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“Burnett’s ability is ‘The Secret Garden’,” Atsushi concludes, looking over Ranpo’s shoulder at the reports. The name ‘Frances Hodgson Burnett’ stares back up at him. “If ancient family treasures are being found and old cases are turning up then –” he stands up straight, eyes wide as he thinks, “it reveals secrets people would rather remain hidden.”
“Wrong. It makes people remember what they’ve forgotten,“ Ranpo says shortly. “Anything else?”
Atsushi opens his mouth. Closes it, before speaking again. “She’s from another country. Did the mafia request her? Or is it the Guild again?”
“That's where you’re mistaken, Atsushi!” Dazai is the one who speaks this time. He’s flopped over upside down on a desk, hands behind his head. “The target’s presence has been requested by the government. Her information hasn’t been kept discrete, and she is genuinely enjoying herself as a tourist. Her operations are far too public for this to be mafia work.”
“Oh. Couldn’t she be just a tourist then? Without being affiliated with anyone?”
Dazai shakes his head, and Atsushi finds himself wondering how his mentor doesn’t have a headache after staying upside down for so long.
Dazai continues speaking. “If the government weren’t in charge, they would have taken her in by now. There’s no pattern in her ability usage, suggesting she either doesn’t have complete control over her ability, or is searching for something.”
“Maybe she’s just hell bent on taking over your title as the most annoying person in Yokohama!” Yosano shouts, grinning as she passes through the room with a large box in her arms. Dazai’s expression shifts from nonchalant to match hers, and the mirth in his voice is genuine.
“You wound me, Yosano-sensei!”
She tosses a candy on Ranpo’s desk before leaving the room. Ranpo grabs it with a hand, skimming his other hand over the report as if he were absorbing the information he needed through his fingers.
He pauses over a word briefly. “There’s another person.”
Dazai sits up at that, ignoring the blood flow through his head because of the sudden movement. “What makes you say that?”
“Atsushi has a point. Burnett is mostly enjoying herself under government recognition after helping out in an international case. There’s someone else in the city who has something of hers, though, similar to what you said, so she’s using her ability to find them. The government offered its help to find the target, permitting this as long as its secrets weren’t found out.”
“How will she find a person by going through so many people? That’s an unreliable method.”
“Not everyone is smart, Atsushi,” Ranpo laughs. “It’s why she enlisted the help of officials. Now, for the final assessment!” His voice breaks slightly as he puts on his glasses, like a character calling out the words for their transformation sequence.
He immediately frowns. “Backtrack. Dazai? You, Kunikida and Tanizaki should leave in thirty minutes for… here.” He points at a location on the map. “They’ve found the target.”
“We can’t leave this to the government?” Even Dazai seems surprised, his tone coming out baffled.
“If it were only Burnett, maybe. The other one seems to be a potential threat for all of us.”
“So you’re saying that –”
“The target won’t be defeated, yes. They’ve made it easy to catch them to lure in the government.”
“...Burnett will survive.”
“A few casualties.”
“Directly? Or bait?”
"High risk. Go for Light Snow, and try finding out the target's real ability."
Atsushi watches the short conversation, letting words he can't string together go over his head. He's accepted he'll never make sense of the information Dazai and Ranpo effortlessly exchange, geniuses in every sense of the word.
He doesn't want to ask them to explain. They've already simplified enough of their deductions for Atsushi to understand, and Atsushi doesn't want be disrespectful.
Ranpo eventually turns to him.
“Brief the other two about the details, both of you. Atsushi, drive the van and stay stationed outside the location until they ask for your help. And Dazai? Be careful.” The cautioning at the end leaves a tight feeling in Atsushi’s chest, but Ranpo’s frown vanishes almost immediately. “And bring me the chocolate muffins from the café downstairs afterwards, Atsushi!”
*
The location is a garden, ironically. It's in the outskirts, surrounded by an endless expanse of wild grass and farms. Atsushi grips the steering wheel, ignoring the pit in his stomach that appears before every case he's assigned to. Dazai and Kunikida are arguing in the backseat about their song choices, and it frankly makes Atsushi want to cry. His drivers' license was only a recent addition to his portfolio and the additional anxiety isn't needed.
If it weren't for the required driving practice for Atsushi, the two of them would have been in the passenger and driver seats instead. He isn't sure which option he would prefer.
Tanizaki, seated beside Atsushi as instructed by Ranpo to 'minimise Dazai and Kunikida's effect' on his headache, increases the volume of the pop song on the radio. It tunes out Kunikida's screaming, and Atsushi mouths a 'thank you' to him.
He drops them near the location, hitting the brakes a little too hard.
Ranpo's warning to be careful lingers in his head. The tight feeling returns to his chest as he watches Dazai stretching his limbs out.
"Take care, Dazai-san!"
Dazai looks startled for a moment. Smiles comfortably, then. He nods, and drags the other two away to the garden.
"You okay there, Atsushi?" Yosano asks in his earpiece, and he isn't sure when he activated it.
"Yeah." He nods. Wonders if Yosano can feel the movement through the earpiece. "Actually, could you help me with choosing which farm to take shelter in until they come back? The nearest one seems too obvious, and then there's two more pretty close but –"
*
He falls asleep at one point. It feels like the case goes on forever, the other three leaving him to wait for too long.
It's a loud shout that triggers his senses, crackling through his earpiece followed by a louder, different voice he almost doesn't realise calling his name. It's unfamiliar in a weirdly familiar way. And then it strikes him.
Dazai? Be careful.
Take care, Dazai-san!
He pulls out from behind the storehouse he’s parked at, and slams down on the accelerator.
*
The garden, Atsushi finds out, is surrounded by high walls strewn with rose vines and wild plants. He's intrigued. Such plants don't suit the area's climate.
Light Snow falls, then, and the only things left behind of the mysterious garden are rows and rows of colourful flowers. Tanizaki is standing at the front of a picket fence at the entry, two ladies in their late twenties handcuffed and seated beside him. Kunikida likely incapacitated them.
Atsushi sees their foreign features and decides they are the targets.
There are around a dozen government agents lying on wet soil and grass nearby, unmoving and red. Light Snow keeps flickering, colours morphing and glittering.
Tanizaki almost looks relieved to see him. Atsushi notices fear in his eyes, and he's almost afraid to look the other way.
He does so, either way, and finds Dazai curled into himself, hand shakily gripping Kunikida's sleeve. His face isn't visible, burrowed in his knees and the lapels of his trenchcoat.
The neck of the trenchcoat is hooked over his head, only a tuft of brown hair visible. Atsushi doesn't remember the coat ever being so oversized. His mentor's presence usually fills in the emptier spots where skin struggles to reach.
He inhales shakily. "What happened?" He isn't sure if Dazai or Kunikida hear him, but he sees Dazai lean on Kunikida and Kunikida whisper something and gently pry Dazai's fingers off his sleeve so that he can pull him into a half hug.
"Dazai-san underestimated the abilities," is what Tanizaki answers.
He doesn't elaborate further. He hears Ranpo cursing softly through Yosano's earpiece line, static chipping away at the little Atsushi can pick up with his enhanced hearing.
There were five earpieces. Three remained, the fourth switched off, the fifth crushed under plain black dress shoes.
*
Call Ango-kun. He can cover the damage. I'm sure Dazai would have called him beforehand, either way. Kunikida, drive faster.
Ranpo-san, you need to calm down.
I should've specifically told him not to use the bait method–
It's not your fault, Ranpo-san.
*
They direct the two ladies into the van, trapping them in the backseat and warning them not to cause trouble. Atsushi and Dazai are seated in the middle row, Tanizaki and Kunikida in front.
Dazai's eyes stare darkly out of the window. Atsushi wants to ask him if he can help, but Dazai seems more closed off than usual. His hands are still trembling. Atsushi can't think of anything that could shake up someone like Dazai that bad. Dazai, after all, treated the exploit with Fyodor like an interesting puzzle rather than a near death sentence.
Maybe that was the problem. Ever since Dostoevsky, everything began to look smaller and easier for Dazai, so he started underestimating some of their opponents. Not by a noticeable margin, but enough for Ranpo to berate him.
He probably misses Dostoevsky in his own odd, Dazai way, Atsushi realises.
Dazai falls asleep against the window one hour into the drive, lips slightly parted and forehead tense. Atsushi has seen his mentor asleep only once before, and it’s a realisation that leaves him worried.
He turns to his own window, extending and retracting his tiger claws mechanically. Waits for fields to turn into high rise buildings, and finally into a brick coloured agency building.
*
No Longer Human should have worked.
Images don't have No Longer Human.
*
Burnett is rude. She speaks in a less understandable heavy local Yorkshire accent until Ranpo tells her to speak in her natural accent, snaps at them when they ask her questions, addresses them like they’re different. The only people she listens to are Kenji and Kyouka because of a soft spot for children. Interrogating her is a pain.
She gives in eventually.
‘The Secret Garden’ jogs the memory. Burnett controls the lines along what is remembered, which is useful when reminding people of repressed traumatic memories as an attack strategy. It requires eye contact to function, and can be activated at will.
The other lady, Sylvia Plath, is even less agreeable. She formed a hologram of Yosano on entry, a threatening stance before Dazai nullified her ability. Her ability, ‘Mirror’, controls the opponent’s reflected image in her pocket mirror. The image can also be turned into a miniature three dimensional hologram, which in turn controls the real opponent and in some cases, their ability too. The hologram, once formed, does not require a constant reflection source.
The last statement is Dazai's deduction, having seen her ability used on a government agent firsthand. Ranpo and Dazai exchange looks once she finishes explaining her ability. Plath is playing nice. She seems to have a much higher capability, but opts to stay low.
She despises humanity, possessing a high intellect that comes close to rivalling Dazai’s, only preferring not to be a bother by choice. In another reality, she could have been a problem similar to Dostoevsky. Dazai decides they will be keeping tabs on her.
“Plath works for the government," Burnett tells them. "She’d been there while I was helping out with another case, and altered my image so I couldn’t solve it. I don’t know if it was jealousy. I was due to leave for Japan after my first successful international case for vacation, but she followed me here.”
Ranpo sighs. “She followed you to warn you not to solve such cases. You brought the government into the mess so she went into hiding to plan her next moves.”
Plath jolts at that, and the detectives understand her surprise. Ranpo reads people’s intentions startlingly easily, and even the best secrets unveil before him. She narrows her eyes at him.
“How do you know?”
“You clearly had no intention of hurting her. You have a deep rooted hatred of the government, are selective about company. You believe the cases they’re solving with her ability are sometimes supposed to be buried forever because it causes unrest, and people change. The victim of the recent case that went unsolved would have accused a personal friend, am I right? Or you would have waited and let that one incident go.”
Plath stares at the ground.
“If you just wanted to get rid of her, you would’ve done it quickly before she could come to Japan. You intended to meet Burnett alone here, and would have asked her not to blindly take up cases that have been forgotten for decades. But she brought in the government, and now they suspect you for altering evidence.”
Burnett glances at the other lady, confused. “I would have listened if I knew. So you didn’t mean to hurt me?”
“Oh, she would have,” Dazai grins, and everything about it screams fake. “If you wouldn’t have agreed, you wouldn’t be here.”
Silence settles at that, threats from multiple people finally sinking in. “Wait, though,” Yosano interrupts the conversation. “How did it work on Dazai? His ability is always active.”
“When I was caught in the crossfire, the pocket mirror had formed my image, but was unable to form a hologram or control the real me due to No Longer Human. 'Mirror' could still control my image, though. At the same time, ‘The Secret Garden’ was activated on Plath. My image is obviously controlled by me, while also being controlled by Plath, who was under Burnett's ability. Since that shouldn't have been possible, it caused a collision, of sorts.”
“The three of them fainted,” Tanizaki whispers, like it’s a secret.
“The three of us fainted.”
“Dazai woke up almost immediately,” Kunikida adds, “I have reason to believe ‘The Secret Garden’ took at least a little effect on Dazai. He began wildly attacking people after waking up.”
Kunikida doesn’t mention the aftereffects or Dazai holding onto his sleeve, and Dazai looks extremely grateful for it. Ranpo and Dazai decided it was more of a psychological reaction than the actual ability, but it still triggered Dazai enough to blindly pick up a weapon.
The case is closed, the rest of it being left to Plath and Burnett to sort out. They’re the ones who can decide if they want any other external involvement.
Atsushi finds Dazai staring blankly at a painting a few hours after the foreigners leave. He’s about to turn around, feeling like he’s intruding, but Dazai calls out his name before he can. Atsushi thinks his mentor looks mildly amused.
“What is it, Atsushi-kun?”
Atsushi fumbles over words in his head, unable to form a coherent sentence. He lets out a deep breath, consciously relaxing his shoulders. “Did you remember something from the mafia, Dazai-san? At the garden?”
Dazai laughs mirthlessly in response, voice a little distant. “I met Mori when I was fourteen, Atsushi-kun,” he says after a moment. “I existed before that too.” The faraway look in his eyes disappears after he speaks, and he smiles broadly.
"Dazai-san-"
"Now, now, Atsushi-kun," his mentor admonishes him playfully, shuffling him by the shoulders towards the main office, "you're too young to be scolded by Kunikida-kun for being late to work."
It's a sign to not ask any questions, and Atsushi walks away.
*
“Ah, good that you’re awake again, Dazai. Help me with the targets.”
“Kunikida-san! Dazai-san is –”
If Kunikida hadn’t learnt martial arts, he would have crumpled into a pile with the government agents. Dazai falls to the ground, hands dropping the gun and moving to cover where Kunikida expertly struck him. Clarity returns to his eyes, struggling to focus on the image in front of him. “Kuni– kida?”
Brown eyes gloss over, body trembling, and he breaks.
*
“You could at least say thank you,” Atsushi huffs, grasping at air after the tray of chocolate muffins is snatched out of his hands.
Ranpo turns his way, brown crumbs already surrounding his mouth. He puts a hand in front of his mouth, mumbles a “thunk oo shushi” out of obligation rather than courtesy, and goes back to eating the muffins.
Yosano chuckles, grabbing a muffin from the tray for herself. Atsushi stretches out his arm to do the same, only to have Ranpo swat his hand away, and Yosano grabs another two. She hands them to him good-naturedly.
“Thank you, Yosano-sensei.” He takes a small bite, and then another, before stuffing the first one in his mouth. He saves the second muffin for Kyouka.
Atsushi notices Dazai talking to Kunikida out of the corner of his eye. Dazai is sitting dangerously on the window ledge, swinging back and forth, rambling false facts about orcas. Neither Atsushi nor Kunikida know they’re false, of course. “Oi, Dazai!” Ranpo shouts after swallowing a mouthful of muffin. “I saved two for you too!”
Dazai shuts up at that, hopping off the ledge and taking a muffin from Ranpo’s hand. From Ranpo’s hand.
Taking Ranpo’s snacks from Ranpo’s hands is a serious crime. It’s absolutely forbidden, and Atsushi hasn’t even seen Yosano do it. Atsushi has rarely seen the room grow silent as fast as it does.
“Kunikida-kun!” Ranpo calls out to the man jotting down false facts about orcas – Atsushi seriously doubts how orca facts fit into Kunikida’s ideals – and his grin becomes impossibly wider. “Kunikida-kun! Dazai was lying again.”
The pen snaps. Dazai tries to run out of the room with a squeal, not even bothering to hide his disappointment when Ranpo blocks him from taking another muffin before he darts away. Kenji enters the doorway at that exact moment, blocking Dazai’s path of exit. He asks why Dazai’s running, innocent curiosity at its finest, and Dazai looks like he’s about to jump from the window to escape Kunikida.
Yosano cackles louder.
Atsushi sighs, a small smile building at the corners of his mouth. He pretends he won’t have to do Dazai’s share of paperwork later.
*
Kunikida-kun? Thank you. For back then.
…Of course, Dazai.