Chapter Text
Dazai Osamu was dead.
The port mafia had lost it's eight leader.
It had been a week since Atsushi's mentor-his savior ,you could even dare say his father figure in some way-had took his own life by jumping off of the highest port mafia tower, in front of Atsushi himself and the agency's mad dog.
He remembered the horror he had felt when he saw him standing near the edge, he remembered how he had felt the color drain from his face as he stepped over the edge, and jumped.
It was a beautiful death, a peaceful death, like he always wanted.
The aftermath, not so much,
The sigh he found before him when he looked down at the pavement underneath was...haunting to say the least, something that would serve as nightmare fuel for the rest of his miserable life, something that would stay ingrained in his memory, and something that would show up whenever he saw crimson. The splatter of blood and guts, the sickening sound of bones breaking he was somehow able to hear despite being a few hundred meters up in the air, the eternal smile that refused to wipe off of his face, until his muscles started to relaxe and his face became neutral again.
As long as Atsushi had known that man, he was always smiling.
Always.
But that sight was nothing, no, it was nothing compared to what followed, whatever it was, that thing-it had nearly turned Yokohama upside down. If not for the special abilities division interfering with the chaos ,with the destruction brought by the executive-now boss of the port mafia- Nakahara Chuuya, And atsushi-despite his newly acquired freedom-was going straight to the most feared man in Yokohama. He was going to see the beast of his free will. And he was realizing his mistake more with every step he took.
His palms were clammy, his throat dry, and every single cell in his body screamed at him to turn around and make sure the distance between him and the cursed room he was heading to was as large as humanly possible-hell- he would move to another planet if he could. But he knew that was impossible, and even if it was an option, he was sure the cursed being would find him even if he moved to a whole 'nother universe, because what was behind that door wasn't a human being-it hadn't been in a long while.
It was a god.
The god of destruction and calamity,
A god that ruling over darkness currently chained up of his own will, waiting to unleash hell on this world
Atsushi wasn't sure if he should have come here in the first place,
He wasn't sure of anything.
So when he reached out, when he opened that door, when he stepped inside, he was half expecting his ex-superior to tear his throat out for even daring to show his face here without even a second glance at his face.
But it seems he was wrong, because what he saw behind that door was far, far from his expectations.
Sitting-or rather kneeling-in The middle of the room, chained up and head bowed as in eternal defeat, was Nakahara Chuuya. The most feared man in Yokohama.
The vessel of a god.
An incarnate of hell and destruction.
the man who loved so much he lost himself
When he lay eyes on him-for the first time in a few days, Atsushi remembered. He remembered how he had protected his boss, He remembered how he had fought with all his might to protect him,
to stop losing,
or had he fought with such rage to stop feeling?
Atsushi-once again-didn't know the answer, but when Chuuya raised his head, when those haunted eyes looked at him-although it seemed he was looking through him rather than at him- he realized something,
No matter if Dazai gave him the right to leave, No matter if he ran as fast as he could, This beast would always find him,
and it would make him pay for it's grief,
His throat went even more dry-if that was even physically possible.
"...Chuuya-san" he began, uncertain of how to approach whatever this was.
"Boss." He didn't even bother to look at him, he knew he could crush him if he wanted to,
He looked up, In those eyes, Atsushi wasn't sure what he saw, he was never very good at reading people despite the environment he grew up in.
But he knew, he knew that this man had went mad, perhaps long before the fall of his partner, (lover?) he had lost all notion of reasonable thinking. All that was now left was a shell of a being.
Nothing more, nothing less
The cerulean bore into him " i'm the boss now" That single sentence made Atsushi's skin crawl, he wanted to get out of there, As soon a possible.
"Dazai-san said i no longer belong to the port mafia-"
The laugh that followed, was mechanical, forced, it felt more like a performance than a laugh the kind you would here in a battle field, often the kind of laugh Dazai-san let out. Except his performances were way more thought out,
"Dazai?" He began, humorless smile creeping up to his face "who the hell is that?"
"Chuuya-san..this is a government prison, i heard that three counter skill of the military were blown up in order to restrain you, who were rampaging uncontrollably...what happened?"
Atsushi already knew the answer,
" i had a bad day" the statement was simple, but the way it was said proved the opposite,
He said that like he hadn't screamed,
Like he hadn't held the body(of the man he loved?) for hours,
Like he hadn't nearly wiped Yokohama off of the map,
Suddenly, everything felt too uncomfortable, Atsushi's coat was too heavy, the fabric of his pants too itchy, his scarf too hot for the weather.
He forced the words out anyway "because Dazai-san died?" It was a statement.
The cell shock with power, with rage, and Atsushi felt the need to run all over again. He couldn't stay here.
"I should have been the one to kill him, you know that too, don't you? He's a bastard. He looked down at others with that stupid personality of his and took pleasure in pissing me off. That piece of shit."
Maybe, just maybe, if Chuuya hadn't practically radiated pure murder intent, Atsushi would have been able to pretend this was a casual conversation,
But it wasn't,
It never was.
He barked out a laugh, like this all was a joke only he understood. A joke on Atsushi. A joke he could never get.
"It was the worst being teamed up with him. Seven years I put up with his games, his condescension, his-" he abruptly stopped himself from finishing his sentence, like he was tired,
Like he didn't was to finish that statement,
Like he couldn't.
"-i was going to kill him." Chuuya spoke like a man angry he never got his revenge at last, but Atsushi knew, he knew Chuuya was grieving; that he was broken,
The silence stretched out, uncomfortable. But none of them seemed too eager to break it, Finally, Chuuya spoke,
"Selfish prick couldn't even give me that...not even a reason"
Again, silence fell on the cell that now seemed just as intimidating as a throne room,
A throne room in hell, a hell he no longer wanted to belong in.
"Why am i here, Chuuya-san?"
He once again raised his head that he had let fall at some point during their conversation
"i have a job for you"
"as your subordinate?" He didn't want to know the answer.
Chuuya grinned, but it wasn't a kind grin, it probably wasn't even meant to be intimidating, it was...hollow, and somehow, that was worse than everything else, Because it was a performance, and Atsushi had always felt like he had seen far too many of these throughout his eighteen years of life.
If before Atsushi had wanted to run, now he felt the need to drag himself out of there, by all means needed, even if he uses his last strength for last wish.
"no, as my eraser."
He felt his stomach do a few flips when he heard the words he had been dreading escape his superior's mouth next
"erase the armed detective agency...from the phone directory...from the map."
"a battle of revenge?"
He dreaded himself for even asking that, as he once again already knew the answer, everyone in the mafia with working eyeballs could tell how close the boss and his executive were, how much they meant to each other,
(Or maybe it was one sided?)
"business," he said, he always said business, but Atsushi knew, he knew and he would shut up for his own sake" can't let people think the Port Mafia tolerates the murder of the boss,"
"...The reason i stayed was because Dazai-san was there" he had made his decision, he didn't want anything more to do with the port mafia, not ever again. He was almost at the door when-
"...Kyouka already took the deal"
His tone was careless, his words were sharp. He sounded exactly like him.
"funny thing about that detective agency" he was...frightening, like all of Atsushi's fears were materialised into one single entity"Almost like someone planned for this exact scenario. Like maybe your precious Dazai-san is still pulling the strings from beyond the grave.”
he leaned forward-chains creaking horribly, and in his gaze was what Atsushi could only describe as madness, he felt the need to run, to scatch at his skin until he drew blood, to scream and cry and hide,
but he did nothing,
instead, he stayed glued in place listening to the monologue of someone long gone,
"Tell me, Atsushi, do you want to keep dancing to a dead man’s tune? Or do you want to make the people who killed him pay?”
he didn't know, he really didn't know what he wanted.
but something was sure,
He had no say in this
~~~
Somewhere, far away from all the commotion and destruction, a certain Russian man laughed to himself,
Like Yokohama's underworld wasn't grieving
"Oooh, What's so funny Dos-kun?" His friend-a jester from his appearance- childishly asked, leaning closer ,he looked as if this were the most entertaining thing in the world judging by his giggles and expression "oh, oh, i know! You found a new way of torturing people? Say, say, Dos-kun!? Did you find a new way of torturing people?? Tell me ,tell me!"
The rest of the members in the room shot him over exasperated and annoyed looks
the Russian man didn't answer , but the smile on his face told a thousand words
They sat at a table with some rather interesting individuals a middle aged man in a red military uniform, uniform he wore like an armor,
Beside him, a man-or rather half a man- since his lower half was empaled with a golden sword, his outfit too was rather strange, not something you would see someone walk around everyday
They weren't a big organization by any means, they weren't known, they didn't intimidate or rule the underworld of darkness and blood but their strength lay elsewhere,
They had a plan.
And everything was going according to it.
...