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Beautiful.
Something known as “Corruption” probably did not deserve to be described as such, but Dazai’s tastes were nothing if not unusual. Even so, if you ignored the fact that his ability could raze buildings with a mere gesture, it was the way Chuuya moved that could captivate anyone in view.
As he watched gloves being pulled—elegantly, smoothly, beautifully—from slender hands, he readied himself for the inevitable.
“O grantors of dark disgrace, do not wake me again.”
He listened intently as the other man recited those words with practiced ease, underscored with knowing tension. The knife in his hand rested steadily against Steinbeck’s throat; he would not let him intervene. They both knew that this was risky, more risky than even their most dangerous missions—and yet, with hardly a complaint, Chuuya had acquiesced to using an ability that brought nothing short of complete and utter annihilation.
Dazai understood many things, but Chuuya’s trust in him was not one of them.
There were a hundred ways that this plan could go wrong. Dazai could be too slow (but Dazai was always exactly where he needed to be). Chuuya could turn on him (but Chuuya couldn’t hurt him with his ability). Lovecraft or Steinbeck could have a plan of their own (but Dazai’s plans never went wrong). Still, the only guarantee in this world was death—Dazai knew this most of all—and that was the most probable outcome if they did not pull this off perfectly. Dazai’s plans were always perfect, but humans could not be relied on. Yet Chuuya relied on him completely, entrusted him with his life. Four years of bad blood between them, and years more still of ill emotions of another sort entirely, and they nonetheless fell back in sync as if they had never been apart. Some things are not so easily forgotten.
A breath in.
A breath out.
Chuuya, who wore his emotions on his sleeve—dangerous, reckless—instead, at this moment, wore an expression so unreadable it rivaled Dazai’s best poker face. Dazai could see even at a distance the dark haze winding its way beneath his skin, marking him with tendrils of blackness like ink poured in water.
Dimly, he thought of Rashomon, but the two could never be equated. A coat that harbored darkness incarnate, no matter how powerful, simply could not measure up to the sheer destructive force of an ability that could rend apart space itself. Rashomon was a being born from anger, a never-ending storm of hatred for as long as Akutagawa drew breath. Perhaps, then, it was the fragility of Corruption—not its strength—that made it so awe-inspiring to behold. It was easily one of the strongest known abilities, and yet even a few seconds too long of its application would destroy Chuuya from the inside out before anyone could ever try to save him. It was an unstoppable force on another level, one that Dazai alone could bring to a screeching halt with a touch. Rashomon was unrelenting, but not completely untouchable: Atsushi could stand toe-to-toe with Akutagawa in a fight and stand a very real chance at winning. But with Corruption, his hand, and only his hand, was able to clutch at Chuuya’s lifeline and drag him back from the brink. It was entirely too much power for one person to have, especially when that person was Dazai.
In the back of his mind, he conceded that he might just be biased toward Corruption because the ability was Chuuya’s.
As Corruption finished its journey across Chuuya’s skin, the ground beneath his feet began to split apart and crumble, shards of earth and rock surrounding him as the laws of gravity were ignored in the face of a force far more powerful than simple physics. Dazai was too far away to see the other man’s face with any clarity, but he knew from experience that his eyes were no longer actually seeing anything. He was operating on instinct, or maybe something else entirely—Chuuya had never offered any explanation on how it felt to use the fullest extent of his abilities. His chant evoked a sense of some otherworldly influence, but considering their current enemy, Dazai was content to remain unaware. He could accept Corruption—he was not afraid of his partner nor his ability, especially since he could not hurt him—but he would greatly prefer it if the source was not an eldritch monstrosity.
He looked on with an expression that could only be described as pride as the real fun began.
One ear-shattering boom, then another. Black holes may be silent in deep space, but they were in a decidedly terrestrial area, and the sounds were deafening. Had they not been in a location far removed from the city in the dead of night, Dazai was sure that the police would be there in a matter of minutes. Regardless, the explosions going off in quick succession were not likely to go unnoticed for long, and Dazai had no desire to further complicate what was already a mission with too many undesirable variables.
Still, for the time being, he was content with watching the devastation that Chuuya was leaving in his wake. He sliced through Lovecraft’s monstrous form like a knife through butter, one, two, three times, launching black holes at the writhing mass of limbs and tentacles and who knows what else as it kept regenerating its appendages as if having the densest parts of space lobbed at it was nothing more than a minor inconvenience. Lacking the capacity for critical thinking, Chuuya did not cease in his actions, throwing his full force into every attack as the damage was repaired within moments.
They were not evenly matched.
Chuuya was losing.
Blood was pouring from his nose and mouth—too much, far too much—and afterward Dazai would swear up and down that his concern was purely due to the importance of their mission. No matter his excuses, the fact remained that Chuuya’s body could not handle much more. Despite this, Lovecraft was nowhere near defeated, and if Corruption could not finish the job, Dazai would not stand a chance. Maybe he was fine with dying, but not here. Not like this. Not after losing Chuuya first.
Chuuya was dying, Lovecraft was not, and this could not be allowed to continue.
Before he had to choose between aborting the mission and letting Chuuya run himself into the ground, a solution came in the form of a loose tongue.
An attack from the inside would ordinarily be impossible, but Dazai did not operate ordinarily. The fake cast that had been stolen from him was nestled deep within Lovecraft’s appendages, and with the press of a button on the controller he had kept on his person, he blew open a hole leading straight to his core. Above the hole that was already beginning to regenerate, Chuuya was guiding the largest black hole he had ever created directly at it.
Do it, Chuuya.
There would be no second chances.
None were needed.
An explosion shattered the air itself, leaving only a smoldering crater in its place. There was no longer a single scrap of Lovecraft remaining in this reality. The battle was over, but such trivial matters did not infiltrate the sinister fog in Chuuya’s head. Spitting blood onto the scorched earth, he continued his march of destruction, obliterating entire stretches of the ground at random in place of an actual target. His hysterical laughter was the signal that spurred Dazai into action, already at his side in the blink of an eye.
Gripping his partner’s wrist tightly, he freed him from himself.
Corruption left faster than it came, black tendrils fading into nothingness as his eyes returned to normal. Chuuya fell to his knees immediately, barely even able to form angry words from overexertion. Dazai promised, insincerely, to get him back safely. He held what could barely be called a conversation with Steinbeck. Once Steinbeck had fled, which in Dazai’s opinion was his first good decision of the night, Dazai turned his attention back to Chuuya, who was quite nearly unconscious.
“Luckily for you, I was here to save you. Otherwise, this could have gone badly, no?” Dazai mused, a relaxed lilt to his voice that was hardly fitting given the situation. Chuuya, to his credit, only snorted in response. Clinging to the remaining shreds of his consciousness, he managed one last retort before succumbing to exhaustion.
“I don’t believe in luck.”
Because you believe in me.
And I don’t know why.