Chapter Text
Chuuya sped through the brackish water. He mentally reached out, shoving the least desirable detritus out of his path. To think; the ability to manipulate water, and he was using it to make sure he didn’t swim face-first into someone’s shit.
Chuuya brushed the thought away. He had more pressing concerns; such as finding something edible for the Sheepsheads. Not many animals could tolerate the sewer water, a sentiment that Chuuya could understand, but it wasn’t impossible to find an eel or two lurking in the murky depths. But that was far from enough to keep an entire mergang fed for months. Fuck those so-called “Port Monster Hunters”. Making them live down here like rats. Chuuya wanted to show them what it felt like to breathe this foul water, wanted to shove it down their throats until they suffocated. He had been going to, until he heard about the teleportation gifted. And that fucking nullifier.
Chuuya surfaced, for once preferring to breathe through his lungs. He was in one of the sewer’s wider tunnels; about thirty feet across, the right side edged with a maintenance ledge that added another ten feet. Skittering sounded at the edge of the tunnel. A flash of gray. Rats. The population down here was outrageous, and, to make matters worse, had only seemed to grow since the Sheepsheads arrived. Chuuya wondered, not for the first time, if it would be so bad to eat them. They wouldn’t be hard to catch; a simple strike with Chuuya’s ability would be enough. But the thought of eating rat made even Chuuya’s empty stomach turn. He would rather eat wood.
Chuuya was thinking about how oddly good it sounded to bite into a piece of fresh driftwood when he felt something brush against his arm. He drew back instantly, the thought of what might be floating down here filling him with revulsion. Chuuya gritted his teeth and turned back.
The first thing that struck him was the man’s beauty. Not a welcome thought, given he was most likely ogling a corpse. His lips were curled into a delicate frown. Hair splayed out like dark flames around a bandage-laden face. His eyes were closed as if in peaceful sleep. Ophelia in the sewer. Chuuya almost laughed.
That was when he noticed the faint rise and fall of the man’s chest. Somehow, he was still alive. Chuuya didn’t hesitate to grab him and swim to the edge of the water. He tossed the man onto the ledge before awkwardly flopping up beside him.
Chuuya leaned over to examine him. His breathing had grown shallower in the time it had taken to bring him to shore. Shit. He wasn’t a corpse, but he would be soon. His lungs were probably full of water, but Chuuya could only use his ability on water he could see or had already started manipulating. He had some idea of how to resuscitate humans. Press on their chest and breathe into their mouth, right?
Chuuya took a deep breath and shoved both hands against the man’s chest. He shuddered slightly, thin trails on water bubbling from his mouth. Chuuya tried again, and again. The man spit up a bit more water, but his breathing was no stronger.
Chuuya would have to try giving him air. He leaned over, and pressed his lips to the strangers’.
Dark eyes snapped open. The entire tunnel was flooded with a sharp white glow.
***
Be on the side that protects all creatures.
I suspect the mermaids are hiding out in the sewers.
If both sides are the same,
Find them,
choose to become a good person.
and bring back their tails.
Dazai stared over the edge of the bridge at the Ōoka River. Its usually lazy current had sped up after the recent rains. It was laughable, really. Dazai was the furthest thing from a good person there was. He lied, manipulated, and killed without a second thought. But Oda had known all of this. He had still believed that Dazai could change.
The one person Dazai had ever trusted was Mori. He trusted Mori to use him for exactly what he was; a heartless genius with the power to nullify anyone’s ability through simple touch. He trusted Mori to tell him exactly what he needed to do, and impose unfeeling consequences when he failed. He trusted Mori to take revenge for him over and over until every single monster in Yokohama was dead. Would it be that hard to trust someone else?
But where would he even go? The side that protects all creatures, what did that even mean? There were plenty of pro monster vigilante groups, but not one that didn’t include monsters itself, and every monster in the city knew of Mori’s nullifier. He could simply dye his hair and not use his ability. No group would accept him if they knew who he was, but Dazai had always been good at lying. Maybe he wouldn’t even have to go outside. He could spend his life in a room; listening to reports and dishing out battle plans until the lack of sunlight got to him and he finally died. He told himself the prospect didn’t sound so bad. He wouldn’t get close to anyone, so his curse wouldn’t act up and get them killed.
But Mori would find him. Mori would recognize his strategies, because he was the one who had taught Dazai to spin them. Dazai would be dragged back to the Port Monster Hunters Headquarters and punished by a man who knew all the most effective ways to hurt him.
Dazai wanted to die. He always wanted to die, but now the urge was strong enough to overpower the lethargy that often told him even suicide would be too much work. Oda was too dead to stop him, and that hurt worse than any physical pain Dazai had ever endured. Mori had warned him that this would happen. He hadn’t listened.
It was Dazai’s fault that Oda was dead. It was Mori’s fault that he had nowhere to go. None of that would matter soon. Dazai tipped himself off the edge of the bridge and into the current below.
Cold water rushed over Dazai. He felt himself overcome with the fractured clarity of ice. The current dragged him under. Rocks from the river bottom snagged against his clothes. Dazai felt panic clawing at the back of his mind, but didn’t take it to mean much. No matter how badly he wanted to kill himself, his mind and body always seemed to rebel when he was part way through the act. He supposed it made sense from an evolutionary perspective. Still, it was stupid. He had tried to drown himself in this river enough times that he was starting to doubt that it could kill him at all.
Every part of Dazai rebelled against the sense of helplessness that came with being dragged along underwater. He had more than once tried drowning himself by lying facedown on the surface to maintain some semblance of control, but his survival instinct always seemed to kick in and sabotage him when it came to such attempts. Enough loss of mental clarity from the lack of oxygen, and Dazai would find himself floating on his back; once again breathing air. He supposed if it were that simple he could just hold his breath and die.
Dazai could feel it now. The twitch of his arms as they fought to take him to the surface. The tight burn in his lungs as they begged him to take in water in lieu of air. He resisted both. Breathing in water might have brought his end faster, but it fucking hurt. This, on top of everything, was almost peaceful. Dazai could feel unconsciousness tugging at him. Sleep without nightmares. He hoped it would find him fast.
Dazai’s head collided with something, and his senses snapped back with quickly blurring vehemence. Water rushed into his lungs before he could stop it. Burning pain. Cold. Dazai couldn’t think, and that was bad, because Dazai was only valuable because he could, and Mori always told him that he would get hurt if he stopped for a second. Dazai hated pain, and everything was pain, and he needed to get air.
He tried to strike out for the surface, but he no longer knew which way was up, so he flailed like a sea serpent on land.
The darkness that closed in on Dazai wasn’t peaceful. It was angry; tinged red like the trail of blood that floated past Dazai’s face before his eyes were dragged shut.
His last thought was of Mori’s face, one eyebrow raised in subtle amusement at his state. “I thought you wanted this, Dazai-kun. Why are you upset?”
***
Dazai had not expected to wake up at all, but he certainly hadn’t expected to wake up to being kissed. Or… they had been breathing into his mouth. Had they resuscitated him? Asshole.
Dazai realized that he felt comfortable in a way he hadn’t in a long time, maybe ever. That didn’t make any sense. He had survived almost drowning before, and waking up from such attempts was never pleasant. But Dazai almost felt like he was glowing.
That was when Dazai noticed the light emanating from his hands. But it wasn’t just his hands. His entire body had somehow turned into a human flashlight. What? Dazai wondered, for a moment, if this was some sort of afterlife. He dismissed the idea instantly. He was comfortable and emanating light. That didn’t sound like any realm befitting someone like him.
The light began to clear, and Dazai looked up to examine the person who had saved his life. He was a redhead; said hair dripping wet likely from having dragged Dazai out of the water. He could smell that they were in a sewer, so that was dedication. From looks alone, Dazai honestly couldn’t say this stranger was someone he minded having kissed.
But clearly Dazai hadn’t been the best kisser himself, because the redhead was staring at him in abject horror while vigorously wiping his mouth. In his defense, he had been unconscious. The man was staring specifically at Dazai’s legs, which did feel a bit off. He looked down to check they weren’t broken, and saw–
Scales. Obsidian scales crawled down from Dazai’s waist, ending in a gauzy fin. No. No, this could not be happening. He had tried to overdose on the wrong pills again, and just had to wait for the hallucination to subside. Never mind that he had always been too caught up in previous drug-induced psychosis to consider that it might be such.
Dazai waited, expression carefully blank as he was pretty sure the person who had saved him was real. Best not to reveal such a weakness as not being able to tell reality from the misfirings of his brain.
“Hey. You! I’m talking to you!” Some of the blurriness in Dazai’s vision resolved into a hand waving vigorously in front of his face.
He sat up, summoning a look of mild annoyance. Sharp pain flared in the back of his head the moment he did, but Dazai was good at ignoring pain. “Damn,” He said, making his eyebrows twitch in annoyance. “I almost made it. You know it’s extremely rude to interrupt someone’s swim.”
The stranger stared at Dazai with a look of such incredulity that the monster hunter felt himself resisting the urge to laugh. “Swim? What the hell, man?! You were floating down the sewer looking like a dead fucking mackerel!”
Despite everything, Dazai felt a thrill at the intensity of the redhead’s reaction. No one else responded to his antics like this. Mori always gave him that same look of disappointment, as if he should know better by now than to act out. Oda had treated him like he actually needed help. Oda. The thought of yesterday's events was enough to make Dazai’s next reaction far less difficult to fake. “Don’t you see? I was trying to kill myself,”
An instantaneous change of mood from playful to somber. The redhead ate it right up. He looked unsure as to whether he should be glaring or trying to offer comfort. Dazai was surprised to see his expression settle on neither; eyebrows crinkling into confusion and nose skewing up in disgust. “Why would you try to drown yourself in a sewer? This place is disgusting. I’m getting back to the ocean the second I can. Why the fuck would you want to die here??”
The ocean. A sunset orange tail rested next to Dazai’s own. So either this was all fake, or… shit. Dazai was a mermaid. Dazai was a mermaid. Mori was going to rip off his scales one by one. Dazai had seen him do it to other mermaids before. He had made Dazai watch, it was all revenge, and–
“Hey! I asked you a question! Shit, are you okay?”
Some of Dazai’s panic must have shown on his face. He snapped it back to neutrality. Mori would be so displeased– “So you’re a mermaid?” A simple question to get his bearings.
“Yeah, no shit.” The redhead gestured at his tail. It was a very nice tail, Dazai thought, which was an odd thought given he’d seen mermaids before and never noticed a difference in their scales beyond the color. “No point in hiding that now. You can’t exactly sell us out. You’re a mermaid now too.”
Dazai glanced again at his own tail, frowning as if the sudden disappearance of his legs was nothing but a mild inconvenience. Another aspect of their earlier interaction flashed to the front of his mind. “You kissed me.”
The redhead drew back, and Dazai could see even in the nearly nonexistent light that his cheeks had turned a lovely shade of carmine. “I didn’t kiss you! I was resuscitating you, so don’t you dare get any ideas!”
There it was. Dazai had never met someone with so little restraint over their emotions! This little mermaid spoke in the tone of exactly what he was feeling! Currently, that appeared to be a mix of horror and mortification. Dazai decided to push him a bit farther. “Are you suuuuure you didn’t see the most beautiful man you’ve ever come across floating down the river like sleeping beauty, and think you just haaaad to wake him up?”
The merman’s face had gotten even redder, and to Dazai’s utter delight! “No! That’s disgusting, asshole! You looked like a half-drowned rat!”
“You wound me!” Dazai fell back with a hand to his heart in mock anguish. He sat back up, fully aware of the dangerous curiosity that sparked in his eyes. “And I don’t even know your name.”
“Nakahara Chuuya.” He said the name through gritted teeth with a hand against his forehead as if he were staving off a headache.
“Chuuuya. What a lovely name!” Dazai knew for a fact that Chuuya would have no idea as to whether he was being sarcastic or not. Truthfully, he wasn’t in the slightest.
“And you?” Chuuya seemed very annoyed at having to ask.
“Dazai Osamu,” He gave his most winning smile.
“Right. Well, I suppose I’ll have to take you back to my mergang. Even shitty ex-humans like you don’t deserve to die at Mori’s hand.”
“So benevolent! But I don’t think I want to join a gang with a slug like you.”
“Slug?! I’m offering you harbor at serious expense to my credibility as leader–”
“I don’t want to live in the sewer like a slug.” Dazai turned his nose in a pout.
“Fucking Bastard! Slugs don’t live in sewers!”
“Only a slug would know so much about slugs.”
“I’ve been stuck down here for months! I would have noticed slugs!”
“Plus, you’re sitting like a slug. And your tail is orange.” He looked like a mythical deity. “You look like a slug.”
Chuuya glared at Dazai with an expression that said he wished he’d left him drowning in the sewer. “Look. You might be a suicidal maniac, but even you don’t want to get captured by Mori.”
Dazai knew that better than anyone.
My gang. Chuuya must mean the Sheepsheads that Dazai had been sent to capture. He supposed this was exactly the opportunity he had been looking for. Be the kind of person that protects all creatures. Dazai hadn’t expected to fulfill Oda’s wish with a tail, but he supposed he could make due. Plus, he was starting to enjoy annoying Chuuya very much.
“Hmm. I don’t know. You aren’t asking very nicely, slug.”
“YOU COULD STAND TO HAVE BETTER MANNERS YOURSELF, MACKEREL!” He got riled up so easily. Dazai felt a genuine smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. The first since Oda’s death. Chuuya sighed. “I’m done with this. I’m going back. Follow me unless you want a horrible death.”
“Alas! I am left with no choice!” Dazai spun on his ass and tipped himself backwards dramatically into the water. It was filthy, but Dazai lived in a toxic waste dump.
“Idiot! You don’t even know where our base is!” That wasn’t true. Mori had asked Dazai to kill the sewer mermaids. More on instinct than anything else, Dazai had assigned a pair of monster hunters to go through recent noise complaints. They had reported back to him with a list of cases where loud arguments had seemed to be coming from underground and no clear perpetrators had been located. So Dazai knew where the Sheepsheads’ base was. He knew where he was because he had memorized the layout of the sewers. They were a common escape route for monsters and humans alike.
With that in mind, Dazai began to swim in what he knew was the right direction, forcing Chuuya to slide into the water and follow behind. What he wasn’t expecting was for Chuuya to jet forward on a current far too fast to be natural. So he was the water manipulator. King of the Sheepsheads. If only Dazai had known he was in the presence of royalty.
He slowed down to swim just ahead. “You picked up on the underwater breathing fast,” Was that a peace offering? Or was it just in Chuuya’s nature to make blunt observations about those around him. It was true that Dazai hadn’t struggled to figure out how to use the gills now located just below his ears, or how to swim with his new tail. He had studied the monsters he hunted extensively, though Dazai had never expected the knowledge to come in handy for being one. Mori was going to kill him.
Dazai gave Chuuya a smug grin, partially to hide the fact that he still hadn’t quite figured out underwater speaking. He was almost positive he just had to talk normally and let his weird fish magic do the rest, but didn’t want to look like an idiot if that was wrong.
Chuuya seemed to take Dazai’s silence as an opportunity to explain the mergang’s current situation. “We’re living in the sewers ‘cause the sea outside has been crawling with monster hunter ships. They used to be content tormenting the land fae, but the blood thirsty bastards have decided to move into our terrain as well. Normally, we’d fight them, but Mori seems to have gotten his hands on a nullifier gifted as well as a teleporter who can take him to any location. I’m the only gifted in the Sheepsheads, so my ability being nullified is practically a death sentence. I’ve heard rumors they have someone with ice powers as well. I’m not about to risk my gang getting frozen underwater and suffocating.”
Dazai already knew this. The teleportation gifted was a rumor he and Mori had created to intimidate their enemies. The Hunter with temperature powers was real, though. At least they wouldn’t have to worry about the nullifier.
A massive wave shot toward the mermaids. Dazai felt himself be thrown back through the water. Another current caught him. Chuuya. Dazai turned and realized that, if he had kept going, his head would have collided with a solid concrete wall and cracked open like an egg. This stupid mermaid had stopped him from dying again!
“Stay back!” Said mermaid flew past Dazai in a flash of orange scales. Dazai, who was fully inclined to do the opposite of whatever Chuuya said, approached to get a better view. Something huge and fleshy had landed in the center of the sewage canal. Dazai almost laughed when he realized what it was: a giant human foot.
“What the hell?” Dazai muttered, disbelieving. Maybe he was on drugs. At least now he could talk underwater.
Chuuya plunged fist-first into the foot surrounded by a current of water. His fist sank up to his wrist before apparently hitting bone. Water shot around him. He was powerful, Dazai could tell, but the behemoth hardly budged. Chuuya: fist deep in a giant foot. Dazai actually did laugh.
A tinny cackling sounded from above the water. Dazai swam up to the surface, and–
Of all the things Dazai was expecting to see connected to the foot–
Ok, so he wasn’t high. Even his drug-addled brain could not come up with something as absurd as this. Attached to the giant foot, laughing like a madman, was a small white mouse. It wore a tiny magicians top hat and had a bit of decorated cardstock over one of its eyes.
The uncovered eye landed on Dazai, and the thing's tiny mouse face stretched into a grin. Dazai… Dazai had not known mice could grin, but he was now firmly of the opinion that they should not be able to. This was horrifying.
“Quiz time!” A squeaky voice echoed through the tunnel.
Dazai frowned up at the foot mouse. “Of course you can talk.”
The foot mouse somehow grinned even wider at this. Euhg. “Question One: How many bones are there in the combined bodies of two mermaids?”
“352.” 176 bones in an average mermaid. Mori had taught Dazai this fact, before he had shown him how to break every one.
“Ah! If it isn’t a gifted pupil! Now, tell me:” The foot mouse’s eyes gleamed. “ How many of those will be left after I crush you? ”
Dazai had seen where this was going. It wouldn’t be such a bad way to die, so long as one of the thing’s bones crushed something vital. Dazai realized that he didn’t particularly feel like dying right now. That was odd. He was sure he would if he thought about his life.
None of that mattered, though. The giant foot could not kill Dazai because it was almost certainly an ability, and Dazai would nullify it with a single touch. The problem was that he couldn’t let his new ally know that he was the infamous nullifier. He may have feigned hesitancy, but he had to be let into Chuuya’s gang. That was the only way to fulfill Oda’s last wish.
Dazai looked down at Chuuya, who was furiously raining punches on the foot. Only Dazai could see the second foot spiraling from the mouse, growing larger by the second, falling straight toward Chuuya’s head.
Dazai darted forward, grabbed Chuuya around the waist, and booked it toward the channel of water above the toes of the first foot. He spun Chuuya out of the way just in time to avoid the giant wall of flesh that shot down beside them.
“Swim.” Dazai’s voice dipped into the tone he used when he needed to command other Hunters.
“Hell no! I’m not leaving that thing alive in the same sewer as my mergang!” Chuuya spun out of Dazai’s grasp and turned to face the giant feet. They began to turn, taking inching steps until Dazai and Chuuya were faced with a wall of toes.
Dazai shrugged, giving his most unruffled smile. “I guess we’ll die then.”
One of the feet lifted from the water.
“Suicidal idiot! ” Chuuya grabbed Dazai. Shit, he was going to try to use his ability.
Dazai shoved Chuuya away. “Don’t touch me, gross slug!”
“Dammit! This is not the time—“
The foot barreled towards them. A jet of water punched into Dazai’s side. At the same time, he saw Chuuya dart away in front of the feet. Dazai was flung into the air at an alarming speed. His instincts kicked in just in time for him to throw out his hands to stop his head from shattering against the cement wall. It made sense that Chuuya’s ability would still work on him, since already moving water wouldn’t stop at contact with No Longer Human. It would simply keep its momentum.
Dazai pulled himself up, hands and body stinging from where they had hit the cement. He was instantly slammed in the face with a wall of water. When his vision cleared, he saw a flash of orange shooting away from two feet that moved faster with every step. Dazai grinned. Chuuya Nakahara’s glorious stand against a giant talking foot mouse. This would be fun.