Chapter Text
Like many things, it started on a ship.
Specifically, Francis’s new yacht, which he bought in celebration of their victory over the Decay of Angels—and then hosted a party on it where everyone on their side was invited. Everyone. The Armed Detective Agency, of course, but also the Hunting Dogs, the remaining Guild members, and in a show of peace, the Port Mafia.
Any party of Francis’s sounded like a nightmare, but this one especially was one Akutagawa had possessed no qualms missing out on. The president of the agency, of all people, was the one to convince him. Mori had summoned him to hand deliver a letter from the swordsman, requesting his presence for a private conversation on amicable terms, a rare enough thing that Akutagawa took it seriously.
He arrived two hours after the party began with his knight’s armor heavy on his shoulders and his new dark brown coat—his black coat was lost in his first battle with Fukuchi, and he couldn’t bring himself to care to ask if anyone had found it. The yacht itself was anchored to a port, with a well-dressed staff mulling about offering champagne, snacks, and sweets on silver trays to the guests, who were all several glasses deep into the night. It was about an hour to sunset on a late summer evening, the air was cooling, and a few birds perched along the railing.
Akutagawa spotted Chuuya and Kouyou with two agency members—Yosano and Ranpo—telling stories and laughing together. Tachihara, Gin, and Lucy had Atsushi cornered and were either arguing with or bullying the weretiger—his cowardly demeanor made it impossible to tell which it was. Hirotsu and Kunikida were politely chatting with a ginger American, though Hirotsu seemed to be slightly bored with them. Francis was gesticulating at a slightly frightened man with purple and white hair.
Akutagawa locked eyes with Dazai standing by himself, who he never would have expected to be here. Dazai held up his glass and nodded subtly, and that was that.
Akutagawa went below deck, drifting between silver trays and drunk partygoers, and found the president sat by himself, clutching the sword at his side and staring into the white cloth draped over the dining table. A vase containing a bouquet of lavender brightened the chandelier-lit room, but despite the festivities, the president had a deep frown set into his face.
Akutagawa coughed, alerting the president to his presence. He blinked out of a daydream at Akutagawa, and crossed his arms in front of him, sitting back in the padded dining chair. “Please, have a seat,” he said.
Akutagawa sat across from him with his hands flat on his lap, stiff and out-of-place. “I hope you haven’t dragged me into this garish affair in public intoxication in order to issue some undue criticism, or congratulations.”
The president was unfazed by Akutagawa’s poor manners in introductions. “It all depends on how you choose to interpret your own actions. I requested your attendance to make you aware of a specific action you happened to take.”
That didn’t sound as humiliating as what he thought he had been summoned for. “I’m listening.”
“Are you aware of the specifics of my ability?”
“I wasn’t aware you had one, beyond your talents with a sword.”
The president grimaced at that. “When you defeated Fukuchi alongside Atsushi, did you notice anything strange about Rashomon?”
Akutagawa took pride in next to nothing in his life. Pride was a crutch to retire on when all the work was done—as such it was an opening weakness could slither through. Still, he couldn’t help but feel pride for what he and the weretiger accomplished in their last fight together. “Strange?”
“You and Atsushi fought Fukuchi before, and lost. How did you manage to defeat him the second time?”
It was Akutagawa’s turn to grimace at the reminder of his defeat and subsequent death. “All failure is a lesson. My—our defeat only made us stronger. In the end it was enough.”
“That is what I mean to tell you.” The president’s eyes sharpened. “It wasn’t defeat alone that made you stronger.”
“Enlighten me.”
“My ability, All Men Are Equal, gives me the power to enhance the abilities of others, but only after certain conditions are met.”
Akutagawa recalled the fight with Francis, and Kyouka’s miraculous survival, gaining control of Demon Snow at the last second to save herself from obliteration. “An entrance exam. I’m familiar with the concept.”
“For my ability to apply to another’s, they must prove themselves to have the heart of an agency member. They must risk their life saving innocents, without knowledge that they are being tested. You were there when Kyouka passed hers.”
“Yes, I remember.”
“I believe this was the key in our—our triumph over the evil that almost destroyed the world. Do you understand?”
Akutagawa gripped his knees, and pressed his feet into the floor. Humiliation at ever believing in a fairytale idea of the power of defeat, or even more revolting, the power of he and Atsushi’s bond, writhed in his stomach. “The ship.”
“Precisely. When you sacrificed your life for Atsushi, you became, shall we say, an unofficial member of the agency. It was enough that when you were resurrected, my ability extended to your own, giving you extraordinary strength in your fight.”
Akutagawa felt short of breath. His lip trembled as he spoke. “Dazai set that fight up.”
“I understand you have a past with my employee.”
Akutagawa scowled, turning his eyes away from the president to an aquarium where various tropical fish swam in circles.
“Dazai warned me that you may not be enthused to learn that someone other than yourself held partial responsibility for your valor in battle. I can only say that it was still your sacrifice, and your character, that allowed you to grow stronger. My ability doesn’t accept just any risk. For instance, Kyouka threw herself from a train to prevent the bomb strapped to her from hurting its passengers—but this did not qualify, because it was not a sacrifice made in sound consciousness.”
“Did Dazai tell you to say that, too?”
The president smiled. “No. Atsushi did.”
Dazai didn’t speak to anyone without a goal in mind, especially not about Akutagawa. And Atsushi too—how many people knew about Akutagawa’s unofficial status in the agency?
Akutagawa’s hand flew to grab the table. The vase shook, but did not spill. “I don’t care what your ability says! There’s no way I would ever join the agency. This job offer is nothing more than a pathetic waste of my time!”
Akutagawa pushed away from the table, his coat swishing past him as he turned to leave. After a moment, the president laughed, and Akutagawa stopped. “This is no offer. It’s already been decided that you wouldn’t be permitted a position in the agency.”
“Oh? And why is that?” He sneered over his shoulder. Even after his work in saving the agency, they still took the moral high ground over him. All seemed to be right in the world. “Is it perhaps that one measly action hasn’t overwritten the numerous times I’ve attempted to kill one of your subordinates, nor the countless lives I’ve taken?”
Any affability in the president was wiped away. If he was closer to Akutagawa, the boy thinks he may have struck him. “Countless lives?” He shook his head in disbelief at the words that were leaving his mouth. “Sit down, boy, and I’ll tell you what it means to have taken countless lives.”
Akutagawa had no reason to listen to the president’s words anymore, but he couldn’t help but hear out any advice given to him—big or small. A man lost in the woods would follow a butterfly for miles in hopes that it knew the proper way forward. And the president was no butterfly—The Silver Wolf, Mori had called him once.
Only after Akutagawa sat back in the dining chair, hands folded in his lap, did the president continue. “After how many did you lose count?”
It was before the mafia, a time Akutagawa hated to think about. “When I took my first life, one hundred was the largest number I knew. I must have been around eight, and an older kid offered me a hundred candy bars—an unimaginable amount for my small mind—in exchange for protection. Up until that point, I had only used Rashomon for defense, and to kill vicious dogs.” That kid robbed a corner store of all their money, plus as many candy bars as his friend could stuff in his pockets before they had to run. When the police came for him, he pointed, and Akutagawa lashed out. It was an unbreakable rule among street urchins not to do anything that brought attention from the police—and no one but Akutagawa survived to remember who broke it. “I’d say I stopped counting after the twelfth.”
“Twelve? I believe the last one I took note of was my seventh. After that, it was just another one in the pile.”
Akutagawa’s expression didn’t change.
The president continued, eyes hazy and unfocused. “Not even Dazai has killed as many men as I have. If your tally exceeds his, I have a feeling it couldn’t match mine, either.” His eyes sharpened, and he took a deep breath, clearing the memories. “And as for your fights with Atsushi—the American girl, Lucy, is also an unofficial member of the agency, only because she hasn’t passed the entrance exam—and she threatened three of the agency’s members.”
“Do tell me, then. Or have you invited me here to lecture me? I already declined your non-offer, so I am having a hard time comprehending why you must go on like this.”
“In the agency, everyone has an equal voice. For something as serious as inviting a new member, a single vote of dissent is enough to call the whole thing off.”
A pit of hatred formed in Akutagawa’s chest, the place where respect had long since withered away. He dreaded the president’s next words.
“Dazai advised against it. He reasoned that your actions are motivated moment-to-moment, and you could have just as easily turned on Atsushi during the fight to save your own life—though I have a feeling his reasons are more complicated than that.”
He swallowed around the pit, rising into his throat and choking him worse than his illness ever did. “Touching. But again I must ask, what is the point to all of this?”
“Under normal circumstances, saving one of our own would put the agency in your debt. As it stands, you have started down the well-torn path of redemption. I have a soft spot for anyone in your position, especially those who have proved themselves so succinctly.”
Akutagawa sighed. He tried to sound bored, but the sound that escaped him was tired. “Is that all?”
“For now, yes, unless you have anything for me.”
Akutagawa stood to go, but a question burrowed in him that he couldn’t help but ask. “Did Dazai pass an entrance exam?”
It caught the president off-guard—not an easy thing to do, from the looks of things. He touched his chin. “In one sense of the word, yes, he did. And time and time again, taking a risk on him has proven to be one of the best choices of my life. In another—it’s impossible for me to know. My ability wouldn’t affect him in either case, if he passed or not.”
Akutagawa nodded, expecting something like that. “It’s impossible to know anything for certain about Dazai.”
“I hope, for his sake, that you’re wrong.”
Akutagawa stepped onto the deck of the ship with a paralyzing stiffness crawling from his heart into every muscle—from the muscles in his frown to those in his calves. The alcohol flowing through the crowd was evident in their voices growing louder, unconscious of how their volume grew to be louder than those around them and the crashing waves slamming into the hull. It wasn’t his scene, and though everyone there knew how instrumental he was in defeating the Decay of Angels, out of the corners of their eyes they casted weary looks at him as he weaved through the crowd to the bow of the ship.
He wanted to leave, but even as a native resident of a port city he couldn’t resist the tidal pull of the ocean. It was quiet, the other guests mingling with each other and content to leave him alone, so it wasn’t so miserable that he couldn’t stay for a moment, long enough for the president’s words to travel to the back of his mind to be left there, in the sea, dragged away and forgotten by sunrise.
So he leaned against the railing, breeze in his hair. The wind sucked the air out of his lungs, forcing him to take deep, calming breaths. The waves had a meditative rhythm that was easy to get lost to, and lost was where Akutagawa was most comfortable. The sun was nearly set now, painting the sky red on his right, and abandoning his left in darkness.
A wave broke, and in the sea of dark blue about fifty feet south was a brown shape, the same color as Akutagawa’s coat. Clothes. His eyes focused on a man floating face-down, drifting with each wave further from the ship into the deep sea.
No one was watching Akutagawa. No one noticed the man’s absence, and no one was around to see him. Akutagawa could leave now, and the rest of the party would be none the wiser that he had done nothing to stop Dazai’s last suicide attempt—they may never know what happened to him. Akutagawa wasn’t a hero—Dazai had said it himself, and he had no reason to prove the man wrong. Not anymore. Let him rot, let fish chew holes through his flesh, let his clothes settle in the seaweed and be home to a clutch of eggs, let the sun set on it all.
That was his plan, wasn’t it? Dazai was fine until Akutagawa showed up—he must have some plan in mind for him. For his joining the agency, perhaps, finally completing his partnership with the weretiger. He was the only thing in his way, and he made sure Akutagawa knew that before stepping out of his way.
I know, because that was all part of my plan. What I want to know is what happened next.
Dazai had said those words to him so many times. Painful times, each one a failure to meet expectations—was how he had always seen it. If Dazai had a plan, Akutagawa was three steps ahead to throw his misfortune into it.
“For old times’ sake,” he said, and climbed onto the railing. With Rashomon, he threw himself into the sea.
The air was a comfortable chill, but the water was freezing, getting cooler by the second as night fell on them. What little air his lungs could hold was punched out of him with the force of the ocean squeezing him. He splashed, gasping and swallowing salty water brimming with pollutants. His illness had made a poor swimmer of him, and though the vampirism cured whatever the cause was, he was left with poor cardio from years of limited exercise. He kicked whatever remaining thoughts he could hold into remembering how to swim, desperately smacking at the water with his hands to Dazai.
Diving through the last wave, he came upon Dazai’s body. He hoisted Dazai’s unconscious body over his shoulder. Unconscious, he reminded himself, not lifeless. Nothing could kill Dazai. His skin was cold and pale, and though his face was out of the water he took no breaths, but Akutagawa was certain that he must still be alive. The body pushed him underwater, and he gurgled and kicked to get at least his mouth above water under the weight.
His ears were too full of water to hear the commotion, but on the deck of the ship a crowd gathered. The only faces he spotted, frantic as he was to stay afloat, were Chuuya and Atsushi. Chuuya dove after him, gliding over the water with his ability. Akutagawa stuck a hand in the air, instantly being shoved underwater, but Chuuya caught his wrist and hoisted Akutagawa’s body so that his head was out of the water.
“Let go of him,” Chuuya ordered, and before Akutagawa could protest, added, “I can carry him, and you can take me back to the deck.”
Akutagawa nodded, and Chuuya grabbed Dazai’s arm. Without For the Tainted Sorrow, all three of them instantly sank into the water, but Chuuya quickly supported Dazai and kept them both afloat. Akutagawa swam away, Rashomon returning to him. With it he wrapped his coat around Chuuya’s left arm, which wasn’t touching Dazai, and around the railing of the ship. He reeled the three of them in, the crowd making space for them on the bow of the ship.
“Is he alright?” Atsushi yelled.
Chuuya sat him on the ground—not with an exceptional amount of care but not with none at all. A few seconds passed in silence. Akutagawa caught his breath, hands on his knees and watching Dazai through his bangs. Now was the time Dazai typically sprang back to life, moaning about another failure or about the pain this attempt caused him. Anyone who knew Dazai had seen it so many times—that no one rushed to his aid.
The agency’s doctor, Yosano, pushed to the front of the crowd. Her face was a mask of neutrality and professionalism, and her every step was full of purpose. She bent on one knee and listened to his chest. After a moment she placed her fingers on his neck. “His ability is still active.”
“So?” Chuuya shouted.
“He’s not dead,” she announced, and began administering CPR.
“Do you mean he’s not breathing?” Chuuya asked.
Her voice strained as she pressed into Dazai’s chest with all her body weight. “CPR is only for patients who don’t have a pulse.”
The genius detective Ranpo’s eyes were fixed on Dazai. Not even he saw this coming. “Dazai will be fine,” he reassured, “We have a procedure for this.”
“Damn Dazai,” Chuuya muttered, pinching his temple and turning away from the scene, “Of course it’s a day like this that you go and—and—“
Chuuya was cut off by Dazai inhaling a gulp of air. Yosano stopped CPR and sighed with relief.
Dazai’s eyes, however, remained closed. Yosano held out her hand. “Flashlight,” she demanded.
Kunikida was by her side with his notebook, scribbling a flashlight into existence. He placed it into Yosano’s hand. With her free hand, she peeled back Dazai’s eyelid and shined the flashlight into his eyes. She did the same to the other, then clicked the flashlight off. “He’s in a coma. He needs transport to a hospital, immediately.”
“Leave that to me,” Francis offered, “You can use my helicopter, free of charge.” He pulled out his phone and texted someone.
Kunikida scooped Dazai into a bridal carry. “Much appreciated,” he said, and rushed away with Yosano and Ranpo to the other side of the ship, presumably where a helipad waited.
“Wait—” Akutagawa said, before he could stop himself. With Rashomon, he purged the water and salt from his clothes. He took off his coat and tossed it at Yosano. “I didn’t dive into the ocean for him to die of hypothermia on the way.”
Her expression turned stern. “Thank you, and—thank you.” She looked as if she wanted desperately to say more, but had neither the time nor the willpower to spit it out. Instead, she followed Kunikida and Ranpo to the helipad. A helicopter flew over the ship and hovered, beginning its landing.
Atsushi shook out of his stunned silence to turn to Akutagawa, starting to say something.
“Save it, weretiger.”
Atsushi nodded, and without a word ran after the agency. Akutagawa resolved to never step foot on a ship for the rest of his life.