Chapter Text
🩸 The Blood Pact – A Forgotten Binding
“What is offered in blood, binds in soul. What is spoken with breath, echoes beyond death.”
— Excerpt from the Arcanum of Veins, Vol. II (Unverified)
🔹 Origin
Blood pacts—also known as soulbinds, vein-vows, or cord rites—were once practiced among gifted youth during periods of war and magical unrest.
They were considered the ultimate trust-bond between partners: a safeguard, a tether, a vow of return.
A promise you couldn’t break, even if you tried.
The practice fell into obscurity after a series of documented incidents involving emotional collapse, magical volatility, and irreversible entanglement.
But the old words still hold power.
If spoken in blood.
If meant.
🔹 Components of a True Pact
To form a soulbind, three elements are required:
1. Shared Blood — Given willingly, not taken.
• Cut into the dominant hand or forearm.
• Skin-to-skin contact is essential.
• Blood must mix while still warm.
2. Spoken Vow — Clear intent, mirrored focus.
• The phrasing shapes the bond.
• Examples from archived cases include:
“If I bleed, so will you.”
“Wherever I go, you follow.”
“I won’t die without you.”
3. Emotional Resonance — Heightened emotional state.
• Rage, grief, love, fear—it doesn’t matter.
• The stronger the feeling, the deeper the bind.
*Missing any of these components can result in failure—or distortion.*
🔹 Effects (Observed)
The following may develop as the bond deepens or reactivates:
- Emotional Echo: Intense emotions reverberate between the bound. Panic, rage, lust, grief—they bleed across the link, sometimes without warning.
- Physical Synchronization:
• Injuries may partially mirror (e.g., one breaks a rib, the other aches).
• Arousal and physical pleasure can be felt in tandem.
• Prolonged separation may cause sickness, fatigue, or magical instability. - Voice Resonance:
• Certain tones or phrases from a bonded partner can trigger calming or destabilizing effects.
• Words spoken during the pact often become emotionally charged or subconsciously anchored commands. - Sexual Feedback Loop:
• Arousal in one may ignite in the other.
• Physical intimacy rapidly strengthens the bond.
• Tease, denial, or climax can result in overwhelming feedback—sometimes enough to cause temporary blackouts or collapse.
🔹 Dangers
- Co-Dependency: Rapid emotional enmeshment, often involuntary.
- Overload Events: Intense physical or emotional feedback may trigger collapse, seizures, or spikes of wild magic.
- Possession Risk: Rare, but recorded cases describe one soul attempting to “merge” with the other, leading to psychosis or complete loss of identity.
- Imbalance: If one partner resists or suppresses emotion, the bond may strain or warp—resulting in decay, backlash, or involuntary fusion.
🔹 Severance (Unconfirmed)
The bond is considered permanent.
However, ancient texts reference three possible forms of dissolution:
1. Mutual Death.
Obvious. Final. Clean.
2. Mutual Release.
Both must willingly recite a counter-vow under emotional duress, share blood again, and renounce the pact.
Rarely works. Often leads to madness.
3. Bond Overload.
Sexual, emotional, or physical intensity pushed to extremes can cause the bond to collapse—or consume both parties entirely.
No known survivors.
“It was once said that to bind yourself to another is to be seen, raw and eternal.
The kind of magic that demands truth… always comes at a cost.”
— Anonymous, scribbled in the margins of a torn Grimoire page, 1912
The call came just after midnight.
Chūya had been seconds from hurling his phone across the room. His headache was already a hammering, dull roar behind his eyes, and the last thing he needed was another emergency.
Until he heard the name.
“Patient admitted unconscious. Unstable vitals. You’re listed as the emergency contact, Mr. Nakahara. We wouldn’t have reached out otherwise.”
The nurse’s voice was polite. Neutral.
Like she hadn’t just punched a hole through seven years of silence.
He almost didn’t go. Almost let it rot in the dark.
But the weight of the name on his chest felt unbearable—like an old scar splitting open just from hearing it aloud.
So he went.
The hospital was almost empty by the time he arrived.
Everything was too quiet, too sterile, the kind of place that seemed to dare you to feel anything.
Room 913, the nurse had said.
Chūya’s boots echoed down the corridor. He didn’t realize he’d been holding his breath until he reached the door.
Fingers paused on the handle.
His other hand curled into a fist at his side.
Seven years.
Seven years of avoiding that name like a curse.
Seven years since he'd last seen Dazai Osamu—really seen him, not just a file in the system, a whisper on the street, a brush of cursed history in someone else’s mouth.
And now he was here.
Waiting behind a hospital door like a ghost.
“You’re not here for him,” Chūya muttered to himself, jaw tight.
“You’re here because some idiot put your name on a damn form.”
He opened the door.
Dazai looked like hell.
Worse, actually.
Pale. Too pale. Shirt open at the collar. Gauze on his wrist.
Monitors blinked beside him in quiet, disjointed rhythm.
There was a slow IV drip in his arm, and a second one strapped tight to his chest, over his heart.
The room reeked of antiseptic. And blood.
The air shifted the moment Chūya stepped inside.
Not metaphorically.
Literally.
The machines stuttered—just briefly—and then recalibrated, as if some invisible force had just settled into the room with a satisfied sigh.
Chūya frowned. Took a step forward.
Watched the heart monitor stabilize.
Beep.
Beep.
Even. Calm. Anchored.
“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” he whispered.
Another step.
The numbers on the second monitor climbed—gently, slowly—as if they’d been waiting for him.
“He wasn’t stable when we brought him in.”
The nurse’s voice echoed back to him now.
“We couldn’t explain it. His vitals kept crashing… and then they just leveled out. We didn’t know why.”
But Chūya knew.
Not why.
Not how.
But what.
The bond.
That damn bond.
The one he hadn’t thought about in years. The one he’d assumed had died, or faded, or—
“—burned itself out when you disappeared, bastard,” Chūya murmured, now at the edge of the bed.
His pulse was suddenly too loud in his ears.
He hadn’t felt it. Not for years. No phantom pulls. No shared dreams. No flares of emotion that didn’t belong to him.
But now?
Now he was too aware of the tightness in his own chest.
Of the way Dazai’s breathing synced with his steps.
Of the quiet warmth trickling through his fingertips like a thread pulling tight.
Not enough to hurt.
Just enough to say still here.
Still bound.
Chūya clenched his jaw and turned to leave.
“Knew you’d come back.”
The voice was barely a rasp. Barely real.
But Chūya froze mid-step.
Slowly—furious, careful—he turned his head.
Dazai’s eyes were open. Slits of bruised hazel against the stark white of the room. His mouth curled into a faint, tired smirk.
Not dramatic. Not cocky.
Just… worn.
“You’re supposed to be unconscious,” Chūya hissed.
Dazai blinked lazily.
“You’re supposed to be gone.”
“I was.”
A beat passed.
Another.
Chūya stared at him like a wound. Like a curse that had crawled its way back to life just to ruin him again.
“What the hell did you do to yourself, Dazai?”
“Was trying to die.” A slow, painful breath. “Guess I got interrupted.”
“By what? The hospital staff? A failed attempt?” Chūya’s voice climbed. “Or was it your sick sense of fucking drama?”
Another monitor beeped faster.
Dazai winced, and—fuck.
Chūya felt it. Like a pinprick in his own ribs. A ghost of pain not his.
The bond was alive again.
Waking.
He sat down hard in the visitor chair, eyes on the monitor. Breathing through gritted teeth.
“We’ll fix this,” he muttered. “Whatever the hell this is—we’ll undo it. Sever it.”
“You can’t.” Dazai’s voice was low.
“You knew that, even then.”
Chūya stared at the wall.
“You knew it when you said the words.”
It had started like all their worst ideas did—
with Dazai looking at him like that.“You ever think about how easy it would be,” he’d said, boots hanging off the edge of the roof, “to make someone stay forever?”
Chūya had barely glanced at him. He was wiping blood off his knuckles with the sleeve of his coat, still buzzing from the mission, adrenaline crackling like static under his skin.
“You sayin’ you’re lonely, or just sick in the head?”
Dazai laughed. Not his usual mocking one. Softer. Distant.
“Maybe both.”
Silence stretched between them for a moment. A wind passed, sharp and cold. Chūya didn’t flinch.
He never did around Dazai.
“I found something,” Dazai said then, quiet and sharp like he was tossing a knife across the space between them.
“In the archives. Real old stuff. Blood magic. Binding. It links two people.”Chūya’s hand froze mid-wipe.
“What the hell are you on about now?”
“Just a thought experiment.”
A smirk ghosted across his lips.
“Unless you’re scared.”There it was. The bait. Dangled like always.
Chūya didn’t rise to it. Not at first.
He stood, walked to where Dazai sat, looked down at the half-open leather-bound journal in his lap. The page was yellowed, curling, ink barely legible—but there it was.
“Blood offered, breath spoken, bond sealed. One wound. One echo. One fate.”
“It’s a metaphor,” Chūya said flatly.
“It’s a ritual,” Dazai countered. “The kind that makes things stick.”
“You want to ‘stick’ to me, Dazai?” Chūya scoffed. “You that desperate for a leash?”
Dazai leaned back on his elbows, eyes glittering up at him.
“Who said I’d be the one wearing it?”
Chūya hated that his pulse reacted to that. Hated the chill that climbed down his spine—half instinct, half recognition.
“Fine,” he bit out. “You wanna play? Let’s play.”
They found a shard of broken glass in the gravel.
Didn’t even bother going inside for a blade.Chūya went first.
He held out his hand, eyes locked on Dazai’s, and cut a line across his palm.
Clean. Controlled.
He didn’t flinch.
Dazai followed suit.
Sloppier. Deeper than necessary.Their blood welled up fast, hot and vivid in the dying light.
Without a word, Dazai reached forward—and pressed their hands together.
Palm to palm.
Warm blood mixing, skin to skin, breath held between them like a prayer.
“Say it,” Dazai said.
“Say what?”
“Whatever comes to you.”
Chūya didn’t know where the words came from.
Didn’t know why his heart was thudding like a war drum, why his mouth moved without thought.
But he said them.
“If I bleed, so will you.”
“If I break,” Dazai whispered, “you break too.”
Their grips tightened. Blood slick. Burning.
“If you die,” Chūya said, the words catching, “then I go with you.”
A silence fell like ash.
And then—
a pulse.Not in his chest. Not in his veins.
Between them.
Like something unseen had just snapped taut and alive.
Like a string pulled through both their bones.Dazai swayed. Chūya gasped.
It wasn’t pain. Not exactly.
It was recognition.
“What the fuck—”
“It worked,” Dazai said, eyes wide. “It actually—”
Chūya shoved him back with his uninjured hand.
“You didn’t say it’d feel like—like that!”
“Would you have done it if I had?”
“No, you bastard!”
“Exactly.”
They never talked about it again.
Never mentioned the way their dreams synced for weeks.
Never acknowledged the moment Chūya stubbed his toe and Dazai hissed halfway across the compound.
Never spoke of the pull in their chests when one got too far away from the other.
It faded eventually.
The bond went quiet.
Until now.
Until tonight.
Until the thread pulled taut again.