Chapter Text
"...Atsushi-kun! Earth to Atsushi-kun!" A familiar, breezy voice pulled at the edges of the darkness.
Atsushi felt a persistent nudge at his side, a grounding touch that dragged him back to reality. Am I hallucinating? he wondered, his mind still heavy. That voice... it sounds just like Dazai-san. It had been so long since he’d heard that specific tone—the one that wasn't performing for an audience but was quietly, almost invisibly, caring.
He forced his eyes open. The world was a smear of light and shadow at first, but slowly, the blur coalesced into a sharp image: a brunette in stark white seated calmly beside him. The pristine white of Dazai's prison clothes was almost blinding. Groggily, Atsushi pushed himself up, his head throbbing from whatever impact had leveled him. Dazai didn't mock him this time; instead, he reached out a steady hand, his grip firm as he hauled Atsushi back to his feet.
"Thank you, Dazai-san.” Atsushi managed a nod, the cool blast from the air conditioning hitting his face and cutting through the haze. He took in his surroundings—a vast, unknown theater, slightly dark, filled with rows of empty, red-velvet seats. Voices echoed in the space, familiar yet distant.
"Atsushi, how are you feeling?" Kenji's cheery voice cut through the tension. His bright, golden eyes, full of genuine concern, met Atsushi’s. Kyōka stood quietly beside him, her hand held tightly in his for comfort. Atsushi offered a weak nod in response.
Over Kenji's shoulder, Atsushi saw Kunikida and Tanizaki, both wearing identical expressions of bewildered confusion. Naomi appeared, immediately throwing herself at her brother in a fierce, protective embrace. "Where are we, Kunikida-san?" Tanizaki asked, returning his sister's tight hug after what felt like an eternity apart.
Kunikida furrowed his brow, his gaze sweeping the room, trying to apply logic to the impossible scenario. "Guys! Over here! I'll explain!" Ranpo called out, waving the remaining agency members toward their section. He was seated with Yosano and Fukuzawa, the only ones who seemed relatively unbothered by the sudden relocation.
A heavy silence lingered over the rest of the theater. Arrayed in the red seats were the Port Mafia, the Hunting Dogs, and even some members of the Decay of the Angels—a chilling, silent truce forced upon them by an unknown power.
“Jinko?”
The voice, sharp and familiar, cut through the tension, making Atsushi stop in his tracks. He turned, his lips trembling as his eyes went wide with pure shock. “Akutagawa?”
It had felt like ages since he’d seen him like this—returned to himself, his piercing, cold grey eyes stripped of the vampire’s empty glaze.
A quiet ripple went through the Port Mafia group seated nearby. ‘Onii-san?’ Gin voiced internally as she appeared beside Higuchi and Hirotsu. The first thing all three did, in an identical, reflexive motion, was reach for the area of their necks where the vampire fangs had sunk in. Their last conscious memory was the pain of the bite.
Across the room, Tachihara instinctively ran a hand over the slash mark on his eye where Fukuchi had wounded him, and then touched the spot where his own fangs had been. ‘Huh? It’s gone…’ He looked up just as Teruko approached, her own expression a mix of relief and confusion.
“Tachihara, where on earth have you been? You went completely radio silent,” Teruko demanded. Though her arms were folded in her usual stern manner, a small, uncharacteristic flicker of worry shimmered in her eyes.
Behind her, the air was thick with a different kind of tension. Tetchō maintained an iron-clad grip on Jōno’s arm, his expression as immovable as a mountain.
“Let go of me, you imbecile,” Jōno mouthed, his face a mask of cold annoyance. He delivered a sharp, calculated kick to Tetchō’s shin in retaliation, but the swordsman didn't even flinch.
Tetchō ignored the pain, his grip never faltering. He made a silent mental note to thank Kenji properly later; if the boy hadn't helped him navigate the theater's layout, he might still be searching for his partner. He swore to himself that he wouldn't let Jōno out of his reach again—not after the hollow silence that followed Jōno's disappearance. The sting of his shin was nothing compared to the lingering regret he felt for ever raising his blade against Kenji in a fit of blind, vengeful rage.
“Were you also cornered by the Captain and that vampire?” Jōno asked, his head tilted as if listening to the phantom resonance of Tachihara's heartbeat.
“Yes,” Tachihara replied briefly, his voice heavy with the memory of the blade Fukuchi had driven toward his eyes.
Jōno tutted, a cold, sharp sound. “How predictable. It seems the captain was quite thorough in cleaning house. I found myself in a similar, rather... unpleasant position.”
Beside them, Tetchō’s expression was livid, his jaw set in a hard, dangerous line. The hero he had admired in the name of justice was crumbling, leaving nothing but the ash of betrayal. “Where is he?” Tetchō demanded, his fist clenching so tightly that his knuckles audibly creaked.
“Where is the captain now?”
“I... I killed him,” Teruko confessed. Her voice, usually so boisterous, was a mere shadow. She averted her gaze, her eyes shimmering with a rare, jagged guilt.
A stunned silence fell over the remaining Hunting Dogs.
“You killed him?” Jōno repeated, his eyebrow arching in dark amusement. He hadn't expected the captain’s most loyal hound to be the one to finally tear out his throat.
Teruko offered a slow, remorseful nod. Jōno turned back toward the screen, a small, cold smirk playing on his lips. ‘About time,’ he mused internally. ‘The Captain finally got exactly what he deserved.’
Chūya and Sigma were at one side of the theater with Nikolai.
“W…where am I?” Sigma managed to sit up, rubbing his temples to clear the lingering haze of information overload. He looked toward Chūya, his gaze searching for a foothold in reality.
“Dazai said we’re in a theater,” Chūya explained simply, his arms crossed.
Sigma’s eyes then drifted to the figure beside them. “Nikolai…” he called out softly. The jester, uncharacteristically still, slowly turned. The manic sparkle in his heterochromatic eyes had vanished, replaced by a raw, hollow expression.
“What happened?” Sigma asked, sensing the shift in the air.
“Dos-kun… is gone,” Nikolai replied, his voice devoid of its usual sing-song theatricality. He clutched his own arm, a ghost of the mourning he displayed at the Meursault. His carefree mask had finally shattered, leaving only a solemn, quiet despair.
“What…?” Sigma’s voice was thin, his mind still reeling from the echo of Fyodor’s memories. He looked at Nikolai, searching for a lie, but found only the jester's uncharacteristic, hollow silence.
“He’s really gone.” Chūya confirmed. He stepped forward, his hand heavy and solid on Sigma’s shoulder—a grounding force that the younger man desperately needed.
Atsushi, however, couldn't take his eyes off the figure standing near the center of the aisle. “W-Weren’t you a vampire?” He stammered, his gaze darting to Akutagawa. “B-But… I saw you.”
“You were dead.”
The word "vampire" acted like a cold draft, making the atmosphere in the theater turn jagged and dark. The Port Mafia members nearby went still, their hands instinctively ghosting over their necks.
Akutagawa didn't answer; he simply fixed Atsushi with a cold, grey stare that was more "human" than anything the boy had seen in weeks.
“The dead have a habit of not staying that way in this city, Atsushi-kun,” Dazai interjected, his voice pulling their attention toward the front of the room. He pointed a long, bandaged finger at the giant display. “Besides, it seems our host is tired of the reunions. Look.”
Every eye in the theater—Agency, Mafia, and Hunting Dog alike—turned to the screen as the first lines of light began to glow.
[Hi everyone!] The screen flashed.
[Today, we are going to react to your future.]
“Oi, detective. Is this another one of your tricks? Another damn novel?” Chūya’s voice was a low growl, his hand instinctively reaching for his hat as he glared at the screen. He hadn't forgotten the last time he'd let his guard down around the Agency's "linchpin."
Ranpo didn't offer a witty comeback. He didn't even look at the mafioso. He simply adjusted his glasses, his green eyes sharp and cold under the theater's dim lights.
“Nope. This is indeed real,” he said, his voice unusually flat. “There are no tricks here, Mr. Fancy Hat. Just the truth—and it's a truth we can't afford to ignore.”
A heavy silence followed, the kind that only exists before a storm. Chūya looked from Ranpo’s rigid profile to the flickering screen, feeling a chill that had nothing to do with the air conditioning. If the man who could deduce the world in seconds was this grim, then they weren't just watching a story—they were witnessing their own possible end.
[Please get into your seats.]
The gravity of their situation settled over the theater like a heavy shroud. They weren't here by choice, and everyone knew a truce had been silently enforced the moment they appeared. With grim acceptance, they took their seats, an uneasy stillness falling over the room.
The Armed Detective Agency members clustered together in one row, a silent wall of unity. Across the aisle, the Port Mafia members—stoic and sharp, with the exception of the absent Tachihara—took a separate row, maintaining their distance. Behind them, a chilling sight: the remaining members of the Hunting Dogs were seated alongside the final, quiet members of the Decay of the Angels.
A forced alliance born of mystery, bound by an unknown host.
[Thank you for your cooperation. The show may now begin.]