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.
13yo
"So we've established that Dazai has the Book and that he has, somehow, ensured that at least Nakahara-san and Atsushi survived rough ordeals in their childhood," Kunikida concluded, fixing his glasses and hands twitching because he so desperately wanted to take down some notes on these new findings. "He's also somehow responsible for the old Port Mafia Boss going insane ... Which makes no sense to me, but I've never quite understood obsessive behavior such as that."
Tachihara leaned in to Higuchi. "Does he really have room to talk? Didn't you say he's obsessed with those notebooks of his?" Higuchi just shushed him as she went over to fuss over Akutagawa once Fukuzawa released him and Atsushi.
In the meantime, the visions were showing Dazai as he traveled, debating which way he should go and where he should settle. He refused to go back to Aomori, the whole prefecture stopped being home a long time ago. And while he could adapt anywhere else ... He already knew enough about the streets and slums of Yokohama to know how to survive. So Dazai decided to just go back to Yokohama, maybe he'd even see that cat again that's always stalking him.
Besides, bigger cities are generally easier to hide in, be it from the raging Great War to the government to your own psychotic grandfather. Dazai doubts anyone from the Mafia would have connected the missing Tsushima Shuuji to Dazai Osamu. Yokohama should be relatively safe ... So to Yokohama Dazai went.
The vision shifted again and everyone was definitely used to it by now, no threats of anyone losing their lunch or whatever by the time it showed them Yokohama, two and a half years later. A thirteen year old Dazai was seen running away from three adults. The Port Mafia members were quick to recognize them by the tattoos on their arms as members of a gang that had been whipped out like many others in the Dragon Head conflict six years ago, three years after the events happening in the vision. Dazai, in his now constantly bandaged self, was already battered and bruised from the metal pipes they seem to have used to beat him, causing quite a few people's teeth to grit in rage at harming a child, especially Dazai, but the little genius was able to ignore the pain - it was nothing compared to the beatings he received as part of his 'training' with the Colonel and his grandfather - and keep running, quite a bit ahead of his pursuers despite his shot legs. He'd grown again, but he was also skinnier, too, his hair longer and choppy, uneven and greasy.
He was clutching something in one hand, while using the other to occasionally pull unsuspecting bystanders on the streets in front of his pursuers to slow them down.
"Why is no one helping him?" A fuming Naomi asked, watching as the brunet had to manuever over and around all sorts of obstacles, including people, yet not a single adult tried to help him. Hell, he even ran by a police car, but the two officers inside only watched as they sipped their coffee as the brunet was chased by the gangsters.
"This is disgraceful!" Kunikida exclaimed, offended as the idealist that he is.
"This is normal," Higuchi informed them, though she didn't seem like she liked how callously the policemen ignored the child in trouble, either. "Things used to be a lot more turbulent in the criminal underworld of this city. The best way to survive was to not stick your nose where it isn't its place."
"How cowardly," Akutagawa huffed and the Agency couldn't help but agree.
Then again, most of them didn't quite understand what a gang war looks like, especially not one the likes of the Dragon Head conflict. The three way war with the Guild and the recent conflict with the Rats From the House of the Dead were child's play in comparison. And they were only able to reach such a laughable level on the scale of Yokohama's disasters and not further because, unlike in old conflicts, Soukoku existed to mitigate the chaos, one way or another. Three organizations fighting will also never match a Yokohama-wide criminal war.
"If my memory serves me well," Mori commented, letting the youngsters debate among themselves the police's actions, or lack of. "Dazai-kun has now officially set foot into Port Mafia's territory ... No, he's not quite yet there ... "
"What do you mean, Boss?" Chuuya asks, even as he never takes his eyes off of the young version of his partner. "The Mafia had the whole docks under control, right?"
"It didn't always, though," Kouyou corrected.
Hirotsu nodded. "Dazai-san had a hand in the contributions and territorial extensions the Mafia achieved from the moment he officially joined the organization."
"You weren't kept as up to date back then since you'd also just joined, but you weren't as educated to Mafia customs as Dazai was, considering the lad had spent a year as Ougai-dono's unofficial assistant," the older Executive explained and Chuuya nodded, not surprised. He remembered well how busy fifteen year old Dazai was. He remembered his first meeting with the official member of the Mafia Dazai, too, and how he'd said the Mafia's army was more or less shoved onto him by the Boss. Fifteen to sixteen was Dazai at his busiest, no doubt. Many organizations fell at his feet, earning him some of his infamous nicknames that make people tremble to this day. "Also, Ougai-dono, I can confirm, this part of the docs was still a neutral zone one year before you took over the Mafia," Kouyou added, settling that debate, if it even was one.
"What did he even take that they're chasing him this much, though?" Tachihara wondered and Mori made a face.
"He could have taken a match and, at that point in time, they would have gladly used it as a viable reason to beat a child up."
"Fucking bastards," Chuuya hissed, remembering those times far too well, when retaliation for hurting the Sheep was almost a daily job.
"Get back here, punk!"
"Get him!"
"Don't let him get away!"
"When I get my hands on you-!"
Little Dazai ignored all these calls and kept running, even as he was also running out of breath. The chase had been long and exhausting. He hadn't had a proper meal in a couple of days and falling asleep at night was becoming harder and harder. The city streets were rampant with crime and petty criminals on top of the gangs, yakuzas and the Port Mafia, the latter of which was causing about 57% of the chaos in the criminal underworld now. It's been going on for a couple of years already, the Mafia declaring war on random groups that used to be allies or just never crossed the Mafia. Human trafficking was off the roofs, drugs were practically sold as candy and blood was flooding the streets at least once a month. Dazai does not remember the last time he'd felt a kind touch or been graced with a tender look. Hell, he can't remember the last time someone was simply indifferent of his existence.
Instead, everyone on the streets only wanted to either kill him, beat him, use him or worse.
And as smart and craft as Dazai was, as much as he knew these streets and how to get enough money for food and clothes, as much as he knew how to pick a good shelter for a while, the only reason he was still alive was because of that Book he'd picked up in the orphanage. He swears he's not crazy; that thing talks to him as it pleases, but it's usually very helpful so he isn't complaining even if he was crazy.
Matsuki-san had told him one can't die by their own hand and had asked him to not let others kill him for the sake of the honor of his parents and his household.
Dazai, for all that he had no particular attachment to this wretched world, will heed his dying words. It's the least he can do for his old servant.
At least until all those involved in their deaths have paid the right price, blood for blood, life for life, soul for soul. Until that happens, Dazai refuses to die.
Except that might not be up to him. He was too tired to keep running for much longer. He was still just a useless kid while they were adults, larger and with greater endurance. If this keeps up, they'll surely catch him and-
He let out an 'Oof' as he crashed into someone as he turned a corner around a block of shipping containers stacked one upon the other. What little air was left in his lungs left him as he fell to the ground and he knew this was it. Still, he looked up, wondering if he'd had any luck to possibly run into a righteous, honorable cop, only to wince in disappointment when he saw the old man. He had a shot goaty and lush, graying hair, curly locks framing a wrinkled face with a scar over his lips, making him look scary, or what would be scary for a normal child Dazai's age. He had silvery gray eyes, sharp and intelligent under bushy eyebrows. He was dressed in the blue uniform of a doc worker, Dazai realized, and he wondered if he'd just doomed this man along with himself.
"There he is!
"Get him!"
"Just hand him over and we'll let you live, Ossan."
"As long as you know to keep your fucking mouth shut."
The old man ignored them, instead looking down at the brunet at his feet with a peculiar expression on his face. "Are you alright, gaki?"
"Oi! Don't ignore us!"
"Old fart!"
"Why I ought-ta!"
"I'll beat you black and blue, oi!"
They shut up, however, when the old man glared at them. "I wasn't talking to you. Be quiet, barking mutts. You were not given permission to speak."
"Okay, I love this dude's style, he's badass!" Whooped Tachihara, high-fiving an excited Kenji.
Hirotsu, however, was gawking.
"You okay, Hirotsu-san?" Chuuya asked and Hirotsu choked on nothing.
The gangsters, of course, decided to 'show him who's boss' and launched a very uncoordinated attack, one almost shooting the guy with a metal pipe that came in close in order to hit him, but the old man just pushed Dazai behind himself and caught the pipe, twisting it out of the man's grip with a surprising strength and then ... Stopped the bullets raining down on him? Dazai watched with interest, trying to understand what was happening, but he was careful not to touch his impromptu savior, since clearly he was an Ability user.
"How rude. Brats these days don't know how to respect their elders at all," the old man said and, with that, he ripped reality apart to disintegrate the existence of the gangsters. He then turned to Dazai, arching an eyebrow at the fact he remained fearless in the face of such power. "Now, boy, will you tell me if you're alright?"
"Peachy," Dazai answered convincingly.
And promptly passed out.
"..."
"..."
"..."
"... That was your mentor, wasn't it, Hirotsu-san?" Fukuzawa asked while Mori just watched as the younger version of his protege was carried off by the old man, in his arms after he realized his Ability did not work on the child.
"Yes," the oldest one present answered. "Masaoka Shiki, or Masaoka-sensei as Soseki-san and I called him."
"The creator of the Book," Mori added and the man with the monocle nodded in agreement. "I find it funny how Dazai-kun seems to keep meeting such important players over the years," the raven haired man said with a menacing smirk. "It's almost as though it's been pre-written-"
"That's a stupid joke," Ranpo cut in, making Mori glare at him, though it not as if the detective was phased.
They watched in silence as Masaoka took Dazai to some cottage built on the edge of the doc area and checked the boy over for any worse injuries than already visible, pausing over the backpack Dazai never let out of his sight in visions following the orphanage ones. "Well, isn't this just interesting. I thought I sensed it near. But to think it would be in the hands of a child ... Soseki-bozo really messed up this time, huh? Now," he mused, studying the child he was now in possession of. "What to do with you?"
"Not abuse, exploit or harass him would be a good start," Yosano chirped sarcastically and Hirotsu let out an offended noise at that, causing the female doctor to roll her eyes at him. "Oh, please, as if it isn't a viable option considering the luck Dazai's shown throughout his whole life! I swear Aomori was a safe haven where no one taught Dazai how to be an asshole."
"I wonder how different Dazai-san's life would be if he never left Aomori?" Gin whispered and Chuuya, Akutagawa and Atsushi all tensed, knowing their own lives, at least, would probably be a living hell sooner rather than alter had a certain bandaged suicide-maniac not barged into their lives. But neither of them three was selfish enough to think Dazai - or rather, Tsushima Shuuji - wouldn't have deserved a normal life if only he coould have been gifted it, instead of it being wretched from his little hands so early on.
"To be fair, I don't think the old Boss would have actually kept the promise he made Dazai-kun's mother, even if Dazai-kun's parents had survived. Either that, or they would have suffered the same fate as the rest of the Tsushima family in the succession," Mori mused and everyone turned horrified eyes to the Boss at the implications of what happened to the rest of Dazai's relatives. Violet eyes rolled at their scandalized faces. "Oh, don't look at me like that! It wasn't even me who gave out that order; Dazai-kun did. He said the traditionalists will try to support the family if there was a legitimate blood heir from the family, regardless of how competent they are. I'd suggested we have them as Subexecutives or in other such positions, but Dazai-kun presented some good arguments and I agreed."
"When was this? I don't recall ever discussing the Tsushima family, Ougai-dono," Kouyou asked sharply and Mori just shrugged.
"After Dazai-kun officially joined the Port Mafia, of course. You were too busy with training and educating Chuuya-kun while Dazai-kun was already elbow-deep in Mafia affairs. After the recent 'resurrection' of the old Boss, his concerns and zeal to deal with the Tsushimas made perfect sense back then. Now, with this new knowledge ... "
"He was preparing to die," Chuuya concluded, voice grim. "As he always is."
The vision continued playing around them, in the small wooden shack they were sure no longer existed in the docs area anymore, as almost two whole days passed before thirteen year old Dazai woke up again, rather violently, too. Masaoka had been checking on him, making sure he didn't get worse, cleaning his wounds and such, when Dazai had jerked awake. He stole a gun Masaoka had hidden somewhere on his body instantly and fired three shots, aiming right at the old man's head. The Agency either sputtered or yelped at the display of skill and the Mafia just watched as time and space warped before their eyes as Masaoka rearranged reality to stop the bullets from ever reaching him, making them drop useleslly to the floor.
"Careful there, gaki. You could really hurt someone with that," the old man says with an arched eyebrow, amused.
Dazai, however, was not. "I know. That's the goal." With that, having shifted his leg just the slightest bit to barely be grazing the man's, Dazai shot again. Masaoka had felt the moment reality no longer bent to his command so he knew to dodge, letting out an impressed whistle when a bullet singled his ear.
"You're good, for someone handling a gun for the first time. A natural, one might say. Tell me, boy, what's your name? And why were those fools chasing you across half of Yokohama's port?"
Dazai studied the old man for a moment before deeming him not a threat, even returning the gun to its owner as he shrugged. "My name is Dazai Osamu. They were chasing me because I stole from them."
"And what, exactly, did you steal?"
Dazai shrugged again, like the menace he was. "Oh, just a handful of diamonds."
"I'm sorry, he stole what!?" Kunikida and Naomi gaped.
Yosano whistled.
"Where would he have sold them, though?" Tachihara wondered and Chuuya listed off ten places right at the top of his head, places he'd had to deal with back when he'd been in charge of jewel trade.
"Diamonds you spent, by the way," Dazai continued, voice quiet and calm, but also slightly amused and an even slighter bit accusing.
"Of course I sold them," scoffed Masaoka. "I'm barely making ends meet even when living in this shack. You lived off of my food, water and heating, so of course I was going to charge you for it. And I'll keep doing so if you plan on staying here, Osamu-gaki! I don't care if it's honest money or blood money, you have to pay your stay!"
"What a jerk, making a kid work like that," grumbled Yosano. "As if a child should be paying for his bills just because he didn't get his life together."
Hirotsu scowled at her, but didn't get the chance to defend his Sensei.
The little brunet scoffed. "You're an information broker; you're hardly just 'making ends meet', unless you're suck at your job, ossan."
Masaoka arched an eyebrow at the child. "Oya oya, and how did you figure that out?"
The little Dazai rolled his eyes. He started counting off of his fingers nonetheless, Masaoka watching him with barely hidden fascination. "You live near the port; I can smell the sea and the fuel in the air, as well as hear ship horns, so don't bother to lie. You live near the port, disguised as a worker, in a house or shack or cottage or whatever this is but it's so rundown no one would ever think to search, attack or rob, therefore it's the perfect place to hide. Working and living at the docs, though, allows easy access to the free flow of fresh information and gossip. You can also see transactions that take place as well as spy on the merchandise that gets shipped or docked." A second finger went down. "You have several maps of Yokohama with various places circled, underlined or otherwise marked, including routes or connections with pins and rubber bands-"
"I could be a detective or undercover cop," Masaoka interrupted with amusement but Dazai just deadpanned at him and tucked in a third finger.
"You have a strong Ability, some sort of sapce-time displacement-" A gray eyebrow nearly touched the old man's hairline at that, now truly impressed. "-and no one on the streets knows about it, meaning you as an information broker have your finger on the pulse of gossip and overall word of mouth spread of information in the city. An undercover cop, even someone from the Military Police or the Special Department For Unusual Abilities, would not think to do that, they don't have the street life experience needed to think that would be important to keep track of. And finally," a fourth finger was tucked away. "You have more burner phones on that table than electronics shops display. You're an information broker. I rest my case."
"He's really good for a kid," Ranpo said with a huge grin while Mori was cooing about the skills he was usually terrified of Dazai for.
"I don't think I would have figured it out even with all these clues," Atsushi lamented.
"That's because you're dumb, jinko."
"Shut the fuck up, you emo!"
"What did you just call me-"
"Boys," Kouyou said sharply and both knew not to piss her off, so they just huffed and dramatically turned away from each other, arms crossed.
Chuuya snorted. "You two have been spending way too much time around Dazai."
Kunikida and Gin just rubbed their foreheads in exasperation, the older of the two feeling a migraine starting to develop.
"Well, aren't you the clever little boy," Masaoka said with a grin. "A bit rude, but most certainly clever and apparently well educated. I'm pretty sure no twelve year old kid-"
"I'm thirteen."
Masaoka waved him off. "Still, that's way too young for someone to realize what I did when using my Ability. I'll tell you, though, that space-time displacement isn't my Ability-"
"Of course it's not," Dazai interrupted him again. "You're Ability has to do with reality, space-time just falls under it."
"... You really are clever. Perhaps too clever for your own good," Masaoka mused, a hand coming up to rub at his chin as he thought. "I can't let you go back out in your condition, especially with what you just learned, on top of having an Ability like yours." Dazai stiffened a bit at the mention of his Ability but Masaoka waved him off. "Tell you what, kid. You're clearly an orphan living on the streets, more or less successfully and comfortably. Why don't you instead stay here with me? It's not much, but I have a second cott so we'll both be able to sleep peacefully. However," he put up a lecturing finger. "You'll have to earn your keep. As an information broker, I don't just sell information, I have to buy it, too, so you can understand why I need a constant income. This place has electricity and water because I pay bills, so that chips my income, too, not to mention the food. If you agree to earn your keep, you're free to stay here for as long as you like and do whatever you want as long as it doesn't include killing or harming me in any way, shape or form. Do we got a deal?"
Dazai considered this, not yet taking the hand offered to him for a shake. "How much would I have to pay you to 'forget' my existence for outsiders?"
Masaoka gave a vicious grin. "Adults have looser tongues around kids. Tell me anything interesting you learn whenever your out and about, and your existence will never be revealed."
'So he wasn't planning on profiting off of me at all from the start,' Dazai mused, yet again surprising his audience. "One more question: where is my stuff?"
Masaoka arched an eyebrow, pointing into a corner where the worn leather bag was propped up. Dazai jumped out of the bed he'd been sleeping on and walked over, crouching down to check whether everything was there. The few trinkets aside that he kept to help himself live on the streets, the most important thing was indeed still there and seemed untouched. The Book glowed merrily and Dazai arched an eyebrow at the lack of reaction the man gave to seeing a glowing book.
'I see. So that's how it is.'
"Oh, come on!" Groaned Yosano in frustration. "Just tell us what you're thinking for once!"
"He figured out Masaoka-sensei is the creator of the Book," supplied Hirotsu with a chuckle, far too used to people getting frustrated by Dazai's lack of explanations in situations like these.
"I'll take you up on your offer, ossan. However, if you turn out to be some sort of creep, those bullets will be hitting home next time."
Masaoka just grinned.
And so began a period of Dazai cohabiting with Masaoka. The man left the young teenager to fully recover from his ordeal before shooing him out back into the world so they can both make some money. The first few weeks, Dazai just does as he usually did before, petty theft and pic-pocketing, while now also keeping an eye and ear out for any information going around on the streets, something he'd never paid as much heed to as he did before. Masaoka always waited for him back at the little cottage with some food and eager ears. He was most definitely enjoying the information he got more than the scraps of money Dazai had managed to bring in. Dazai made a note of that with a frown, especially when he once glimpsed Masaoka counting the money he'd made and then the money he needed to spend to get some other information. So Dazai picked up the slack, breaking into houses, learning how to disable alarms in stores and avoid security cameras, bringing in more things. Sometimes just food, to stock up, other times outright jewelry.
Masaoka forbade him from going into gang territories to steal from certain spots, since he won't always be there to protect or save him, but otherwise told him he could rob a bank if he can pull it off.
Considering Gen'emon had been one of the most successful robbers before meeting his mother, Dazai thinks he'd be able to pull it off, but it would be too much of a risk and would probably spend more resources than it would bring in, so he scrapped that idea. Instead, a couple of months later, he somehow got roped into joining a parkour act after he saw the group doing some tricks and he attempted them on his own more successfully than any amateur his age should be able to pull off. They made pretty good money on their videos that they post or sell to different sites and stations, so combined with his usual income from pick-pocketing, Dazai brought in a heft amount for Masaoka, who was impressed.
Meanwhile, Masaoka did his best to teach Dazai certain things, too.
Surprisingly, hacking was one of them.
Several card games best used to gather information was also something Masaoka taught him.
He also got Dazai an unlimited library card, as long as he didn't take books home. Dazai rather liked that and didn't care about the restriction. He read through several books a day as it was and if he ever couldn't finish something before closing time, he always remembered where he left off so he just finished it the next time he came. The sweet old librarians liked him and gave him sweets and the younger ones even bought him notebooks and pencils for 'school', probably thinking he was in a bad financial situation given the state of his clothes and probably from knowing Masaoka's legal job that definitely didn't pay well.
Eventually, the library also became a source of income for Dazai; he preyed on the students and pupils of all ages, genders and sizes who had trouble studying certain things. He mostly helped out with maths and such related subjects, branching out first to statistics and then later physics, before he realized that doing other people's homework or even tutoring them can get him a lot of money, so he started vigorously reading not only textbooks, but also the listed references. He became rather famous within that library as the whizkid who could get you to pass any test within three study sessions or less.
Out of all the subjects he studied, though, he found advanced physics and literature the most interesting, but he also found that he was unfairly good at business and political science subjects, too. Most of all, he just liked reading. His brain demanded stimulus, so he started frequenting parks in the early mornings, where he would find retired men playing chess. He sometimes played with them; it had been hard to 'earn' that privilege in the first place, many of them too arrogant or just too grumpy to indulge a kid. But he soon also earned himself a reputation as virtually unbeatable. They almost stopped playing with him, especially in the games where they bet money. Which was a shame. For about a week, that was a good source of income, too. But now he just played for something to tickle his brain, even just a bit.
He, at one point, considered going into information brokering himself, but he knew a child information broker of his apparent talent and his insistence to cover his scars with bandages would make him infamous far too quickly and such information would not only reach the Port Mafia, but would also intrigue his grandfather. Dazai would rather never see that man ever again if he can help it, and the next time he sees him, he'd want to see him dead. It's the least the old, senile fool deserved.
The Agency had to wince at the viciousness of such thoughts, especially in a period of Dazai's life that finally seemed to have settled into a less violent, less dark lifestyle. For all that Dazai was working and paying rent, he had food on the table each and every day - though many were a bit disturbed by the fact that canned crabs were basically the main source of nutrition both Masaoka and Dazai consumed and were quite content with it; Dazai looked happier eating canned crab than they've ever seen him eat any of the rich, healthy, fancy meals in his family home - a roof over his head and someone who actually gave a damn about his well-being, since Masaoka didn't let him go out when it was raining and had found the group he did parkour with to warn them not to force Dazai too much. The older teens and young adults actually liked the boy, so they had no intention of abusing his talents, which was nice.
While it lasted, anyways.
Dazai was reminded rudely that there was still a war going on in Yokohama's underground society and its streets when, one day, he went to meet with the group for a sunset scenic shoot, only to find that a different kind of shooting had happened. Any and all money they had had on them - to pay the participants for the last show/shoot that had happened a few days before - had been stolen, as had been most of their equipment. There was nothing Dazai could do for them now ... Besides avenge them by finding the culprits.
It was the first real test of his information broker skills and he would say he passed with flying colors, because when he called the police and anonymously reported the scene of the crime, he'd also had enough proof to direct them to the culprits. And just to ensure that they can't take a bribe and let them get away with it, he contacted several tabloids as well as a channel on the national frequency, presented himself as a female police officer - his voice was still too high to be a grown man's - and gave a brief report that the 'police' had made and asked them to come to the scene of the crime for a short conference. Needless to say, the police had to do their job.
"How I miss my devious Demon Prodigy," Mori mourned, causing Fukuzawa to send him a nasty look that he deliberately ignored.
"I can see why he was so good at his job," Higuchi commented, finally understanding some of the things she'd found in Dazai Osamu's record. If a thirteen year old child had this much foresight and understanding of how corruption works, then it was no wonder he was so successful as an Executive.
"I'm more stunned that Dazai never had a formal education yet was able to help college students do their work," Kunikida breathed, still kind of stuck on that, for which he got a glare from Kyouka and Atsushi, who were more concerned for the fact that Dazai had lost more people he might have come to care about.
"You shouldn't have interfered," Masaoka told Dazai when he returned to their little home that day. "One wrong move and that could have been tracked back to you."
Dazai looked at him with a dead stare. "It was justice."
Masaoka just sighed. "Justice is just a tool. It can cause harm, but not protect or save others. The sooner you learn that, the easier you will live in this unjust world."
"As if living in this bleak, oxidizing world of a dream will ever be easy," Dazai responded with a venom the Agency members weren't used to hearing from him. The Port Mafia was, though, and winced at his words. "There's nothing interesting happening. Nothing exceeds my expectations. Humans all act the same, animals all act the same, there's nothing I can't predict. Sometimes I barely even have to try. Life is boring, existence is exhausting, sometimes I barely have the will to get up in the morning. Nobody understands how tiring it all is ... I just wish to cease ... The only thing that's stopping me from letting someone shoot me is that either they're too hypocritically cowardly to shoot a kid or just the fact that I always hear Matsuki-san's voice in my head telling me no one else is allowed to take my life, unless they are basically worthy of my parents' and my household's honor and legacy. As if I'll ever find someone worthy of it," he said with a sneer, but Masaoka just arched an eyebrow.
"If you're so suicidal, why don't you just do it yourself?"
"I'm sorry, what did he just say to a depressed as fuck thirteen year old!?" Yosano growled and Chuuya would have definitely gone into Corruption if they had access to their Abilities. Even Mori's and Hirotsu's eyes were popping out of their sockets at the old man's suggestion, especially Hirotsu's. He had not expected to ever find out his old mentor had basically suicide-baited a child!
"Suicide?" Dazai echoed, frowning at the new(?) word he had just learned(?), to which Masaoka just nodded.
"Yes, suicide. You know, killing yourself by your own actions. Unfortunately, people do it all the time when they can't find meaning in their life or a will to go on, a reason to continue living. Some do it when they fall into debt they can't possibly repay, or if a business fails. Or some even do it in case they got involved with the yakuza or mafia or some other gang and then screwed them over, intentionally or not, so they end it themselves before they could potentially be tortured."
"But Matsuki-san said it's impossible to kill yourself," Dazai whispered and the old man gave him a pitying look. "Matsuki-san lied to me?"
"Oh, for fuck's sake!" Chuuya roared, glaring murder at the older Ability user in the vision.
For once, no one even tried to admonish him for his crude language. They, too, were angry with Masaoka.
The vision of that conversation ended there, but a few days later, they saw Masaoka gift Dazai with an unfortunately very familiar red book. Chuuya and Kunikida both actually tried to strangle the vision of Masaoka, only snarling when they both went straight through the man. Atsushi and Akutagawa looked about ready to kill, too, but they held each other back.
Dazai's life changed a bit after that instance. The people at the library noticed he was more gloomy than before and some of them took note of the strange book he started carrying around, occasionally reading it instead of the countless books in the library. He made sure they never saw the title, though. Other times, he'd just stare at a wall or out of the window listlessly, wondering what he should do now that he knew so many techniques existed to take your own life. It was surreal ... It should be depressing, yet it left him feeling lighter than before.
Just the knowledge that there existed a way out made it easier to breathe.
"... Oh ..."
None of them had ever thought of it like that.
With more free time without his parkouring gig, Dazai actually finally turned his attention to the Book he'd stolen from the secret chamber in the orphanage.
This, of course, immediately caught everyone's attention. They hadn't seen much of the Book for all that Dazai constantly had it nearby. Even when he was out doing the random little jobs he did to earn money for his 'rent', he had the Book on him, in that same backpack he'd stolen it in from the orphanage. So far, the only things they really knew about the Book was that it had power to rewrite reality, that it had had a 'hand' in creating Tsushima Shuuji who is now Dazai Osamu, that its creator was Masaoka Shiki, the very man Dazai was currently living with, and that its guardian was Natsume Soseki, and that the Book, apparently, communicated with Dazai and Dazai only, as far as they knew. To find out more about the object Fitzgerald and Dostoevsky were ready to destroy a highly populated city in order to find interested them a great deal.
The Book honestly confused Dazai. Most of its pages were blank and the only thing written in it that made any sense was the bit about his 'miraculous conception'. The other couple of pages that had anything written on them were inconsequential and seemed more like aborted beginnings rather than anything concrete, not like the pages upon pages of describing how it was possible for Tsushima Shuuji to exist. It honestly baffled him but there was nothing he could do about that. Writing in the Book was more than possible with any utensil but he found that erasing what was written was not as easy.
In fact, only Dazai tracing his finger exactly over the writing can erase what was previously written in the Book.
How peculiar.
"Wait, what? Seriously?" Tachihara asked, gawking.
Dazai theorized that the reason the writing was so hard to remove that it can only be done under one specific condition had to do with the fact that the Book itself was neigh indestructible. Dazai had tried shooting it, drowning it, crushing it and burning it but the Book never had a scratch on it while bullets were either miraculously stopped a millimeter away from the Book or they had outright ricocheted off of its surface. The fire would long burn out while the Book wasn't even singed and the water did no damage to either the writing or the pages of the Book. And the rock he'd tried to crush it with had actually split in two upon making contact with the Book ...
However, Dazai found that he could easily damage the Book. All it took was a single touch and he could easily tear out pages if he wished to, or any of the other methods would suddenly be far more effective.
It painted some very strange implications in regarding to the role Dazai might have in connotation with the Book, implications he wasn't sure he liked.
One other thing he found out about the Book is that it had rules.
"That makes sense," Kunikida mused. "Imagine if something of that power had no limitations or no rules as to how it must be used."
For one, the Book can't just materialize something out of thin air if you just write the word for it on one of the pages.
"Oh, so it's not like Kunikida-san's Ability," Atsushi commented with something akin to relief.
'It requires a narrative,' Dazai mused as he reread the paragraphs which had allowed for him to be born. 'It can't be something like "This just happened miraculously", based on how much detail was written to indicate a single open window of opportunity for me to be conceived. This covers weeks of biological changes within a human body and briefly mentions each month of pregnancy. This is a very powerful tool in the hands of someone with a lot of imagination and a way with words.'
"So lethal, in the hands of someone like Dazai," Kouyou voiced what many of them were thinking.
"Or Dostoevsky," added Chuuya, eyes narrowing in a glare.
One other thing Dazai had discovered while trying to figure the Book out was that there was a page missing.
This, of course, caused the audience to stiffen in alarm.
"Shit, that can't be good," Tachihara pointed out needlessly, causing Gin and Higuchi to roll their eyes at him.
The old man couldn't tell him what had happened to the missing page, as he hadn't been the one to remove it. "It can be used, however," Masaoka warned, causing Dazai to glare at his housemate. "Hey, don't look at me like that!"
"Why did you even create the Book in the first place if you were just going to dump it in the middle of nowhere?" The little brunet asked and Masaoka could just shrug.
"My Ability was simply too powerful for me to contain it all by myself," he replied. "No human being should be capable of containing what is basically infinite power, a singularity, a power capable of bending the laws of nature. Humans simply aren't capable of it."
At hearing that, the first thing that sprung to Dazai's mind was the ever-more blurry image of the boy he'd met that fateful night and the beast that had receded back into him at a single touch from Dazai. He remembered the immense power which had caused a huge crater, he remembered how nothing else but himself had survived the heat or the pressure. He remembered those destructive spheres that simply decimated anything in their path except one Tsushima Shuuji, who was now Dazai Osamu.
Chuuya stiffened all over again like he had when he'd learned he'd been the cause of the Tsushima couple's deaths.
But Dazai surprised him, as he always did, because Dazai's next thought was how, for all that power, Arahabaki - not that the young Dazai knew its name yet, back then - had been clearly tearing the ginger haired boy apart. He remembered the injuries, he remembered thinking the other boy should have been in hospital just like he was when he woke up. He remembered how vulnerable the veritable deity of destruction and chaos had been, lying next to him.
Comparing that to what Masaoka just said, Dazai had to agree.
That much power was too much for a single human.
Yet with Dazai, the power had been controlled, just like Masaoka had managed to control his own power by manifesting most of it into an object not connected to him.
Chuuya drew in a breath, eyes wide and tears threatening to spill over as he realized the gist of Dazai's thought process, though he didn't like the undertone for the latter part, where Dazai implied he was what the Book was in Masaoka's case for Chuuya's Upon The Tainted Sorrow. Dazai shouldn't think himself inhuman.
... Then again, with the limited intel he got and Masaoka's words to go on, with No Longer Human constantly humming under his skin, Dazai was, indeed, the only singular human who could handle a singularity, all that power, on his own.
... No wonder Dazai had such a hard time accepting he was human.