5 Things Dazai Still Does For Port Mafia ...
Summary: ... that he doesn't do for the Armed Detective Agency, and the 1 thing he won't do for anyone.
+1 Handing Over The Book
There are not many things Dazai Osamu wouldn't do for the people he comes to consider his own.
Nakahara Chuuya, the first person he'd come to consider as his, who was the reason a fifteen year old Dazai had decided that maybe giving life a chance was worth a shot, even if it was only for a little while longer, could attest to how little limits Dazai had when Chuuya might actually need him for something. From their wild sixteen, to their a bit more controlled 22, Chuuya had the most experience in how viciously protective and possessive Dazai was and how generous and kind he could be, even if, sometimes, it looks like anything but to an outsider. For Chuuya, Dazai perhaps did one of the ultimate things one would not expect from a suicidal maniac - he lived and he continued living, because he was the only reassurance of Chuuya surviving his own Ability and the only one who can restore Chuuya's humanity when god-like power swipes him away. For all their bickering and arguing and fighting, there was very little Soukoku wouldn't do for each other.
Hirotsu Ryurou also held the honor of such high regard from someone like Dazai. More than even Mori before the former doctor fucked up whatever semblance of good will mentor and protege had between them, Hirotsu had been the first adult Dazai had come to respect and even trust. The man had never been anything but kind to him, even when Dazai was not acting befitting his rank and position, and he was fiercely loyal. Dazai had, somehow, become one of the first individuals Hirotsu was so loyal to instead of the organization as a whole and so Dazai returned the sentiment just as fiercely and genuinely. The limits he'd go to for Hirotsu could not, of course, match the ones he'd go to for Chuuya, but Hirotsu was precious to him nonetheless.
The same goes for Ozaki Kouyou, his Ane-san, one of the first adults within the Mafia he'd been introduced to. She used to be suspicious of him for the longest time but she'd come to the realization that even he needed a place to relax and make his mind go blank or to act his age. She often provided as much in subtle ways, from their little tea get-togethers to later housing his and Chuuya's antics in one of her tea houses or brothels. Dazai doesn't call in favors just for anyone, after all, nor had he done anything for free during his Executive days as he used to whenever Kouyou's team needed help interrogating someone. And while helping Kyouka was a part of his promise, as she was an orphan, he'd done it for Kouyou, too, who clearly loved the girl as her own and he knew, from the bond between her and Chuuya and even with himself, how fiercely protective she can be of her own. So he helped where he could.
To that help, however, there were still limits, still lines he wouldn't casually cross. Those same lines existed for the few others he considered himself close to: the Akutagawas, who either felt like his own kids at times, for all the difference between them was but a couple of years, or like his younger siblings, along with Q; Elise and even Mori, to a far lesser extent, for all that the blond girl was the manifestation of his Ability.
To Ango, who used to be a close personal friend.
To Verlaine, who Dazai sympathized with and pitied; losing a partner for four years was bad enough, a lifetime must suck.
To the Agency, later, though he thinks it might be to a far lesser extent than anything he'd go to for the Mafia, regardless of legalities. It might just be the amount of history shared, it might be something else. He cares for them, of course, considers them friends and colleagues. He respects them, as both people and as detectives, as fighters. But Yosano will never be Kouyou, Fukuzawa will never be Hirotsu, Kunikida will never be Chuuya, Kyouka and Atsushi and Kenji (and Ranpo) will never be Elise and Q, the Tanizakis will never be the Akutagawas. And that's fine. He even prefers it that way.
It's for the best that he can differentiate them.
Because he won't go to the same lengths for one side as he had for the other,not unless push came to shove.
But regardless of his past (family) organization or the current one, regardless of the many different emotions, love among them, that he felt for these people who made his life at least a little bit more worth living or a little less boring, regardless of all the things he'd do for them, their safety and happiness, there was just one thing he could not do.
Would not do.
Would never do.
Oda Sakunosuke had been his best friend, a brother figure, someone who did their best to understand him and never once cast judgement on his cruelty or the blank darkness and emptiness of his soul. He'd embraced him as he was and accepted all of Dazai like it was nothing, offering friendship and companionship and those peaceful, lovely nights at Lupin that were a break from Dazai's everyday Executive life. Odasaku had easily and frighteningly quickly climbed to almost equal standing as Chuuya in the short time they'd had together, which is why it was so important to Dazai to fulfill his dying wish.
But there was a chance for Odasaku to live, to write his novel, to buy that house with an ocean view, to be happy and to no longer be forced to risk his life just because he doesn't want to kill, to have a life with the kids he'd taken in.
Dazai had found the Book as a child. He can't even remember when, exactly, but he'd had it for almost as long as he could remember. He hid it the day he first decided to commit suicide, the day he met Mori, and he kept it hidden from everything and everyone until he was nineteen and too far down in his grief that he thought maybe, just maybe, using the Book would be a good idea. No Longer Human allowed for an interesting Singularity to come into existence as Dazai wrote world after world, carefully constructed and penned down in miniature, neat handwriting, allowing him and his counterparts to be completely aware of everything happening between their worlds. And as each variation failed, Dazai got a bit more protective of the next, a little bit more desperate for it to work.
Even if that world's Dazai Osamu could not be happy, could not see the light, could not be human, could not be alive.
Finally, he created a world where Odasaku lived and was relatively happy and so Dazai hid the Book again and protected it with a fierceness no object has ever received from him in his life. He wasn't one for material possessions, but the Book was so much more than that. Even as he reforged old bonds and made new ones, even as mini-war after mini-war descended on Yokohama, even as injuries and eventually lives were lost, Dazai kept the Book a secret, hidden. Only he knew. Only he possessed it. Only he could write in it and he never would again, not when he'd finally created a world where everyone he loved - even Mori, to some extent - was alive and safe and had the groundwork to fix all the mistakes Dazai, any Dazai, may have made.
Dazai is aware not many people would be able to come to terms with their own mortality or their own unnecessariness as easily as he could. Not everyone had so little regard for their own life, their own existence. Not everyone would be able to understand the lengths he'd gone to for Odasaku one last time. And that was okay, because Dazai had never really cared what others thought of him, anyways. Sure, he wants those he cares about to at least view him as human, but if it risks their happiness, then he can be no longer human in their eyes. It's fine.
At least all of his loved ones besides Odasaku are alive, so the Book has to stay as it is. Just this once, Dazai will be selfish(?) and follow his own wish instead of doing everything in his power for those he allowed himself to linger in this oxidizing life for. Just this once, he will kill and steal and lie for himself, for selfish reasons, not for some greater cause or plan.
Fitzgerald, Dostoevsky, Fukuchi, the Order, Port Mafia, the Armed Detective Agency, Diet, Special Abilities Division ... None of them will get the Book. Dazai has played god enough in alternate realities to know how to deal with them on top of his predicting and strategic prowess.
Not for Chuuya, not for Kouyou, not for Hirotsu, not for the Akutagawas, not for Q or Elise or Mori, not for Ango, not for the Agency, not even for that crafty Sensei ... Not ever will he hand over the Book.
And perhaps that is fine.
Perhaps his selfishness is even protecting the world. After all, not everyone has No Longer Human to protect them from the pull of the Book, its power, its need to be used again and again.
And not everyone would understand just how pointless it all was, to try to change the reality of the real world with the reality of the worlds created by the Book. Only Dazai can even experience what his counterparts do. Anyone else would just be reading and writing in a blank book. They'd just ruin the world Dazai had worked so hard to create for Odasaku.
So he hides it. He finds Atsushi and he foils the Tiger whenever it tries to sniff out the Book. It's not even hard; he has the Book on him at all times, disguised as the one piece of literature everyone sees him with and reading over again and again, hidden in plain sight and No Longer Human masking its presence even from the Tiger. He hides it under everyone's noses and pretends to be confused and searching and ignorant. He hides it and lets Odasaku live in that other world, without him but safe. It was the one world Odasaku gets to live his dream; Dazai will protect it no matter what.
And for all that he'll never let that world be destroyed, he won't neglect his own world, either. He'll fight and he'll win, saving both his world and Odasaku's world. He'll save his loved ones and Odasaku's loved ones.
He'll take down the government if he has to; he doesn't mind, he's even ready for it, has been since he's discovered Arahabaki sealed within Chuuya when he was a mere fifteen year old being persuaded not so gently or subtly to join the Port Mafia and become Mori's right hand man.
When it all ends, when Dazai eventually dies, be it at an enemy's hands, Chuuya's or his own, he will still not hand over the Book. Its secrets will go with him to the grave, keeping all worlds safe.
How oddly fitting.
OWARI