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The docks smell harshly of oil and smoke, rain fell down hard sideways, like slanted sheets that cut lines through the smoky night.
It pattered across the metal containers stacked three stories high.
The air in Yokohama nipped—like bare skin touching cold metal, thick with smoke as explosions rippled across the docks near the west pier. Somewhere behind the warehouses, a storage building still burned, painting the harbor in violent flashes of orange in the dark sky.
Chuuya was ducked behind one of the containers, breathing steady despite the icy wind. The communicator in his ear hissed faintly with static before crackling to life.
“Targets split toward the west pier,” Dazai’s voice cut through, humming in a low and almost drawling tone. “Your half seems to be doubling back. Don’t let them play you.”
“Don’t lecture me on handling amateurs, Dazai,” Chuuya growled under his breath, boots splashing into shallow puddles as he moved forward. “I’ve done this dance more times than you’ve faked your own death.”
“Ah,” Dazai chuckled. “So twice, then?”
“Keep talking. You’ll be my test subject for gravity-assisted drowning.”
“Tempting offer, but I’m rather attached to breathing.”
The familiar banter slowly faded as a shadow slipped passed just ahead of him—the last of the smugglers caught in the blast radius of their skirmish. This man was fast, his movements jittering like television static.
Ability interference shimmered faintly around his body, warping the rain midair.
Chuuya’s gaze narrowed. “Got one cornered. Looks like this one’s their ability user.”
“Careful,” Dazai warned, voice breaking through the static. “Rumor has it, his power meddles with causality. Whatever that means.”
“Means I knock him out quickly and don’t give him time to explain.”
His boots splashed against wet concrete, sending up faint echoes. The man aimed a jagged smile over his shoulder once he noticed Chuuya hot on his tail, suddenly twisting around, his hands flashed as he spat something low under his breath that Chuuya couldn’t catch in time as light flared around the criminal—pale and sickly blue, half white.
The next few seconds blurred into movement as the air twisted, something invisible cutting through space. Chuuya dropped his stance and reserved the concrete field around them, gravity bending until the ground turned the wrong way for the man, causing him to smash face first into the dock railing.
Reflex took over, Chuuya moved in, ready to end it clean. His fist swung back, energy humming across the surface of his gloved hand.
And then it hit.
A violent, burning convulsion shot through his ribs. He staggered mid attack, breathing hitching as it escaped past his lips unwillingly. It wasn’t the first hit of his life—not even close, but this one was wrong. There was no impact against him, no strike or visible wound.
Still, every nerve screamed as if something sharp and familiar tore through him.
“What the—”
His voice broke off halfway as the world suddenly tilted, almost losing his footing against the slick concrete as his own limbs didn’t feel right. The criminal sagged against the railing, half-conscious as blood gathered at his temple while the light from his hands faded into sparks.
And only for a second, both just breathed in ragged silence.
“Dazai,” Chuuya managed to croak into the communicator. “Status?”
The only thing that came through was static.
Then silence.
That somehow made his head pound worse than the pain. Dazai didn’t just cut comms in missions unless something had gone sideways.
Chuuya forced his stance steady, jaw clenching as he kicked the dazed target over. He moved to pin him down while his free hand pressed against the communicator again.
“Oi, Dazai! What the hell’s—” His voice was steady until the words broke off into a hitched silence.
Another blow of pain shot through his shoulder. It was like someone had taken an iron pipe to him—just out of reach. His hand shot up towards where the injury should have been, but found no blood, absolutely nothing but trembling muscle.
Cold sweat beaded along his neck.
“Dazai,” he hissed out, his voice lower this time.
His eyes flickered across the empty pier, fighting back a sharp wince that threatened to show as his whole body felt like it was pushed through a wall, the pain spreading unevenly through him in echoing waves.
Minutes passed with a type of agony that never quite broke, the sky flashing a new color of orange from a distant explosion. His breathing had steadied only because he had forced it too, each exhale slicing through gritted teeth. The downed man’s eyes slowly slipped shut—threat neutralized.
At least that wasn’t the problem anymore.
Just as he was about to cut the line entirely, already deciding on heading towards Dazai’s position—the static suddenly bursted into his ear again as it crackled to life.
“—uya? Chuuya, you there?” Dazai’s voice cut in, breezy.
But his breathing was slightly off—too slow, maybe even fraction too careful, like someone trying to hide blood in their teeth. Chuuya knew him long enough to catch it.
“What happened? Your line cut out,” Chuuya demanded, beginning to shift closer towards the nearest warehouse’s wall for cover as the rain and wind started to pick up.
“You sound—” He hesitated for a second, biting back something unstable in his chest, “off.”
“Lost signal in the storm,” Dazai said airily. “Technical difficulties, you know how it is.”
“Uh-huh.” Chuuya muttered, but the rain seemed to drown out half the words between the two of them.
“You sure you’re alright? You sound winded.” Dazai hummed into the communicator. “You’re not getting old, are you?”
Chuuya forced a sharp laugh, jaw clenching as one hand still remained pressed against his ribs as though the ache hadn’t faded. “Bite me, I’m dealing with a second rate ability user. I’m dragging the bastard in, you better have your half cleaned up.”
“Oh, squeaky clean. Not a scratch on me.” Dazai said it way too easily, like forced calm over a breath that wasn’t quite steady. “Meet at the extraction point in ten.”
And that was that—the line went dead again, getting replaced by the faint hums of warehouse power and the sound of the storm eating away at the edge of the port.
Chuuya stood in the quiet that followed for a few moments longer, breathing through the heavy weight pressing into his chest—the wrong, foreign ache that refused to ease.
He told himself with confidence that maybe this was just subtle adrenaline backlash, strain, and possibly even nerves reacting after the ability’s pulse.
Though, that rain followed him home.
It clung to Yokohama’s streets long after the mission ended, turning Yokohama's lights into blurry streaks on car windows.
By the time Chuuya reached his apartment, the worst of the storm had finally passed—leaving only a thin mist and wet shine across the pavement reflecting neon signs of the city. The elevator ride up to his floor felt strangely quiet after the gunfire and shouting he endured during the mission.
His apartment greeted him with the usual stillness. Dim, clean surfaces.
Chuuya dropped his keys in the bowl beside his door, shrugging off his coat in one motion, boots leaving a faint trail of rain water across the hardwood floor. The distant hum of Yokohama seeped through the windows—cars, sirens, the low churn of the bay—but inside, the silence pressed close.
He rolled his shoulder once, testing it. The ache from earlier still clung to him like a bruise that hadn’t decided if it existed yet.
“Tch. Annoying,” he muttered under his breath, tugging at his gloves.
He flexed his fingers, but no swelling, no tenderness. And there was still nothing to justify the way his ribs still throbbed with each inhale.
He headed for his bathroom first—out of habit, not paranoia. The mirror over the sink caught his reflection as he flicked on the light, harsh white washing him out. Chuuya reached for his shirt, pulling the fabric up over his torso.
No marks. Absolutely nothing.
Nothing where the phantom blow had slammed into his ribs at the docks. Nothing where his shoulder had screamed like something had been torn.
He braced a hand on the sink, staring at his reflection with a hardening gaze.
“Patchetic,” he sneered at himself, a humorless noise coming from his throat. “I jump around a bit and suddenly my body’s complaining.”
The laugh that fell past his lips sounded wrong, too thin in the small room. He let his shirt fall back into place—turning on the faucet and splashing cold water across his face. The sting grounded him, a little bit at least.
He told himself it was just the causality man’s ability’s after effects. That the freak’s power was still buzzing around his nerves, maybe. These things happen, sometimes a fight left echoes. His body would settle by next morning.
For a few minutes, everything was normal.
The clock ticked, the fridge hummed, the city slowly fell silent outside.
Chuuya leaned his head back against the cushion of his couch, letting his eyes close. The ache in his ribs had faded to a murmur. His shoulder twinged, but less sharply now. It was almost manageable.
He almost convinced himself he’d imagined the intensity of it earlier.
Then it hit again.
No warning. No shift in the air. Just pure, blunt force straight into his side—like a boot had slammed into his ribs.
He jerked upright with a strangled gasp.
The room swam, his vision going dark at the edges. Heat flared under his skin where the pain flared up, nerves lighting up in a pattern his body knew too well—the aftermath of a solid hit during a street brawl, the kind that knocked breath and sense out at once.
Except he was alone on his couch. No attacks, no physical impact.
“—shit.” He hissed.
His arm snapping around his torso on reflex, fingers digging into his side. Nothing. The fabric of his shirt was smooth under his palm, the skin underneath was unbroken, muscles clenching around nothing at all.
The pain didn’t care, though. It roared on, blooming outward, up into his chest, down into his gut.
For a moment, a flicker of something colder than pain crawled up his spine.
What if this wasn’t an after effect? What if something was wrong?
He sucked in a breath through clenched teeth, fighting the urge to double over. Sweat built up and slid down his temple. The apartment seemed to tilt around him, walls to close, air too thin.
“Get a grip,” he snarled under his breath, forcing his body to remain upright.
“It’s just backlash. It just—”
Another hit—sharp, this time to his back, like a fist driving between his shoulder blades. His lungs stuttered.
He choked on the air that was forced out of him, a hand flying to the back of the couch to steady himself. The sound that tore out of him was halfway between a cough and a bitten back groan.
No one was there. No one was touching him. The empty room stared back at him, indifferent.
This wasn’t normal.
His heart hammered hard enough against his ribs to hurt, for the first time since the docks, the thought really sank its teeth in.
He sat there like a statue carved out of tension and stubbornness, at least until the wave slowly ebbed. It didn’t vanish—it just faded enough that he could breathe without feeling like his ribs would splinter.
Minutes kept bleeding together—he wasn’t sure how many. Time dragged, each tick of the clock stretching too long. Small sounds came from somewhere outside his apartment—someone closing a door, footsteps in the hallway. It made his muscles tense up like he was anticipating blows that never came.
It felt as if he was waiting for an attack he couldn’t see, like he was in a fight he hadn’t started.
Chuuya stared at his hands. They trembled—barely, but enough for him to notice.
Enough to piss him off.
“No way in hell I’m letting this slide,” he muttered.
He dug into his pocket, pulling out his phone. For a second, his thumb hovered over the screen after he unlocked it.
Calling Dazai for something like this grated. It meant acknowledging that something was wrong, that he didn’t understand it, that he needed help from the one bastard who knew how these things went sideways.
The ache in his ribs pulsed, cruel and timely, made the decision for him.
He hit the contact.
The dial tone buzzed in his ear—once, twice, three times. On the fourth, the line connected.
“Chuuya,” Dazai’s voice drawled, familiar chaos wrapped in laziness. “Calling so late? You finally realized you can’t sleep without hearing my voice?”
“Shut up.” Chuuya barked immediately into the speaker, sharper than he intended. “This isn’t time for one of your jokes.”
A beat of silence. Too measured to be truly careless.
“Mm. Serious voice, that’s rare.”
Chuuya dug his fingers into the couch cushion, his knuckles whitening. “Something’s wrong.”
“Define ‘wrong,’” Dazai replied, tone still light but with a more serious edge. “You spontaneously grew three heads? Forgot how to tie your shoes?”
“Dazai.”
The way he said it wiped the rest of the joke clean,
“Okay,” Dazai murmured, voice lowering. “Talk.”
Chuuya exhaled shakily, pressing his fingers against his side again as if the pressure could pin the lingering pain down. “It started at the docks. When I was about to knock that freak out. My ribs lit up like I’d taken a direct hit, but no one touched me. No injury. Nothing.”
“Hm.”
“It happened again just now.” He continued, words pushing out faster, more restless. “Out of nowhere. Feels like I’m getting punched, kicked, I don’t know—like someone’s using me for a damn punching bag and I can’t see them.”
“Same places each time?” Dazai asked. There was no surprise in his voice, no laugh—just a calm, clinical tone.
Chuuya blinked. “What?”
“The pain,” Dazai repeated. “Is it random, or does it happen in specific spots? Same angle? Same intensity?”
Chuuya frowned, caught off guard by the precision of the question. “I don’t know. It’s—my ribs, my shoulder, my back. Like—like hits in a fight. Why does that matter?”
“How long does each wave last?”
“Dazai.”
“Chuuya.”
The line hover between them, thin and taut.
He scrubbed a hand over his face, before his fingers slid into his hair, nails digging into his scalp. “It comes in bursts. Sharp. Like taking a blow, then the ache kind of lingers after. It’s not a Corruption backlash. I’d know what that feels like.”
“Any visual hallucinations?”
“No.”
“Shortness of breath? Numbness? Blurred vision?”
“Some shortness, yeah, because it hurts,” Chuuya snapped. “I’m not dying of a heart attack, bastard, if that’s what you’re fishing for.”
Another moment of silence. Chuuya could almost hear Dazai’s gears turning in the other end.
“Did it start exactly when you engaged with the ability user?” Dazai asked finally through the phone. “Not before, but after?”
Chuuya thought back, jaw tightening. The sudden flash of the ability’s light, the tilt of the dock, his fist drawing back—then the sudden flare in his ribs.
“Yeah,” he said slowly. “Right then. Like something got its claws on me.”
“Any change when I lost signal?”
The question made something cold curl in his stomach. “—What?”
“Humor me,” Dazai said, tone deceptively smooth. “You said the worst of it was at the docks and just now. What about in between?”
“It—came and went. Nothing like this,” Chuuya muttered. “Why the hell are you interrogating me like a lab rat? You know something?”
Dazai didn’t answer immediately. When he spoke again, his voice had gone soft—too careful through the static. He was avoiding something.
“I have a theory,” he admitted.
Chuuya straightened, a frown deepening into his features. “Then spit it out.”
“I’m not sure yet.”
“Since when has that ever stopped you?”
“There’s a first time for everything,” Dazai deflected lightly. The sound of fabric rustling came faintly through the line, as if he was shifting positions, or checking something. “Give it a day. Track when it happens, how intense it is. Call me if it gets worse.”
“That’s it?” Chuuya snarled into the phone. “You drag a bunch of questions out of me and then tell me to ‘give it a day’?”
“It’s not nothing, Chuuya,” Dazai said quietly. “I just don’t want to tell you you’re cursed by a suicidal ghost or something if it turns out to be a pulled muscle.”
The attempt at humor fell flat. Both of them could feel it.
Chuuya’s grip tightened on the phone. “You’re hiding something.”
“Maybe,” Dazai replied lightly. “But I’d rather be sure than wrong with this one.”
“With what, exactly?”
“Sleep on it,” Dazai said instead. “You sound tired.”
“Don’t you dare hang up on—”
The line clicked then went silent.
Chuuya stared at the dark screen, heartbeat pounding too loud in his ears. The silence of the apartment became white noise again—heavier than before.
He wanted to throw the phone. Wanted to call back and demand straight answers. He wanted to storm across the city and shake the truth out of him.
Instead, he forced himself off the couch, footsteps padding against the wooden floorboards as he entered his kitchen. His hand drifted to a cabinet, fingers pulling it open automatically, finding the familiar neck of a wine bottle waiting inside.
“Yeah,” he mocked under his breath, voice rough. “Sleep on it. Sure.”
The cork popped with a dull, muffled sound that barely cut through the pressure in his skull. He didn’t bother with a glass—just leaned his hip against the counter, bottle brushing his lips as he tipped his head back, taking a long swallow.
The wine burned warm down his throat. It didn’t even bother the cold that coiled in his chest.
Another faint throb rolled through his ribs, mean and lingering, as if someone else’s fight was bleeding into his bones. Chuuya squeezed his eyes shut, jaw clenched so tight it hurt and took another sip.
The apartment stayed quiet. Too quiet.
He let the alcohol slide down, chasing the edges of the pain, blurring them. Not enough to make it stop—just enough to make it dull, distant, like a storm heard through a wall.
Something was wrong. But he didn’t know what.
He didn’t know why Dazai’s questions dug so cleanly into the strangest part of the whole situation itself.
He only knew that each time the pain flared, it felt less like his body failing him—and more like he was being dragged into someone else’s damage.
But even as three days passed by in a blur, the pain still hadn’t learned how to mind its own business.
It came in flashes—sharp, sudden jolts that sank into Chuuya’s ribs, shoulder, spine—then faded into a low, simmering ache that never fully left. It hit during missions during grocery runs, halfway through a shower, even while he was trying to sleep. Sometimes it was a quick sting, other times it was like getting shoved full force into a wall.
He stopped keeping track of it whenever it hurt. It was easier to pretend he didn’t notice.
He didn’t call Dazai again.
If that bastard wanted to play at withholding information, fine. Chuuya could grit his teeth and live with it. He’d survived worse than phantom pain. He’d have too.
That resolve lasted exactly three days.
By the time the Agency called, his patience was already threadbare.
The briefing was quick, panicked voices crackling on the connected line: mission compromised, target building rigged with explosives, Atsushi trapped inside with the enemy. High-risk, unstable ability user. Threats of detonating the place with the weretiger still inside.
Of course it was the Agency.
Chuuya arrived at the perimeter to find a cluster of frantic Agency members and police tape doing nothing to hold back the sharp reek of smoke.
The worn down building loomed ahead in the evening air—a worn down concrete block of shattered windows, rust crawling along exposed beams, almost as if it was waiting for an excuse to collapse with so much wear.
Dazai stood a little ways away from the rest, near the entrance. His hands were in his coat pockets, gaze tilted upwards towards the building’s upper floors as if he could see straight through the walls.
“Thought you people were supposed to handle messes like this on your own,” Chuuya said as he approached, hands shoved in his pockets. “I’m starting to feel like free labor.”
Dazai’s mouth curved faintly. “Good to see you too, Chuuya. You look awful.”
“Yeah, well, my evening just got ruined.”
Their eyes met briefly—maybe too briefly. Dazai’s gaze slid over him, cataloguing, assessing. Chuuya fought the urge to wince as an echo of faint pain lingered in his shoulder like a warning sign.
Behind them, Kunikida barked into a radio, voice taut, while Ranpo muttered something about time limits. None of it seemed to matter. The only thing that did matter though, was the knowledge that Atsushi was somewhere inside the creaking building, along with a trigger-happy enemy.
Dazai tipped his head towards the entrance. “Shall we? It'll be just like old times. You charge in, I save everyone from your terrible decisions.”
“Funny,” Chuuya scoffed out, stepping past him and forward towards he doors. “I was thinking the same thing about you.”
They slipped into the building together.
The air inside was thick with dust and the stale scent of mold.
Their footsteps echoed across cracked tiles and littered debris. Somewhere above them, metal groaned in protest while the random aches in Chuuya’s body had subsided to a low simmer, but still they were never completely gone—just waiting.
Dazai walked a half step behind, humming an off beat tune before muttering, “bomb specialist says the explosives are centered near the third and fourth floors. The enemy is keeping Atsushi close. He wants an audience when he blows everything up.”
“Then we’ll make sure he doesn’t get one,” Chuuya said in a low voice. “You get eyes on the kid, I’ll handle the lunatic.”
“Ah, teamwork. Brings a tear to my eye.”
They climbed a cracked stairwell, carefully avoiding patches that looked ready to fall through. Light cut through from missing sections in the walls, painting their path in pale shapes. Chuuya kept his breathing even, counting each step. The pain in his chest flared once—sharp, then gone. He ignored it.
After a few flights of stairs up, he spoke without looking back at the other man. “You never answered me.”
“About what?’ Dazai’s tone was breezy.
“The ability user from the docks,” Chuuya snarled. His hand tightened, nails digging into his palm as his glove creaked. “You said you had a theory.”
Silence slowly filled the air between them during a few more steps down the hallway.
Dazai’s shoes scraped softly on the concrete before speaking. “We’re on a mission. We can discuss your hypochondria later.”
“Don’t do that.” Chuuya halted, turning sharply. The motion disturbed the thin sheet of dust on the floor, sending flecks dancing upward in the faint light. “Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.”
Dazai met his gaze, eyes darkening to something unreadable. “You’re the one who decided to ignore it for three days.”
“Because I figured it’d go away,” Chuuya snapped. “It didn’t. It’s the same feeling every time, just like I told you! That’s not nothing, Dazai!—”
The building creaked above them, another low, warning groan. Far off, there was an echo of a raised voice—Atsushi? The enemy? It only made the growing migraine in Chuuya’s skull spike harsher.
“Tell me what you know,” he mumbled, quieter now. “You already have some damn idea, don’t you?”
For a moment, Dazai looked like he might lie, lips parting in hesitation.
“The man from the docks,” he finally started, voice stripped of its usual ease, “his ability doesn’t just bend causality. It twists cause and effect on a personal scale. You’re laced with his ability, he bound you into an ongoing chain.”
Chuuya’s jaw clenched. “Simplier language, Dazai.”
Dazai’s gaze slid away from him, up to the next stairwell. “You’re feeling injuries that aren’t your own.”
The words landed like a blow in their own way. Something in Chuuya’s chest went cold.
“You mean—”
“Injury redirection. Transfer, if you like the term better.” Dazai’s mouth twisted. “He laced you into an existing pattern. To someone who already puts everyone else first before themselves.”
Chuuya stared at him, the muscles in his shoulders locking slowly as he tensed up.
“Who.”
Dazai didn't answer.
And that itself was enough.
Chuuya grabbed the front of his coat and shoved him back into the wall with so much force that the impact shook dust from the cracked ceiling. Dazai’s head hit the concrete with a dull thud—the second it happened, hot pain exploded across Chuuya’s upper back, like he’d been the one slammed into the wall instead.
His vision blacked at the edges.
The pain flared down his spine, raw and real, nerves screaming with an impact he hadn’t taken. His breath tore out in a half choked sound, the air in his lungs forced past his lips. It took everything he had to not let go.
Dazai didn’t even wince. He just looked at Chuuya, head tilting slightly as his features remained too calm for the situation, as if he’d been expecting this.
“There,” he said softly. “That. Every time something like that happens to me, it’s you who feels it.”
Chuuya’s fingers trembled against the fabric of his coat, the aftershocks rolled through him in waves—the phantom bruise already blooming beneath his skin.
“How long have you known?” Chuuya gritted out.
“Since the first night,” Dazai replied. “When you called me. You described the pain too precisely.” His eyes slowly slid down to Chuuya’s hands. “I tested it after.”
“Tested—” The word came out strangled, composure snapping. “You tested it? On yourself? Knowing it would hit me?”
Dazai didn’t deny it.
Chuuya’s grip tightened—close to hitting something. He wanted to throw Dazai down the stairs and see if his own bones would shatter from it.
The knowledge of it sat between them, poisonous.
“So every time you get hurt,” Chuuya breathed, his voice going hoarse, “every bullet, every knife, every broken rib—”
“You feel it,” Dazai finished for him. “Yes.”
Chuuya laughed at that, a short, sharp sound that had no humor in it at all. “And you didn’t tell me. You just kept going, kept throwing yourself into fights like you always do.”
“Would you have done anything different?” Dazai asked, voice deceptively calm. “Called off missions? Refused joint operations? You can’t nullify the ability, neither can I. I’ve tried.”
He gestured faintly between them, to where Chuuya was physically touching him and nothing—no sign of anything—none of the bastard's ability threatening to blind the area with No Longer Human’s blueish glow.
“That’s not the fucking point!” Chuuya barked.
He pulled him forward with a jerky motion, just to slam him against the concrete wall again—not as hard this time, but just enough that another sharp sting lit up his spine. His own back flared in response, mirrored agony that stole his breath.
Dazai’s gaze flickered over his face, something ugly and complicated flickering behind his eyes. “What would you have done with this truth, Chuuya? Suffer less?”
“Yes!” He was practically shouting now, the sound bouncing off the cracked stone. “Beacause I’d know what the hell was happening to me! Instead of feeling like I’m going insane every time you decide to play martyr!”
A chunk of plaster dropped nearby, shattering on the floor. They both ignored it.
Chuuya’s voice dropped to a rough whisper. “How many times, Dazai? In these three days. How many times did you get hurt?”
Dazai hesitated just long enough for the answer to hurt.
“Often enough,” his voice threatened to break. “You know what my job is like.”
Chuuya’s breath hitched as his chest heaved. The ache in his gut, in his ribs, in his hands—it was all in his mind from someone else’s suffering—no, Dazai’s suffering. All those phantom blows, all those sudden jolts were his alone.
“You think I want this?” Dazai asked sharply, a rare tone for him. “You think I like the idea that every time something lands, it lands on you too?”
“Then why keep fighting like nothing's changed?” Chuuya hissed. “Why not back off? Use that brain you brag about and stop throwing yourself into every damn line of fire?”
“Because that’s the job, Chuuya.” Dazai snapped back, temper finally surfacing.
Chuuya opened his mouth, some retort already forming.
That’s when the world split open with a sharp sound.
A sudden explosion started somewhere on the far side of the building—a single, shuddering roar that swallowed their voices.
Heat and pressure tore down the corridors in a brutal invisible wave, the floor jumping under their feet and for one suspended heartbeat, Chuuya saw a bloom of orange light through a distant crack in the wall.
Then it hit.
The force slammed into them, ripping Dazai out of his grip, hurling them both sideways. The hallway screamed as concrete sheared, metal buckled and the entire structure twisted under its own failing weight.
The last thing he registered was the sound of his own ragged shout, swallowed by the collapsing building as fire and debris rushed to fill the space where they stood.
Darkness hit faster than the smoke and fire. Then the world gradually came back in pieces.
Not all at once—not clean, not even near kind.
Sound hit first. A low grinding groan, as if the bones of the building were still shifting over itself. Then the sharper pop of settling debris and rubble, a distant wail of sirens bleeding through walls that might not even be standing anymore.
Then it was pain.
It ripped through Chuuya’s awareness before he could even remember his own name—it was sharp and suffocating, blooming through his ribs to his back and shoulder like someone was driving a rebar straight through him. He tried to move, but couldn’t. His body felt pinned, heavy, and wrong.
Air scraped into his lungs as he choked on a gasp, dragging in short, ragged pulls. Dust clogged his throat, burning his tongue with chalk and copper.
For the first few seconds, he stayed like that—eyes closed, breath shallow, entire world narrowing into the crushing pressure on his chest and legs.
Then the memory slammed into him.
The hallway. The shove. The explosion.
Dazai.
“—Dazai,” he croaked, the word ripping out of his raw throat.
Chuuya’s voice sounded too far away, like it came from the bottom of a well. The darkness behind his eyelids pulsed—thick, black and heavy. He forced his eyes open.
Everything around him was shattered.
The ceiling had collapsed, chunks of concrete and twisted metal caging them in. Broken beams jutted out at strange angles, the floor was now at a jagged incline instead of flat ground. Dust hung in the air thick enough that it turned the narrow shaft of light from somewhere above into a pale, choking fog.
Chuuya laid on his side, half buried under rubble. A slab of concrete pinned his legs while loose debris dug into his hip and ribs, sharp edges biting through his clothes. He tried to move his right arm—only for it to twitch, useless and heavy under the wreckage.
His left hand was free, trembling as it pressed against the floor.
His head throbbed in a way that didn’t feel like a simple impact. Each heartbeat sent a hot pulse through his skull, like someone hammering nails from the inside out. Something warm trickled down the side of his face, sticky and trailing past his ear.
He didn’t try to look at it. He didn’t need to. He knew that feeling.
Instead, his gaze dragged painfully sideways—just a little, just enough.
Dazai was a few arm’s lengths away.
Pinned down too—crushed under another mound of debris, twisted metal trapping one of his legs. His coat was torn, bandages dirty and frayed. His hair streaked grary with dust. He was on his back, one arm sprawled out towards Chuuya, fingers just shy of reaching.
Chuuya’s chest tightened. The pain roaring through his body spiked, his ribs felt like they were going to implode.
“Fuck—” Chuuya hissed out with the air he barely had.
That had to be Dazai’s injuries.
Had to be.
The link hadn’t broken. The damn causality freak’s ability was still clinging to him just like oil under his skin. That had to be the reason why everything hurt so much. Dazai had taken the brunt of the collapse. Of course he had. Of course that idiot would.
“Dazai.” Chuuya rasped again, louder this time. The effort tore at his throat. “Hey. Hey! Wake up, you suicidal bastard—”
For a horrifying moment, nothing happened.
Dazai didn’t move. Didn’t twitch.
Then his fingers flexed—barely. His head lolling to the side, dust sliding off his hair in a small cascade. His eyes guardally cracked open, unfocused at first, then slowly sharpening onto the broken world around them.
And then onto Chuuya.
“There you are,” he whispered, voice hoarse but unmistakably his. “You always make the worst wake-up calls.”
Relief washed over Chuuya so hard it made him nauseous. He swallowed, the taste of blood thick at the back of his tongue. “You’re—alive.”
“Disappointed?”
“Shut up.”
Chuuya tried to laugh, but it came out as a strangled cough, pain running through his ribs as if someone had twisted a knife. White flashed across his vision. He squeezed his eyes shut—biting down hard enough until the wave passed.
Dazai watched him, gaze narrowing.
“Where does it hurt?”
“Everywhere,” Chuuya snapped automatically, voice shaking. “Feels like you got your ass handed to you. Again.”
“Mm.” Dazai’s expression flickered, something like realization sparking behind his eyes. He shifted experimentally under the rubble—his breath catching, but the movement wasn’t as bad as it should’ve been for the kind of agony he saw in Chuuya’s face. “Describe it.”
“You want a damn medical report?” Chuuya managed, swallowing down bile. “Ribs feel like they’re broken. Back’s on fire. Shoulder’s wrecked. Feels like someone dropped a building on you—which they did, genius—”
“On you,” Dazai said quietly.
Chuuya blinked, confused. “What?”
Dazai’s gaze flicked up, scanning what little he could see of Chuuya’s body from where he laid—angle of his head, the dark stain matting his hair, the way the debris pressed in. His jaw tightened.
“Chuuya,” he murmured slowly, voice slipping into something softer, stripped of its usual mockery, “the link didn’t flip. It’s not my pain you’re feeling.”
Cold seeped under Chuuya’s skin, warping the edges of the world. “Don’t screw with me right now.”
“I’m not,” Dazai replied, there was something like fear in his tone now, quiet and sharp. “My injuries aren’t that bad. Bruises, maybe a sprain. No fractures. No head trauma. I can feel that much.”
Chuuya’s breaths came faster, ragged. The throbbing in his skull surged, his vision blurring at the edges.
“You’re lying.”
“Why would I lie now?”
“Because that’s what you do,” Chuuya spat, but the words didn’t have the usual heat. They sounded thin, strained. “You lie and you hide shit and you make everything a joke until it’s not funny anymore—”
A sharp spike of pain started down from his temple, his thoughts scattering like broken glass. Darkness crowded in closer at the edges of his sight. He blinked hard, forcing himself to stay present, to stay angry.
He struggled to move his left hand toward his head, but managed. Then his fingers brushed sticky hair, then slid against the torn edge of skin.
The contact sent a bolt of agony through him, strong enough he almost felt like blacking out.
He jerked his hand back with a strangled noise. The world tilted, then snapped back into place.
“Chuuya.” Dazai’s voice cut through the fog, low and steady. “Don’t touch it.”
“Like hell,” Chuuya panted. “It’s—it’s nothing. Just a cut.”
Dazai swallowed, throat bobbing. From where he was, he could see the gash clearly now—a vicious, jagged slice running along Chuuya’s temple and into his hairline. It was still bleeding sluggishly, blood pooling under his head and leaking in dark lines down the side of his face.
Not a cut.
A crack.
“Listen to me,” Dazai said quietly. “The ability is still on you. Your nerves are still linked to my injuries, but right now, what I’m feeling from my body—and what I know about yours—they don’t match. You’re worse.”
“Stop talking like that,” Chuuya snapped, but it broke halfway through, fraying into something like panic. “I’m fine. You’re the one—”
His words dissolved into a groan as another wave of pain rolled through him, stronger than before. His fingers clawed at the concrete, nails scraping helplessly.
He was breathing too fast. The air felt thick, heavy, like it was to much for his lungs.
Dazai’s fingers curled against the debris pinning him. “Can you still use your ability?”
Chuuya almost laughed. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a little pinned, Dazai—”
“I didn’t ask if you could move,” Dazai said, sharper now. “I asked if you can use it.”
He hesitated. The pressure on his chest made thinking difficult. The pain clouded everything, turning his thoughts into mush. But the core of his power—the familiar hum of gravity waiting under his skin, that he could still feel.
Faint. Flickering. But there.
“Yeah,” he breathed, “probably. Why?”
“Because we don’t have time to wait for backup,” Dazai said, glancing toward the distant sounds of fire and groaning metal. “And that head wound is bad. If you pass out now—”
“I’m not gonna pass out,” Chuuya bit out.
“—you might not wake up.” Dazai finished sternly.
Something cold and jagged twisted in Chuuya’s chest.
He hated how the words slid into the silence and stayed there.
“Use it,” Dazai muttered. “Shift the rubble. Start with the weight on me, as much as you can manage.”
Chuuya’s head snapped towards him, disbelief burning fresh through his hazy thoughts. “Why the hell would I start with you?”
“Because you’re in no condition to move yourself,” Dazai replied, gaze never leaving his. “And if I can get to you, I can at least try to slow the bleeding. Maybe keep you awake long enough for someone to dig us out.”
Chuuya wanted to argue. Wanted to scream. Wanted to tell him to save his speeches—that this was his own damn fault, that he should've been the only one under the collapsed building alone.
But his thoughts cut off as another pulse of pain slammed into his skull, shifting the world out to a smear of strange colorful dots. He bit down on a cry, lupus splitting under his own teeth.
“Chuuya.”
His name sounded different now.
Too soft. Too careful.
He swallowed, but it tasted of dust—no—tasted of iron.
“Fine,” he whispered. “Don’t—don’t get used to me taking orders from you.”
“With that head of yours, I’d be grateful if you can just take them at all,” Dazai murmured.
The fragile humor didn’t reach his eyes.
Chuuya drew in a slow, shuddering breath. Focusing, just enough.
He reached inwards, down past the buzzing pain that throbbing in his skull, past the weight trying to drag him under. The familiar pressure responded, sluggish at first, then warmer—gravity bending to his will, even here, even like this.
He focused on the rubble above Dazai. The twisted metal pinning his leg. The beam trapping his shoulder.
His fingers curled. The air around them hummed, dust lifting slightly as the unseen force shifted.
The concrete pressing down onto Dazai lightened by a few degrees, just enough that it no longer crushed him—just enough that he could move under it with slow, careful effort.
Chuuya felt every ounce of it.
The strain shot through his already battered nerves, the act of manipulating the weight sending a burning throb up his spine and straight into his skull. Spots danced in front of his eyes, his breathing fell past his lips in gasps.
He did not, even for a second, think to move the rubble off himself.
All of it went into freeing Dazai.
“You’re clear,” he managed, words slurring together at the edges. “Go. Before it—before it comes back down.”
Dazai didn’t waste time arguing.
He gritted his teeth and began to drag himself forward, rolling over and working his way out from under the slightly shifted mess. The space Chuuya had created lasted just long enough for Dazai to wiggle his leg free with a rough jerk.
He ignored the flare of pain—then half crawled his way towards Chuuya. The incline of gravity helped, but one beam scraped his shoulder as he ducked beneath it with a sharp hiss.
The distance between them—those few arm’s lengths—felt like miles.
Chuuya watched him shift closer, vision tunneling, his breaths growing shorter and shallower. The strength he’d used to shift the rubble had cost him more than he could afford. His limbs felt heavier, his fingers were numb.
For a second, Dazai didn’t see the ruins around them, but a bar bathed in warm light, a quiet man setting down a cup of whiskey with a gentle smile.
Odasaku’s face flickered across Chuuya’s, his fading awareness flickered like a ghost burned into a film.
Then it was gone.
Dazai’s hand finally brushed against his arm.
“Hey,” Dazai breathed, dragging himself the last few inches with a raw sound. His coat snagged on jagged stone, but he didn’t seem to notice. He was close now—close enough for Chuuya to make out the streaks of dust on his face, strain carved into his features. “Hey, stay with me.”
Chuuya’s eyes slid to his, slow and unfocused. It took a second for recognition to settle, like it had to fight through fog. “You—you look like shit,” he slurred.
Dazai huffed a faint breath that almost passed for a laugh if it wasn’t so ragged. “Coming from you, that’s practically a love confession.”
“Go choke—” Chuuya rasped.
He was cut off when Dazai’s hand lifted—shaking, undeniably unsteady—and cupped Chuuya’s cheek. His thumb dragged over a line of half dried blood only to smear it darker across his skin. His palm was warm, too warm. Or maybe Chuuya was just too cold.
“You really are a pain,” Dazai breathed.
Chuuya tried to scoff, but it only came out as a broken puff of air. “Don’t sound to surprised.”
The bleeding hadn’t stopped.
Dazai could see it now, being so up close. The way the gash at Chuuya’s temple still leaked gradually, the pool beneath his head dark and spreading. He could see the way his pupils were dilated unevenly. Or the way his breathing kept hitching, catching on nothing like he’d forgotten how to breathe correctly.
Fear clawed up Dazai’s throat, acidic and bitter.
It felt strangely familiar.
He’d held a dying man before. He had watched the light go out of eyes he respected, admired, and cared for. Odasaku’s weight had stayed with him for years, a ghost that stayed permanently in his arms.
He could not—would not—do that again.
“Hey,” he said again, softer now, almost pleading. “Look at me.”
Chuuya’s gaze dragged back to him, lids heavy.
“..Hm?”
“You’re not allowed to check out here, you know,” Dazai murmured. His thumb traced along Chuuya’s cheekbone, avoiding the blood. “Contract says you don’t die unless I say so.”
“Contract—” Chuuya slurred, his lips twitching faintly, “—can kiss my ass.”
Dazai’s chest hurt. Not from the debris, not from his own injuries, but from something deeper, something he didn’t know how to name.
“You’re going to be fine,” he whispered. “You hear me? You’re too stubborn to go out like this. You’ll wake up in a hospital bed, complain about the food, threaten to throw me out the window. That’s how this is supposed to go.”
“Sounds like you’ve thought about it,” Chuuya mumbled. His eyes were drifting again, focus slipping.
“I think about a lot of things,” Dazai replied, voice shaking now despite his best efforts. “Most of them end with you yelling at me. It’s oddly comforting.”
The building groaned somewhere above them, another shudder running through the bones of the structure. Dust rained down in a fine mist. Somewhere further away, someone shouted—but it might as well have been in another world.
Here, there was only the dim light, the wreckage and the slow, terrifying dulling of the shine in Chuuya’s gaze.
“Hey,” Dazai repeated again, panic sharpening the edges of his tone. “Stay awake. Talk to me.”
“’M tired,” Chuuya whispered. The word seemed to float between them, fragile. “Head—hurts.”
“I know,” Dazai sighed, thumb trembling against his skin. “I know it does. But you can’t sleep yet, okay? You sleep, and I’m going to be very angry, and you know how annoying I get when I’m angry.”
Chuuya’s lips twitched again. Barely. “Already.. are.”
“Exactly,” his voice softened. “You’re used to it. So don’t—don’t you dare—”
His voice broke.
Chuuya blinked sluggishly, like each movement of his eyelids weighed a tone. “You’re.. loud.”
“You can tell me to shut up,” Dazai said, “you always do.”
Chuuya’s gaze slid past him, unfocused, pupils blown wide. “I can’t—can’t see right,” he murmured. “S’n blurry.”
Dazai swallowed hard, stomach twisting. “Just look at me. Forget everything else. Just me.”
Chuuya’s attention wavered at that, as if by instinct, he was pulled back to the once constant point in the collapsing world—Dazai’s face, too close, too raw with emotion.
“Y’look.. sad,” Chuuya words slurred.
“Don’t project,” Dazai whispered, a humorless smile ghosting his features. “I don’t get sad. I get irritated.”
“Liar.”
The word was soft, no bite left, just truth lying bare.
Dazai’s hand tightened ever so slightly on his cheek. “Yeah,” he breathed. “I am.”
His other hand hovered helplessly over the wound at Chuuya’s temple, torn between wanting to apply pressure and knowing his shaky touch might do more harm than good. So instead, he settled for brushing back blood strained strands of hair instead—gentle with his touch in a way that he almost didn’t recognize himself.
“Dazai..”
The way Chuuya said his name this time was different. Loose. Untethered.
Dazai leaned closer, heart pounding so hard it drowned out the distant sirens. “Yeah?”
“Still—hurts.”
“I know,” Dazai said delicately. “I’m sorry.”
Chuuya’s brows furrowed faintly. “Don’t.. apologize. Makes it—weird.”
A broken laugh tore out of Dazai’s throat, but it sounded closer to a sob.
“I can’t do this again,” he struggled, his voice raw and quiet, almost like he was talking more to himself than to Chuuya. “Not with you. Do you hear me? I won’t.”
Chuuya didn’t answer, his eyes slidding shut.
“Chuuya,” he whispered, patting his cheek with held back urgency. “Come on. Open your eyes.”
No response.
“Yell at me. Tell me I’m disgusting, call me names. Just—say something—!”
Chuuya’s lashes fluttered. And for one suspended heartbeat, it seemed like he was coming back to consciousness.
Dazai’s fingernails dug into his cheek, almost as if his touch could anchor Chuuya into place, to keep him from slipping away. His own breaths were coming out wrong—too shallow, too sharp—caught somewhere close to a sob that wouldn’t quiet form.
Chuuya’s lips parted slightly.
“That’s it, Chuuya.” Dazai tried again, his voice cracking. “Open your eyes for me.”
But only silence followed.
It wasn’t dramatic or clean. It was ugly—filled with the rasp of Dazai’s breathing, the ticking drip of blood slipping from the side of Chuuya’s face, the distant whine of sirens that were far, far too late. The building groaned above them, dust shifting down like ash onto Chuuya’s hair, onto Dazai’s shaking hands.
The world outside kept turning in its indifferent orbit while his stopped dead in the wreckage.
“Chuuya.” His name came out smaller this time, strangled. Dazai’s thumb dragged once more over his cheek, brushing the cold skin. “You don’t get to leave first. That wasn’t the deal.”
Nothing.
No lazy threat to kick his ass for getting sentimental, no curse, not even a twitch.
Just heavy weight.
Dazai bowed his head until his forehead touched Chuuya’s, almost as if he could force some of his breath into lungs that no longer answered. He stayed like that for a long moment, shaking, jaw locked so tight it hurt.
When he finally moved, it was to press his mouth against his—maybe in hopes to bring him back, maybe to even save him, but it felt more like it was just to memorize the shape of something already gone. It was gentle, almost painfully so. A trembling press, a silent plea.
To stay and not leave.
But the kiss only landed on cooling lips, tasting of iron and regret.
When he pulled back, there was no sudden gasp. No angry shove.
Just Chuuya, slack and silent beneath his hand.
“Don’t,” he breathed out. “Don’t do this to me.”
No answer.
Dazai let out a sound then—small, raw, and broken open, dragged out from some place even he didn’t look at. It vanished into the ruined concrete, swallowed whole by the settling debris. No one was close enough to hear it. No one would ever know.
There was no ability he could turn on himself to undo this.
No partner left to call him an idiot and walk away from this. No round two.
Just the echo of a heartbeat that, this time, refused to sync with his own.