One: A Sorcerer's House

I almost named this fic Abrakadabra but I wanted people to actually take it seriously so here we are with "revelations"

The following is a list of content warnings for the story as a whole. If you don't have any triggers I recommend skipping it, because it could be considered spoilers.

I'll also be putting separate warnings for chapter content at the start of specifically triggering chapters.

If you do read this list but think this is a story you can comfortably read, I'd say you can 100% still enjoy the story and narrative while knowing the contents of this list:

Warnings: non consensual experimentation/body modification in form of a vivid flashback, aftermath of a nightmare reliving the rape of a minor (so the act doesn't get described at all), brief discussion of suicidal ideation, Chuuya is generally very nice to dazai but he does technically imprison him within his own home, so there's that

Dazai was humming to himself, regardless of how the cheerful little tune did very little to brighten his oppressive surroundings. Since he'd first set foot in the forest it had felt overall quite unpleasant, as though everything down to the very air was trying to drive him away. As expected he was surrounded by trees, but they were twisted and gnarled almost to the point of a grotesque distortion, towering over him in a way Dazai found just a little threatening.

So Dazai hummed his silly tune and tried to convince himself that the aura of the forest was all in his head. He ignored how his skin felt unusually scratchy beneath the soft cotton bandages wrapped around his upper chest and arms. He ignored how often he'd tripped over massive knots of roots that had seemed to appear out of nowhere. He'd stumbled over them more times than he cared to admit while making his way here. He was sure they weren't really appearing out of nowhere, it was just because of how dark it was in the forest.

Too dark, for the time of day. He ignored that as well.

Dazai drew his coat just a little tighter around himself as a breeze just a little too cold for May blew through him, mentally reviewing the information he knew so far. It felt like the forest itself didn't want him here. If Dazai were to believe what Mori had told him this morning, that notion was true. Apparently -and Dazai was still highly doubtful- a Sorcerer lived in this forest and the repellant atmosphere was supposed to stop people happening across his home.

Coming to a halt Dazai sighed to himself, staring around at the endless trees. The cold wind blew once more, stronger, and he pulled his coat tighter around himself, glad that Mori hadn't been cheap when selecting Dazai's entrance gift to the Port Mafia. The black coat was high quality, warming, yet still not enough to shield him from the bitingly cold wind that really was far too harsh for the season.

He'd laughed at first, when Mori had said he was being sent to assassinate a Sorcerer. Then he'd stopped laughing because Mori had looked terribly serious, not a hint of a smile or some other sign that he was joking. Dazai hadn't known what to think, then. He'd just stared as Mori had continued to explain the mission. What right response was there to being told he wouldn't be able to use a map on his phone because the magic of the forest would stop the device from working?

Of course Dazai had been quite sure he was being sent out on a fool's errand. He'd been certain of it, and yet his phone had stopped working about eighty paces into the forest. It had turned itself off and not even resetting the battery had helped. A little less dubious than before Dazai had continued through the trees, following the setting sun and still convinced that Mori was leading him on a wild goose chase for shits and giggles, because the man had told him he was looking for a tree. In a forest.

Dazai sighed to himself, starting to walk again. He could recall the conversation clearly.

"You'll know the one when you see it" Mori had said, and Dazai had just nodded because hell, Mori still had that scarily serious look on his face and Dazai wasn't about to question him when he looked like that. Of course Dazai would welcome death with open arms, but he also really wasn't a fan of pain, something Mori was all too aware of. Dazai was quite sure that if the man decided to kill him he'd happily drag his death out in some horribly evil fashion.

That thought in mind Dazai had set out into the forest, deciding that the humiliation of wasting his day on a non-existent 'mission' was better than meeting an agonising, likely slow death on one of Mori's operating tables. That had been about six hours ago. He'd give it another hour then head back and declare the mission a spectacular failure.

Dazai was forced from his musings as he came face to face with a tree. Now usually that wouldn't be particularly interesting seeing as he was in a forest, except this tree was massive. It towered far above the rest and the trunk was about as thick as the whole of Dazai's bedroom, and his apartment wasn't exactly modest in size or cost.

There was also the fact that the tree had what looked like a fully functioning door at the base of its trunk. Dazai didn't frequent forests, but he was pretty sure that wasn't normal.

The realisation that Mori maybe hadn't turned senile thirty odd years early had Dazai sighing in resigned frustration as he pulled his gun from it's holster. He checked it was loaded, made sure his various knives were safely secured and gave his still useless phone one last glance.

This was it, then. He was going to assassinate a Sorcerer.

Dazai's shoes didn't make a sound on the floor below him, years of practise keeping his steps light and undetectable. His gun was ready in his hands and he was prepared to shoot as soon as he saw his target.

Unfortunately, finding his target was proving rather difficult.

When he'd walked through that door and stepped into the very trunk of the tree, Dazai had been met with a relatively inoffensive entrance chamber. The walls and floors looked as though they were part of the tree itself, bumpy and knotty like actual wood. But there had also been furniture, decorations and lighting in the form of a solitary gas lantern that shone far brighter than one lone flame ever should.

More importantly to his mission there had been a staircase leading down. Naturally Dazai had taken it, only to be met with a hallway. With no other options to proceed he'd followed it, stopping at each door to listen for any sounds from inside the rooms. He'd never heard anything from behind the doors, so he'd continued down the corridor. It had curved here and there and when it split off into multiple pathways Dazai always took the one to the right.

It was undeniably a Sorcerer's house. At least five meters underground but pleasantly warm, well lit. The walls, ceilings and floor of the hallways seemed to be connected to the tree itself, made of its wood. Dazai had looked in one room out of curiosity and had seen a carpeted floor, a sizeable bookshelves, a plush sofa next to a grand fireplace. He'd raised a questioning eyebrow at what could only be a fire hazard but had continued on, not allowing his curiosity to distract him from his target.

He'd have all the time in the world to explore this place once he killed one Nakahara Chuuya , who was apparently enough of a threat that Mori had sent Dazai on a top-secret mission to deal with him, without any ability to call for backup or extraction because his phone still wouldn't turn on.

Dazai groaned his frustration to the air, as the hallway branched off into not two but four corridors. He'd been exploring the Sorcerer's house for at least an hour now and he was really getting bored. It wouldn't be anywhere near as bad if he could just look inside the rooms, he reasoned. But no, that was not an efficient way to find his target, and from a technical viewpoint quite dangerous.

Of course Dazai had the most effective methods of infiltration and elimination memorised. Some he'd learnt from books, others Mori had taught him personally. They generally worked quite well, but it was becoming apparent that they didn't hold up for a place this impossibly big. He'd spent an hour already simply traversing the main hallways.

If he could find some weird and wonderful thing in the house to give him a nice painless death then he wouldn't have to go to the effort of finding the target at all.

Fuck it. Throwing caution to the wind Dazai flung open the nearest door, stepping into what seemed to be a large storage cupboard of some kind. He looked around in fascination, staring at the shelves of neatly organised items. None of them seemed tarnished with dust or grime and Dazai quickly deduced that the house must have some kind of self cleaning property because if someone were to dust every room in the house by hand it would take days. Curious Dazai stepped closer to the shelves and peered into one of the jars, grimacing as he identified the contents as severed frogs legs. The next jar was far less disgusting, full of a strange shimmering dust that shifted colours whenever he turned his head.

A solid seventeen minutes was spent exploring the contents of the closet. Some things he recognised, others were completely new and more still had him recoiling in horror or leaning closer in wonder. He stepped back with a grimace as he decided he'd seen enough loose eyeballs to last him a lifetime, turning around and walking back into the hallway, shutting the closet door behind him.

It was subtle, but of course Dazai still noticed. His eyes narrowed as he honed in on the differences; the lamp was two feet further to the right. A painting sat on a chest, an illustration of a city Dazai had never seen. Eyes still darting around the hallway his left hand moved down to the inside of his coat, resting over a knife, his right hand tightening its grip on his gun. He would not be taken by surprise.

It took a minute of frantic mental brainstorming to realise that the house had changed while he was inside the closet. As far as he could tell hallways had shifted and rooms had moved. The implications of that were.. difficult. The house could have been changing this whole time, shifting behind him as he continued unawares. That meant that he had no idea where his current location was in comparison to the entrance, which was supposed to be his exit.

He could have been walking in an endless loop this whole time.

A humourless smile pulled at his lips even as he repressed a shudder at that particular thought. He'd always found it so very fascinating just how easily the hunter could become the hunted. Well. At least things weren't boring anymore.

Dazai prowled the Hallways with renewed vigour, throwing open whichever doors took his fancy. There was no procedure for this, no rules binding him. This was no longer an operation, this was a hunt.

Some rooms Dazai didn't step into, others he did. Sometimes because they peaked his curiosity and at other times just to see what the house would do. It didn't disappoint him, shifting sometimes so imperceptibly that Dazai took full minutes to realise he'd been turned around, or sometimes that he was in a different part of the house entirely.

He never lingered in one room for more than a few minutes. He didn't run either, keeping his pace to a fast walk. It was terrifying, thrilling and Dazai found himself very grateful that Mori had chosen him for this mission. It would have been just a simple assassination, him and the Sorcerer. But now a third party was involved -the house itself- and that made things far, far more interesting.

Dazai's fun was bought to a sudden stop as the hallway ended in a door, one wholly unremarkable compared to the rest of the doors he'd faced. However when Dazai opened the door he found a wall of solid, presumably living wood in front of him. With a frown he backed out of the doorway. It was no matter. He'd just try other doors, perhaps find another hallway emerging from one of the other rooms.

So he tried the door to his left, only to find the same. A wall of wood that he rapped his knuckles against, discovering that it wasn't hollow. There was nothing on the other side, nothing to somehow break through to. Not sure what else to do Dazai tried the door to his right, feeling the creeping starts of mild irritation as he was faced with another wall. How unfair, for the house to suddenly decide their game was over.

Dazai turned, groaning to himself -he wondered, for just a moment, if the house could hear- as realisation settled in too late. There was no more hallway. Where the corridor had before stretched out behind him there was now a simple dead end.

He was boxed in. A trap, then. How rude. He bit at his lip in nervous frustration, mind working desperately to figure out what the game was here. He'd played with the house, allowing himself to be pulled into an unwinnable maze of doors and hallways. There had been seemingly no consequence as he hadn't been pursued.

That was all well and good, but there was one player left that Dazai was now painfully and suddenly aware he'd sorely underestimated. He'd failed to find the mage.

"So, are you finished snooping around my home yet or should I give you another hour or two?"

Dazai was far too dignified to shriek, but he couldn't help the way he leapt as a voice spoke right into his ear. Turning, Dazai found himself face to face with what could only be the Sorcerer. In a glance he took in the man's details, comparing them with the profile Mori had given him.

Ginger. Grey-blue eyes. 160cm. Approximately 50kg. Pale. Hat. This is the target.

Dazi didn't waste a second. On occasion he'd play with his targets, engage them in a battle of words, perhaps allow them to think he might be soft, might allow them escape. It granted him additional information, sometimes. But with this one Mori didn't want information, he wanted the Sorcerer dead.

Seeing as Nakahara Chuuya had ruined his game with the house, Dazai was happy to oblige.

His gun came up first and he pulled the trigger three times, only to stare down at his pistol in confused shock as it didn't fire. It was a custom Sauer P226, it didn't just break. Snarling in frustration Dazai pulled the trigger again to no effect. Irritated that things weren't working out how they were meant to he glared at the stupid Wizard, lips twisting into an angry frown at the far too self satisfied smirk on his target's face.

"It's a handy trick, yeah? Stop glaring, I only emptied your gun. Guess you'll just have to come back and try to kill me another day."

Dazai stared as the man turned away from him and started walking back down the hallway, which had somehow re-appeared without Dazai noticing, which was ridiculous because he'd been facing it the entire time. It was rare that Dazai felt this worked up, but the Sorcerer had pissed him off.

There was no point in masking his emotions when he was going to kill the man anyway.

In a flash one knife was flying through the air towards Nakahara's back, Dazai darting forwards with the other blade, going straight for the carotid artery. Dazai didn't know how to even start reacting as his own knife flew out of his hand, thudding straight up into the ceiling. All the knives he had hidden in his coat and trousers and even his shoes followed, flying up and into the ceiling, which was left looking like the world's most murdery pincushion.

Dazai didn't have time to feel cheated. He blinked and the sorcerer was gone, and then he could only grunt in protest as the full weight of a body that felt decidedly closer to sixty kilograms than fifty slammed into him, sending him down to the floor. Dazai struggled and thrashed as he was pinned, the full weight of a body sitting on his back. Nakahara only applied more pressure in retaliation, one hand pinning his arm too far back and the other pressing his face into the floor, fingers gripping tight in his hair. Dazai hissed in a pained breath as clever fingers dug straight into pressure points he hadn't even known he had.

"Don't be too put out, you never could have won." That voice was like silk and Dazai didn't trust it one bit. He rankled as he decided the Sorcerer was being deliberately condescending, trying to squirm his way out from under the man but that only lead to a pained whine as Nakahara shifted his fingers and suddenly Dazai's whole right arm felt like it was burning. "Whoever sent you to assassinate a Sorcerer in their own home is a fool. Now stand down."

Dazai stubbornly refused, grunting and wriggling even as his arm screamed at him in protest, only to let out a shriek as fingers dug deeper into places they weren't meant to be. He hissed through the pain, only for the noise to turn into a snarled "fine" as he realised the burn wasn't fading out over time.

Nakahara was off of him without a moment's delay, rising to his feet and readjusting his clothing as though there hadn't just been an attempt on his life. Dazai rose to his feet warily, gingerly rubbing at his aching arm. The Sorcerer had exploited pressure points Dazai had never heard of, and Mori had taught him all of them.

"How did you do that to my knives?" Dazai reckoned that was a reasonable first question as he glanced up at his arsenal of blades. They were still stuck into the ceiling and they didn't look like they'd be falling out on their own. Some he didn't care for. Others he was rather attached to. They deserved better than being stuck in a ceiling forever.

The Sorcerer, however, did not seem impressed. "Huh? What do you mean, 'how did I do that'? With magic, obviously!"

Dazai squinted at him, allowing his arm to drop back to his side. The pain was fading quickly. "Are you on drugs? Magic isn't real. Idiot" He supposed if he was going to be killed he might as well go out with the last laugh. The Sorcerer's expression was certainly funny enough.

He wondered what Mori would say. Would he mourn? No. No, probably not.

"You're in a house that's been rearranging itself. I disarmed you without even touching you! How the hell could you say-" a telltale pause as realisation dawned, and then; "you're fucking with me, aren't you!?"

Dazai's responding grin was more than enough in answer. He watched as the Sorcerer fumed. It was amusing, although Dazai was a little disappointed that someone so blatantly powerful was still so very straightforward. So awfully human. He watched as Nakahara Chuuya took a deep breath, schooled his expression to one of calm if a little disapproval, even as he still held his hands on his hips in anger.

Predictable.

"Whatever. I want to know why you're here, and all that crap. Let's talk over dinner."

Dazai stared, not quite sure he'd heard that right. And then he realised he had heard it right and his smirk stretched into a genuinely amused smile, even as his hand drifted habitually to the still empty gun in his right pocket.

"Dinner. Yes, of course."

Well then. Perhaps Nakahara wasn't entirely predictable after all.

In our next chapter, 'Arsenic':

Dazai seemed to be enthralled by the whole wall full of shelves top to bottom, holding jars and pots of different dried ingredients. The man's attention seemed entirely focused on inspecting his surroundings, but Chuuya hadn't missed that he'd slipped a knife up the sleeve of his coat and a well sharpened fork into an inside pocket.

He supposed that was only fair. Dazai was supposed to be killing him, after all. Chuuya wasn't expecting him to give that up easily.

So! This is my first BSD fic and I've had a bit of trouble characterising these two but I think I sorted it out alright in editing? But if Dazai isn't Dazai-y enough I apologise.

And just to clean things up in case anyone's confused; in this AU there are abilities, but they're completely separate from magic. Chuuya isn't gifted, so No Longer Human doesn't work on him.