Hi! This is a story I started as part of Whumptober 2019, but it drew out a bit longer than anticipated, so I'm uploading it by itself! To anyone reading this after October 7th, 2020, there's a new chapter since the last "Elegy" chapter on the Whumptober 2019 "story".
The red light on the black camera indicated that it once again was rolling.
Another jolt of shooting pain seared through Dazai's body. Between clenched teeth, he stifled a muffed cry of agony while twitching viciously in his seat. His head shot up, slamming into the back of the chair he was tied to, while his body shook violently out of his control.
The zap cane was removed from his stomach, and Dazai heaved for a breath of air with a mixture of saliva and blood spilling out between his lips. He had bit his tongue again, tearing open the bearly closed wounds he had suffered from the day before (and the day before that, and the day before that, and the day before that).
"Let's try this again today," the large man said in a dangerously calm tone. He looked to be in his mid to late fifties and was towering over Dazai's half-conscious form, wide and tall. The two other men in the room were armed with the electric prods and would shock him each time the larger man nodded his head towards them or gave them a hand gesture that indicated that he was getting sick of Dazai's lack of cooperation. The two younger men took a couple of steps back, making room for the big man to lean in close to Dazai's ear.
With heavily accented Japanese, the man asked again; the same question he asked Dazai endlessly, every single day for as long as he'd been there.
"Are you ready to confess?"
At first, Dazai kept quiet, just like he did every day; forcing his lips tightly shut and refusing to meet the ice-cold stare of the man he assumed was the leader of this group of imbeciles. He turned his head demonstratively to the side, not even wanting to breathe the same air as him.
A hoarse smoker's laugh trembled through the elderly man, making his shoulders shake. Suddenly a large, firm hand had a tight grip around his jaw, forcing Dazai's head in the man's direction.
"I said; are you ready to confess?"
Dazai's only answer was to chuckle in amusement, before gathering a mouthful of blood, spitting it into the man's face.
The broad-shouldered man sneered, backing up and turning away, wiping his face with the sleeve of his shirt.
"I'll give you one more chance," the man growled in a dangerous tone. "Look into the camera, and admit to your crime. This will make this whole ordeal a lot less painful for you. You were the one who killed Niko! You killed my beautiful baby-girl! Admit it!"
It was getting difficult for Dazai to keep his head steady on his shoulders, and his vision had doubled. The small window of sight he still had left in his right eye was completely gone at this point- hopefully, because of his eye being bruised shut and not because of any additional damage to his optic nerve.
Thick fingers grabbed a hold of his hair, yanking his head back forcefully, locking him in an uncomfortable position. It might have hurt if Dazai hadn't been dragged after Chuuya in more or less the exact same way for two years staight while still in the Port Mafia. But, being held directly into the path of this guy's foul breath was enough to make it seem tempting to break.
Then again, if against all odds, he would survive this screwed up situation, and the damage was already done... he didn't have anything left to lose and he might as well have some fun along the way.
Dazai gave the man a broad grin, teeth shining mockingly with red lines of crimson running between them.
"Fine, fine..." he wheezed, a bit more pathetic than he had anticipated. "I give up, it was me... I did it..."
Dazai took a deep, shuddering breath, before he continued ceremoniously, "...I, and I alone... let the dogs out."
Apparently, his captors didn't have a sense of humor, because the zap cane was quickly pushed against his neck. The buzzing sound of electricity was only heard for a short second before it drowned into a wave of blackness and his own strangled scream.
When Dazai woke back up, he was back in his cell; his small, cramped, cold purgatory. He had no idea how long he had been locked up in this place. There was no light, no set schedule for food or using the facilities. It seemed like it varied depending on which people were on guard- which also seemed rather random. That left him with little to work with in terms of keeping track of time.
The stone flooring was cold, and his bare back was pressed up against the door. His legs hardly fit in the tiny cell when stretched out, but that wasn't why he was pressed to the door.
No, that was because of the chain around his neck.
The thick iron was locked tightly around his throat, tight enough to hurt his vocal cords and add horribly painful friction to the black burns caused by the zap cane. It made his breaths go in and out in rapid, hungry hicks, and each time someone opened the door, he would be dragged along with it, cutting off his air supply and efficiently subduing and choking him.
But the pain wasn't even the worst part anymore. He wanted it gone- wanted it to stop wanted to die more than he had his entire life and would end himself (he didn't even care about a pain-free suicide anymore- didn't care about it being convenient just wanted it done) as soon as he could... But they wouldn't let him.
At some point, he had tried. He had leaned forward, effectively cutting off his air supply for long enough to make him faint, while making sure he wouldn't fall unconscious in a way that made it loosen the chain enough to clear his airways. But it hadn't worked.
It was all because it was that damn camera. The only light in the cell, the only true constant that had been there (except for the pain- the pain didn't go anywhere- because that came with the light the small red orb looking tauntingly and laughing-) since he had been brought to this place.
The fuckers revived him when he had managed to strangle himself with the chain, and on many other occasions too. So now... now he knew.
He knew that they wouldn't let him die. They wouldn't let him get out of the one crime that he did not commit. He was guilty of many horrendous things, but he would never admit to killing such a sweet innocent girl. In which case, he would rather die.
Still, he was sure if he somehow was able to hang himself, overdose, cut his wrists, shoot himself in the head while jumping off a cliff and set himself on fire at the same time, they would still find some way to bring him back to life.
It sounded surreal even to him, but he had finally, actually, given up on death.
A venomous voice in the back of his mind told him that he didn't deserve the release of death anyway. That after all he had done, he had this coming. Even if the tiny bit of sanity left in his mind tried to convince him that nobody (not even him) should even fantasize about doing something like this to another human being... That nobody (not even him) deserved what was going on here...
That maybe... just maybe... he wasn't the worst human to ever leave a print on the face of the earth after all.
Because whoever killed poor little Niko, definitely deserved that title.
...and he also questioned if maybe the lack of oxygen was clearing his mind more than muddling it, and tried to imagine what Kunikida, or Chuuya for that matter, would say if they could hear him now.
"Was a couple of weeks of torture all it took to get that into that shrimp-sized brain of yours? I wish I had known so I could have done it myself."
...that seemed pretty accurate, he decided.
The silence inside his solitary was disrupted by a hoarse, broken chuckle. The sound of his broken voice sent chills down his spine.
His eyelids felt heavy now. He couldn't remember the last time he slept- unless being unconscious counted as sleep.
Dazai shifted, trying to rest on his side, but a sharp pain shot through his hip. It made him startle and he rolled back to his half-seated position against the door, leaning his head to the harsh, wooden surface. There was a burning behind his eyes. Not tears, more of a desperate call from his body to fall into slumber, to relax and maybe... give in.
No.
If he did- they would frame him for the murder of Niko, but without his confession, they would never be able to. There was no evidence to point to simply because he did not do it.
But he wanted to give up on all of this... Kinda. Not really, but... he was considering it. At least, his body was.
Just the thought made him slam his head into the door behind him, punishing himself for those ridiculous thoughts- because those kinds of thoughts were unacceptable. He hadn't endured years of Mori's vicious training to withstand torture to lose out to fatigue.
All of this made him feel like a child. Nothing more than the poor helpless kid he had once been, that the Port Mafia had beat, burned and whipped out of him.
...still, the feeling lingered, and he realized slowly, painfully, why it did.
This experience woke up a demon that had hibernated in the pit of his soul for fifteen years. A ferocious beast he had fought and defeated and thought he had buried along with his humanity long ago.
For the first time since he could remember, he was truly scared.
"He can't be in Yokohama."
"Are you sure there's not anything we've missed? There isn't anywhere we haven't looked?"
The Armed Detective Agency was hurdled around a large, squared table, scattered with notes and documents. In the middle, there was a map with excessive amounts of large, black crosses drawn all over, eliminating each searched location throughout the city.
"We've scavenged every little creak and corner, from the border to Tokyo to the port. Our colleagues in Kobe, Sapporo, and Tokyo have done an extensive search too, without any luck."
Kunikida crossed his arms with a grave expression. Atsushi was still eying the map, hoping to discover something they might have missed.
"I hate to say it, but I suspect that he actually is still in Yokohama," Ranpo muttered gravely, not even bothering to pretend to be using his ability. There was no use. Their colleague had vanished without a trace and they had no idea how or why.
"If this had been a group from out of the city, they would have had some sort of motive, and they would have let us know what it was," he added.
There had been no ransom demands, no one that had taken responsibility, and most importantly of all, no body.
They had gone as far as to hire divers to search the bottom of every little creek in Yokohama, even if they knew that this wasn't another suicide attempt that had finally been successful.
The evidence was clear; their coworker, friend, and ally was kidnapped. If he had tried and succeeded at killing himself, he would have let somebody know. He always did, so they wouldn't have to go out on a wild goose chase looking for him.
Strangely enough, Dazai was considerate like that.
Dazai had his flaws, but he wasn't stupid. He knew that if he was ever to disappear, they would come looking for him. They were also fairly sure that he knew they cared enough about him to know that they wouldn't rest until they found him, and that was why he always gave them some sort of notice when he would try to off himself, so they wouldn't waste their time.
This time, however, there was nothing. No hint of where he had gone. Only 6 months of absolutely no trace of him.
The ADA had put everything else aside to find their missing colleague. They had even developed close cooperation with the Port Mafia. Their eerily creepy leader, Ougai Mori had laughed when they had reached out to them, but Dazai's former partner, Chuuya, as well as several other members of the Port Mafia, had become quite invested in the search when they had learned about his disappearance.
At this point, there wasn't really any profiled ability-based organization in Japan that hadn't partaken in the search for Dazai in one way or another.
In spite of all of his shortcomings, Dazai turned out to be widely respected in the community of ability users. Some because of his work in the mafia, some for his work in the agency, and some plainly because of the reassurance that he could cancel their ability if it got out of hand.
It was fair to say that most of Japan were invested in finding Dazai at this point.
Still, no one had gathered any information that had lead them any closer to finding him.
"I hate to say this, but our resources are running out, and we're still not any closer to finding him," Yosano started, always the voice of reasoning.
The dark-haired doctor ignored the venomous stares she harvested from several of her younger coworkers and continued.
"From a medical standpoint, I would say that he's dead."
"Don't say that!" Atsushi retorted immediately, fists grasped tightly at chest level, with arched eyebrows. He turned around to face the young doctor, who he had eventually surpassed in height.
The thought of his friend and mentor being dead already haunted his dreams every night. Their continued search was the only thing that made him hopeful that Dazai was still alive- if they began to entertain the idea that his nightmares were real, Dazai would be dead eventually no matter what they did from this point forward.
"We can't give up on him."
"I'm not saying that- Knowing Dazai, he's way too stubborn to be killed or die in any way that seems inconvenient to him. I'm just trying to be realistic... We're not going to be able to solve this if we run out of money. We might have to start taking on cases again."
"Taking on other cases would mean that we have less time to search for Dazai," Kenji stated sadly yet accurately.
"I know, but nobody is paying us to find Dazai at this point, and there's a large stack of forms on Haruno-san's desk of actual paid missions that will eventually lead us to have more resources to find him."
An argument broke lose between the agency members just as Fukuzawa entered the room.
"Yosano's right," he said solemnly, effectively breaking up the fight before it could escalate to a loud shouting match. Eight pairs of eyes turned towards the entry as Fukuzawa stepped inside.
"I've been reluctant to tell you, but if we don't take on other cases soon, there won't be enough funds to sustain the agency at all."
Two hands slammed into the work table and Kunikida stood abruptly.
"Are we just supposed to give up on him?" he retorted agitatedly, earning shocked stares across the room.
Fukuzawa's steel eyes looked at him, unaffected by the uncharacteristically rough tone. The blonde lowered his gaze, held his breath for a few seconds to calm down.
"With all due respect, director... Dazai-san has been missing for over six months now. He might be in great danger, and I don't know how any of us could live with ourselves if something were to happen to him, because we stopped searching."
Fukuzawa's tall stature came closer, and a large, strong hand reached out, grabbing and putting reassuring pressure on Kunikida's shoulder.
"I know, Kunikida-kun. I don't want to stop the search any more than any of you do. But if we don't take on a couple of missions now, we will lose all the resources we have at hand here at the agency... because there won't be one."
Kunikida cleared his throat, and looked back up and nodded affirmatively. "I-I understand, president. I'm sorry for speaking out of line, it... it's been trying times."
"I know," Fukuzawa assured him calmly. "I'm not saying to stop looking, but I do want some of you to take the time and do some of the missions. You can decide amongst yourselves who does what, and if there is anything that I can do, don't hesitate to ask."
The tall man left the room, leaving the agents to digest this new information.
Kunikida quickly snapped out of it. "Kenji and Tanizaki, go and look over the missions on Haruno-san's desk. Don't pick anything that will take away too much man-power, please. Dazai still needs to be our priority. When you've found one, come back and do a short debriefing, and we'll decide who's going. I would rather have Ranpo free to continue the search, though..."
The two young detectives nodded in unison and darted off towards Haruno's desk.
Darkness. Consuming everything. From as far as my eye can see- to the core of my soul, it eats away, leaving room for the uneasy, strangled fear that creeps up every time I forget to pay attention.
Fear doesn't need doors or windows.
Dazai tried to keep in mind that fear was only an emotion and reminded himself how illogical all feelings were. Some people were scared of heights, while other people bungy jumped.
The hight wasn't any more dangerous for the person who sought it than to the person who feared it. The only difference was their perception of it.
Just like he had no more reason to fear his captors than they had fear him.
Because he was Osamu Dazai, previously the youngest executive of the Port Mafia in history, purely because of his brilliance and heartlessness.
Still, one thought kept picking at his brain. Because even if that was so, someone was out to hurt and destroy him, which actually was a much more actively danger than what the space between a person and the ground was.
He wanted to tell himself that this was the kind of thinking that separated him from his persona as a mafioso. Those years ago, he believed more than anything that he himself was the only real threat to him.
He wasn't durable in a fistfight, wasn't bulletproof and was truthfully inadequate at taking care of himself. Still, what he was, kept being and had always been, was unbreakable.
Maybe not physically (not at all, really) , but emotionally, he was. No one had ever been able to throw him for a loop, make him unsure or scare the daylight out of him.
Not since he was a child, anyway.
...so why was it now, that he couldn't stop shaking?
In the distance, he could hear footsteps, and he held the breath he so preciously treasured, hoping they would pass him by. Keys were rattling, and the lock mechanism on the door behind him clicked.
He quickly exhaled before greedily gulping in another breath, ready for what was to come.
The door was yanked open, the chain around his neck tightening around his throat, effectively cutting off his air supply and crushing at his windpipe and almost strangling him. He was dragged back, his cuffed arms clawing at the chain around his neck while he struggled to breathe.
The zapping cane poked at his side, and he let go of the tight collar to protect himself, curling up and kicking with his legs while being zapped again and again until he lingered at the edge of unconsciousness.
Without a word from his guards, the two men picked him up and carried him between them, once again heading for hours upon hours of torturous interrogation.