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Every once in a while, Atsushi felt the urge to transform in a tiger. Byakko, as his ability, was also part of himself, a part he had become to accept it little by little after joining the ADA and finding people like him. And with the task of accepting himself, acknowledging his needs was other thing he’d been working on.
The same way as other people felt like reading or painting to release stress, he found himself wanting to wander around in his tiger form. After gaining control over Byakko, Atsushi had realized how liberating it was to be to be using his ability, but he wasn’t entirely sure if it was correct of him to just transform without a real justification and with the chance of scaring someone who didn’t know about abilities.
It took him a discussion with almost every member of the agency (excepting Dazai, because honestly, who would need his advice on existential matters) to get him to even schedule a monthly transformation just to go around and get some relaxing time outside of work and fights where he didn’t quite enjoy using his ability to hurt people.
Luckily for him, Yokohama had a forest where he could fully be himself without worrying about civilians, since he also procured to do it at night when no one else would be able to spot him.
The whole tiger wandering thing went on for more than half a year by the time Atsushi stopped feeling like it was something he shouldn’t be doing, and allowed himself to spent even more hours transformed during his monthly night than he did at first.
It was one of those nights where he was resting curled up between some trees when he heard footsteps. They weren’t approaching him, neither getting closer, but thanks to his enhanced hearing sense, he was able to detect the other person’s presence almost one hundred meters away.
Just to be safe, he decided it was best to go back to his human form and finish for the night, he wouldn’t like to encounter someone while transformed and having to face the consequences of giving them, probably, a heart attack.
Once he was a human again, Atsushi began walking to get out of the forest and go back home, but a sudden smell distracted him midway.
It was blood.
Deciding to take the risk, Atsushi transformed his legs only and ran through the forest, going directly to the iron-like essence that was making him feel more uneasy by every second. Someone might had injured themselves, maybe the human he had detected before. They could be in trouble and Atsushi was very likely to be the only other person around.
Having gotten closer to the source of the smell, Atsushi slowed down, slightly crouched down to not miss anything. Until he found where the blood was coming from.
What seemed to have been once a deer was dismembered, blood was covering not only the dead animal but also the grass of at least two meters around it. Atsushi brought his hand to his mouth containing the gag the went up his throat. The scene wasn’t a great view, even at night, where the intestines and organs spilling out of the deer’s gut emanated what seemed like gastric fluids and other substances Atsushi didn’t care to identify.
Still, it was weird to see. Having gotten over the first impression, Atsushi realized he was not only in a no-hunting zone, but whoever had done it shouldn’t be far, since the murder looked fresh and done not too long ago. Probably just a couple minutes before he arrived.
Walking a little indecisive, Atsushi went to contemplate the occurrence when his foot got tangled with a rope that was laying near the dead deer, and the moment he got to pull it out, it tightened around his ankle, lifting him from the ground and leaving him upside down.
Before he could react to what had happened, he felt a painful sting on his arm. The moment he saw the tranquilizer dart, he knew things wouldn’t end well as his sight went dark.
The moment Atsushi opened his eyes, he was not only chained, but also trapped in a cage small enough for him to fit seated only. His eyes quickly adapted to the lack of light, so he was able to take a look around of the place he was trapped in.
It looked like a storehouse of some sort, there were other cages with different animals in them, and to Atsushi’s despair, a couple heads and antlers around what seemed to be a working table. If he could call it that.
He had to analyze his situation, quickly, since it was pretty obvious he didn’t have that much time left until being decapitated like all the animals that had shared the same fate as him.
Examining the cage, he noticed it had spikes on the inner part of the bars, which measured at least fifteen centimeters, not to mention their diameter, which could easily be bigger than Atsushi’s fist.
He had no chance on transforming then, because if he did, they would damage him even on his tiger form. The also looked way too sturdy to be twisted, so the size and pressure of the transformation wouldn’t be enough for the cage to collapse with his weight.
Atsushi was still shuffling between his options when a man opened the door to the storehouse. He looked around his 50s, with white hair growing at the sides of his head and deep expression marks giving him a terrifying semblance.
That’s were Atsushi noticed he smelled just like the person he had almost encountered back in the forest.
“Hey, weretiger” the man kneeled in front of Atsushi’s cage, giving him the same look a predator would give to its prey, a gaze full of desire and hunger, Atsushi felt himself shivering, “oh, don’t look so scared, it causes you muscles to tense up and then your meat won’t be tender.”
His what?!
“I’m— I’m a human, I’m not food! You don’t eat other humans!” Atsushi stuttered, trying to appear confident but not being able to.
“Who said I’m gonna eat you?” the man smiled, but it wasn’t gentle nor relaxing, just creepy, “The higher ups will do.”
Standing up, the man walked to the table where he lifted a set of knives covered in blood that just gave Atsushi another wave of nervousness, the anxiety quickly building up and making the worst of his thoughts to invade his mind. After all, they’d probably come true.
“The people I work with must be on their way” Atsushi claimed, not fully believing it himself but refusing to give the man the satisfaction of intimidating him, “they’ll definitely kill you, so don’t you think you’ve won.”
“Sorry, young man, but I don’t think that’s going to happen” turning around to look at Atsushi, the man began cleaning one of the knives with a piece of cloth, “we’re in the middle of nowhere, an abandoned part of the city, no one will ever find you.”
Atsushi did his best to keep his tears at bay, he had to be strong, plan for something to scape and get the man arrested. Who knows how many animals or even people he’d killed already, since cannibalism didn’t seem like a forbidden practice to him.
Sadly, for Atsushi, things didn’t go like he expected them. The first couple days he had the hope of seeing any of the agency members crossing the door at any moment, but when that didn’t happen, hunger came to be the last of his problems.
The man apparently didn’t have any kind of rush on killing Atsushi, but instead, he found amusing to torture the weretiger as an entertainment when he was bored, which was every few hours.
He’d give Atsushi electric shocks to get him disoriented enough, then proceed to pull him against the spikes on the insides of the cage and use his knife collection to make cuts, every time deeper, along the younger’s weakened body.
The injuries healed fast enough for the man to repeat the process every day, but due to the lack of food and water, they began to last longer, leaving open cuts that’d bleed for hours and would be reopened once they closed too much for his liking.
Atsushi was already too limp and weak to really mind what was happening, only wincing each time the knife cut his flesh, seeing red covering both his arms and legs, dripping to the floor already stained and sticky out of the amount of blood that was spilled every day.
The cycle went on for almost two weeks, where Atsushi drifted away and spent most of his time unconscious than aware of his surroundings. It was in one of those moments of slight consciousness where he was able to hear the man talking in the phone, something about bringing his most valuable commodity, something they’d had surely never eaten before.
Atsushi knew he was referring to him.
Just a few moments later, or maybe more (he was having trouble keeping up with the time) he heard gunshots and a fight outside of the place he was being kept at. Atsushi didn’t let himself get too optimistic on thinking he was finally being rescued, but the moment a known face of a woman with short dark hair came into view, he couldn’t do anything but cry, using the last of his tears as Yosano opened the cage and lulled him while holding him.
“You’re safe now, Atsushi, sorry it took so long.”