#I feel like it's mostly due to comparison with Chuuya who's the strongest of them all?

[sskk-manifesto]

Furthermore, it's interesting to note how it's been stated multiple times that in the sskk partnership Akutagawa is supposed to take precisely the role of defense. As long as he was in the mafia, working alone, Akutagawa employed exclusively an aggressive attack technique, which he excelled in; but with someone like Atsushi to complete him, he's most efficient by offering cover from behind. I've talked before about how Akutagawa accepting the role of support is an exceptional indicator of his character growth as a way for him to renounce to his obsession of proving himself in order to collaborate with someone else, as well as disavowing blind violence for a role of aid.

... The best part is that, we now know that sskk actually got there :')

The worst part of them all is that it's explicitly stated that Akutagawa only killed the one Mimic soldier in order to protect the other mafia operatives. He says “So I decided to take care of it”: “so”, as a direct consequence of the soldier attacking the others, a form of protection. Because Akutagawa has always been protective: when he defended as best as he could his family in the slums, when he protected Higuchi even at the cost of failing his mission, when he shielded his pm companions from Kajii's bombs, when he repeatedly saved his partner / rival's life for no apparent reason. His character arc culmination and pivotal character development moment frames him dying to protect someone else. His protectiveness is the one characteristic that stuck to him even in his darkest pm days, when nothing human seemed to be left in him. And it's quite tragic how Akutagawa's only compassionate trait, his only sign of humanity gets him reprimanded and beaten up by the person he admires and idolizes the most, who seems hell-bent on crushing every hint of humanity in him.

It's also bitter how later Dazai tells Akutagawa “Cutting open unfortunate hostages isn't the only thing you're good for. You should be able to use your powers for defense, too.”, when defending was exactly what Akutagawa was doing in the first place, if only by the sole modality he knew, that is retaliating tenfold.