"Why, Kunikida-kun. We give him what he wants… Let him have me."

The ghastly echo of his partner's words replayed through Kunikida's mind and made him shudder as he followed Dazai's half-slumped form, draped over Haruno's narrow shoulders towards the skyscraper that was the Port Mafia's headquarters.

He didn't like this one bit, but he knew it was their best bet. This mission had gone in a totally different direction than what they initially had expected, and he cursed Dazai's past as part of the criminal corporation like he had so many times before. His right hand twitched tensely at his side near the gun holster as the grunts guarding the entrance shifted nervously at the downright pathetic sight of their old superior.

Dazai was such a brilliant person, but he had been dealt a bad hand at the beginning of his life. Whatever must have happened to Dazai to make him a mafia executive at age 15 was something he didn't even want to think about. It was too much. Too horrible.

Despite every conception one might have about the idealist, he did love children. Once upon a time, he had decided to become a teacher after all- and his reasonings for that had not, despite what was rumored, been to rage and reach havoc upon slightly amused teenagers.

"This place gives me the creeps," Ranpo muttered beside Kunikida, tearing off another piece of the diminishing cloud of cotton candy he had made him buy for him- Kunikida was unsure of how that had happened.

"Yeah," the blonde replied in a huffed tone. "We should have come here right away. Dazai is only getting sicker." Kunikida shot Ranpo a pointed glare. He was indicating to the several stops they had made along the way. All they were supposed to do was to go over to the Port Mafia headquarters to ask Ougai Mori if they were, or had been in the past, affiliated with anyone with powers that were similar to the ones their culprit displayed. Not to stop by the fare to get cotton candy, or the fish market to pick up a batch of fresh crab (which admittedly, Kunikida couldn't blame on Ranpo).

The short master detective grinned sheepishly, tilting the pink fluffy sugar towards Kunikida as a peace offering, which was sharply declined.

A couple of feet in front of the two men, Dazai and Haruno had halted in front of the armed guards and were talking calmly. Kunikida could hear how his partner's voice struggled to keep steady as he presented himself and told them to call on Mori to announce their arrival. One of the suited men, looking ever so stereotypically like a mafioso, including black sunglasses and a Bluetooth headset, pressed a button on his ear-piece while Haruno guided Dazai over to Kunikida and Ranpo.

Kunikida observed Dazai's sluggish movements and graying skin with keening eyes. Why was he getting worse? None of them had touched him since the day before when they realized what triggered the poison, and he seemed fine before they left the agency. They would never have taken him out of the infirmary if they had known how bad he was getting. At least they had been forboding enough to bring Haruno to help out.

"How are you holding up?" Kunikida finally asked.

"It's not too bad," Dazai assured them. Yet, he still had to wipe away a droplet of sweat that seeped from his bangs and landed in his eye. Haruno frowned and felt his forehead.

"Your fever is picking up again," she sternly pointed out, but before anyone could respond to that, the guards waved them back over.

"The boss is ready to see you," the man who had called informed. "I assume you know the way?"

Dazai gave him a crooked smile as they passed them and entered into a grand foyer that looked more like the entry of a gothic mansion than the entrance hall of a major corporation. Slowly, they made their way through the elongated room towards the elevator that took them to the top floor. Both Ranpo and Kunikida looked mesmerized on as they were greeted with the view of Yokohama through the wall-sized windows, running all the way down the hallway which would lead them to their destination. Dazai paid it no mind, having seen it a thousand times before.

The door at the end of the hall opened, and out came a short, fiery redhead, seething as he shut the door behind him and turned to stomp in their direction. Noticing them, the redhead stopped. An explosion seemed to go off in those cerulean eyes as he sneered. "What the hell are you doing here mackerel?" he growled angrily.

"It's nice to see you too, slug," Dazai answered evenly, unwilling (or unable) to acknowledge the short man's anger. "Don't worry though, we're just having a brief meeting with Mori-sama."

Nakahara Chuuya nearly frotted at the mouth, clearly on edge. "Well, good luck with that. He's in a mood today, so having to see your ugly mug was the last thing I fucking needed."

"You're not exactly a sight for sore eyes yourself, hatrack."

The redhead scoffed and pushed past them, giving his shoulder small shove as it brushed past his former partner, hoping to at least throw him a little off balance. He had not expected for the other to topple over while moaning painfully.

Exasperated, Chuuya turned around. "Honestly Mackerell! There's no need for the dramatics…"

Dazai was kneeling on the floor, breathing heavily with a brown-haired, mousy looking girl rubbing his back. The two other clowns Chuuya recognized from the Armed Detective Agency were hovering above them. Uncertain, the mafia executive took a few steps back, mouth curved into something that looked almost worried.

"I'm okay now, it's fine," Dazai panted, squinting at the bright light from the windows. Sharp, cutting pain shot through his eyes and into his head as he started pushing himself off his knees. Haruno had a tight grip on his elbow while he got back up. He thanked her in a wordless whisper.

"Dazai, what-" Chuuya started, while Dazai swayed at his feet, shielding sensitive eyes from the daylight with his hand. The short mafioso paused, scrutinizing the former executive's face.

Incomprehensive, Dazai stared back a moment before he realized what the other was looking at. A bandaged arm came up to wipe at his nose, leaving a blotch of crimson on the white fabric.

"That's not good," Dazai muttered wryly.

"What the hell is going on with you?" Chuuya snarled angrily, making Dazai winch at the sudden loud noise. At least his nose did not appear to continue bleeding.

The door to Mori's office opened again. A short blonde-haired girl in a red, ruffled dress peeked out and giggled eerily. "Mori-sama is getting tired of waiting," she squeaked, high-pitched before she disappeared, leaving the door open for them.

"Join us?" Dazai asked Chuuya without waiting for an answer. The entourage moved slowly towards the office, leaving the short mafioso to pounder for a slight moment, before he audibly made his dissatisfaction obvious, and followed.

Mori's condescending laughter filled the room. "Have you had an aneurysm, Dazai-kun? How in the world am I supposed to remember that? Do you think I've kept a journal of all the people you've pissed off along the years?"

Dazai sat with a straight back, looking emptily at his former boss. His nausea had calmed a bit, but he was still experiencing slight vertigo.

Kunikia stood a few feet behind Dazai's back, burning holes in his partner's neck. How in the world was Dazai able to sit steady and upright like this, when he was nearly unable to keep his own weight under him only moments ago? The few interactions Kunikida had witnessed between his partner and the mafia boss had always had a strange feel to them, more than just the awkwardness of a closed business relationship that ended on bad terms.

Finally, Mori's uncanny, self-satisfied chuckles died down, and the menacing doctor sobered. "But no, I think I would have remembered if I had ever heard about anyone like that. He would have been a great asset to my team."

"You could finally raise your army of darkness," Dazai commented humourlessly, glancing out the window. The doctor's mouth curved sinisterly as velvet eyes surveyed his former subordinate.

"Does he have something to do with why you're sick?" Mori finally asked and chortled at the way Dazai's bleary eyes widened at the remark.

"I'm not-" he tried to argue but quickly realized there was no use. Inhaling sharply, he started to explain exactly what had happened.

"...so now, I don't have No Longer Human, and I'm gradually becoming weaker."

Mori rested his chin on top of his hands with a thoughtful furrow between his eyebrows. Chuuya stood at his side, glaring furiously.

"Don't you think that's something you might wanna share with us?" he spat, taking a few steps closer about to punch his idiot ex-partner with a closed fist. Mori calmly reached his arm out, stopping the fiery man.

"Don't, Chuuya-kun. You'll only make him sicker."

Chuuya growled his dissatisfaction but kept his distance. "You know you're the only one who can stop Corruption, shitty-Dazai! You need to tell us shit like this-"

"We're not partners anymore, Chuuya," Dazai stated cynically. "I don't have to tell you anything. God forbid you actually have to use your brain to solve a case instead of mindlessly slaying everyone in your proximity."

A series of incomprehensive slurs followed until Dazai rose on unsteady legs and bowed his head. "Well, thank you for your time, Mori-sama. I think we got what we need."

"I am sorry that I could not be of more help," Mori answered sincerely, but Dazai waved it off.

"As I said, we got what we came for."

Walking back outside, Dazai stubbornly refused Haruno's aid until the elevator door closed. As they descended, he let himself lean into the wall and slowly slid down, resting his forehead on his arms.

Kunikida grimaced, while Ranpo simply looked on.

"What did you mean by that?" Kunikida asked before clarifying, "that we had gotten what we came for. They didn't tell us anything."

A trembling hand came up, waving at him to wait while Dazai breathed through another fit of sickness.

"Oh, we didn't actually expect them to have any answers for us," Ranpo suddenly revealed, chuckling at the dead-panned look Kunikida shot him. "We simply needed to rule out that he wasn't part of the mafia, which we did."

"So, they lied to us?" Kunikida asked, shifting his attention between the older and the slightly younger detectives.

"Oh, no. They told the truth. But Dazai became worse and worse on our way over here and was getting better once we got inside- until the angry one pushed into him."

Kunikida still didn't seem to understand as they scrambled out of the elevator. Now, Dazai had given up on keeping face and leaned heavily on Haruno once again, dragging his feet as they walked out of the Port Mafia HQ.

The hope that fresh air would help with Dazai's nausea quickly died when the bandaged man pushed away from Haruno to hurl into a nearby trash bin.

"We think our culprit has to stay close to Dazai-kun for his ability to work," Ranpo explained as he and his bespectacled coworker went around the corner of the building, making sure that no one could hear what they were talking about. Not that Dazai dry-heaving into a bin would not be a sufficient distraction (and not at all because Kunikida was kind of a sympathetic puker).

"But, it's a poison that's making him sick," Kunikida retorted, perplex. He was not doubting the master detective's theories, he was never wrong- it just peeved him slightly that he had to drag it out of him word for word. It was such childish power-play.

"Yes, but, the longer he's subjected to an Ability, the worse he gets."

"He hasn't been subjected to any Abilities since yesterday!" Kunikida moaned in exasperation.

"...that we know of." Ranpo tried to lead the answer out of his slouched and agitated colleague, watching him expectantly.

"...you think we've been followed," Kunikia finally realized.

"Bingo!" Ranpo cheered, throwing his fist into the air. "And, if he was unable to follow us into the meeting, he doesn't have access to the HQ. So there is that."

"So, we've been roaming around town for literal hours with a sick Dazai, only making him sicker and endured an utterly fruitless meeting with the creepiest man I've met my entire life, only to confirm our initial inkling and exclude a corporation of about a hundred people?" Kunikia muttered expressionlessly.

Ranpo blinked. "...aaand we got cotton-candy. Which I am all out of now, so if you don't mind stopping on our way back that would be great."

Ignoring the short detective in favor of his sanity, Kunikida glanced behind his back. "Did he collapse again back there? What's taking them so long?"

Walking back, rounding the corner to where they had been standing, Kunikia's first reaction was that Dazai and Haruno were nowhere in sight.

"Dazai-san? Haruno-san?" he called out, visually scanning the area. Then, chills ran down his spine as he recognized two small feet dressed in sensible black heels, peeking out from behind the trash bin that Dazai had previously been seen heaving into. The blonde quickly ran over to it, hoping there to be some sort of logical explanation to this- maybe Dazai actually had fainted, and Haruno simply sat there to cradle his head until he woke up?

But Dazai was not there. Haruno sat propped up along the wall, nodding back and forth, trying to keep her consciousness. There were no visible injuries, but Kunikida suspected that if he felt the back of her head, there would be a growing bump. Ranpo appeared behind him, gasping audibly at the sight. Without another word, he went running in the opposite direction.

Kunikida kneeled down, cupping her face with large, well-groomed hands and helped her hold her head up.

"Haruno-chan? Can you hear me?" The girl hummed distantly, squinting her eyes.

"That's it, that's it," Kunikida coaxed. "I will help you back so Yosano can take a look at you, okay? I just need to know what happened to Dazai-san."

A few more muffled words left her lips, still incomprehensible. She frowned, mind seeming to clear a little. "T-took him," she finally managed.

Kunikida cursed, but kept his focus on her. "Did you see him? Did you see who took him?"

Her hands fidgeted slightly. At first, Kunikida did not notice it, so she shook it lightly until he glanced down. A piece of paper was folded in her hands. He picked it up, casting a worried glance at her as she spoke.

"Dazai-san dropped this," she mumbled, taking a deep breath. "...when he was throwing up, he dropped it. I bent down to pick it up just as the man attacked. I-if I had been quicker, I would have gotten away," she sighed sadly.

"Don't worry about it, Haruno-chan. You've done good," he said, unwrapping the piece of paper. It was an address- the address to the same storage facility they had visited the day before. It could be a coincidence, but Kunikida had stopped believing in coincidences when it came to Dazai a long time ago. It was the only lead they had to go on anyway.

Ranpo returned, panting heavily. "They're gone."

Kunikida growled, crumpling the note in his hand. "Fine," he sighed steadily, positioning himself to pick Haruno up. "We'll return to the agency with Haruno-chan and get reinforcements. I think they'll be going back to the storage from yesterday."

Ranpo nodded and stumbled after Kunikida's long strides towards the car.

"So, I guess that's a no on the cotton candy, then?"

I realized I kinda ship Kunikida and Haruno while writing this.