Dostoevsky was smiling.

Dazai wanted to kill him.

The last that they'd seen each other, he'd turned Atsushi into an unwilling suicide bomber. He'd killed him.

Now he was here with the audacity to smile?

A few meters away, Ango was laying on the ground, slowly staining the carpet crimson from what appeared to be a gunshot wound.

That had to be what the loud banging noise had been. He wasn't surprised that it had been the sound of a gun going off, but he just didn't expect Ango to be the one on the ground.

For a brief moment, there was a small part of Dazai that was desperate to make sure that Ango would be okay. The worry stemmed from a fragment of the person who he'd left behind upon leaving the Port Mafia. The person who would find rare glimpses of happiness in outings at Bar Lupin. The person who had been trapped in a demented version of a hell with few comforts. The person who had all but died the day that Odasaku had perished.

The moment of fear for Ango's life was not long-lasting.

Whatever had happened to Ango, there was nothing that could be done at the moment. After regathering himself, a sadistic part of him was almost satisfied to see the bastard laying there just like Odasaku once had. Maybe now Ango could feel the excruciating pain that Odasaku had suffered upon his death. Maybe now he would better realize just exactly what he had done.

"Dostoevsky," Dazai greeted, his voice ringing through the air without any intonation or emotion.

"Dazai," Dostoevsky replied in greeting, the vexing smirk still resting on his face. "Have you reconsidered your position on giving me The Book? I mean maybe you should, especially judging how it went last time you refused. That boy... what was his name? Atsuji? Arashi? You'll have to forgive me, he was rather forgettable having hardly been a Saint. I suppose perhaps you should be grateful though, for I have granted him freedom from his guilt and sin-"

Dazai wasn't typically prone to acting on emotions and often rooted himself in logic. However, with the hell that he'd gone through since Meursault, he found that all he could see was red that drowned out all else.

Dostoevsky wasn't able to get any more words in, as Dazai pulled his gun, firing off several shots aimed to kill.

Everything erupted into chaos.

The bullets barely missed Dostoevsky's head. They would have made contact had he not been saved by Gogol warping him across the room just in time.

Ducking behind a couch for cover, and reloading his gun, Dazai watched as Chuuya engaged in a fight with Gogol and Sigma, leaving Fyodor for him.

Perfect.

He would make the demon beg for the mercy that he had never shown his victims. He'd make sure that Dostoevsky's death was slow and painful so that he could feel the blood leaving his body and the final static beats of his own heart.

Dazai would make him pay for what he had done.

"You should just do us all a favor and give me The Book, Dazai. It would save us from all this trouble, don't you think? I mean, if you give it to me, no more of your friends have to die," Fyodor said from behind a table that had been overturned in the madness.

"You really think I care that much about some supposed magic book? Look, I seriously don't know where it is."

The cocking of a gun sounded from Fyodor's position and Dazai's eyes narrowed in anticipation.

"You've become so amusing, Dazai. You're almost making me laugh at how bad that falsehood is. Ever since Meursault you've grown careless. It's almost getting monotonous playing these games of ours because it's becoming so effortless to tell when you're lying. Is the mortality of those you care about at last getting to you? Are their losses perhaps finally beginning to cloud your judgment, and making you overthink, because you're scared that if you don't get things right the next time, then the pang of loss is just going to repeat itself over and over again?"

Lifting the barrel of the gun just over the coach, Dazai aligned it towards the position where Fyodor's voice was coming from. A blind shot like that would be one in a million for many, but for Dazai it was child's play.

Or at least it should've been.

Firing off two rounds, Dazai listened for the telltale sound of the cold lead burying its way into soft flesh. However, instead of that, the bullets instead buried themselves into the floor, as could be heard by the telltale noise of splintering wood.

Silence.

And then a hand on his shoulder, turning Dazai's blood to ice.

"See? So boringly predictable, it's almost sad."

A bang echoed throughout the air.

Dropping his own gun and grabbing the barrel of Dostoevsky's, Dazai was able to redirect the trajectory of the bullet just in time, so that it slammed into the far wall instead of his flesh.

In front of him, Dostoevsky's eyes burned with anger, as Dazai slammed him back into the wall, while they wrestled for the gun. A part of Dazai wondered what it would be like to just let go and let Dostoevsky kill him, but then as his eyes caught the sight of Chuuya engaged in his own fight against Gogol and Sigma on the other side of the room, the thoughts dissipated from his head.

In the end, Dazai managed to tear the gun free of Dostoevsky's grip, pistol-whipping him and sending him crumbling to the floor.

Dostoevsky was unconscious. He was unguarded. Dazai could do anything and there was nothing that he could do to stop it.

Dazai's hands began to shake, something that only a very trained eye would be able to see, as he trained the gun at the man's head.

He wanted to kill him.

He'd killed Atsushi. He'd killed Akutagawa. He'd killed so many people and who knew who he would take next if he were to be left alive?

What if he killed Chuuya? One touch of his hand was all that it would take.

Logically, he knew that it was better to keep Dostoevsky alive to find out more about his plans and ability, before turning him over to the proper authorities so that justice could be served.

It was what Odasaku would want him to do after all.

But pulling the trigger… well it would be so easy and vindicating.

It wouldn't be too hard to explain away anyways. He could just say it was in self-defense and that was that.

Dostoevsky was right, the mortality of those he cared about was getting to him.

His finger tightened on the trigger and a voice that sounded oddly like Mori echoed in his head.

Kill him. Kill him. Kill him. Kill him. Kill him. Kill him. Kill him. Kill him. Kill him. Kill him. Kill him. Kill him. Kill him. Kill him. Kill him. Kill him.

The sound of a gunshot erupted into the air.

But it was not from Dazai's gun.

At the far corner of the room, Sigma gasped before crumpling to the ground. His gun fell from his grasp as blood began to pool from his shoulder. Chuuya watched the spectacle, as Dazai quickly pieced together that Sigma had naïvely tried to shoot Chuuya only to have the bullet redirected right back at him. It was a shame, to be honest. As much as Dazai loathed Sigma for teaming up with such a despicable bastard, he had expected better from him than trying to shoot a gravity manipulator with a measly bullet.

Gogol was quick to fall shortly thereafter as Chuuya managed to slam him into the far wall, rendering him unconscious.

Those two having been taken care of, Dazai turned back to Dostoevsky.

His gun was still angled for a shot that would most certainly be fatal. However, as his adrenaline began to fade, so did his grip on the trigger.

If he killed Dostoevsky, he'd make sure that his death would be far more painful than a quick death incited by a gun.

So finally holstering his gun, Dazai suddenly found his mind turning to something else.

Something important.

Why had Dostoevsky and his companions been so easy to defeat? Where had the cruel trickery that was normally involved in Dostoevsky's attacks been? Sure, he'd shot Ango, but Dazai didn't care about that. Besides, if the shot had been fatal Ango probably would've been dead already, as the rise and fall of his chest told otherwise.

Even more so, upon realizing that Dostoevsky and Sigma had been taken out, why didn't Gogol just teleport away? That would be the smart thing to do and even Dostoevsky would probably approve on the count that Gogol would later just teleport him and Sigma away. Even more so, the more that he thought about it why had Sigma tried to shoot Chuuya with a gun? He had to know that that wouldn't work and Sigma wasn't stupid.

Something was very wrong here.

Dostoevsky had allowed himself to be captured for some reason and Dazai would have to figure it out before it was too late.

Upon Dazai's insistence, they'd managed to discreetly lay Ango's body down in an alleyway, before making an anonymous call that he'd been shot. Chuuya had been a bit reluctant to do something so unsightly, especially since they hadn't even waited for the ambulance, but Ango wasn't someone he particularly liked anyway, so he eventually just let it go.

Currently, they stood before the three bound and gagged Decay of the Angels members, awaiting consciousness to return to their still bodies. Their wounds had been wrapped to make sure that they didn't bleed out, but Chuuya would make sure that that privilege didn't last if they ran out of use. He was almost certain that Dazai felt the same.

Personally, Chuuya couldn't wait for that to happen, because he was pissed. These assholes had led to the deaths of so many who both he and Dazai had cared about. More than that, Dostoevsky had treated their deaths like some great joke, as though they had simply been meant for the fates that had befallen them.

Of course, this all had to culminate the one time that he and Dazai were supposed to be taking just one goddamn day to decompress. Apparently, they couldn't even have that. Not a single fucking day. Instead, these fuckers had decided to get in the way and send that small hope to hell.

Why had he even bothered hoping? Nothing he'd desired ever worked out in the end anyways.

Next to him, Dazai was still, as his eyes bore into Dostoevsky, who sat slumped in his chair.

Dostoevsky's head hung downwards with his hair obscuring his eyes from view, as though they held some secret that was to be kept from the world.

"You know glaring at him isn't going to do anything, right?"

Chuuya waited for the banter that he was sure to get back, but Dazai was unnervingly quiet.

"Hey bastard, I'm talking to you."

Silence.

"Dazai?"

Finally turning his gaze away from Dostoevsky, Dazai met Chuuya's gaze. His expression was entirely blank, much like it had often been four years prior.

It was an expression that Dazai rarely used around him, so seeing him being so guarded when they were the only two conscious people in the room was unnerving to say the least.

"They've had enough rest." Dazai finally said, his voice sinister, "it's time for them to wake up."