Chapter 1: Atsushi; Mad World
Chapter Text
Things were slow at the Armed Detective Agency. Atsushi perched sideways on his chair, humming idly to himself as he tapped out an email on his laptop. The office was working contentedly and the low buzz of conversation danced in the air with the clicking of keyboards and scratching of pens. Even Dazai was calmly working, although truth be told, it was entirely possible that the concentrated expression on his face was dedicated to a potential new Tetris high score, rather than any form of paperwork. Despite the president having left for the day and taking Yosano and Ranpo with him, the office still felt bustling and familiar.
Days like this were pleasant. As much as Atsushi revelled in the high-octane excitement of a gunfight, there was no denying the simple joys of emailing referrals about missing pets, and digitising old case files. Not to mention, at this time of day, a warm sunbeam shone through the window by Atsushi’s desk, landing right on his chair and he could feel the contented rumble of the tiger within him basking in the light.
He should’ve known this calm wasn’t going to last.
Suddenly, the tiger hissed at him as something prickled in the back of Atsushi’s skull. He sat bolt upright, and stared at the door. Something was coming.
His instincts never let him down. True to form, the door slammed open, and one of the secretary girls shrieked in shock. The man in the doorway paid her no heed. Atsushi felt his hackles raise at the look on the man’s face and he jumped out of his chair as the man started marching into the agency, letting his claws slide out and readying himself to attack.
Like ice down his spine, he felt the sudden cold rush of No Longer Human envelop him, and he tensed, looking beside him to see Dazai holding onto his arm. He and the man were staring at each other, something indescribable in their gaze making the air around them tense. No one else in the agency made any move to attack, seemingly catching on to whatever the hell was going on here, though Atsushi heard the familiar shiiink of Kyouka’s knife.
The man reached Dazai’s desk, and slammed his fists down on it, leaning over where Atsushi’s fellow detective was sat. The man didn’t spare Atsushi a single glance; his gaze stayed locked on Dazai with a terrifying intensity, and for a couple of seconds, nobody spoke. Atsushi held his breath, eyes darting from one to the other.
“Dazai,” the man said.
Dazai smiled coolly, and let go of Atsushi’s arm to lean forward. It was like some weird hypnotic power play: who could be more in the other’s space. “Chuuya,”
Kunikida cleared his throat awkwardly from the other side of the room where he’d been feeding pages through the agency’s geriatric photocopier. “Do… do you have an appointment?”
The man, Chuuya, whipped his head around like he hadn’t even realised there were others in the room. An odd sneer expression crossed his face as he looked Kunikida up and down, before staring right back at Dazai like he hadn’t even heard the question. Dazai was still smirking up at him; he hadn’t looked away. Atsushi stepped back towards Kunikida, feeling uncomfortable in this tableau.
“I want to hire you,” Chuuya growled through gritted teeth. “Your damned Agency,”
Dazai raised an eyebrow.
“What happened?” Kunikida tried, once again, to make some sense of the situation.
He was a braver man than Atsushi for that. The tiger was pacing restlessly, sensing something about Chuuya that was setting every single one of Atsushi’s hairs on end. He smelt faintly of rich cologne and expensive wines, but somewhere underneath that was a scent that had the tiger growling with unease. Blood. This man was a predator.
This time, Chuuya deigned Kunikida with an answer. “Someone close to me has gone missing.” he hissed. “Which is strange, because she’s a gifted, and a damn strong one too,”
“We are short on cases right now,” Tanizaki piped up from across the room. Atsushi glanced at him, and wasn’t surprised to see Naomi hiding against the back of his hoodie, peeking out over his shoulder.
“I can pay,” Chuuya added. “Money isn’t an object for me,”
Kunikida sighed grimly, and pushed his glasses up his nose. His fingers drummed against his notebook for a few beats before he sighed and shook his head. Atsushi knew that Kunikida was a seasoned detective and had almost definitely felt the same sense of unease around this strange man.
“Alright,” Kunikida said finally. He flipped open his notebook. “Tell us who went missing,”
Chuuya hesitated. When he spoke, he glanced at neither Kunikida or Dazai. For some reason, as the words left his mouth, his gaze fell on Kyouka.
“Kouyou Ozaki,” he said.
Kyouka gasped. Demon Snow materialised in a burst of light, and the ghostly sword tip sparked centimetres from Chuuya’s throat before Atsushi even had a chance to blink.
“You’re lying,” Kyouka stated firmly. Chuuya shook his head, seeming entirely unphased by the ghostly blade at his jugular.
“The Port Mafia executive?” Kunikida’s voice was grim. A burst of light shone from his notebook as a gun manifested in his hand, and Atsushi tensed, readying himself for combat. “Now I know why I recognise you. You’re Nakahara Chuuya, the gravity manipulator!”
“And Mafia Executive,” Kyouka bit. “You made a mistake coming here,”
Demon Snow struck all of a sudden, thrusting the phantasmal blade forward. Chuuya didn’t even blink; he turned away from the attack to face Kunikida, who had his gun at the ready. Before Demon Snow even had the chance to graze Chuuya’s leather choker, she seized all of a sudden and disappeared in a burst of blue light to display Dazai with a hand outstretched.
“Dazai!” Kunikida hissed.
“I’m disappointed in you, Kunikida!” Dazai gasped. “All guns-ablazing, ‘shoot first, ask questions later’, I thought better of you! Are you not at all interested in why a mafia executive would come visit us?” Dazai shook his head, sorrowfully. He slipped his hands into his pockets, adopting a casual stance. “Especially one as adorable and helpless as this, oh, he must be desperate!”
“I’ll show you helpless, you bandaged fuck.”
“Careful now Chibi, if you get violent, we really will shoot on sight!”
Atsushi couldn’t help but notice that the first part of that statement seemed to be a double-pronged sword directed partially at Kyouka, who shrunk backwards into the shadows and looked for all the world like she wanted to disappear, embarrassed by her instinctive violent reaction. Atsushi’s heart ached for her. As much as he feared the port mafia, he recognised that morality was a spectrum, and Kyouka was living proof of that. Not to mention, he was as against senseless murder as anyone could be (which oddly seemed to make him an exception), even if said potential victim was a feared criminal underboss and the nemesis of their organisation. Knowing their luck, this was a mystery that would probably topple the whole of Yokohama into ruin if they didn’t solve it.
Kunikida glowered at Dazai. “This gun was merely a precaution,”
Dazai shrugged.
“Why are you here though?” Atsushi piped up, voicing the question that plagued him. “Surely the mafia is more than capable of finding a missing executive?”
Chuuya’s face darkened, and Atsushi immediately regretted asking: the full force of that glare was now directed straight at him. “Damn bastards,” Chuuya spat. “As far as they’re concerned, if she wanted to get out, she would have already. We can’t risk spreading ourselves thin right now either,”
Dazai stroked at his chin. “Well that sounds like a steaming pile of horse shit!” he announced happily.
A muscle twitched in Chuuya’s jaw.
“We should probably take this case, Kunikida,” Dazai hummed to his partner. “This is going to be important, trust me,”
“Trust you?” Kunikida all but yelled. “I can’t even trust you with your own damn life, this is- How are you even affiliated with this man anyway?”
Atsushi couldn’t help but notice how Chuuya’s eyes widened at that. His gaze snapped back to Dazai with an incredulous expression, hissing something unintelligible in disbelief. The tiger’s ears pricked up, and helpfully translated for Atsushi: “Do they not know?!” Unphased, Dazai rolled his eyes and slumped forwards, leaning himself on Chuuya’s hat and causing the redhead to yelp and swat at him.
“Personal questions, Kunikida,” he sighed. “But if you MUST know, Chibi and I have been close since childhood. We’ve been practically inseparable since we were 15 you know! He’s my little dog~”
“I am not your damned dog!” Chuuya growled, and elbowed Dazai fiercely in the ribs, causing him to gasp and stumble back, straight into Atsushi. Atsushi winced as he caught him, being unprepared for the icy rush of No Longer Human spreading deep into his bones. Dazai ruffled his hair.
Kunikida sighed bodily. “Come back tomorrow, Nakahara,” he said. “A case of this size needs discussion and approval from the president before we decide whether or not to take it. Please leave all of the details with someone before you go, we will weigh all of the pros and cons accordingly and let you know on our decision,”
Chuuya scowled. His eyes darted back and forth for a few seconds, before apparently realising that it was the best and final offer that he was going to get from the agency. He nodded once with finality, glanced back at Dazai again, and stormed out, leaving with almost as much drama as he’d arrived with. Dazai sighed and shook his head at Atsushi.
“Dogs these days,” he moaned. “So disrespectful. I’ll see you later everyone!”
He waved dramatically around the office, and left after his friend, seizing the opportunity to skive off the rest of the day. Atsushi collapsed back onto his chair with a heavy exhale. He glanced across the office at Kyouka, who still looked shellshocked, and winced, turning to Kunikida, opening his mouth to speak, but he was beaten to it.
“Go,” Kunikida told him, clearly knowing exactly what he was going to say. He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a small rectangular piece of plastic, throwing it deftly in Atsushi’s direction. “Use the company card and treat yourselves to a nice sweet lunch. God knows you’re gonna need something to keep up your strength,”
Atsushi caught the card easily and nodded at his superior as he stood.
“Are you okay, Kunikida?” he asked.
Kunikida shot him a wry look. “I don’t like this one bit,” was all he said, and Atsushi couldn’t help but agree with the sentiment.
Chapter 2: Atsushi; Hello Kitty Kat
Summary:
The Agency comes to a decision.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The next morning was possibly the first time Atsushi had ever arrived at the Agency to find Dazai already there. Standing in the doorway to the office, he stared in disbelief at the sight of his mentor lying on the sofa, book in hand, until Dazai felt the weight of his gaze on him and looked up.
“Atsushi!” he sat up and waved with a beaming grin. “Fancy seeing you here this morning!”
“Dazai?” Atsushi said slowly as he came in and dumped his bag next to his desk. “Are you feeling alright?”
He bent down and pulled out his ancient laptop and a notepad and pencil case. He put them down carefully on the desk, eyes never leaving Dazai. Was this some sort of trick?
“Oh I’m just peachy,” Dazai told him, springing from his position on the sofa and stretching out his arms. “You, on the other hand, are late.”
“Late?” Atsushi checked his watch. It was 08:57. “I’m not late,”
“Well you’re the last one here,” Dazai shook his head in disappointment. “I told the others I’d wait out here for you, come on, they’re all in the conference room.”
“I- Wha?”
Dazai grinned and clapped his hands twice, like he was summoning a butler to attend him. His coat flared out as he spun on his heel, turning his back to Atsushi and marching down the corridor towards the Agency’s briefing room. Atsushi scrambled, grabbing his notebook and pens back off from his desk and bounding after Dazai down the hall, who burst ceremoniously through the door as soon as he reached it.
“Look who I found wandering around aimlessly,” he announced, and Atsushi almost crashed into his back, momentum carrying him a bit too fast into the room.
Everyone turned to look at him, and Atsushi flushed. They were all his close friends -family, even- but to be the centre of attention like this was beyond mortifying.
“Good morning everyone!” he said, face burning red, and slipped down into his chair next to Kyouka.
A few people muttered greetings, and Atsushi scanned the room with a polite smile. It was rare to see everyone in the agency in the same room like this; he’d not been with them long, granted, but even so he knew this was an unusual occasion. Everyone was here. Tanizaki and Naomi were practically sharing a single chair in one corner of the grand conference table, and beside them, Kunikida looked like he was beginning to wish he’d picked a different seat.
“It’s good to see everyone made it,” the President said warmly from the head of the table, and Atsushi’s head snapped towards him. Fukuzawa had that kind of voice: though it was casual and friendly, his tone alone still commanded respect.
He looked over all his employees. “As I’m sure you’re all aware by now,” he said, “we were contacted yesterday by a member of the port mafia, acting independently of his organisation to request our help in finding a missing mafia executive. An investigation of this scale merits a proper discussion with input from everyone so that we can effectively weigh the pros and cons of taking this case. Kunikida, if you’d like to begin?”
“Thank you, President,” Kunikida said from the other end of the table. He stood from his chair, so as to better address everyone. “The man who contacted us is Nakahara Chuuya, the port mafia executive. His ability, For the Tainted Sorrow , allows him to manipulate an object’s interaction within a gravitational field. Evidently, this is an incredibly powerful ability, and he’s a dangerous individual on top of that.
“This is the woman who he claims to be searching for,” Kunikida continued, pulling a printed picture from a file on the table and holding it up for everyone to see. Atsushi squinted. It was a pretty redheaded lady in a traditional kimono. She looked serene, nothing like how he’d have expected a feared mafia executive to look.
Then again, Chuuya wasn’t exactly what he would have pictured either.
“This is Kouyou Ozaki,” Kunikida said. “Her ability, Golden Demon , allows her to control a sword wielding phantom.”
“Like Kyouka’s!” Kenji noted.
Kunikida sat back down again as Kyouka nodded solemnly. “While I was in the mafia, Kouyou took me under her wing because of our similar abilities. She taught me almost everything and saved me several times, I owe her my life”
“So I guess you want us to find her?” Tanizaki asked.
Kyouka looked frozen all of a sudden, her eyes darting around like a deer in headlights. Atsushi put a gentle hand on her shoulder and she snapped up to look at him.
“It’s okay,” he said calmly. “You don’t have to know.”
She frowned. “But I do know,” she said. “I don’t want anything to happen to Ane-san. I want us to do everything we can to help her if she’s in danger,”
“But…?” Atsushi prompted, sensing more.
“The mafia is dangerous,” Kyouka said with finality. “The Agency is my family now. Kouyou may have been my mentor, but she was also the reason I was scared of entering the light. I will let go of my connections with the mafia and agree to sit back and do nothing to protect Kouyou if it means that the Agency will be safe,”
“You can’t guarantee that,” Dazai chimed in. He was leant so far back on his chair that it seemed bound to topple to the ground, and he had a cup of water balanced precariously in his hand. “The Agency could be the next to fall victim to whatever it is that’s happened to Kouyou if we don’t step in and neutralise the threat now,”
Kyouka frowned and stared at her hands. Atsushi could practically hear her brain whirring, and he gave her an encouraging little pat on the shoulder.
“That’s a good point,” Tanizaki added. “We can’t be sure this is just confined to the mafia. We could be next,”
An uneasy silence settled over the room. Atsushi winced, trying to imagine being hunted down by whatever it was that had so effectively taken out a port mafia executive. He had a hard enough time as it was just trying to escape from Akutagawa with his life.
“You’ve been very quiet Ranpo,” Yosano said, breaking through the silence. “You usually can’t stop talking in situations like these,”
Atsushi raised his eyebrows as he realised she was right. Ranpo had his feet up on the table between Yosano and the President, and his arms behind his head. He almost looked like he was asleep, sucking on a lollypop like a baby’s dummy.
“Wha-?” He seemed bewildered to have been addressed, and Yosano rolled her eyes and repeated her statement.
“Oh,” said Ranpo. “It would be unfair of me to tell you everything that’s going on right now,”
“Huh?”
He glanced around the room, a confused expression on his face as if he just couldn’t understand why no one else followed his position. “Well it’s not my story to tell,” he said. “I couuulldd be bribed,” he hummed, and tapped on his chin, deep in thought. “No, it’s more entertaining to watch you figure it out. I abstain from the vote,”
“Well that was a whole load of help,” Naomi complained.
“Kyouka, what can you tell us about these two individuals?” Kunikida said, trying to get the meeting back on track and ignoring the childish glare that Yosano shot across the room at Naomi.
“Kouyou is very powerful, and very vicious,” Kyouka said. “Dazai was right: if something’s managed to take her down, it is something we need to be concerned about. Golden Demon could slice through the wings of a wasp in flight and Ane-san has perfect control over it,”
“What about Nakaraha?” Kunikida said, scribbling in his notebook. There was a crash as Dazai dropped his chair back down to all four legs to lean forwards onto the table, and Kunikida flinched at the sudden loud noise, pen twitching across the page and definitely messing up his notes. Atsushi rolled his eyes. That was almost certainly on purpose on his mentor’s part.
Kyouka hummed thoughtfully. “I didn’t interact much with Nakahara,” she said. “I was only an assassin, and he was an executive. I know he was also mentored by Ane-san for a while, and he’s a skilled martial artist. He’s probably the most powerful of anyone in the mafia. Anything else I could tell you would solely be rumour or guesswork,”
“There’s always a basis of truth in rumour,” Kunikida noted. “It could be helpful to us either way,”
“Apparently he loves a good fight, but he’s honourable about it,” Kyouka frowned with concentration. Atsushi made a mental note to borrow the company card from Kunikida again: it couldn’t be good for Kyouka to be reliving these memories like this. “He was apparently part of an incredibly dangerous team called ‘Double Black’,”
“What a scary name!” Kenji crowed.
The tiger nudged at Atsushi, prompting him to glance at Dazai. He was leaning forwards on the table, hands interlocked and index fingers raised in a triangle to his lips like he was playing a particularly invigorating game of chess. The look in his eyes was what had alerted the tiger: something about that strange expression made Atsushi’s protective instincts over Kyouka go haywire. He frowned, and leant forwards, shielding Kyouka from Dazai’s gaze as much as he could, even though he wasn’t sure there was even anything to shield against.
“They were a scary duo,” Kyouka continued, oblivious. “They could have wiped out the whole city overnight if they felt the need to,”
“‘ Were’? ” Yosano said. “Are they not around anymore?”
“I think I’ve heard of them,” Kunikida said, flipping several pages back in his notebook. The tiger relaxed as Atsushi felt Dazai’s gaze move away from Kyouka and back to Kunikida. “Ah, here it is,”
Kunikida cleared his throat before reading from his notebook. “Double Black/Soukoku: discontinued mafia team. Active between 8 and 4 years ago. Comprised of a powerful ability user and the so-called ‘Demon Prodigy’. Disbanded when one was killed in mysterious circumstances 4 years ago,”
“Nakahara was the powerful ability user,” Kyouka nodded. “People refuse to speak about the Demon Prodigy in anything except hushed whispers. He was like the monster under the bed for the mafia. They seem to still be afraid of him,”
“Shit,” Tanizaki shivered. “Thank God he’s dead, then,”
Ranpo giggled.
“I’ve heard that he was the boss’s son,” Kyouka added. Atsuhsi could see her tapping a finger along the hem of her kimono beneath the table, a nervous tic she detested and had tried desperately to suppress.
“Mori never had a son,”
Atsushi almost jumped out of his skin as Dazai spluttered and coughed beside him, halfway through a sip of water which had evidently gone down the wrong pipe. Face dripping with water, Dazai stared up in shock, and Atsushi followed his gaze to Yosano, who clapped a hand over her mouth as she realised what she’d just said.
“Mori?” Kunikida asked, ink practically dripping from his pen and onto the paper. “The Port Mafia Boss? You know him?”
Yosano’s face was ashy all of a sudden, and Atsushi didn’t need the tiger’s help to know she was hiding something. Her hand was shaking as she reached up to fix the butterfly clip that was slipping down her hair.
“I know of him,” she tried to laugh nonchalantly. “He… uh, he was a doctor. A colleague of a colleague once,”
The tiger chuffed at Atsushi, clearly unsatisfied with that answer. Atsushi batted it away. People should be entitled to their own secrets, he thought. His animal instincts sensed no danger from Yosano, and the last thing she needed was to be forced to elaborate on what she clearly had no intention of ever mentioning again.
Kunikida clearly had similar opinions. He stood up again, cleared his throat and changed the topic.
“Well,” he said. “Regardless. Back to the matter at hand. We have two very powerful, very dangerous people from an immoral organisation we are fighting against who are asking for our help. Does anyone else have anything they’d like to mention, before we vote?”
Atsushi raised his hand, and everyone turned to look at him. He felt his face burn at the sudden attention, and cleared his throat awkwardly.
“I think we should take the case,” he said. “It’s like Kyouka said: you guys are my family now too and if there’s something out there that could possibly pose a threat to us, we need to investigate it and shut it down before they become too dangerous.”
He made eye contact with Dazai as he spoke, and his mentor nodded warmly at him in approval. Chest fluttering, Atsushi couldn’t help but grin.
“Aw, Atsushi,” Yosano crowed. “That’s so sweet of you,”
Atsushi ducked his head at the sudden attention, as if trying to hide the smile that felt like it was going to split his face in two. Across the table, Kunikida nodded, and took his seat. The president rose instead, and everyone turned to him.
“Very well,” he said. “Those in favour of taking on this mission?”
Atsushi dutifully raised his hand. He was surprised to see Kyouka do the same, and he pursed his lips in a small soft smile, proud of the demons his pseudo- little sister was overcoming. Dazai raised his hand as well, which was to be expected, as well as Naomi, Tanizaki and Kenji. Fukuzawa nodded.
“And against?” he asked.
It was only Yosano and Kuniida who raised their hands, both looking resigned and already knowing the outcome. Fukuzawa nodded again.
“Very well,” he said. “It’s decided. We will be helping Chuuya Nakahara in the search for Kouyou Ozaki,”
Notes:
i've always thought chuuya's ability made so much more sense if you consider it not as him than manipulating an objects gravity (which makes no sense?) but as him manipulating how an object interacts within gravitational fields. everything with mass has a gravitational field, and what i assume chuuya does is exert force on objects by altering how they interact with the individual gravitational fields of everything else around them. it would be incredibly intricate and complicated, and it would be so impressive that he'd have that much control over it. what an icon.
as you will probably be able to tell from the rest of this fic, i have spent too many hours of my life thinking about the nature of abilities in bsd. i especially put way too much thought into no longer human. i interpret dazai as being incredibly disconcereting to touch: can you imagine how horrific it would feel to have your ability, an intrisic part of your soul, ripped away from you and extinguished? ugh.
also thank you so much for all the love on this fic???? i am absolutely blown away by every single lovely comment i get, i don't know if you realise how much it absolutely makes my day. i didn't expect to come back to this fandom five years later and still find the exact same joy that gave me the enthusiasm to write in the first place. <333
anyway, this is still a fairly 1:1 rewrite of my old fic at the moment. i can't wait until we get to the chapters where i've branched out a bit; these first few chapters are probably the ones i'm least satisfied with at the moment
even so though, i hope you enjoyed!!
Chapter 3: Yosano; Blue Orchid
Summary:
A few detectives gossip over lunch.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
“So…”
It was clear from the shit eating grin on Tanizaki’s face that he’d been spending too much time around his sister. Sitting in the cafe beneath the Agency’s headquarters, Yosano looked up from her cup of tea to see her coworker slip into the booth in front of her, a plate of what seemed to be a piled sandwich in his hand. “It can’t just be me that caught sight of Kunikida’s new pencil case…”
“His what?” Atsushi asked. He gasped as Tanizaki sat a little too enthusiastically, jostling against his shoulder and causing his latte to tip. Thankfully, he managed to save his drink with catlike insticts and Yosano clapped silently a few times in wry applause.
“My bad,” Tanizaki winced. “You know, his pencil case!”
“He has purchased a new one,” Kyouka stated solemnly from Yosano’s left.
Tanizaki grinned and wagged a finger at her. “See, Kyouka is the only real detective of us all!” he crowed. “How did no one notice the new pencil case!”
“Of course we noticed it,” Yosano said, setting down her teacup. “It’s a new brand as well…”
It was so garishly different from Kunikida's usual stationary that she'd had to do a double take. Where their coworker usually preferred muted 'professional' tones, this new pencil case was a bright shade of green. It was a garish colour, and looked velvety to the touch, unlike anything she would have expected Kunikida to buy. She'd been trying to gossip with Ranpo about it all morning: was this a sign of a new girlfriend, or a midlife crisis, or a sudden deterioration in prescription? Was Kunikdia finally losing his mind? Her bet was a new relationship, and a serious one. Doppo wouldn't start using such a hideous pencil case for just anybody. Tanizaki wiggled his eyebrows at her, and Yosano couldn’t help but grin.
“I knew you’d get it,” he said.
“Get what?!”
Poor Atsushi looked completely lost. Tanizaki sighed with all the solemnity of a vow and turned to his right, reaching out and taking Atsushi’s hands in his own. Yosano took another sip of her tea to hide her laugh behind her cup. It was Earl Grey, her favourite: a rich blend and she savoured the warmth it spread through her as Thou Shalt Not Die fluttered around the sensation.
“Kunikida has been using the same pencil case for four years,” Tanizaki explained, shaking Atsushi’s hands as he did so in order to hone his point. “And suddenly, he’s changed it. Not even to an identical one, but a completely different brand all together…”
“Maybe he’s trying something new?” Atsushi tried helplessly.
“He didn’t even change it when he started working here,” Yosano pointed out. “It still had inkstains on it from when he was a schoolteacher. And it wasn’t worn down at all, it still had life in it,”
“You think someone bought him one as a gift?” Atsushi frowned.
Tanizaki dropped his hands and raised his own in the air. “Bingo!”
“And if someone’s bought him a gift that he’s changing things up to start using straight away?” Yosano added. “That’s serious.”
“Do you all assume that he’s found his perfect woman?” Kyouka asked.
“What did Ranpo say?” Tanizaki leant across the table to Yosano, eyes shining like he’d discovered a treasure.
She shrugged. “I haven’t actually spoken to him yet,” she said.
As a result of their vote to take the case this morning, Ranpo had spent the whole day beaming mysteriously from behind a lollipop and calling everyone lazy for allegedly attempting to trick him to solve the case for them using his Ultra Deduction. She'd thought he'd speak to her- she didn't want to talk about the case; she didn't even want to take it in the first place- but Ranpo was adamant that he couldn't let anything slip and as such had conveniently stuffed his mouth with gummy sweets at every opportunity anyone had tried to take to chat. Understandable for whoever he was trying to protect with his silence, but frustrating for Yosano, who just wanted to exchange theories about Kunikida's life falling apart.
“It’s probably not a ‘perfect woman’,” Atsushi pointed out hesitantly.
He flinched as Tanizaki’s head whipped around to him, staring at him with an intensity that would make anyone uncomfortable. Yosano scoffed and reached across the table to slap Tanizaki on the shoulder; he ducked his head to Atsushi in apology and leant back, but folded his arms with a pout nevertheless and a questioning look.
Atsushi glanced nervously at Yosano, and then Kyouka. He grinned sheepishly as he continued, “Well, I could be wrong, of course, but surely his perfect woman would know that he doesn’t need a new pencil case? Surely she’d get him a more meaningful gift?”
“Damn,” Tanizaki said, banging a fist on the table. “Damn it Atsushi, you’re right,”
"I was hoping he'd started dating someone awful," Yosano confessed. "It would have been funny if his perfect girlfriend had such horrendous taste. But no, you make a good point... Maybe he's just going blind in his old age."
Tanizaki sighed heavily, and turned back to his plate. “That's so disappointing," he complained, picking up his sandwich. “I was hoping I’d have some gossip to tell Naomi. She’s so upset that Nakahara didn’t come to the meeting today, she’s got a massive crush on him and woke up two hours early to do her makeup or something, and now it's all been wasted.”
“That seems excessive,” Kyouka pointed out.
Tanizaki shrugged and took a bite of his sandwich. “She’s happy, so I’m happy,” he said, through a mouthful of food. Yosano couldn’t help the sneer of disgust that crossed her face as she watched the chewed ingredients tumble behind his lips as he spoke. “Then again,” he added. “My bedroom is right next to the bathroom, and her singing woke me up. Why can’t girls get ready quietly?”
“Watch yourself,” Yosano said, and Thou Shalt Not Die buzzed gleefully at the sudden terrified glance Tanizaki shot her way.
He swallowed the sandwich down and laughed awkwardly, ears burning as bright red as hair. Yosano hummed, half warning and half satisfaction, taking another sip of her tea and beside her, Kyouka reached forwards and took another tiny forkful of the strawberry cake in front of her. It had been another treat on the Agency’s company card: Kunikida had just let Atsushi keep it for the day, knowing that Kyouka would need support in the form of sweet treats to make it through this case.
Yosano watched the movement carefully, considering the girl beside her. She was a medical doctor, rather than a psychiatrist, but it didn’t take the extra half a decade of training to know that a traumatised 14 year old would be uncomfortable around the same people who’d held her captive in a hostile environment. Nakahara Chuuya may not have been the one directly responsible for Kyouka’s trauma, but he was still a symbol of the organisation that was, and as a trained surgeon and capable detective, Yosano couldn’t help but notice the minute way that Kyouka’s hands shook around her cake fork.
“Have you heard about the working from home system?” she said, casually, turning as if she was addressing everyone at the table.
The other two looked confused, but Kyouka looked up with wide eyes.
“It’s something Kunikida implemented a couple of years ago,” Yosano continued. “He was very ill and very contagious, but his schedule just wouldn’t allow him to take time off, so instead he set up an entire system to allow himself to complete all his work from bed; he honestly got more done there than ever in the office,”
“Well that can’t be true,” Atsushi said. “If he realised he was even slightly more productive one place, compared to another, he’d never leave,”
Kyouka stifled a giggle. Yosano grinned; disconcerting as it was to suddenly hear sass from the stammering insecure young man she’d first met, Atsushi was slowly starting to come out of his shell at the Agency, and it warmed her heart to see.
“He was very feverish,” she conceded. “First time I’ve ever seen a report that bad not be written by Dazai. He got a lot done, but none of it was good.”
“I remember that,” Tanizaki nodded. “Didn’t he submit an entire casualty report for someone who never even existed?”
Kyouka smiled, and Atsushi snorted loudly.
“Poor Kunikida,” Yosano continued. “You should’ve seen his face when he came back to the agency and read through everything he’d written,”
“Did he think Dazai had tampered with it or something?” Atsushi laughed, and Yosano shook her head.
“These were the pre-Dazai days,” she said. “When Kunikida still had all his hair,”
“That poor man,” Tanizaki sighed.
“Anyway,” Yosano continued, looking back at Kyouka. “Everything’s still completely functional. If you’re feeling under the weather at any point and would rather tackle cases from the comfort of your bedroom for a few days, it’s as easy as just letting someone know,”
Kyouka hummed thoughtfully, turning her gaze back to her hot chocolate. It was as much of a reaction as Yosano was going to get from her, and she didn’t mind. Kyouka was still unexpressive and unused to admitting weakness, but all that mattered was that she now knew she had the option to step aside if need be.
Yosano looked up again, and caught Atsushi’s gaze. He tilted his head silently towards Kyouka and mouthed a soft ‘ Thank you’ to her. She nodded at him with a soft smile. It was clear how much the younger girl meant to him- Yosano imagined he saw himself in her, and could barely help himself from being the protective presence he’d craved when he was in her position. Atsushi had a good heart.
“As long as it’s not Naomi,” Tanizaki scoffed, through another mouthful of sandwich. Yosano’s lip curled again: had no one taught this boy basic manners? “Anything you tell her for the next week is going straight over her head,”
“Is she really that attracted to Nakahara?” Atsushi said.
Tanizaki gaped at him. “Are you kidding me?” he asked incredulously. “Can you blame her? The man is gorgeous!”
Yosano couldn’t hold in her laugh and she raised a hand to cover her mouth as she giggled.
“I mean, did you see his jawline? And his eyes? Like, I’m straight, but I’d make an exception any day for that man. And he’s a martial artist too, you just know he has the most beautiful abs. I bet he had abs for days and don’t even get me started on his ass-”
“Okay!” Atsushi pushed a hand into Tanizaki’s face. “We get it, he’s hot!”
Yosano sank in her seat, her shoulders shaking with silent laughter. Kyouka giggled quietly beside her, and Yosano beamed down to exchange a rare genuine smile with the girl, all at poor Atsushi's expense.
“I’m not denying that he’s attractive,” Atsushi said, face burning. He leant forwards and lowered his voice, eyes darting around. “But… you know, the air between him and Dazai, like… I just got this vibe, you know, he’s gay right?”
The direct way he phrased it made Yosano snort. She hadn’t been in yesterday when Chuuya had arrived, but even just from the bright recap she’d gotten from Kenji, she knew exactly where Atsushi was coming from. She was also well-aware that if anyone was going to start examining the sexuality of mafia members, it would be Atsushi. She'd dragged the poor boy into her office for 'The Talk' barely a few weeks ago, and she'd almost instantly clocked the hopeless crush the boy was developing; Nakahara Chuuya would just be par for the course, and at least she could actually see the appeal there. At least he had eyebrows.
“Is Dazai gay?” Kyouka frowned.
“No,” Tanizaki scoffed, batting a hand. “No way is Dazai gay. Nakahara on the other hand… Dare to dream…”
“You’re straight,” Yosano pointed out.
“And he’s absolutely terrifying,” Atsushi added.
“God, he is scary though, isn’t he,” Tanizaki sighed. “When he appeared yesterday, I freaked out, you know, I just froze, I didn’t even think of Light Snow falling,”
“He tends to have that reaction,” Kyouka said bluntly. “Nakahara is a scary man. It's thankful that he choses to lead by respect, rather than fear,”
“I don’t even want to think about the sort of stuff he’s done,” Tanizaki added. “There’s something about just the way he looks at you…”
“He leads the mafia?” Atsushi blinked. “I thought he was an executive?”
“He is,” Kyouka glanced around the table, before looking back at Atsushi. Her gaze seemed wary. “There are four current executives of the Port Mafia, of them all, Nakahara has the most authority and influence. He’s second in command only to the Boss,”
“The Boss… Mori, right?”
Yosano had to suppress a shiver at the name. She schooled her features into an acceptable expression and looked down at her tea. That man was the reason that she hadn’t wanted to take this case; she knew that for any case involving the Port Mafia, he’d be at the centre of the twisted web, tugging on slippery strands like the spider you just couldn’t kill.
Kyouka nodded grimly. “Thankfully, he’s not involved in this,” she said. “I would certainly stay far away if he was,”
“Is he scarier than Nakahara?”
“Well,” Kyouka tilted her head. “I’ve never actually seen him. I wouldn’t know for certain, but I’ve heard the stories. He’s not someone to trifle with,”
“That just sounds like that Demon Prodigy guy again,” Atsushi leant forward, eyes darting conspiratorially over the table. “The Boss’s son, right? Maybe that’s the reason he’s so mysterious and dangerous, maybe it’s grief from losing him,"
Yosano suppressed an incredulous scoff. Mori didn’t have the capacity for grief. He was a heartless monster, who saw people as little more than pawns or toys for his amusement; no matter much this ‘Demon Prodigy’ had meant to him (she didn’t even want to think about the type of person who would be that close to a man like him) the second that they’d outlived their use, he’d discard them like used tissue.
Atsushi seemed to sense her rising anger. His shining heterochromatic eyes met hers with such an expression of concern and care, that Yosano felt her heart thaw a little under the beating flurry of Thou Shalt Not Die coursing through her chest. She smiled quietly at him, and took a sip of her tea, flickering her attention back to the conversation.
“Well, Yosano said he never had a son, right?” Tanizaki asked her, and she waved him off with a dismissive hand.
“I could be wrong,” she said. “I barely knew him, and that was years ago. I really couldn’t tell you,”
It was funny how quickly her coworkers accepted her explanation, and it was funny how easily it slipped off her tongue. In fairness, that statement was completely true. It had been years ago, and she had barely known him. But her dismissal failed to encompass the whole truth: that Mori was the ghost that haunted every room she entered. She’d managed to ignore him for a good while now, and she’d even foolishly assumed she was free of his grasp, but for some reason recently, he seemed to lurk in shadows all around her.
“Well, isn’t this a nice convention of gossipy ninnies!”
Yosano looked up at the sudden voice to see Dazai stood over the table, hands mockingly on his hips and a bright smile on his face. The cafe’s waitress was glaring daggers into the back of his head from the other side of the room.
“Dazai!” Atsushi beamed.
Dazai grinned back at him, and waved his hand to gesture Tanizaki to budge up the table bench, before flopping gracelessly into the seat beside him. The benches were only made for two people, so it was a tight fit, and Yosano could see Tanizaki wince as Dazai pressed into his side. She made a small face of sympathy, but couldn’t help but be glad that it was him that he’d had decided to sit beside, and not her.
“Where’s your mafia friend?” she asked him, and Dazai sighed dramatically at her, all but collapsing his head onto his hands on the table.
“He has some ‘business to take care of’,” Dazai pouted. “He told me I could just tell him if we decided to take the case, he didn’t want to come in and see us at all, isn’t that cruel?”
“Business to take care of,” Tanizaki muttered. “Isn’t that a lovely euphemism,”
Yosano shrugged slightly, hiding the tiny smile that flickered onto her face behind another sip of her tea. Far be it from her to criticise others for their sadistic ways. Though she abstained from causing lasting harm on those who did not deserve it, Yosano herself was no stranger to the bloody shroud that covered the work of someone like Nakahara Chuuya. She’d barely interacted with the man, but already felt a healthy respect for him; he seemed dedicated and competent: qualities she had an appreciation for regardless of the nature of their work.
Besides, she often read obituaries for fun, and volunteered at the local university hospital to work on the most gruesome injuries she could. She revelled in the world of bloodshed as much as any mafioso. In another life, maybe she could have been at the executive’s table alongside Chuuya.
Dazai’s gaze suddenly met Yosano’s from across the table, and a shiver went down her spine as if he’d grabbed her by the wrist. He smiled at her, but was empty: a smirk that didn’t quite reach his eyes. Yosano stared back at him coolly, setting her teacup back down on the table, and Dazai cocked his head, before blinking and turning back to Atsushi, who was talking lightly about something or other.
Yosano didn’t look away from him. Dazai had been her colleague at the Agency for two years now. He’d been nothing but trustworthy from the start. He was eccentric and good-natured (unless you asked for Kunikida’s opinion) and had frequently proven his razor-sharp strategic mind, but even so, Yosano just couldn’t bring herself to like him. There was always just something about him that rubbed her the wrong way, whether it would be some look he’d get in his eye, or the way he’d lean forwards in thought. Thou Shalt Not Die detested him, thrashing in her chest at his slightest misstep, and Yosano felt almost certain that even without No Longer Human , she’d struggle to heal the man from death.
It wasn’t a one-sided aversion. Dazai hid it well, but Yosano recognised the wariness with which he held himself in her presence. For a man with such concerning suicidal tendencies, it had been months after starting that he’d finally entered her infirmary, and he’d had to have been all but dragged in. She still remembered the haunting hollow look in his eyes as she’d examined his injury; it had been like attempting to care for a corpse, and even to this day, the thought made her shiver. If it wasn’t for the goosebumps that had erupted from the second he’d introduced himself to her, she would have attributed her wariness of him to that fateful occasion.
She’d seen that same look before, and it made her skin crawl.
“-but she said that Yosano had already finished it, so I didn’t-”
Yosano snapped back into the moment at the sound of her name. She blinked and startled slightly, looking over to Atsushi, who was still in the midst of retelling some story or other. No one seemed to notice she’d been out of it. She shifted, scowling at herself, and picked her teacup back up, downing it all in one quick mouthful.
The other four pairs of eyes at the table turned to her, almost in unison as she put the teacup down with slightly more force than she’d intended to and stood from her seat. Her white doctor’s coat was draped over the chair behind her, and it fanned out in the air behind her as she slipped it on. Dazai followed its movement like a hawk.
“I need to get back to the infirmary,” she said. “Sorry to cut your story short, Atsushi. You’ll have to finish it for me some other time,”
“Of course, Dr Yosano!” Atsushi smiled warmly at her. “I’m sure you’re very busy,”
She smiled back at him. Atsushi really was such a good kid.
The others at the table added in some form of ‘goodbye’, and Yosano smiled back at all of them as she turned and manoeuvred her way around the cafe’s tables back to the staircase up to the office. She clenched her fists as she climbed up to the fourth floor, as silent voices whispered about her loathed ghost into the back of her mind.
It wasn’t good for her to be stuck in his web like this. She needed to get through this case, get out, and sever every tie she had to that damned spider of a man.
Notes:
next fic: solving the mystery of kunikida's ugly ass pencil case...
i made the executive decision to simply ignore whatever the fuck tanizaki and naomi have going on for this fic. they're siblings, and that's all i can do about it. unfortunately this did mean i had to lose one of my favourite lines from the original version of this chapter:
“I'm straight, Naomi is, that I know for certain, erm…” Tanizaki said.
“You two aren’t straight, you’re disturbed,”
but anyway, i fear tanizaki is out of character in this? i'm not really much of a tanizaki enthusiast, so apologies for that, but i needed someone to be gossipy and the usual gossip trio of yosano ranpo and dazai was out of the mix :(
yosano and dazai have quite a strained relationship at this point in the story. i'm fucking with the canon character developments for the sole sake of my own personal agenda so consider this very early on where yosano hasn't quiiite managed to deal with her own feelings about mori yet, or how dazai subconsciously reminds her of him.
Chapter 4: Yosano; Emotion Sickness
Summary:
Yosano finds the first piece of evidence for Kouyou's disappearance
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Less than 24 hours after vowing to sever her every tie from the man who’d ruined her life, Yosano found herself sitting on a bench in a square in the dead-centre of mafia controlled territory, barely two minutes away from the Mori Corp headquarters. Her every nerve burned within her, and she glared at the rising black towers cutting through the skyline over the surrounding shops as if they’d be intimidated by her gaze and flee.
Typically, she had no such luck.
When Kunikida had announced this morning that Yosano and Kenji would search the area of Kouyou’s last known location, she’d had to suppress an incredulous laugh. Not only was this square mafia territory, but it was almost as busy a public place as you could get in Yokohama’s city centre. Any clues which had been here three days ago were long since wiped up by cleaning crews, or trampled over by the hordes of civilians passing by.
Yosano sighed, leaning back against the bench and closing her eyes to listen to the sounds around her. Children screamed and played in the rushing water of the city centre fountains, and the hubbub of the crowded square echoed around her. She couldn’t hear Kenji’s bright earnest voice around, but that wasn’t a surprise. Knowing him, he was probably standing directly in the way of oncoming traffic, and sooner or later, some distracted driver was going to ram right into him, somehow causing more damage to the car than the young boy.
At least Kyouka had gotten away from all this though. Yosano had been worried that her younger colleague wouldn’t have taken the lifeline that she’d had tried to throw her in the form of the Agency’s working from home policy, but it was safe to assume that Atsushi had something to do with it. Self-sacrificing as Kyouka was, no one could stand in Atsushi’s way when his heart was set on helping someone.
With a heavy exhale, Yosano hopped up from the bench she’d been sitting on and adjusted her handbag around her shoulder. She’d wasted enough time doing nothing. Glancing around the crowd, she started moving forwards. There was no sign of Kenji anywhere, but it didn’t worry her; she’d find him eventually.
She checked her watch and hummed. Chuuya had been incredibly vague, this morning, about Kuoyou’s last known location; whether that was because of typical mafia caginess or genuine unknowing was none of her concern, but luckily for her, the area was a bustling shopping district and for all anyone knew, the last place Kouyou had visited could have been a boutique.
Yosano started walking towards the parade of shops. She’d been looking for some new blouses recently and she’d seen a gorgeous red one online. It had exactly the flowy open sleeves that she loved, and she knew the sharp neckline would look fabulous on her.
The first shop that Yosano tried unfortunately didn’t have anything that matched her style. She checked her watch again as she stepped out of the store, and pursed her lips as she looked up, debating whether it would be a better use of her time to check the next shop or to start asking street vendors if they’d seen anything to do with Kouyou’s disappearance.
The thought died in her mind as her eyes locked across the street.
Coming out of a shop opposite, a haggard middle aged man in a physician’s coat laughed good naturedly as he was dragged along by a little blonde girl in a pretty dress. She was talking animatedly with a petulant frown on her face, but the look in the man’s eyes couldn’t be described as anything but fond as she pulled him onto the pavement by the edges of his coat.
Anyone else would have found the sight endearing, but Yosano suddenly found herself forgetting how to draw breath.
Frozen in the middle of the pavement, she was all of a sudden unable to do anything but stand and stare. The man and his daughter moved along, quickly getting lost amongst the bustling crowds, but Yosano’s eyes stayed fixed to the spot they’d disappeared from, an unintelligible chant cycling through her mind.
Suddenly, Yosano found herself stumbling as some self-important business man shouldered past her, paying her absolutely no heed. At any other time, Yosano wouldn’t have let him get away with such chauvinistic rudeness; she would have stormed after him and dragged an apology from behind obstinate lips, but all she found herself doing was blinking rapidly, readjusting to the feeling of having breath in her lungs.
She shook through the fog in her mind and started moving again, one uneasy step after another. It had been nothing, she told herself, nothing more than a coincidental similarity. She could visit a few more shops, question a few vendors about Kouyou’s disappearance and push this weird event to the back of her mind.
Every subsequent step made the world feel fuzzier as Yosano drifted onwards, and her investigation was driven further and further from her mind. Her vision was starting to blur and darken around the edges, and quickly the busy crowds just seemed to tighten around her, robbing her lungs of precious air. A cold flush raced down her body and Yosano choked back a sudden wave of nausea, clapping a hand to her mouth in horror.
A secluded side street caught her attention between waves of people: a dark narrow alleyway used for loading and unloading goods to the back of the surrounding shops. Yosano stumbled towards it, almost blindly as she fought against the urge to vomit. She could barely hear the grumbles of complaint as she pushed her way through the crowd.
The slightly cooler air of the secluded alley flooded her aching lungs with relief. Yosano bent against the wall, coughing away the nausea, cursing the tears that pricked against her eyes at the sensation. Sickness abated, she stumbled back a bit until she was truly hidden from the world outside, before allowing her back to crash against the rough brickwork behind her and her knees to buckle and she sank down against the wall.
With wide unblinking eyes, she stared straight ahead at the opposite wall in front of her. Yosano focussed on deep even breaths as she counted the layers in the mottled concrete.
“Come on,” she said to herself eventually. “Get a grip,”
She flexed her fingers a few times, knuckled cracking with the movement, before she leant against the wall behind her and pushed herself up to her feet.
Looking down to brush herself off, Yosano suddenly noticed an odd stain marring the ground at her feet. She frowned and crouched down again, sweeping her bangs out of her face to take a better look. Thou Shalt Not Die sparked to life in her fingertips as she ran a finger along the edges of the stain, and she pursed her lips, knowing exactly what was seeping into the cracks of the floor below her.
With a slightly amused huff, Yosano pulled out her phone and pressed 2 on her speed dial. She didn’t have to wait long; Kunikida almost always answered within three rings.
“Yosano?”
“Kunikida, hello,” she said. “I have a lead,”
“You’ve found a witness?”
It was testament to the absurdity of this investigation that Kunikida sounded shocked. Yosano rolled her eyes.
“Bloodstains,” she said.
A grim pause.
“We’ll be there,”
Ever efficient in his communication, Kunikida hung up the call. While taking part in reconnaissance such as this, all relevant members shared their locations with one another, and Kunikida and Atsushi were only a few blocks away in the financial district, so Yosano knew that they would be here within a matter of minutes.
She tucked her phone back into her skirt pocket and exhaled deeply as she wiped her damp eyes. Still crouching on the floor, she frowned as she studied the bloodstain beneath her.
It was etched into the concrete and encrusted at the edges, implying that it had been at least a day or two since blood had been spilt here. Though it had faded to the russet brown of dried blood, the colour was deep and dark: this had been a fatal wound, and the arched splatter pattern suggested that its owner’s demise had come at the hands of a sharp bladed weapon.
True to Yosano’s expectations, Kunikida and Atsushi appeared at the scene just under 15 minutes later. They had found Kenji on their way as well; apparently the young boy had spent the past ten minutes walking the wrong way up the shopping mall escalators, and had started to cause considerable uproar amongst the good citizens of Yokohama.
“This splatter pattern was produced by a sword,” Yosano explained to the other three detectives as they stood around the bloodstain she’d discovered. She’d also found another pool of blood close by on the floor from where the victim had bled out, though some attempt seemed to have been made to clean that. “It was a sharp and precise stroke, which fits Kouyou’s MO,”
“Do we know for certain that this is where she disappeared?” Atsushi asked. His eyes were wide as he studied the stains; his tiger vision was probably far better suited to this dark alley than Yosano’s.
“No,” Yosano admitted. “But she’s mafia. We know how impeccable the mafia are at cleaning up after their crimes: we only find evidence of what they’ve done if they want us to find it,”
“...And there’s nothing here to suggest that anyone wanted this to be found,” Kunikida noted, following her train of thought. “So either she forgot to clean it up, unlikely…”
“Or she wasn’t able to,” Yosano finished for him.
Thou Shalt Not Die fluttered within her, venerating the stench of death in the air.
Kunikida nodded solemnly. “Nakahara is on his way,” he said. “He can confirm whether or not this was mafia doing,”
“What are we going to do if it isn’t?” Kenji asked. “Can we tell much from these bloodstains?”
“We have an idea of where she was last seen, at least,” Yosano said slowly. “And we know that she didn’t go down without a fight.”
“We can also safely assume she was ambushed by a number of people with prior knowledge of who they were up against,” Kunikida added. “She only took down one of their number and was still taken: they knew what they were doing,”
“So they’re definitely dangerous,” Kenji said, and Kunikida nodded grimly.
“Maybe taking this case was the right decision after all,” he muttered, and stepped over to study the other, fainter stain.
A presence appeared at Yosano’s side and she looked over to see Atsushi sidle up to her. His eyes were wide and earnest, and she briefly entertained the thought of patting his fluffy white hair.
“Are you okay?” he whispered to her quietly. Yosano’s lip twitched as she recognised that those perceptive tiger eyes had probably seen the remnants of tear tracks tracing down her cheeks.
“I’m fine,” she reassured him, but it was clear that he was unconvinced.
Another shadow loomed at the entryway to the alley, and, thankful for the distraction, Yosano looked up to greet more of her coworkers arriving on the scene. Instead, a tall muscular man appeared suddenly between her and the only exit. He was dressed professionally, in a suit and sunglasses, and he carried a briefcase.
The man took a few more steps deeper into the alleyway and then froze as he saw the gathered detectives. His whole frame tensed as he noticed their scrutiny of the bloodstains.
Time seemed to run in slow motion as the man dropped his briefcase and reached into his waistband. Yosano tensed and ripped off her glove in one smooth motion as the man pulled a gleaming silver pistol and silencer from beneath his jacket; Thou Shalt Not Die burst forth in a wrath of fluttering wings from under her skin as the gun raised and a flash of light erupted from its muzzle.
Kenji jerked and stumbled, fresh blood bursting from the side of his ribcage to match the stains along the wall. Yosano was next to him in a second, laying her bare hand on the side of his neck and feeling the swarm within her bridge the gap and race through Kenji’s system, knitting flesh and bone back together until he sat up with a laboured gasp.
“Freeze!” Kunikida demanded from above her, standing over them protectively.
A silenced gun of his own was steady in his grasp, trained on their attacker. Atsushi growled next to him, claws prominent and Yosano didn’t have to see his face to know that his eyes were glinting in the light. Their attacker looked between the four of them, a scowl on his face and shifted his weight, clearly preparing to run.
“You guys started the party without us!” someone sighed, and Yosano had never been more glad to see Dazai appear.
He and Chuuya stood in the entrance to the alley, blocking off the attacker, who spun around to aim his gun at them and free up his escape route. Dazai looked entirely unbothered by the gun in his face, slouching with his hands in his pockets and looking past at Kunikida instead. “When you told me you found blood, you didn’t mention you’d brought friends,”
“Dazai!” Kunikida yelled, and Yosano’s eyes widened in shock as she realised the attacker was preparing to fire. She kicked off and rushed forward, only registering as she moved that her ability would be unable to save Dazai if he got shot.
It was no matter. No sooner had the muffled sound of the silenced gunshot rang out than Chuuya was directly in front of Dazai, blocking his body with his own. Yosano skidded to a stop. Chuuya glowered at the attacker, having absolutely no reaction to having been shot and staring at his chest, Yosano could see exactly why.
The second the bullet had touched Chuuya’s collarbone, it became shrouded in a pulsating red glow. The power thrumming in the air was almost tangible and for the first time, Yosano realised why For the Tainted Sorrow was considered so terrifying.
Without removing his hands from his pockets, or his glare from their enemy’s eyes, Chuuya silently commanded the bullet to spin around and point in the other direction, and suddenly it shot forwards, faster than if it had come from a gun. The attacker twitched and crumpled with a cry of pain as his knee crumbled, and his gun scattered from his grasp as he fell to the floor.
Dazai stepped out from behind Chuuya with an exaggerated yawn.
“Show off,” he complained.
“Eh?” Chuuya growled. He turned around to adeptly express his fury to Dazai. “Show off? Damn mackerel bastard, I just saved your fucking life!”
“I had it all under control,” Dazai waved a hand dismissively, and Chuuya shoved his hands deep into his jacket pockets, grumbling under his breath. Yosano couldn’t help but be amused: Chuuya’s eye was twitching in exactly the same way Kunikida’s did whenever he had to deal with Dazai’s bullshit.
“Did you two find any leads?” Kunikida asked, slipping his gun into his waistband. His gaze remained fixed on the suited man who’d collapsed in front of them, expression grim.
“Nothing,” Chuuya said. “This damn idiot was no help,”
“What else is new?” Atsushi mumbled, and Yosano snorted quietly.
“Uh oh,” said Dazai suddenly, and the seriousness in his voice gave everyone pause. Yosano looked over to him to find him standing over their attacker, nudging him with his foot. After a second, she could see exactly his cause for concern: the man wasn’t breathing. She huffed and dropped to the floor beside him, pressing her palm against his bare cheek but Thou Shalt Not Die was docile within her.
“He’s dead,” she grimaced, pulling herself back up to her feet.
“Well done Chibi,” Dazai said. “What happened to taking him in alive?”
“This wasn’t me!” Chuuya protested. “I shot him in the leg! No one dies from a gunshot to the fucking leg!”
“He’s right,” Kunikida added. He came over and crouched next to the body, tilting its head from left to right. The man’s lips fell open with the movement, and blue liquid dribbled down over his teeth. The plastic remains of a small shell were still visible on his tongue.
“Suicide pill,” said Dazai, for once sounding less than enthusiastic about his favourite pastime.
Kunikida nodded grimly, standing up again and flipping open his mobile phone.
“Tanizaki,” he said a few seconds later when the call connected. “We’ve had an unexpected enemy casualty. Please come to our current location as quickly as you can.” He nodded a few times before ending the call
With a deep sigh, Kunikida slipped his phone away again and pinched his brow. “Kenji, you stay here and wait for Tanizaki. The two of you can take this body to the Department of Special Affairs relay point and follow procedure there,”
“Of course!” Kenji crowed. He seemed unbothered by the dead body at his feet.
“Dazai,” Kunikida said. “What have you found?”
Still crouched over the dead man, Dazai glanced up from rifling through the corpse’s pockets.
“The gun is expensive,” he said, nodding to its position across the floor. “Great quality, but produced en masse. It’s the same spec as the Port Mafia supplies to its guerilla attack forces,”
Chuuya glanced over at the weapon. He leant forwards and nudged it with his foot, and For The Tainted Sorrow rippled through the air again as it raised, turning slowly for his inspection.
“He’s right,” Chuuya confirmed. His face was pinched in a contemplative frown and he let the gun clatter to the floor again, causing Yosano to flinch at the careless treatment of such a dangerous weapon.
“There’s a letter in his breast pocket,” Dazai hummed, pulling it out and flicking it open. Something close to mirth flickered across his dark eyes as he skimmed it. “You can tell he was a low ranking idiot. Who keeps copies of their orders on them while performing illegal activities? Especially if they keep a suicide pill in their mouth,”
“What a stupid way to end your life,” Atsushi said quietly, still staring down at the body. “If he had just told us what he was doing, we would have fixed him up and he’d only have to have suffered a prison sentence,”
“All he was doing was cleaning the crime scene,” Dazai said. “His only job was to erase these bloodstains and recover some glass shards.”
A simple job belied orders and a hierarchy. Whoever this opponent was, it was clear that they were well-armed and well-prepared for failure, and their men were prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice for the good of their organisation.
Grim resolution creeping up her, Yosano steeled herself. Her fingers twitched for the saw strapped to her leg beneath her skirt.
Dazai huffed as he dragged himself up to his feet, and he held out the letter for examination. “Assuming they’re using their own stationary,” he said. “There’s a letterhead on the paper.”
Yosano squinted at the small text in the dim light.
“A name for our adversary…” Dazai continued with a dramatic grin. “...The Tokaido Corporation,"
Notes:
hello! apologies for disappearing off the face of the planet. january is always a particularly shitty month. can i blame it on a03 author's curse if it's a pre-existing condition?
it's a throwaway line but similar to the tanizakis, i choose not to associate with whatever is going on with mori and elise. they're father and daughter now. i don't want to write about what canon says, so i simply won't. i really like this one analysis i saw on tiktok ages ago about how elise is kind of a manifestation of the guilt mori feels towards the children he's harmed in his pursuit of a better future. i'll link it if i find the author again and yap about it if anyone wants to.
i rewrote this chapter quite a lot of times before being somewhat happy with it, and i'm still iffy on the pacing? it's a struggle finding the balance between doing yosano the justice she deserves and also somewhat ruining her character development vis a vis her recovery of the trauma she experienced. i'm absolutely obsessed with her so i really hope she's not OOC or done dirty, let me know if you think there's something missing. the only beta for this fic is the voices so it's very possible.
but anyway, i hope you enjoyed and i hope all is well for you guys :)
Chapter 5: Kunikida; Passenger
Summary:
Kunikida, Dazai and Chuuya infiltrate the Tokaido headquarters in search for some answers
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
“Get off of me, you bandage-wasting piece of shit!!”
“Oh Chuuuuuya~ You’re so mean to me,”
To borrow a phrase from his coworker, Kunikida was going to kill himself.
He could make it look like an accident. All he needed to do was yank the steering wheel and roll the car directly into the path of an oncoming bus; vehicular suicides were amongst the hardest at determining intent, and if he accelerated beyond the speed limit, there would be a good chance that he could also kill the two unruly children currently squabbling on his back seats. He sighed and readjusted his grip on the steering wheel.
He’d been suspicious, initially, at Dazai’s insistence that he and Nakahara had been childhood friends. He wasn’t entirely certain that Dazai had even had a childhood; he remembered his coworker’s entrance exam like it was yesterday. Dazai’s file was so new and clean, it was like he’d simply spawned into a being a year ago, and Kunikida would never forget the grim resolve that crept over him as Fukuzawa had ordered him to kill their prospective new agent, should anything untoward happen during the exam. It was not the sign of a happy well-adjusted man with an ordinary life behind him.
No one knew the truth of Dazai’s past from before the detective agency anyway. Kunikida had felt too awkward to put his real guess into the betting pool: that Dazai had grown up in a cruel abusive orphanage, where he didn’t even officially exist until he’d been kicked out as a new adult, and now he was desperately trying to put his past behind him. It was probably why he felt such a kinship to Atsushi.
But if there was any evidence of Dazai having a childhood, it was Nakahara. It seemed that the two of them regressed to being about 5 years old again when they were together. Maybe they’d been in the same orphanage as children, and reconnected years later on opposite sides of the law?
It was pointless to speculate either way.
“Will you two shut up?” Kunikida hissed, coming to a stop at a red light a little more harshly than he usually would.
Dazai, not wearing his seatbelt properly, shrieked as he tumbled from his seat and into the footwell. Nakahara cackled at him: a reaction unbecoming of a feared mafioso.
“And you tell me I shouldn’t be allowed to drive,” Dazai moaned at Kunikida as he pulled himself back up.
The instinctive cutting remark wilted on Kunikida’s tongue as he glared into his rear-view mirror and caught Nakahara’s gaze. Something burned behind his heterochromatic eyes that suddenly reminded Kunikida that the man in the backseat of his car was one of the most feared criminals in the city so Kunikida settled for an eyeroll in Dazai’s direction instead, before turning back to the road, choosing to keep his petty sniping to himself from now on.
Childish or not, mafia or not, Nakahara was their client and deserved the respect that came with that, so Kunikida would hold his tongue.
The light changed to green again and the car spluttered slightly as it pulled away from the line. Kunikida sighed and patted the steering wheel, as if to reassure it that they were close to their destination.
The same ‘Tokaido Corporation’ that had issued the orders they’d uncovered yesterday appeared to operate as an insurance consultancy firm outside of Yokohama’s main business district. Federal records showed the recent lease of three office floors in the financial district, as well as endorsements from city officials that were infamous for their shady practices- both clear indicators of a large successful organisation that Kunikida couldn’t believe hadn’t crossed their radar before.
Thankfully though, an office in the bustling financial district meant one thing: easy infiltration.
The sign for the parking garage that Kunikida had been looking for appeared on their left, and he indicated dutifully, pulling into the side road. It was technically public parking, so thankfully no security guards blocked their entrance. The car park was busy with salarymen, but Kunikida managed to find and slip into a vacant spot close to the entrance.
“Is everyone clear on what to do?” Kunikida asked lowly as the three of them exited the vehicle and reconvened around the back of it.
In sync, both Dazai and Nakahara gave him the same short curt nod of affirmation. Kunikida returned it with pursed lips, feeling the familiar resolution of a high stakes investigation creep over him. Nakahara rolled his shoulders, and glanced around him at the suited office drones milling through the car park.
“I haven’t done infiltration work in years,” he said, almost conversationally.
Kunikida hummed in acknowledgement and locked his car before slipping the keys deep into his trouser pocket. It was highly irregular for Nakahara, as their client, to be joining them in this investigation; it was only due to his similar experiences and intimate knowledge of the case and the criminal underworld that his involvement was considered.
“Funny how similar mafia work and detective work really are, isn’t it?” Dazai said. He started walking backwards towards the car park’s pedestrian exit, hands slipped into his pockets and a teasing grin directed at Nakahara.
Following him, Kunikida shot Dazai a warning glare, but thankfully Nakahara didn’t seem to rise to the bait.
“Especially when you’re wearing that,” the executive pointed out instead, with a distasteful sneer towards Dazai’s outfit.
The sentiment was understandable. In order to blend in to the sea of workers, the three of them were dressed in plain black suits. Kunikida had tucked his rat’s tail underneath his collar, and Chuuya had removed his hat and tied his hair up in a way so as to make it seem significantly shorter, all in the name of effective disguise. Other than the outfit, Dazai hadn’t changed anything recognisable about himself- he hadn’t even removed his signature bandages- but just the dark colour made Dazai look completely different somehow.
For some reason, Dazai’s grin only widened and he raised a hand to cover his right eye. He spun around with a flourish, as if at the end of a catwalk.
Nakahara grimaced. Whatever the joke was went right over Kunikida’s head, but he paid it no mind. They reached the stairwell out of the parking garage and descended in a tense silence, save for the tapping of their footsteps down the steps and the echoes of business chatter from men above them.
“See you on the other side,” Dazai said, in English, once they reached the bottom of the staircase, before giving them a mock salute and pushing through the exit doors with dramatic confidence. He sauntered out with his hands tucked into the pockets of his trousers, instantly blending in with the crowd of salarymen also making their way towards the entrance of the giant skyscraper that rose into the clouds in front of them.
“I apologise for him,” Kunikida sighed. “He never quite learned how to act respectfully,”
Nakahara barked a laugh. “My condolences,” he said. “You’ve managed to get the world’s shittiest partner,”
He patted Kunikida’s shoulder, as if in consolidation before stepping out too into the busy square. Kunikida couldn’t help but sigh as he watched Nakahara’s shock of red hair vanish from sight into the crowd.
The first stage of their plan was independent. It was very likely that there was some form of security system set up in the building which only allowed Tokaido employees access to their floors. By splitting up and each utilising their own separate methods to infiltrate the building, their chance of discovery was minimised, as was the possibility of all being stopped at the first hurdle.
Somewhere else in the crowd, Kunikida knew that the other agency members would be at similar stages in their own set of plans, working discretely alongside his investigation to infiltrate the company via other means. Kunikida straightened his lapels and glanced around himself. He knew exactly how he could enter the building; all he needed was the perfect opportunity.
The perfect opportunity came in the form of a rushed business man rushing towards Kunikida and the office building, fumbling with a keycard in his breast pocket in his hurry. Bingo.
Stepping forwards slightly, Kunikida put himself directly in the man’s path, and the two of them collided with a violent thud that knocked all the breath from his lungs and left him stumbling. The keycard fell from the other man’s sweaty grasp with the momentum of the collision.
“My apologies,” Kunikida gasped with a quick bow, bending down to pick up the card. “I was completely in my own head, I’m sorry!”
“It’s no worry,” the man panted, taking the card from his grip.
He barely made eye contact with Kunikida, his gaze sliding from his watch to the building’s glass doors. He shot Kunikida a polite tight lipped smile and hurried off again. Kunikida could see him glance down at the card as he hurried off again. Clearly the Tokaido workers were diligent about potential pickpockets, even in such a clear rush.
But of course, he hadn’t used the collision to steal the card. Instead…
Kunikida stepped to the side just shy of the building entrance. He opened up his briefcase and pulled out the trusty notebook inside, unhooking the pen from its spine and spinning it between his fingers as Doppo Poet snapped into place. It whizzed through his mind as he put pen to paper, sketching out exactly the card he'd seen and memorised as he wrote ‘Tokaido Corporation Keycard’ onto the rulecd lines of his notebook.
Doppo Poet punctuated the drawing with a satisfying full stop as Kunikida tore the page out and slipped it back into the briefcase alongside the notebook. Hidden beneath the canvas folds, he whispered its name under his breath, and Doppo Poet remained hidden as it shone with light, ripping through the fabric of reality to materialise exactly what Kunikida had described. He couldn’t help but smile slightly as he lifted the new keycard back out of the bag, and strode confidently into the building lobby.
He passed through the scanners with ease, following the crowd to the elevators against the opposite wall and squeezing his way into the throng of businessmen inside one of them. It was a tight fit; warm and uncomfortable. Someone’s elbow rested firmly against the side of Kunikida’s ribs, and he clutched his briefcase to his chest, staring resolutely up at the numbers ticking on the display as the elevator rose.
The directory board downstairs had listed Tokaido on the sixth floor, and Kunikida all but fought his way out of the elevator as it arrived there. The Tokaido Corporation logo was plastered on a door outside the elevator lobby, and Kunikida pressed his keycard against a scanner and breathed a sigh of relief when the door slid open for him to reveal the company’s reception.
On the phone, the receptionist didn’t spare him a second glance as he walked through, and Kunikida caught sight of Dazai leaning casually against a wall by the water cooler across the bullpen to the side of reception, dark eyes staring pensively over a paper cup as he observed the office around him. He grinned as he spotted Kunikida and finished the water in one gulp.
“Took you long enough,” he chided as Kunikida approached.
“No sign of Nakahara?” Kunikida asked, and Dazai shook his head. His gaze caught on the keycard in Kunikida’s hand.
“You didn’t pickpocket a card, did you?” he asked, grin morphing into something more mischievous. “My, Kunikida, you really are a dark horse. I had no idea you had such underhand skills…”
“Of course not,” Kunikida responded, tossing it to Dazai. “I simply used my notebook,”
The card vanished in a cold puff as it hit Dazai’s hand, and Dazai winced, looking sheepish. Kunikida realised belatedly that passing his ability made objects to Dazai was a foolish idea, and he sighed deeply, plucking the sheet of paper that the card had morphed back into back from his grip. He glanced around him, but thankfully though the large office was starting to fill up with workers, no one was paying any attention to the two of them standing by the water cooler.
As soon as Dazai lost contact with the page, Kunikida could feel Doppo Poet reawaken within it. It circled sluggishly and Kunikida tucked it into his breast pocket. Hidden by the fabric, it quickly rematerialised the paper into the same card again as Kunikida commanded it, just in case it would be needed again. Kunikida patted his pocket in confirmation only to have his attention caught by a different keycard being twirled around Dazai’s fingers.
“Underhand skills, huh?” he muttered, and Dazai laughed.
“For an organisation that wants to take on the Port Mafia, this place has shit security,” a familiar voice grumbled.
Kunikida very pointedly did not jump as Nakahara appeared as if from thin air beside them, who scowled as he reached them, clearly unimpressed by the state of Tokaido’s affairs. Nakahara reached up, as if to adjust his hat and his expression darkened even more as his fingers closed on thin air. The motion didn’t go unnoticed by Dazai.
“Oh slug, don’t you worry,” he crowed, leaning over and pushing Nakahara with his shoulder. “You can get your hat back soon,”
Kunikida couldn’t help but notice that Nakahara didn’t flinch at the contact. Dazai was unnerving to touch, to say the least. For anyone with an ability, the sudden freezing rush of No Longer Human was like an ice grip around the heart, ripping the innate ability out of a person’s soul, and it had taken Kunikida weeks of knowing Dazai to get used to the horrific sensation. It was manageable now; he knew what to expect, and could even tolerate sudden contact. It seemed Nakahara was accustomed to the feeling too.
“Shut up about the stupid hat,” Nakahara grumbled, shoving Dazai back with more force than strictly necessary. “Firelights?” he asked. “I can take the breakroom,”
“Firelights,” Dazai confirmed, whatever that meant. Nakahara nodded, turned on his heel and strode confidently through the room and down a side corridor. Dazai watched him go for a second before looking back around to Kunikida with a grin. “See anyone looking particularly lonely?” he said.
Kunikida pursed his lips and looked around them. For the headquarters of a criminal organisation, Tokaido’s layout was remarkably similar to the average office. Typical cubicles stretched across a floor, and suited salarymen sipped from coffee cups as they stood in circles around desks.
In the middle, Kunikida spotted a young man, who could barely have been older than Atsushi. He stood alone over his desk, but stared at the workers around him with a wide eyed earnestness: a clear desperation for some companionship. Kunikida nudged Dazai and gestured subtly over to his acquired target.
A shark-like grin crossed Dazai’s face as he locked in on the poor young man.
“Good spot,” he whistled under his breath, and started striding over.
Kunikida decided to follow him; Nakahara apparently had the break room covered, and this man seemed like the best target out in the open.
“Hi!” Dazai announced, approaching the boy with his hand outstretched.
The kid squeaked slightly and flushed, but grasped the hand offered to him and shook it with vigour, eyes sparking. He had absolutely no reaction to No Longer Human , which Kunikida mentally noted down. Not gifted.
“I haven’t seen you around here before, have I?” Dazai asked, leaning casually against the side of the desk.
“I don’t think so!” the boy said. “But then again, I don’t think I’ve really seen much of anybody! I’m Merosu!”
“I’m Oba!” Dazai nodded. “This is Takeichi,”
Kunikida leant forwards and offered his own hand. Merosu gripped it with just a little too much strength for a casual handshake as he shook it enthusiastically.
“Good to meet you,” he said. “How’s your workload looking today?”
Merosu rolled his eyes. It was over the top and performative: almost definitely an attempt at being relatable rather than conveying his true feelings. “Pretty slow, to be honest. I’ve just got a few more morgues to call and then I’m moving on to the witness protection lists,”
“You got put on morgue duty?” Dazai asked. “Lucky bastard. We’re stuck with patent upkeep,”
“Patent upkeep?” Merosu blinked. “I didn’t realise we even did that,”
Kunikida stiffened slightly, a cold flush spreading up his spine that they’d been caught out, but Dazai took it in his stride, nodding casually and gesturing vaguely over to the far corner of the room.
“Yeah, that’s what we’re up to over there,” he said. “It’s tedious though, I can’t believe you get to search the morgues!”
“Oh trust me, it’s not as fun as it sounds.” Merosu mirrored Dazai, sticking his hands into his trouser pockets and leaning against his desk. “But that’s what you get doing contract work, isn’t it?”
“Mhm.” Dazai nodded, before glancing around and leaning in conspiratorially with a sharp grin on his face. Merosu leaned forwards too. “So,” Dazai said, “I know we’re not technically supposed to talk about it, but what do you suppose this is all for?”
“We’re not supposed to talk about it?” Merosu gasped, eyes darting around as well, as if searching for spies listening in on their conversation from around them. A grin was creeping onto his face, and Kunikida couldn’t help but to feel sorry for this boy who was so desperate to finally be part of office gossip. Dazai shrugged non committally, eyes never leaving Merosu’s.
“Well,” Merosu’s voice was hushed and he smiled as he spoke. “They told me when I was hired that the work I do is the reason we’re going to crush Yokohama’s underworld in one and take over,”
“How do they expect us to do that?” Kunikida frowned. His hands itched for his notebook and Doppo Poet.
“COME ON, GET TO WORK EVERYONE!”
The loud bellowing of the floor manager made Merosu jump spectacularly, flinching back and all the colour draining from his face. Dazai made a dramatic motion as well, which Kunikida couldn’t help but suspect was entirely for the young Tokaido worker’s benefit. Kunikida schooled his features into his best guilty expression and leant forwards, sticking his hand out to Merosu.
“We should run back,” he said, and Merosu shook his hand eagerly again, before doing the same to Dazai. “It was great chatting with you Merosu,”
“Let’s go for drinks after work!” Dazai added, waving as the two of them turned and started marching away through the workers returning to their desks.
“Did you really have to add that last bit?” Kunikida shot under his breath as they reached the exit. “Now that poor boy is going to be waiting all night for us,”
Dazai shrugged. Nakahara pushed through the people at their side with a deep scowl on his face and motioned at them to leave.
“What are we waiting around for?” he complained. “Let’s get the hell out of here!”
“What did you find Chibi?” Dazai said, letting himself be ushered out of the office and back into the elevators. “Were they shocked that someone brought their dog to work?”
“I’ll kill you one day,”
“Oh would you?! You’re so sweet to me~”
Kunikida could feel his headache returning.
Notes:
i was always very kunikida-apathetic until i wrote this chapter and now i think he's honestly iconic. i'm sorry as well, but he's 22?? he should be at the club. imagine being 22 years old and already having a CV that includes being a maths teacher, detective and global terrorist.
Chapter 6: Atsushi; Stripped to the Bone
Summary:
The Agency discusses their findings, and Tokaido makes an appearance
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Atsushi’s own experience staking out the Tokaido headquarters had been completely fruitless, so he had been thankful to return to the agency and find that his colleagues had had more success in their endeavours than him. That being said, it seemed like irreparable damage may have been done to Kunikida’s health. As Atsushi had given his superior an earnest report of his meagre findings, the tiger had huffed and rumbled at the overwhelming scent of stress rolling off of Kunikida in waves.
Now, perched at his desk, Atsushi smiled down at his phone as he texted Kyouka an update on Kunikida’s waning sanity. She responded with photos of kitten sketches she’d added to their fridge over her lunch break: she had a considerably smaller workload at home, and seemed to be getting on well with it. Atsushi couldn’t help but notice that one of the kittens looked similar to the tiger, and he grinned, heart warm.
“Atsushi,” Dazai said suddenly, and Atsushi looked up from his phone. His mentor leant over his desk with a grin. “Do you want to come and get lunch with us?”
Atsushi’s eyes darted from Dazai to Chuuya, who stood to his right with arms folded and an expression dangerously close to a glare on his face. It wasn’t lunchtime yet, it was barely 11am, and Atsushi knew for a fact that Kunikida would want the entire agency gathered for a briefing in a matter of minutes.
“Are you trying to make Kunikida go grey?” Atsushi raised an eyebrow. “You know that you can’t leave for lunch yet,”
Dazai groaned heartily. “Not you too Atsushi,” he complained, reaching out to ruffle Atsushi’s hair affectionately. The tiger rumbled and Atsushi squinted happily at the sensation. “I’ve been on time to work for the past two days, surely that’s enough to prove what a dedicated worker I am! I don’t need to sit and listen to briefings too!”
“If you really want to prove your dedication, you could put the chairs and the whiteboard out for Kunikida instead,” Atsushi pointed out. Dazai stilled, and Atsushi tried not to let a grin slip onto his face. “He’d be pissed if you left, but you being suspiciously helpful? It would probably give him an aneurysm,”
Dazai laughed, and patted Atsushi’s head again. “I’m teaching you well,” he grinned and darted off to the side office where the whiteboard was usually kept.
Atsushi sighed deeply as he watched him go, before suddenly realising that Chuuya was still standing beside him. He squeaked slightly and straightened, turning to look the mafioso directly in the eyes.
Chuuya stared down at him. His arms were still folded tightly across his chest, but there was an indescribable look on his face as he regarded Atsushi. Atsushi laughed nervously and looked around himself, shrinking into his chair slightly at the scrutiny.
“Did you have a good investigation, Chuuy- Nakahara?” he asked to fill the silence, cursing the way his voice cracked slightly on the executive’s name.
“Call me Chuuya,” Chuuya said. The tiger huffed. “You’re Dazai’s weretiger.”
Atsushi couldn’t help the sigh that left him at the mention of the word. Unbidden, his mind suddenly went to that same nickname dripping disdainfully from porcelain lips, and his cheeks burned red.
“Yes,” he bit out awkwardly, silently willing his face to cool down and trying to resist the urge to crash his head into his desk. The tiger huffed at him in amusement.
Chuuya hummed something indiscernible before turning and walking away. Atsushi’s heart hammered in his chest as though he’d just fought for his life; privately, he felt as though he’d almost rather fight for his life than ever interact with Chuuya again. What the hell was that?
Atsushi watched Chuuya cross the agency and sit down on one of the chairs that Dazai was arranging in a circle in the middle of the floor. Dazai pushed the final two chairs into place and crowed something triumphant to Chuuya before collapsing down onto the chair to his left.
“What the hell is this?”
The door to the briefing room had swung open and Atsushi glanced over to see Kunikida frozen in the doorway, staring down at Dazai’s haphazardly arranged chairs with an expression of pure horror. Yosano and Kenji, who’d been in support positions around the Tokaido headquarters, peered out from behind his shoulders.
Atsushi pushed himself up to come and join the circle, trying to suppress his grin. Dazai stood from his seat and bowed deeply, sweeping out a hand to gesture at his proud creation.
“What the hell is this?” Kunikida gaped.
Yosano giggled as she slipped from behind him into the circle.
“I’m helping!” Dazai blinked innocently.
“You have never helped me a day in your life.”
Dazai pouted as he flopped back down in his chair. Atsushi could see a small grin creeping over Chuuya’s face beside him. Kunikida stepped into the circle too and reached for the whiteboard pen. His movements were cautious, as if he expected the pen to jump up and bite him. Dazai’s eyes all but sparkled as he watched him ever-so-slowly uncap the pen and rest it against the whiteboard.
No disaster happened. Kunikida turned his head and shot Dazai what Atsushi could only imagine was an exasperated glare, before turning back to the whiteboard and scrawling a few messy notes over it. That being said, Kunikida’s ‘messy’ notes were far neater than Atsushi’s best attempts at print. Kunikida hit his stride quickly, holding his notebook in one hand and copying his notes onto the board with the other. He spoke as he wrote, covering the bare bones of the case.
“Atsushi has confirmed that Tokaido appears to be searching for a missing person," Kunikida said, turning around to face the assembled Agency and raising his hand back up to the notes. “Specifically, as they’re searching morgues, they appear to be searching for a man they believe to have disappeared by faking his own death,”
Atsushi furrowed his brow into a look of intense concentration and nodded diligently when he made eye contact with the other detective, showing Kunikida that he was listening and engaged. The stress lines wrinkling Kunikida’s forehead didn’t lessen, but tension seemed to melt slightly from his ramrod straight posture, and Atsushi offered him a smile.
“Dazai and I can corroborate this from our own investigation,” Kunikida continued. He nodded towards the mafia executive sitting beside Dazai. “And Nakahara can confirm that this is a man who seems to have disappeared between three to five years ago,”
He circled the ‘3-5 years dead?’ scrawled onto the whiteboard to punctuate his statement before continuing.
“Tanizaki also reported that they have a number of secure files pertaining to personnel from the Port Mafia.” Kunikida nodded to Tanizaki as he continued.
Out of the corner of his eye, Atsushi saw Chuuya sit up straight suddenly at the information, a frown crossing his face. Instincts prickling, the tiger growled lowly, feeling ripples of danger permeate the air.
“There were a number of files on Executive Kouyou, including her movements prior to her disappearance,” Kunikida continued. He paused slightly, and his eyes darted to Chuuya. “...As well as several reports on old mafia operations that seem to have been run by Executive Nakahara and his old partner, the so-called Demon Prodigy,”
The air around Atsushi suddenly felt crushing. The tiger snarled, and Atsushi’s fingernails dug into the seat beneath him as he fought back the claws threatening to slip out. Despite the ripples of danger and violence emanating from the man, Chuuya’s voice was cold and calm as he spoke.
“Elaborate,” he ordered.
Kunikida nodded. “They’ve been researching you,” he said. “Tokaido has a lot of interest in your old operations, and they have collated extensive information on your actions. Interestingly, the majority of it appears to be hearsay and witness testimony, rather than stolen files, like on executive Kouyou,”
“You’re insinuating that I’m their next target,”
Atsushi frowned, starting to feel puzzle pieces slot together in his mind. He raised his hand slightly, and everyone’s eyes turned to him.
“I may be wrong,” Atsushi said slowly. “But surely it’s not Chuuya they’re researching, but his old partner? Cus he died three to five years ago, right?”
From across the circle, Dazai nodded proudly at Atsushi. The affirmation fell flat; an odd spark flitted behind Dazai’s eyes that made the tiger recoil uncomfortably.
“From the information we’ve gathered,” Kunikida sighed. “It seems like this is exactly the case,”
"Do we know why they're searching for him?" Yosano asked. She sat poised on her chair, arms folded and legs crossed elegantly.
"We're not sure," Kunikida admitted. "But from Nakahara's information, they seem to be confident that they'll be able to influence him, potentially through some form of mind control ability or drug."
Atsushi shivered,
“Ranpo, what do you think?” Tanizaki called across the floor. His expression suggested he felt the same way about this new turn of events as Atsushi.
Ranpo was sitting at his desk on the other side of the agency, and he looked up when he heard his name. His mouth was covered in powdered sugar. The tiger helpfully notified Atsushi that, from the smell of things, there were at least 3 or 4 more empty boxes of powdered doughnuts littering the floor at his feet, as well as the one on the desk.
“You want me to help you with the case?” Ranpo asked. “Don’t be lazy!”
“But it’s not just a small fry case anymore!” Tanizaki protested.
Ranpo waved his hand dismissively and pulled out another doughnut. “You’ll be fiiiine,” he said.
Yosano’s lip curled slightly as she watched the doughnut disappear. “His ability may as well be being immune to lethal amounts of sugar,” she muttered.
Sensitive tiger’s nose recoiling, Atsushi couldn’t help but agree.
“If Tokaido is searching for my bastard ex-partner, they’re in for some tough luck,” Chuuya scoffed, bringing the conversation back. “They’re not going to fucking find him,”
“He’s actually dead then?” Yosano said. “They seem pretty confident that he’s only faked his death.”
“I’m not giving you sensitive information,” Chuuya said with a glare. He spoke slowly and deliberately, as though choosing his words exactly. “But the Boss told me himself that he was gone,”
“What was his name?” Kunikida asked, pen poised over his notebook. “We can run an independent investigation and confirm it for you,”
Atsushi was shocked that Kunikida didn’t wither at the glower that Chuuya shot his way.
“Like I said,” he said, every word dripping with venom. “I’m not giving you any sensitive information,”
Terse silence hung in the air for a few beats as Kunikida and Chuuya stared across at each other. Atsushi’s eyes darted between the two of them. The scent of anticipation was almost unbearable, but finally, Kunikida sighed and gave in, looking away and snapping his notebook shut.
“Very well,” he conceded, though his tone suggested it was anything but. “Nakahara, if you come with me, I can give you the details of the stolen port mafia files,”
Chuuya nodded in grim satisfaction and stood from his chair. The tiger didn’t relent though, still growling its instinctive warning of danger to come, and Atsushi frowned, whipping his head between Chuuya and Kunikida as he tried to find the source of the danger.
The tiger hissed, swiping its tail. The low growl suddenly turned into an alarmed roar, and Atsushi found himself out of his chair and on his feet in the middle of the circle, adrenaline pumping through him.
“Get down!” he yelled, calling the tiger forth and throwing himself at Kunikida, sending the two of them crashing down backwards through the whiteboard. Chaos erupted as everyone else scrambled to take cover, just in the nick of time.
The unmistakable sound of glass breaking announced the shattering of one of the office windows, and a smoke bomb sailed through the shards. It landed almost exactly where Kunikdia had been standing and detonated, filling the office with thick dark smoke. Atsushi covered his mouth with his hand, batting at the air in front of his face with the other as he leapt to his feet and squinted into the haze. The tiger roared, eyes glinting as it padded around him.
“Well well well… what have we here…”
The voice was nasal and sickly. Atsushi felt the tiger’s growl escape through his lips as he swivelled to face the direction of the sound. Through the fog, the tiger’s eyes picked out a tall slim figure in the doorway to the office. He tensed, and let the smoke dissipate until he could see the intruder.
Beady eyes peered back at him, squinted in some mimicry of a smile. Grease seemed to drip down his face from his shiny slicked-back hairstyle and a singular gem glinted on his canine tooth. He had a polished wooden cane in his hand, but wasn’t leaning on it for support, or anything that could suggest weakness.
“I hear you are the Armed Detective agency,” the man hummed. He held out a glistening, ring-adorned hand. “I’m Jippensha Ikku. A pleasure to make your acquaintance,”
“State your business,” Kunikida’s voice was firm, and he stepped forwards into Atsushi’s peripheral vision with his gun raised.
Jippensha sighed. “You all got to pay a visit to my office,” he lamented. “It’s only fair that I get to pay a visit to yours,”
“Tokaido,” Yosano said.
“What a perceptive bunch.” Jippensha stood up straight and flicked his cane; it arched up through the air and landed gracefully back in his hand, balanced perfectly in his palm. He looked around at the agency members, smile widening as he took in his audience. Then, he spun the cane performatively, once, twice, until a flash of light enveloped it in the third spin and a gleaming pistol spun in its place instead.
Atsushi’s hackles rose and he crouched slightly, lowering his centre of gravity and preparing himself. The glint of Yosano’s bone saw caught his eye through the smoke. It seemed poised to cut the very tension in the air. Jippensha spun his pistol once more and it transformed again, this time into a sleek shotgun. He caught the gun precariously by the handle, but made no move to fire with it.
“Enough with the parlour tricks asshole, just tell us what you’re here for,” Chuuya growled. “If it’s a fight you’re looking for, bring it on,”
“You’re an impatient lot, aren’t you?” Jippensha said. “I’m not here to deliver a fight. Merely… a warning,”
“A warning?” Atsushi said, and it came out as a growl.
“Yes.” Jippensha turned to him. “A warning as to what happens to those who meddle in my affairs,”
Bang!
Atsushi didn’t even see the gun move. One second he was standing, ready to attack, and the next he was on the floor. The tiger whimpered, nudging him; Atsushi put his hand to his leg and it came away soaked with blood. His stomach churned as he looked down and saw the gaping hole in the side of his shin: the muscle and sinew had been completely obliterated. Blood gushed from the crevasse onto the floor, streaming past white chips and shards that looked like the remnants of a smashed plate.
Oh Atsushi thought That was his bone.
At least the leg was still attached this time.
Then came the pain. It hit Atsushi all at once, like a freight train crashing into his very being. His head swam and his vision went fuzzy; he tried to whimper, only to fail and realise he was screaming instead. Shapes of people crowded over him, their garbled voices lost in the indescribable ringing in his ears.
“Pathetic boy,” sneered the Headmaster over all of them, and Atsushi cried out, cradling his head in his hands.
The Headmaster approached; the sea of shadowy figures over Atsushi parted for him like they were just wisps in the winds and Atsushi shook his head in blind panic, claws scratching at the floor as he tried desperately to back away. His back hit the cold steel bars of a cage. He raised his hands to his face again, not even aware of the words he was sobbing. The Headmaster paid him no mind and leant closer, forward further and further, his cruel hands reaching for Atsushi until suddenly the agony in his leg was joined by a brief sharp pain in his neck and all went dark.
Atsushi’s eyelids were heavy with sleep. He stirred and buried his face deeper into his pillow, knowing he probably only had a few more precious minutes until his alarm went off and wanting to make the most of the warmth around him. Faint voices echoed from outside: did Kyouka have visitors over? Atsushi huffed a little as he shifted to get comfortable. He’d had the most peculiar dream…
With a gasp, Atsushi shot bolt upright. He clutched the bedsheets at his side as his wide eyes slowly took in the medbay around him and the crowd assembled around his bed, and his breaths only began to slow as he registered that they were all there, alive and well save for the concern on their faces. Atsushi looked down again, patting at the side of his leg that had previously been missin
“Atsushi, you’re up!” Kunikida said.
“What happened?” Atsushi was looking around frantically. Surely someone should be apprehending Jippensha; what were they all doing here?
“Well, you’re on cleaning duty for the next month,” Dazai added helpfully. Chuuya was still standing on his right side. “Those bloodstains may never come out of the floor,”
Atsushi shifted around to sit up from the bed. His head swam with the movement, but he shook it off, setting his feet on the floor and pulling himself up to an unsteady stand. His leg erupted with pins and needles.
“I would tell you to take it easy,” Yosano said. “But you should be good as new now. Sorry, by the way, I had to slit your throat to get my ability to work,”
Atsushi nodded, raising a hand to his neck at the sharp phantom pain of a knife through his flesh.
“It’s fine,” he said. “At least it wasn’t the chainsaw,”
The tiger chuffed at him and Atsushi smiled. He’d never thought the day would come where he’d be happy to have the moonlit beast by his side but nowadays, its figure padding alongside him filled him with reassurance. He basked in its presence for a brief second, before turning back to the other agency members.
“Where’s Jippensha?” he asked. “Did you apprehend him?”
It was Chuuya who responded. “Bastard had some sort of teleportation gifted with him, helping him out,” he said. “He vanished as soon as he took that shot, like a fucking coward. Dazai got a hit in, but only managed to graze him,”
Atsushi turned to his mentor, shocked. He must have incredible marksman skills to be able to react to Jippensha’s attack, aim and fire before the intruder literally teleported away. Dazai saw the reaction and put a hand to his heart.
“No need to look so shocked, Atsushi,” he said. “You wound me. Lady Luck does favour me, after all,”
He started to reach forward, as if to ruffle Atsushi’s hair again, but aborted the motion straight away, which Atsushi couldn’t help but be grateful for. He’d only just woken up from a horrific wound, and then another fatal injury; much as he would have appreciated the gesture, he would not be able to handle the frigid onslaught of No Longer Human right now. He needed the tiger’s strength.
“So we know Tokaido means business now,” Tanizaki said, from the corner. “They’re serious,”
“Well, it shouldn’t be a problem, should it?” Kenji said. “The guy they’re looking for is dead, there’s literally nothing they can do, no matter how serious they are!”
Atsushi didn't miss the frown that flickered across Kunikida's face.
"Well," he said slowly. "We'll see..."
Notes:
shout out to the picture in my ao3 screenshots folder of the tag 'remember kids, no matter how bad of a day you're having, atsushi is having a worse one'. i love atsushi so much. poor guy
Chapter 7: Kunikida; Blasphemous Rumours
Summary:
Kunikida makes a discovery
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Much later that night, Kunikida’s eyes were burning. He’d abandoned his glasses a good while ago: they weren’t helping with his blurry vision anymore, and the computer screen he’d been squinting at had been swimming for hours now. Much as he preached it, paperwork was far from his favourite pastime. It was dull and tedious, and the bureaucratic processes were unnecessarily complex for the simplest of situations.
Nevertheless, someone had to do it. It had to be him too; someone had just been shot in their office, Kunikida was not about to stop everyone on their way out and casually ask them to fill out some incident forms for him, as well as a few D7 ‘Declaration of Illegal Activity’ forms from their morning of reconnaissance. So instead, here he was, bearing the brunt for tonight. At least this way he knew it was getting done right.
He was also still here for another reason. Kunikida needed to sit and think hard about this case that they’d found themselves in, and the calm empty office with nothing but Doppo Poet for company was where his mind worked best. Something just felt off about this whole situation. He preferred never to rely on instinct; he’d be unable to justify abandoning his ideals on something as petty as a gut feeling, but he just couldn’t ignore the tiny voice in the back of his mind telling him that something was wrong about this whole case.
Tokaido was a powerful organisation, that much was a fact. They’d hired upwards of thirty contract worker mercenaries to perform their meagre tasks; they had an office in the middle of the Yokohama business district; their leader had even personally confronted the agency as a whole, shot one of their men as a ‘warning’ and escaped unscathed.
Kunikida winced at the thought of Atsushi. The poor boy said he was fine, but it couldn’t be good for someone’s mental health to have their limbs ripped off and damaged every other day.
Why was Tokaido going to all these lengths for a dead man?
It seemed that rumours still circled in the underground about the Demon Prodigy of the Port Mafia, but they were all stories about a phantom stalking the streets rather than a tangible person. A man didn’t get a title like that without truly being a monster, and for such egregious acts as he surely committed, it was no wonder that frightened criminals were afraid to speak of him: at the slightest chance that the man was not in fact dead, his vengeance for the disrespect would be heinous.
But it shouldn’t matter, because the Nakahara had confirmed that the Demon Prodigy truly was dead. Though Kunikida was loathe to implicitly trust a mafioso on his word, it was undeniable that a figure that infamous would be more than a passing comment in Kunikida’s notebook from years ago. If he was still alive, surely he’d be running the mafia by now.
Kunikida leaned back in his chair and stared at the cobwebs collecting on the ceiling above him. He frowned at them, making a mental note to assign Kenji cleaning duty for the next week.
Nakahara had never actually confirmed his partner’s death though. He’d said that the man ‘wasn’t coming back’:not a confirmation- if anything, it was a slippery avoidance that should’ve been expected of the mafia. Though the evidence pointed towards the demon prodigy being dead, they would have to assume the opposite, until at least definitive proof was unearthed.
But why was Tokaido so certain that the demon prodigy was still alive? What information did they have? And how could the Agency get there first?
Finding this man where Tokaido had failed would have seemed like an impossible task, pitting the detective agency’s 10 staff against the dozens of contract mercenaries hired by the enemy organisation, but for one notable advantage that the Agency had.
Patting the desk for his glasses, Kunikida woke up his computer. His fingers found the frames and he shoved them inelegantly onto his face, eyes never leaving his browser window as he adjusted them. He opened up his email and started a new message to Ango Sakaguchi: the agency’s contact at the Department of Special Affairs.
Dear Mr Sakaguchi,
The Agency has become aware of a new criminal organisation acting in Yokohama who are dedicating considerable time and energy into finding the port mafia’s so-called ‘Demon Prodigy’ in order to enact a plot which will endanger the whole city. It is imperative that we find him first. Is your department in possession of any pertinent information that could be shared to aid our investigation?
This is an urgent matter. Thank you for your continued support.
Yours,
Kunikida Doppo, Armed Detective Agency
He didn’t even read it before pressing send. He stared at his computer for a minute or so, as if expecting Ango to respond instantly with the mystery man’s name, age, date of birth and favourite sweet treat.
It was late. It was eight minutes to midnight: no government worker was going to be monitoring their communications. Kunikida groaned and stretched in his chair. He’d been sitting here for hours. Maybe he needed to take a break.
He stood up and pulled his jacket from the back of his chair, slipping it on and making his way out of the office. He made sure to lock it as he left: he was only stepping out for a few minutes, but opportunistic thieves lurked around every corner and he wouldn’t make the agency a target. The stairwell was dark and empty as he made his way down to ground level, pushing through the doors past the closed coffee shop and stepping out onto the quiet street.
It was a mild spring evening, and Kunikida slipped his hands into his pockets, setting off on a brisk walk around the block to get his brain back in order. Almost as soon as he reached the corner, his phone started buzzing, and Kunikida pulled it out with a frown. Who could be calling him at this hour?
It was an unknown number. Kunikida sighed and accepted the call, holding the phone up to his ear
“Hello?” he said.
“Kunikida,” the caller said. “It’s Ango. I got your email,”
“Ango!” Kunikida stuttered to a stop, glancing back at the agency entrance. Was this a conversation better held back in the office?
“I’m glad you contacted me about this,” Ango said, and Kunikida made up his mind, turning back around. “As I’m sure you’re aware, this is rather… sensitive information,”
“So he is alive then?” Kunikida asked.
A sigh from the other end of the line. Then, “He is,”
Kunikida could have punched the air. He knew it! Instead, he settled for a little satisfied nod to himself as he entered the office building again. Can you give me any information?” he asked, and Ango sighed again.
“I’m sure I can trust you to be discreet,” he said slowly. “The clearing of his records was not strictly government-authorised. I wiped the slate clean for him, as a personal matter,”
That stopped Kunikida in his tracks, halfway up the stairwell. Personal? Ango had pardoned the scourge of Yokohama’s underworld, the criminal so terrifying that he was still feared years after his disappearance, as a favour?
Ango seemed to recognise the reason for Kunikida’s silence. “Believe me,” he said. “It was not a decision I took lightly. He’s been a responsible citizen in the years since,”
It still didn’t sound right to Kunikida, but he acquiesced and muttered some sort of assent as he continued up to the office.
“So, as I’m sure you can imagine, I’m glad it was me that you came to with all this. I can give you information that no one else would be able to,” Ango continued. “Believe me when I say, this organisation that’s searching for him will not find him. I doubt they even know what he’s truly capable of. You have nothing to fear from them reaching him,”
“If we could contact him though, he’d know,” Kunikida protested. “We could warn him that-”
“He already knows.” Ango’s voice was final, leaving no room for discussion. “You underestimate him, Kunikida. Anything you’ve managed to find out, he knows, and he certainly knows more than you’ll discover. Leave him alone and everything will turn out completely fine,”
It wasn’t the answer that Kunikida wanted at all.
“You can’t expect me to just hang the fate of the agency on some criminal!” he said, with a bit too much anger in his voice for speaking to a government agent. “I came to you for help, you have to give me more than just ‘It’s going to be okay’!”
“It’s all I can give you, and it’s all you need. You don’t need to find him. Leave the Demon Prodigy alone, and you have nothing to fear.”
Click. The line went dead. Halfway into unlocking the office door again, Kunikida froze, bringing his phone down from his ear to stare at it in disbelief. How dare Ango hang up on him like that? The city was at stake, but their supposed allies in the government were content to just give up and rely on a dangerous criminal, who’d been pardoned on a whim for no good reason.
This was inane. Kunikida wasn’t going to accept this. With a newfound rage-insensed vigour, he stormed into the office and sat at his desk, opening up his computer again. He typed in his passcode a little more forcefully than strictly necessary and glowered at the screen while it loaded.
He was going to find this son-of-a-bitch himself.
As a government-sanctioned organisation, the Agency had access to the basic official records of every Yokohama resident. Years ago, while Katai had still been a member of the agency, just as a precaution, he’d set up a handy little backdoor that allowed them further access to the database, beyond the basic records. It hadn’t been used in years, but Kunikida still remembered the process of activating it, and within minutes he had all the information of the Department of Special Affairs at his fingertips.
He paused, fingers hovering over the keys. Where to start? Whoever the Demon Prodigy was, Ango had wiped their file outside of the government’s authorization. It was probably a fairly basic job; there would be no false information there to pad it out, or kept records of job applications or fender-benders. Whoever he was searching for would have a completely blank file, completely clean of absolutely anything, like they’d simply spawned into being a few years ago.
Not that that was of much use. That was just how Kunikida would know he’d found the right man. There was no way of searching through the database of the thousands of ability users across Yokohama with only the criteria ‘not much in the file’.
Briefly, Kunikida realised that it was entirely possible he was looking in the wrong place entirely; there was no guarantee that the Demon Prodigy was even an ability user. He batted the thought away: that was a bridge he’d cross when he came to it.
What other clues did he have as to this mysterious man’s identity? He pulled over his notebook and revelled in the sensation of Doppo Poet drifting into him through the pages, letting his ability give him strength. He flipped back to the notes he’d made about Double Black, including the annotations in the margins of what Kyouka had told them. His finger tapped along one of the additions.
The Demon Prodigy was rumoured to have been Mori’s son. According to Yosano, this was impossible, but all rumours had some basis of truth. It was worth a look.
The government had plenty of files on Mori. The Port Mafia may have been an illegal organisation, but it wasn’t stupid enough to be caught out on legal loopholes. Every record of the ‘Mori Corporation’ and its members was kept in pristine condition, allowing for no excuses for the government to look into their dealings. Though it was well-known among this circle that the Mori Corp was merely a front for the mafia, there was no evidence to be found of it here.
Mori’s file was detailed, and included a significant ‘suspected crimes’ section, which Kunikida dutifully ignored. He manoeuvred his way through the digital paperwork, but was disappointed to find no listed next of kin.
Well, he knew it wouldn’t have been that easy. What else could the connection there be? Kunikida remembered Yosano mentioning that Mori had been a doctor before joining the mafia; perhaps he’d come across the Demon Prodigy as one of his patients? The details for a modest doctor’s surgery were listed in Mori’s past employment record, and Kunikida clicked through, navigating his way to the patient records.
In the 10 years that the surgery had opened, there had been thousands and thousands of patients who’d passed through its doors. Kunikida pursed his lips, looking at the alphabetical ordering of the files. If his reasoning was correct, this Demon Prodigy couldn’t have met Mori more than a year or so before he became the boss and the clinic closed down. If he sorted the patients by the date they were seen and worked through those, surely he’d find something.
Flicking backwards, it seemed that all of Mori’s patients had been somewhat criminally aligned. He seemed to have treated a lot of beatings and gunshot wounds, and from the clinic’s location in neutral territory, it was clear that Mori’s office had been some sort of medical safe haven.
Suddenly, Kunikida clicked through a file that made him sit up straight. It was of a young boy, with no photo attached, who had seen Mori for a check-up and a psychological evaluation just a few months before the doctor had become the boss.
“Bingo,” Kunikida whispered, clicking on it and leaning in closer to his screen.
The boy was called Tsushima Shuuji. Following reports of bloodshed, the thirteen year old had been found standing over his parent’s mutilated corpses. Though the boy alleged an intruder had broken in, police had been unconvinced and referred him to Mori to assess whether or not he’d had a homicidal psychotic breakdown. Mori had confirmed that the boy was innocent, and as normal as they came.
Kunikida’s instincts were screaming at him. He almost held his breath: this had to be him! There was no way in hell that Mori hadn’t seen the potential in such a damaged, impressionable child and whisked him away to the mafia. A victorious grin crept onto Kunikida’s face as he clicked onto Tsushima Shuuji’s file, ready to find the blank clean slate that signified his wiped records.
The smile vanished instantly.
Dead. Tsushima had died 9 years ago. Devastated by his parent’s deaths, he’d killed himself by stepping off of a bridge into the Shinkansen river; his entire file was simply a birth certificate, a police report and the results of an autopsy. Kunikida closed the file again with an odd revulsion at his own train of thought. He’d got so wrapped up in this case that he’d been celebrating finding the tragic file of a boy who’d experienced a traumatising horrifying event.
He paused in his musings: a moment of silence for poor young Tsushima Shuuji.
…
Maybe it was time for a new approach. After all, there was nothing concrete about his theory that Mori had met the Demon Prodigy at his medical clinic. Kunikida tapped his pen against the desk, wracking his brains for a different way that he could scope out this mysterious man’s identity. Maybe the pay records would show something?
Part of the meticulous records kept on the Mori Corporation included pay slips of every employee that had ever been on record. He and Katai had tried, years ago, to use these records to compile a comprehensive list of all the members of the Port Mafia, but unfortunately most of the listed accounts were either fake, off-shore accounts or entirely untraceable. Whichever mafia member was in charge of laundering their money had done a phenomenal job at it; the entire trail was like a tangled ball of yarn with no hope of finding the start or end.
Nevertheless, there were a good few names on those payslips, and Kunikida navigated his way back to the records kept on the Mori Corporation, clicking through to find the list of employees when it had first changed hands. He wasn’t entirely sure what he was searching for, he realised as he scrolled down the page. The only realisation he was having was that his Ideals ruined his life: the Port Mafia paid their employees very generously, and if not for his Ideals, Kunikida could have been there alongside them, living his best life on the back of his own superyacht by now.
A name caught his eyes as he scrolled through: ‘Oba Yozo’. He continued scrolling down, then frowned and scrolled back up again to stare at it. On a sheer whim, he clicked the name to open its history of payments.
Oba had been paid an exceeding amount. Though the salary had started small, the bonuses and pay rises suggested that he rose quickly through the ranks, becoming an executive very soon after first joining. His contract had been terminated four years ago.
Kunikida’s heart skipped a beat. This. This was it, this time there could be no mistaking. The Demon Prodigy was none other than this man: Oba Yoza.
Kunikida opened his file, only to be met with an error: allegedly, Oba Yozo did not exist. Heart now hammering in anticipation of the truth, Kunikida refused to let this deter him. He was so close; this was just confirmation. He chanted the name to himself in his mind: Oba Yozo, Oba Yozo, Oba Yozo. Why did it sound so familiar? Where had he heard that name before?
Realisation struck him. The pen clattered from between his fingertips, hitting his keyboard with a deafening racket and rolling down the desk onto the floor below. Kunikida didn’t even notice. He was frozen still, hearing blood rush through his ears as his mind locked on to a single memory.
“I’m Oba!”
Dazai had used the fake name with such ease, almost like he’d done it before. Kunikida shook his head, surely this was just some bizarre coincidence?
Yes. A coincidence. It had to be! Oba wasn’t that unusual of a name, was it?
Kunikida huffed a weak excuse to a laugh to himself and closed the file, continuing to scroll. As if Dazai could be a feared criminal executive. He’d seen the man come to work before so high that he’d forgotten what stairs were, and had spent almost an hour sobbing at the top of them. There was no way in hell Dazai was capable of half of what the Demon Prodigy was rumoured to be.
Except… Kunikida’s fingers stilled on the mousepad. His eyes burned, no longer reading the text on his computer screen as his mind raced.
The more he thought about it, the more the puzzle pieces started to slot into place. Dazai’s secretiveness about his past. His eclectic underhand knowledge, and the terrifyingly brilliant strategist that slipped out from under his eccentric facade from time to time.
Dazai and Chuuya had been inseparable since the latter had come to the Agency. Kunikida remembered thinking, after seeing the way Chuuya had intercepted the bullet aimed at Dazai in that alleyway, about how the two of them seemed so in sync with one another and would be a formidable fighting duo.
Another recent memory flashed into his mind: Jippensha attacking without warning, firing on Atsushi and sending their young coworker reeling in a bloody pile. Everyone had been frozen in shock, but Dazai had moved faster than had seemed physically possible, conjuring a gun as if from thin air and returning fire, somehow managing to hit his target in the milliseconds between the attack and Jippensha teleporting away.
Kunikida pushed back from his desk, reeling slightly. Every odd comment Dazai would make, every time his presence would inexplicably send ice down Kunikida’s spine, it all flashed through his mind in a sickening rushed haze. Kunikida realised, with mounting horror, that Dazai had stood alongside his search for the ‘Demon Prodigy’ the entire time, and may even have been musing about ways to keep him quiet, should he stumble too close to the truth.
What was it Ango had said? “Anything you’ve managed to find out, he already knows.”
And the kicker. The nail in this horrible fucked up no good fucking coffin. The reason that two years ago, the President had cautioned Kunikida about Dazai and authorised him to shoot to kill should anything suspicious occur. Trembling slightly, Kunikida returned to his laptop and typed slowly and deliberately into the search bar of the DoSA’s database. He clicked through a few times, and let out an audible choke at the result that flashed up onto his screen.
The completely blank file of Dazai Osamu.
Notes:
the plot thickens... poor kunikida, going through it yet again.
you know what, i doubt this is an accurate portrayal of ango, especially in regards to his connection to the agency. he's probably too over-worked and sleep deprived to also have to deal with an agency of crazy people, but he's here now, and he's loving life.
hope you enjoyed this chapter!
Chapter 8: Kunikida; The Killing Moon
Summary:
Kunikida and Dazai talk about the past.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Kunikida could not remember for the life of him how he’d ended up at the riverside. The past 20 minutes had been a frantic blur, thoughts racing around his head too fast to comprehend and heartbeat pounding faster than if he’d run a marathon. He’d been all but in a trance when he stumbled outside for some fresh air, and now here he was at the riverside, staring into the flickering reflection of the waning moon in the water.
Dazai was the Demon Prodigy. The scourge of the Yokohama underworld, the monster under the bed for the most dangerous people in the city, the phantom who’d haunted the mafia for years since disappearing, it had all been his eccentric mindless partner. How could Kunikida not see it? How could he stand there and advocate for using his Ideals to apprehend dangerous criminals, when all along, he’d been gallivanting with the most dangerous…
It was all a testament to Kunikida’s failings as a detective. He worked tirelessly at the Agency to protect the innocent citizens of Yokohama. He’d honed his ability, and his investigative skills, but in the end it had all been for nothing. From the start, he had been blind to the evil beneath his very own nose. It was almost like-
Abruptly, Kunikida was snapped out of his spiral by the sudden buzzing of his phone in his breast pocket. He pulled it out, fumbling slightly, and felt his heart stutter at the name flashing on the caller ID on the screen. Dazai. Speak of the devil. Or, more accurately he supposed, the demon. Briefly, he entertained just letting it ring, but common sense won out, and Kunikida answered it like he was signing his own death warrant, bringing the phone up to his ear.
“Hello?” he said, aiming for nonchalance.
“Hey,” Just from that one syllable, Kunikida knew that Dazai knew what was happening. He heaved an exhale, and sank onto the bench nearby him. “Ango told me what you were up to,”
“Of course he did,” Kunikida said.
“Mm,” Dazai hummed. “I think we need to speak in person. Where are you?”
“By the river, near the Agency,” Kunikida said, looking up at the shimmering water.
Dazai laughed. “Near Froufrou?”
It was such an offhanded comment, that Kunikida gaped for a moment, completely taken aback by the change in mood. Roughly a year ago, he and Dazai had investigated a case together, as partners. It had been a confusing mess: the culmination of a battle of wills between a senile old lady and the gifted posing as her spoiled poodle in order to steal her fortune. They’d apprehended ‘Froufrou’ barely two hundred metres down the river line.
Kunikida smiled despite himself at the memory. “Yes,” he confirmed. “Near Froufou,”
Dazai’s voice was warm as he responded, “I’ll be there in ten minutes,” and the line went dead.
Kunikida flicked his phone shut again and slipped it back into his pocket, gaze not leaving the waters in front of him. Suddenly, his mind seemed clear again. That had been Dazai on the phone. Granted, a more sombre and serious Dazai than Kunikida was usually privy to, but it hadn’t been a soulless mass murderer. It had been his friend. His stupid, light-hearted, suicidal friend.
There were a lot of lies and subterfuge surrounding the Demon Prodigy. Rumours spanned the entirety of Yokohama’s illegal networks, stories of pacts with the devil and cold dead eyes. Everything that was known about him was essentially just hearsay; no one could claim to know the demon himself. The Demon Prodigy was a creature of mystery and shadow.
But Dazai? Kunikida knew who Dazai was.
Dazai had been his partner at the Agency for two years now, and not once in that time had Kunikida questioned his place there. There were times when he’d been concerned for his coworker’s state of being, times when he’d show up to work high on substances Kunikida didn’t even want to know the names of, or times when Dazai would get a look in his eyes that left a chill down the back of Kunikida’s neck, but he knew resolutely that there was no one he would rather have at his side when crisis loomed.
The water sparkled at him, like the twinkle of a laugh. Kunikida didn’t smile back.
It felt like barely a few seconds that he was staring into the depths of the waters in front of him before the obnoxious sound of a motorbike interrupted his reverie. Kunikida blinked a few times, suddenly torn from his own mind, and looked up, craning his head around to see a purple motorbike pulling up on the road running alongside the green along the river. Two figures were perched on its back, neither wearing helmets. It was unmistakably Dazai and Chuuya.
Kunikida stood from the bench and turned his back to the river, facing towards the bike. He put his hands into his pockets, tapping his fingers against the spine of his notebook and feeling Doppo Poet thrum in answer, the sensation sinking its way into his bones and fortifying his strength.
Dazai hopped off the back of the motorcycle with a fluid ease, saying something unintelligible to Chuuya before sauntering his way over to Kunikida. He looked perfectly calm and relaxed.
“Kunikida,” he smiled as he approached.
Suddenly, Kunikida’s mind was telling him to run. His instincts screamed at him that he had to get the hell out of there: this was an infamous killer standing before him. How many other men had Dazai stood before like this, with the same easy grin, and how many of those times had Dazai left alone, drenched in blood, smile now twisted and dark?
Should anything happen, Kunikida would be defenceless. No weapon he could produce would have any effect on Dazai, and he wasn’t naive enough to think he could win empty handed. Even if Nakahara wasn’t looming by the roadside like a tensed guard dog, Kunikida knew he’d be at the bottom of the river before he even had a chance to raise his fist.
He forced those instinctive fears back. This was his coworker, his friend. He was not going to turn tail and flee like a scared little girl because of some rumours. He pictured a stun grenade, not for any particular reason, but because it was an item that he produced often, and the way that Doppo Poet danced around the schematics he conjured in his mind was a little buzz of security.
Dazai’s smile fell slowly as he took in Kunikida’s guarded posture. Thankfully it wasn’t replaced by malice, but rather disappointment. He sighed, and cocked his head, pursing his lips, before stepping around him (thankfully he kept a wide berth as he passed and made no physical contact) to sit on the bench that Kunikida had been occupying. He patted the seat next to him, and Kunikida slid back down, back still ramrod straight in anticipation.
“I knew you’d figure it out,” Dazai said, breaking the silence.
Kunikida huffed slightly, and raised an eyebrow. Was there anything he didn’t know? Rather than voicing this thought though, he instead asked, “Why did you let me?”
Dazai seemed surprised. “Why wouldn’t I?” he said. “It was bound to happen sooner or later. It was wishful thinking on my part to hope it could stay buried,”
A beat.
“Fuck, Dazai.” Kunikida couldn’t help it, and the cheeky grin that split Dazai’s face was so familiar that Kunikida found himself letting his guard down, turning and relaxing like they were just two coworkers again, gossiping on a lunch break. “The Port Mafia? Really?”
“Guilty as charged,” Dazai responded, and maybe the joke was a little too on the nose, because the air immediately felt tense again as Kunikida remembered the whole scope of crimes that had probably been wiped from Dazai’s record. Dazai sighed. “Go on,” he added. “I imagine you have questions,”
“Why did you leave?”
It was the obvious question. Dazai wasn’t bound by ideals as Kunikida was; sometimes, he didn’t even seem to be bound by morals. In the Port Mafia, he seemed to have had it all: money, power and influence. He could take whatever he wanted, and no one could step in his way; all he would have had to do was whisper his name and half of Yokohama would have dropped to their knees at his feet.
He’d given all that up, for what? To become a layabout detective and shirk his paperwork responsibilities for minimal pay?
The smile that overtook Dazai couldn’t have been described as anything but sad , and Kunikida was hit with the sudden realisation that he didn’t think he’d ever seen his friend truly show emotion like this.
“I had a friend,” Dazai said, reaching into his breast pocket and pulling out a small folded piece of photopaper. He handed it to Kunikida as he spoke, and Kunikida took it, careful not to let their fingers brush. “His name was Oda,”
“Oda,” Kunikdia repeated, looking down at the photo. “Like Oba,”
Three men sat together at a bar. On the left was unquestionably Ango, half turned towards the camera like he hadn’t quite been sure whether or not the photo was actually being taken. It took a second for Kunikida to recognise the figure on the right. Dressed in black with gauze on his cheek, and bandages creeping up his face and over his eye, it was Dazai, leaning back against the bar with a serene expression. The man in the middle stared into the camera without a smile, a drink in his hand. He looked somewhat scruffy; he was unshaven and his shirt was creased and unironed, but Kunikida couldn’t deny the warmth in the photo.
Dazai had paused at Kunikida’s utterance of his pseudonym, squinting slightly at the water in front of him, as if being struck by realisation.
“So that’s how you found out,” he said. “Ango really is a sentimental bastard,”
Kunikida frowned questioningly at him, handing the photo back, and Dazai responded as he took it.
“I imagine Ango replaced all instances of my name appearing in the Mori Corp records with ‘Oba Yozo’?” he asked, and Kunikida nodded in confirmation. Dazai smiled slightly. “It’s what we joked Oda’s penname would be,” he said.
“Ango said he wiped your records as a favour,” Kunikida said. “I didn’t realise the two of you are friends,”
The wistful smile dropped from Dazai’s expression. In the blink of an eye, a cold mask of malice shuttered over Dazai’s face, and Kunikida could have sworn the temperature dropped a few degrees.
“He is not my friend,” Dazai said, spitting the words out like they tasted foul. “He’s a traitor,”
Kunikida felt frozen, having never seen such violent hatred from his friend before. Dazai seemed to realise the effect of his outburst, and schooled himself, rearranging his features into a calmer expression. Kunikida could only watch with horror. Dazai had reigned in his anger so easily, it was as though he’d slipped on a new expression like a mask.
“Ango was a double agent for the government within the Port Mafia,” Dazai continued, as if nothing had happened. “The Boss made a deal with the Department of Special Affairs to eradicate a group in exchange for a special business permit; Ango was the reason that deal was made, and the price of it was Oda’s life,”
“Oh,” Kunikida breathed.
“He died in my arms,” Dazai admitted. “The last thing he told me to do was to save people, help the orphans,”
“So that’s why you came to the ADA,” Kunikida said, and Dazai nodded.
“I drifted around for a couple of years,” Dazai said. “Eventually I found myself back at the government; Ango tried to assuage his guilt by wiping my record and recommending me to the Agency, and my interest was piqued. Long story short, here I am,”
“But you still don’t forgive him?”
Dazai’s laugh was hollow. “How do you forgive someone for killing the only person who’s ever understood you?”
Kunikida didn’t really know what to say to that; he nodded somberly and returned his gaze to the water as he processed this new information. His fingers itched for Doppo Poet, and his notebook, to be jotting all of this down, but somehow he didn't think the sentiment would be appreciated.
He could see now why Dazai left the mafia behind. The underworld may have been the path to infamy and power, but it seemed that the bodies and the sorrows left behind in the trail of blood were damning even to demons. What was that quote again?
Those who inflict death often seek it.
“Did you never worry that they were going to chase after you?” Kunikida asked. “The mafia is brutal to its traitors: it’s the reason no one leaves,”
“I never betrayed the mafia,” Dazai said easily. “I’m not that stupid. All I did was leave.” He turned, and looked directly into Kunikida’s eyes; his gaze was piercing and slightly unsettling. “Did I ever give you information about the mafia that you wouldn’t have found yourself?”
Oddly hypnotised, Kunikida could only wordlessly shake his head. Dazai nodded in satisfaction and turned back towards the water, thankfully breaking eye contact.
“Exactly,” he said. He tilted his head. “They never would have come after me anyway,” he added. “They’re afraid. And the Boss would never let them,”
The boss. Mori. Remembering his notes, Kunikida asked, “Is that because he’s your father?”
The expression on Dazai’s face as he whipped his head back around was nothing short of priceless, and in any other situation, Kunikida would have laughed at his shock. It was rare to see Dazai genuinely surprised. Dazai opened his mouth to say something, seemed to think better of it, then huffed a laugh.
“I suppose you could say that,” he said. “He’s the closest I ever had to one,”
They sat in silence again for a second. Kunikida’s brain was still buzzing, and Doppo Poet skirted along his finger to nudge along a point that he’d completely forgotten in all the drama.
“Tokaido,” Kunikida said, eyes widening with realisation. “What are we going to do about Tokaido?”
Dazai raised an eyebrow.
“They were right about the Demon Prodigy being alive!” Kunikida continued, suddenly feeling alert again. “If they manage to get their hands on you and on Chuuya, and if whatever mind control thing they’re planning works out, Yokohama could be in serious danger!”
“That’s a lot of ‘if’s,” Dazai said dryly, but Kunikida wasn’t even listening to him now.
“We know they’re capable, they’ve managed to take down one Port Mafia executive already,” he rambled. “What’s two more?” He pulled his notebook out of his pocket and began sketching up his thoughts; Doppo Poet buzzed and hummed in excitement. “We need to organise a full assault,” he muttered to himself. “They’ve already attacked us in our own territory, we’ll need to make a covert but full scale approach on theirs- we can’t let them-”
Suddenly, Kunikida's entire being was flooded with ice cold emptiness. He flinched violently, and gasped at the sudden chill that erupted through his system and settled deep in his bones. Doppo Poet fizzled as it was crushed out of existence by an icy grip, and Kunikida instinctively grasped at his chest, as if searching for it. Heart pounding and eyes wide, he looked up to see Dazai now standing over him, a hand placed gently on his shoulder.
“Kunikida,” the former mafioso said, not unkindly. “You can plan in the morning. Go home,”
Mercifully, he removed his hand and warmth returned again to Kunikida’s system. Doppo Poet awoke, twitching.
Dazai smiled at him gently. His tan trench coat swirled in the air as he turned around and sauntered casually back towards the motorbike that Chuuya was leaning against, arms folded. The two of them didn’t seem to exchange a single word as they remounted the bike, and Chuuya kickstarted the engine to life with a satisfying purr.
Kunikida watched them pull away, dust kicking up into the air as Chuuya accelerated and soon they were gone. Kunikida sighed, and stared at the notebook in his lap. The scribbles that barely flirted with the ruled lines looked more like chicken scratch than his usual printed handwriting. Maybe Dazai was right. It had been a long day, and Kunikida was mentally exhausted.
He gently closed his notebook and slipped it into his pocket before standing up and collecting himself. It was going to be a long walk home.
Notes:
holy shit? it's been an insanely busy time for me so i haven't even had a chance to open ao3 until now and suddenly i'm just overwhelmed with the most amazing support and comments and everything oh my god i am screaming. if you guys ever get arrested, give me a call, i'll post bail, idc i'll rob a bank if i have to. for you <3
anyway poor kunikida, he's processing.
Chapter 9: Chuuya; The Sacred and Profane
Summary:
Plans are made
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The morning after having to chaperone shitty Dazai’s confrontation with his coworker, Chuuya was perched on the edge of a desk in the detective agency's bullpen. He leant back on his hands, watching the high-strung blond detective gesture obsessively over hand-drawn schematics of the Tokaido building on the whiteboard in front of him. The rest of the agency were gathered around as well, listening intently to their newly-formulated plan of attack. None of them had seemed too pleased to hear that Tokaido still posed a threat, but they recognised the necessity and no complaints were made.
Chuuya could only wish that his own subordinates would have the same common fucking decency.
“They significantly outnumber us,” Kunikida was saying. “So we’ll need to employ a covert strategy. We can’t risk infiltration like last time; Jippensha clearly knew who and where we were, so, here’s what I propose:...”
Tuning him out as Kunikida drew arrows to represent the weretiger and the farm boy, Chuuya yawned slightly, and stretched his shoulders. Tainted burned steadily beneath his skin as Aharabaki writhed in the movements of the muscle, sparking up the wildfire within that Chuuya dutifully ignored. The tapping next to him, on the other hand, wasn’t quite as easy to pass off.
“Would you shut the fuck up?” he hissed to Dazai, who was reclining next to him, one hand behind his head. If not for the irritating way his fingers were drumming against the file balanced on his lap, he would have looked for all the world fast asleep.
Dazai cracked an eye. The casual gesture was ruined somewhat by Chuuya sitting on Dazai’s blind side, so the mackerel had to turn his head a little to glance at him. “Wow, Chibi must really be losing his touch if he can’t even stand the sound of a few little taps,” he hummed.
“Bastard.” Chuuya scowled at him. “I know you’re doing this on purpose,”
“You’re so boring nowadays,” Dazai said nonchalantly, closing his eyes again and settling his head back. Thankfully though, he stopped his stupid tapping. “Kunikida would have thrown something by now,”
Chuuya rolled his eyes, recognising the stupid attempt at inciting jealousy and refusing to rise to it. Aharabaki roared in his ears, scorching down his neck through Tainted in waves of flame, and Chuuya couldn’t suppress a wince at the sensation..
“Nakahara?”
“What?” Chuuya growled as he looked up. It came out more harshly than he’d intended, and Aharabaki flared, fed by glinting sparks of anger.
Kunikida's eyes widened at his tone, and Chuuya tried not to feel satisfied at his shock. Much as he had been amused by the Detective Agency’s antics the past few days, sometimes he thought they forgot that he wasn’t someone to tread lightly around.
Kunikida hesitated slightly, before turning back to the board, tapping an area with his marker. “As I said,” he continued. “Nakahara will monitor the perimeter, alongside Dazai. He’d be a significant combative advantage, but we can’t risk him falling into enemy hands. You’ll have a radio on hand to contact him if things start to look bad, but remember, this is solely a last resort.”
Chuuya nodded his understanding. He appreciated Kunikida’s subtlety at keeping Dazai out of the range of Tokaido too, even though he knew Dazai was probably apathetic either way about his past being revealed.
Truth be told, Chuuya had foreseen the fallout of that particular revelation at the riverside last night to have been significantly worse; he knew the Agency was very concerned with the morals that it upheld, and abhorred the taint that the mafia bled into the city. He’d been expecting the truth of Dazai’s identity to mark the end of that shitty bastard’s spell in the light.
Tainted flickered, and Chuuya shifted with another scowl. He stared dead ahead at the whiteboard in front of him and tried to concentrate on what Kunikida was saying.
“...which means that Tanizaki will be free to lead a cover in this area of the lobby here,” the detective announced.
“No.” Chuuya spoke over Kunikida with ease, and saw every member of the agency turn to look at him. “Tanizaki can search for their detainment block. He has the perfect ability to escape detection and get Kouyou out unscathed,”
Kunikida faltered. “Well, yes, but-”
“No buts.” Chuuya let an imperative tone seep into his voice, the type he used when commanding his subordinates. “I hired you to find Kouyou. You’re more than capable of coordinating an attack without him, and if something goes wrong, I want confirmation that Kouyou is safe even if we can’t take them on,”
Kunikida sighed, and pushed his glasses up as he rubbed at the bridge of his nose. Chuuya stared at him coolly, refusing to break eye contact even as Aharabaki snarled and scratched in his skull at the tension in the air. Directly in front of him, he could see Dazai’s weretiger glancing between the two of them with tense shoulders, like a wildcat hiding in the grass.
“Nakahara is right,” Kunikida admitted finally, looking down and adjusting his glasses. “Tanizaki, you’ll break in first with Light Snow and attempt to find their cells. Be vigilant about motion sensors. Nakahara, Dazai, if we’re a man short, we’re going to need you to be prepared to step in at a moment’s notice, understood?”
The question was directed at Dazai, who didn’t even deign to open his eyes, just humming slightly in affirmation. Chuuya stared down at him, and cocked his head.
He wasn’t stupid enough to ever think he could truly understand Dazai, but he knew full well that he was the only one (currently alive, at least) to have come close.
He knew that Dazai had always been fond of an absentee persona: people were always likely to underestimate a bored kid not paying attention, and that underestimation was always their downfall. Dazai had carried this tactic into adulthood too: he’d rarely appear to take anything seriously in order to hide behind a mask as he plotted.
This was not a mask. This was genuine disinterest. Dazai had no concern over Tokaido, and absolutely no plans to assist in taking them down.
Interesting.
Chuuya didn’t pay much attention to the rest of Kunikida’s plan, and had almost completely tuned the detectives out as he finished and they spoke grimly amongst themselves, preparing for the battle ahead. He leant back on his arms, watching Dazai, who seemed to have woken up and joined the solemn readiness, but Chuuya knew full well that it was only an act.
In order to evade suspicion, the detectives were employing one of the same tactics as they’d used last time to infiltrate the Tokaido headquarters: they would split into groups and travel separately, reconvening in a safe place closer to the headquarters to regroup covertly.
Chuuya couldn’t help but smirk as he watched Dazai skillfully manipulate his coworker’s planned order to suit his own agenda. Kunikida never even seemed to realise that it wasn’t his own plan for their groups to be pairs, and for Dazai and Chuuya to be the last pair to leave the agency. Just watching Dazai work his silver tongue brought back memories so drenched in blood that they really shouldn’t be fond, but a smile flitted to Chuuya’s lips despite himself.
Seeing Dazai act like a good person was unsettling. It was good to know that despite it all, the shitty mackerel was still the same conniving bastard as ever.
The final pair, the doctor and the weretiger, left the office to Dazai’s facetious waving and solemn vow to ‘meet again’. Sat on the desk, Chuuya rolled his eyes at the dramatics, and made no motion to disguise the disgust on his face as Dazai whirled back around to him when the door clicked shut.
“Such a judgemental Chibi,” he chided, seeing the look on Chuuya’s face.
“You’re still a bastard,” was Chuuya’s response. “I almost feel bad for these poor detectives,”
“You should have some more sympathy for the people you’re going to be supporting in battle, you know,” Dazai shook his head solemnly, and Chuuya scoffed.
“When their loss is my gain?” he said. “I don’t think so,”
Dazai hummed, almost curiously, staring across the floor at Chuuya for a few seconds. Aharabaki writhed under the scrutiny, but Chuuya met his ex-partner’s gaze head on, blank and unimpressed. Something unintelligible danced in the tense silence of the air for a few seconds before Dazai sighed deeply and glanced away out the window.
“Anyway,” Chuuya frowned, feeling slightly taken aback. “What’s our plan?”
“The plan?” Dazai asked. He blinked at him, owlish and innocent, but Chuuya hadn’t been fooled by Dazai’s innocence in years. “Were you not listening to Kunikida, Chibi? He gets so annoyed when you don’t pay attention, you know?”
It had been a while since Chuuya had throttled Dazai, and suddenly he was gripped with the urge to relive the fond experience.
“Cut the bullshit,” he said. “You know I know you. What’s our plan?”
That time, it was Dazai who looked taken aback. His mask of composure didn’t slip, but Chuuya could easily see miniscule cracks that suddenly splintered along it at his words. They didn’t last. Dazai had always been able to compose himself with masterful ease, and he did it again, the startled expression dripping from his face like oil from water.
Dazai paused before he spoke, as if for dramatic effect, and stared Chuuya directly in the eyes, preparing for the catastrophic fallout of whatever bomb he was about to set off. Chuuya found himself tensing in anticipation.
After what seemed like an age, Dazai finally spoke. “Tokaido are puppets,” he said firmly. “They’re not acting of their own accord, but being manipulated by someone else coming after us from behind the scenes,”
Chuuya blinked.
Well, fucking obviously.
Something about Tokaido had smelt fishy from the start. Chuuya’s criminal instincts were highly tuned and from the second that they’d pulled the note from the body in the alleyway, alarms had flashed in his head. Infiltrating the headquarters yesterday had all but confirmed his suspicions: he’d almost blown his cover when he’d entered the breakroom and overheard someone on the phone chatting freely about their work for the day.
Anyone with a brain knew to add a non-disclosure clause into any contract signed by hired hands- information would always get out, and it was always a hassle to bribe the police and the courts. Sometimes it wasn’t even possible, so it was common fucking sense to cut off potential snitches at the first hurdle: even the most righteous prosecutor couldn’t make a case from an NDA. To let workers talk so freely to outside contacts was just plain stupid.
An organisation like Tokaido didn’t get to where they were by being stupid. Not alone, in any case. Someone very rich and very powerful must have been behind the scenes, taking advantage of their stupidity, funding the organisation, and feeding them information in the pursuit of some nefarious goal.
Dazai was still watching Chuuya with a carefully guarded look, waiting for Chuuya to gasp in shock at the reveal.
“Was that your big revelation?” Chuuya asked dryly instead, and smirked at the way Dazai’s eyebrows briefly flickered up. “I thought you were supposed to be a genius, anyone could have told you that.”
Aharabaki screamed inside him and ripped its claws deep into Chuuya’s heart as he finished speaking. The sudden blinding flash of burning pain took Chuuya by surprise and he hissed, a hand flying to his chest as he tensed. Thankfully, it only seemed to be a miniscule flare up; Chuuya stared down at the floor for a few seconds, taking deep breaths as the pain ebbed away and no more bursts of Aharabaki’s rage seemed to follow it.
Heart still pounding slightly, Chuuya looked up to find Dazai looking down at him, an odd expression on his face that looked dangerously close to concern.
“Chuuya-” he started, but Chuuya snarled and waved him off.
Aharabaki was docile, most days, feeling calm and sated and barely indistinguishable from the steady burning of For the Tainted Sorrow through his veins. Other days, it was violent. It flared through him, screaming and attempting to burn through his skin to burst out and wreak its havoc on the world. He hadn’t had a bad day like today in a while.
“Carry on,” Chuuya demanded. “So, who’s behind all this?”
Dazai didn’t deign him with a response, he just carried on watching Chuuya with that awful look. It was unsettling, to see Dazai almost expressing something like care. Even during the height of their partnership, he’d never been able to muster up such a positive emotion: Chuuya knew full well that their past relationship had been solely entertainment to Dazai, and he had never let himself be deluded otherwise.
“Stop fucking staring at me, and get on with it,” Chuuya ordered again. His fists clenched around the ledge of the desk so hard that he could feel the wood about to splinter. “What’s our plan?”
Dazai cocked his head, and something glinted in his eye. “Such a good little puppy,” he said, a mocking tone creeping into his voice. “Waiting for orders. Woof woof!”
Chuuya’s nerves were fucking grated, and this time the wood actually did splinter under his grip.
Had he been five years younger, he would have yelled something and crossed the floor of the agency in two purposeful strides to whack the shitty bastard over the head. Dazai would have dodged it easily, but would have been unable to sidestep the punch Chuuya would have levelled at his kidneys; they’d have grappled and tousled and ended up pinned against the wall, all roaming hands, heavy breaths and bared teeth.
They were not partners any more.
For The Tainted Sorrow bled through the air with Chuuya’s rage. It dispersed in cool whispers as it brushed against Dazai’s skin, the whispers of No Longer Human suddenly making the air feel cool. Aharabaki growled at the cold intrusion, and Chuuya grit his teeth, resisting the urge to fall forwards into the rush of Dazai’s ability.
He remained where he was, glaring across the floor at the man who’d left him. Dazai’s inscrutable expression didn’t flinch, but Chuuya could see disappointment shutter across it.
Dazai sighed and sauntered casually forwards, hands tucked into the pockets of his hideous trenchcoat. He dropped onto a desk closer to Chuuya. His stupidly long legs stretched out in front of him as he leant back on his elbows, knocking over a pencil holder and sending a few stray pieces of paper fluttering to the floor beside him.
Chuuya exhaled, and counted to three in his head.
“What’s our plan?” he asked again.
Dazai’s eyes burned into Chuuya’s again, still dead and maroon and empty. When Chuuya tilted his head, he could still see the way that light didn’t reflect off the scar through the right iris. “Obviously,” he said. “We need to go and find this mastermind.”
“And we’re doing that now?” Chuuya raised an eyebrow. “You’re not worried about your little agency? Even stupid, Tokaido is still dangerous, and you’d send them there alone.”
“Dangerous?” Dazai scoffed. “Their leader can turn a stick into a gun. Atsushi alone could take out their whole organisation, and the only one who’d give him any trouble would be the teleporter,”
“Well, the one who could turn a stick into a gun shot his leg off,” Chuuya pointed out. “Not sure if you’d forgotten that,”
“And now he’ll never let that happen again,” Dazai said calmly, as if they weren’t talking about his protege being maimed.
Chuuya couldn’t help the disgust that crossed his face. “Well then, what are we doing?” he asked, pushing aside the memories that flashed into the forefront of his mind of meeting Dazai after training sessions and finding Akutagawa shaking and bloody on the floor. He wondered how much of that would ‘never happen again’. “How do we find this mastermind?”
A slight smile danced along the edges of Dazai’s lips. “Well, we know where they’re coming from,” he said. “The Port Mafia,”
“Don’t be stupid,” Chuuya scowled. “Tokaido kidnapped Kouyou. They’re not working for the mafia,”
“I never said Tokaido were working for the mafia,” Dazai hummed. “But remember that gun in the alley? They’re using mafia resources.”
Chuuya’s lip twisted, and he suppressed the urge to massage his temples, regardless of the headache he could feel building already. He needed a cigarette.
Of course, they were petty thieves. For as long as the Port Mafia had existed, there had existed overzealous petty gangs that thought they could cut corners by skimming from the mafia’s resources. Each time, the mafia would strike down with force to teach the dregs of the underworld that they were not to be trifled with, but every time more would worm their way from the cracks.
Chuuya caught Dazai’s gaze again. There was something dancing behind the bastard’s slight smile that had alarm bells ringing in Chuuya’s head. The stolen files that Kunikida had briefed him on flashed to the forefront of his mind. No opportunistic thief would have been able to get that information, not without insider knowledge. Not without being guided and sponsored by someone within the mafia itself.
“Oh… They’re not stealing from the mafia,” he said slowly, and a smile split Dazai’s face as he grinned.
“Nope!”
Chuuya pinched at the bridge of his nose. “...Who?” he asked, through gritted teeth.
Dazai hopped off the desk and spun around to face Chuuya from the floor. He tucked his hands into his pockets, glancing briefly at something behind Chuuya, and a blank look glazed over his eyes that always made Chuuya think of the Boss.
“We’re gonna have to go and find out,” he said.
Chuuya raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. “Really?” he said. “You don’t know? And you want me to chaperone you to the mafia headquarters to find out?”
Had he really wanted to, Dazai could have just waltzed into the base himself and taken the elevator straight to the Boss’s office with no argument. Though technically an enemy, it made Chuuya’s blood boil sometimes at how lenient the Boss was to Dazai’s escapades. It didn’t help that there was a rumour still drifting around the mafia circles that Dazai was still a valued member of the organisation, and simply undercover for now.
“The mafia?”
The feminine voice from behind him made Chuuya jump, and Aharabaki lashed out, tendrils of power spiking through him and coiling up his wrists. He spun around to see the Agency’s doctor standing in front of the entry doorway behind them.
Maybe it was the way her arms were folded, maybe it was her dark hair and the physician’s coat she wore, or maybe it was the fact that Dazai had just brought him to mind, but Chuuya couldn’t help the jolt of shock that shot through him as he looked at Yosano and, for a brief second, saw Mori.
Her glare cut through him, cold and piercing, as if she knew exactly what he was thinking.
“I said I’d run back and fetch you,” she explained, an eyebrow raised. “Why are you going to the mafia?”
Dazai drifted forward to stand at Chuuya’s shoulder.
“Tying up some loose ends,” he said non committally. “Would you like to help?”
The doctor folded her arms. It was a miracle that Dazai didn’t wither and die from the glare she shot him from under her bangs. Her lips pursed and she tapped a heeled shoe against the linoleum floor.
“You’re not-...” she huffed and cut herself off. “The mafia is dangerous,” she said finally. “You don’t know what their boss is capable of…”
Chuuya coughed suddenly, a hand flying to his mouth as he tried to suppress a laugh. Dazai didn’t react, but Chuuya could see the glint of amusement in his eye.
“And you are?” Dazai asked.
Yosano glared at him. Heels clicking, she marched forwards, coming to a stop right in front of them, and she folded her arms, glaring defiantly between the two of them. Something silver glinted in her fingers, and Chuuya couldn’t help but smirk dryly as he realised it was a scalpel.
“If you’re really doing this, if you’re really breaking into the mafia,” she bit. “Don’t do it on your own. Let me come with you.”
Chuuya cleared his throat, and the two of them turned to look at him. His eyes widened slightly in disgust at the identical movement. They didn’t look alike, but there was something so oddly similar about the two of them in that moment that caught him off guard.
“I still haven’t agreed to this,” he pointed out. “First I have to break one detective into the organisation, and now you want me to bring two?”
When Dazai didn’t offer a rational answer, Yosano spoke.
“I know you’d be happy to take Dazai,” she said in a tone that offered no room for argument. Chuuya couldn’t help but smile slightly. He liked this woman. “You want Kouyou back, you know that this is how we do it. But this is the ultimatum. It’s either both of us, or neither of us. You choose.”
Dazai’s eyes practically sparkled beside Yosano. A smile danced around his lips, and it was disconcertingly easy to read the bastard’s genuine amusement at how this situation played out.
Chuuya rolled his eyes, but nodded in defeat.
“Alright,” he acquiesced. “We’ll find the leak in the mafia. But-” He glared at both of them in turn and even jabbed Dazai in the chest to accentuate his point. Aharabaki hissed as it flickered briefly out of existence. “No fucking funny business, do you hear me?”
Yosano nodded solemnly. Dazai grinned and clasped his hands together.
“No promises Chibi,” he crowed. “Come on then! Let’s break into the mafia!”
Notes:
sorry for vanishing, i hope this chapter was worth the wait! i cannot tell you how much i love chuuya. writing in his pov is so tough because it has to be perfect, i refuse to do him dirty. also yes, i know ndas don't cover illegal activities but pretend the port mafia has an incredible arthur pym type lawyer, or they've swayed the city to push legislation that they do
anyway i cannot tell you how long i've been just sat there spinning this dazai and chuuya around in my mind. their dynamic is something so so skrunkly to me, you know? somehow chuuya has to know dazai like they have the same soul, but he also sits there like 'yeah we were together when we were teenagers but it didn't mean anything to dazai, he was just using me for entertainment'. cut to 16 year old dazai, the smartest guy in yokohama, sobbing to evanesence cus his crush didn't like the dead fish he left in his bedsheets. you know???? they're actually making me ill.
but yeah man it has been a hot minute huh... whoops! updates are gonna be a liiiiittle slow at the moment, my sincerest apologies. i've spent the past few months absolutely cruising doing nothing but now i've been sledgehammer hit by the realisation that i now need to learn an entire semester's worth of really tough material in a few weeks. if anyone has any pro tips on dealing with executive dysfunction please PLEASE let me know! i am in the trenches
thank you so much to everyone who's left such lovely comments on this fic though, and to everyone who's given kudos!! 300, can you believe that!! <333 here's to the blorbos for making this possible
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