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It was a mistake to come here.
That was Dazai’s first thought when he awoke, blinking in the dim glow of the room, hardly able to move.
His second was Damn. I could really use some water right now.
His throat felt like sandpaper, and he couldn’t even put his hand to it to help ease the pain. His lack of mobility was caused by two main reasons: one, the effects of the tranquilizer dart he’d taken to the neck earlier still ran wild through his system; and two, both his arms and legs were chained to a stone table. The metal bit into his skin—skin, because they’d taken his bandages. Bastards.
Dazai lay there for a while. His mind was too muddled from the effects of the dart to keep track of time, and even if he wanted to, he wouldn’t have bothered. He was in no rush.
When he’d regained some control of his body, he craned his neck to look around. Even in the dim light, it took him less than a second to realize where he was. Shelves of knives pushed against the wall, piles of chains in the corners, no windows in sight…
He supposed it was fitting, really, that he was finally the one on the Port Mafia’s torture table.
Slowly, he lifted his arms, testing the strength of the chains that kept him bound there. It was useless, he knew. These chains were designed specifically to be painful to remove, regardless if someone used the key or not. Spikes beneath the metal dug into the skin, and when the chains were locked, it would trigger a small mechanism at the point of each tip and release a type of hook. If someone were to try to rip the chains off, the hooks would tear through the inner skin. The pain was supposed to be worse than getting your hand chopped off. The same type of chains sat around his ankles, and now that he realized it, he cursed at the light pinches of pain from the spikes.
He knew that no amount of fidgeting, of dislocating his thumbs or popping his arms out of their sockets, was going to get him off of this table. He had designed the chains himself; his basis had been what he would do to escape, which meant that he was utterly and thoroughly trapped.
Dazai sighed and put his head back on the table, looking up at the bleak stone ceiling. How many times had he been in this room and hadn’t noticed the spider-web cracks that ran along the inner corners of the stone? He had thought he knew this room like the back of his hand; he didn’t need to be able to move to know that the only door was about seven feet behind him to the right. It was the only way in and out of the room, and Dazai had no doubt guards stood watch behind the door. If anyone came for him at all, they would not only have to find him, hidden below ground in a secret entrance on the other side of Yokohama, but they would also have to deal with the highly-trained Port Mafia members who would no doubt be ready for them. It would be a while yet before any of that happened, though. It had been a mistake to infiltrate the Port Mafia alone, yes, but it had been an even bigger mistake to not tell anyone where he was going. Atsushi had looked at him like the boy had an idea what he was doing, but Dazai had ignored the look completely. And maybe it made him a fool, but he wouldn’t have done anything differently. He owed it to Kunikida to be here.
Kunikida.
Dazai’s breath hitched in his throat. The name sent a sort of emptiness coursing through him. It hollowed out his mind, his bones, his soul. He hadn’t heard it in almost two weeks, hadn’t spoken it in longer. The others at the Agency didn’t seem to want to talk about it, not since it happened. They acted as though even thinking about him would shatter the carefully-crafted shield of normalcy that they all so desperately clung to, sending them all spiraling out of control.
They didn’t seem to notice that Dazai was trapped outside of that shield, looking in at their twisted world of “normal” and wishing desperately he could join them.
At the time of his capture, it had been three weeks, four days, and nine hours since Mori had called in Fukuzawa’s debt and took one of the Agency Members to the Port Mafia. Dazai had been so sure it was going to be him; nothing could have prepared him for when Mori chose Kunikida instead.
The realization had left Dazai speechless, wanting to scream but unable to make a sound. Kunikida—brave, selfless Kunikida, who would follow his ideals to his ruin if it meant anyone’s safety but his own—had gone along without complaint. The sight of Mori smiling as Kunikida fell into place behind him, alongside Chuuya and Kouyou and the other executives, had been too much to bear. Dazai had found his voice and begged—begged—Mori to take him instead. Mori’s dismissal had been a slap to the face, and Kunikida had only shook his head and smiled lightly before turning from Dazai and the Agency.
Dazai couldn’t help but hate him for it in that moment.
The days that followed had felt like years. Almost no work got done on the first day. It was as if Kunikida’s absence had left them all momentarily frozen, suspended between the old and the new with no way to cross fully into one or the other.
But then Ranpo went back to his cases soon after. Then Yosano. Kenji. Tanizaki and Naomi. Kyouka and Atsushi. And finally Dazai, almost a week after Kunikida left.
Left. Like he had a choice.
The door behind him opened, drawing him from his thoughts. He knew, without having to turn around, who it was.
“Hello, Dazai.”
Some hollow, broken part of him flinched at that voice.
Dazai stayed silent. If Mori wanted to talk, he could. But there was a stark silence as he approached the table, and then—
The first chain around his wrist came free. He grimaced as the spikes slid out of his skin. A moment later, Mori unlocked the second. Dazai sat up, blood running in thin lines down his wrist. His ankles were still bound to the table; Mori wouldn’t be so stupid as to unlock those.
“Much better,” Mori said. “Now we can have a proper conversation.”
He looked more or less the same as he always did. His white overcoat was almost too bright for this dark room, and his golden eyes seemed to pierce the space between the two of them. The only difference Dazai could really see was his hair. It was slightly longer than the last time Dazai had seen him, almost a month ago, but otherwise, Mori was relatively unchanged.
Dazai forced a smirk to his face and said, “Mori. Been a while.”
“Apologies for your current arrangements,” Mori said. “But we in the Port Mafia can’t exactly allow intruders to roam free in our facility, can we?”
Dazai only stared at him.
Mori sighed and said, “I can take a guess as to why you were caught breaking into the Port Mafia at midnight last night. And honestly, I have to congratulate you.”
“Oh?” It slipped from his mouth before he could stop it.
“It’s not every day that someone manages to get as far as you did. I’ll admit, I can’t say I’m surprised. You were our top executive for a reason, you know.”
The words rotted in the air between them.
“Why am I here, Mori?” Dazai asked quietly. What do you have planned?
“I told you. Congratulations are in order, and I wanted to present your reward personally.” At the words, the door behind them opened once again. He stiffened at the footsteps that approached. His breathing turned shallow, and for a moment, he wished his hands were still chained so Mori wouldn’t have the chance to see them tremble.
“Meet the newest executive of the Port Mafia.”
And for the first time in a month, Dazai met Kunikida’s gaze.
For however unchanged Mori was, Kunikida was the opposite. Dazai wasn’t sure where to look first: at Kunikida’s dull, limp hair; his empty, hollow eyes; his gaunt, sunken face. Dazai focused on a large, fading bruise beneath Kunikida’s eye and froze completely. Kunikida was studying Dazai intently, looking at the blood running down his wrist.
I’m fine, Dazai wanted to say. He didn’t deserve Kunikida’s concern, didn’t deserve his worry. For letting him go with Mori, Dazai deserved anything but that.
“What did he do to you?”
He really didn’t mean to ask the question. It slipped from his lips before he could hold it back, a cunning thing that wormed its way from his throat in the suffocating silence of the room.
But it got Kunikida to look at him, at least. Even if he didn’t answer him.
Mori answered for him. “I did what was required to strengthen the Port Mafia,” he said coolly. “But I’m sure you already know that.”
Dazai didn’t tear his gaze from Kunikida. He saw it in his eyes, then—the fear. No. Not just fear. Utter terror. Dazai blinked as the full extent of Mori’s plan washed over him. A small part of him breathed that he deserved it, what was to come. The rest of him roared that Kunikida didn’t.
Mori kept talking. “Of course, given the circumstances, I can’t just give Kunikida executive status. I need to be able to gauge his loyalty.” He sighed heavily. “So this is what I’ve landed on. You breaking in gave me the perfect opportunity to conduct this… entrance exam.” Dazai stiffened. “If he passes, he’s granted the full privileges of a Port Mafia executive. And if he fails…”
A loud click emanated through the room, the sound of one of the guards cocking the trigger of his gun. Dazai sighed as the cool metal pressed against the back of his head. Pull it, he thought. Please. But a nod from Mori had the guard lowering his gun and stepping back.
“Kunikida’s already been informed of all this, of course,” Mori said quietly. “He knows the price of failure.”
Kunikida wouldn’t meet his eyes. He stared blankly at the floor, and Dazai thought that there was something broken in his gaze, something that had no right to be. It looked wrong, like a twisted version of the light he had grown so used to seeing. It nauseated him.
“Chain him down.”
The words were a death sentence.
In the silence that followed, Dazai saw two things very clearly: One, there was no getting out of this. Mori would get his way once again, and there was nothing—nothing—either Dazai or Kunikida could do to stop him. And two, it wouldn’t matter how this went. By the end, the both of them would be so broken, so hollow, that who they were now would never be again.
It took him all of his willpower to sigh. To lay back on the table and stretch his arms to his sides, staring once again at that stone ceiling, and to say, “Let’s get this over with, shall we? I don’t want to miss lunch.”
The silence pressed in on him, surrounded him in that moment. It wasn’t the lack of response from Kunikida or Mori that made him feel as though his bones were crumbling, as though his very core were collapsing on itself, but the utter silence of his mind.
Kunikida’s fingers were gentle as he moved Dazai’s wrist to the cold metal of the chains. The touch gutted him, more than it had any right to. It carved something from his chest, an emptiness that spread through his very blood and veins, wrapping him entirely in its cruel embrace.
Dazai didn’t wince when the spikes dug into his wrist once again. Nor did he wince when Kunikida moved to his other hand and did it again. But he did wince, just a bit, when Kunikida’s touch left him.
Mori’s cruel face loomed over him, staring down at Dazai with a cold, calculating gaze. “There’s one way this can be avoided, you know.”
Dazai didn’t answer. Kunikida did.
“You won’t get anything from him.”
What was left of Dazai shattered completely at his voice.
Mori only frowned. “Then I’d suggest you get started. You have your instructions.”
Dazai was still staring at the ceiling when the sharp point of a knife rested on his leg. It stayed there for a moment, and had he looked, he would have seen Kunikida’s hand trembling around the hilt of the blade. Dazai sucked in a breath when it rose, and then—
He screamed, yanking at the chains around his wrist as the knife went clean through his shin and hit the surface of the table through his leg. Pain coursed through him, his eyes blurring, his throat raw—
Kunikida drew the knife from his leg. Dazai’s chest heaved, his breaths coming in quick pants. He grit his teeth at the blood that pooled beneath his leg, willing himself not to feel it on his skin.
“Impressive.” Mori’s voice rang through the room. “But you’ll have to keep going, Kunikida.”
Because Mori wouldn’t stop this until Dazai was nothing more than a bloody heap, and he’d make Kunikida do it.
Dazai braced himself for the next round of pain. He clenched his hands into fists, digging his nails into his palm hard enough to draw blood.
“No.”
Dazai blinked at the clatter of the knife on the table, the sound cutting through his pain for a brief moment. He managed to lift his head enough to see Kunikida stepping back, stepping away from him, his eyes wide, his hands shaking. “No,” he said again.
Mori only raised a brow, unimpressed. “Oh?”
“I won’t—I can’t do this,” he rasped.
Mori took a step closer to Kunikida. “You can, and you will.”
“I won’t.”
It happened in the span of a second. Mori struck, and Kunikida staggered backwards, his hand rising to the blow Mori had landed on his face, the angry red welt almost violent against his pale skin. Dazai froze.
The clicks of triggers cocking ran through the room, the tension thicker than blood as the guards aimed the guns at Kunikida. He looked as though he might charge Mori, staring at him with something in his eyes that Dazai couldn’t quite place. But then Kunikida blinked, and it was gone, replaced only with exhaustion. He said, his voice quiet and raw, “Please.”
The tension in the room broke completely, Dazai with it.
“Kunikida,” he breathed. Kunikida’s gaze met his, broken and tired. Dazai stared at the bruise already forming on Kunikida’s cheek. “It’s okay,” he whispered. “It’ll be okay.” Kunikida started to shake his head. “Don’t worry about me. Just—finish this quickly, okay?”
Just for a second, Kunikida’s face crumbled. “I can’t.”
And then the guards shifted their aim from Kunikida to Dazai.
Dazai hated the resignation in his eyes, the look of utter defeat like a physical blow to his gut. But he didn’t tear his gaze from Kunikida’s. Go ahead, he urged silently.
And with trembling fingers, Kunikida picked up the knife.
Mori started talking, but the only sound Dazai heard was that of his beating heart. Kunikida stared at Dazai as though he might say something, but the words were clear: I’m sorry.
Dazai shook his head. “Just do it,” he whispered.
This time, he didn’t scream when the knife pierced his flesh. Kunikida had sliced a thin line down his side, the pain sharp but bearable. And maybe that was the point, because Kunikida’s next slice was hardly a scratch. Dazai clamped down on the gratitude and relief that threatened to rise. This wouldn’t last long. Soon enough—
“Give me the knife.”
And there it was.
For a moment, the world seemed to stop. Dazai closed his eyes and wished, in that moment, that he could fade into nothing. That he could have stayed nothing more than a speck of dust in the universe, that he could have avoided this hell they called life all together. It was a moment of agonizing peace, a glimpse of what he so desperately wanted.
And then the moment ended, and the pain began anew.
Mori started by carefully, slowly digging the tip of the knife into his side, right atop the cut Kunikida had made just seconds earlier. He kept pushing until the blade was buried halfway into his skin, small drops of blood leaking onto the table below. Mori kept it there for a second, letting the pain spread, and Dazai clenched his jaw against the stream of curses that rose to his throat. Mori pushed the blade of the knife just a little deeper, gripping the handle.
And then he twisted.
Dazai arched off the table, held back only by the chains around his wrists. A scream tore from his throat as Mori continued to twist the knife, making sure to keep the blade level as he carved out a circle in Dazai’s skin. When he was satisfied the incision had done its job, he drew the bloody knife from Dazai’s side and handed it back to Kunikida. Dazai groaned, blood pouring from the wound. He didn’t know how he was supposed to take that sort of pain again, only knew that this wouldn’t stop until he was unconscious or dead.
His breathing was ragged when Kunikida dug the knife once again into his skin, just below the wound Mori had given him. When the knife twisted again, Dazai bit back his scream so hard the metallic taste of blood filled his mouth.
“Again,” Mori said. “Keep the knife steady while you twist it.”
And so Kunikida did it again, right below the second wound. And again, below the third. Over and over, with Mori standing over his shoulder, watching as blood poured from Dazai’s side.
Dazai’s throat was raw from screaming, his eyes damp from unshed tears by the time Mori deemed Kunikida’s work good enough to move on. They kept him chained there, lying in his own blood while Mori decided what to do next. And it was another level of hell, Dazai thought, to know that there was nothing he could do to save either of them from this. To know that Mori would succeed in breaking them both so completely that not even death could save their shattered souls.
To know that he deserved this, but Kunikida did not.
Kunikida might have been the one to put the knife to his skin, but Mori wielded it. He guided Kunikida to the places it would hurt most; after his side, he returned to Dazai’s still-bleeding leg and scooped out chunks of his skin from the bottom of his shin to right below his knee. After that, Kunikida flipped the knife in his hand and used its handle to shatter the bones in Dazai’s foot. They did the same on the other leg, and Dazai lost track of where they went next. He was broken and bleeding in too many places to know or care.
He lost track of how long he was on that table for. It was impossible to tell where one wound stopped and another began. Blood pooled on the stone beneath him, staining his clothes and skin. Only Mori could draw this much blood from someone and keep them alive and conscious. But how long would it last before death swept over him? Too long, Dazai thought. Longer than he could take.
It was a softer sort of pain when the knife dug into his arm, but he still winced. Only the chain around his wrist kept him from drawing his arm back instinctively and tucking it into his side. Still, his flinch made Kunikida swear as the knife dug deeper into his forearm. He used his free hand to pin Dazai’s arm to the table, a page for his knife to ink in blood without struggle. When Kunikida lifted the knife from his inner forearm, Dazai turned his head and caught a glimpse of his eyes: dull, empty, and almost unseeing. He imagined they mirrored his own.
“You never answered my question,” Dazai rasped, his voice hoarse from relentless screaming. He didn’t know why he said it; the pain and blood loss must have driven him out of his mind. Not that he would be surprised.
Kunikida brought the knife along the same line he’d just made, deepening the cut just slightly. He’d keep going until he reached the bone, Dazai knew. He only hoped Kunikida would do it quickly.
After a moment of Kunikida’s silence, Dazai sighed and went back to staring at the ceiling. Blood slid down the sides of his arm, joining the blood on the table below. Dazai had stopped feeling the pain by now. A heavy numbness had washed over him, smothering him completely. It was all he could do to keep breathing, though he didn’t know why he bothered anymore.
Kunikida’s voice cut through that sea of numb. “They didn’t do anything to me.” He cut another line through Dazai’s arm.
“Liar.”
A fourth pass down his arm. Dazai gritted his teeth at the sting, at the blood that continued to rise.
Kunikida was silent for another moment before he spoke again. “It feels weird,” he said finally. “To be the one holding the knife, and not the one on the table this time.”
Dazai had suspected as much, but the confirmation sent a wave of nausea through him. Mori wouldn’t have just shattered Kunikida’s mind and bones; he would have kept going until his loyalty, his very ideals, had been torn from him. How long had it taken to break him, Dazai wondered. How long had Kunikida lasted under Mori’s watch?
And what did Mori do to send Kunikida crashing?
Kunikida was staring at Dazai now, the knife frozen in the air just above his arm. Dazai couldn’t read the look on his face; it was one he had never seen before, and through his pain-filled haze, he couldn’t make it out.
When Kunikida moved the knife again, it wasn’t to Dazai’s arm. He set it on the table and stepped back, his face hard as he turned to the guards.
“Unchain him.”
A still silence swept over the room at Kunikida’s words. Dazai didn’t have the energy to wonder what the hell he was doing.
Kunikida said it again. The guards sent an uncertain look to Mori, who was staring at Kunikida with a curious gleam in his eyes.
“You heard him,” Mori said after a moment. After a moment’s hesitation, Dazai felt the chains around his wrists and ankles slide free, and fresh lines of blood slid down his skin. They didn’t bother keeping a gun trained on him when they stepped back; he couldn’t have moved if he tried.
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Mori said to Kunikida quietly, picking the knife off the table and examining the bloody blade.
“I’d make for a pretty shitty executive if I didn’t,” was all Kunikida said, fury and resignation lacing his words. He turned to the guards once more and jerked his chin at Dazai. “Hold him up.”
Dazai didn’t struggle as the guards raised him from the table and supported him between them. He sagged to the floor, kept up only by the strong grips beneath his arms. Fresh waves of blood gushed from his wounds at the sudden movement. His vision blurred and wobbled, but he forced himself to look up.
Even without the pain, the utter devastation in Kunikida’s eyes would have brought him to his knees.
Neither of them said a word as Kunikida approached. His hands were clenched, and Dazai understood everything in the second before Kunikida’s fist dug into his gut. He groaned, doubling over, and the guards had to tighten their grips on his arms to keep him from collapsing to the floor. The second blow sent a small smile to his face for a split second before it was forced away by a cough that sent drops of blood to the floor below them. And yet this sort of pain was freer. Lighter. There would be no more knives, no more chains. Just Kunikida’s strengths and fists. Mori might have preferred the first way, but this was Kunikida taking back what Mori had stolen, taking back the broken, crumpled bits of him Mori held in his fingers. Dazai saw it in his clenched jaw, in his split, bloody knuckles as they made contact with Dazai’s skin. And though each blow had his chest heaving, though he wore his own blood like a second skin, Dazai couldn’t help but smile up at him when his fists ushered him to oblivion. It was fitting, he thought. That this would be his end.
He was glad it was Kunikida.
And then there was no more blood. No more pain.
Just darkness.
There was a hollow sort of ringing in Kunikida’s ears as he watched him slump to the floor, bloody and unconscious.
He had smiled at him.
Why had he smiled at him?
“Drop him.”
Mori’s words were muffled, but the guards must have heard him well enough. He looked so different like this, Kunikida thought. So… weak.
“We’ll leave you be.” Kunikida didn’t turn to Mori. He couldn’t. He was frozen in place, staring blankly ahead. “Do with him as you will. I’ll return with someone in a moment to clean this mess.”
Mess. What mess?
The blood.
Oh.
That mess.
There was a lot of it, wasn’t there? On the table. The floor.
His hands.
And it burned, too. Not the cuts, but the blood itself. It seared into his skin, branding him a monster, a coward, a fool.
And he was. He was all of them. So he embraced that pain, embraced the brands.
It took him a moment to realize there were no longer any others in the room. Mori had said something about leaving, hadn’t he?
And now Kunikida was alone. He and Dazai were alone.
Dazai.
The name had him falling to his knees before his unconscious body. Gently, gently, he turned Dazai onto his back. His face was so pale, the blood so stark against it. It gushed from his broken nose. Kunikida had done that, right? He’d done all of this.
So what did he do now?
Staunch the blood flow.
Right.
He wished he had his notebook. That way, he could make some bandages and gauze and—
No. That wouldn’t work. Not with Dazai’s ability. How had he forgotten?
And besides, his notebook was no more than a pile of ash now, anyway. Mori had made sure of that.
And there was nothing in this room that could substitute for healing supplies, either. He knew that better than anybody. Kunikida turned back to Dazai, assessing the blood that clung to him like a leech. And he realized, with a sinking horror, that there was nothing he could do. That soon, without any bandages or help, Dazai would die.
This had been Mori’s plan from the beginning, hadn’t it? Force Kunikida to do this, break him under the threat of watching Dazai die, only to have Kunikida himself be the one to kill him. He had played right into his game, and now Dazai would pay for it. Bile rose to his throat.
Do what must be done.
The first and only thing written on the first page of his notebook.
But there was nothing that could be done now. And for the first time in Kunikida’s life, he hated his ideals. They had failed him, in every way that counted.
“I’m sorry,” he breathed, brushing his lips against Dazai’s forehead. Tears slipped down his cheeks. He didn’t notice them. “I’m so sorry.” It would never make anything right, but it was the most he could offer. That, and staying with Dazai until the end.
He stayed like that for a moment longer, holding Dazai to his chest and sitting in the silence. It was a comforting silence, somehow. Death beckoned, but at least it would come peacefully, now. Dazai would slip into its embrace and suffer no longer. And when death wrapped its arms around Dazai and guided his broken soul to freedom, Kunikida would let go.
Death would be kinder than Kunikida had been.