Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Atsushi is on a mission with Tanizaki. They were assured nothing could go wrong, but, well, here they are. Their task was only supposed to be to guide some rich mans daughter to a shopping centre as he wanted ability users to protect her, and now they are in the middle of a thunderstorm. Every one of them almost hits them. They have to run. They won't survive this if they don't.

As another thunder strikes just behind Atsushi's right foot as they run, he starts contemplating breaking the first rule the client had said. 'She doesn't know about abilities. Keep it that way', he warned them while glaring at the two boys, promising painful punishiment in his gaze.

Tanizaki's on the front of the group, with the girl in the middle. She's terrified and she's out of breath. By one glance, anyone can tell she can't run for a lot more.

Tanizaki leads them running into a cafe. They sit down at the table farthest from the counter, with the girl on one side of the table and the two boys on the other.

"Well, I think we'll stay here until the storm stops", Tanizaki says after he settles down in his seat.

"It doesn't seem to be anywhere near stopping. Would it be alright if I ordered something?", the girl asks after she regained her breath. After getting a pair of nods, she leaves the table with her purse in her hand.

"You look troubled. Is everything alright?", Tanizaki questions when she is out of hearing distance. Atsushi does look quite uneasy.

"There's something off about the weather. It's like the storm has a mind of it's own the thunders have been triyng to hit us this whole time", he states, looking out the window. "Have you not noticed? There was not one thunder since we stepped into this caffee."

"I'm sure you're overreacting." Tanizaki says, not taking him seriously. How could a storm have a mind of it's own? That's crazy, there's no way that's real... right?

"I'm not overreacting!", the younger shouts. "Ah, I'm sorry. I'm just really stressed."

"It's alright", he hesitates a little before offering, "If you're really that scared, I could always use my ability to hide us."

They stop their conversation as the girl comes back with three coffees. She offers one to each as she sits down. The boys both accept the drinks with quiet 'thank you's.

The three sit in the cafe for more than an hour by the time they decide they can't just wait it out.

They walk out the door, and in that very second, a thunder strikes inches away from hitting either of them. Tanizaki activates his ability, hiding them, and surprisingly, the thunders stopped.

As they start walking back to the client's house, Atsushi's phone rings. As the sceen lights up, 'Dazai-san' can be read in white letters. He answers the phone while they continue walking.

"Hello, Atsushi-kun!", the older exclaims in a happy tone. The type of happy tone that radiates trouble; the one that makes you question what intentions the other has over and over in your head.

"Ah, Dazai-san! I'm sorry we're late! There was this big thunderstorm, oh, well, you must already know about that, and we-", he gets cut down by the other.

"Atsushi-kun.", he says, his tone having taken an 180° turn, now completely serious. "You're not in trouble. Where are you right now?"

"We're heading to our client's house. Why, did something go wrong?", Atsushi asks worriedly.

"You could say that. Come back to the agency. I'll tell you about it then", he tells the younger.

"Alright, we'll just go and drop the client's daughter off, and then we'll be right back", Atsushi says.

"No. Bring her back to the agency, too", he instructs before hanging up.

"Who was that?", Tanizaki asks.

"It was Dazai-san. He said we need to go back to the agency, and to bring her with us, too", he answered, looking at him.

And so they did. While walking back to the agency, Tanizaki never unactivates his ability, just in case Atsushi's observation is right.

When they get back, Atsushi is quickly pulled aside by Dazai to talk, while Tanizaki is instructed to talk with the client's daughter.

"Dazai-san, is everything alright?", Atsushi asks.

"Atsushi-kun, do you know what happened?", Dazai starts. When the younger shakes his head, he continues, "Somewhere in the time period between you taking his daughter shopping and me calling you, someone murdered the client."

Not being able to find the right words, Atsushi doesn't answer. He doesn't seem shocked in the least, things like this happen quite often in their line of job, after all.

"You need to break the news to her as softly as possible, alright? He's the the only family member she has, or rather, had left.", Dazai says.

Understanding the importance of his job is easy for Atsushi, so he nods with a quick "Alright!"

He walks to the table where tanizaki is sitting with the client's daughter. "Do you need something, Atsushi-kun?"

"Ah, um," he looks at the girl "I need to talk to you in private." They don't talk in the short amount of time it takes for them to get to a private place.

When she storms out of the meeting room, where Atsushi has lead them to earlier, she's alone. "I need some fresh air", she states with teary eyes.

She slowly walks out of the room, then runs down the stairs, then steps out of the downstairs caffee on the first floor of the office's building.

The sky is clear, so there's a lot of people walking around on the streets. The blueness of the sky is also the reason for so many surprised, terrified looks, when the very same second she stops in front of the doors, she gets struck by a thunder.

Screams echo in the street. Passersby gather around the now dead girl's body, some of them on their phones, trying to get help even if it's hopeless, others just stand shoked by the time the agency members get down from the office.

Yosano tries using her ability on her, unsuccesfully. Even she can not bring the dead back to life.

The other members can't do anything other than calling the ambulance, either. They had no way of stopping this.

The ambulance quickly comes and takes her body from the scene. Involvement of police is not needed; how could anyone be held responsible for a thunder?

Atsushi stays in the office until night, doing this and that, just to not be alone with his thoughts.

He makes himself a quick dinner. All he had all day was the coffee the girl bought him.

After eating, he lays in his bed, trying to sleep.

After the war, the president decided to invest in a bigger dorm building with more rooms, as they are expecting new members. This means that he and Kyouka are no longer roommates.

Which means that when he's in his room, he is all alone; at least he should be.

As he lays in his bed, his companion is the headmaster in the corner of the room. He turns away from him: He's not there. He has realised that a long time ago, but that doesn't make it any easier to ignore his voice as he says:

"It's your fault she died,
you should have warned her.

It's your fault she didn't know that the thunder would strike her,
you should told her.

It's your fault she ran out of the building without anyone protecting her,
you should have stopped her.

It's your fault she's dead,
you could have prevented it if you tried.

It's your fault no one knew they could prevent her death by stopping her,
you should have told them.

it's your fault.

It's your fault.

It's YOUR fault.

It's YOUR fault.

It's YOUR fault.

IT'S YOUR FAULT."

...and his voice never quited until he fell asleep.

"But you can make it better by trying.", is the last thing he hears.

The next day, when he goes into the office, he is alone. He got woken up from his sleep by nightmares all throughout the night, and having given up on going to work well rested, he got dressed.

Being the first in the office is quite unusual, someone is always there to greet him. If no one else, then Kunikida, but seems like Atsushi is so early, that even he isn't in the office yet.

He sits down at his desk and takes out his paperwork. While writing his report on yesterdays mission, he notices that he is working significally slower than usual. He keeps getting distracted by the picture of the girl whose death he caused.

Even when the first members start arriving half an hour later, he's not even halfway though his report. When Dazai sits at his desk beside his, as usual, two hours late from work, he's almost done.

By the time he finishes it, his mentor is folding his sixth paperplane, trying to aim for Kunikida's head.

"Hey, Atsushi-kun!" Dazai calls out when Atsushi starts searching for his next piece of paperwork. "Look how mean Kunikida-kun is!", he exclaims, "He's trying to meake me do all this work! I'm exhausted! I've already done my share of it yesterday, I'm done."

Atsushi looks at the papers his mentor is lying on top of. He recognizes the girl on the top paper. "I can do it for you", he says. He tries to tell himself that he only offered because Dazai wouldn't stop bothering him otherwise, but he sounded way too eager for that.

Taking the papers, he decides that he will prioritize this case, even if there's no reason for it other than avenging her father. Even if there's no way to bring justice for her, he should at least try to bring justice for her father.

With that in his mind, he looks down at the first paper. It's the government's files about her.

At first, everything seems normal. The paper is at least a few months old. He skips the name as he already knows that.

He reads it and nothing seems out of place. She has an ability user number. As the name suggests, only ability users have those. Why would her father want to hide that from her, then? Huh. Weird.

The next paper is of the same kind, but it has a different person on it. It's her father.

He has an ability, too? Maybe her was dangerous? That would explain why he didn't want her to know about them. But wouldn't she discover it by herself even if it is kept from her?

Anyways, Atsushi is now trying to find anything in the files that would explain why anyone would want to kill their deceased client other than just for money. He tries, and he reads, but comes up with nothing by the time the sun sets.

"Go home, Atsushi." Kunikida says when their work time ends.

"But, Kunikida-san, I still haven't-", he tries explaining himself before getting cut off.

"I'm sure the case can wait. You haven't eaten all day, and you look like you haven't slept in days.", the older observes.

"But-" once again, he can't finish his sentence.

"If you don't want to go home, then at least let me get you some food. You really look like you need it." He says.

"Fine. Thank you, Kunikida-san. For looking out for me.", Atsushi says, still wanting to work on the case more, but not wanting to anger Kunikida. He knows how that plays out. Dazai is a living example of it.

"It's nothing. I'm just following what my ideals tell me, and letting coworkers start is not one of them.", he states before walking out the door, like he knows Athushi will follow him.