"Found you."
Out of the darkness, a low, but playful voice. Despite anticipating it, the boy being called jumped violently, then twisted to look back and up, into stunning blue eyes, overcast by red bangs.
If anything, the boy felt like he was looking up at himself in the future. Face a little more chiseled than his might have been, but otherwise almost indistinguishable.
"Y- You are Nakahara Chuuya?" He asked timidly.
"No one else." Was the reply, as the man called Nakahara Chuuya kicked the garbage bin the boy had been hiding behind, letting light better illuminate the cowering body.
Chuuya put a hand on one of his ears, and mumbled, "Target found, I'm bringing him back to you for ability nullification."
There was a little static reply, inaudible but to the wearer of the communication device. "Affirmed." He replied, then shifted his focus back on to the 'target' in question.
"Don't worry, I'm here to help. My friend's good at removing abilities, those curse marks of yours included. I don't know what type of bomb you are, but we can disable it before you detonate and die. Let's get going."
Nakahara Chuuya offered a hand to the boy, whose dull blue eyes peeked from beneath a cloth veil. In the semi-darkness he could just see the marks of Corruption tattooed on his face.
So that's what it look like, ugly things. Thought the mafia, scrunching up his nose just a little. Since he was going berserk every time the marks had appeared, the he had never even seen the design before. Chuuya wondered if the marks would ever fade, or if the boy would have to live with it all his life.
"Come on." Chuuya prompted.
After a pause, staring at Chuuya from the darkness, the small figure stirred.
"It's just as he say." The boy murmured, lifeless eyes holding Chuuya's, reaching a frail hand up for the older redhead's outstretched one.
"What did you say?"
"It's just as he say…. He said to hide somewhere, that my double called Nakahara Chuuya would find me." The boy continued as if in a trance. "It seems you are the one."
Their hands touched, and before Chuuya could process any of the things the boy said, the boy's cloak flared with unseen wind, swirling upwards.
Beneath it, on the naked boy's body, tattoo marks flickered, and erupted with blood-red brilliance.
Immediately pain shot through Chuuya's body, setting his nervous system ablaze. The small mafia gasped in surprise, but even the grasp was cut off as a scream of pain burst from his throat, and Corruption activated against his will. There was static his in ears, meaningless, deafening. He could not feel anything but the pain, and the coiling, burning sensation of Arahabaki awakening in him.
His vision was black, and all that was left in his world was the struggle of the fight, against the monster inside of him.
Control it, his mind whispered, as his body seemed to be destroying itself.
"Chuuya! Chuuya, Chuuya!" Dazai screamed into his earpiece in panic. Then caught himself after a split second and thrust his hand forward to grip the hostage's arm.
"No Longer Human!" Dazai shouted in slight panic. Blue light bursted forth and enveloped the tied body, but the scream on the other side of his line continued.
What is happening!? Dazai panicked.
"Hey! What's the meaning of th—
Before the Demon Prodigy could finish his demand the figure in his grip shook like an earthquake, then began to thrash hard enough that Dazai's vice-like grip was shook off.
As the man, tied to his chair, managed to offset the furniture's balance and crashed onto the floor, red light blazed and his eyes flew wide open.
Nakahara Chuuya grunted and groaned as he fought with Arahabaki. He was coughing blood, and red tears run down his cheeks. His red eyes were wide but unseeing. Above all, moving marks crawled up his arms and face, dark and radiant.
How beautiful. Thought the tattooist, in a red-haired boy's body.
Nakahara was still gripping his hand, which convulsed along with his body, tightening beyond human strength. His hand was broken, of course, bone jutting through ugly flesh, but the convenience of Chuuya's imitated ability is, it summons a god into the body without the bodily sensations.
That's a blessing in his current predicament, but also disappointing, considering what he was here to do.
He reached up with the boy's body, strength also inhuman as he ignores all limitations of the flesh. He shot forward and gripped the soft red hair, coated in blood, and forced his head forward into a rough kiss.
The tattooist wished he could feel it, wished he could taste the blood, but this is enough. His dream had come true.
"I love you." He purred, "I love you so much, Arahabaki."
He suppose he should thank the Port Mafia for this, since this plan had only been born out of desperation. Programming himself as the god who would process his subject, having the subject meet Nakahara Chuuya and activate his ability, successfully possessing the subject's body in place of Arahabaki even as the real Arahabaki is triggered in Nakahara.
He pulled Chuuya's body into another forced kiss, to which he convulsed violently, but no attack went his way. It would seem that Nakahara Chuuya is still more or less in control, and he doesn't want to kill the boy.
How ironic.
The tattooist released his hold on Chuuya's hair and grabbed the earpiece instead. He broke into a wicked grin and spoke into the device,
"Heard that, Demon Prodigy?" he said disdainfully, then, thoroughly enjoying himself, he added to Chuuya, "Now, why don't you kiss me?"
"Die." Dazai said through gritted teeth. He has no breath for anything longer. All his disgust and anger and fear, everything was propelling him forward faster than he should have been able to run.
The Port Mafia's compounds now to him seem endless, as he sprinted for one of the parking spaces. He just have to steal a car, quickly. He must go to Chuuya.
He regrets not being able to kill the disgusting man who brought all this on Chuuya all for his own sick fascination. But he didn't have the gun in hand then, and he just had to leave.
Pulling a time-bomb trigger was all he could manage in the split second.
He couldn't risk being just a few seconds too late like last time, after all, but he also couldn't let the man live for what he had done, and might do in the future.
He had been foolish, to fall for that plan, capturing the bastard alive and tying himself down to him. That was all on the basis that the ability could be cancelled by him touching the tattooist.
But that wasn't true. And he should have realized it sooner. Maybe he would have had he study the ability more completely.
But now, he knew. He knew that was all a lie, and the man's ability is to give others abilities. That means the tattooist was using the ability only while he was tattooing. After that, the ability belongs to the subject.
He had touched the wrong person.
The one he should be monitoring was the lose 'bomb', all along. And he had been foolish enough to send Chuuya to that bomb, alone.
Dazai couldn't believe himself.
Shooting the shoulders of two guards with the gun he had swiped on the way, Dazai ran non-stop until he could yank open a car door and slammed his foot onto the accelerator.
This time, he wouldn't be late. He wouldn't.