Chapter Text
The boy was scared.
This was nothing new. The boy cannot remember the last time he slept soundly without fear; the last time he felt love and affection; the last time he smelt clean air or felt the sun on his face.
But this...this was a different kind of fear. The kind of fear that had the boy's blood running cold. The kind of fear that had his breath wheezing from his lungs in panicked pants.
This was fear for his life.
His legs are aching, they feel like they are about to collapse with exertion and yet he pushes on, willing himself to be faster as he flees through the dirty alleyways, zig-zagging this way and that with no comprehension of where he's going. This city is entirely new to him and he is flying blind.
The footsteps behind him are drawing ever closer. The boy doesn't dare to look behind him, for fear of what he knows is looming in the darkness: the large hulking shapes, the glint of sharpened steel, the putrid scent of death.
The boy rounds a corner, his feet almost skidding on the grimy surface. He regains his balance and is up and running as quick as a flash. He doesn't notice until it's too late. Until there is nowhere left to run and no time to turn back.
Dead end.
The boy comes to a stop at the end of the alleyway, turns his back to the wall, crouches low to the ground as shivers of fright wrack his small body. The inevitability of what is to come sinks in dropping like a cold stone in the pit of his stomach. The footsteps behind him have slowed, the group of men have spread themselves across the small alley, blocking any chance of escape. Their smiles are wide, their steel is sharp and there is murder in their eyes that even the boy - miles from home, in a country whose language he cannot speak - can understand.
His once-beautiful (or so he's been told) red hair hangs limply, its greasy strands sticking to his face. His blue eyes - seemingly a source of delight amongst this sea of dark-eyed people – are dull and lifeless. His hands are trembling, his whole body exhausted from his flight. He screams at the men, words that he knows mean nothing to them, words they cannot understand.
“S'il vous plaît, ne pas me faire du mal!”
The men leer and laugh, shouting things he does not comprehend, beckoning with dirty hands. He pleads once more, this time in broken English.
“Please, no!”
Still the men advance. The boy is out of options; knows that his life will end here tonight; in this filthy alleyway where no one will care when they come across his lifeless, broken body in the morning. Just another piece of trash to throw away.
The boy screams obscenities in every language he knows, curling his small hands around a knife held tightly in his grip. The same knife he had stolen from a man's belt that evening and plunged into his unsuspecting neck with frightened precision alongside screams of hatred. The man had gurgled something unintelligible, pulling at the boy's remaining clothes as blood gushed in waves from the fatal wound. He had died in minutes, and the boy had watched his eyes turn glassy as he slumped to the floor.
The boy is determined not to die here without at least doing some damage to someone. With a final wretched howl he springs at his attackers, allowing the rage and fury to build inside him, rising like fire. He is no longer afraid.
His cries are still echoing from the walls when he blacks out.
When the boy comes to, he wonders why the afterlife smells the same as the disgusting alleyways he had been running through. He wonders why it is still dark. He wonders why his body feels heavy and his legs feel like they wouldn't support him if he tried to stand up.
The boy blinks his eyes open, peering through the metal grating he currently has his face smashed into and wondering how the fuck he ended up 20 feet above ground level. The alleyway is silent. He can no longer hear the harsh unintelligible words of his captors below. Are they hiding somewhere in the darkness? Waiting for him to reappear?
He drags his body up, using the metal railings for support and hissing in pain. Peering down into the alley his eyes widen at the scene before him.
A lady stands below, looking up at him with a smile. She definitely doesn't belong here. She is beautiful and terrifying all at once; her hair shines like precious gems and her kimono is of the most expensive silk, she looks delicate and fragile standing amidst the dismembered bodies of his attackers in a sea of blood and gore. He wonders if this is a vision of a Goddess?
She speaks, her voice is quiet and calm, but she talks the same strange language as the men had before and the boy shrinks back against the wall of the balcony he has somehow found himself on.
“What is your name?” she tries again, her English is accented but she speaks it without hesitation and in flawlessly polite form. The boy peers at her through the railings once more and the metallic smell of blood rises to meet his nose.
“Chuuya.” The boy speaks quietly, through cracked lips. “Nakahara Chuuya.”
The boy had another name, once. A name given to him by the mother he barely knew; it is a thing he hardly remembers now. The boy who answered to that name died long ago. Perhaps he died in the lightless container on the ship to this strange land: sitting in the dark surrounded by his own excrement, waiting for his next meal to be shoved through a slot in the metal walls. Perhaps he died with a rope tied around his wrists as his captors dragged him roughly to stand on a stage: naked and alone in front of a sea of strange faces who looked him up and down with avid interest. Perhaps he died in the filthy room of the brothel that had 'bought' him: under the hands of lecherous men, pushing into him as tears gathered at the corners of his eyes. Perhaps he died on the end of a whip – a result of his first 'lesson' in this new life – the sting of the leather across his back is a pain he still hasn't been able to dull. The pain that made him scream and cry out as the man at the other end bared yellowing teeth wickedly as he shouted the same thing at the frightened boy on every lash.
Yes, that was certainly where 'Nakahara Chuuya' had been born. But the boy who once lived in this body...he died a long time ago.
“You are not Japanese.” The beautiful woman is speaking in English again and the boy, Chuuya, has to drag his thoughts back from that dark place to concentrate on her words. “Why do you have a Japanese name?”
“My name is Nakahara Chuuya.” The boy repeats stubbornly, he knows his accent is strong and he mangles the pronunciation. He also knows the punishment for getting this wrong. He learnt his lesson well that night. He is Nakahara Chuuya, and the boy who lived before is dead.
“Hmmm.” The lady hums, stepping over the cooling bodies with a look of clear distaste, to stand underneath Chuuya's balcony. “My name is Kouyou, it is nice to meet you, Chuuya. Will you come down from there? Do not worry, as you see, these men cannot hurt you any more.”
Chuuya finds it fascinating, in a slightly sickening way, that the lady has no flecks of blood or gore on her beautiful clothes. She is pristine, a flower amongst this dark and dank backdrop of horror. It is frightening.
“How?” The door leading to the warehouse his small balcony is attached to has no handle, Chuuya still doesn't quite understand how he even ended up here in the first place.
“Well, you walked up the wall to get there.” The lady, Kouyou, is obviously amused and Chuuya isn't sure he understood her words correctly. Walked up the wall?
“I...do not understand?”
“You did not know that you are Gifted?” She speaks the word 'Gifted' like it means something different to Chuuya's understanding of the word. “Is this the first time you have used your Ability?”
Chuuya cocks his head in confusion and tries the unfamiliar word out for himself. “What is 'Gifted'?”
Kouyou's smile is sharp as she raises a delicate hand in front of her. She speaks something that Chuuya does not understand and a flash of brilliant light obscures his vision. After blinking spots from his eyes he gasps at the vision of horror before him, pressing his back to the wall in a bid to escape.
He has heard of 'Ability Users' before – who hasn't? The whole world whispers about their existence behind closed doors. But he has never met a person who could wield one in his admittedly short experience of the world. Floating behind this beautiful delicate lady is what can only be described as a Demon, summoned from the pits of hell. Beautiful, ethereal, magnificent to behold, but carrying an aura that screams of death, destruction and decay. Chuuya's instincts tell him to run.
“My Ability is Golden Demon.” Kouyou gestures to the Demon with a smile, “I am Gifted too, you see.” Her smile twists as her hand moves to encompass the dismembered bodies littering the floor. “Golden Demon brings death to my enemies. Now, will you come down, Chuuya?”
“I-I don't know how.”
“Concentrate on what you wish to do, and you should not have a problem.” Chuuya thinks that this can hardly be called an explanation. Is pretty sure that trying out his 'Ability' is going to end up with him lying flat on his face on the concrete, possibly with a few broken bones to show for his efforts.
Still, the consequences of not doing what he's told are clearly spread upon the floor below: certainly he does not want to end up as unidentifiable meat smeared to the pavement. “I will try.” He speaks quietly, feels something pull in his chest when Kouyou smiles at him encouragingly.
He takes a deep breath, trying hard to centre himself, pushing away the residual fear, the weakness in his limbs, the utter relief at having been saved. He tries to think of nothing other than calling up...whatever it is that managed to manifest to get him into this predicament in the first place, feels stupid for even believing that he could have awakened an Ability. Things like this don't happen to people like him. Why is he even trying?
His body feels suddenly heavier. His arms feel like they're about to be pulled from their sockets and his legs feel like they're rooted immovably to the floor. His only thoughts are that of astonishment as he experimentally drags one foot forwards and places it on the wall, stepping away from the metal grated floor of his balcony and suddenly his world is tilting sideways. What the hell?
It feels like he's in some kind of dazed dream as he walks down the wall carefully and full of trepidation, towards the beautiful lady and her terrifying aura. This cannot possibly be real...any moment now he's going to wake up to the darkness of the opulent bedroom he can only think of as a cage, to the telltale sounds of someone at his door.
He hits the pavement with a sickening sort of crack and Kouyou is kneeling at his side in an instant, the Golden Demon nowhere to be seen. “You were doing so well.” She shakes her head in disappointment. “You lost concentration.”
“I...am sorry.” Chuuya whispers in despair. “Pl-please. I will do better. Don't make me go back. Please.” He curls in on himself, lying on his side on the cold, damp, dirty floor of the alleyway, hiding his face between his knees. His ribs hurt from the fall but he ignores the pain in favour of the sobs shaking his body. “I d-don't want to go there again. P-pl-please.”
A gentle hand is pushing the hair away from his face, stroking his head like a child. “Chuuya. I do not know what has happened before, or why these scum were chasing you down, but I would like for you to come with me.” Her voice is soothing, Chuuya sniffs and raises his head slowly. “Do not worry, I will not make you go back. We will go to the Boss and have you join the Organisation. You might not have control over your Ability right now, but I know that you will work hard, won't you Chuuya?”
Chuuya does not fully understand what the lady means by 'The Boss' and 'The Organisation', isn't entirely sure that he's not going to end up locked in another cage with no means of escape. Kouyou has spilled blood for him – it lies in shining grotesque pools on the ground around his feet – would she hurt him after going through all this trouble to save him?
In the end it doesn't really matter. Chuuya is small and frail and utterly exhausted, hardly a threat to this lady and her terrifying power. He will be taken, one way or another. It might as well be willingly.
“I will come. I will work.” He tries to pull himself upright, finds that his legs no longer wish to obey him and collapses in a heap on the floor.
“Good lad.” Are the last words he hears before his world fades to black.
...
Chuuya wakes up in a cold sweat. It takes a moment for his brain to properly assess his surroundings and realise that he's no longer the small frightened boy clutching a bloody knife in a dirty alley somewhere in the bowels of Yokohama. He's in his quarters at the Port Mafia's main base of operations; safe, secure, somewhat like home.
It's been a long time since that night, Chuuya's not sure why his brain chooses to relive that nightmare every so often, it's as if it wants to show him where he came from, how far he's moved forwards since that fateful night when he was taken in by a Port Mafia Executive and essentially inducted unknowingly into the Organisation.
The six months following that night Chuuya had spent under the care of Kouyou-nee, trailing around behind her wherever she went, hiding behind the sleeves of her trailing kimonos as she went about her day-to-day activities. When he'd first been brought to the brothel he had tried to run, wide eyed and panicked because she had promised he wouldn't have to go back, wouldn't have to do that again. He had been herded back on the point of Golden Demon's blade, Kouyou-nee had wrapped her arms tightly around him, uncaring that he was getting dirt and grime on her pristine clothes, she had whispered into his filthy hair.
“Shhh Chuuya, don't worry, it will be okay. You will not be forced to work here.” Her embrace had been warm and comforting in ways Chuuya could hardly remember, he had broken down then, sobs wrenched from his body until there were no more tears left to fall. Kouyou-nee had led him to a room on the topmost floor of the brothel, it had been small and sparsely decorated, but there were no locks on the doors and windows, no chains, no restraints.
The next six months had been full of learning. Learning to speak Japanese under the tutelage of Kouyou-nee and the women of the brothel who doted on Chuuya like he was their child, often bringing him sweets or trinkets. Learning to control his Ability in the confines of his own room; slowly honing his control through hours and hours of practice, trial and error that often resulted in cuts, scrapes and once a broken wrist after falling from the ceiling that Kouyou-nee had scolded him for rather harshly. Learning that the 'Organisation' Kouyou-nee had mentioned was in fact the notorious Port Mafia and that he was now under observation to see whether he was an acceptable acquisition to the ranks.
When he hadn't been learning he'd been following Kouyou-nee, listening to her conversations with various patrons of the business, tailing her on less dangerous missions; watching in awe as Golden Demon slaughtered her foes, leaving pools of blood in her beautiful wake. Once or twice he had hidden behind her long sleeves as she'd had a meeting in the brothel's most exclusive guest suite with a man called 'Ougai-dono' who was often accompanied by a lanky young boy who appeared to be always covered in bandages and less frequently a smaller, younger boy who clutched a nightmarish doll to his chest and glared daggers at them all. He never listened to what was being said, could hardly keep up with their conversations about 'business' most of the time, despite becoming more fluent in Japanese every day. His focus generally passed to the strange boy who often stared at him from his one visible, blank, dead eye. The look was always calculated, as if assessing Chuuya to see whether he was worthwhile. It made Chuuya bristle indignantly and once he stuck his tongue out at the other boy rudely, satisfied when the he looked mildly surprised.
Sometimes the lanky boy showed up alone when Kouyou-nee wasn't around. Chuuya had caught glimpses of him skulking around the corridors or chatting to the women in an overly familiar manner. Chuuya found the other boy watching him on more than one occasion; he never spoke, just stared at Chuuya with a blank look that said nothing of what he was thinking.
Once Chuuya had been in his room, practising his control over his Ability; standing halfway up the wall whilst throwing a familiar small knife across the room to embed itself far into the opposite wall. His door had been thrown open unexpectedly, the lanky bandaged boy had walked in as if he owned the place, he had stared at Chuuya who had jumped to the ceiling in fright, hastily retrieved knife clutched in trembling hands. They had faced off for a few tense seconds before Chuuya had finally regained his wits.
“Que faites-vous ici?!” His words came out in a high pitched shriek that made the other boy wince even though he obviously couldn't understand what Chuuya was saying. “GET. OUT.” He switched languages fluidly, levelling the knife and throwing it forcefully at his presumptuous intruder. The knife had skimmed past the other boy's cheekbone and buried itself in the wood of the doorframe. Chuuya watched blood drip from the boy's face down onto the carpet. The boy hadn't said a word, simply turned and walked out, shutting the door behind him with a soft click.
The very next day 'Ougai-dono' had come to visit, and it was then that things had changed for Chuuya. He had been summoned to the executive suite, had immediately spotted the lanky boy accompanying the tall, wily-looking man, and dread had crawled up into his guts. Kouyou-nee and the man had been engaged in conversation for a while, Chuuya and the lanky boy eyeing each other up from their respective ends of the room, as usual. Well perhaps glaring would have been a better word on Chuuya's part at least. The boy had a new dressing stuck to his cheek and Chuuya absolutely refused to feel guilty that he had been the cause of this new accessory. Suddenly the focus had switched to Chuuya, all eyes in the room had turned to him with expectancy. He had shrunk against Kouyou-nee's side, looked up at her in question. Her smile had been wistful, maybe a little sad.
“Chuuya-kun, we would like to see how you've progressed with your Ability. Would you show us?” Chuuya had known it wasn't a request. He had nodded his head in agreement, not confident enough to speak in front of the imposing man and his young, pretentious protege.
He had demonstrated his power by walking straight up the wall and onto the ceiling above their heads, his clothes perfectly straight and the hat the Kouyou-nee had given him as a gift a few months ago had still been perched neatly on his head. From his upside-down perspective he couldn't read the look on the tall man's face, but his eyes had seemed to spark with interest.
Over those months of constant training, Chuuya had found other things that his Ability could do. He dropped from the ceiling, performing a neat flip in mid-air and came to rest softly on the carpeted floor as he manipulated his own gravity to cushion his landing. Looking around he had spotted Ougai-dono's empty wineglass on the table and moved to brush it with his fingers, immediately the wineglass moved to float in the air as if it had been on strings. Chuuya had concentrated hard then, manipulating his Ability to fling the wineglass across the room, aimed straight towards the lanky boy's head with many times the force and density it would usually have.
There had been a momentary look of surprise from the other boy, who had reached out a hand towards the glass which had careened towards his head at lightning speed. Chuuya watched in satisfaction, waited for the glass to shatter and rain shards down on the other boy, but when the glass touched his outstretched fingers...nothing had happened. The glass had simply seemed to halt in mid-air for a split second before it had crashed to the floor and broken neatly in half.
Chuuya had stared at the boy in shock, and the boy, that asshole had laughed, the smile took over his usually blank face as his visible eye had crinkled with mirth.
“Nice to meet you too Chuu-ya-kun.” the other boy had drawled out each syllable of his name in a sing-song manner that made Chuuya scowl darkly. “I look forward to working with you.”
Yes, Dazai had been a smug bastard even when Chuuya had first met him. Perhaps if he had known back then what his future would hold, tied down with the bastard as his partner, he would have run screaming for the hills and never looked back.