone now.
He gets to glance at Fukuchi with the One Order as it gets unsealed. With that, he knows that the end of this life is near.
What a mistake.
He grips the apple in his hand and moves it to his mouth with the rest of his strength. It almost shines under the sunlight that hits it.
Hopefully, his next round would be much more meaningful with a positive outcome than this one. Taking a mouthful of the apple everything reseted.