Atsushi stood in front of a tall apartment building situated near the edge of the slums. Akutagawa had come with him, despite Dazai's instructions. The last thing Atsushi heard from Dazai before hanging up was the goal of his mission: to stop the man living in unit 614 from killing himself.

"Perhaps I should leave," Akutagawa spoke up. "If your mission is to prevent a suicide, I might make things harder."

"Don't go," Atsushi replied. He was surprised at how insistent he sounded. "Dazai told me that this mission could be dangerous."

"What is dangerous about it?"

"He wouldn't tell me."

"Is the man you have to save an ability user?"

"I don't know."

Akutagawa frowned. Atsushi was running out of time, so he went on ahead into the apartment lobby. But Akutagawa caught up with him less than a minute later, and the two of them went for the stairs. None of the elevators were close to the ground floor.

As they climbed to the sixth floor, Atsushi noticed a mysterious greenish tint hanging off the walls. Almost like some kind of toxic mist was seeping out of the walls. He covered his nose, but he didn't smell anything, and the mist never spread away from the walls.

"Are you doing all right?" Atsushi said, turning to face Akutagawa when they had arrived at their destination floor.

Akutagawa returned a cold look. "Do you think I am so weak that I would find climbing some stairs difficult?"

"No, but...didn't you see the green mist around the walls?"

"Yes. But I don't feel anything from them, and if it is an ability, it probably would have attacked us by now."

"What do you think it is?"

Black waves rose up from Akutagawa's coat and formed a protective armour around himself. "If you really are worried, then I will shield myself with Rashomon."

"No, it's not that..." Atsushi turned away from Akutagawa's gaze, feeling slightly embarrassed at the high level of concern in his own voice.

Not that he wanted to give the impression that he didn't care at all about Akutagawa. The two of them had been training together for long enough now that they made pretty good battle partners, and could support each other fairly well with their abilities. And after last night, they certainly couldn't say that they hated at each. But they were still from two factions that directly opposed each other, and if it came down to it, they'd each probably choose the organization they worked for over their partner. That's why Atsushi was hesitant to show too much of his feelings for Akutagawa.

He convinced himself that this was a particularly distressing situation, because for some reason he was asking Akutagawa to come with him on a Detective Agency mission that specifically forbid anyone from the Port Mafia to help.

"Hurry up," Akutagawa said. "Don't you have a life to save?"

"Yes." Atsushi nodded and dashed down the hall towards unit 614.

Though it was polite to knock, he had a feeling that a discourteous entrance could be excused if it meant saving someone's life. Atsushi kicked the door open and ran into the unit, which was pitch black except for a dim blue glow emanating from one room at the far end of the suite. He rushed towards that room and pressed his back up against the wall when he noticed that the door was open. If he went in too quickly, he might endanger the life of the man inside.

Then again, if he waited too long, the man inside might just kill himself. He didn't have much time.

"Hey!" Atsushi called out, hoping that he wasn't making a big mistake. "Are you doing okay in there? Do you need some help?"

Akutagawa walked up behind Atsushi and remained completely silent.

"Hello?" Atsushi called out again.

There came a squeal of high pitched laughter followed by the sound of someone's chair falling over. Atsushi held his breath as he heard footsteps walking towards the door from inside the room. Without hesitation, he darted into the room.

A dishevelled man stood in the middle of a messy room, holding a gun in his hand. As soon as he saw Atsushi, he pointed the gun to his head.

"Stop!" the man cried out. "It's too late! You can't stop it!"

"Put the gun down, please," Atsushi said, frightened by the man's manic glare. "I'm not here to hurt you or anything. I just want to make sure that you're safe."

The man jumped back towards his desk, which had a single monitor on top of it. Atsushi couldn't see clearly what was on the monitor screen. The man turned his gun towards Atsushi, but his grip began to waver.

"No...there's nothing you can do," the man said, grasping at his hair with his free hand. "There's nothing anyone can do."

"I can help you!" Atsushi shouted. "Whatever it is you're going through, it's not as bad as you think! Just put the gun down, and let's talk things through."

"You don't understand!" the man screamed. "It's not about me. It's about...it's..."

Glowing green mist materialized around the walls of the room.

"There's no need for you to do this," Atsushi said in a softer tone. "Put the gun down, please."

"I have to end it now!"

"No-"

As soon as the man pointed the gun towards his own face, a black tentacle shot into the room and knocked the gun out of the man's hand. He was a split second away from pulling the trigger. Atsushi leaped forward and grabbed the gun as the man fell to the ground, a strand of Rashomon wrapped around his wrist. As Atsushi breathed a sigh of relief, the man bashed his head against the ground and began to scream.

"No! No! No! You can't do this to me! They're going to kill me if I live – they're going to kill us all!"

The green mist lingered on the walls.

"Who's going to kill us?" Atsushi asked the man.

The man's words became incoherent and he cackled maniacally as he tried to break out of Rashomon's grip. He jumped onto his feet and lunged at Atsushi, but a second strand of Rashomon tied around his leg and dragged him back to the ground.

Akutagawa walked into the room.

"Ability users..." the man whispered, shivering. "It's all you ability users' fault. If only your kind didn't exist – if only!"

Atsushi turned to look at what was on the monitor and saw the blue screen of death.

"What were you looking at on your computer?" Atsushi asked.

In response, the man gave a shrill and insane giggle.

"Something's wrong," Akutagawa said. "This whole place feels off."

"Huh?" Atsushi said, turning towards Akutagawa.

"The green mist feels...alive. Almost like it's watching us."

Atsushi looked around the room. The mist glimmered like a fresh coat of paint, but as before, it never left the walls. "Now you think there's something wrong about it?"

"I don't know what about it irks me."

"Me neither. But, we stopped the man from killing himself, so we've achieved the objective of my mission. Thanks, Akutagawa."

"What are you supposed to do with him?"

"Dazai said we have to bring him back to the Agency."

"You ability users!" the man shouted again, before bursting into another fit of mad laughter. "Ability users, ability users, ability users, I'm going to a place full of ability users who are going to kill me! Ha ha ha ha ha!"

"We won't kill you," Atsushi said, then turned to face Akutagawa. "Sorry to trouble you like this, but could you bring him outside? I'll handle it from there."

"I could also knock him out to stop his stupid laughter."

"Well..."

A strand of Rashomon shot towards the man and slapped him across the face, knocking him out. "Finally."

Atsushi thought that was excessive, but deep down, he felt that he'd have to knock the man out himself if he were to carry him back to the Agency without the help of anyone from the Port Mafia as per Dazai's orders.

As Akutagawa lifted the man off his feet and began heading for the exit of the unit, a shot suddenly flew towards him and would've struck him in the chest if he hadn't been prepared to defend himself with a layer of Rashomon armour.

Atsushi looked into the darkness. Smoke rose from somewhere his eyes couldn't see, but he could hear and feel the footsteps walking towards them. Green mist spread out all over the walls of the room, illuminating the silhouette of another man standing inside the darkness of the suite. He wore a mask which completely hid his face.

"Who are you?" Atsushi demanded.

"We meet again," the man said, and the mist lit up the room to reveal him fully. He had short black hair and wore a plain blue coat and grey pants. In his hand was a gun which he pointed straight at Atsushi.

"We meet again," the second man said, his voice deep and calm. "Atsushi Nakajima."

"How do you know my name?"

"You've come at a rather inconvenient time," the man said, ignoring Atsushi's question. "Looks like the Detective Agency's got some smart minds, after all. You caught on to our trail pretty quickly."

"What is he talking about?" Akutagawa asked.

"I don't know," Atsushi said. "Dazai never told me anything about this."

"Tell the minds behind your Agency that they have my utmost respect," the man continued. "Also tell them that their organization's purpose for existing is utterly pointless so long as this city exists."

Atsushi was ready to charge at the man. "I have no idea what you're talking about, but if you're the person behind the green mist-"

"That isn't me. But if you're thinking of taking me on, I'd advise you to reconsider. The likes of you are far too infantile for me to bother with. Compared to us, you're nothing but bugs."

"Us?"

"Did you think it was only me?"

A streak of blue lightning transformed Atsushi's hand into a tiger's claw. "I don't know who you are or what's going on, but I'm not too fond of you pointing that gun at my face, and the Agency's purpose is definitely not pointless!"

He lunged towards the man, and in that same instant, black threads of Rashomon swirled around him to give him a protective armour. The man shot twice, but both bullets bounced off Rashomon.

Just as Atsushi was about the strike the man's hand, something happened to his balance which he was completely unprepared to understand.

Mere inches away from his target, Atsushi felt his entire body being hurtled through...something, and that came with the feeling of being flung everywhere at once and yet also going nowhere at all. The threads of Rashomon wrapped around him became chaotic strings that distorted in ways he could only describe as being folded into a two-dimensional plane, then a one-dimensional point, then blinking out of existence. All around him, space was retracting and magnifying, and images sprung up of himself being multiplied to infinity, then divided into nothing, then projecting into all sorts of weird angles and dimensions. It felt like the very space he inhabited was somehow being regurgitated.

Atsushi blinked, and he found himself standing outside the building with Akutagawa behind him, the suicidal man still knocked out and in Rashomon's hold.

"What...just happened?"

Akutagawa rubbed his eyes. "I saw you lunge towards that man, and then...we arrived here."

"You didn't even see yourself going out the building, right? We just got transported here instantly."

"Yes..."

"How did that even...?"

"No clue."

Atsushi turned back towards the building. "You think he's still in there?"

"More importantly, what did he do to us?"

"I don't know...ugh. None of this makes any sense at all."

"You saved the man you were tasked to help. Now you have to deliver him back to the Agency, right?"

"Yeah, but..."

"Go do that." Akutagawa retracted Rashomon from the unconscious man. "Worry about what just happened later. I've dealt with far too much tonight."

"I guess so..."

Atsushi picked up the man and slung him over his back. A streak of blue lightning swirled around his legs, giving him the strength of the tiger's spring-like jump.

He was out of the slums, but he was still far from the Agency. It would take a while for him to get back, and it was now dark enough that people wouldn't notice a white tiger carrying a man jumping through the city as long as he stuck to the spaces between buildings where most people didn't look.

"Wait," Akutagawa said, walking towards Atsushi. Rashomon rose out of him once again.

Atsushi looked into Akutagawa's eyes.

Like a river, they contained a depth that couldn't be understood from a surface glimpse. Behind those eyes, Atsushi could still see the pain of Akutagawa's painful upbringing, his torturous childhood. If they weren't from enemy factions, if they had just had a bit more time tonight, a lot more could have come out of their relationship. More than anything, Atsushi wanted to stay with Akutagawa. He wanted their hearts to be close.

"Were-tiger..." Akutagawa murmured, "You're looking at me like some puppy who's begging their master for love and attention."

Atsushi blinked. "Akutagawa, you're the worst!"

"Anyway, I have an idea." A strand of Rashomon wrapped around Atsushi's legs, and Atsushi was surprised at how willing he was to just accept that. "I will hurl you in the direction of the Agency with Rashomon, and multiplied by the power of your tiger's jump, you should be able to get pretty far."

"Thanks."

As Atsushi flew through the air, propelled by the power of two abilities, he looked down at the city below and sighed.

He wished that things could just be peaceful for once.