Chapter Text
“Yokohama may not be ready for this,” Chuuya spoke with a soft, cautious lilt to his voice. His eyes held a serious gravity as he made eye contact with Dazai, and Dazai could practically read the thoughts racing through his former partner’s head. The yearning, the fear, the hesitant belief, the resigned tiredness. Dazai had felt all of those himself, too. It was a crazy, stupid idea, one he had been sitting on for months. Every time he tried to stamp it down, it kept rearing its head, like a cockroach.
“When has Yokohama been ready for anything that has been thrown at us?” Dazai said, his mouth twisted in a pantomime of humor. Chuuya did not laugh. Dazai didn’t think he would. Laughter was not condoned by the Port Mafia. Joy wasn't essential to a good weapon, so they were discouraged from feeling it.
Dazai waited silently for Chuuya to speak again, sitting casually on the kitchen table of Chuuya’s penthouse apartment. With Chuuya sitting on one of the cushioned chairs, and the two plates of food and silverware between them, the scene could almost be seen as domestic.
(If you ignored the faint remnants of blood on the wall, the gun on the kitchen counter that was just as at home as the cutting board and stovetop, the crumpled suit blazer on the floor by the doorway.)
For a few seconds, Chuuya stared at his plate, distractedly moving the cut up pieces of crab he had cooked with his fork. Dazai's plate was over half full, even though crab was his favorite food. Chuuya was just grateful he had eaten anything. While Chuuya sat and contemplated Dazai's proposal, Dazai stared at Chuuya, his calculating brown eyes tracking the foreign and petite features of Chuuya's face. What they had together was not normal by any means, but neither were they.
These dinners they had did not always turn out so serious, with Dazai really and truly showing his hand of cards to Chuuya. They weren't partners anymore. That honor had been taken by Kunikida of the detective agency. Even the act of sitting together contentedly and quietly was a secret, had to be a secret. Maybe if they were both still in the Port Mafia, maybe if they were still partners, then they wouldn’t have to be so secretive.
After what Dazai had done to Chuuya… their relationship, their partnership, had been burned down to nothing. But now, they were something, a careful something that they had both built slowly after Dazai's betrayal and abandonment.
To call them boyfriends would be childish. To call them lovers would be naive. To call them halves of a whole would just be insulting to the specific achievements of the both of them. But soulmates... Yes, that word fit well on them. Maybe the excuse of them being soulmates could explain what Chuuya was about to agree to.
“Dazai… If you think you can do this? I’ll do it with you. I’ll trust you… I’ll build a new life with you. But only if you truly think we can do this.” Chuuya did not say these words lightly. It was not a casual thing, for a mafioso to make a promise like this. But this wasn’t just any promise. This was a promise to Dazai . It was a promise to the child Chuuya used to be, to the hundreds of children who might become like him. It was a promise to Yokohama.
“I know you can’t see this future like I can… One where the Ability Statutes are abolished, where our people are at peace, where children don’t have to fight. I can see this clearer than I’ve ever seen anything. Yokohama isn’t ready, but that’s a good thing. Let’s not give the city a chance to brace itself, before we break everything and let them heal back better. I don’t just think I can do this. I know I can,” Dazai said, his face holding the kind of solemnity Chuuya had only seen on him back in his mafia days.
Chuuya did not smile, because that wasn’t something he did, and Dazai knew that. He smirked, bared his teeth, and sometimes smugly grinned. Chuuya did not smile. But he did lean forward towards Dazai, reaching out to hold his cold hand. It was a silent metaphor. Chuuya would subject himself to Dazai’s ability, let himself be vulnerable in more ways than one. And Dazai would let Chuuya touch him, would feel the warmth of another human , to acknowledge and admit to the presence of humanity in the both of them.
Staring at Dazai’s dinner, which looked like it had been nibbled at by a rabbit, and remembering the consistent, symmetric scar lines along Dazai’s limbs like the picture of it had been burned into his eyelids, Chuuya said to his soulmate, “You want to give the next generation a better life. You can’t do that while denying yourself the same thing.”
“Why, Nakahara Chuuya, aren’t you a hypocrite! I’m not the only one who has to remold the clay I was baked from if we want this pipe dream to succeed,” Dazai grinned, and while sometimes his smile was a carefully crafted charade, right here, right now, in front of Chuuya, it was possibly the most honest Dazai was capable of being.
Chuuya did not smile, because that wasn’t something he did, but the rest of his face and body language said all his mouth did not, and Dazai knew that. The two of them sat like that, hands clasped together and showing each other the true faces they usually had to cover up, and if they were not happy then they were at peace with what they had. Later that night, after Dazai had been cajoled into finishing his plate of dinner, they slipped into Chuuya’s bed together.
They didn’t talk. That could wait till the morning. Instead, they curled up together, all the words that couldn’t quite describe them humming in the air between them.
Yokohama wasn’t ready. Neither were they. But the point wasn’t that they were strong enough to withstand this, but rather that they were brave enough, and tired enough, to attempt to.
(And it starts like this, or, at least, it starts like this in the textbook of a Yokohaman student.)
The first ability user in the world was born in China, a glowing baby that defied the predestined rules of everything . The first ability user in Yokohama was born in Yokohama Municipal Citizen’s Hospital, and the little girl, who was never given a name, had killed over a hundred people. Her ability, which had been given a name even when she hadn’t, was called Wires Twist in the Basements of Men. It made all technology within a mile of her fritz out, with technology closer to her being more affected.
What could a little girl like that do to a building of people on life support? According to the government, mass murder. And what could a little girl like that mean for the future of Yokohama City? According to the government, the end of everything.
The baby didn’t live past the night. The government agent who killed her did not feel guilt. The nurses and doctors who stood outside the room did not feel shame. And the mother and father, sitting in darkness and with the weight of so many deaths held in the tiny body of their only daughter, only felt disgust. The little girl's ability was not a gift, and she didn't live long enough for it to become a curse. It was simply a death sentence.
In the years after that, when more abilities showed up among babies, much the same procedure was followed. The babies were never named, only the abilities, and their disposals were quick and without mercy. But some slipped through the cracks. Those with non obvious abilities. Those with unobservant doctors. Those with the rare parents whose first thought upon the sight of an ability was not hatred or fear, but love.
All around the world, the number of ability users was growing. Countries and cities with higher percentages of ability users were in chaos, their police and militaries unable to fight back against the supernatural powers many people found themselves afflicted with. Yokohama refused to be one of those cities. Yokohama saw the destruction and death plaguing the rest of the world, and made the decision that the power of abilities weren't worth the risk of trying to contain them. Having ability users working for them wasn't worth inevitably having ability users working against them.
The first attempt at a solution to abilities was the Early Purge. The military swept through schools, sniffing out ability users like bloodhounds, interrogating any child a teacher even slightly suspected of having an ability. These elite members of the Military Police made up a team whose whole job was to find and deal with ability users, and they earned the nickname of 'The Hunting Dogs'. They killed hundreds and left a trail of fear and blood in their path. In modern times, the Hunting Dogs were a much smaller unit, made of ability users who had sold their bodies and abilities to the government, even despite their history of killing their own people.
The Early Purge certainly culled the number of ability users in the beginning, but eventually ability users got smarter, and the military’s methods became less and less effective. It simply wasn't feasible to kill every single ability user born, and they had tried for long and hard to do just that. There was need for a new, different solution to the problem of ability users.
The Second Purge was not a mass slaughter, like the Early Purge was. Instead, it was a mass exile. Thousands of people were cast out of the city. And it wasn’t just people who were found guilty. People who were found likely to be guilty, or even just possibly guilty. Suspected children and suspected adults. Even pregnant mothers, suspected to be carrying the child of an ability user, were exiled. No one was spared.
At the same time as the Second Purge, Yokohama City declared its independence from Japan. There was increasing backlash from the rest of Japan about the shoot first, ask questions never motto of Yokohama when it came to abilities, and the Yokohaman government was sick of it. If Japan wouldn't support Yokohama in protecting its people, Yokohama would just have to support itself.
Walls were built and vigilantly patrolled, and the exile of suspected ability users seemed that much more permanent when even a non-ability user of Japan couldn’t pass through the walls of Yokohama. It became tradition for every Prime Minister of the country of Yokohama to make their own addition to the walls and the defense of the walls. The Walls of Yokohama became an iconic feature of the tiny country, and a tourist attraction to be viewed from the Japanese side of it.
The Final Purge occurred almost directly on the heels of the Second, and it was not defined by the killing or banishing of ability users, but rather the prevention of them. The Final Purge was a set of laws for ability users called the Ability Statute, which dictated the course of every ability user’s life. The Final Purge sought the end of chaos through the creation of strict control over ability users, and the Ability Statute was pretty much the definition of the word strict.
Abilities must be documented; abilities must be disclosed to schools; abilities must be disclosed to job interviewers; an ability user can not have a job involving or related to the creation of laws in government; an ability user can not be the legal guardian of a child; an ability user cannot have a biological child; these laws, and so many more, became the reality for all ability users in Yokohama.
Yokohama realized that it couldn’t kill its problems, nor could it send them away and pretend they didn’t exist. That was fine, though, as long as they were one step ahead in stopping them from ever being born. An ability user couldn't cause problems if they were documented and watched all their life.
The only ability users in Yokohama were first generation, and so Yokohama remained with a majority of normal humans while the rest of Japan and the rest of the world gradually shifted to a majority of ability users. Yokohama remained the last bastion of ordinary humans, with a lawmaking government completely clean of abilities.
(But it also starts like this, in the minds of the rest of the world.)
Yokohama killed off all of its heroic-minded ability users, and was sadly taken over by ability using villains.
(That's too simple, though, don't you think? Let's try a different explanation.)
Somewhere between the Final Purge and the present day, Yokohama and Japan fought a war. Yokohama called it their Revolution. Japan called it the Yokohaman Rebellion. Two different titles for the same bloody, tragic battles. The war did not start on exactly one day. Neither side ever officially declared war, but the war started nonetheless.
Japan fought with heroes. Yokohama fought with its army. Yokohama shouldn't have won, logically, but nothing about abilities was logical, and Yokohama only thought in logistics. Thousands died. The Walls built during the Second Purge nearly fell completely, and some of the Walls did fall, though they were quickly built up again. Yokohaman farmers and civilians, those who lived on the outskirts of the city, were caught in the crossfire. In retaliation, Yokohama sent suicide bombers to Japan. They refused to let Japanese civilians remain unaffected while their people died en masse.
It was a horrible, petty war, with arrogant governments sending innocents to die and to kill. Neither Japan nor Yokohama were completely in the right, though Japan would certainly insist otherwise. Yokohama had actually admitted to its crimes, though their apologies were halfhearted, and they weren't to ability users, but rather the rest of Japan. It was almost a slap to the face for the government to build memorials for the people who fought on the opposite side of the battlefield and to ignore the murders of Yokohaman ability users.
The war began because both sides couldn't compromise their beliefs on abilities, and it ended because Japan's heroes had underestimated the military prowess of those without abilities, and Yokohama's soldiers had hated ability users so much they were willing to kill when Japan wouldn't. The war ended because Japan refused to kill, and Yokohama was much too willing to.
Japan refused to admit that they had been defeated by a city full of people without abilities. They claimed that the government had been taken over by villains with abilities, that the heroes hadn't lost against normal people without quirks but against powerful, quirked evildoers. According to Japan, Yokohama was a lawless city, filled with the cowering ordinary people who had once upon a time murdered and exiled thousands of ability users.
Yokohama's government told its people that the Outside was a terrible place, one where ability users and non-ability users stood together on equal footing, where everyone turned a blind eye to the dangers of quirks. Japan's government told its people that Yokohama was a warlike place even decades after the end of the Rebellion, where villains reigned supreme and everyone else suffered unimaginable horrors. Neither government was right, obviously, but how could two completely isolated peoples know that?
The fact of the matter was that both countries understood nothing about the other, and had stubborn governments that refused to learn more about their neighbor.
Dazai and Chuuya sat on the floor together in Chuuya's sophisticated penthouse, a sea of newspaper clippings and printed out articles surrounding them. A common trend could be seen among all of them- they were all about schools in the Outside which accepted ability users, and specifically trained their abilities. One school that showed up often was Japan's top school, UA High School. The information might not have been the most reliable, seeing as they had all been written by Yokohaman journalists, but they were something. Taped to the walls with masking tape was pages upon pages of the Ability Statutes. Certain lines were underlined, and notes were written along the sides of the papers.
"This UA... This is what Yokohama needs. A school that can teach ability users to be intelligent, capable, and compassionate. Heh, to be heroes. Their school mascot is kind of on the nose, but I get what they mean when they say they want their kids to be heroes. That's what we want too, a generation of good samaritans and upstanding citizens, ability or no," Chuuya said, sitting with his legs crossed, pulling his long hair back with a hair tie. He was dressed in simple black leggings with a matching crop top, and while he was plenty comfortable in them, he wouldn't be caught dead wearing them with anyone other than Dazai.
"I know. If we can make something like this UA of theirs, combined with a certain Yokohaman charm, I think we could actually change lives. A safe space for ability users to learn and be free from persecution." Dazai's smile wasn't of the kind you would normally see on him, loud and manic, instead it was a soft and almost hopeful face that greeted Chuuya when he looked up from the papers at Dazai. Chuuya reached forward to adjust a loose bandage on Dazai's arm, and that was as much a reciprocation of Dazai's smile as he could get. Chuuya was the only other person Dazai let touch his bandages, and though Chuuya helped him with his bandages often enough, he always felt a small flutter in the bottom of his stomach. Something about Chuuya made Dazai feel like a child again, and he resisted the urge to blush. This was the man he wanted to save Yokohama once more with.
"We could have a building here in the city, maybe near your ADA. Your detectives could all help teach, and I could get some of my kinder subordinates to teach too, and maybe Kouyou could give etiquette lessons," Chuuya rambled, his mind alight with all of the possibilities. It had been years since Dazai last saw Chuuya this excited about something, and he did his best to savor the pride and love he felt pouring through him. “I could teach the kids martial arts, and you and that really, really smart detective could teach deductive reasoning, and-”
Chuuya cut himself off with a small blush. Dazai had never seen anything cuter, and wasn’t hesitant to say that to Chuuya’s face.
“Why you- Bastard!” Chuuya spluttered. Dazai burst out laughing, clutching his stomach as he fell forward dramatically. Chuuya, while still sitting criss cross, shoved him away with an embarrassed look.
“Stupid bandage-wasting fish,” he grumbled, crossing his thin arms along his chest. “Distracting the both of us.” Dazai sobered up quickly.
“You have good ideas about the school, ones I think we can definitely implement. But you’re skipping ahead a few steps. We need permission from the Prime Minister; we need to gather students; and we need to properly learn how to run a school for ability users, preferably from the source. We need to go to UA and actually see how they run things,” Dazai began listing out a few of their early objectives.
“Should we divide and conquer? You’ll obviously handle the government better, and we both know that I’m better with kids,” Chuuya suggested hesitantly. It wasn’t a slight to either of them, just the acknowledgement that they both were better or worse at certain things, and it would be better to play to their strengths. Dazai nodded without having to think about it, having been thinking of a similar idea.
“I have some favors I can utilize to get me up the food chain to the Prime Minister. I’ll get permission for the school, and permission for us to travel into Japan to learn from their schools. You can find some prospective students and get them to sign some early papers to show interest in the school. And… do you still have those foreign contacts? We might be needing them to get in contact with the principal,” Dazai said, his eyes alight with a certain determination.
“I do have those contacts, and I think I can get ahold of the principal. But the kids… most of the ones I’m familiar with are in the mafia or on the streets. We’re talking orphans and runaways. They’re not going to have parental consent for the school. Can you deal with that in your meeting with the Prime Minister?” Chuuya asked. He stood up, his bare feet trampling all of the papers on the floor.
Dazai stood too, saying, “Of course I can. ‘Guardian’s consent not required but accepted’. A kid with consent or with no guardian is fine. If a kids guardian specifically doesn’t give consent, the kid can’t go.”
“Sounds good to me,” Chuuya said. For a few seconds, there was silence between them. “I love you, you idiot. Come back to me next weekend?”
Dazai grinned, and Chuuya felt the kind of awe one could only feel when in the presence of a Sun.
“I love you too, Chuuya. Can we have crab again?” Dazai asked, tenderly as he began speaking and joking as he ended.
“Lay off it with the crab, bastard!! I can’t cook it every night you come over!!” Chuuya yelled angrily at Dazai, the familiar rage that only Dazai could produce in him rising up his throat. Despite how it sounded, Chuuya couldn’t be more content with his life at that moment.
Atsushi methodically made himself a late dinner, his small agency-funded apartment feeling entirely too constricting for his tastes. He felt almost guilty, that he felt so nervous. When Dazai had come up to him and asked for him to help with his radical plan for a school, Atsushi wasn't completely sure on whether he should help or not. He had asked for time to think it over, though giving himself more time to stress out over his choice was clearly the wrong decision to make.
No one would hate him for wanting to stay out of the school's creation. They all would understand and sympathize, and maybe that was why Atsushi wanted so badly to accept Dazai's offer. To go against the tide, to fight everyone's opinions of him, to aid in the birth of possibly the best or worst thing to ever happen to Yokohama since the Purges. Atsushi wanted to do all of that and more, he wanted to do so much more.
He couldn't help but imagine what his life could have been like if he had always known about the tiger, had been able to train and accept his ability. How much better could he have been?
(How many more people could he have saved? Who would still be alive if he had been raised kindly and not cruelly? And was it cruel to himself to keep thinking in what-ifs and if-onlys?)
Dazai wanted him to teach. He wanted Atsushi to care for children, to give them the upbringing that every child deserved but some had taken away from them by an unwanted ability. Atsushi didn't know if he could do that without seeing himself in the students. Himself, and the tiger.
He couldn't help the tiny portion of his brain that was programmed to fear abilities, to loathe abilities. The rest of the ADA had always known about their abilities- had grown up with all of the rules memorized, with their hindbrains set to obey and to ignore the devils inside of them. Atsushi hadn't been raised like that, but maybe it would have been easier in the end if he had.
Atsushi sighed and carried his plate of food over to his two-seating kitchen table. He smiled automatically upon seeing the tablecloth. It had little jungle animals patterned on it, and Kyouka had bought it for him as a birthday gift. She said the little cartoon tigers reminded her of him. It was a childish thing for him to have in his apartment, but he unironically loved it. There was a part of him that was unused to receiving gifts that preened at the 'honor' of having someone give him a present.
Scrolling through the news on his phone as he slowly ate, Atsushi decided to hold off on considering Dazai's school until he had finished eating. That might have been a mistake, as he stumbled upon an opinion piece titled: 'Why We Still Need the Ability Statutes'. Atsushi couldn't help but open the article, and felt sick at what he read. Within a few paragraphs he clicked off.
It hurt to know that Yokohamans still believed that the Purges were a good part of Yokohama's history. The government had atoned for their cruelty during the Revolution but not for their crimes during the Purges, and Yokohama couldn't learn the truth until its government actually admitted to it. It couldn't be safe to build a school for ability users while many people still had their heads stuck in the mindset of the Purges, Atsushi fretted. They would be targets. The children would be targets, bigger targets than ability users normally were.
He stood up, placing his plate on the counter. There was still food on it. Atsushi felt too nauseous to keep eating. Slowly, he began pacing around the small kitchen, his ears and tail materializing on his body. With his ears pinned back and his tail swishing back and forth aggressively, he walked a circuit around the room, his anxious mind also running in repetitive circles.
God, he couldn't stay in this tiny room, it was all too claustrophobic. He glanced at the custom military police vest hanging by the door, and decided that it was a good time to go out and get a breath of fresh air. The police vest wasn't meant for a human. Rather, it was specifically meant for him to wear as a tiger. After a few too many panicked sightings of a loose tiger in the city, the government had fitted him with the vest. It was a bright, vibrant blue and it was obnoxious and it was a little too similar to a dog's vest, but it was nowhere near as embarrassing as having someone call your own coworkers on you.
'Licensed Military Police Ability User', it said on both sides, with a phone number written below to call if he was seen doing something he shouldn't be. The phone number was definitely an insult directed at him, but it wasn't like he could complain. This vest was what he wore the most, usually around the city in chases or just following around other agency members. It was for his smaller tiger form, which was about the size of a large dog. He had no vest for when he was in his larger tiger form, but usually when he was in that form all civilians had been cleared from the area.
Going through the complex motions of putting on the vest while partially in tiger form and partially in human form, he finally got the vest on correctly and silently leapt out the open window. Almost immediately, he felt so much lighter, like he had shed the skin of his real life and now all he had to worry about was the wind around him and the ground beneath him.
With great running leaps, Atsushi ran out of the alleyway he had landed in and along the empty street. Other than the empty cars of people sleeping in the buildings he passed and a few stray cats, there was no one to see him. The wind filtered through his fur like a hand carding through hair, and while the hard pavement hurt his paw pads, the pain of it also brought a great thrill to him. Running as a tiger was different than as a human. As a tiger, there was nothing truer to him than to sprint. It was second nature to him. It just wasn't the same when he ran as a human.
Atsushi practically flew through the streets, and the free movements of his tiger body brought a certain rebellious freedom to his mind. He always felt a little invincible like this, faster than any man and with claws and teeth that could rip someone apart in seconds. He knew, distantly, that when he became human once more these wild thoughts would bring him a terrible kind of shame, but for now they brought him animalistic glee.
He turned sharply around a corner into an alleyway and was jarred to a stop at the sight of two humans standing there. One was a man, who carried a stench of booze and sleaziness, the other a woman, who smelled bitter, in a way that Atsushi recognized as the sharp tang of fear. The man had the woman pushed into a wall, a cocky grin etched into his face like it had been carved their permanently with a knife. Atsushi couldn't see a gun on him, but he smelt the gunpowder and knew that he was armed. He knew what he had to do.
Before either of the humans fully processed the sight of the dog-sized tiger before them, he tackled the man down, resisting the urge to sink his teeth into the man and to lap up his blood like it was water. When he was sure that the man was unconscious, Atsushi turned around to face the woman he had saved and was struck with the horrifying realization that her fear smell had only grown stronger upon seeing him. Guiltily, he lied down next to the disgusting man, making sure the words on his vest could be seen by the woman. Making sure that the phone number on his vest could be seen, in case she wanted to report him.
(It had happened before, that he saved someone only for them to call the police on him. The vest lessened the calls to the ADA reporting him, but did not stop them.)
After reading what it said, though, her features relaxed, and she smiled gratefully at him. One of his ears flicked in a quick jolt of surprise.
"Thank you! Thank you so much, I didn't know what to do, he wouldn't stop even after I said no-" She started crying and slid to the ground, the shock and panic of earlier catching up to her. Atsushi gave a panicked mewl and slowly rose from the ground, walking with his tail between his legs and putting a paw on the woman's leg to comfort her. As he got closer, Atsushi realized that the 'woman' was young, clearly still a girl. His disgust at the drunk bastard behind him only grew.
"Thank you," she said chokingly, her sniffles loud and erratic. "Can I...?" The girl lifted a hand as if to pet him, and he nodded. She reached out to pet his head, and giggled when he leaned into it. Slowly, through the course of a few minutes, her crying slowed and then ended, and she stopped looking as if she would collapse the moment she stood up.
"I'm Minako, what's your name?" she asked, still gently petting his head. Atsushi carefully guided her hands to the front of his vest, where his name was embroidered in silver. He could have changed back into a human, but he felt like Minako needed him more in his tiger form than his human one. And wasn't that a crazy thought, that he could be loved for his ability and not hated for it. That his ability wasn't a curse but rather something that could help people in ways other than fighting.
"Atsushi, huh? And it says you work for a detective agency?" Atsushi nodded, feeling the start of a happy purr forming. "Then you must save a lot of people like me. I work at an insurance firm, we don't see much action."
For another minute, Atsushi purred while Minako rambled, at least until the drunk man seemed to stir in his sleep. Minako tensed up and Atsushi softly growled, not as a threat to Minako but as a threat to the man. He nudged Minako's hand with his nose, and when she started petting him again, he brought her hand to his vest, implying that he wanted her to call the phone number on it.
When she took out her phone and typed out the number, and Atsushi heard the voice of the agency's receptionist, he stood and began getting ready to leave.
"Atsushi?" Minako called. Atsushi stopped padding away, waiting to see if Minako still needed him. "Thank you. Thank you for everything. Goodbye."
He leapt away, slower and with more trepidation, his tail swishing slowly behind him. He was hit by the sudden thought that tonight, saving that girl, he had been treated just as human as a tiger than he had as a human. And just as suddenly, he knew that he would never forgive himself if he didn’t help Dazai make his crazy dream of a school. Every ability user should have the chance to feel as accepted and proud as he had just then.
Abilities could do good. They could turn rotten, but they could turn into something pure just as quickly. Atsushi was so sure of this idea, that abilities were neither inherently good nor bad, he wanted to share it with all of Yokohama. He wanted to change Yokohama’s collective minds about abilities, and he wanted to start with Dazai’s school.
He climbed into the same window in his apartment that he left out of and changed back into his human form. Pulling out his phone, he began dialing a number he had memorized years ago.
"Dazai? I'm in." A slight pause as he listened to what Dazai was saying. "Odasaku's School for Gifted Children... Yes, it's a wonderful name, and I take it that meeting with the Prime Minister went well? That's good."
Another pause.
"Wait, you want me to do what?!"
Tecchou sat awkwardly in the main room of the Armed Detective Agency, the few detectives that were already there looking at him suspiciously. Their receptionist likewise seemed uncomfortable. Just months ago he and the other Hunting Dogs had been attempting to bring them in for terrorism, and now he was sitting in their building peacefully without trying to arrest them. It was more than a little awkward. Truthfully, he was only there to talk to the nullifier, Dazai, Tecchou believed his name was.
Tecchou crossed his legs, his black government-issued boots gleaming brightly in the light. Almost immediately he uncrossed his legs and placed his boot back on the ground. God, this was horrible. He wished Jouno was there. Actually, he'd probably accept any other Hunting Dog. Hunting Dogs were supposed to always have backup... Except now Fukuchi was dead, their whole group was suspect, and he was being sent on a solo mission outside of Yokohama. This wasn't what he meant when he said he wanted justice, not if he had to leave behind everyone he loved, short a list it may be.
"Um, Tecchou-san?'' The weretiger boy called his name. His body was split between human and beast, and he bore twin tiger ears and a nervously twitching tail. Both of the men tried their hardest to ignore the fact that Tecchou's worn hands instantly flinched to grab his sword. Tecchou knew that the weretiger didn't hold it against him, but still felt guilty when his body posture straightened and his spine tensed, all while maintaining eye contact with Tecchou.
"Yes?" Tecchou responded with a questioning tone, folding both of his gloved hands in his lap in a show of peace. He noticed how the rest of the agency members were tracking his movements out of the corners of their eyes, pretending to be typing on computers or filling out paperwork but all ready to protect one of their own. Tecchou felt a small longing to be back at base with his team, the four of them that were left together in their own little world. He felt like a foreigner when forced to disrupt the agency's own ecosystem, and shuddered to think of how his team might react if someone did the same to them.
"Well, it's just, Dazai-san is a little unpredictable sometimes-" The weretiger was interrupted by Dazai arriving at the agency, loudly, accompanied by Nakahara Chuuya, the ginger Mafia executive that Dazai used to be partnered with. Both of Double Black were here, and even though they were currently infighting, Tecchou still felt an involuntary wave of fear rack his body. His hands clenched in his lap as if tightened by an invisible force. When Dazai's eyes fell upon Tecchou, he smirked, and Tecchou knew that he was facing the Demon Prodigy, the brains of Soukoku, and not the detective.
"Would you look at this, Chuu-Chuu, a Hunting Dog!" Dazai, like a flip had switched and he was back to normal, announced with a provocative smile at Chuuya, and before Chuuya could angrily yell a retort, Dazai stage whispered, "Do you think he's here for me?!"
Tecchou stood from the hard wooden bench they had sat him on, conscious but dismissive of the other Agency members staring at their interaction, offering a shallow bow to Dazai. Now that he was at eye level with him, Tecchou could recognize a conniving gleam in his dark brown eyes. Glancing to Dazai's right, he saw the threatening gleam in Chuuya's blue eyes, the promise that if Tecchou so much as got a little too close to Dazai, Hell would rain down.
"I am here to discuss your pending travel request to go to Musutafu, Japan," he said. Tecchou noticed the way Dazai's eyes held a quick flash of surprise, before he bounced back and gained control of the conversation once more. So Dazai had thought he was going to talk to them about something else. Possibly something about the prospective school? Maybe Dazai hadn't yet realized that the government truly thought that the school was a hopeless endeavor, something to be used to temporarily pacify the ability users of the Agency and the Mafia and little else.
"Ah, about that! The chibi, of course, is still going, but our little Atsushi here will be going in place of me! Can't exactly procure sponsors if I'm out of the country!" Dazai told him, his phrasing almost challenging Tecchou to try and deny him. Tecchou, naturally, ignored it.
"Okay. Since the both of them are here, I may still give them my orders from the government." Tecchou took a deep breath in, trying to prepare himself for the arguing he foresaw at his news. "I am to join you on your journey into Japan, both as a bodyguard from Outside threats... and to ensure you don't try and turn traitor." He looked almost pained to have to say that. Everyone in the room knew that it was because they were ability users that he had to say that.
To his surprise, both Chuuya and Atsushi nodded in understanding. Tecchou considered that for a moment, but concluded that it was because they were ability users that they were able to accept that fact easily. If he had said that to any other Yokohaman, they would have gotten offended, they would have gotten angry. But ability users were taught from a young age to roll over and not fight back, so maybe he shouldn't have been surprised at all.
Tecchou turned slightly to face the rest of the agency, his eyes raking over each of them and assessing them. None of them seemed overtly caught off guard. It made the small side of him that cared for all ability users, ex-terrorist or not, happy to see such a close and well-adjusted family. He nodded slightly to himself. It was time to get back to his family, to say goodbye for a long, long while.
Chuuya walked away from Dazai, who had begun poking fun at Kunikida, to stand near Tecchou, close enough for them to have a semi-private conversation.
"You just got married, right? To the other Hunting Dog?" Chuuya asked softly, his body not betraying what seemed to be a sensitive, close to home question for him.
"Yes," Tecchou answered simply. He and Jouno had gotten married fairly soon after Fukuchi's death, after they had realized just how stupid it was to continue hiding their relationship. They had been together for a while, but had kept it secret, mostly because of Tecchou's fear that they could be kicked out of the Hunting Dogs. But after nearly losing Jouno to the Decay of Angels' vampire epidemic, he had decided that his love for Jouno was stronger even than his love for justice, and that he would be with Jouno even if he could no longer be with the Hunting Dogs. To Tecchou's delight, the government had sighed and dragged its feet but eventually agreed to let the both of them stay on the team.
"You're very lucky," Chuuya said seriously, his eyes focused on Dazai and not Tecchou. The longing he felt for the bandaged detective was clear, and saddening. Here in Yokohama there were generations of ability users who felt they weren't allowed to be happy, to have a family. Tecchou hoped one day Soukoku might prove everyone wrong like he and Jouno did with their wedding.
"I know." Tecchou fully took in the mood of the room and the tempo of all of the people in it, a small smile flitting across his face. Maybe this group wouldn't do so bad in raising the next generation of ability users.
(If they ever even got to that point. If they weren't blackmailed or extorted into giving up the school. If the government didn't put its foot down on the whole thing. If the Yokohaman people didn't riot to the point of it being too dangerous.)
Chuuya sat stiffly in the government-assigned car, elbow resting on the door and holding up his head. There would probably be a red mark on his cheek when he moved, but oh well. Tecchou sat, equally as uncomfortable, by the other window. Atsushi lay on the floor of the car between their legs, wearing the blue military police vest he hated but had to wear if he wanted to so much as exist in his tiger form.
The driver of the car, an ability user with a low level job as a grunt in the Special Division for Unusual Powers, was an older man who kept on coughing into his handkerchief. Chuuya wondered if he was the best choice to drive a car that was escorting three extremely powerful and well-trained ability users, but then was struck by the realization that he was only guarding against two ability users, and really it would be a two on two fight. Tecchou was with the Hunting Dogs, not them, even if he was an ability user that cared for both Yokohama and its ability users. If forced to choose between the government and Chuuya and Atsushi, it was clear what his choice would be.
"Coming up to the Yokohama checkpoint." The divider in the middle of the car lowered, and the driver rasped out the sentence, his throat scratchy and his voice practically painful to listen to. Chuuya didn't respond, and continued staring at his reflection in the tinted window. He couldn't see out the window, and he had to wonder what the point was at all, or if it was just to keep up outside appearances. The car slowed to a stop, the driver rolling down his non-tinted window to show identification to the border guard.
The guard glanced curiously into the back of the car, and was confused to see a uniformed Hunting Dog, a white tiger, and a redhead sitting silently. Well, the guard reasoned, he had seen weirder. Rich people were seriously weird sometimes. This was probably just a businessman, his (illegal?) pet tiger, and his bodyguard traveling the border. He had to wonder why it was a Hunting Dog escorting the ginger, but wondering wasn't what he was getting paid for, so he just allowed the car through. At least he'd have a story to tell to the other bored border guards.
They drove slowly as they approached the actual Wall. The checkpoints on either side of the Wall didn't offer much protection, but the Wall and its highly trained military units provided the ultimate defense, and offense, if needed. The minute they entered the Wall, the faint light they had been receiving from the driver's windows completely disappeared, and it was dark except for the yellow glowing lights on the walls inside the Wall. Shadowed figures, all wearing tactical gear and carrying guns, walked along the side of the one-lane road, their faces masked by the limited light. Around ten or so of the soldiers followed the sides of the car, their feet silent against the pavement and their legs moving in perfect synchronicity.
This one-way road was one of two that exited Yokohama. There were two other roads that entered Yokohama, the locations of which were highly classified to Outsiders. The roads exiting Yokohama were actually fairly common knowledge to the people living in the city, but that didn't mean much considering everyone knew that getting too close without the right paperwork and permission would likely end in your death, especially if you were an ability user.
As they made it out of the dark inner Wall, their guards didn't follow them out of the Wall. Chuuya felt a strange fear at the fact that they were now in Japan. The land didn't feel different, and nothing had really changed, but he couldn't help that he had an ingrained terror at the thought of the Outside. He was also slightly scared of the fact that the three of them could be walking precedents, traditions of how Yokohama's ability users would be treated Outside for decades to come.
(How many Yokohamans had ever exited the Wall like he was doing now? How many ability users had ever exited the Wall, since the Second Purge? Had any?)
The car reached the Japanese checkpoint, and Chuuya was beyond glad that the driver hadn't bothered to lift up the divider between them. He was about to see his first ever Outsider. He had never been so full of dread nor excitement before.
The driver opened his window again, and Chuuya had his first sight of a Japanese Outsider. It looked horrifying. He felt guilty for thinking of a human being like that, but the thing's mutant quirk made it something inhuman-looking. It had a scaled body, which held an iridescent green gleam. It's head was that of a lizard.
"Tecchou, can you see that checkpoint guard?" Chuuya hissed quietly across the seat. The Outsider didn't hear him, but the driver seemed to. Tecchou shook his head.
Chuuya waited for them to drive away before telling Tecchou, "You know those commercials in the old bootleg American DVDs, the ones with the insurance company and the lizard?"
"You just asked a government worker if he watched illegal black market films." Tecchou let it sink in. "But, yes. Did they... Look like a lizard?"
"Yep," Chuuya said, grimacing. Tecchou lightly gagged.
From below them, Atsushi gave a big yawn and sat up. The driver glanced back in the rear-view mirror and then quickly moved his eyes back to the road. Then Atsushi climbed onto the middle seat, and began grooming himself. The driver seemed to be close to pissing himself from fear.
They drove for the next half hour, mostly in silence, until the car stopped and the driver fully got out to open their doors for them.
Chuuya was the first out, and he blinked aggressively at the bright sunlight. Looking ahead, he saw his first Japanese city, and gasped audibly at the sight.
(And it starts like this- in the eyes of a criminal, in the heart of a tiger, in the prayers of a soldier.)