Dazai was hopelessly lost. He had managed to make his way down from the bell tower and into the forest where he had seen the muzzle flashes. But now that he was among the trees, he sense of direction was beginning to fail him. Not that he had much of a sense of direction to start with.

The flashes had stopped. In their place was an endless darkness, broken only by the occasional beam of moonlight shining through the thick canopy of leaves above him. He sighed.

Kunikida's gonna love this. The man was always complaining about how his lack of directional sense constantly made them late. Dazai could hear Kunikida's scolding in his ear as he pushed his way through branches and brush. He was about the backtrack the way he came when the ground came crashing towards his face.

"What the hell?" he groaned and brushed himself off. His hands were wet, sticky with dirt and dew.

I could have been committing a beautiful suicide.

Instead, he was traipsing about the forest in the dead of night and getting dirty. Dazai, out of frustration, kicked the tree root he had just tripped on. When his foot hit something soft, he realized.

That's not a tree.

The moonlight returned just long enough for Dazai to see a small frail arm in the grass. Dazai looked at the fragile figure, his hand moved to brush the hair out of his face. He gasped. His hands were covered in blood.

It was the young face that shocked him the most. The poor boy couldn't have been more than twelve or thirteen. His eyes followed the boy's figure from his face down his body. That's when he noticed the wound on the boy's back. The unease in his stomach shifted from shock to anger. Dazai knew he had done some unspeakable things in his time at Port Mafia. But even he would never do anything as horrifically cruel as to shoot a child in the back.

Dazai's rage was suddenly broken by a sharp intake of breath underneath him.

Wait, the kid's still alive? The shock wore off quickly. He had to move fast if this kid was going to have any chance at all of making it. Dazai was looking over the boy's face when his eyes suddenly opened, fear filling his eyes, his breath rapidly increasing. He noticed how sharp and intense the young boy's eyes were.

Just like Atsushi's.

"Shhhh…take it easy. I'm not going to hurt you." he whispered gently. "I'm going to get you out of here." The boy coughed out three words before losing consciousness again.

"Help…help us."

They were lost. They knew Dazai was somewhere in this monster of a forest but Dazai also gave them shit directions. Not for the first time, Atsushi wondered if he needed to put a GPS beacon on his friend. Especially after his latest suicide attempt. The pair were about to turn around when they heard voices in the darknesses.

"Taniza…" a hand clamped over his mouth.

"Shhh!" Tanizaki whispered. A flurry of green enveloped the pair as his Light Snow hid them among the trees.

"I can't believe we lost that brat!" a man hollered.

"He couldn't have gotten far. Keep looking." Two men, both carrying large automatic weapons, walked into the clearing. The way they were dressed, Atsushi could swear they were part of the Mafia. Something was off about them but Atsushi couldn't quite figure out what.

"I was pretty sure I hit him, too."

"What happened to taking him alive?"

"My orders were to bring him back. Alive was never part of the equation. That kid can die in a ditch for all I care."

"What are they talking about?" Tanizaki wondered. He backed up until his body collided with fur. Atsushi? He gasped as he looked up to see rage in the tiger's eyes.

"Woah, Atsushi! No!" he hissed. Where the hell was Dazai? Tanizaki wasn't sure he could keep the weretiger from going absolutely postal on these guys. "Atsushi, Calm down! This isn't the time."

"They're talking about killing a child, Tanizaki. We can't just do nothing."

"I'm not saying we do nothing. But listen…we have to find Dazai and this kid…before they do."

There was so much blood. Too much blood. Dazai knew this kid wasn't going to make it if he didn't move fast. He had already torn off some of his own bandages to help stop some of the bleeding but he had no idea how much time that would by him.

Lights were flashing all around them. Whoever was after this kid was determined to find him and Dazai had to make sure that didn't happen. Dazai set the boy down gently, careful not to make his wounds any worse than they already were.

"Damn it, Tanizaki! Where are you?"

"Above you." Tanizaki and Atsushi came swinging down from the tree above him.

"What took you both so long?"

"You give piss poor directions for starters." The two of them continued to bicker while Atsushi rushed up to the kid. He brushed the hair out from in front of his face. It was black and blue from various beatings…a thing Atsushi knew about all too well. Why? Why did those men want this child dead? What could this kid have possibly done to deserve this.

"Enough!" Atsushi shouted at them. " We have to get him out of here. He's barely breathing." Dazai nodded.

"Tanizaki, you keep Light Snow going to provide us with some cover. Atsushi, I think it's time for our friends in black to meet the tiger."

"With pleasure." Atsushi smiled.

Dazai was worried about how much pleasure Atsushi would get out of torturing the men surrounding them. They would have to have a talk about that later. He carefully bent down to pick up the injured child. Dazai could feel the boy's weakening breath on his cheek.

"Hang in there, kid." He nodded to Tanizaki. "Let's get the hell out of here!"

A roar erupted through the night air as they all ran for their lives.