#‘I want Oda. I don’t give a SHIT about anybody else just let me have him’

[ahli-stuff]

Thinking about Dazai in this art piece but specifically the ghost of canon!Dazai hovering over Oda’s gun paired with the text written in the background: “I am atoning. This is fine. Oh, I can only atone for my sins in a book. My only salvation…”

You could either interpret this at beast!Dazai speaking or canon!Dazai speaking, but I choose to interpret this as beast!Dazai lamenting the fact that he will only ever live to see a brighter future in a book he read about himself. A fictional story. Another universe.

Something I about a lot is that beast!Dazai saw everything. I don’t only mean that he saw Oda’s deaths in thousands of universes, I mean that he also saw him himself, Dazai Osamu, living as a happier and more whole version of himself—canon!Dazai eventually becomes someone who saves the orphans, gains deeply caring friends, and someone who uses his intelligence to help hundreds rather than harm.

But to beast!Dazai, that’s all that it is. Was. A distant fulfillment of a fictional character in a book. A book which he metaphorically could not finish became stuck on the page with Oda Sakunosuke’s name. In his obsession the prolong the brief happiness Oda provided to his younger self, Beast!dazai threw away his potential to have canon!Dazai’s future. He threw away his own happy ending.

By the time Beast’s storyline begins, it’s already too late for him. He had already gone too far, hurt too many people, risen too high in the port mafia to be the same man who joined the detective agency to better himself. To be the boy who Oda would’ve wanted to be friends with in the beginning.

Have you all seen that trope where the innocent past version of a character runs past the current version of a character? I instead propose the current version of a character watching as the person they could’ve been walk away from them.

Beast!Dazai only atones inside of a book he reads once. Potential futures and fiction; is there really that big of a difference? He closes it, smiles at his not-friend, only-friend, first-friend, and falls.

[moved-attre]

Rewriting Cyberpunk 2077 into a bullet point list! LET’S GO!

(Disclaimer: I’m trying to be realistic. So no, “every single detail of the game changes based upon every single choice V makes” but just things I expected in an RPG from an AAA company in 2020. I take a lot of inspiration from the old trailers, and rumors of pre-2018 development.)

And this is really long, too. Sorry. 😜

Okay, so first off: Act 1 generally goes off the same as it does in canon. I’m open to other ideas, but I don’t think it’s a bad starting point. I do think V and Jackie should have had more time together, doing smaller jobs until Dex calls. Like, there should’ve been side jobs that were only available in Act 1. You have to get a minimum of 5 street cred before you get the conversation with Jackie about Dex.

The heist still goes to shit; Yorinobu kills his father, Takemura rebels against him and Arasaka factions split. V inserts the chip into their head, Jackie still dies and Dex shoots V in the head. Takemura rescues V, kills Dex, V wakes up in Vik’s and is told they have 4 months to live. (2 weeks is not enough!)

On to Act 2! The origins actually affect the game, so there’s three versions of it you can play. (Some things happen regardless of the origin, though.) For example: Corpo V has contacts in the Corpo world and pursues leads about the Relic there through their old friends. Street Kid V has contacts in the gangs, like the Valentinos or Maelstrom, who have dirty dealings with corporations and can get V in on Arasaka knowledge, Nomad V has leads out in the badlands about the corporations and gets in that way, hijacking transports to get some info. All origins can work with the corporations (like Hanako’s branch of Arasaka, Militech, Biotechnia, etc.) or against them. Like, the point is to snoop around the corporations and dig up some dirt on the Relic and Yorinobu’s Arasaka branch specifically but each origin goes about it differently?

Maelstrom vs Meredith Stout choice actually matters. It’s one point in a subplot I mentioned above, where V continually makes choices on whether they’re gonna side with the corporations or the gangs/people of NC against Arasaka in order to be rid of the Relic. Also affects V’s relationship with Johnny. You can also have a real, long term relationship with Meredith if you pick her side and get Militech support, or count on Maelstrom to help you in the main plot against Arasaka. Both sides will still attack V if they poke their nose in, meaning random encounters can still happen.

^ The subplot is like, making a deal with the devils (The corpos) or... other devils (The gangs). One person objectively could say one is better than the other, but they’re both awful. Night City is kind of rotten to the core, and V’s problems can’t be fixed by a pursuit of justice. V can still be a good person in either case, and it’s still kept kind of punk by going against the head honchos. I think this more suits the “Wake the fuck up, Samurai. We have a city to burn.” quote because V is churning up a path to the top, even if their methods are purely selfish. V themselves can be uninterested in righting wrongs, but they kind of turn NC on its head by challenging Arasaka so changes come anyway.

Point, is you fuck everything up either way. THEN, V can choose whether to trust the corporations and work with Hanako to “change the system from within” without disrupting people’s day-to-day lives (short term good choice I suppose?) or to let the gangs rise up and cause total anarchy. (long term good? since the downtrodden are rising up and maybe there shouldn’t be absolute power in the hands of a few.)

T-Bug doesn’t die. V thinks she’s dead, but sometime in Act 2 gets an anonymous call and meets up with T-Bug. She went underground after the botched heist, and isn’t eager to work with V again. Maybe you do a few missions with her, and she comes around? Or you fuck up and never hear from her again. I imagine she’d love to poke around at the Relic, if V helps her.

Giving Jackie’s body to Vik has real consequences. If you give his body to his mother, you attend the ofrenda and get his bike, his mom allows you to use his den as a place to stay... It’s basically the ‘good’ choice, if you care about the characters. If you give his body to Vik, you unlock a side mission where Arasaka steals his body to find the relic. You have to go and find it but it was destroyed(?) at some point by Arasaka. You can get his pistols (Which are, aside from Johnny’s pistol, the best weapons in the game. I don’t get why they aren’t in canon...) in this route and whole lotta angst, so his mom basically hates you because she blames you for not being able to bury her son and the bar is off limits. No getting the bike, either.

More content involving Alt Cunningham. V still witnesses the scene with her and Johnny, her kidnapping and death. But, Ghost AI Alt allows V to look into Alt’s memories for information on Mikoshi. V accidentally accesses some more personal memories. We can see Alt as more of a fleshed out actual person, not just a tragic backstory for Johnny. Some of the memories do involve Johnny, and the tone is very different from her perspective. We see that Alt has genuine affection for him, but Johnny is possessive and abusive... It’s far from the relationship Johnny recalls. Of course, Johnny can see all this too since he lives in V’s head. He and V have a heart to heart afterwards, with Johnny realising how badly he treated Alt and yeah. I wasn’t satisfied with how Alt was just used as a sob story for Johnny, but I was sent an ask by an anonymous person about how the memory was from his perspective and thus biased. It really got me thinking! If I was more creative, I’d come up with a way for Alt to live... But Johnny still needs to bomb Arasaka and Alt’s death was the reason why he did that.

You have to return one of your apartments/safe houses every few days to wash and sleep. If not, V will get a penalty that means they are less accurate when aiming and slower when breaking in a vehicle. Also some NPC’s will refuse to talk to you if you don’t bathe, because... stinky.

And you have to eat! Otherwise you get hungry, and get penalties for that too. Can’t concentrate on an empty stomach. I’d say eating once or twice a day would be enough.

Instead of fast travel points (that are supposed to be taxi services, I think...? But we never see a taxi! And why can’t we just call Del? Ugh.), V takes the metro. There are side missions that can sometimes only start once you get on or off of a train. (You meet NPC’s in the train, or waiting for one.)

Takemura and Johnny are romance options, and are available for all genders. They’re the most difficult to romance, with some (kind of obvious) dialogue choices ending the possibility. Like, for example: Takemura’s romance ends badly if you choose to go against the corporations, and Johnny’s ends badly if you go with the corporations. It’s the same with Meredith, essentially, in that going against her won’t allow you to romance her. I know a rival-mance system is possible, but I think that might be too complicated.

Takemura and V’s relationship is much, much deeper. They have more time together, and grow closer. Takemura trains V in combat, and takes over from Coach Fred in the street fights side missions. You go with Takemura to fights, he’s your coach, is very proud when you win. (He’s basically training V in the event that they have to take on Adam Smasher and Oda. Like, why did we have no training montages with Takemura?!) V is able to choose romance or stay friends with him. There’s plenty more missions with Takemura too, mainly espionage stuff against Yorinobu. Finding out his weaknesses, replacing his staff with people that are loyal to Hanako, digging for dirt on him. Lots of stake outs, hehe. 😉 Romance!™️ Also makes it that much more tragic if V doesn’t choose to trust the corporations, since Takemura will end things and leave NC.

There are garages to upgrade your cars but Panam can upgrade it further if you do her missions + befriend her, and you can find super secret parts for your cars that Panam needs all around NC by stealing them from gangs or Corpos! Like, make your car go 200 mph fast or a setting to make it hover. 😎

FOUND FAMILY TROPE... Involving the LI’s + more characters. I wanted Misty, Vik, Judy, Panam, River and Kerry to all know each other and be friends. Also, somewhere for them to hang out. Judy coming down and hanging out with Misty and Vik would’ve been so cool.

Missions involving Vik. I think he deserved his own personal missions. Also, he’s gotta be romanceable! I’ll add more to this later.

I’m still figuring out how Johnny’s romance would go. It’s a tricky one. Lots of tension, jealously if V flirts with anybody... Heart to hearts... Holding hands... Passive aggressive confessions of love...

River is introduced in the main story. Maybe you team up to hunt down somebody who knows stuff about the Relic, like Anders Hellman, or something else to do with it. River’s like “What the fuck is going on?” but V doesn’t really tell him. Then, of course, you meet him later on and recognise him in the BD given to you by Jefferson.

Meeting Kerry earlier in the story, say mid Act 2? Ideally there would have been 5 Acts, and maybe I’ll edit this to include more once I figure out how the story could have gone. AND he’s part of the main story.

Less generic, “get in, get item and get out” side missions from Fixers and more side missions like the Peralez’s and that guy who got crucified. More freaky Cyberpunk subjects like what constitutes a soul, what is “intelligence” (What makes a machine different than a human? Without shitty false racism analogies), human rights abuses (and in that: classism, racism, ableism, transphobia), pollution, more on “Cyberpsychos” and how harmful that term is, etc. Nauced and thought-provoking. Reminding us that this is a dystopia and the issues are different but not all that wildly so from today. I would’ve developed Brendan’s mission more, because it seemed like we were going to see an earnest discussion on Artificial Intelligence but instead it was just confusing and “Haha, tricked you!” 🥱 Like, what if he really was a person capable of free thought and emotion? And that company still owns him and can overwrite him? Isn’t that fucked up?! It didn’t need a happy ending, just something to unnerve me.

Adding to that, Delamain had plenty of opportunities to discuss AI and the rights of individual contructs. His “children” could be freed, but nothing really happens as a result? I wanted consequences! The emails about human staff being made redundant because of Delamain were so interesting, too. I wanted to see something about the consequences of that in a city with no basic universal income. What happened to them? What can be done to help people who are made redundant by machines? So many possibilities for truly emotional and scary side missions!

I’m gonna watch black mirror for more inspiration, but stuff like the IRL blocking feature? Freaky as hell and totally plausible. Would’ve loved if one of the side missions involved V getting involved in some dispute involving something like that. “I can’t see his face!” or the copyright stuff about people’s appearances! Imagine if there was a Johnny lookalike? Engram Johnny would either find it hilarious or get really pissed off.

I’m hoping the DLC will deliver on more Takemura, so I’ll hold my breath for critiquing the Arasaka ending.

More to come! I’ll probably edit this later, if there’s any mistakes and/or I realise I hate an idea hehe.

[ximca]

Evidence.ZIP: Nami's slow descent into love

Before we start I want to make clear a few things. This is not paid work which means it's substandard trash, all of the scans used are unofficial, but all the interpretations are mine.

Ready? Set. Go.

This first panel is not a shipping panel. LuNa or SaNa, it's not. However because it's been some days since Sanji took off, that means between that day and the day Luffy and company arrived, he's been on her mind. Again I stress, this is not a romantic sign or symbol of any note. Her tears are of worry and relief because she's been worried sick for her nakama and relief because finally, Luffy's here, let's get the rescue rolling.

The next two pictures are about Nami being eager to get off their butts and go after Sanji right away. But Luffy and Zoro are in no hurry, and even Chopper and Brook in other panels are just sad that Sanji is gone but they're not like Nami who's gung ho about chasing him right away. Does that mean they’re not worried about Sanji? No, of course they are, but Nami obviously is the most worried here.

Right before everything happened, Nami was pretty belligerent towards Sanji. She's used to everything he does, including his antics. But by no means does that mean she's apathetic to him. After all, even as early as FI our guy Sanji put in the work. In PH even if he didn't like it, he followed Nami's wish to save the kids and his body serendipitously saved Nami from Caesar's explosion. Nami knows that Sanji would save any other of his nakama, but it was only during the time skip that she began to see how much special attention Sanji actually paid her. And she doesn't even know yet, that Sanji gave her body respect when he dived that lake to get Kinemon's torso, when just a few minutes ago he was cupping her breasts like a madlad for a punchline.

Nami also remembers quite clearly what little Sanji told them about his family. It doesn't seem anything special until you realize that when this happened, Nami asked Chopper right before to dig a spot up for gold, and forgot all about it entirely when Sanji was telling them about Liar Norland.

So then Sanji and co. got captured. This is what I think triggered Nami, the "I'll be back but not really" smile she's seen twice in her life now: Sanji's and Bellemere's. She never really knew what she had until he was gone.

In this panel Nami is mad at Zoro for victim blaming Sanji. Both sides have a point, but take note of Luffy. He noticed, as well as I did (and a few others), that Nami was being a teensy bit overreacting at this point. Why I judged that to be his action instead of Luffy observing the back and forth, is because he’s of the same opinion as Zoro...marriages are no big deal, it’s not like somebody won’t return from a marriage. But Nami’s uncomfortable with it, so in order to remedy the problem, he decides to go up to Sanji and ask him to come back, because their navigator was being cranky when he wasn’t around. Also because he didn’t want to be a Big Mom subordinate, but if it was really the basis of his decision then he should have decided the chase before Nami’s overreaction.

The other two victims, Brook and Chopper, had very different stances. Brook was the calm and mature narrator while Chopper just kept apologizing.

See again Luffy in this panel. But, in addition to noticing Nami's vehement objection to Sanji's Vinsmoke lineage, there's also what I call the "wait a minute!" graphic. It's those small lines that form a semicircle near a character when something catches their attention during someone else's monologue. So now he knows something's definitely up with Nami, if he wasn't sure before.

That face isn't a "wait a minute, what are Vinsmokes?" but rather a "wait a minute, why are you objecting?"

For comparison, this is Nami’s “wait a minute, I know who you’re talking about” panel.

After the Jack ownage, Luffy was open to another banquet like he wasn't done with one the night before. Nami feels once is enough, let's get going, and gives her usual excuse of "you can't go anywhere without a navigator" spiel like Luffy doesn't know what she does. Go back to when Luffy visited Pekoms, he was still saying no to her because the fewer the members the higher the chance of stealth. But now all he says is OK. He knows that somebody on his crew can't wait to see Sanji again, and he's all too happy to oblige.

Even in this catfight prelude, Nami wants to hurry up, giddy up. But when Pudding elaborates on her situation...

THIS is where I think Nami caught herself slippin'. Luffy's just happy with someone complimenting his cook, Chopper is concerned with fact checking, but Nami...is concerned about Sanji's emotional well-being? If she really didn't give him the time of day then why the hell does she care whether Sanji marries for love and not just for political reasons? Just Nami well-wishing? Can't be, because well-wishers would not question whether or not the bride loves her groom in a political marriage.

ANYBODY else would give the happy bride-to-be a congratulations but only a "former-gf-who-has-accepted-the-reality-of-the-situation-who-still-has-residual-feelings-of-love" would confirm for herself if the man she left/who left her is being loved by his bride-to-be.

And before someone says “But family members and to an extent nakama would ask that too!”, they won’t question the bride’s/groom’s feelings, but whether or not he/she is ready to take care of their partner for the rest of their life. Nami isn’t asking “Will you take care of Sanji for the rest of his life?”

Also I think this conversation makes One Piece finally fail the Bechdel Test after all these years.

Fast forward to when they caught up with the Germa, that's Nami's face of relief from being worried about not being able to see each other again. If Sanji were his normal self this is probably where he'd ask her Do you love me now, Nami-san? or something. And after Nami fighting about quarter/half of 11 hours vs Cracker (this dude could take several G4 punches too), she'd probably reply to him in kind at that point.

I have no doubt in my mind that this Nami was one who already recognized her feelings and had no problem acting on them.

But reality is cruel...Sanji wasn't taking any chances. Even going as far as mock Luffy for his dream...and she believed it...despite hearing about a week ago from his own mouth that Luffy was going to be PK!

Luffy never believed the cockbull Sanji was cranking out, so why did Nami? Well for starters, Nami never experienced Sanji lying to her. Ever. You can even search the whole manga for a panel up to that point where Sanji lied to her, you won't find it. That's why she believed Sanji's lies so easily.

Do you remember the Usopp vs Luffy fight? The stated reason is because Usopp doesn't want to leave the Merry behind, due to his own insecurity about being weak and his projection onto the boat being useless and needing replacement which snowballed into him cracking. But was that really all it was? Of course not, Usopp wasn't selfish enough to fight for himself. Flee for himself maybe. He wasn't just fighting for the Merry Go, he was also fighting for Kaya because Merry was his reminder of her.

Scour the manga, all of Usopp's most emotional fight moments are because he was fighting for someone else.

Back to Nami, what did the slap mean? Was it anger at beating Luffy up and spitting on his dream? Yes. Was it because of all the stress and worry for him being useless at that point? Yes. But as a natural opposite of Usopp, Nami's most emotional fight moments are about herself.

Nami decided to fight Arlong because of his continued tyranny towards Cocoyashi Village despite her doing her best to pay up their freedom, but the bulk of her anger was about how much Arlong fucked her life up. Thanks to him she never grew up with a normal childhood.

With Nami vs Ms. Doublefinger, I think Nami even decided to leave her to Zoro. However because she was being labeled a weakling (and underestimated), she decided to stay and fight. Nami vs Kalifa was a similar case of underestimation despite her taking the fight because Sanji was useless against Kalifa.

I think Nami was also mad that Sanji wasn't the same man she realized she fell in love with. Gone was the kind, humble, and goofy man who would stick up for his nakama and their dreams. In his place was a snotty brat who acted superior to everything and believed status gave them the right to shit on other people's dreams. Nami thinks Sanji has changed for the worse because of his newfound status, and drops the endearment term “-kun” which she only used for him.

It's framed like in TV dramas where the lady slaps the man out of passion. Yonji even lampshades it: "She's the fiery type!"

The last pic is just Nami’s “oh shit no” look compared to Luffy’s “oh shit” one.

I’m too tired to continue so I’m stopping this here.

Better researchers than I can spot where Nami first got infatuated by Sanji.

All I’m saying is, they don’t really care about us Sanami shippers should not worry about the character development Oda gave Nami in the Year of Sanji. It’s been a long time coming for us but it’s the last stretch before the game ends.

Don’t expect Oda to give them a flashy confession or an extraordinary action to validate the ship.

But if I read Oda right and this is where he wants Sanji and Nami to take the next step into their relationship, we’re in the green.

Naysayers will say things like “but Nami would do the same for the other nakama” or “so and so would act like that too” but take heed and remember, Oda does not write without reason. He MADE Nami overreact because he wants US to care that Sanji was taken from the crew. He WROTE Sanji into catching Nami with both of them sharing a brief smile because he wants US to feel the relief of both parties safe in each other’s hold.

And he DREW Pudding being jealous because that’s how some other ships feel about this arc. jk ilu guise this is just banter

Thanks for reading.

[minifiction]

that person is definitely gone

Fandom: Bungou to Alchemist

Characters/Pairings: Chuuya, Ango, Oda, Librarian, Mori; Chuuya/Dazai

Genre: Angst

Rating: PG-15

Summary: Anti-alchemy sentiment doesn't matter to Chuuya, until it does.

The existence of alchemy is common knowledge now, but alchemists are rare; that’s what the librarian said when Chuuya inquired about it.  Requiring anyone to state whether or not they’re an alchemist is illegal in Japan unless the job specifically requires those abilities.  Even with protective laws like that, anti-alchemist sentiment is pretty widespread.  It’s not something that you can tell by looks, which just makes some people even more angry when they find out they’ve been talking to an alchemist: they were “tricked” into thinking the alchemist was “a normal person”.

Chuuya thinks it’s stupid, but then again, he can’t say people would have a better reaction to someone developing supernatural powers in his time, either.

Anti-alchemy protests aren’t frequent in Tokyo, but they do happen now and then, since the government is known to employ alchemists.  Chuuya can always tell when a big one is happening because the librarian responds to any offers of going out for something with “sorry, maybe another time,” while glancing out the window.

But for the most part, that doesn’t matter to Chuuya.  Even people who think of alchemy as unnatural are at heart normal people who wouldn’t seriously hurt anyone else because of it.  He avoids large crowds of protesters, but that’s just because it’s a pain to try to navigate through them.

He doesn’t even think about it most of the time, which is why when Dazai goes missing from the library after saying he was heading out to get breakfast, he doesn’t worry.  First of all, Dazai goes missing pretty often, and Oda and Ango can usually find him within a few hours.

It’s evening when they come back.  They haven’t found him yet, and both of them are much more tense than when they left.

“We’ve checked all his usual haunts, but there’s no sign of him,” Ango tells the librarian.  “None of the restaurants we checked had anybody who’d seen him this morning either, or any records of him paying.”

“Like he didn’t even make it to breakfast,” Oda says, wringing his hands together.  “But there’s no way he got lost that easy, he goes out a bunch!”

The librarian nods, and then stiffens.  “...There’s an anti-alchemist convention being held this weekend.  It’s the biggest one in the country.”

Chuuya doesn’t need to listen to any more of this conversation.  “Where is it?”

Oda swallows.  “H-hey, even if they’re like that, ya don’t really think they’d hold somebody hostage-”

“I don’t think they’d do that to another human being.”  Chuuya leaves it unsaid: Dazai would not be considered a human being if they knew what he was, and thus all bets are off.  “You can come with or stay where it’s safe, but I’m going.”

Oda and Ango instantly agree to come along.  The librarian gives them directions and asks if she should send anyone after them if they don’t come back by a certain time.  They say no.

The directions lead them to a standard-looking convention center.  Of course it looks normal: the building probably hosts all kinds of events, most of them not run by assholes.  Chuuya marches inside and finds the pamphlet for the Society for Pure Humanity Convention, which includes where in the building they’re located.

The convention covers a large space within the building.  Schedules talk about panels on the religious reasons to oppose alchemy, what you can do to lower alchemy in your area, etc.  There are also talks by people who Chuuya assumes he would know the names of if he gave a shit about their ‘cause’.

Oda and Ango open doors and peek in rooms, quietly enough not to draw much attention to themselves.  Nothing out of the ordinary: people blabbering on, people sitting in chairs listening to other people blabber on, and no sign of Dazai.

Chuuya’s just about to ask what they’ll do if this is a dead end when he notices an unmarked room that’s suspiciously loud.  He can’t hear exactly what anyone’s saying, but if it’s not something with a preplanned event, then…

Chuuya opens that door a smidgen, then throws it open all the way.

There’s absolutely no mistaking Dazai as the injured figure at the front of the room.  No one who isn’t made of ink bleeds black, or has letters covering his skin.  His hands are bound together with his own tie, while his legs look like they’ve been twisted too badly for him to have a hope of walking on them.

The room is full of people.  Some have pen knives (all of legal size, of course, they aren’t criminals) and are at the front of the room - Dazai’s injuries suggest that the knives have been applied to him liberally.  The rest are watching.  Some are taking pictures or videos with their phones, or texting.  Chuuya catches a glimpse of a smile emoji.

If he had blood, it would be boiling.

Ango feels the same way, judging from the growl that leaves his throat.  “The hell do you think you’re doing?!”

Oda skips the words and just rushes up to Dazai, shoving a person out of his way so that he can kneel beside him and grip his shoulders.  “Dazai!  Dazai, can ya still hear me?!”

“We didn’t hurt an actual person,” someone with a knife says.  It’s defensive.  “It doesn’t hurt any humans if we mess with one of those things.  He could’ve fought back more anyway.”

He didn’t, because he’s a good person who doesn’t want to hurt normal people, Chuuya thinks, but doesn’t get more than “He- wait-!” out before that person jams his knife into Dazai’s arm again.

Dazai’s already on the edge of breaking down, and he’s one of the most unstable writers in the library now.  It doesn’t have to be a wound that would normally kill somebody to destroy an author: it just has to tip them over the edge.

Dazai becomes nothing more than a splatter of black, staining Odasaku and spilling onto the floor.

The room quiets down for a moment.  Even those who had only been paying attention to their phones look up.

Chuuya hears himself speak.

“When a loved one dies, you have to commit suicide.”

He takes a step towards the person who had given Dazai the final blow.

“When a loved one dies, no other recourse remains.”

The book by his side that he’d been gripping tightly enough to hurt turns into a gun.

“But even so, if your life is already over, and there’s nothing left to stop you-”

Ango grabs his arm before Chuuya fires and the bullet impacts the wall instead of that person’s head.  “Chuuya, get a hold of yourself!”

Chuuya struggles.  He yanks, and kicks, and doesn’t let go of his gun.  Everyone else is scrambling to run away, but even when it’s only him and Ango and Oda and the stain that used to be Dazai left, he still struggles.  Ango’s face is too blurry for Chuuya to make out his expression-

Something impacts the back of Chuuya’s head.

Chuuya wakes up in the library’s infirmary.  The only other person there is Mori, who looks over from his desk when he hears Chuuya start to stir.

“I’m sorry about what happened,” Mori says.

Chuuya shuts his eyes again.  He doesn’t have an answer.