Chapter Text
The first thing Chuuya notices is the silence. Not the absence of sound, there’s gunfire somewhere three floors down, glass breaking, and someone screaming orders, but the silence where Dazai should be.
He clicks his tongue and adjusts his gloves.
“This is sloppy,” he mutters, stepping over the unconscious body of an ability user currently embedded halfway into a marble pillar. The hallway tilts slightly as his gravity presses outward, then settles again.
From his earpiece, static. Then, “Chuuuyaaa,” Dazai sings, voice airy and far too pleased with himself. “You sound tense. You’ll get wrinkles.”
Chuuya exhales through his nose. There it is. Annoying. Unbearable. Right on time.
“I wouldn’t be tense if you were where you’re supposed to be.”
“Oh? And where is that?”
“Behind me. Like we planned.”
A pause. Faint clatter. A grunt that Dazai tries and fails to disguise.
“Minor complication,” Dazai says lightly. “Left turn instead of right. Very tragic. Almost poetic.”
“Define minor.”
“Well.”
The line crackles. Then gunfire—closer than before. Chuuya’s irritation sharpens into something narrower. More focused.
“Dazai.”
“Working on it.”
That’s not an answer.
Chuuya steps to the shattered window at the end of the corridor and looks down. Sixteen floors below, the Port Mafia’s black vehicles wait like patient insects. Across the street, their target building burns at two separate points. Too coordinated to be coincidence.
It was supposed to be simple. Infiltrate. Extract the foreign ability broker. Neutralize resistance. Quick. Surgical. Efficient. But the resistance hadn’t scattered. They’d been waiting.
A body slams into the hallway from the stairwell—one of their own operatives. He skids across the floor, blood streaking tile. Chuuya moves before thinking. Gravity spikes. The air compresses. The incoming barrage of bullets slows mid-flight, trembles, and drops harmlessly to the ground.
Three enemies round the corner. Chuuya doesn’t hesitate. He flicks two fingers. The floor caves inward. Concrete folds like paper. The men collapse with it, crushed under warped steel and gravity ten times heavier than it should be.
Silence again. Too easy.
“Report,” Chuuya snaps into the comm.
Nothing. Static. Then, faintly, “Chuuya,” Dazai’s voice has lost its teasing edge. “Change of plans.”
There’s something wrong. Chuuya stills.
“Talk.”
“They’ve got an anti-ability barrier device. Portable. I’m looking at it now. It’s interfering with signal transmission and dampening range-based output.”
Chuuya’s eyes narrow. “You said minor.”
“Well, I was being optimistic.”
The floor beneath Chuuya trembles, but not from him. From below. A pulse travels upward through the building, subtle but deliberate. Like a heartbeat. Chuuya feels it in his ribs. He knows that sensation. Another ability user. A strong one.
“Location?” Chuuya demands.
“Basement level. And before you do anything dramatic—”
The line cuts. Dead air. Chuuya stares at the earpiece like he can will it back to life.
“Dazai.”
Nothing. The building shudders again, harder this time. Plaster rains from the ceiling. Somewhere below, metal screams as it bends inward. Not random destruction. Controlled. A challenge. Chuuya rolls his shoulders once.
“Fine,” he mutters.
He steps into the stairwell and jumps. Gravity releases him downward like a bullet.
The basement is a crater. The concrete floor has collapsed into a bowl-shaped depression, as if pressed by an invisible palm. At its center stands a man holding a device the size of a briefcase, cables snaking from it into the surrounding walls.
The air feels wrong. Heavy. Unstable.
“Port Mafia executive,” the man says calmly. “You came alone.”
Chuuya lands lightly at the edge of the crater.
“I won’t need backup.”
He flexes his fingers. Gravity answers. But it’s sluggish. Thicker than usual. Like moving underwater. So that’s the barrier.
The man smiles faintly. “Your partner won’t reach you in time.”
Chuuya scoffs. “He always does.”
The man presses something on the device. The weight in the room doubles. Chuuya’s boots crack the concrete beneath him. Interesting.
He tilts his head.
“You think this is heavy?”
The air compresses. The crater deepens. The man’s smile falters. Chuuya steps forward, gravity tightening around his frame like a second skin.
“I’ll give you heavy.”
They clash.
The opposing force slams into him like a collapsing star. The barrier amplifies the enemy’s output, distorting vectors and redirecting Chuuya’s own gravity back at him.
The walls implode. Pipes burst. Chuuya grits his teeth as the pressure builds, compressing bone and muscle. He could end this. He knows he could. But…
“Dazai,” he mutters under his breath.
No response. The device pulses brighter.
The man laughs. “You can’t sustain this without him.”
The words land sharper than the force.
Chuuya grabs his hat, so it can’t fall off as another shockwave hits. Blood trickles from his temple. His vision flickers red at the edges.
He knows his limits. He knows the rule Corruption is not a weapon. It’s a last resort. It is death—borrowed and returned. And Dazai is supposed to be the hand that pulls him back. The pressure increases again. The building begins to collapse inward.
If this continues, the blast radius will take out half the block. Chuuya wipes blood from his cheek with the back of his hand. He straightens. The air stills. The enemy frowns.
“Of course I can,” Chuuya responds before reciting the poem to activate Corruption.
The markings begin at his collarbone, spreading like cracks through porcelain. Gravity distorts. Light bends. The basement ceiling fractures as if pushed away from the inside.
Chuuya closes his eyes. Black-red energy erupts outward. Concrete disintegrates. The enemy’s scream is swallowed whole. Aboveground, windows shatter for three city blocks. And far away, trapped behind steel and interference and something he cannot break, Dazai feels it. The moment Corruption begins. He smiles, faint and certain.
“Right on schedule,” he murmurs.
And runs.