Chapter Text
PROLOGUE - Please Don’t Ask Me Who I Used To Be.
Smoke.
That was it, really. That was all that was visible.
These thick, billowing, suffocating clouds of inky black were swallowing the castle whole, coiling around the stone as the tower of inferno rose to touch the sky. There was something morbidly majestic in the macabre splendor of the ruins—a hauntingly hypnotic ballet of destruction performed in embers and ash.
Small, frantic footsteps charged through the increasing wreckage, passing by the burning body of his father, pausing and staring at it in brief, unmasked horror, before understanding his risky position and bolting to the throne room where he hoped she wasn’t at.
There, amidst all the wreckage, lay the body of the queen, his beautiful mother.
He sprinted towards her, ignoring the rubble around him, wide eyes rapidly scanning her fragile body as tears threatened their trail down his blood stained cheeks. He dropped to his knees — as bloody as they were — to the rough and darkened marble floor as he carefully cradled her weakening form, tensing slightly as she gently cupped his face with her frail hand, giving him a gentle yet clearly pained motherly smile.
“M-my lovely boy…m-my shuuji…y-you…have m-made me so p-pro-proud m-my love. I-I want you to g-go…and f-find f-fujiwara…t-then r-run…and live w-well….o-okay…? I-I love y-you…”
Her words trailed off as her eyes glassed over, falling to something behind him in an empty stare as her body weighed into his hands. Crying into her chest, the prodigy quickly realized he was losing time. So reluctantly, with a painful expression, he placed her corpse down gently before continuing his trek through the burning building, trying to find his most trusted advisor — Fujiwara — and any remaining signs of life.
As he ran past a door, he heard a soft cry from the room adjacent to it. Backtracking and looking through it, he saw his older sister — Toshi — crying into the body of their baby brother. She always had a soft spot for him, so he watched in a broken sort of awe mixed with a pained silence as she whispered hopeful nothings into an ear that was once so curious and full of life.
Gripping her shoulder urgently, he snapped her out of her daze, grabbing her attention as she threw herself at him in a sudden embrace.
“Oh t-thank the gods-! Y-you’re alive Shuuji…!” She cried out, pulling back and cupping his face, lifting it up to meet her sorrowful gaze as she wiped the tears that he couldn’t keep at bay. “You n-need to go. N-now Shuuji! Y-you’re brilliant…I know y-you can make it out t-there. M-make us all p-proud. O-okay?”
He stared at her in a mix of disbelief and bewilderment, watching as she gently but firmly shoved him — resulting in him stumbling backwards to the door — before stepping back deeper into the mesmerizing orange of the flames. Ignoring his desperate screams of her name, she gave him one last genuine smile. His eyes fell to the tiles she stood on, fists clenching as sobs clawed their way up his throat. Forcing his body to move, he turned and ran out the room, leaving behind the one person he truly ever felt seen with.
Voyaging through the flames and wreckage, diving beneath falling chandeliers and hurtling rubble, running past more burned corpses of people he once knew as well as covering his ears in a childish attempt at drowning out the screams of agony and breaking glass, he finally reached outside into the gated gardens of the castle. He noticed the crumbling gate and made a dash towards it, almost grasping his guaranteed freedom when a weak hand clutched his ankle. He stared down at the man who practically raised him instead of his father, the man who always snuck him food and took him outside for fresh air. The man who taught him how kindness felt after all the torture he endured from his father. Fujiwara looked up at him with a painful smile of fierce determination.
Sinking to his knees again, Shuuji held the hand of his most faithful and trusted advisor, not noticing the older man reach slowly into his suit pocket before pulling out a plastic ID, placing and clasping Shuuji’s free hand around it.
“T-take it. I-it’s an ID t-that will k-keep you h-hidden safe in the n-normal world I-if you wish to not r-rule. Shuuji-kun…I-i know y-you’ll be an amazing r-ruler..but that’s only I-if you want to. S-so go. Run. A-and we all w-will be watching over y-you.”
Shuuji gave him a pained yet sincere smile as the watched the latter’s eyes close and muscles relax, before placing his now limp arm down gently and straightening, running to the gate. He collapsed onto a beautifully untouched and grey tile of concrete, turning onto his back to stare at what was once hishome. The palace walls deteriorated to the expanse of flames, the effect almost creating a crown like illusion, a halo of fire in all its gruesome glory.
The maddeningly oblivious evening sun shone down on him and the growing ruins, adding to the pain he felt from the various burns, bruises, and bloody injuries that adorned his once beautifully pale skin. Managing to stand up and balance himself, he took off the crown that somehow still sat atop his head, and stared at the silver that labeled him as the crown prince. In a surge of rage, using what was left of his energy, he threw it into the burning stone, watching it fly out of his grasp and into the nightmare. He then glanced down at the ID in his hands and let the reality crash onto him.
Finally, he turned and limped away, not looking back at what was his home for the 14 years he’s lived, and instead going forward to see what to do with his life. He would surely survive with his intelligence and forcefully learned skill. But he would do it his own way. Because…now, he was no longer the crown prince of Yokohama, the Shuuji Tsushima they all knew.
Now?
Now he was Osamu Dazai.