Chapter Text
A bowl of chazuke. . .chopped seaweed on top of pickled plums and leftover chicken from the night before. . .floating on top of the hot water together with some salted kelp. . .it was delicious. That chazuke Atsushi ate in secret at the orphanage's kitchen. . .but wait a second. . .he was dying of hunger. His name is Atsushi. Some stuff happened and he was now on the brink of starvation. The only way he'll survive is to steal but. . .
He was kicked out of the orphanage, so he has no food or shelter, and he didn't have the guts to steal or anywhere to work, and now he's even come to this place. . .he thought to himself as he stumbled by the river.
He recalled the orphanage's crude remarks and gritted his teeth. Screw them! He's not going to die, he scowled. So that he could live, he'll attack the next person he sees and steal their wallet. That would show the orphanage who's boss. He sensed someone close by and prepared to strike. . .
Finding someone floating down the river, clearly drowning, Atsushi decided that this person couldn't be the guy he was planning on stealing from so he leaped into the river, rescuing the poor man. He dragged the man to shore who sat up quite quickly and looked around, eyes finding Atsushi's. He looked indifferent to the idea of being saved.
“You were floating in the river. Are you okay?”
“I was saved? Tch.”
To Atsushi's chagrin, Dazai seemed perturbed. Did the guy just scoff at me? Atsushi wondered, irritated.
“Are you the one who interrupted my drowning?”
“Interrupted?! I was trying to save you — wait drowning??”
Atsushi was flabbergasted. Here he thought he was going to be branded a hero for saving the poor stranger when in actuality, the man was trying to commit suicide!
“You've never heard of drowning before? It's a kind of suicide.”
“Huh?!”
“I was trying to commit suicide, and then you went and got in the way. . .”
“Okay?”
Was he being scolded right now? He saved him and he was getting chewed out by the guy. He should have taken the wallet.
“Well, my goal is a clean suicide that nobody would be troubled by. . .but it seems I've erred and troubled you so let me apolog—”
The stranger was cut off by Atsushi's stomach grumbling.
“Could it be that you haven't eaten yet, young man?”
“Actually I haven't eaten since yester—”
Cue another grumble from Atsushi's tummy.
“Me neither, actually. By the way, I lost my wallet somewhere around here. . .”
“Huh?! And here I was, thinking that you'd treat me to a meal or something for saving you. . .”
Dazai tilted his head and gave the younger man a confused look.
“Don't look at me like that!”
“Hey!”
Suddenly there was another figure standing near them. He had long blond hair in a long ponytail, black rimmed glasses, and a red ribbon attached to a long-sleeved dress shirt, beige pants, and plain brown shoes. He had deep green-grey eyes. He looked pretty mad.
“So this is where you were, idiot!”
“Hey, Kunikida-kun! Thanks for working so hard!”
Kunikida glared at him angrily over his glasses as Dazai waved and called him over. The nerve of this man to be doing this when they had a job to do. . .the Boss was going to be pissed if they came back empty-handed.
“It's your fault I'm working too hard, you suicidal maniac! How much are you going to disrupt my pla—”
“Oh, yeah,” Dazai remarked, turning to Atsushi, “I just had a good idea. He's my coworker. Let him treat you.”
Dazai ignored the man yelling at them to listen to him. He could do that later. In fact, he did that plenty. It's been 2 years of listening to his coworker order him around and Dazai attentively learning in return. Ah, they were perfect together.
“So, what's your name?”
“It's Nakajima. . .Atsushi.”
“Come with me, Atsushi-kun. What do you want to eat?”
“I guess I'd like some chazuke.”
Dazai chuckled and then it turned to full blown laughter.
“You're on the brink of starvation, and you're asking for chazuke! Very well. Kunikida-kun will treat you to thirty bowls of that!”
“Don't you dare use my money to make people fat, Dazai!”
Dazai ignored Kunikida again.
“Dazai?”
“Yeah, that's my name.”
“Dazai. Dazai Osamu.”
Atsushi devoured several bowls of chazuke while Kunikida and Dazai-san were arguing. Or well Kunikida-san was yelling and Dazai seemed nonchalant about the whole thing.
“Come on, Dazai, let's get back to work already! No sane person would suddenly say ‘What a nice river,’ then dive into it during work! Look at what you've done. I'm drastically off schedule now!”
“You sure love that notebook, Kunikida-kun. . .”
“This is no mere notebook!! It's my ideals!! A guide to how I should be living! And. . .there is no ‘have a suicidal maniac as a coworker’ written here!”
Atsushi tried to offer his two cents with his mouth still full of chazuke but Kunikida put a palm up to stop him.
“Shut up. There's no ‘treat some brat to chazuke with my own money’ written on my planned expenses page, either!”
“Mnh mgh hffg mmm?”
“I told you, this is work! Our Boss has us looking for and capturing a wild animal!”
“How the hell are you two holding a conversation?”
“Phew I'm full! I don't want to see chazuke again for a decade!”
“Why you. . .”
“Well you really helped me out there. I was forced to leave the orphanage where I lived and traveled to Yokohama without food or water. I thought I was going to die!”
“Hmm, so you were released from a facility?”
“Released? More like I was kicked out. Management slumps or downsizing or something like that.”
“Sounds like one heartless facility.”
Ironic considering where the two worked but we'll get to that later.
“Hey, Dazai! We aren't a charity! We don't just bring in hapless youngsters to the Boss! Get back to work!”
“You two. . .what exactly is your work?”
Dazai smiled a predatory smile.
“You want to know. . .? We're executives,” Dazai smirked.
“We are mafiosos but we don't just kill people or scam them. Nor do we recruit just any bloodthirsty criminal out there. . .our field is specialized. Assassins, strategists, weapons, and the like. Have you heard of the Port Mafia?”
Atsushi's eyes widened. Just his luck. The Port Mafia sounded familiar. They managed the night and were considered wardens. They held a hand in a bunch of things, politics, economics, and many, many enterprises. Those who defy them never get off lucky. The higher ranked officials had unusual powers known as “Ability Users”. Atsushi had just run into two potentially dangerous mafiosos and he had just eaten the guy's wallet. Maybe him saving Dazai canceled his wrongdoing.
“That lintel seems durable. . .seems like it could even support a man's weight. . .”
“Don't try to hang yourself in a tea shop you just went to for the first time!!”
“No! It's called neck-hanging hygiene. Don't you know that?”
“What? That needs to be hygienic?”
As the two talked, Atsushi wondered if it was a real thing or if Dazai was messing around again. He could never tell. Which may be because they had just met but still.
“S-So, what work do two mafiosos have today?”
“We're hunting a tiger.”
“A tiger?”
“There's a man-eating tiger that's been rampaging around town recently. It ran wild in a warehouse, ate all the produce of a certain field. . .it's just been doing whatever it wants. It was sighted around here recently, though.”
Atsushi froze and leapt up from his seat. He knew what they were talking about. Oh, crap. How could he get stuck with the tiger again?
“I-I'll be taking my leave now!”
Before he could run, Kunikida-kun grabbed him by the back of his shirt.
“Hold it.”
“I-It's impossible! You can't defeat it!”
“You. . .know about the man-eating tiger?”
“It's after me! It's here to kill me! If it's around here I have to run—”
Atsushi attempted to make a break for it but Kunikida slammed him down to the ground with no effort at all and Atsushi yelped in pain.
“I told you already. We at the Port Mafia have the job of capturing this wild tiger. Maybe we can use you as bait for the tiger since you believe it's here to kill you.”
“Calm down, Kunikida-kun.”
Dazai's voice broke in and Atsushi noted that the Dazai fellow seemed a lot nicer than Kunikida. At least there was one nice person with him before he died.
“Information should be gathered through interrogation and fear, isn't that what we always say?”
Dazai crouched next to him and Atsushi felt a bit calmer now that Kunikida was focused on calming down the other people at the tea shop.
“So?”
“Our orphanage was destroyed by that tiger.”
Atsushi then began talking about the events that occurred. It ran amok, destroying warehouses and fields, how nobody died but they kicked some folk out (including him) to reduce the mouths they had to feed.
“So, kid, what did you mean by ‘It's here to kill me?’”
So Atsushi explained. How and when he saw it. How it followed him to the river. Kunikida-kun and Dazai-kun compared notes. Dazai-kun asked if he was free. Atsushi nodded, fearing for the worst, when it happened.
“It's convenient for us that you're being targeted by the man-eating tiger. Will you help out on our tiger hunt?”
Atsushi jumped from his chair for the second time that day.
“I-I-I don't want to!! That would mean I'm the bait here! Who would volunteer for that!”
“We'll pay you.”
“Kunikida-kun will go back to the headquarters and give this to the boss.”
Dazai said, holding a piece of paper between his two fingers.
“Hey! Are you planning to catch it with just the two of you? First and foremost, we should get the other side of the stor—”
“Just do it.”
The two exchanged a glance and Kunikida nodded, taking the piece of paper.
“B-By the way, how much is the pay?”
“About this much.”
Atsushi's jaw dropped.
“Will it really come here?”
“Yeah, it will.”
Dazai read from a thick book labeled ‘suicide for dummies’. Atsushi didn't even realize a book like that could exist in the world.
“Don't worry. Even if the tiger appears, it's no match for me. I may not look the part but I'm also a member of the Port Mafia.”
“Haha you sure are amazing, being so nice and confident. As for me. . .even though I'm from an orphanage, I'm always called a good-for-nothing. . .And on top of that, I don't know where I'm going to sleep tonight or how I'll afford food tomorrow. People like that should just die in a ditch. . .No, they should get eaten.”
Dazai didn't say anything. He could ease the kid into bad behavior when he joined the Port Mafia. Seeing moonlight in the window, Dazai smirked. Showtime. Nakajima Atsushi began to change under the moonlight. Beast beneath the moonlight: becoming a weretiger. Atsushi transformed as Dazai continued speaking, unaffected by the sight of a snarling beast.
“It seems that you're the only one who didn't know. You're an ability user, too. One whose appearance hides a hungry animal, the moonlight ability user. . .”
The tiger pounced but Dazai was able to dodge it well. Like he's practiced. He looked up at the beast with awe in his dead eyes.
“Such incredible power. You could easily bite off a person's neck.”
He was then backed into a corner when the tiger pounced again.
“Death by getting eaten by a beast doesn't sound too bad. . .but you can't kill me.”
And with one touch the ability turned back into Atsushi who lay unconscious on the ground. Osamu Dazai, able to nullify abilities with a single touch. Ability name: No Longer Human. Role: Port Mafia executive.
Kunikida opened the warehouse doors and waved at Dazai.
“Hey. Took you long enough. I got the tiger already.”
“That kid. . .so it was him.”
“Yeah he has the power of the tiger. He doesn't retain any memories from when he transforms.”
“Damnit, let me know beforehand next time! You had me worried for a minute there. I even ended up borrowing the off-duty people to take care of things.”
“Treat them to sake or something.”
Kunikida Doppo: ability name: Matchless Poet, it allows the user to create items as big as the notebook allows. He was one of the executives. On cue, the other three showed up to the warehouse. Miyazawa Kenji, Yosano Akiko, and Edogawa Ranpo.
“Oh, come on. Nobody got hurt? Boooring.”
Akiko Yosano, ability name: thou shalt not die. An ability that allowed her to heal anybody including herself and save them from the brink of death. However she must bring them to the edge of death first. She was the Port Mafia's doctor.
“You did pretty well, Dazai. Well, not that I couldn't have handled it.”
Edogawa Ranpo, ability name: super deduction. Able to solve any crime just by looking at it. His ability is useful in strategizing, not so much torturing or combat. He was the Port Mafia's strategist.
“But what are we gonna do with him? He wasn't aware of any of this, right? I know the Boss said to capture him but what if he rampages again?”
Miyazawa Kenji, ability name: not defeated by the rain. Allows the user super strength but only with the absence of food. Normally this means Kenji has to starve himself to do his chores for the day. He was only a normal member but he could be used for offensive attacks.
“As far as the city's concerned, he's still a dangerous beast.”
“The truth is, I've already decided. I'll be hiring him?”
The yell the four of them made was enough to send birds flying in all directions and wake some people up.
This is the start to a brand new story about the Port Mafia and its inhabitants. What shady doings will they be up to? Will the Boss accept Atsushi into the group? Read on to find out.