Chapter Text
Three years ago
The rain didn’t even try to do a damn thing to put out the fire.
Chuuya Nakahara slammed his fist on the broken rubble by his feet, using his gravity manipulation to move it. He tossed it aside like paper, letting it ram into abandoned buildings beside him. He didn’t care if the smoke getting in his eyes was burning like hell; he didn’t care about the way that the embers were burning his skin. Hell, he wouldn’t care about the aftermath either.
He just needed to dig.
Dig and dig.
Dig until his hands bled.
Dig until they burned.
“Shirase! Shoujo!” He shouted, his voice cracking slightly, his lip quivering on the edge of tears. “Yuan! Can anyone hear me!?” His voice echoed uselessly into the distance, the thunder cutting it off effortlessly.
Osamu Dazai stands behind him, holding an umbrella to make sure Chuuya doesn’t get wet, despite himself being wet. For the first time Chuuya has known him, Dazai stays silent, his wide brown eye reflecting the fire dancing around.
“Shitty Dazai, help me, you useless idiot!” Chuuya barked at Dazai, which is odd, even for him. Instead, Dazai doesn’t move a muscle to help Chuuya. Just moving slightly to cover Chuuya’s body with the dark, gloomy, and utterly dull umbrella.
After what seems like hours and hours of digging and yelling into darkness, Chuuya spots a strand of vibrant, bright pink hair, covered in deep red crimson. His eyes widen in terror, as he knows what he just found.
Yuan’s corpse.
Chuuya throws the rubble, nearly hitting Dazai, showing a completely disoriented body that looks like nothing a human being should even look like. Yuan’s head is detached from her neck, and almost every bone in her body is crushed into little fragments. As Chuuya drags her body out of the rubble, he finds another hand. Similar to Shirase, Chuuya throws wooden planks and anything else to random places. Some pieces nearly hit Dazai again.
He covers his mouth in utter, speechless horror. Silent, hot tears stream down Chuuya’s face, slowly sliding down to his chin. He sobs as he drags all his friends out of the crushed building. Afterward, he hugs Yuan’s body tightly, sobbing over her cold shoulder that would never feel warmth again. Dazai adjusted the umbrella, uttering 3 heartless words to Chuuya.
“Don’t get sentimental,” Dazai said aloud.
Chuuya looked back at Dazai, glaring at him with mixed rage and frustration. Chuuya’s fingers dug into the fabric of Yuan’s jacket, his knuckles turning white. He stared up at Dazai through a blur of rain and hot tears.
"Sentimental?" he choked out, his voice dropping into a dangerous, guttural register. "They're dead, Dazai. They're all fucking dead."
Dazai didn’t flinch. He just held the umbrella steady, his single uncovered eye staring blankly past Chuuya at the ruins. “They were a liability anyways, Chuuya,” Dazai said in a monotone voice, looking at Chuuya blankly. “They were holding you back from your true potential.”
"Shut up," Chuuya hissed, standing up slowly. His gravity flared, the rocks around his boots beginning to float, glowing with a menacing crimson light. "Just shut the hell up. How did the GSS even find this place? It was a secure warehouse. Only the Sheep knew about it. Only-"
Chuuya stopped.
His eyes tracked down to the muddy ground near Dazai's dirty, old, and rusted shoes. Traces of the GSS mercs were scattered everywhere. But right there, half-soaked in a puddle, was a crumpled piece of paper. It wasn't standard military stationery. It was a high-grade, encrypted tactical blueprint; The exact kind used by the Port Mafia's intelligence division. And scrawled in the top right corner, in a precise, elegant handwriting Chuuya recognized all too well, were a series of calculated timestamps and layout notes. Chuuya’s breath hitched. The crimson aura around him violently snapped, cracking the concrete beneath his boots.
"What is that?" Chuuya whispered.
Dazai’s eye narrowed slightly. For a fraction of a second, his perfect, detached mask slipped, revealing a flicker of genuine tension. He didn't answer. Chuuya lunged. He didn't use his ability; he used pure, raw human rage. He tore the paper from the mud and shoved it right into Dazai's face.
“Look at this, you bastard!” Chuuya shouted, smudging the mud all over his face. “ Look at this, you fucking bastard! You let the GSS know their location!” Chuuya lifts the paper a bit to let Dazai breathe before pressing it to his face again as a new wave of tears streams down his face. “Look at this, you motherfucker! This is your handwriting! You let the GSS know where to strike!”
"It was a calculated provocation," Dazai said, his voice flat, trying to regain control of the room, no, of the world. He didn't even try to deny it. "The GSS was supposed to raid the supplies. The Sheep were supposed to panic and blame you for failing to protect them. They were supposed to cast you out, Chuuya. That was the logical outcome."
Dazai took a small step forward, the umbrella tilting. "They weren't supposed to barricade the doors. They weren't supposed to fight a losing battle. My math wasn't wrong. Their stupidity was the anomaly."
Thud.
The umbrella flew out of Dazai's hand, clattering into the mud as Chuuya’s fist connected squarely with his jaw. The force of the punch sent Dazai crashing hard into a brick wall. He slumped against the cold stone, a line of dark blood instantly running down his split lip. Chuuya walked over, his shadow looming large in the firelight. He grabbed Dazai by his neck, lifting him until Dazai’s toes barely touched the ground. "A mistake?" Chuuya’s voice was shaking, thick with a hatred so profound it felt heavy in the air. "You murdered them because of a math problem? You're not a genius, Dazai. You're just a pathetic, heartless monster."
Dazai looked up through his messy brown bangs. The rain was hitting his face now, washing the blood from his chin. He looked entirely hollow. "If you leave the Mafia now, Mori will hunt you down. You have nowhere to go."
"I'd rather die in a ditch than stand on the same side of the coin as you," Chuuya spat. “I trusted you, for nothing.”
He lets go of his neck, letting Dazai drop unceremoniously into the mud. Without looking back at the boy he was supposed to be partners with, Chuuya turned his back on the fire, his friends' bodies, and the Port Mafia. He walked away into the dark, pouring rain. Left behind in the dirt, Dazai Osamu sat alone, the cold water soaking through his clothes as he stared at his hands. For the first time in his life, he had no answer.
______________________________________________________________________________
Three years after
The sun shone brightly through the pristine glass windows of the Armed Detective Agency. A heavy, leather-bound notebook slammed onto a wooden desk, instantly shattering the quiet morning peace. "Nakahara! Get your feet off the desk and look at this file!" Doppo Kunikida shouted, adjusting his glasses with an annoyed flick of his wrist. "We have a situation downtown. A smuggling ring tied to the Port Mafia was completely wiped out last night, and military police found a calling card left behind."
Chuuya, now nineteen, tilted his iconic tan trench coat back over his shoulders and blinked lazily. He didn't look like a mafioso anymore; his posture was relaxed, and the dark, suffocating aura of the underground had been replaced by the quiet confidence of a detective.
"Relax, Kunikida. The Mafia's always killing each other. What makes this one special?" Chuuya asked, leaning forward. Kunikida slid a photograph across the desk. It showed a bloody wall, and written on it in precise, elegant handwriting was a single message. Chuuya’s eyes widened, the easygoing smile completely vanishing from his face. He knew that handwriting. He would know it anywhere.
"The youngest Executive in Port Mafia history personally oversaw the execution," Kunikida explained, his expression grim. "Osamu Dazai. They call him the Demon Prodigy. Chuuya... do you know him?"
Chuuya stared at the photograph, his fist clenching tightly under the desk.
"Yeah," Chuuya whispered, his voice turning cold as ice. "We used to know each other."