Chapter Text
Dazai is born unable to touch any of the magic in the world apart from its own. The only thing that its “gift” does is rot, rot, rot.
When it is young, seven years of age, before it even realizes what is lurking inside of it, it wanders through a forest. The leaves fall from the trees, the grass withers at its feet, and it’s choking on the smell of corpses before it even realizes so.
His parents rush to it, but it does not remember the warmth of their arms. Why should it, when all it felt was cold, cold, cold?
–
Fyodor is born with too much magic. It eats away at xem, starting from xer heart and bursting outwards. Xe lays in the middle of a self-made wasteland, eyes not even ready to be opened, and cannot understand not where everyone went; only that someone was meant to be there.
It is not a mercy that xe survives. It is not how nature intended, it is not how any God ever wanted this to go.
But Fate is a cruel mistress, and the orphan lives. Xe lived where others shouldn’t.
–
Dazai is fourteen when it truly grasps how its power works. It wanders into a farm, where the man in charge has teeth that are too sharp and blue eyes too bright and a smile too straight. It looks him in the eye as it plucks a grape off the vine.
The grapes are sour, and it can hear a laugh from the roof. It tilts its head just slightly to stare at a redhead with gray eyes which are staring right into its soul. They take a bite out of something red, dripping crimson onto the roof, and then to the ground. It stains a white flower.
Dazai spits out the grape. It’s rotten, rotten, rotten.
It expected no less.
–
When Fyodor is fourteen, xe finds xemself at a library, taking shelter from harsh snow outside. It comes down in droves, not allowing anyone in or out. It is as if time itself stops in the middle of the storm.
Fyodor has that power, xe thinks. Fyodor could make the world stop turning, or make it spin all for xem. But the thought of that…
That’s too much power, isn’t it? A tragedy waiting to happen, the typical tale of the monster with too much strength, and so it did the only thing it thought it could do.
No, no. Fyodor has other plans. There will be no more magic to possess, when the world stops going round on its own.
–
Dazai is fifteen when it meets a tengu with fiery hair and stars on their face and a fury in their eyes. Their fangs are always bared, telling the world, leave me be . Dazai is enchanted, and dares them to show what happens if it doesn’t listen to those fangs.
Dazai ends up with a scar across its chest and a bit of the tengu’s flame, churning in his gut like an ember refusing to go out.
Chuuya has too much magic. A god lurking in them, a constant storm in their mind that only Dazai can truly silence. It runs its hands through their feathers and whispers promises he won’t keep to them.
–
Fyodor is sixteen when xe is caught in a trap. The metal tears into xer flesh, snapping tendons and biting into bone and ripping a SCREAM from xer lips. It is a painfully human-like noise, one that makes the hunter which shoved this damned thing into creation come running.
The hunter does not regard Fyodor with such humanity, however. Xe has paws with razor-sharp talons, a thrashing tail, keen ears and eyes that are so hauntingly bright the knife goes through xer skull first.
Fyodor does not really understand what it means to die, far less so when xe's writhing in pain and the world dips into black, before dipping right back out. Before xe is standing above the body of some withered shell and xer clothes are new and the blood on xer hands is dust.
Xe watches the corpse–?–get blown away in one breath of wind, not knowing how xe should feel, but simply that xe was in pain and now xe is not.
Fyodor’s body collapses a second later anyway when xer scarred leg can’t keep holding xem up.
–
When Dazai is sixteen, it meets the best man in the world. Oda Sakunosuke is a calm presence like the eye of a storm, unaffected by all the thunder and the swirling wind and uncaring of Dazai’s ability to make the world shrivel up around him.
Oda is not scared of it. He looks at Dazai and he treats him no differently than he might any other.
And their mutual friend, Ango… does the same. Perhaps if they had been anywhere but a barely-lit bar at the edge of Nowhere, with anyone else’s eyes on them, Dazai would have pushed them away.
But here they are, surrounded by the smell of alcohol and nostalgia for things that haven’t gone yet, and Oda is calling Dazai his friend and Ango’s let himself smile for once, and all feels right, right, right.
-
Fyodor is eighteen, littered with scars and scratches, when xe realizes that xe is never going to die. Xe has too much magic to just disappear, xe knows that when xe makes this world peaceful, xe will not get such luxury.
Xe thinks back to memories xe hardly has. Xer life does not start quietly, like anyone’s, but no one’s starts with a BOOM and blinding lights and death as far as the eye can see.
They call Fyodor’s birthplace a wasteland. A graveyard. Xe agrees.
But when xe returns—when xe dares go back to the place where xe can trace every step xe took, where xe knows this place as well as xe knows xe never should have been born in it—there is someone else there, leaning on a silver cane with a carving of a bird trying to fly out of the wood, craving freedom it will never have.
Ae speaks like ae’s known Fyodor all aer life. It makes Fyodor’s skin crawl, as if xe’s about to shed it.
Xe backs up when ae crouches down, mischief in ae’s one-eyed gaze. The eye shines bright, with a scar across it, and ae does not show the other.
…
Nikolai has something to hide. Fyodor has room for foolish investments.
And maybe, xe is welcome to a companion, after all these years.
–
Dazai is eighteen when it watches its best friend die in its arms. It is too used to death, too used to watching life shrivel at its touch and die at its feet.
Maybe that’s why it only feels right in a graveyard, even when its arms burn and its nails are digging into Oda’s skin, but it refuses to let him go. A jiangshi with hair and eyes like an inferno almost bothers it, but when it turns to glare, a second away from shattering the creature’s broken glasses even further, it backs off.
Nothing else disturbs Dazai as it digs. The warm earth is almost soothing, the birds above a reminder that there’s still life, but it does not care. There is no warmth in Oda’s body. There is no life in it either.
It looks up at the sky, mocking Dazai with birds soaring above and the sunset streaming down so prettily, and Dazai screams up at it like it’s the one who struck down Oda.
But there is no revenge to be had, for the murderer is dead with him, and Dazai could never dig Ango’s grave too. It is all so wrong, wrong, wrong.
–
When Fyodor is nineteen, xe is reckless, a force of nature still figuring out how to be . Nikolai is the same, younger by a year and a half, and ae has sharp teeth and a hunger that ae’s convinced only Fyodor can quench.
The two stumble across a bar on a crisp autumn night, and for once Fyodor lets a devil-may-care attitude crawl in as Nikolai leads the way inside. Ae knows just what to say to convince the barkeep to let them have a cup each, and then another, and then they’re kicked right out.
Nikolai cackles, slinging an arm around Fyodor. Xe nearly drops xer cane, but Nikolai swaps it with aer own, picking up Fyodor’s to lean on instead. Fyodor traces the head of the cane for a moment, staring down at the shining bird expertly crafted into it.
Nikolai coos in xer ear and whispers that xe can keep it, then leans away as if ae didn’t just send a shiver down Fyodor’s spine.
Fyodor decides that xe might as well, and from that day onward, Nikolai wields a battered and beat up cane, and Fyodor walks at aer side.
–
When Dazai is nineteen, it is nothing, nothing, nothing. It’s a shadow of something, maybe what anyone else would call himself , but it would not speak such untruths. Honesty has never been its passion; it’s a bitter, dry taste like a certain tengu’s favorite drink.
It has nowhere to go and nothing to lose, and it says it likes the freedom but it despises every second its heart beats, because all it can think of is how Oda’s isn’t. It stares at itself in the mirror, knowing it has a reflection but not knowing who he is staring back, because that’s a person, that’s something which has expectations, which has family and friends and must matter to someone, anyone, something–
There’s the sound of shattering glass and dripping blood. A shout from outside the bathroom, because oh right, it snuck into an inn. Someone grabs its arm and drags it outside, yelling things it doesn’t register.
It’s vaguely aware of being sat down, and looks up at the blonde in front of it. Nir brow is furrowed as ne writes something in nir notebook, and Dazai watches bandages appear in nir hand.
Dazai really expects nir to realize that it’s not something worth spending effort on, to realize magic dies and rots in Dazai’s palms, but the blonde’s face only gets more determined when the bandages disappear into dust–
And off nir shirt goes, ripped up into shreds and wrapped tenderly around Dazai’s bleeding hands. It cannot muster up any kind of response, staring from the makeshift bandages to the way the blonde doesn’t seem to be ashamed of having to improvise, stuck on the fact that ne didn’t even hesitate.
Dazai haunts Kunikida’s shadow after that. It’s fine enough.
–
When Fyodor is twenty, xe finds a place to live for the time being. It’s a shrine, meant to be inhabited by kitsune who are holier than whatever Fyodor is. But no one else has taken refuge in it, so xe and Nikolai settle in, and delight in pranking those who stray too close during the later hours.
From a jumpy, tall iwana bozu passing by to a traveler with dark hair and glasses which Fyodor briefly snatches, watching her scramble to try to find them for a long couple of minutes during which Nikolai has to stifle aer laughter, no one is safe from a bit of trickery.
It’s the most trivial thing Fyodor’s ever done in xer life.
It’s almost fun.
–
When Dazai is twenty, Kunikida brings it to a city in the midst of a festival. Ne claims ne has something to actually do here, but Dazai looks at all the food stalls and carnival games, at the painstakingly handmade floats, and rapidly gets distracted.
It runs into a genius with jade eyes and a hypnotizing smirk. Ey’s nibbling on taiyaki, and tilts eir head at Dazai when it comes over to the stall. Ey’s very, very quick to point out just how out of place Dazai looks.
It can tell, then, that Ranpo is looking for an argument.
It can’t say it resists the temptation, damned be what Kunikida thinks when ne finds it.
–
When Fyodor is twenty-one, xe ventures into town, staying in the darker areas, going to the shops most don’t even speak of. Xe’s not looking for anything in particular, per say; just exploring until something catches xer eye.
And oh, is it worth it. A book, gleaming from the back of a store, practically begging to be picked up. The empty pages thrum with some kind of energy begging to be used, and Fyodor is not one to deny it.
And on the way back to the shrine, Fyodor hears of a thing whose very touch is enchanted poison.
–
When Dazai is twenty-one, it finds itself, surprisingly, surrounded by others who are almost as strange as it. Kunikida, Ranpo, the rest of their so-called Guild with a fearsome samurai at the head…
If it closes its eyes, listens to the others, it can almost pretend that it’s at the edge of the world again. But Kunikida doesn’t let it simply laze back in its chair. Ne shakes it, reminding it that it’s meant to be actually doing work.
It’s hardly fazed, leaning back further, exchanging a glance with Ranpo. Ranpo hums, not making a move to do anything either.
Kunikida groans, and ne is interrupted from saying anything else by Yosano announcing that a letter has arrived for Dazai.
–
When Fyodor and Dazai are 22, the world goes out with a bang.