Leafing Through The Pages, I Found You
Summary: An Ability traps the ADA certain PM members in an illusion that shows them Dazai's life, before and as he became the man they know today.
10-11yo
Tsushima Shuuji was released from the hospital while still fully unconscious, into his grandfather's custody, against his parents' court approved written will.
"The beginning of the end, I presume," Hirotsu muttered, trying to put things together. He remembered doing that investigation of the burned down manor in Aomori. He remembered speaking with Natsume. He remembered how, soon after, for whatever reason, the boss became obsessed with something and then descended almost completely into insanity perhaps a year later.
"Isn't that the bad man his mother didn't want Shuuji-kun to talk to?" Kenji asked with a worried frown. He had not smiled once since the death of Chibi. No one had. They had a feeling they won't be smiling anytime soon.
"He is, Kenji-kun," Ranpo replied wearily. "Unfortunately, he is."
"... At least we know Dazai-san isn't with him anymore," was the optimistic response and they all collectively thought that this boy must be protected at all costs for being so sweet.
"Though, we have to admit, he was pretty badass for a nine year old kid," Tachihara said, in his own attempt to lighten the mood, knowing that, no doubt, soon enough, there will be more things to make them depressed now that the boy was in the hands of such a widely acknowledged cruel man.
"I suppose," Kunikida agreed, fixing his glasses higher on his nose. "Though it does beg to question as to why he doesn't put more effort into field work if he has training."
"Dazai-kun is trained to kill," Mori answered, though even he appeared hesitant to rain on their parade, so to speak. The gloomy mood was making even him shifty. "Chuuya-kun could most easily attest to it, but if Dazai-kun has to fight, it's to kill, otherwise he will be killed. In the past, while he was with us, that's the sort of skill he needed and should be proud of. But if he's going to pretend to be a goody-goody-two-shoes-"
"He can't use his skills to the fullest," Fukuzawa interjected before Mori could provoke his employees, and during such an emotional time. He glared at his former partner but Mori just shrugged. "He'd probably be questioned about it and his old record would be brought back into the light again after all the effort that's been put into erasing it. It's why Dazai asked me not to ask him to carry lethal weapons, despite us both knowing he will always have a gun, a backup and at least five cartridge clips, at least three blades, poison and a taser on his person at all times."
"Yeah, that's something that will never change," Chuuya agreed. "You should just be happy he stopped carrying a shotgun."
"Dazai-san used to carry a shotgun?" Both of said man's proteges asked, one of them wondering how he got his hands on it and why he carried it around, the other wondering how he carried it around because he was pretty sure he'd never seen it on him.
Chuuya turned a deadpan stare at the two. "Dazai used to carry a whole ass sniper when we were seventeen until some idiot broke it. It had been a gift from Oda. Needless to say, that idiot did not see light of day ever again."
"Dazai-san killed him!?" Squeaked Atsushi in fright but Chuuya shook his head even as the scene around them turned into the familiar whirlwind of colors.
"Nope. Poor bastard's still rotting away in the darkest cell down in the Port Mafia's basement, deprived of any and all sensory input except the occasional sound of guards coming to feed him and the chains around his body."
Kyouk's eyes lit up with recognition. "Akutagawa-san once punished me for talking to him. I think he broke down crying when he first heard my voice."
"It was Dazai-san's explicit orders," was all the Rashoumon user said in his defense when several dirty looks were shot his way, including from Kouyou. Kouyou had to huff in displeasure and let it go, knowing there was no point holding a grudge against someone fulfilling Dazai's orders, while the Armed Detective Agency weren't sure how they should react to this.
Luckily, the whirlwind of color settled just then, showing a familiar to some expensive office with floor to ceiling windows, a single desk and chair and a grandiose double doors on the wall opposite to it. In the middle of the room stood a man even fewer people recognized. In fact, only the Executives, Boss and Balck Lizard commander recognized the tall, stout, muscular man as the Colonel. He was still dressed in his tattered military uniform and judo belt, but he was currently wearing military boots as opposed to the tall wooden clogs he usually did in the time Chuuya had known him. His hair was still bristly and needle-like, but he was definitely younger looking than at the time of his death. Understandable, considering this seemed to be five to six years before it happened.
On the floor before him, beaten and bruised and a bit bloody, the red seeping through bandages worn on thin, frail-looking forearms, was none other than a maybe ten, probably eleven year old Shuuji. No longer was he dressed in well fitted, comfortable, expensive clothes as he had been at every other point of his childhood so far; instead he was dressed in tattered and worn black clothes that clearly hadn't seen a wash or a needle in weeks, if not longer. His once beautifully curly hair had been chopped down to nearly his skull, eerily matching in style the way his father had always worn his. His knuckles were bruised and split and he had no shoes on.
"Get up, boy," the old Boss, watching from the desk, ordered. "You're not done with your training yet."
The Colonel frowned down at the pitiful sight he had created in 'training' the boy but he dared not speak up against his Boss. Instead, he just reached down and hauled the boy back up to his feet. Shuuji was definitely a tiny bit taller, but he was still so small compared to the hulking man that a good part of the watching group felt ill as they watched him clumsily evade a kick that could have broken his ribs had it landed. "Good! Keep up, brat! You're doing good!" Colonel praised in his own way, relieved he hadn't landed another hit that would have definitely sent the boy to the emergency room. Again.
"Don't go easy on him," the Boss ordered, making the Executive-to-be stiffen up. "That boy bears the blood of Gen'emon. I've seen it with my own eyes. All he needs is a little push and some training and he'll make an even better assassin than Gen'emon could have been."
Not having any other choice, the Colonel followed the order and went even harder on the boy. Shuuji was taking more hits than could possibly ever be healthy for a kid his age - or anyone, for that matter - but he was still standing and dodging, barely trying to return a single blow. When, eventually, inevitably, another blow landed, Shuuji fell to the floor and vomited up what little food there was in his starved stomach. Kouyou was queasy when she recognized a liquid among the mess that still hadn't been fully digested yet as a poisonous substance that was probably only recently ingested. The boy stood no chance but to be the Colonel's punching bag from the get-go.
"I don't think he can get up, Boss," the Colonel said, staring at the heaving ten year old, trying his best not to show any emotion in his voice.
For the past year, the Boss had completely changed and everyone had noticed. For one, his youngest grandson was never out of reach. On a few occasions, they'd even seen him leading the boy around with cuffs around his wrists and chains on his ankles, a hand possessively wrapped around his nape as he led him about blindfolded. He devoted more and more time of this day to the boy's 'training', personally watching him get beaten to a pulp by the Colonel or any other martial arts expert available at the time, or cutting him up himself, injecting him with poisons and drugs to see how well the boy could take it. It was only a miracle that the child hadn't become an addict at this point, which only fascinated the Boss more. The eldest Tsushima never allowed anyone to be alone with Shuuji for more than five seconds. If you ever did find yourself in such a situation, you're likely to be ordered to be executed.
That wasn't all. Of course not. Because Shuuji had such a natural neutral face, the Boss loved trying to make him crack, to see anything flash across his face that wasn't apathy or even pity when he looked at the Tsushima patriarch. He starved and dehydrated him, he'd pulled out all the nails on his toes once, he'd forced him to hang upside down from the ceiling of his office by his toes until the bones had all dislocated and Shuuji had been unable to walk straight for weeks.
So far, the only times he'd gotten any kind of a reaction had been when he'd let one of his business partners try to have his way with the boy in the middle of a meeting and the time he'd locked him up in a cage small enough for him to have to curl up in it but big enough that, when the ravenous dogs he released on him tried to bite him through it, their snouts could barely reach him.
In case of the first one, Shuuji had improvised a noose with his own legs to snap the man's neck. He hadn't killed him, but he'll never be feeling anything from the neck down for as long as he lived. The Boss had been greatly entertained by it and had taken the advantage to destroy the other's organization.
In the case of the latter, though, was where the Boss really got his kicks, because, at first, Shuuji had been confused. The four dogs were all German Shepards, smaller than Chibi, but with a crazed look in their eyes that his deceased companion had never had. Then, when they started attacking him, he was scared. Shouting orders and pleading for them to stop. Not that it worked. All he could do was curl in on himself as tight as possible so their teeth barely grazed his flesh. It had lasted for hours. Even the old Boss had had to take a break, going to the bathroom, figuring nothing would change. Only to be stunned when he came back, because all the dogs were now whining in something like fear as they hesitantly backed away from the cage little by little.
And in the cage, still completely curled up but with his head lifted up high and haughtily, was Shuuji, glaring red-glinting eyes from the darkness in the room, looking every bit the demon he would one day be described as.
Even when Shuuji stopped staring them down some minutes later and instead just curled up to sleep, the dogs did not dare let out a single sound, let alone approach.
It only made the old Boss more eager to hone his grandson into a weapon the Mafia could profit off.
He couldn't get a reaction from the boy since and the Boss was getting bored at this point, just watching Shuuji get beat up. It's why he had something different planned.
The horrified audience watched as he picked up the only folder on his desk and threw it across the room. It landed a couple of steps away from Shuuji and his vomit, the contents spilling further from the impact and momentum. The entire Armed Detective Agency, plus Chuuya and Higuchi lost the color in their faces as they saw the pictures, depicting a gruesomely murdered Tsushima Kiye. Kouyou, who had once been in the care of that woman, as had many young ladies in the Mafia, had to look away, finally knowing what had happened to the fierce, yet kind woman and Hirotsu just closed his eyes in his grief, knowing she had been killed but never having known the old Boss had something to do with it.
The rest who hadn't known the woman beforehand but had still seen glimpses of her in these visions and how close she had managed to become with Shuuji couldn't help but mourn her, too. She had been kind, kinder than any other Tsushima other than his parents, to Shuuji and it was clear she was genuinely fond of her youngest nephew. She also seemed to have been the only sibling Tane had remained in contact and good relations with, considering she had trusted her with Shuuji's inheritance and Shuuji's care should anything happen to her, Gen'emon and, finally, Matsuki. They had wondered, when the vision had started, how such a strong-willed woman hadn't stopped the abuse being dealt to the boy who was clearly her favorite nephew. There's no way she wouldn't have known about it. She was not naive nor was she blind to her father's increasing cruelty and madness.
Now they got their answer.
The pictures were gruesome and it was clear her death was a peaceful one. There was blood everywhere and it seems her heart was ripped out of her chest. Shuuji shifted his head the slightest bit too look at the pictures and went stiff.
"If only you could have been stronger, you could have visited her," the old Boss was say faux lamentably. "Then she wouldn't be thinking of ways to overthrow me or steal you from me. I had always thought Kiye was smarter than my other incompetent children - well, aside, of course, Tane - but I guess this is what disappointment feels like. You'd think I was used to it, considering the rest, but alas. It is always more painful when someone you put high hopes into turns out like this, a mere traitor and backstabber. A wannabe thief, too. Kiye really ended up being the stupidest of them all. As though I'd let her, or anyone else, take you from me. You were created for this world, Shuuji-chan-"
He was cut off when Shuuji suddenly surged from the floor, surprising the Colonel by delivering a powerful punch right into his groin, making the tree of a man topple over in excruciating pain. The audience mostly cheered, even the people who had known and respected the man, because that was a very good move. However, their celebrations were cut short when Shuuji charged at the old Boss, a knife in hand that he had clearly stolen off of the Colonel. The Colonel, even through his pain, tried to stop the boy by turning the floor into a liquid state, but the second his Ability traveled close enough to Shuuji's feet, No Longer Human lit up and the floor remained solid beneath him as he jumped up onto the desk.
"WATCH OUT!" Atsushi and Kenji uselessly called as a huge red scythe made an appearance from behind the Boss' desk, the old man taking a swing at his own prized grandchild, only Shuuji had predicted it and ducked beneath the swing. With the new small open window in his grandfather's defense, Shuuji made a semi-deep cut all across his chest, diagonally, from left upper thigh to the top of his right shoulder with the stolen knife. The old Boss yelled in pain and rage, about to yell or possibly kill Shuuji, only for all color to drain from his face as he saw the ferocious grin and murderous glare directed at him from the child's face.
"D-DEMON!" The panicked Mafia Boss yelped and swung back with his scythe without adjusting the angle or the grip.
That was what Shuuji wanted, as he turned around so he could block any direct damage from the hit that sent him sailing right through the floor-to-ceiling glass windows of the office.
"WHAT THE FUCK!?" More than one person yelled and more than one person rushed towards the windows as though to catch the boy, Akutagawa and Kyouka even trying to call on Rashoumon and Demon Snow respectively to catch him, despite knowing it wouldn't have worked even if this was the real world they could interact with and not these visions.
"Isn't the glass up there, like, reinforced and bulletproof, Boss!?" Higuchi squeaked at the current Port Mafia Boss and the man sweatdropped.
"Well, you see ... It was actually Dazai-kun who insisted we should put reinforced glass in all the offices ... And the rest of the building."
"Of course it was," the blonde muttered even as they all watched Shuuji start to plummet.
"How the hell did he survive this?" A stricken, panicking Naomi asked, holding onto Junichiro as they all watched Shuuji just ... fall. Then they were suddenly able to see the boy up close, as though they were falling with him or that the scene was from a movie and they were just watching it on TV.
"GET THAT BOY! DON'T LET HIM DIE OR I WILL HAVE ALL OF YOUR HEADS!" The Boss screeched and thundered in an intercom of sorts and you could see various Port Mafia members rush towards the windows or down on the street outside, running around in panic like headless chickens.
Shuuji, though, knew there was next to no chance for them to save him. And he was more than fine with that. He's been holding on to an empty world that left him feeling even more hollow inside day by day for far too long. 'Kaa-chan is dead. Tou-chan is dead. Matsuki-san is dead. The other Tsushima servants are dead. Aunt Kiye is dead. Even Chibi is dead. And now Ojii-san, no, that monster wants me, something Kaa-chan was always against ... There's nothing left for me. I'm all alone ... Why should I keep holding on? I have no one to do it for.' He closed his eyes, trying to remember every single vivid detail of the people he had lost, who had cared for him and loved him and he was ready to come back into their embrace through death-
When a blurry, almost forgotten image flashed before his eyes. The night of a huge, full moon lighting up a crater of destruction and despair. Howls of pain and misery and victory and vicious glee. A too hot touch turning pleasantly warm as cool blue light lit up the night.
A boy, no older than himself, with fiery hair and the bluest eyes Shuuji had ever seen ...
A boy who had been a monster but had come back to himself because of a single touch from Tsushima Shuuji and only from that one touch.
Needless to say, Chuuya was gawking at the vision, a slight pink tint to his cheeks. The rest were kinda staring in awe between the vision and the gravity manipulator, though the fear for Shuuji's fate was still very much in the air, especially as he was still falling.
Shuuji's eyes snapped open. 'That's right. I still need to find him! Before the government does!' With a core strength belying all the brutal training he'd had to go through, Shuuji managed to twist himself midair around the time he'd reached half the height of the building. Seeing a few hopper windows open in relative vertical alignment of each other, he quickly partially unwrapped his bandages and put his hands over his head, letting the white and bloodied cotton soar above him. He then angled his body until, finally, he was in alignment with the first window. He closed his eyes and braced himself as he fell past it but the flapping bandages caught on it. The sudden impact was too much for the window and not only did it unhinge and bend, causing Shuuji to continue falling, but the glass also broke, littering Shuuji's exposed arms with cuts on top of the injuries he had already sustained. Shuuji barely winced, instead directed his momentum so he would repeat the process with the next window, and the next.
"What in the ... " The President couldn't finish the thought, staring wide eyed, like every else, as gradually, Shuuji managed to slow down his descent.
"How the hell does that even work?" Tanizaki breathed, not able to believe his eyes. After all, Kyouka had had to rescue him using a parachute and Demon Snow, but the eleven year old was doing just fine with only bandages!
The problem arose when there were no more open windows.
"Oh. So it's that day," Kouyou whispered in realization and before anyone could ask her what she meant, a couple of Mafia grunts came out of a fully open window and started walking up the building, arms outstretched as though hoping to catch the child so they could walk him back in with whatever magnetic power was allowing them to do something like this in the first place. Shuuji narrowed his eyes on them, did a quick calculation, before aiming in between them. As he had predicted, they managed to catch his bandages despite missing his body and they managed to hold on for a second before his Ability's effects traveled through the cloth and the two who'd caught the bandages were suddenly fully embraced by gravity. Shuuji also continued falling, slightly slower than before, once again. He managed to snag his bandages on the fully open window, too, and that one actually really slowed down his fall. He was now only a few more floors from ground level, but still too high up to get out of it without crippling injuries.
He needed to land in such a way that he can run right after or else this whole little endeavor would be useless. It would be for nothing and Shuuji would be locked up even more securely than before.
This was his only chance to escape the Port Mafia, to not fall into his grandfather's clutches, and he wasn't going to waste it.
Three floors before he was to hit the hard concrete bellow, a strange being rushed upwards to meet him. It looked like a reddish samurai woman but she had no legs, no pupils and no mouth. Shuuji immediately realized she was an Ability and probably his last speed bumper before he hits the ground. Though, down below, he can see they've thrown about trash bags, office chair pillows and even the infirmary's shitty mattresses had been thrown out from the lowest floors to make an improvised landing zone. Perfect. He still had his knife, so he just needs to stick the landing.
Avoiding and maneuvering around the swordswoman Ability was harder than the grunts or catching onto the windows, but by kicking a bit against the building behind him, he was able to soar right past her head, his bandages catching onto her neck, causing her to bend backwards in a strange manner before his own Ability nullified her out of existence, allowing Shuuji to fall the last bit of the distance at a pace just slow enough that when he landed on the improvised soft area, he could just continue rolling to get rid of the excess kinetic energy before he sprang to his feet and onto the first mafioso that tried to grab him.
"Holy shit!" Yosano said with a whistle as Shuuji incapacitated five grunts until he came across what appears to be one of Kiye's former subordinates. The man just lets him go with a nod, having seen how much his boss had loved the boy, and Shuuji repaid him this kindness by harmlessly knocking him out so he wouldn't be suspected for treason.
"Oh, so that's just a thing he does," Chuuya commented, recalling a blown up car and a four years late half-explanation he got for it.
"Are we not going to talk about Kouyou-san having been there?" Gin asked and the redhead lady just shrugged.
"I've been in the Mafia for far too long, lass. But at least now I know why Gold Demon was so easily defeated," the elder Executive replied smoothly, always having wondered about the person who had defeated her Ability that had made the Port Mafia covet her so.
"You're focusing on that?" Tachihara scoffed. "How about the fact that an eleven year old kid had just managed to escape the Port Mafia, from the very top of HQ in a free fall, mind you, all on his own?"
"It's still Dazai," Ranpo pointed out. "Doing ridiculous things others could never pull off is kind of his thing."
"Do you think being created by the Book allowed him to survive that fall?" Gin asked her brother and for once, Ryuunosuke wasn't sure what the right answer would be. The feat was incredible, amazing, astounding. No mere human should have been able to pull that off without an appropriate, suitable Ability or at least some sort of helping equipment. But it felt wrong not to think of his former mentor as anything but human, something they all know he struggles with as is ...
"No, it's just because the mackerel is the type of person who would survive a nuclear war. Only him and the roaches," Chuuya, having overheard the question, answered, sparing Akutagawa the turmoil.
"Are we really not going to talk about the fact that Dazai decided to live after thinking about Chuuya?" Yosano asked with a teasing smirk. The said Executive flipped her off.
"Wouldn't be the first time," Mori chirped, causing the short ginger to become a blushing and shouting mess but unable to outright contradict his Boss out of sheer respect. (And mounting embarrassment.)
Everyone laughed for the first time since the Tsushima manor burned to the ground as the world shifted again.