20 Years Prior

His parents were screaming at each other in the kitchen. They never seemed to do anything else anymore.

At this point, it was honestly just white noise. Something to be expected.

Fyodor was curled up on the couch, a small blanket knitted by his grandmother stretched out to cover his whole body while "Well, Just You Wait!" played on the Tv.

In the show, it was Hare against Wolf. Wolf would chase after Hare only to be thwarted every time.

Hare was his favorite. Fyodor loved how no matter how difficult the situations that he landed himself in were, he always managed to find a way out.

In this episode, Wolf was observing Hare who was tending to some plants in the building above him. He seemed to be contemplating ways to defeat him.

But Fyodor knew better.

Wolf would never be able to defeat Hare! Hare was intelligent and always thought ten steps ahead.

The causation of the demise of Hare was simply impossible for someone like Wolf.

"I can't keep living like this!" Fyodor heard his mother scream at his father in the kitchen, but he kept his attention focused on the Tv.

The Tv was safe, even in "Well, Just You Wait!" everything was resolved in the end and no one died forever. If he just kept his eyes on the Tv then everything would be okay.

"And you think I fucking can, you damn woman?" His father shouted back.

Wolf was climbing a rope now, struggling to reach Hare.

"Get out, Mikhail! Just get out!"

Hare reached out with a pair of scissors, snipping the rope and sending Wolf plummeting to the ground below.

"Goddamnit, Maria!"

The sound of a fist colliding against his mother's cheek, which sent her flying into the cabinets behind her, finally tore Fyodor's attention away from the Tv.

His father had always been a powerful man.

But now, red-faced and standing over his mother with clenched fists and rage thrumming through his veins, he was truly terrifying.

On the ground, his mother was wailing, begging his father to stop.

She was begging him to at least not do it in front of their child.

Fyodor stood up, his blanket falling with his ascent.

"Mom?" He sniffled.

"Go to your room, sweetheart." She told him, tears shining in her eyes.

At that, something irreparable within him broke. A feeling that no child should ever have to experience.

"Stop hurting her! Stop it!" He wailed, running up to his father and reaching out for his sleeve to try and pull him away from his mother no matter how futile such an action would end up being.

He never even managed to brush his fingers against the fabric.

Honestly he barely even registered what happened next.

He charged at his father.

His mother screamed.

A hand collided with his face.

He flew through the air, before colliding into the far wall, and slumping to the floor.

Instinctively, Fyodor curled up in fetal position, preparing for the inevitability of the blows that were sure to follow the first, but when none followed and suddenly his mother was screaming his father's name of all things, Fyodor opened his eyes to a sight that he would never forget. A sight that would haunt his dreams for many years to come.

His father was lying on the ground.

Dead.

How?

He hated him, but to see him dead?

The boy began to wail, tears streaming down his cheeks.

"Dad!" He cried out, slowly approaching the body as his own trembled, "Dad, wake up!"

"Fyodor," his mother choked out between sobs, "it's okay, it's going to be okay."

She reached out for him, bringing him into her safe embrace.

Except, when the time for the hug to come to an end came to its natural conclusion, she wouldn't let go. Not even as Fyodor sobbed and squirmed in her embrace.

"Mom, let me go!" He cried, finally twisting free.

Instead of apologizing, getting angry, or even just anything at all, his mother simply slumped to the floor.

Just like his father had...

"No…" Fyodor choked out. "Mom? Mom? Mom! No, no, no, no, no! Please come back! Please! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Just come back! Please! I promise I'll be good! Don't go, please! Mom!"

In the distance, cartoon music played, as the wolf was hauled off to justice for his crimes.

Present

"What do you want with The Book?"

Tendrils of scarlet wove their way down Dostoevsky's remaining arm as the devilish eyes of the one who had once been called the Demon Prodigy met his own. Next to Dostoevsky were Gogol and Sigma who watched with gags that prevented them from interrupting the two geniuses.

Chuuya's hands clenched into fists at his sides as Dostoevsky dared to laugh.

"Have you truly fallen so low as to not even know the answer to that elementary question? You already know the answer. I wish to free the world of abilities."

Dostoevsky's head whipped backward as Dazai's fist slammed into it, bruising his knuckles a dull purple and leaving Dostoevsky with a blackening eye.

"We both know it's not as simple as that," Dazai replied, examining the bruising on his hand as though it were a disgrace to have such a blemish come from someone like Dostoevsky.

The way he was acting now was starting to remind Chuuya of someone who he had thought was long gone with the death of Odasaku.

"Perhaps," Dostoevsky replied seeming bored before his eyes lit up as though he'd finally thought of something truly fascinating.

His eyes flickered over to meet Chuuya's before turning back to Dazai's.

"Why do you care about why I want to get rid of abilities? Are you perhaps afraid that if I do then your friend, the lab experiment, will no longer exist? I've heard of his case you know and honestly, I must say that I am most curious to see what happens when everything finally does fall into place."

Chuuya's heart stopped.

How did Dostoevsky know that about that part of his past?

Along with that, could what he'd just speculated potentially be true?

Whispers were all he'd heard of Dostoevsky's plans with The Book.

He knew that the basis of what he planned to do was to erase abilities from existence. However, Chuuya had never thought of it in any more depth than that.

If he was the clone, an artificial ability who thought it was human, then did that mean that he would simply disappear from existence upon such a thing coming to fruition?

Would anyone even remember him or would he be forgotten, as though he had never even been there in the first place?

In his life, Chuuya didn't ask for much. He understood if he couldn't be someone's first choice or even their second. He understood that with the lifestyle he lived not many would stick around for long be it through death, defection, or reassignment. However, the thought that he would simply vanish from all of history sent an odd kind of chill through his bones.

Such a prospect almost seemed worse than death.

At least in death, people would mourn you, keeping you alive in memories and photographs.

If what Dostoevsky had predicted was true then he wouldn't even have that.

But would it even matter if he was no longer sentient?

"Chuuya's human," he heard Dazai say amid his devastating thoughts, "no lines of code could ever create someone I hate so much. Now, stop trying to change the subject. Why do you want The Book?"

"I already told you."

"Why do you want to get rid of abilities?"

"I already told you."

"Fine, then why did you let yourself get captured so easily?"

"The Demon Prodigy would have been able to figure out something so embarrassingly rudimentary immediately."

A knife whistled through the air stopping millimeters away from Dostoevsky's neck, as Dazai grabbed him by his hair, a few strands tearing free from their roots.

"If I was still him, then you'd be dead right now."

"No, no, no. If you were still him, then you would've joined me. This new you is being gradually compromised by human emotion. It's disgusting. If you would just let go and see the truth of the world, you would understand why it needs a new beginning."

"Stop diverting the conversation."

Dostoevsky laughed, his eyes crinkling tauntingly at the corners, "but it's just so funny when you keep falling for it."

At that, something in Dazai just seemed to snap.

It was a shift that only attuned eyes would be able to see.

Like Chuuya's.

One moment, Dostoevsky was laughing, bound to his chair and the next, Dazai had tackled him to the floor, the chair breaking into pieces with the impact.

Dostoevsky's laughter finally faded as his mind slipped into unconsciousness, while Dazai's fists pounded into his face over and over without any semblance of leeway.

Gogol watched in amusement, while Sigma seemed terrified.

Chuuya waited for Dazai to stop. He waited for him to realize that he'd knocked Dostoevsky out and that beating him like this any further wasn't going to do anything.

But he didn't. Instead, he just started laughing, almost exactly like Dostoevsky had moments prior.

But Dazai's laugh was not a laugh of mockery.

Instead, it was a broken sound. Like glass shattering into a million pieces.

It was a laugh that he hadn't heard in a very long time.

The same laugh that Dazai had once made the very first time they'd worked together, as he'd shot that guard over and over again, while the life in his own eyes seemed to dissipate along with his victim's.

Walking over and grabbing Dazai by the waist, Chuuya tore him off of Dostoevsky who now lay prone on the floor, his face a mess of bruises. As much as he hated the man, Dostoevsky had vital information that he could provide them with the proper amount of persuasion applied.

With him in their possession, they couldn't afford to kill him just yet.

"Dazai, stop!" Chuuya pleaded, forcing Dazai back while he desperately tried to tear himself free of Chuuya's grip.

"Let me kill him, Chuuya!" Dazai laughed, an unhinged light setting an inferno ablaze in his eyes, "I need to kill him! Chuuya, please. Please, just let me do it!"

The laughter increased in volume.

He had to put an end to this.

With slight regret stirring in his heart, Chuuya pulled Dazai tightly against his body before sending a sharp blow to his carotid sinus.

Immediately, Dazai slumped in his arms.

Lifting him, Chuuya brought him to his bedroom, laying him down and pulling the bedsheets over his still body.

Dazai wasn't in the right state of mind to be conducting such an interrogation, so while he felt slightly bad about knocking him out, Chuuya knew it was for the best.

Or at least he thought it was because when he walked back out of the bedroom something was very wrong.

He'd been gone for not even two minutes, but in the time that had taken him, Dostoevsky, Gogol, and Sigma were gone.

Shit.