#wasteland 3 au

[hyolks]

nina's a little bit older here but she's still very much a little sister to them!!

[kedamo-nogetoffthetable]

Bedhead

Love drawing Teths hair, but it gets longer and poofier everytime I draw them XD

Bonus doodles:

[radioactivepeasant]

Snippets Thursday

The next part of the one where I made Damas catch a virus because inconveniencing serious characters is funny (found HERE)

This time I give Jak a hard time, dealing with cranky sick rulers 😆 Spargans speak Mando'a as a second language in this story Because I Said So, but there's translations lol

Jak was not having a good day. First that business with Kwan at the garages, then getting scolded like a kid by Damas (wasn't trying to cause trouble-!), and now Blackwater?!

Worse, it was very clearly his fault that the freaking king of Spargus was out for the count. No one still carried that disease except for himself, Daxter, Samos, and Keira. And only one of those four was both in Spargus and a channeler.

The joint pain, the eardrum pressure, the fluid in the lungs-! All of it was Jak's fault!

Suffice it to say that Jak was not his best self when he stormed back into the throne room to collect charred wood from the braziers. It wasn't quite the same kind of driftwood that Samos used to use for the remedy in Sandover, but it was close enough in chemical makeup -- he hoped. When the elevator gears began turning, Jak wanted to throw something. Now was not the time for people to come looking for work or for someone to settle disputes. Priorities, people!

A round man with three jagged scars across his forehead barged out of the elevator with a purposeful stride. When he saw Jak, he faltered, and stopped to look around, clearly expecting Damas to be somewhere in the room.

"You there," he barked, "boy! Where's the king?"

"Busy."

Jak shoved the coal into his belt pouch and wiped his hands on his shirt.

"Come back later."

The man didn't like that. He puffed out his chest and glowered at Jak’s back.

"This is important!"

"I'll take a message."

Jak rolled his eyes.

"Damas isn't taking appointments right now."

"I ought to box your ears, boy," the Wastelander snarled, "You think you speak for the king?"

Jak turned and faced him. He looked almost bored.

"I speak from experience, buddy. And you're welcome to try. But I can't promise you'll like what happens."

The man -- Ektor, Jak would later discover -- stormed up the walkway, clearly intending on some kind of confrontation.

"When you're done playing, go get the bloody king."

"I said he's busy!"

Jak planted his feet and met Ektor's glare, just daring him to push his luck when he had the high ground.

"What's important enough to go bother him, huh?"

Ektor did not have a particularly good impression of Jak. Kid just shows up out of nowhere, turns into a demon -- literally -- in the ring a couple times and suddenly thinks he can walk around the tower without a summons? Like he owns the place? This brat was just looking for trouble. And Ektor consoled himself with the knowledge that when the king caught him in the act, it wouldn't be pretty.

"How about Apex Metalheads moving in a bloody pack formation, just ten miles from the city! Is that "important enough" for you, "your highness"?"

Jak furrowed his brow.

"Again? Wouldn't Kleiver already have headed out to deal with that?"

The look Ektor gave him was almost pitying.

"This is why bloody children got no place in the ranks!" he groused. "No, Kleiver isn't "headed out". They're too close to the city, idiot! He's on the turrets!"

This was not what Jak needed right now. Growling, he turned on his heel and snatched up his talk-box.

"Dax, I need you to take the coal and get that medicine made. I gotta go deal with something."

"H'oh boy. How bad of a Something?"

"Average." Jak unhooked the leather pouch and dropped it on the throne in tense motions. "It'd be faster if you were on the guns, but somebody has to hold things down here. I've got the Beam Reflexor. See you in a couple hours."

"Roger roger, good buddy. I am very on-board with not going on whatever dangerous hunt this is."

"Yeah. You get the fun job."

"....suddenly not so on-board."

Jak stowed the radio, tightened his bracers, and turned back to Ektor with a sigh.

"Alright, show me where they are."

Ektor looked at him a little differently now.

"Kleiver wasn't kidding about you having some kind of death wish," he said, shaking his head with a low oath.

Ektor wasn't the only person Jak ran afoul of in the coming evening.

Damas did not want to stay in the apartment.

The temporary relief the first of the ten charcoal mixtures had provided gave him a false sense of strength, clearing away the pain and the respiratory difficulty. Damas thought he could just go back to work like nothing had happened!

Jak was bone-weary, fingers still numb from how many times he'd shot components off the backs of the Apex Metalheads. There'd be an absolute goldmine of salvage for the next round of scouts. All Jak wanted to do was sleep. But someone kept trying to jeopardize his recovery.

Jak braced himself against the door controls, blocking a man just as stubborn as he was. They glared at each other while Daxter ignored them both to grind up the next charcoal batch. Damas tried to reach around him, and Jak knocked his arm away just as quickly. His reaction time was slowed with exhaustion, and his reluctant patient took advantage of that.

Damas took hold of the iron ring over Jak's chest. He had enough strength back to lift Jak up to eye-level, leaving him on his tiptoes.

"I will not," he hissed, "be kept back like a witless noble when I have duties to attend to. Do not test me, boy."

Jak barely flinched.

"And then what? You collapse into one of the pools when the eco toxin rebuilds? Are you trying to get sicker?!"

"Not to mention," Daxter called, more calmly than Damas thought the situation warranted, "There's already peeps who act like bein' king around here only lasts until you show weakness. And frankly, I don't want any of those suckers in charge. Just take the vacation already, would you?!"

The boys had a point. He hated that the boys had a point. Hated that he'd been reduced to relying on children just to stand.

"You think they will not already assume weakness if I abandon my duties for three days?" Damas demanded.

Jak lifted his chin. "I already told everyone who came in that you were busy."

Damas pulled Jak a little closer by the ring, too astonished to even notice that he’d left the door controls free.

"You were not authorized to make that call."

Frustration bubbled in his veins, tipping too close to anger for his liking.

"Fine. Go out then. Get them all sick. Get the whole city sick, why don’t you! Go ahead!”

“Copaani mirshmure'cye, ‘ad?” Damas muttered under his breath.

You looking for a fight, boy?

Not like he needed to keep his voice down. He knew no one had taught the boys more than a few sentences in Joha -- the language Wastelanders used in front of enemies -- yet.

Jak pried Damas’s hand loose and dropped to the balls of his feet.

"You won't slow down for your own sake? How about theirs?"

Anger stirred the eco in Damas’s blood, and the eco circulated too close to the virus in his core. The pain began again, a dull ache for now that promised future knives in his lungs.

"Don't you dare, boy-" he warned.

Jak dared, apparently.

He had the temerity to push Damas, shoving him back a step.

"I deal with this all the time and it puts me down for days! You've never had it! It could kill you, don't you care?!"

Seeing the black look on the king's face, Jak pinched the bridge of his nose and inhaled sharply.

"This is going to get worse before it gets better. And it's my fault you caught the virus, so I'm not going anywhere until it passes. It's hell staying inactive. I know. It's-"

His voice quieted.

"It's like the Fortress. You're in pain, and you can't leave, and you know more pain is coming. But- but at least yours only lasts three days."

Damas faltered.

Jak had not told him the story of what Praxis had done to him willingly. Damas had walked into the washrooms below the Arena by chance just as Jak had been patching himself up after earning his second war amulet. And the scars he'd seen were not the kind a young fighter picked up in combat. The shame on the boy's face as he'd scrambled to get his wrist wrappings and shirt back on had struck a chord in Damas. Without really knowing why, he'd taken off his vambrace in the space of a minute, and moved back the wrappings to show the shine of old burns.

He'd spent more than his fair share of time on "excavations" -- a pretty word for Wastelanders being punished by the former king, left carving out of the cliff what eventually became the stables. By hand. In chains. In the midday heat. A lot of men died working that wall.

He didn't know why he'd told Jak that story. Why he'd told Jak about the two years when he was in chains more than out of them.

And yet it had meant something to Jak.

In that moment, a dam seemed to burst in the boy. The whole sordid tale had bubbled out of him in a tangle of words and desperation. He spoke as though he'd never encountered anyone who understood what it was to be that kind of survivor. To bear those kinds of scars. Like someone who had been asked why he couldn’t just “get over it” when the evidence was in his skin forever. He spoke like he was expelling poison from a wound.

That thought rang in Damas’s mind like a solemn bell.

Jak had overstepped, that was undeniable. But he seemed...

He seemed like he was desperate to keep the closest thing he had to a kindred spirit alive. The boy was legitimately afraid for him, wasn’t he?

Jak looked up again to meet his eyes, and there was a lot more emotion there than Damas had been expecting.

"Please," Jak insisted, "Just- Just rest! One more day, at least one more day, please!"

Damas felt a new round of pain beginning, starting in his vertebrae this time. Still, he couldn't just back down.

"Jak," he tried to gentle his voice past the harshness of pain. "I...know you do not understand what being king means. What is required."

"If it means breaking yourself down to bloody bones for people who will never be grateful, then yeah. He understands," Daxter said bitterly.

"Come on," Jak sounded like he was scolding now, "Didn't you say you have to pick your battles wisely sometimes?"

Oh confound that boy.

Damas’s spine twinged, but pride did not let him bend. Even so, Jak seemed to sense his pain. He sighed and, without a single word -- not even "I told you so" -- he offered his shoulder to support Damas long enough to get him back to the couch. Damas’s face burned with frustration and shame alike. To lose control of his body and have to do as the boy sais was infuriating. A little of that pique left him before he had time to guard his tongue.

"For the record, since you lack experience in the matter, most fathers would not tolerate being spoken to in such a manner by their sons."

Jak stiffened, and Damas regretted it. He knew that was a sore spot for the boy and he'd carelessly lashed out anyway.

Jak gave him a Look.

"Well you're the closest thing I got to one, so you’ll just have to deal with it.”

Damas actually winced. Jak seemed to mistake it for physical pain and sighed again.

"I'll get you more water. You're gonna need it in a minute."

"Less than a minute." Daxter glared at the king as he held up another glass of the vile liquid.

"Guess what, buddy? That attitude just earned you one free trip to Vomit Town."

"Dax," Jak called over his shoulder, "He's in pain as it is. You don't have to rub it in."

Daxter narrowed his eyes at Damas. He pointed silently at Jak’s back, then at Damas. Dramatically, he drew a finger across his throat: a clear warning of what would happen if Damas brought up absent parents again.

At the moment, Damas was more occupied with both the sensation of the virus congealing the eco in his core into an infected mass, and the mixed emotions he had about Jak’s parting shot.

"You're the closest thing I got to one", he'd said. The closest thing Jak had to a father. Him?!

Confound that boy. How does he always catch me off guard so easily?

More as a peace offering than anything else, he muttered, "Did you at least give them a reason?"

"Who?"

"Everyone you told I was busy. Did you give them a reason?" he pressed.

Jak returned with a recycled bottle filled with water.

"Yeah. But you're probably not going to like that, either," he said matter-of-factly. He nodded at the charcoal.

"Probably don't one-shot it this time."

"Don't tell me what to do," Damas grumbled rebelliously. But he noticeably didn't chug the medicine.

He'd survived on worse foods before. But that was irrelevant to his gag reflex. It took some doing to swallow the first sip, and each one after that got harder.

"Tell me what you told them, Jak." He narrowed his eyes over the rim of the glass. "I can't help you out of whatever mess you're determined to get yourself into if I don't know what I'm walking into."

Jak was generous enough to let Damas keep his pride. He shrugged and dropped to sit next to him with the weary expression of someone twice his age.

"I said you were researching the tunnels under Haven for something, and to mess up your concentration at their own risk."

Damas forced the last of the charcoal down in one gulp. Soon it would start absorbing the two enmeshed ecos that had caused the infection, and he'd be able to get some relief for a few more minutes. Physical relief, anyway. His mind was racing. That excuse- Jak wasn't supposed to know about the invasion plan. It was an "utmost end of need" scenario: if the Daystar impacted on the planet, he wanted his people safe in the Underport.

"And what..." he had to choose his words carefully.

He would overlook the major breaches in protocol Jak was tossing around like confetti. The boy's heart was in the right place. And it was very Spargan to act first and ask permission after. But he still wouldn't give Jak top secret information! If Jak was getting into dossiers he has no business touching-

"What made you think of tunnels?" Damas muscled through another painful spasm and feigned a teasing tone. "Planning to invade Haven, are you?"

Beside him, Jak's cheek twitched in an exhausted equivalent of a smile.

"Wishful thinking, honestly. But they bought it."

"For now."

Damas dug his fingers into the couch as the coughs he'd hoped to avoid made their next appearance.

"But you- still- can't-" the hacking overtook the rest of his words.

Jak scoffed. "It's not like I was making any decisions for you. They were all jobs you would've sent somebody to deal with anyway."

He lurched to the side as the first of the gel-like corrupted eco eruptions shot from Damas’s mouth and into a bucket Daxter had found. Poor guy. He had about three more rounds of the medicine, three hours apart, before the coughing gave way to just vomiting. Unfortunately that part lasted a whole day before giving way to musculoskeletal pain and vertigo.

Blackwater sucked.

"I'll take over, Dax," Jak yawned. "Go get some rest. You good with doing this tomorrow?"

He didn't ask Damas, notably.

"What're you gonna do this time?”

Jak fought to keep his eyes open. "Seem lost a party of monks in the volcano. I said I'd look into it. Probably going to end up putting the fear of Precursors into the asshole in the North Market who just started overcharging rookies for water to the point where they're stealing it. I said I'd look into that, too."

"Did you." The ottsel didn't sound that surprised. "And how, in your infinite grasp of diplomacy, did that go?"

A little too tired to be embarrassed, Jak made a helpless gesture.

"I said Damas was busy, and they'd better deal with their issues before I came over to deal with it for them."

"Yeah," Daxter sighed, "I was afraid you were gonna say something like that."

It was a little disturbing how the boy seemed to have set himself in a role like an enforcer. Like Sig's cover act in Haven.

"That's. Not. Your job," Damas gasped between retching coughs.

"I know: you said," Jak acknowledged. He rubbed his face with fingers just barely shaking. "Too late to take it back now."

He thought Damas was still upset about the crossing of boundaries he'd done. It was more than wounded pride that drew his concern though. Older feelings. Unpleasant memories.

"Crowns. Were not m- meant. To. Weigh. Down the. Young." Damas managed to fight through the pain in his joints to elbow Jak.

"Not. Your burden to. Bear."

Jak hesitated. Then,

"I know.”

[hecketernal]

IT'S THE HORNS AU

Descendants of Mar have a remarkable tendency to grow horns.

Every Ex-Havenite old enough to remember the family of Mar knows this. They come in all kinds of colors and shape, and even the horn growth pattern seems completely random. A parent often having entirely different looking horns to their child. Damas wondered if Mars' horns would be so different to his own. They hadn't grown in before he was taken. Most descendants didn't start budding until at least their teens.

Mar, the warrior who built Haven city, bore two thick, tusk-like horns that framed his jaws. Damas' mother had had blackened ram horns, meanwhile his sister had had a bright neon blue pair that grew out of her temples angled out like a second pair of ears. It had always made his older sister look rather intimidating. With the sharp cut of her eyeliner drawn in angular slashes around her eyes, he had watched no small number of men quail under that glare.

So yes, those that were old enough (or just brusque enough as native wastelanders tend to be to ask the king to his face why he had horns coming out of his noggin') knew exactly what having horns meant to their leader.

This is the reason why the arena grows hushed, when the newest recruit transforms into a pale frenzied thing with black little horns standing out clearly from the white hair.

[kagoutiss]

what's the comic your making going to be about specifically if you're comfortable not keeping that a secret. also thank you so much for making it in the first place i really like your AU!

thank you!!!!!!!!! 💕😭 i don’t mind explaining the premise actually! so the comic itself is basically just one long conversation between sheik & ganondorf, based on some random dialogue i wrote a while back that ended up informing a lot of the main themes of the AU now. specifically it’s about the sheikah concept of Truth. sheik understands that a true sheikah— especially one who is also the chosen bearer of wisdom— must be able to perceive a ‘true’ reality in order to make informed decisions. but sheik really only knows two people who are trained to see Truth (without the aid of a tool)— impa, and of all people, ganondorf.

impa becomes sort of dismissive whenever sheik asks to be taught the same skill, despite the fact that it seems so essential to becoming a sheikah. impa is also completely immovable about stuff like this. so that leaves sheik with only one other option. and that is what the comic is about :-)

[simpalert]

just posting these old doodles a friend of mine made [they don't got tumblr]

its my bby orbit and his bro magmus <3

[riftensucks]

It obviously means less with dunmer and bosmer lifespans, but in human aus, what if I just made Dartwing 38. What if this horrible commitmentphobe with 30 layers of fake identities and no real relationship ever was almost 40 and still had a situationship with a 19 year old valedictorian + roller derby state champion who wakes up at 5 to drink raw eggs before her workout. And she's losing the situationship.

[velvetwyrme]

aHhh okay so the discussions of Titan!Megatron on @callsign-relic's blog have fully. FULLY taken over my brain and ive been drawing stuff for it for like the last few days nonstop

the tl;dr of this is AU is pretty much "what if Megatron got turned into a titan/cityformer as a form of penance/imprisonment and now roams the empty wasteland of Cybertron forever" plus "IDW Megatron has really fucked up internals so... what if that, but as a City?"

and of course since he's a Titan, that also means he has a cityspeaker... or three. One per sub-AU thing. Theres 3 options. 3 flavours of AU.

i have so much art to make. but in the meantime, for more info! check out the #titan au tag on Relic's blog :]!! (also uhh potential ns//fw warning for the link shfjbdkd)

Hi. My battery is running out once again so design and art notes get chucked here instead of an image.

The cuffs and collar are hardwired into Megatron, so I made the lights the same colour as his biolights!

I imagine that on the tops of his shoulders there are solar panels, even if you can't see them here lol.

I really wanted to keep the swirly bits on Megatron's chest from IDW

Other art notes:

The second picture with the seekers is (loosely) inspired by a discussion about whether or not Megatron gets visitors or not. I thought about who would visit him and well... I think this is as close as Starscream realistically gets to visiting him.

Extra detail about that piece is that Thundercracker and Skywarp are keeping watch from above! Also drawing Megatron took me like 8 hours because I was struggling with his legs really badly kshffkbfkdsbdk,, the background went much faster, funnily enough.

Optimus specifically isn't wearing his Autobot badge any more.

This isn't relevant in this series of images, but Ultra Magnus's eye markings are only on the Magnus armour. His other two forms do not have them :] (... until he begins to discard the armour, that is.)

Megatron is roughly 3200m/2 miles tall. Technically he could have clouds around his knees, but I thought this looked a little bit cooler lol.

Also, height chart! Him big. I didn't even attempt to put a human for scale because that'd be. near impossible with this scale.

[hyolks]

Hullo i would like to let you know your Fma art makes me want to chew through drywall /pos

AJSDHFLKS thank you so much!! o7 these blokes make me crush things with my mind

[lowqualitygarbage]

@gayvoidobject Wait, im stupid or wha- on who is angel looking at? IS IT HUSK?

He is! Vault 666 is my Fallout AU, and Husk is a Ghoul.

Not sure how familiar you are with Fallout, so I'm sorry for the infodump if you already knew all the background:

Ghouls are people who got severe radiation exposure, but instead of dying, they kind of mutate into semi-immortal beings that actually benefit from radiation. But they still suffered awful radiation burns, and the radiation exposure caused a lot of tissue death, so they also end up with necrotic/gangrenous tissue as well as lots of scarring.

They're basically zombies in the setting, but they're still alive (feral Ghouls are a common enemy type, and act like fast, aggressive mindless zombies). Lots of Ghouls have distinctly gravelly and/or low voices, depending on which game you're playing. Many also adopt kind of weird names for themselves, and their settlements have death-themed names, and since they can't die from old age in most settings, a lot of the Ghouls you meet are several hundred years old.

So when I was redesigning the characters for the AU, I saw "grumpy old man with alcohol issues and a sexy voice" and immediately needed to make him a Ghoul. His name even kind of fits.

Plus, this way he gets to keep his heart-shaped nose (cavity).

He's very dressed down here because they're working in the dirt, but he's usually in a very sloppily done-up suit, coat, and ushanka, which give him more of a Husk silhouette and color scheme.

Despite lending his resources and staff to Charlie for her Hotel, Alastor himself usually kept to his radio station, popping in seemingly at random just to watch them struggle. As time passed, however, Charlie noticed a change in his visits. He had started to linger, despite still refraining from joining in on her planned activities, and on some daytime visits she noticed him pacing around the perimeter of the Hotel, scuffing marks into the packed dirt where shadows fell. Later, his building crews began putting up low wire fences that wouldn’t be much use for defense.

One morning, she was jarred out of bed by a cheerful reveille and dragged outside to find stacks of dirt, fertilizer, seeds, starter plants, and tools. The whole crew spent the morning digging up the grounds of the hotel, turning the soil over and planting while he lectured them on how to maintain a garden.

Later that night, after they wiped off the sweat and dirt and Vaggie was helping apply cream to her sunburn, she asked Charlie why she was still so giddy after hard labor all day. Charlie beamed at her girlfriend and explained that this garden meant Alastor was planning for their future.

Keep reading

[pa1nrema1ns]

Two Intertwining Melodies || Sung Jin-woo (Part 2 of 3)

Siren!Jin-woo x Deaf!Omega!reader

A/N: Hello again everyone! Thank you so much for all of your interest and feedback on part one of this series. Due to the sheer enormity of the second chapter, I've decided to expand the siren au into a trilogy rather than a two-parter. My dear friend and beta reader @forbidden-sunlight has been an absolutely incredible source of support in the creation of this story. She also wrote the imagine that inspired this au. Links to the prologue and first chapter are posted below. Do be sure to read them first before continuing. And as always, heed the content warnings that are listed.

╰┈➤ Chapter Index

🦪 Prologue by @forbidden-sunlight 🧜‍♂️ Part 1: Master and Apprentice 🦈 Part 3: In a Sea of Fire

Content warnings: 18+MDNI, canon divergent, graphic descriptions of gore, death, and violence, afab!reader, reader is a makeup artist and hair stylist in the entertainment industry, a/b/o dynamics, heavy mentions of heat cycles, knotting, and breeding, threats of assault/non-con made by Kang Taeshik towards the reader (Jinchul intervenes and protects her), suggestive themes, some sexual descriptors, mythical creatures au, yandere!Jin-woo.

Word count - 9.6k

Summary - You find yourself returning to your childhood home of Jindo Island after receiving the offer of a lifetime. However, you can't shake the feeling that someone or something is watching you.

Dividers by @anitalenia and @firefly-graphics

[Skill: "Monarch’s Domain" Has Been Activated.]

“Come on out!”

A cacophony of deafening blasts, wails, and the clash of steel rings across the crimson-tinged horizon of the one hundredth floor of the Demon’s Castle; a perfect accompaniment to the Armageddon currently taking place. Infantrymen by the hundreds emerge from the shadows to skewer Baran’s forces while Iron, Igris, and Tank slaughter the larger and more formidable combatants with wanton brutality. Issuing a non-verbal command, Jin-woo orders Tusk to incinerate his enemies with ‘Song of Inferno,’ and a calamitous ball of flames bursts forth, eradicating most of the battalion.  

“Amazing… on all the top floors I’ve been with him, I’ve seen nothing quite like this,” Esil whispered in awe. Although she was a demon princess who grew up in this wasteland and had seen many spectacular sights, the power of commanding shadow soldiers was most certainly not one of them.

In contrast to his companion, Jin-woo calmly observes the cataclysmic destruction with a piercing gaze. Despite gaining the upper hand against his troops, Baran remained steadfast in his refusal to engage directly in the ensuing fight. This simply would not do. Jin-woo needed to secure his victory in this decisive battle, and fast.

Jinwoo’s opponent possessed the last ingredient required to craft the Holy Water of Life: The Purified Blood of the Demon Monarch. A fortnight of endless fighting had culminated to this moment, and he was on the precipice of triumph. But the Demon King was unlike any adversary he had ever faced before. Jin-woo could gauge just from the sheer murderous energy emanating from him that Baran was in a league of his own. And his power spoke for itself: endless demon hordes at his beck and call, a wyvern as a mount, and an insurmountable supply of mana that showed no signs of running out. Jin-woo would need to approach his foe strategically lest he lose this war of attrition.

At long last, as if he could sense the siren’s impatience, the Demon King makes his move. He bids his steed to fly at a lower altitude. Once within range, Baran unhinges his jaw and unleashes a massive beam of white lightning. Within seconds, thunder runs rampant throughout the land, devastating everything in its path. However, Jin-woo and his shadow army stand strong regardless of the imminent danger.  The siren even has the audacity to smirk. 

So Baran thought he could defeat him with electricity? Excellent. He really could not have asked for a better opponent. As luck would have it, Jin-woo’s oceanic nature gave him the edge in this situation. The surface of water, acting as a conductor of electricity, causes high voltages and amps to spread rapidly. With this in mind, Jin-woo launches a counterattack.

“Wreak havoc on all who dare to stand in my way, Charybdis!”

Powerful torrents of black seawater manifest from the shadows just before Baran’s attack could hit him. The rushing stream then runs across the land and coalesces into a violent maelstrom in the sky. The raging vortex absorbs most of the lightning in its maw before redirecting its flow towards the Demon King. Baran wills his steed to evade by canting to the left, but Tusk incapacitates him by striking the wyvern’s wing with a blast of fire magic. The Demon King leaps from his mount’s back before it’s forced into the whirlpool and electrocuted. He lands gracefully on his feet and shoots a sinister grin at Jin-woo.

“It was worth it to let Tusk have the sphere,” the siren remarks nonchalantly, as if it was just any other day and not a fight to the death. “I’m glad you’re finally on the ground. Constantly looking up was making me tired.”

With the Demon King grounded, Jin-woo no longer required the aquatic effects of Charybdis. The dark water above evaporates as it returns to the abyssal depths of the ocean, its job now complete. With this hindrance finally gone, Baran doesn’t hesitate to release another beam of white thunder, this one even greater than the last. Tusk attempts to lessen the impact with ‘Song of Protection’, but the force of taking a direct hit ends up obliterating him. Undeterred by his comrade’s demise, Iron bellows at Baran and slashes at his body with his axe. But he proves to be no match for the speed of the Demon King, who ruthlessly splits his head in half. Igris then valiantly joins the fray and swings his great sword at the demon. However, this too is a fruitless endeavor, as Baran swiftly catches his blade and wipes him out with a flick of his wrist.

Just as Igris’s body fades, Jin-woo emerges from the ashes in his true sirenic form, Knight Killer and Baruka’s dagger at the ready. “Scylla!” He snarls a second incantation that brings forth another wave of black water, this time in the shape of a six-headed beast. The aqueous leviathan slams into Baran, crushing his body under its weight and submerging the entire floor of the dungeon in water. The Demon King swiftly breaks free from the tides and springs onto the roof of one of the sole remaining towers. Soaking wet and surrounded by large bodies of water, Baran ends up on the defensive; if he were to use his lightning, he risked electrocuting himself. Jin-woo was also in an environment that favored him, and the Demon King could not pinpoint his whereabouts while he was swimming underwater.

Even with this advantage, the gap in power was still significant between the two. Knowing this, Jin-woo doesn’t allow him a moment of reprieve. He uses his tail to project his body from the currents and launches at the Demon King with his daggers. The demon responds in kind, countering his onslaught with a flurry of strikes from his own weapons. Jin-woo holds his own against the extraordinary speed of Baran’s slashes. But he was low on mana, and fatigue was rapidly building up. While oceanic magic was incredibly effective, it incurred a high cost of mana. This, coupled with an extended exposure to a dry, fiery atmosphere, was having a seriously detrimental effect on his endurance. It was time to end the battle after dragging it out for so long. Jin-woo just needed an opportunity to catch the demon off guard– 

Klang!

A loud noise reverberates in the dungeon as a lance ricochets off Baran’s head. The demon redirects his focus to the sheepish face of Esil. Huh? I thought I told her to head for higher ground. When did she…? Jin-woo ponders briefly before banishing the thought. He requested a distraction, and someone kindly provided him with one. He wasn’t about to squander his only chance.

Using Baran’s hesitation to his advantage, Jin-woo discards his short swords and sinks his fangs into the Demon King’s neck, crushing down on his windpipe. As Baran struggles to throw him off, Jin-woo unsheathes his claws and gouges out chunks of flesh. The demon howls in agony, his pained cries music to the siren’s ears. “How stupid of me,” Jin-woo sneers, his voice deepening in pitch as his actions became more monstrous, “I was fighting you like a man this entire time, when this is who I really am. Heh, I guess being disguised as a human for so long made me forget.”

Summoning all his strength, Jin-woo uses his muscular arms to tear Baran’s torso from his body. The vicious mauling completely eviscerates the demon, with only his entrails being left over in its wake. His victory now secured, Jin-woo exhaustedly slumps to the ground and reverts to his human appearance. The throes of battle destroyed most of his clothes, much to his chagrin. The only apparel that remained intact were his tattered jeans, and those only just spared his modesty. He scoffed in annoyance; he’d need to purchase a new wardrobe soon to make himself more presentable for you …

“Jin-woo, sir!” Esil dashes towards him with a worried look on her cute face. The siren smirks, satisfied despite the many setbacks he faced during this confrontation.

“Esil, tell your father the Radis clan is now the number one family.”

“Jin-woo sir,” the demon girl responds exasperatedly, “Our family name is Radir.”

6:00 AM, on the outskirts of Jindo Island…

Jin-woo deeply inhales the crisp morning air as he soars through the endless skies. Much had transpired in the short time between the conclusion of his showdown with Baran and now. He had gained the Purified Blood of the Demon Monarch, along with the World Tree Fragment, and Spring Water from Echo Forest. With these three components, he was at last able to craft the Holy Water of Life. Once finished, he cradled the precious vial in his palm, as if trying to ascertain proof of its existence. Afterwards, Jin-woo deposited it into his magical inventory for safekeeping.

Of course, the elixir was just one of the many spoils of war he had claimed. Kaisel, the wyvern who now served as his mount, was his for the taking after Baran’s death. The gift of flight had expedited the journey home, much to his joy. A rune stone had also provided him with the skill, ‘Shadow Exchange,' a means of trading places with any of his soldiers scattered throughout land and sea. Thanks to this new ability, he was able to leave that hellish landscape. After being gone for what felt like eons, Jin-woo was desperate to return. To his family. To Ashborn. To you.

He’s relieved when the familiar cityscape of Jindo-gun comes into view. He estimates it would take roughly 15 more minutes for them to arrive over the briny waters. However, before they can make it past the coastline, the spellbinding fragrance of bergamot and vanilla overwhelms Jin-woo’s senses. This could mean only one thing: you were nearby. The headiness of your musk had also gotten more potent in his absence, signifying your fertility.

“Fuck!” Jin-woo’s hisses as desire courses hot and heavy through his veins. He tries to resist the temptation of your pheromones, but you smelt so damn good; so ready and willing for him and his knot –

Jin-woo grunts as he bites down hard enough on his bottom lip to draw blood. The pain causes him to regain some mental clarity, and he wills himself to calm down. But it’s of no use. His thoughts were currently being clouded by lust and the instinctual drive to breed. Those two weeks he endured in the Demon’s Castle had significantly intensified his longing for you, and the pent-up sexual frustration was coming to a head. Jin-woo really had to nip this in the bud. His stamina was at its limit, and he was in no condition to be seen by you. The siren also desperately needed to go home and check in on his mother and Jin-ah. He was the only alpha and protector of their family after the disappearance of his father. He couldn’t afford to waste another—

The wind carries your scent as it blows past Jin-woo’s face a second time. It was as if you were beckoning him like some sort of enchantress. Unable to ignore your maddening aroma, Jin-woo at last gives in. He knew the decision he was about to make was foolish, reckless even. But he must heed the call of his omega.

He silently apologizes to his mother and Jin-ah and asks them to wait just a little longer. “I’ll only introduce myself… maybe I can even get her name,” he tries to reason with himself while slowly succumbing to delirium. His mind made up, Jin-woo commands Kaisel to deliver him to the area where your scent is the strongest. The wyvern then returns to the void shortly thereafter, leaving the worn out siren to his own devices.

Grainy sand molds against his bare feet as stumbles across the beach in search of you. “Shit. If this keeps up, I might not make it back to Mom and Jin-ah.” Jin-woo mumbles softly. He really was in poor form. Maybe it had been a mistake to depart immediately for Jindo island without taking a break in between. Damn. 

As black spots start to obscure his vision, Jin-woo’s gaze finally lands on you. His lips quirk into a tired smile. Even through blurry eyes, you looked absolutely stunning while standing in the sunlight. Like an earthly goddess.

With his consciousness ebbing further and further away, the siren musters up the last of his energy to stagger towards you. He makes it only two steps before his body gives out and he collapses. Rather than hitting the hard ground, a soft and warm embrace met Jin-woo. He blearily cracks open an eye, curious about what broke his fall. It was at that moment your lovely, albeit worried face greeted him. Pretty, he thinks, exhaustion finally taking its toll on him. The last thing Jin-woo remembers before the darkness overtakes him is the soothing smell of bergamot and vanilla.

Two weeks ago, someone or something had been watching you. It was during the first day of filming the mystery-thriller, ‘Murder on the Cerulean Sea’, a passion project by renowned producer, Go Gun-hee. The man had an incredible work ethic, with a career spanning over 40 years and numerous accolades to his name. He had recently come out of retirement, and the entertainment industry was buzzing with anticipation. Known as a cinematic miracle maker, every motion picture Go Gun-hee produced set box office records. Suffice to say, you had been over the moon after finding out you were amongst the few who made the cut for makeup artists hired to work on set. Although the instant you found out where the filming location was to take place, you immediately felt your enthusiasm dampen. Jindo-gun. At one point, this had been your home. Now, it was but a distant memory.

You had spent most of your childhood on the island of Jindo. Its scenic beaches, sprawling forests, and crystalline waters made it ideal for shooting a film based on a luxury yacht charter. There was one major caveat however: the sirens. Several pods of these unpredictable creatures resided off the coast of Jindo, and the alphas were infamous for their aggression, especially during the height of the mating season.

Growing up, your parents warned you time and time again not to walk alone along the shores at night. "Don’t ever go to the beach by yourself after dark," your mother had signed this to you almost every day. A constant reminder to stay safe and vigilant of your surroundings. Townsfolk also gossiped and shared sordid stories about the lost souls who fell victim to the sirens. But this wasn’t just word of mouth, a child’s fairytale, or mere superstition. These deadly apex predators were very much real, and a troublingly high number of homicides were committed by them each year. Unfortunately, this did little to dissuade foolhardy tourists and arrogant fishermen from pouring into the island during the hotter months of spring and summer.

Eager to escape the foreboding atmosphere, you had applied to and been accepted into a 2-year cosmetology program in Busan shortly after finishing high school. Makeup had always been a strong interest of yours and with the support of both your parents you flourished in your craft.

Although you had been nervous about the transition from quaint suburbia to the big city life, you found yourself quickly growing accustomed to the fast-paced environment. Your school had also been very accommodating, providing you with a sign language interpreter and captioning services for your classes. A kindhearted young woman by the name of Lee Joohee had been assigned as your interpreter during your time in Busan. You became fast friends and remained close even after graduation.

After receiving your license, you relocated to a small apartment in Seoul and began working as a hair and makeup artist in stage productions, commercials, and musicals. You greatly enjoyed the creativity and networking opportunities of your profession, often getting to bump shoulders with many well-known actors and actresses. Within a few years, your portfolio grew considerably. This enabled you to broaden your horizons by breaking into the film industry. ‘Murder on the Cerulean Sea,’ would be your first foray into this competitive market and you wanted to prove yourself as a newcomer to the scene. So, despite your reservations, you begrudgingly agreed to board the private jet headed for Jindo island.

If you recall correctly, the mating season for the sirens wouldn’t take place for another four months, so everything should proceed without a hitch… right?  

You began to feel a little more at ease when you found out Cha Hae-In and Yoo Jinho were cast in major roles in the movie. You had first met them when they were both burgeoning stage actors. Cha was surprisingly camera shy and preferred to keep a more subdued profile whereas Jinho was outgoing and incredibly humble despite his privileged background. The bubbly brunet was the youngest son of the chairman of Yoojin Construction Company, a major industrial conglomerate in South Korea.

Although you came from different walks of life, the three of you had hit it off right away, finding common ground in your passions for campy horror films. You even taught them a few signs, and this inspired Jinho to devote himself fully to learning sign language. Cha also practiced her signs with you whenever she had the chance, but her busy schedule often made it difficult for her to find spare time. Nevertheless, you were deeply touched by the efforts made by both of your friends.

While taking a break on set, you felt a pair of eyes boring into you as you were relaxing with Cha and Jinho. At first, you chalked it up to paranoia. It had been years since you visited the island, and you’d nearly forgotten how oppressive the ocean seemed at night. But it was the middle of May. The mating season for the sirens would not take place until September at the earliest. Regardless, the sensation of being watched still lingered even after the mysterious presence had left.

There was also the enthralling scent of lavender and sandalwood thickly permeating the air. It had a distinctly masculine undertone to it that had piqued your interest. It was far too strong to be from a couple spritzes of cologne or perfume, yet more subtle than the pungent smell emanating from many of the alphas who composed the cast and crew onboard the yacht. Their musk was overbearing at best, but this fragrance was entirely different. It was sweet. Delicate. Intoxicating…

You had to find the source of it. Making up an excuse about wanting to get more fresh air, you stay behind on the deck of the ship while your friends return to their accommodations to retire for the evening. As you lean over the railing to scope out the scent, an intense wave of heat suddenly ignites in your lower belly causing you to gasp and buckle at the knees. It briefly lingers in your abdomen before shooting directly to your core. You bite back a moan as your eyes flutter shut from the pleasure spreading throughout your body. Slowly but surely, you were entering into a primal state; one of pure unbridled arousal. You should be concerned. No, you should be horrified. You were so vulnerable, so out of sorts. And yet…

You had never felt so exhilarated. It was as if ecstasy became you. You were ascending higher and higher to parts unknown, all semblance of rationality long since abandoned. The coil in your gut was wound so tight, it was at its breaking point. If this continued, you would inevitably plummet over the edge and succumb to your baser instincts –  

The metallic odor of copper violently infiltrates the air, abruptly bringing you back to your senses. Your eyes bolt open, and you release a shaky breath. You’re surprised to find yourself on your knees. They must’ve given out on you at some point. However, your shock shifts to horror when you catch sight of an unruly mop of purple hair from the corner of your eye.

It could only belong to one individual: Kang Taeshik.

Shit. You’d been acquainted with the man just yesterday, but he terrified you. Taeshik was an up-and-coming actor on the scene; one who excelled in any role he played. In spite of this, the first impression he left on you was enough to make you keep your distance. Although Taeshik’s demeanor was docile, there was a cold and calculating look in his eyes that made you shudder. It reminded you of a predator eyeing its prey. The most off-putting aspect of the man, however, was his stomach-churning scent. He positively reeked of blood.

You could feel panic setting in as he began to saunter towards you, a lascivious smirk spread across his face like a dark promise. You’re unable to rise to your feet, still weakened and lightheaded from the erotic sensations affecting you earlier. Worse yet, you feel a lump in your throat, making it difficult to shout or scream for help should the need arise. You were essentially cornered, defenseless, and alone with a menacing alpha. And if the pungency of his musk was anything to go by, he was on the verge of a rut. You sink back into yourself in fear and begin to tremble uncontrollably.

You can see Taeshik’s mouth moving as he closes in on you. You’d become adept at lip reading over the years, although it was difficult to decipher everything he was saying in the darkness. The only words that you can make out are "little omega" and "whore." Your blood curdles. Someone, anyone, please help me! You silently plead, knowing it was futile. For a moment, you foolishly imagine the owner of that enticing scent coming to your rescue.

Thankfully, just before Taeshik can grab you, a large hand envelops his wrist in a vice grip.

The purple haired nightmare cants his gaze to the side and narrows his eyes. He’s greeted by the furious expression of none other than the film’s director, Woo Jinchul. Relief floods your chest at the sight of him. Thank God, you think.

Taeshik rips his arm away and leaps back, creating some distance between himself and the taller man. Jinchul quickly assumes a protective stance in front of you. His broad back prevented you from seeing your would-be assailant, something you were extremely grateful for. For a few tense moments, you can only sit and stare at Jinchul’s imposing figure as he confronts the other man.

Despite how scared you are, you wish you could partake in the conversation if only to defend yourself. Taeshik may try to manipulate the situation by implicating you as an instigator or seductress, something many male actors in the industry unfortunately got away with due to their connections or wealth. It was despicable and made you seethe with anger at the salacious lies and rumors spread by the press and social media.

After several minutes, Taeshik departs with nary but a shrug of indifference. Apparently Jinchul’s status and power as director did nothing to intimidate him. He waits until Taeshik’s figure disappears before turning to face you. There’s an uncharacteristic warmth in his usually hard gaze, and you’re able to catch a whiff of his natural scent: cardamom and cedarwood, a calming combination.

Jinchul gently offers his hand and effortlessly hoists you to your feet. Your legs are still somewhat stiff but functional now. He permits you to steady yourself by grasping onto his shoulders and it doesn’t escape you how oddly intimate these actions are. As if to further prove this, Jinchul, in a strange display of affection, tucks a loose strand of hair behind your ear. Your breath hitches.

A beat passes before the realization of what he just did hits him. Jinchul’s eyes widen, and he quickly snatches his hand back as if he was scalded. And was it your imagination, or were his ears turning pink? He awkwardly clears his throat before opening his mouth. ‘Are you alright? Did Taeshik harm you in any way?’ You read his lips closely, appreciating the pauses and slow enunciation of his words. Jinchul was aware that you could lip read rather efficiently, and this made it easier to communicate with him since he would not have to always rely on an interpreter.

You shake your head and see him breathing a sigh of relief. ‘He won’t ever be allowed near you again; I will make sure of it.’ Jinchul is back to his usual no-nonsense demeanor it seems. But what had caused him to act so… tender towards you? And Taeshik? The man had always been creepy and taciturn, but he never went out of his way to torment you. If Jinchul hadn’t arrived at just the right time, you could have been assaulted. You feel bile rising to your throat at the thought. Why was this happening? You were always careful and made sure to take your heat suppressants every day. None of the alphas you worked with had ever tried to hurt you before, so why? Unless you were going into heat, but that shouldn’t be possible…

You suddenly break into a sob, overcome with emotion. Your distress causes Jinchul to spring into action. He promptly removes his blazer and drapes it over your shoulders to ward off the chill of the night. Jinchul then produces an embellished handkerchief from his pocket and hands it to you. He hesitates before placing a comforting hand on your shoulder and his lips move again. ‘I’m here for you,’ he mouths. You wipe away the tears with the handkerchief and stifle your cries into its soft fabric. All the while, Jinchul remains by your side and grants you as much time as you need to collect yourself. When the tears finally run their course, you lower the ruined cloth from your face and chance a timid glance at him.

Jinchul regards you with a pensive expression on his sharp features. He withdraws his hand from your shoulder and reaches back into his pocket to pull out his phone. He then begins typing away and once finished with his message, he hands the device over to you, displaying the contents of his notebook app.

"As director of this film, I want you to know that I will always prioritize the wellbeing of our cast and crew. With that being said, the actions I witnessed Kang Taeshik commit tonight were morally reprehensible. I won’t disclose the full details of the discussion I had with him, as I do not wish to cause you any further emotional distress. I will say that I can personally attest to the fact that Kang Taeshik sought to menace and harm you while you were in a vulnerable state of heat."

You feel your heart sink into the pit of your stomach as you skim over the last sentence. So Jinchul knew you had unexpectedly gone into heat? Of course he would; he was an alpha. How could you have been so stupid? The director was most certainly going to see you as a liability now… you may even end up losing your job.

You reluctantly force yourself to continue reading. If this to be the conclusion of your tenure, then at least you would see it through to the bitter end.

"Please do not blame yourself for what has happened. Your disposition as an omega has no bearing on your contract or employment, nor does it offer an excuse for an alpha, or anyone for that matter, to harass you. It is with impartial and sound judgment that I have made the executive decision to terminate Kang Taeshik and remove him from production effective immediately. This will cause some inevitable delays, but an impromptu casting call can be arranged in the meantime. I’m willing to run over schedule if it guarantees everyone’s safety."

You exhale and feel all the tension dissipate from your body. So, you weren’t the one being let go, Taeshik was. You hadn’t known much about Woo Jinchul beforehand, but you were thankful that he was a man of good character. This was becoming exceedingly rare in an industry composed of unscrupulous and morally bankrupt members of the upper echelons.

You type back a response before handing him his phone.

"I am so sorry for all the trouble I’ve caused you. I really don’t understand what happened. I’ve been taking suppressants for years, and an alpha has never tried to threaten me before. Thank you for stepping in to protect me. I really don’t know what he was planning to do."

You couldn’t help but apologize even though Jinchul had vindicated you. What leaves you reeling, however, is the reply he gives you when the mobile device is back in your hands.

"I should be the one to apologize, not you. My behavior towards you earlier was incredibly uncouth, and for that, I am deeply sorry. As director, I should be conducting myself in a manner that is more befitting. Instead, I allowed my instincts as an alpha to impair my judgement. I promise this shall not happen again."

Uncouth behavior? Did he mean when he was brushing your hair from your face? How could he be apologetic about something so innocuous?  The implications don’t fully register until you replay that last sentence: My instincts as an alpha. Instincts…alpha…!?!

He was reacting to your pheromones.

That evening, Jinchul insisted on having you treated at the on-site infirmary. Alas, with few medical staff and even less equipment it was difficult to determine what was causing your symptoms. Was it possible your medication was no longer working? Omega suppressants were highly effective, but that didn’t mean they were infallible. A missed dose or interaction with another drug could negate the effects. But you weren’t taking any other medications, and you never missed a dose.

Needing a second opinion, you were transported to the emergency room at a nearby hospital for further evaluation. Jinchul had opted to let Cha and Jinho drive you there after explaining your circumstances to them (minus the issue with Kang Taeshik; he was keeping it under wraps for now). Unlike him, they were both betas which made them immune to your pheromones.

You ended up being kept overnight for observation. After running a series of tests, including labs to assess your hormones and an ultrasound, you were found to be undergoing a pseudo estrus or ‘false heat’ as it’s more commonly referred to.

Unlike a regular heat, a false heat occurs only when a highly compatible alpha is within close vicinity of an omega. This in turn triggers a massive release of pheromones leading to an increase in libido, fever-like symptoms, cramping, and fatigue. Whoever this alpha was, their presence was so virile that your heat suppressants were fully canceled out by them.

You were questioned extensively about your experience by the healthcare team. "Do you have any partners? Are you sexually active? Is there anyone you work with who is an alpha? When did you first start experiencing the signs of your heat?" The list was never-ending. With the help of an interpreter, you answered everything to the best of your ability. And by the end of it all, you were still at a loss.

No one on that yacht had been emitting that scent, you were sure of it. It had to have been someone wholly unrelated. Perhaps a fisherman or a swimmer? But it was late and everyone who was local to the island knew better than to risk the waters at night. Everyone except you and the entourage on board the yacht, that is.

Frustrated, you eventually gave up on trying to figure out the identity of your potential mate. Your physician, a compassionate fellow omega by the name of Min Byung-Gu, strongly recommended an entire week of bed rest for you. This was to serve as a means of letting the heat cycle run its course. You were also provided with prescription medications to alleviate your symptoms.

Resting was crucial. Any physical stress or strain could worsen your condition, and omegas were particularly susceptible to injury or illness while at their sexual peak. In addition to this, your doctor recommended ceasing all contact with alphas, effectively barring you from returning to work. You were crestfallen at this, but you acquiesced knowing it was for the sake of your recovery.

To avoid any mishaps, Jinchul arranged for you to stay in a penthouse for the time being. The lavish suite was situated on the very top floor of a deluxe condominium, affording you all the personal comforts and privacy you would need. You couldn’t help but snort when you opened the door to your new living quarters. It was like you were a goddamn princess trapped in a tower.

As if that wasn’t enough, your boss had also hired two very intimidating bodyguards. Both were betas who had been tasked with protecting you during your heat. The first to be introduced was a hulking beast of a man called Thomas Andre. He was huge, with a herculean frame that looked to be made of steel rather than flesh and blood. A wild mane of blonde hair and intricate patterns of black ink also adorned his chest and arms, making him even more imposing.

The disarming smile he gives you is anything but, however. He’s also surprisingly gentle with you when he shakes your hand.

Your other bodyguard had a physicality that was far less egregious, but his razor-edged gaze, unnervingly calm composure, and the bulging muscles of his arms revealed a powerful aura that was not to be underestimated. This man had gone by the name of Liu Zhigang, a master swordsman of the highest caliber and one of the strongest individuals in China.

He too, had been unexpectedly friendly, even going so far as to ruffle your hair and calling you a “good girl,” in his native language. Your interpreter had been particularly scandalized while signing this to you after you were insistent on finding out what he said. You, on the other hand, thought it was rather cute, especially when juxtaposed with his tough guy image. There had also been no ill intent or malice in his words; he was being genuinely amiable to you, just as Thomas Andre had been.

Perhaps you could make do with this situation. But you could only imagine how hefty of a price tag these two highly skilled warriors could warrant. Jinchul was sparing absolutely no expense on you. He must have felt terribly guilty about your traumatic experience that night…

You make a vow with yourself not to take his generosity for granted.

And so, the next week passes by rather uneventfully. You ended up becoming stir crazy right from the beginning. You had been so accustomed to the fast-paced lifestyle of a makeup artist and hair stylist that the very concept of wasting the day away seemed foreign. Gone were the 12–14-hour shifts that had once encompassed your daily routine. It was maddening, this sudden lack of purpose.

Sleeping, reading, eating, and binge-watching dramas with closed captioning had been your main escape from the dullness of being confined to bed all day. No one, not even your parents, Jinho, or Cha had been permitted to visit you while on bedrest. Jinchul and Min Byung-Gu had advised you to limit all external stimulation while you were in heat. You understood the importance of this, but it did nothing to prepare you for the overwhelming loneliness that awaited you.

Sure, your bodyguards had been cordial to you, but they were preoccupied with keeping watch over the premises and warding off any intruders. Neither one had time to engage with you beyond a simple greeting or farewell. Even your interpreter kept her presence scarce, coming only twice per day to check in with you and to relay messages from your friends, family, and the director.

It was as if you were a bird in a gilded cage. Locked away, out of sight, and out of mind. You hated every second of it. You wanted to curse the cruel hand you were dealt, to resent the alpha who had caused you all this misery in the first place. But…

You couldn’t bring yourself to do it no matter how unbearable the isolation became.

Once those seven agonizingly slow days were over and done, you were given medical clearance to resume your job. You never thought you would be so happy to work again. Of course, you still had some restrictions in place. Jinchul wanted you to take it easy, so he requested that you work no more than 4-6 hours per day. At this point, you were willing to do anything if it kept you out of that forlorn penthouse.

In addition to this, you were prescribed a significantly higher dosage of oral heat suppressants. It was to be used as a prophylactic to ensure you would not enter a second heat. The side-effects had been merciful, with nothing more than the occasional bout of nausea and a loss of appetite to show for.

Jinho and Cha were ecstatic to see you again, although your other colleagues were far less enthusiastic. The attentiveness and apparent favoritism towards you by the director did not go unnoticed. You were predictably met with the cold shoulder by many of your peers upon your return. It didn’t help that Jinchul had kept the confrontation between him and Taeshik confidential. Only executive producer Go and your bodyguards were made aware. This was done to protect you and to prevent the besmirching of your character by the media. The rest of the cast and crew had simply been told that Taeshik had departed from the film due to ‘irreconcilable and creative differences.’ The purple haired man’s PR team, for their part, also appeared to be going with this story.

Frankly, you could care less about what your coworkers thought of you. You were just glad that you never had to be around a horrible psychopath like Taeshik ever again. Cha and Jinho, on the other hand, had taken it upon themselves to act as your newly appointed bodyguards in Thomas’s and Zhigang’s stead. Any nasty gossip or snide remarks were met with a frosty glare from the blonde woman and threats of litigation from the heir apparent of Yoojin Construction.

You couldn’t have asked for better friends or a more considerate boss, but you were starting to find the constant protection and coddling from them to be too much. You were a woman with her own autonomy after all. And yet you were being treated like a piece of glass, as if you would shatter with the slightest gust of wind. It was suffocating and your newly toxic work environment certainly wasn’t making matters any better.

To keep yourself grounded (and from going insane) you had taken to embarking on early morning walks along the beach. The peace and tranquility were a welcome solace from the tumultuous reality of your situation. You could spend hours getting lost in the beauty of the dawning sun.

You should have known this temporary serenity was not to last.

That Sunday had started out much like any other morning. You poured yourself a cup of coffee, changed into a pair of leggings with a matching sports bra, and slid on some comfortable running shoes. It was a little before dawn, and you were hoping to catch the breathtaking sight of the sunrise along the sandy marshes of the island. You weren’t scheduled to work, so you had all the time in the world to explore and enjoy nature. You planned to make the most of it.

You start off by walking to a well-known bakery to purchase some freshly made kkwabaegi. The crispiness of the fried dough complements your coffee perfectly. After eating your sweet treat, you continue your journey, heading southbound for a local beach. The area was usually a tourist trap in the summer, but it was much less populated at this time of day.

The moment your foot connects with the sand, you are instantly hit by the familiar smell of lavender and sandalwood. You begin to panic.

 Shit! It was that alpha from a few weeks ago!

You know the right thing to do, the reasonable thing to do, would be to turn back and run. You were all alone in a secluded area with someone who was potentially dangerous. The last time you were near them, you had been rendered completely helpless just from their pheromones alone. If you got too close to them, you could end up going into another heat.

The other possibilities were more nightmarish. You’d heard horror stories about depraved alphas who would kidnap omegas and force them into becoming their mates against their will. Dominance amongst alphas these days was often synonymous with entitlement, something many of them would use to justify their disgusting actions. If this person nearby was of the same barbaric mindset…

Despite the storm of conflicting emotions raging within you, you remain rooted to the spot. It was just no use; you couldn’t convince yourself to retreat. Curiosity and the need for closure far outweighed your fear and anxiety. You had to find out the identity of this individual, regardless of the risk.

You steel yourself before nervously trudging in the direction of the scent. For whatever reason, the strength of the alpha’s pheromones was nowhere near the same extent as it was on that night. It was soothing this time, like a hot shower at the end of an exhausting day. Had the increased dose of your heat suppressants been responsible for this? Well, no use in questioning it now.

As the aroma grows stronger, you find yourself heading closer towards the sea. The sun was starting to peak over the tussling waves, and you briefly turned your head to avoid receiving an eyeful of blinding light. It’s in the periphery of your vision that you finally see him: the alpha that had been evading you for so long.

Even from a several yards away, you can tell he’s quite tall; standing at a height of around 185 cm. He’s also naked from the waist up, with only a pair of shredded jeans on his figure. But what captivates you most is the feverishness and intensity of his gaze. No one had ever looked at you like this before. It was almost reverent. Like you were some kind of deity.

The man staggers towards you slowly. Had he been hurt? There didn’t appear to be a scratch on him, although his remaining clothes were a mess. You reason that he must be experiencing heat exhaustion. This would explain why he had taken off his shirt. Your hackles lowered, you decide to throw caution to the wind and approach the man.

His body gives out just as you begin to close the distance between the two of you. You immediately pick up the pace, turning your walk into a jog. You’re able to catch him right before he falls face first into the sand. That was a close one, you think, releasing a breath you weren’t even aware you were holding. You’re able to fully take in the man’s appearance now that he was close enough to hold.

He was unspeakably handsome. As a stylist in the entertainment industry, you’ve seen your fair share of gorgeous celebrities. But all of them paled in comparison to the robust beauty of the man before you. Unblemished olive skin that was smooth to the touch. Silken ebony tresses that you were tempted to run your fingers through. And a God-like physique that had your pulse quickening. What you’d give to caress the rippling muscles of his torso...

Just who in the world was this ethereal alpha? And how was he able to sleep so soundly in the arms of a virtual stranger? The man had even nuzzled his face in between the valley of your breasts as if it was the most natural thing on earth! Oddly enough, you weren’t put off by his actions. In fact, you found them to be endearing. Was this what it was like to form a predestined bond with someone?

You briefly consider texting your friends to get help for the man but decide against it once you start weighing your options. If he was transported to the hospital, there was a chance he would be forcibly separated from you. What’s more, if it was found out that he was the one who caused your false heat, there could be far reaching consequences. You were still being monitored on set, and Jinchul might deem this man to be a threat to you.

He didn’t look to be injured, at least not physically, so you rule out the hospital. You deliberate for a few more minutes before ultimately choosing to wait and bide your time until he regained consciousness.

The two of you remain entangled in this strange embrace as stunning shades of orange, red, and yellow paint the sky. The waves shine incandescently in the sunlight, and you find yourself facing the ocean, distracted by its splendor. After a few minutes, you feel something shifting in your arms.

You return your focus to the man. He’s finally started to stir, groggily raising his head from your chest.  You both lock eyes, your wide-eyed gaze contrasting with his half lidded one. You see his chapped lips open and close, mouthing only one word: 'Omega.'

You feel a shiver run down your spine. Alpha, your inner omega silently preens, instinct taking over.

The man attempts to talk to you again, but you hush him with the gentle press of your index finger to his lips. He obeys right away and makes no further efforts to speak. You had many questions that you wanted to ask, but that could wait for just a little longer. Your alph – no, this alpha, was in desperate need of some water. He looked awfully parched.

You unzip the tote bag you brought with you and sift through its contents before producing a canteen filled with water. You open it and push the lid to his mouth, motioning for him to drink. He follows your orders without a second thought, taking several generous gulps. Rivulets of excess water drip from the corner of his mouth, down his Adam’s apple, and you find yourself getting distracted by his body again. You internally curse as you feel yourself growing wet. You discreetly press your thighs together, hoping to dull the ache building between them.

You fail to notice the flare of the man’s nostrils or his blown-out pupils as he watches your actions from the corner of his eye.

When he’s finally had his fill, you cap your canteen and place it to the side. You then reach into your pocket and pull out your phone. The man shoots you an uneasy look when he sees it in your hand. Was he unfamiliar with mobile devices? You type a quick message in your notebook app and turn the screen towards him.

“I’m going to use my phone to communicate with you because I have a hearing impairment. Is that alright? I just want to make sure you aren’t hurt.”

The boyish look of surprise that crosses his face while he reads doesn’t escape you. He must not have been expecting you to be deaf. You anxiously await his response, unsure of what his reaction will be.

His expression morphs into something akin to barely concealed wonder, and he nods his head. You breathe deep and type away on your phone again. Your next message elaborates on your concerns.

"First, can you tell me if you’re in any pain or if you’re injured? If you are, I can get an ambulance for you. My name is Y/N, by the way.”

His eyes quickly flit over your words. In response, he dips one of his fingers into the wet sand. You’re curious at first, until you start to recognize the shapes that he’s drawing as letters. Why was he writing in the sand? Was he not comfortable with using your phone?

Once finished, his message reads:

“I’m unharmed. I do not need help. Thank you for the water.”

Great, so he wasn’t hurt. Now you can finally focus on getting some damn answers!

You start typing furiously, pouring all your heart into unspoken anger. As soon as you’re finished you nearly slam the mobile device into the man’s face. He blinks owlishly, looking adorably confused by your actions. You don’t know whether you want to slap or kiss him.

“Now that I know you’re okay, can you please answer a few questions for me? Tell me, were you sailing near a large yacht a few weeks ago? There was this scent that day, an alpha’s scent. It smelt incredible. Ever since then, I’ve been trying to find this person. And then I came across you! You have the exact same smell as them! And you’re obviously an alpha yourself since you recognized me as an omega right away.  Please, just tell me who you are! I ended up going into heat because of that alpha, and I feel like I’ve been losing my mind over them!”

The man’s face flickers from shock to guilt as he reads your explosive words. You regret typing them almost immediately when you see the sadness in his steel gray eyes.

He tries to use your phone to write back, but he’s clumsy and ends up swiping his fingers over a bunch of random characters. He huffs and bites his lip, clearly embarrassed. Crap, now you were feeling even worse about unleashing your tirade on him. You’ve always had a temper on you, and it often led to you lashing out and hurting the people you cherished most. And now you had allowed your mounting frustration to get the better of you in front of this poor man. For all you knew, he could be an innocent bystander who was just trying to get some help after becoming overheated.

You had to set things right.

You gently take the phone from the man’s hands, place it in your lap, and cup his cheek. He nervously glances at you, afraid that you’ll still be mad at him. But he’s greeted by your warm smile instead. Reassured, his shoulders relax, and he leans into your touch. After a few moments, you withdraw your hand, eager to continue the conversation. You can’t help but mourn the loss of contact as you resume your typing, however. Your next message reads:

“I’m so sorry! I shouldn’t have taken out all my anger on you, especially when you probably don’t have anything to do with this. Please, allow me to start all over again and explain everything to you. Just so I can confirm if you’re the same person I bumped into several days ago. And don’t worry about having to use my phone. I’ve got a pen and a notebook you can write on.”

His eyes take on a hopeful sheen, and you have to force yourself to part from him in order to get to your bag. He really was too charming for his own good, this strange alpha…

That reminds you, you still hadn’t gotten his name!

Once the writing utensils are given to him, he starts scribbling away. His chicken scratch is barely legible, but it was better than nothing. Your handwriting wasn’t necessarily the best either, if you were being honest. He wrote:

“Omega, you are not at fault for anything. I should be the one asking for forgiveness. I wasn’t there for you when you needed me most. My name is Sung Jin-woo, an alpha from Jindo-gun. I am the person who was exploring the area around that large boat several nights ago. I became worried when I smelt an omega’s scent. It was you; you were the omega I was seeking that day. I should have shown myself to you sooner. What happened to you after I left? Did any other alphas approach you?"

Sung Jin-woo, huh? It suited him. He had an oddly formal way of writing though, one that clashed with his youthful appearance. This time, you don’t miss the possessiveness in his eyes as he writes that last sentence.

‘Did any other alphas approach you?’

You gulp, reminiscing over the entire ordeal with Kang Taeshik. Should you even tell Jin-woo? By now the problem had been resolved and Taeshik was already fired. There was no reason for you to make Jin-woo feel even worse about causing your heat.

In the end, you choose not to mention Taeshik. He was out of the picture, and you didn’t have to worry about him anymore.

You resume typing in your notebook app, your response stating:

“No, not really. My boss found me on the verge of passing out, though. He’s an alpha so he could tell why I wasn’t feeling well. I was taken to a hospital by my friends since they’re both betas. I had to stay in bed for a week, but as you can already tell I’m alright now. I’m just glad I was finally able to meet you, Jin-woo 😊 You see, I work on that big ship. I’m a makeup artist and hair stylist, and the yacht is the set for a movie that’s being filmed…”

The next few hours pass in companiable silence as you communicate through pen strokes and text messages. Both you and Jin-woo had shared a considerable amount about one another over this time span.

You learn that Jin-woo had grown up on the island, much like you. He lived with his mother and little sister on the outskirts of town and served as the sole provider of the family after his father passed away. When you question what he did for a living, he paused before writing he was a fisherman. This would explain why he was out so early in the morning. The most ideal times to fish were sunset and sunrise. But how had his clothes gotten torn up like that? When you asked, he merely answered that he fell off his boat and had almost gotten swept up in the propellor. Apparently, his shirt and pants had been destroyed by the turning of the blades. You were incredulous at first, given just how dangerous that sounded, but Jin-woo had a way of selling you with his words. You eventually found yourself believing him despite your previous skepticism. He must have also been fishing that night two weeks ago.

Jin-woo had asked you many questions as well. He seemed particularly concerned about your heat cycle. When you disclosed the cause of it was your compatibility with him, his entire body tensed. Jin-woo’s hands then started to shake and you took one of them in your own to calm him. He glances at you, and you’re taken aback by the fire in his eyes. For the briefest of moments, you fear that you might’ve revealed something you shouldn’t have. Before you can compose an apology, Jin-woo releases your hand, picks up his pen, and starts writing again. Once finished, he gives you the notebook with an expression of apprehension on his face.

“Is this something you’re comfortable with? Now that we’ve met, I’m really interested in getting to know you more. But how do you feel about me? Do you want to continue this conversation? I understand if you’d want me to leave after everything you were forced to endure.”

How did you feel about him?

You mull over all that’s occurred since returning to your hometown. You had never expected to encounter so many trials and tribulations. By all accounts, you had every right to cease any further contact with Jin-woo. But you were undeniably intrigued by him. He had been nothing but respectful of your boundaries, and you found yourself being drawn in by his earnest personality. If nothing else came from this meeting between the two of you, then at least you could become friends.

You type an honest response and wait on bated breath as he reads it:

“I’m not sure how I feel about us right now. Honestly, I don’t believe in things like destiny or fate when it comes to finding a soulmate. But I do want to continue seeing you. I also would like to learn more about you as a person. Maybe we can take things slow and figure it out from there. What do you say, Jin-woo😉?”

All the anxiety seems to melt away from Jin-woo’s face. A cute grin tugs at his lips, lighting his darkened visage.

His answer is succinct:

“I’d really like that, Y/N.”

Your heart skips a beat. That was the first time he used your name.

A small part of you starts to wonder if the two of you really are fated to be together. Cheesy as it sounds, you were more than willing to take a chance on this budding relationship with Jin-woo.

Little did you know this meeting would set in motion a series of tragic events that would shatter countless lives and forever leave a stain on the island’s reputation.

🔱 To be continued...

Tag list 1:

🪼 @the-dumber-scaramouche @ghostdoodlen

@skylar896 @phisen @eliciana

Tag list 2:

🐬 @asylrd @mochinon-yah

[radioactivepeasant]

Snippets: Free Day Friday

Aka "you've ruined a perfectly good Damas is what you did. Look at him, he's got anxiety"

(For context, I gave Damas a backstory of being last in line for Haven's throne, but also Last Man Standing. This had something to do with Praxis hating "the default king". Long post warning, it's a whole one-shot again)

At some point in his life, the Precursors had decided that Damas was their least favorite Maridius. Any time something went well for him, it had to be immediately balanced by something awful.

He found acceptance and camaraderie that he never had from his elder brothers among the Forward Guard in the war.

And then Menelaus and Nicostratus died stupid, pointless deaths trying to seize glory, leaving Damas the sole focus of his parents' hopes.

He found an escape from the pressures in running the numbers, working out which districts needed food more than soldiers, and which districts needed more protection than most.

And then Father died and Mother shut herself in a convent, no longer interested in anything to do with her disappointing youngest son.

He actually had support from people for focusing on them and not the nest-

And his eldest brother's childhood friend literally stabbed him in the back and left him to die in the desert.

For a time, he'd assumed things would never get better. That the Precursors were tired of reeling him in and out like a fish on the line. But the hook pulled once more and he found himself using the skills he'd learned from the guards who raised him, joining a rebellion against a tyrant and defeating him against the odds.

And then the Precursors let him have ten good years. They let him find love, and family. They let him become a father. And then they ripped it all away in the cruelest way possible.

Damas knew it was foolish to hope that Mar was alive. He knew Phobos had been right to move on from him -- from them -- and throw herself into operating the orphan barracks of the Cliffside district. But he couldn't let go yet.

So he'd endured. Two bitter years he'd endured. And when he found that scrap of a boy in the desert, only to watch him outdo warriors twice his age, he'd thought maybe things were getting better.

Jak was...hard to define. The kid had seen more combat than some of his most experienced scouts. He carried scars on par with the surviving child-soldiers of Atys's reign. And while he shared their distrust of authority in general, he had none of their understanding of ranks and rulers. He just...treated everyone like they were his equal.

And after the kinds of things he must have experienced in his short life, Jak probably had every right to consider himself the equal of any senior Wastelander.

And for a moment, Damas had foolishly let himself hope that the Precursors could leave well enough alone. That they'd just...let him have this-!

Annnnd then Jak had to go and break the one rule. The one law Damas had given him.

Do not compromise the Arena.

Six other candidates had been doing their third trial against the Leucas Freebooters in that Arena. Six other candidates whose results had to be thrown out, who had to wait for full citizenship, because Jak refused to fight, and Sig had decided to waltz into a trial without checking to see what the purpose of the trial was!

Damas was either going to lose his mind, or go fully rogue and declare war on the Precursors. He couldn't discount either option yet.

Deep breaths, Damas. Deep breaths.

Jak knew not to mess with the purity of the Arena. He knew that, didn't he? He couldn't have gotten this far without understanding how important it was to keep the trial balanced for all candidates! He had to have known the consequences for not only compromising the others' trials and putting them at risk of the Freebooters getting the upper hand on them, but open mutiny-!

He wanted to shake sense into the boy. Maybe smack him upside the head and hope it jarred his common sense loose. But he wasn't likely to get that chance.

Even if Sig had caused this, he had all three amulets. Jak only had two. Those two protected him from a lot, but not public mutiny. A challenge in private Damas could have handled.

He knew Jak -- he thought he knew Jak -- enough to make him understand whatever instruction or decision he had a problem with. He knew how to phrase things to make it sound like all Jak had done was ask for clarification.

He couldn't cover this one up. Not with this many witnesses.

Damas knew the name of the creature thrashing beneath his ribs. Terror.

It clawed at his lungs, coiled around them until he couldn't breathe. Kicked at his heart until he felt every beat like a hammer.

I can't lose him too. I won't lose him too!

He didn't know when, exactly, things had changed between them. Was it before he'd admitted that he'd never had a father to teach him- well, anything? Was it before his second trial, when Phobos had pointedly compared the boy to her own students? Was it her less than subtle hinting that he find his closure in helping the boy he'd dragged out of the mouth of death?

Did it even matter?

You've taken enough from me! You can't have him, too!

It was depressingly easy to mask fear with anger. He had been doing it all his life.

In hindsight, so had Jak.

Damas wondered later if that was why the boy didn't seem afraid. He glared at Damas the whole time, but in those eyes was a challenge: I see through you. You don't fool me.

Damas hoped no one else saw through him.

"What have you done?" he demanded, slamming the butt of his staff onto the stone with a ringing clang.

"One of those Freebooters could have shot you in the head -- shot your comrades -- because you threw down your gun! You placed yourself and them in danger!"

I stopped the trial because of you! Do you not grasp how serious this is?!

"Freebooters?!" Sig exclaimed in surprise before cutting himself off.

"And you, you're a veteran of the Arena! You have no excuse for this!" Damas snarled.

He knew he was going to have to set a punishment. If he didn't, the legislative council would. And he knew which of the two offenders they would favor.

"I shouldn't have to tell you the penalty for sabotaging citizenship trials!"

Sig risked a glance at Jak, then set his jaw.

"You're right," he said in a voice as artificially calm as Damas’s was artificially angry. "I don't have an excuse. I take full responsibility. Don't put this on Jak. He didn't know I'd be there."

Interesting. Sig was trying to protect Jak.

But in doing so, he was trying to force Damas into an impossible decision. One that would haunt him the rest of his life if he carried out the known sentence. After everything Sig had done for him, exile felt like blasphemy.

Damas clearly wasn't the only Spargan who thought so.

"Sire, think about this!" One of the Arena guards set foot on the pathway as if he intended to join the offenders.

"It can't end this way, it can't! Sig is one of us!"

One of his comrades, emboldened by his courage, joined him.

"He just came home from assignment!"

"Stop," Sig warned them, but was ignored.

"Lord Damas, Sig’s served faithfully as your spy in Haven two years! Surely it's not that surprising that he might forget to check a roster!"

"Char is right!" The first guard cried, "It's the newcomer who deserves no mercy!"

You'd better shut your mouth-

Damas knew they were just standing up for a fellow Spargan. He knew that if Jak had all three amulets, they'd be rallying on his behalf, too. But it rankled to see them turn on the boy so quickly.

"Sire, if anyone must be cast into the desert, it's him!" Rikard pointed a shaking finger at Jak.

The words were out before Damas had time to plan his next move.

"Absolutely not! I'm not letting him off that easy!"

Oh rot. He had to follow that up with something.

Think, Damas! Use your shiny, spiny, head for once and think like Obed taught you!

He thought of the old captain of the Krimzon Guard -- when that had meant something, when only the king’s honor guard wore those tattoos -- the man who had raised him when his own family hadn't been interested in such a weak channeler.

There's always another way, whelp."

Then you tell me, Obed! I don't know what to do!

He reached for that memory desperately.

*Sometimes, you face your enemy head-on. And sometimes, you wait until you see a weakness. A loophole."

"You're talking about my brothers again."

"Now, did I say that? Clean the gunpowder out of your ears, whelp, before you get me in trouble!"

A loophole. I can do that. I can still save them-!

Damas sucked in a calming breath through his teeth.

"You do make a point about Sig’s record of service. I would not be king if I did not try to keep you all alive."

Let this work, please, Obed, if you're still watching over me, let this work.

"This once, I will give you the opportunity to salvage this. In your absence, metalpedes have settled in Turquoise Canyon and begun harassing our artificact carriers."

He leaned on his staff and hoped no one saw the tension in his jaw for what it really was: fear.

"I want you to drive into the heart of the nest and take out anything that moves."

He turned on his heel to send a hard stare Jak's way.

"Unlike Sig, you get a choice right now: stay here and forfeit your second amulet, or go with Sig and repay the damage you did today with something that benefits your community."

He prayed Jak could hear the emptiness of his threat. That he would know what Damas needed him to do.

Jak was not technology-friendly. Anything that required precision or aiming was more likely to be used as a blunt force weapon. But put him on a turret gun and the boy was a prodigy. If he went with Sig, the odds of them both surviving skyrocketed.

Jak's glare melted into something uncertain, even a little fearful. He was weighing his options. Good. That would sell the act more to the guards -- who were, like all watchmen, incurable gossips.

Damas saw the moment the light clicked on for Jak. He knew that glint.

Jak nudged Daxter, almost too quickly to be seen, and Daxter nodded. To anyone else, it would seem he was responding to Jak.

Damas knew that Daxter was answering him on Jak’s behalf.

Message received.

"I'm not gonna let you send Sig in there alone."

Damas almost smiled. Defiant to the last. Never change, Jak. Unless it's to learn some common sense-!

"Then perhaps something good can come of this debacle. But understand this, boy: coming back from destroying that nest does not mean this discussion is over. I expect you to turn over your gate pass when you return. You're off scouting for three weeks."

"You're grounding us?!" Daxter shrieked.

"Keep talking, I'll make it a full month."

That one wasn't an empty threat. If he'd thought it would keep Jak out of harm's way, he'd keep him off missions indefinitely!

"We're going," Sig said quickly, and grabbed Jak by the arm before he could protest.

"I'd say good luck," Damas said dryly, "But then, luck won't help you."

which is why I'm sending Jak.

The second the elevator was out of sight, Damas dropped into his throne with the most long-suffering, exasperated groan he'd ever made.

"Someone tell me this is a dream and I'm actually dying of boredom in a financial meeting right now," he said sarcastically.

When no such reassurance arrived from the guards, he dropped his head into his hands with another irritated sound.

In the silence that followed, even over the water wheel they both heard him mutter,

"What am I going to do with that boy?"

Rikard was...not a bad guard. He did his job, and he stuck by his comrades. But he had a big mouth sometimes.

"You...favor the newcomer then? Is it his age?"

Damas aimed a tired glare at him over his fingers.

"Boy, if I told you some of the things I did at his age...."

He groaned again.

"This is boundary-testing. I've seen worse. Rot, I've been worse!"

Silence enveloped them again as the two guards stared at Damas, and Damas stared back. He hadn't meant it to come out like that. After several seconds of owlish blinking back and forth, he said simply,

"Crap. I think I adopted him."

Char turned her head quickly to hide the fact that she was trying very hard not to laugh at the king’s slightly stunned expression.

"Do you...think this will be an adequate lesson?"

Rikard winced. At least he knew he was questioning Damas’s choices in parenting. Er, ruling.

"The nest? Perhaps. It's the confinement that's going to get him." Damas snorted. "You know how Wastelanders are about adrenaline. You ground a kid like that? End of the world."

Mar was exactly the same. Gods, if he's as stubborn as Jak at that age, I'm done for. Might as well write the epitaph now: "died of a heart-attack from idiot sons doing idiot stunts".

"As long as he doesn't set anything on fire in the Arena, sounds good to me," said Char, raising her hands in mock surrender. "Are we clear to return to our posts?"

"Can't set things on fire if I don't let him get two yards away from me, right?" Damas grumbled, but he waved a hand in dismissal.

Once alone, Damas dragged his fingers down his face and muffled a scream in his palm. He was going to get Sig for this. Babysitting. Indefinitely. Or maybe make him handle Arena trials for a while, let him feel that stress! And Jak? Jak was grounded. So, so very grounded. If he had to make Jak sit through meetings with him in the throne room to get it through his head, then so be it. No stunts, no racing, no "the Precursors made me do it" nonsense.

Briefly, he glanced up at the statue of the Oracle in his throne room. Gaudy thing, but it did house a lot of parts of the water wheel.

Damas flipped it off.

[osarina]

ᡣ𐭩 WE WERE BORN SICK

FEATURING: dazai osamu

SUMMARY: that sinking feeling that's been looming over you both has finally come to fruition. truths are revealed, questions are answered, but one big one remains: is love enough for you and dazai's relationship to survive this?

AUTHOR'S NOTES: happy fridayyyyy, i can't believe we only have one chapter left of civzai, it's actually makin me emotional </3 this chapter was quite a doozy to write, and i hope it's equally a doozy to read HAHAH no no jkjk , i hope you enjoy. also do u guys want to add an arcane au to the dazaiverse .. ive been thinking heavily about it. comments & reblogs appreciated

GENERAL WARNINGS: fem!reader, port mafia executive!reader, civilian!dazai, dazai's struggles w suicide & sh, reader partakes in mafia business, dazai isn't dazai without a bit of obsessiveness and possessiveness (the possessiveness doesn't come til later but the obsessiveness starts from day 0).

CHAPTER SPECIFIC WARNINGS: hardly edited. angsty chapter. explicit depiction of suicide (past recollection of dazai), implications of past self-harm (dazai), very toxic thought processes at certain parts (dazai), past (and a bit of current) suicide ideation (dazai), manic behavior (reader).

SEE: WASTELAND, BABY! SERIES MASTERLIST

“I’ve been eager to meet you for quite a while. In all of the years I’ve known her, my little hime has never let something as trivial as a boy come between her and our work… I knew you must be special, but I never could’ve imagined just how special. I’m so pleasantly surprised.”

Dazai’s head throbs as he comes to his surroundings. He’s laying in an uncomfortable bed—a hospital bed, he thinks, he can smell the unfortunately familiar scent of antiseptic, but the walls aren’t the typical white he’s used to. He winces as he sits up, unable to recall where he is or what happened to him. Everything is too fuzzy, he remembers being with Fitzgerald, the car ride to the tea house, and-

And he remembers you. 

He remembers you.

He lets out a shaky breath as he recalls the way you’d pulled him into your arms, cradling him close as soon as you got him back from Fitzgerald. God, he only got to be with you for what felt like a second. It wasn’t enough time. It wasn’t nearly enough time. You sent him off, he remembers—you sent him with two of your subordinates, the weretiger and that freaky little girl, and then… 

“Shhh… Don’t speak. I want to get this done and over with.”

The gun to his back, Atsushi and Kyouka’s cries of shock, the baton to his head.

“No can do, weretiger. On orders from the boss.”

His mind tracks back to the words that had been spoken as he was teetering on the edge of consciousness, mouth going dry and eyes widening as he becomes acutely aware of the other person in the room with him. His gaze flicks up to where a vaguely familiar man sits at a desk watching him—straight chin-length black hair, inquisitive purple eyes, a long black coat, Dazai isn’t sure where he recalls this man from but he knows that they’ve met before. 

“Who…” Dazai asks, voice wavering as pain shoots through his head with every little movement. “Who are you? Have we… met before?”

His wrist hurts. His mother’s nails dig into his skin so deep that it draws blood, and he doesn’t know what’s going on. He’d just been sleeping—is he still sleeping? He isn’t sure. He’s stumbling over his own feet trying to keep up with her, he keeps asking her what’s going on but she doesn’t answer him. 

They turn a hall and his mother stops so suddenly that he slams right into her, nearly tripping over onto the ground. He doesn’t even regain his footing before his mother is pulling him back the way he came, he looks over his shoulder trying to figure out what caused his mother to panic so badly and he looks at—a man? 

Who is that? 

Why is he coming from grandfather’s room?

Is that-

Blood?

“Shuji! Shuji, don’t look back! Keep moving!”

Shuji? Who’s Shu-

“I think you know the answer to that already.” Dazai is startled out of the memory—was that a memory?—by the man’s voice. He sounds amused, and from the way that his eyes are glittering, Dazai can tell he’s finding great entertainment out of this situation. It pisses Dazai off. “Don’t you?”

“Tane-chan, you know you won’t be able to hide him forever. You’re just making this harder on yourself.”

Dazai’s breath catches. He shifts backward on the bed to press his back against the wall. Everything is wrong—the air is too cold, his bandages are itching, his head hurts, and he doesn’t know what’s going on. Who is Shuji? Why is he thinking of his mother after all of these years? And what… what was he remembering? 

Memories of his youth have always been sparse and fleeting—he can vaguely recall the faces of his siblings, the anxiety he felt around his grandfather, the loneliness—but something like this… The panic on his mothers face, the pain in his wrist, the way she was dragging him around, the fear in her voice when she screamed at Dazai—was he Shuji? But then why—to not look back, to keep moving. He would remember something like that. That would be… crazy to forget, right?

What is going on?

“You’re Mori,” Dazai breathes out, clearing his throat. He hopes he doesn’t look as disconcerted as he feels, but he thinks he must. “You’re…”

The leader of the Port Mafia. 

The closest thing you have to a father.

So, how does Dazai remember him from years ago? It doesn’t make sense. He couldn’t have been older than thirteen, maybe fourteen in that memory. What did he forget? When did he meet him? What’s going on? Dazai wants to scream, his mind is still slow from just waking up—he doesn’t even know how long he was unconscious, it couldn’t have been that long.

Mori’s smile widens as if Dazai just walked right into whatever trap that had been laid out for him, violet eyes flashing with a type of cruel amusement that makes Dazai sick to his stomach. Dazai has to circle back to remember what he just said, he needs to snap out of the daze he’s in. He needs to think. He made a mistake—Dazai made a mistake. He shouldn’t have admitted that he knew Mori. That was a mistake.

How does he fix it? 

Can he fix it?

“You do know,” Mori says, like he didn’t actually expect Dazai to admit that he knew him. Like he’s pleasantly surprised. Again. Like Dazai just made things much easier for him. Shit. “Interesting.”

He’s going to use it against Dazai. Dazai knows it. He’s going to use it against him to hurt you. He remembers everything he’s learned about your relationship with Mori—how he pit you against that other girl, Yosano, to get results from you. And he already said it. He already said that Dazai is getting between you and your work, he’ll do the same thing here. He’ll pit you against him.

He’s going to tell you that Dazai knew who Mori was, and that Dazai is someone that he’s not—who is Shuji? Why doesn’t he remember his own name? Is that really his name? How does Mori know all of this? Who is Dazai?—and Dazai needs to be able to say something. He needs to be able to explain. How does he explain this when he doesn’t even know what’s going on? Dazai needs to remember; he needs to remember now, he needed to remember yesterday, because if he’s not the one to tell you this… If he can’t explain this…

This cannot be happening—it can’t. Right when he thought everything would be okay, when he would be with you. His throat starts to clog as anxiety clouds his head and weighs on his chest, a panic attack that he can’t afford right now. He needs to think, he needs to figure out what’s going on—Mori knows something about Dazai that he doesn’t know himself, and he’s going to use it against him to drive a wedge between the two of you. He’s going to tell you, and-

Dazai’s world feels woozy. Why can’t he remember? How does he know Mori? What was happening that night with his mother? He needs to snap out of this, needs to think, but he can’t even breathe. Fear—the mind killer.

“I don’t know what’s going on,” Dazai rasps, his voice is hoarse, and he feels sick, and he hates admitting that he doesn’t know what’s happening, but he needs Mori to believe it so that he doesn’t tell you something that’s not true. “I don’t know how I know you. I don’t-”

“You might believe that,” Mori says amused, “but will she?”

Dazai stares at Mori, his stomach churns violently and his vision swims as the answer becomes abundantly clear to him.

He doesn’t know. 

———

The gun in your hand weighs heavily.

You hid it in the inside of your blazer to get up to the conference room. No weapons are allowed up past the thirty-fifth floor unless you’re one of the Boss’s hand-picked personal guards—even executives are forced to disarm themselves before going up, but security is much more lax for the upper echelon. Because you’re you—the hime, second-in-command, the Boss’s daughter—the guards outside of the elevator that goes directly to the top floor wave you past the metal detectors to go on up.

A mistake.

(Who is Tsushima Shuji? It can’t be Dazai. You know Dazai. Mori must be wrong.)

The smile on your face is bland and doesn’t meet your eyes as you walk down the hall to the conference room attached to Mori’s office. You greet the guards, and they don’t notice how off your demeanor is, too starstruck over the fact that they’re being acknowledged for once. They also don’t notice the way your hand is curled around the grip of your gun in your blazer.

A mistake. 

(Mori is never wrong. Do you really know Dazai?)

When you reach the end of the hallway, you toss them one last brilliant smile. This one is a bit more genuine because you’ve realized that you’ve gotten through the top notch security of the upper levels of the Port Mafia headquarters without a hitch. That you’re one step closer to finishing this. They’re so blinded by the beauty of your smile that they don’t realize your teeth have sharpened into knives and the floral perfume you wear masks a putrid bloodlust. 

A mistake. 

(It’s always been odd, hasn’t it? The way he approached you. The way he was so insistent on pushing himself into your life. You always questioned it. There was a sinking feeling that something wasn’t as it seemed. Why didn’t you question it more?)

You keep your back turned as you slip into the room. You can feel four presences behind you—Kouyou, Piano Man, Chuuya, Ace. No Mori. No Dazai. That’s fine—you have something to take care of before they show up anyway. The conference room is soundproof; Mori designed it that way because he didn’t want the guards outside to overhear any discussion of sensitive topics. Even if he handpicked them for their loyalty, he understands that money can make the most devout man’s faith waver. Still, it’s not them rushing in that you’re worried about—it’s the people in the room with you rushing out, so you very carefully twist the nub of the lock and then reach up to fix the deadbolt. It won’t stop them, but it will slow them. You can feel their eyes on you as you make sure the door is locked, but none of them call you out for it or try to stop you.

A mistake. 

(Mori always told you that the Tsushimas were like cockroaches. If they all weren’t killed, one would eventually return to reclaim their grandfather’s empire. There’d be a power struggle between the factions loyal to the new regime and the ones that still hid in the shadows believing that the Tsushima blood belonged at the head of the organization. Everything the two of you had built would crumble to ashes.)

You turn to make your way over to the conference table where the four of them are sitting. You haven’t decided how you want to go about this yet. You don’t know who all was aware of what Mori did, and because of that, you don’t know who needs to die. Treachery has always faced a death penalty—you don’t care if Mori ordered it, you don’t care that the Boss’s word is absolute, you have bled and breathed for the Port Mafia. You’ve sacrificed everything you’ve ever owned and wanted for the Port Mafia. You have made the Port Mafia into what it is today with your efforts abroad and at home—foreign governments, foreign criminal organizations, the Japanese government and other domestic mafias, all of them are just puppets that you pull the strings of to ensure the Port Mafia stays on top. Treachery against you will face the same penalty one would receive if they betrayed the Port Mafia, because you are the Port Mafia—Mori has made sure of that. 

Chuuya and Piano Man share a look with one another as you approach the table. Neither of them say anything—is it confusion? Is it guilt? Did they know? Were you the only one unaware of the schemes going on around you? Were you the only one loyal? The only one you could trust?

Did they know?

Did they know?

(No one could ever love you without your ability at work influencing them. You’ve known that since the very beginning, but you were so quick to forget that when you discovered Dazai’s ability. You should have had more questions, you should have been more suspicious. Mori had been right from the very beginning. You were emotionally compromised. You were weak.)

Ace opens his mouth to speak.

A mistake. 

“It was nice meeting your-”

Ace’s head hits the conference table with a hard thunk, his eyes wide and glassy, his mouth open around the words you didn’t let him finish speaking. Blood seeps from the bullet hole in his temple and pools around his head and the ground beneath his chair, staining the glass table and the white floors. 

Instead of lowering your arm, you shift it so that the gun is pressed against Piano Man’s temple next. Chuuya says your name—it’s awful, something caught between a gasp of shock and confusion, he’s never said your name like that before. Like he doesn’t know what you’re doing. Like he doesn’t understand you. Like you’re something unfamiliar. Unrecognizable. You ignore him anyway, and the pangs that come along with it, and instead, you keep your gaze trained on Piano Man’s face.

He’s not as panicked as Chuuya, but you can tell that he’s just as caught off guard from the way his lips are twisted. He watches you carefully, waiting for you to say whatever you’re going to say—if you were going to pull the trigger, you would’ve done so immediately, he knows that. He’s always been good at reading you, better than even Chuuya sometimes.

“Did you know?”

Your voice is steadier than you expect it to be. Cold almost. Distant. You don’t recognize it yourself, you suppose it’s no wonder that Chuuya’s staring at you with such a foreign expression. You watch him just as carefully as he does you. He has a tell when he lies: he squints. Not an obvious squint, just the barest hint of his eyes squeezing shut like he’s calculating exactly what he wants to say, in what tone and with what fluctuation he wants to say it.

A subtle tell, but a tell nonetheless. 

“No.”

He stares at you steadily as he says it. There’s no squint—he’s telling the truth. You don’t let out a breath of relief, but you certainly feel the weight off of your shoulders. You lower the gun, satisfied with his response, and then you walk over to where Chuuya is sitting.

You don’t raise the gun to his temple immediately. He looks up at you, you look down at him, a whole conversation is had in the silence between you, and eventually he lowers his lashes in resignation, telling you to do what needs to be done for you to feel more at ease.

He’s always put others before himself. 

You lift the gun at the same time he lifts his gaze to meet yours. He could activate the Tainted Sorrow and end this before it starts, but he doesn’t—you know in your gut that if you pulled the trigger right now, he would accept the fate you delivered. Probably would take it as a better one than he deserved—it being at your hands rather than Arahabaki. 

“Did you know?” you ask. The words taste bitter, rancid—they don’t belong there, Chuuya would never betray you, but you had to hear it from him. 

Chuuya doesn’t have many tells when he lies—he’s a good actor, much better than people give him credit for. If he wanted to lie to you, he might be able to get away with it. But he won’t lie to you, not when he’s looking you in the eye. 

“No,” he says, voice soft and raspy like he can’t believe he has to say it.

You let the gun drop to your side. It weighs heavier now—heavier than it did in the elevator, heavier than it did in the hallway leading to the room, heavier than it did when it was pressed against Piano Man’s head. You can hardly bear to keep holding it, but you’re not done yet.

Slowly, your gaze turns to Kouyou. Her expression is cold and unreadable, gaze pinned on you in the same way a lion stalks its prey through the tall grass… No, that’s not right. She stares at you with the same look in her eyes that a snake does when it’s curled in a corner, rattle shaking and hissing to try to scare off the predator that has it trapped.

“You knew,” you breathe out softly in disbelief. Your voice hardens and tightens as you repeat, “You knew!”

Before you can raise your gun—before you can pull the trigger four, five, six times, before you can riddle her body with holes because how dare she know, how dare she know and not tell you after what the previous boss did to her—the door that separates the conference room from Mori’s office opens, and your attention is drawn to the one person who caused all of this.

“Oh my,” Mori says airly, looking between you, Ace’s body, and Kouyou with an expression that is frustratingly amused. “I see you’ve been busy.”

You don’t even know what to say to that. You almost want to laugh. You think you do laugh, actually—someone does, and you think it’s you, because you feel yourself walking away, you lift your hands to your head to tug at your ears in frustration. Your vision is blurry—are you crying?

“You betrayed me,” you finally say, voice quieter than you intend, so you raise it as you repeat yourself. “You betrayed me. You. Of all people I never thought you would be the one to-”

You can’t even finish the sentence, your voice cracks over the words. It makes you feel sick, it makes you angry, it makes you want to crawl out of your skin, because how could he? To you? You don’t know why you’re so angry, why you’re so betrayed. Mori has always made it clear that his priority is the Port Mafia, but still, to do this to you. To do this to his-

To his what?

You’re not his daughter. You hate when people imply that you are, you hate being called hime, you hate being called ‘Miss Mori’, you hate when people give you respect because of your perceived relationship to him. 

He’s the only father you’ve ever known. Almost every decision you’ve made has been with the motive of making him proud of you. When he seeks out your opinion specifically during meetings, your chest becomes warm with pride.

You don’t love him. How could you? Look at what you’ve become because of him. 

Then why do you feel so betrayed? Why did you think he would be the last person to do something like this to you when you know the type of person he is? Why does your chest feel like it’s caving in? Like your heart’s been ripped right out of it? Why does this hurt as much—why does this hurt more than Dazai’s potential betrayal?

And he certainly doesn’t love you. He never would have done this if he did. 

He’s killed people for disrespecting you—he hardly ever gets his own hands dirty, but he does when it’s you and your dignity on the line. He spends hours meticulously picking out birthday presents that he knows you’ll like. He gets sad when he invites you for lunch and you don’t join him, reminiscing about the days where you clung to the back of his coat.

He touches your shoulder, and your finger twitches on the trigger of the gun. You want to lift it, press it to his temple and pull the trigger just like you did to Ace, but you can’t. Your arm feels like lead, and when his hand slides down to your bicep to force you to turn around and face him so that your back is to the rest of the executives, you dutifully follow along.

His expression is unreadable as he looks down at you, violet eyes swimming with an emotion you’ve never seen in them before. He lifts his hand to wipe away one of the tears that had spilled over your cheeks with his knuckle, and then taps your cheek twice, chiding you silently. 

Do not cry here, little hime. Not here.

“You have always been so dramatic,” Mori hums just loud enough for you to hear, but the words are fond, and the corners of his lip curl up as he looks down at you. “I would not betray you. Not ever, dear.” 

You look at Ace pointedly in response and then back to Mori, the man sighs dramatically and gives you a disappointed look. The nerve, you think bitterly, narrowing your eyes on him as you wait for his explanation.

“I told you,” Mori says. “I did this to protect you. I wanted to get ahold of the boy-”

“Because you have some mistaken belief that he’s a Tsushima,” you interrupt coolly. “How did you even manage to come up with that ridiculous theory?”

Mori’s eyes flicker with something akin to interest, but shifts quickly into pity—you can’t tell if it’s genuine or mocking, and you don’t know which would be worse. He must be mistaken, he has to be. You don’t think you can handle the implications of if he isn’t, of what it might mean for you. For Dazai. Your whole relationship with him. How much was manufactured for him to get information about the Port Mafia? So he could get a foothold in the organization? Get in contact with the remaining loyalists to his family?

“Sit,” he tells you, guiding you over to the seat at the right of the head of the table. “I’ll explain everything, but first… Shuji-kun, why don’t you come out and join us?” 

Your breath catches at Mori’s words, gaze twisting to the side over to the door that he’d come out of. You watch as the door creaks open, and the achingly familiar sight of his face finally comes into view. You’ve missed him—you’ve missed him, and you hate this. You should be back at your apartment with him, you should have him curled up in your arms, you should be listening to him complain about how long he was stuck with the Guild. 

This shouldn’t be happening. You shouldn’t be sitting at the executive roundtable with Ace’s dead body a few feet away, and Dazai entering the room, questions of his identity, of whether or not he’s been using you for information and opportunity to take back his grandfather’s legacy. 

You hoped that Dazai would enter the room angry, irritated by the kidnapping and the accusations, but you don’t think you’ve ever seen Dazai look like this before. He looks a mess, fidgeting, brown hair matted to his forehead, dark eyes wide and swirling with emotion. When he seeks you out, they’re pleading, imploring, like he already knows that whatever is about to be said is going to be bad for him. 

He looks… frazzled. Nervous. Confused. 

He looks guilty, and you know that Mori is telling the truth. 

How much of this was a lie? All of it?

Your throat feels uncomfortably tight, gaze sliding from Dazai back to Mori.

“Tell me.”

Who are you, Dazai Osamu?

———

Despite his body being wracked with a strange sense of guilt, Dazai pushes open the door to enter the room where he assumes you’ll be waiting. You’re not the only one there sitting at the table—there’s five… no, four others—but Dazai can’t help the way he immediately seeks you out. He recognizes his mistake instantly. That highly unwelcome, and highly misplaced, guilt amplifies the moment his gaze meets yours and he sees how crushed you are by all of this. His face twists into something that he knows condemns himself more. and from the way you instantly look away from him, directing your full attention to Mori, he knows he has. 

Now, you won’t meet his eyes at all.

Dazai sits stiffly across from you to the left of Mori. Nakahara Chuuya is on his opposite side, glaring holes into the side of Dazai’s head, but he can’t drag his gaze from you. He’s never seen you like this before—even back at the beach house when you’d been so close to breaking down under the weight of everything on your shoulders, you’d held yourself together as best you could. 

You’re unraveling now; he can tell you’re still trying to hold yourself together, but it’s as good as trying to pick up water with your fists, your emotions spill out through the cracks carved into the walls you used to hide yourself behind. Mori hasn’t even begun talking, yet your breath is unsteady and your eyes are swimming with emotion; your fingers are still wrapped tight around the grip of your gun, and Dazai is very acutely aware of Ace’s dead body slouched over the table not even a few feet away. 

And you won’t even meet his eyes.

Maybe it’s a good thing, he realizes, because Dazai isn’t sure what you might see if you do. You clearly didn’t like what you saw the first time. He just feels so guilty, and he doesn’t even know why he feels guilty because he’s not-he didn’t do any of what Mori implied. He didn’t use you, he didn’t know who you were before meeting you, it wasn’t all some scheme to try to take over the mafia. That’s ludicrous—he’s a literature student at YNU, not some gang lord. He just-

He loved you. Loves you. No ulterior motives. No strings attached. 

“I said tell me,” you snap when Mori doesn’t immediately begin talking. “You love talking, so why are you holding back now? Tell me, or I’m leaving.”

Dazai feels a bit sick to his stomach when you say ‘I’ with no implication of taking him with you. He tries to get you to look at him again, silently pleading with you to just spare one glance in his direction, but you’re irritated now. He can see it in the way your fingers flex around the gun, knuckles whitening and finger twitching on the trigger—it’s pointed at the woman sitting next to you, who is very acutely aware of the fact from how stiff she is. 

“Do you remember the night we took over the Port Mafia, dear?” Mori asks her, voice a low hum. 

“What kind of question is that?” you answer tightly. Your lip curls up in irritation, Dazai can see you become more and more antsy and angry—he’s never seen you so out of control before. “Of course, I do.” 

“And you, Shuji-kun?” Mori turns his attention to Dazai and he wants to spit in his face—his name is Dazai—but his voice fails him when he sees the way your face twists at the sound of the unfamiliar name. He stares at Mori instead, hating how amused the man becomes at his silence. “I’ll take that as a no, allow me to refresh you.”

“Eight years ago, a coup was staged against your grandfather’s regime,” Mori says, and Dazai feels like he’s being studied under a microscope. All eyes are on him now—even yours, but now, he can’t bring himself to look at you. He doesn’t know what he’ll find, and he’s scared it’s going to be something he doesn’t like. “Your grandfather was mad, killing civilians and mafiosos indiscriminately, something had to be done, and nobody was willing to do it, so we did.”

“We had to wipe out the whole family, and any loyalists. I was fourteen when I killed someone for the first time. She was a girl my age—the previous boss’s grandaughter…”

Dazai’s gaze drags over to you. You’re staring ahead now, gaze listless and expression eerily blank like you’re slowly starting to realize what this means. Dazai hasn’t come to terms with it yet, because if even a little of what Mori is saying is true then…

“We wiped out the whole bloodline and as many loyalists as we could,” Mori continues, “or we thought we did, at least. My dear hime was who I sent to kill the heirs, I trusted in her to make it quick and painless. We didn’t realize one of the grandchildren were missing until it was too late—he wasn’t in his bedroom, apparently liked to wander around at night because he couldn’t sleep. His mother was able to swoop in and get him out of the estate before our men took over the building… Tsushima Shuji, the youngest of the previous boss’s grandsons. Does this sound familiar yet, Shuji-kun?”

He has the best view of the night sky from an alcove on the fourth floor of the estate—his grandfather’s floor. It’s where he likes to go when he can’t sleep at night, and ever since his cousins and siblings started fighting over their grandfather’s legacy, that’s been just about every night: half because of fear now that things have started escalating to violence, half because he’s not even sure why he’s still here.

His knees are tucked tight to his chest, arms wrapped around them and head resting against the cool glass as he looks up at the stars. He hears a commotion happening somewhere downstairs, but there’s always a commotion happening at the estate, so he thinks nothing of it. He submerges himself in the darkness instead, letting his mind float away as he stares up at the sky—it’s the only time he’s able to relax, escape from the shadows of his own mind.

He’s not sure how long he sits there admiring the night, time passes immeasurably when he’s lost in the stars—he’s only snapped out of it when he hears feet slamming against the ground in his direction. He stiffens, eyes wide, wondering if another one of his cousins has finally turned to bloodshed as the way to inherit their grandfather’s legacy, but instead his mother turns the corner, her smooth face contorted in a type of panic he’s never seen on her before.

“Mothe…” he starts to say, confused, but he doesn’t even get a chance to finish the word, gasping as his mother grabs his wrist and yanks him off the cushioned seat in the alcove.

“Shuji, we have to go,” she gasps, “we need to get out of here. It’s not safe.”

He stumbles after his mother, struggling to keep up with her quick pace and longer legs. Her grip was painful, nails digging into the bandages around his wrists, right into the fresh wounds they covered. He grimaces in pain, breathing heavy as he follows his mother down the hall, assumingly toward the steps near his grandfather’s room. 

“What’s going on?” he asks. “What about Bunji? Akane? T-”

His mother chokes over what sounds like a sob and his eyes widen—he’s never heard his mother cry before. 

“There’s no time,” she chokes out, “we have to leave without them. We-”

They turn a hall, she skids to a stop and-

“It seems that it does… Allow me to continue then,” Mori hums, drawing Dazai out of the memory. He sounds unbearably amused, and Dazai would be angry if he wasn’t so shaken. He pulls his hands off of the table to rest them in his lap to hide the way his fingers are trembling. “Your mother was able to hide you from us for half a year, I warned her that she wouldn’t be able to for long and since she didn’t share your grandfather’s blood, promised to spare her life if she gave you up to us, but she refused. She tried to take you out of the Kanagawa Prefecture, but our men were catching up to her, and she took… drastic measures to ensure we couldn’t track you down. That I’m sure you remember.”

“Mother,” he whispered, staring up at the rope, her limp body, gaze trailing down to the kicked over chair. “Mother, I don’t… why did you…”

He takes a step closer. A step back. Another step closer. He reaches out, fingers brushing the white nightgown she’d worn the night before while getting him settled in bed, but he snatches them back instantly like he’d been burned, clutching his hand to his chest.

He’s not breathing, he realizes when his lungs start to burn. His eyes sting painfully, unable to draw his eyes away—unable to even blink—is it a nightmare? Is he hallucinating? She sways—sways like when she used to distract him when he was settling into a depressive episode by putting on music and forcing him to spin with her in the kitchen, sways like the wind chimes she keeps outside because the house doesn’t feel homely enough without him, sways-

“Shuji! Shuji, get away from there!” The voice that calls to him is familiar—Aunt Kiye? Why is she here? “God, I tried to get here earlier. Nee-san, forgive me.”

Aunt Kiye grabs his wrist, yanking him away from his mother, dragging him out of her bedroom and down the hall. His voice is hoarse as he screams, he doesn’t know what he’s screaming, if he’s even screaming anything intelligible. He doesn’t stop until he’s out of the house and she’s kneeling in front of him, shaking him out of his panic.

“Enough, Shuji! We have to go, we can’t stay here, they’ll be here soon,” Aunt Kiye shouts at him, expression twisted and eyes pooling with tears that she doesn’t let spill over. “We need to go, and we-we need to change your name, change everything. I promised I would hide you, I-”

“We can’t leave her there,” he argues, voice shrill. “I don’t understand, why did she do that? What did I do? It was my fault, It was my fault, wasn’t it? It-”

Aunt Kiye doesn’t answer his question. She looks bitter, angry, hateful. “We have no time. We have to leave,” she whispers, dragging him to the car despite his protests. She continues talking, more to herself than to him, but the words make his chest cave in. “I told her not to get involved with that family. Their blood is black, cursed. Everyone knows nothing good comes from associating with those people.”

His fault, he realizes, breath becoming thin and shallow. It’s his fault, his blood, his fault that his mother-

“Yes, quite the unfortunate scene we walked into,” Mori says dismissively. “She was smart for it though, she never would’ve survived a night with our sweet hime interrogating her. You should see what she did to that despicable journalist. Of course, she wasn’t as fine-tuned with her ability back then, but that would’ve been at your mother’s expense—her first few attempts at conditioning were quite… unfortunate for her test sub-”

“Enough,” you spit out, interrupting him. Dazai wants to believe that it’s because you can see how uncomfortable he’s getting, but he’s not even sure that you care. He’s not even sure you remember he’s in the room. “Get to the point. You think he’s the Tsushima kid we missed—that doesn’t prove shit. It doesn’t mean-”

You don’t finish what you’re going to say, but you do look at him, and Dazai’s breath catches when his gaze finally meets yours again. He can’t tell what you’re thinking—the expression on your face is entirely indecipherable, something caught between being accusatory and guilty. Dazai doesn’t know if he’s going to make it out of this room alive. Even if by some miracle, you decide to believe him, there’s a good chance that Mori will order his death anyway, and he’s not sure if you’ll pick him over the Port Mafia. 

That being said, Dazai doesn’t even know if he wants to make it out of here alive. His brain is fogged with memories that he locked so deep within him that they never should’ve resurfaced—every time Mori speaks, Dazai’s recalling something new, something awful, something that proves that he’s every bit the freak people have always claimed him to be. Every bit as bad. Every bit as wrong. Not like other people. A monster whose mother killed herself because of him, a monster who's been cursed since the day he was born. 

“... blood is black, cursed… nothing good comes from associating with those people.”

More than that, he doesn’t see how the two of you are going to be able to come back from this, and that scares him more than anything. You’re the only good thing left in his life, and he doesn’t think he’ll make it without you, but he doesn’t think that after all of this things are just going to work out. You killed his siblings. His cousins. And yeah, Dazai was never close to them—they thought he was too quiet, too strange, all of the things that the other students at school whispered, his family was the first to—but… they were still his family, and if Dazai had been in his room that night, he would’ve been just as dead at your hands as the rest of them.

You killed his family. You would have killed him. The Port Mafia is the reason his mother killed herself, the reason why he walked into her bedroom and saw her hanging from a fan. The Port Mafia is the reason his aunt hated him so much that she couldn’t even bear looking at him, the reason why he was left to die in Suribachi City. 

Would you ever be able to get over the guilt of that? Would Dazai be able to accept it? You had a heavy hand in ruining his life, is it enough that you saved him years later? He doesn’t know, he’s hardly even processed it, he just knows that he has to cling to what little he has left, dig his nails in and not let go even if it makes you choke on guilt, even if it makes him sick with shame. He won’t let go. 

“So impatient,” Mori sighs. “Your aunt hid you for almost another half a year, but she wasn’t able to move out of the Yokohama area. She did well though, I’ll give her that. We had our best trying to find you, but she was very careful. It was partially our own fault that we didn’t get our hands on you back then—some loyalists to your grandfather snuck under our radar, told her when we were closing in on the two of you. She got rid of you before we got to her… but we did get to her. Kouyou-kun was the one who handled her, if I recall it got quite… messy. I can’t imagine how it must feel knowing that your mother and aunt sacrificed themselves to protect you only for you to throw it all away in an arrogant attempt to reclaim your grandfather’s legacy.”

Dazai doesn’t even zero in on the last bit of what Mori says because he’s too busy trying to wrap his head around the rest of it. Aunt Kiye didn’t… die for him. Aunt Kiye hated him. He remembers that clear enough—he remembers how she could hardly stand to look at him, he remembers the way she was always so cold and rough with him, he remembers-

“You have to go, Osamu.” Aunt Kiye is shouting at him, and he’s sitting in the passenger seat of her car. He doesn’t move, he thinks maybe if he sits still enough, she won’t see him there and won’t make him leave. “Osamu, get out of the car and go, we don’t have time! They’ve found us.”

The name is still unfamiliar—he’s not used to it, and he doesn’t know if he likes it, but Aunt Kiye insists that Tsushima Shuji is dead and that name can never be uttered again. She gets mad when he doesn’t immediately answer to it, tells him not to let his mother’s death be in vain, and that’s usually enough to get him to stop being stubborn over it.

“Osamu, go!” She grabs his bicep hard to try to get his attention, but he flinches and squirms out of her grip, still not responding to her. He can’t remember the last time he’s spoken—he thinks maybe since they left the cabin that morning. “You-”

Aunt Kiye sounds angry now, but he can’t bring himself to look at her. It’s only when he hears her unbuckle and feels her start reaching over him that he starts to panic. He reaches up to grab her bicep, trying to stop her from grabbing the handle of the door to open it, but she’s stronger than him. He’s hardly been eating lately, and he’s never been particularly strong—he was always the smallest among his siblings. 

It takes no effort for her to bat his hands away, pushing open the door and unbuckling his seatbelt. He struggles against her as she tries to push him out of the car, and she’s still speaking—shouting at him, begging him, he thinks she might be crying too, but he can’t even tell. His mind is fogged with panic and fear—he doesn’t want to be alone in Suribachi City, he doesn’t want to be alone at all. He wants to stay with Aunt Kiye even if she hates him because he doesn’t want to be alone. 

Eventually, Aunt Kiye wins the fight—even with him fighting tooth and nail, she manages to push him out of the car. He hits the ground hard, gasping when he lands poorly on his elbow. He’s stunned for a moment by the shock and pain, and Aunt Kiye takes the chance to toss out a backpack from the back seat and close the door behind him, locking it quickly. 

“No!” His voice is raspy from lack of use over the past few months. He scrambles to his feet and tries to pry the door open but can’t. Aunt Kiye won’t even look at him, she stares ahead as she switches the car into gear and he slams his hands against the window. “Aunt Kiye! Aunt Kiye, don’t leave me here! Don’t leave me here, please, I’ll be better, I’ll do better, just don’t-”

He stumbles back as she pulls the car away, falling when he trips over the backpack onto the asphalt, scraping up his hands and forearms. He’s not sure how long he sits there staring after where the car disappeared waiting for her to come back for him.

She doesn’t.

She didn’t die for him, Dazai thinks again, nails digging crescents into his palm. She didn’t die for him, she couldn’t have. Dazai won’t believe it. Aunt Kiye hated him, she abandoned him in Suribachi—none of this can be true. It can’t. His mother killed herself to be free of him, not to protect him; and Aunt Kiye abandoned him because she hated him, not to save him.

That’s the truth. It has to be. They couldn’t have died for him—for him. It doesn’t make any sense. He doesn’t want to remember all of this—he was better off thinking that they hated him, that they wanted to be free of him.

He can feel you looking at him now, but Dazai is back to being unable to look at you. He’s staring down at the glass table looking at his reflection, his eyes are wide and dark and far too black—he looks warped, inhuman almost. His expression is blank, none of the turmoil within him is reflected on it, and he doesn’t even understand why. He thinks it’s probably just making him seem more guilty.

“We figured she left you somewhere in Suribachi City, but we weren’t able to track you down,” Mori says flippantly. Dazai wants him to stop talking, but he has a sick feeling things are only going to get worse from here. “Not until you ended up with Oda Sakunosuke, at least, we…”

Dazai’s ears ring at his old friend’s name. Mori is still talking, but his words become a distant buzz. Everything starts coming back to him at once—his time alone in Suribachi City, the weeks he spent rationing the little food he had, getting the shit kicked out of him by some low rung gang who stole his mother’s ring from him. He remembers giving up, questioning the point of his own existence with a detached logic that left him with only one answer—there was no point to his existence, so he was as good dead as he was alive. 

He remembers seeing on a sign that it was the eve of his fifteenth birthday, and he remembers dropping himself in the bay during a storm, hoping that the tide dragged him so far beneath the surface that he’d never see the light of day again.

He remembers waking up the next morning to an unfamiliar face at his bedside, brows knit in disapproval and lips turned down, and he distinctly remembers feeling put out by a stranger looking at him that way.

“What’s your name, kid?”

Dazai couldn’t remember anything but the name Aunt Kiye had drilled into him over and over again the past few months.

“Dazai Osamu.”

“Hm. Oda Sakunosuke. You got a family, Dazai?

Odasaku brought him in. 

Odasaku saved him. 

The doctors said he’d been dead for almost three minutes when Odasaku found him washed up on the beach—said his memory might return over time, but it might not—but Dazai didn’t even care, because Odasaku brought him in. He gave him a roof over his head, food to eat, and a reason to live. He sent him to school so he could feel like a normal kid his age. He played board games with him and didn’t even care when Dazai was a sore loser and quit mid-game when he realized he wouldn’t win. He humored Dazai when he faked being sick because he didn’t want to go to school. When Dazai was going through bad depressive episodes, Odasaku would sit with him silently and write his book so Dazai never felt alone. Odasaku introduced him to Ango and they were-

They were his friends.

Family, maybe.

They were all he had, and they were all he needed. 

And then-

“We were the ones who killed him.”

Dazai’s gaze drags up from the table to focus on Mori. The man’s lips are curved into a cruel smile, his eyes are sharp, and Dazai is moving before he can stop himself. He lunges across the table, but Mori doesn’t even flinch because Nakahara Chuuya grabs the back of his shirt and yanks him back down into his seat. 

“You-” Dazai spits, voice raspy and angry.

“Don’t look at me like that, we were trying to get to you,” Mori says casually as if the words don’t shatter Dazai’s entire world. “We would’ve loved to have Oda Sakunosuke amongst our ranks. His death was unfortunate. Collateral damage. He was an assassin for a long time—one of the best in the world. He was pretty much unkillable, his ability allowed him to see six seconds into the future. I never understood how our sniper managed to get him that day, but now I do. He saw you getting shot with his foresight and tried to pull you out of the way, but your ability is nullification, so when he touched you to save you, he damned himself. In those split seconds when he was pulling you to safety, he couldn’t see the future, and couldn’t see the bullets aimed for you that lodged into his chest instead.”

Dazai can’t do this anymore. He tries to push himself up to his feet but his legs are numb and uncooperative, and he can’t move his hands or arms. Mori’s lips part to continue speaking but Dazai can’t do this, he can’t hear anymore of this. He’d always known in his heart that Odasaku’s death was his fault even if he couldn’t remember much about his mother and Aunt Kiye and their desperate attempts to hide him from the Port Mafia. He’d known, but hearing it-hearing the confirmation, it’s too much for him.

Before Mori can say anything, Dazai is startled from his spiraling thoughts when you stand up so abruptly that your chair goes flying back. Your expression is haunted and you’re not looking at him again, but Dazai is glad for it, because he thinks he’s about to throw up.

“I… I need a minute. I just need a minute,” you say shakily before fleeing the room into Mori’s office so quickly that you almost trip over the chair you knocked over.

The room is silent in your wake, and after a few impossibly long moments, Mori stands to follow you into the other room. The three Port Mafia executives left in the room don’t say anything for a moment, and Dazai is just trying to breathe. He’s trying to breathe and process what Mori just said, but he’s failing miserably at it. 

It’s the woman, Kouyou, who speaks first.

“She’s going to kill me for knowing about this,” she says simply, sparing a glance down at the dead body on her opposite side. “I’ve never seen her like this before. Even when Chuuya-kun went missing for a few days, this…”

“Well, maybe you shouldn’t have conspired against her,” Piano Man sings, looking entirely unperturbed. “I mean honestly, after what the previous boss did to you, I would’ve thought you’d be more sympathetic. Silly me to think you aren’t a cold-hearted bitch.”

Dazai tries to pay attention to what they’re saying, he tries to ground himself with the conversation happening so he can forget the feeling of Odasaku’s blood all over his hands, staining his clothes, smeared on his face. He tries to replace Mori’s echoing words with what they’re saying but he can’t.

“We were trying to get to you.”

“It has nothing to do with sympathy,” Kouyou snaps, but she does look ashamed. “It’s a security threat, it’s bigger than love. This boy could spell the end of everything we’ve built.”

“She won’t kill you, Ane-san,” Chuuya finally speaks up, his knuckles are tight around the armrest of the chair he’s sitting in. “I’ll talk to her, I just-”

“When he touched you to save you, he damned himself.”

“Chuuya-kun, she almost killed you,” Kouyou says so dryly that the words almost don’t even register to Dazai, but when they do, they’re the only thing that effectively draws him from his spiraling thoughts. He looks at Chuuya sharply to see if what Kouyou said was true, and his eyes widen when he only grimaces and looks down. “You and Piano Man. She didn’t even hesitate before pulling the trigger on Ace. She’s unstable right now, there’s no talking to her.”

“But she didn’t,” Chuuya says tightly. “I’ll talk to her, but first…”

Chuuya looks at Dazai so suddenly that he almost wants to snap his head away and ignore him, but he can’t. The ginger studies Dazai so intensely that it makes him want to crawl out of his own skin.

“Did you know?” Chuuya asks, voice low. He’s angry, Dazai can tell from the way a dark red color starts to flicker around his hands, but he’s trying to keep it together. “Tell me. Did you know who she was and use her to get closer to the Mafia for revenge? I’ll spare her the pain of having to put a bullet through your fucking head and kill you myself right now. Did you know who she was and purposely-”

“No,” Dazai interrupts, voice hoarse. “No. I didn’t-I didn’t know.”

Chuuya stares at him for a few seconds, studying him like he doesn’t know if he actually believes him, but after what feels like an eternity, he finally shakes his head and looks away, rubbing his face with his hands.

“Fuck, this is such a mess,” Chuuya breathes out, voice strained. “Fuck. She-”

Chuuya doesn’t finish his sentence because the door to Mori’s office reopens and you step back into the room, Mori at your heels. Your eyes are red, but your expression is withdrawn now, void of the tumultuous emotions that had been raging across it just a few minutes before. You settle back in your seat. Your eyes flit over Dazai like he’s not even there before focusing on Mori.

Dazai suddenly has a bad feeling.

“I’m not quite sure how you escaped us after that,” Mori continues where he left off, and Dazai is so sick of the man’s voice that he almost wants to rip his own ears off. “Probably Sakaguchi-san from the SDUP, I recall him and Oda-san being close… but that brings us to the present, doesn’t it? Four years later, you stumble into our lovely hime… Come, dear, let me tell you my running theory, and you tell me how accurate I am, yeah?”

Mori is looking at you now, eyes glittering as he waits for your response. Dazai has his own serious issues with the man, but he thinks it’s sick the way he’s enjoying your clear discomfort and increasing distress. Your jaw tightens a bit, but you nod, signaling for Mori to speak. Dazai’s nails dig into his pants as he waits for Mori to continue. Neither of you look at him, and Dazai’s lips part to speak so he can preemptively deny whatever Mori is about to accuse him of, but he can’t push a single word out. 

“Your first meeting with him wasn’t by chance. A cafe, maybe… a bar?” Mori offers, watching your face carefully for a reason. You look away at the second option, and the man’s lips curve up. “A bar, then. One you frequent, I bet. The one in Hodogaya-ku, perhaps? Your first meeting, but not Shuji-kun’s first time seeing you. Ui Koutarou—his journalism professor at YNU—wrote his first article implicating the Mori Corporation’s connection with the Port Mafia in February of this year, around a month before rising fourth year students register for classes. Shuji-kun, naturally, has been following anything related to the Port Mafia closely, so when he sees a class being offered in the fall by the same man who has been openly targeting the Port Mafia, he sees an opportunity and signs up for the class.”

No, Dazai tries to say. His lips form the word, but the sound doesn’t come from his lips. No. No, no, no, no. You look haunted suddenly, and Dazai remembers the argument he had with you during the government event in Tokyo. How cold and withdrawn you’d become. How when he confronted you next, you accused him of working with Ui Koutarou and blackmailing you for money. Mori is reigniting all of the initial fears you once had.

“Ui-san has had his sights set on you for quite a while, dear. You don’t need me to tell you that, you’re very well aware of the man’s hatred of you… When Shuji-kun started classes in the fall, Ui-san roped him into his plans, and you became his project. That wretched man had many documents on you. I had the Black Lizards raid his apartment after we captured him—most were harmless, detailing places you frequented and people seen around you, but when Shuji-kun became involved, he started using that information to manufacture meetings between you. I imagine that after you met him that first time, he started appearing around you rather regularly. Bump-ins at that cafe you like in Minami-ku, on the streets—he even started renting an apartment on property that we own after he realized the opportunity he had with Ui… he’s only been living there since the summer, you know?”

His last apartment wasn’t close enough to the school, Dazai wants to argue desperately. He’d been lucky that a cheap apartment opened up in Hodogaya-ku before the semester started—he’s been trying to get one since his first year. It has nothing to do with-

Dazai suddenly feels nauseous again, everything is spinning around him—he still hears Aunt Kiye screaming at him, he still hears the creaking of the rope his mother hung himself on, he still hears Mori’s confirming that Odasaku’s death was his fault. And now this, and you’re not looking at him again, and he’s not saying anything, why isn’t he saying anything? Why isn’t he denying this?

“He attached himself to you quickly, didn’t he?” Mori asks rhetorically. “Too quickly, I’m sure you had doubts—not even your ability makes people reliant on you as swift as he became. How long did it take for him to start prying for information? Trying to make you slip up and implicate yourself with the Mafia? Confess yourself as an ability user?”

The night of the earthquake when you showed up at his apartment, he remembers dizzily. He started pressing you on your political opinion because he remembered Ui saying that all of the criminal syndicates in Japan are going to do whatever it takes to prevent the military bill from passing. But he wasn’t… doing it to prove anything? He just wanted to know more about you, he was curious, he was finally putting the mystery that you are together. It wasn’t malicious—he just wanted to know you. That’s all it ever was, he’s only ever wanted to know you.

“When did you tell him about your ability? More about our organization? Around when the Guild started making their move in Yokohama, I’m sure. He never told you about his ability until his hand was forced. In fact, I’m willing to bet he lied and said he didn’t know he had one, but tell me, do you really think an assassin of the caliber of Oda Sakunosuke would not realize his ward had an ability that negated his own? That he wouldn’t be trained in how to use it… Most importantly, if all of this wasn’t a scheme of revenge—if he really did love you—then why did he never get rid of the flash drive that contained the proof that his journalism house published? The proof that got you thrown in prison?”

You’re crying.

Dazai’s throat swells when he sees the tears silently tracking over your cheeks. At once, he realizes that he’s never seen you cry before; he itches to reach over to you, to grab your hand or wipe away the tears. He doesn’t—partially because he doesn’t think he could move if he tried, but mostly because he knows that he’s the reason you’re crying. 

He wants to assure you that none of this is true. He had nothing to do with the Guild—they kidnapped him for fuck’s sake. He didn’t know about his ability, he didn’t even know Odasaku was an assassin. And he was just… careless with the flash drive, and he shouldn’t have been, but there was always so much going on, and he was so new to having someone in his life that really loved him that he was quick to bask in it and forget everything else.

He doesn’t assure you of anything, instead he watches as Mori reaches out to do what Dazai wants to do. He brushes away your tears and turns your face to look at him, a disgustingly sympathetic look on his face.

“I know you were eager to believe that someone could love you without your ability at work influencing them, dear,” Mori murmurs, “but people like us will never find a love that pure. There will always be other factors at work sullying it—wealth, revenge, threats. You understand now what this was, don’t you?”

No, Dazai wants to scream at you. He does love you, this wasn’t some ridiculous revenge plot for family he hardly remembered until this meeting, that-

“I do.”

Dazai finally is able to make a noise when those two words leave your lips. It’s weak—something caught between a wheeze and a whimper that sounds too loud in the silent room. He feels eyes on him—Chuuya and Kouyou’s in particular. Not yours. You stare down at the table.

“Ogai-dono,” Kouyou clears her throat. “If I may… perhaps we could… send the boy away. Abroad. Ensure he never comes back to Japan so we don’t have to risk him coming back and disrupting things.”

“We could give him a seat at the table,” Chuuya interrupts, ignoring the wide-eyed look both Kouyou and Piano Man give him because of the radical idea. “We’re down an executive anyway. We tell people who he is, that he supports the new regime. It’s what you wanted to begin with, right, boss? You wanted one of the grandchildren to legitimize the passing of power. We could make it work.”

“It’s too risky.” Mori isn’t the one to speak, Piano Man is, but he doesn’t look happy to do it. “Maybe back then it could’ve worked, but the Port Mafia killed his friends and family, and hunted him down. Too much has happened, he’s an unpredictable variable that we can’t risk. We can’t trust that he’ll just accept it all, that he won’t work behind the scenes to take us down. Giving him any leverage in the organization is the last thing we should do, but what Kouyou-”

“Leave him alive and we risk everything we’ve built falling apart—a civil war igniting, Yokohama being caught in the crossfires and all of our foreign enemies crawling into the city to reap the benefits of our fall. It’s one life or hundreds—thousands, even,” Mori interrupts, voice cool. He turns his gaze onto you. “I trust you know what has to be done, dear.”

Your expression is resolved, a heavy emotion in your eyes that tells him your answer before you even speak. “Yeah, I know.”

You stand up, and Dazai knows that it’s over. When you look down at him, it’s with a type of apathy that makes his stomach twist—he’d rather hate than nothing. His lips part to speak but he pauses when you shake your head slightly, so subtly that he almost doesn’t even notice it.

“Get up,” you say flatly, and then glance at Chuuya. “Chuuya, will you…?” 

“Yeah,” Chuuya replies without you even needing to finish the question. His voice is hoarse, he looks more than a little disturbed. “Yeah. Of course.”

Chuuya rises to his feet and then grabs Dazai’s bicep to pull him up to his feet too. Dazai doesn’t even have the heart to give him a dirty look in response, following along as he leads him out of the conference room and into the hallway. 

For a split second, Dazai really believes that maybe you’re just trying to fool Mori, you made him think you were taking Dazai to have him killed so that you can get him out of here safely, but even once you’re out of the conference room without Mori’s eyes carefully watching you, you don’t look at him.

“Get one of the clean up crews up here,” you tell one of the guards waiting in the hall instead as you frown at your phone, typing out a quick text to someone. You pointedly ignore how alarmed they are by the offhand comment to click on the button to the elevator.

When you look back at the two of them, it’s not to look at Dazai—it’s to look at Chuuya. The two of you are having a conversation, Dazai can tell that much, and he thinks that maybe he should be putting in the effort to figure out what’s going on, what you have planned, but he’s just… tired. He’s not even sure if he cares what happens to him anymore, and he figures the worst case scenario is that he dies at your hands, and of all of the ways he could go, he thinks that would be the most preferable, because at least you would be the last thing he saw.

He doesn’t try to speak again until the three of you are in the elevator and the doors have closed. 

“I-”

“Stop.”

Dazai is startled by the sharpness in your voice. He looks at you, but you’re still not looking at him, your lips are curved down as you stare at your phone, typing furiously. He glances up into the left corner of the elevator, noticing the cameras—maybe that’s why, he thinks a bit unsurely, deciding to stay quiet until out of the building. 

When the elevator doors open, it’s Chuuya that urges him to keep walking by nudging his shoulder. You don’t touch him, don’t look at him. There’s nobody in the main entrance of the building, which Dazai thinks is a bit odd, but he bites back any comments he might have when he sees a black car waiting outside the building.

The doors to the building open at your approach, and Dazai inhales the crisp, fresh air greedily, not even having realized how stifled he’d felt in that room with Mori, you, and the other Port Mafia executives. He thinks maybe that you’ll sit in the backseat with him and he’ll finally be able to talk to you, but you don’t. You open the door to the passenger seat and sit there without even sparing him a glance.

Dazai’s throat starts to swell again, stopping in his tracks as he stares at where you disappeared behind the car door. Chuuya pushes him forward, not letting him linger for long—he opens the door to the backseat and pretty much manhandles Dazai into the car before taking a seat next to him.

He recognizes the person at the wheel—Albatross, your friend. He’s driven you and Dazai around before, every time Dazai gets in the car with him, he makes a sharp comment aimed to embarrass you in some manner. This time, he doesn’t even look at Dazai through the rearview mirror. He just puts the car in gear and starts driving.

A pit starts to form in Dazai’s stomach. Dazai tries to initiate conversation with you again now that you’re outside of the Port Mafia headquarters within closed quarters, nails scraping against his pants as he decides what he wants to say.

“I d-”

“Stop.”

When you cut him off now, Dazai’s stomach flips. He stares at the side of your face, trying to understand why you won’t even listen to him. You can’t actually believe what Mori was saying, you can’t. You were faking him out, tricking him into thinking you fell for it—you had to be, you have to be. You can’t possibly believe him. 

“You won’t… even hear me out?” Dazai asks you quietly.

“There’s nothing left to say.”

Oh, Dazai thinks to himself, withdrawing. He stares at you for a moment before turning away stiffly, expression tight and strained as he stares out the window, watching the buildings pass by as they get closer and closer to the ports. 

You believe it, he realizes dully. You believe that it was all just a scheme. You believe that everything was manufactured, that he used you for some fantastical revenge plan, that he never loved you. You believe it.

But it doesn’t make sense, he thinks desperately. He doesn’t understand how you’re not seeing through it, and if you are, why aren’t you at least giving him some hint? He should try to say something again—he knows that, but he finds himself unable to. He’s a smooth-talker, quick on his feet, but never when it comes to you—since the day he met you, he’s been fumbling over words awkwardly, but now it’s costing him everything. He finds ash in his mouth preventing him from salvaging anything he might’ve had with you.

Dig your nails in and cling, he reminds himself, but his nails have become rounded out and blunted from how long he was scratching at his pants and skin while remembering all those memories he locked away. He tries to dig his nails in and cling, but his voice fails him and his nails can’t even find purchase on your skin, you slip out of his hands as easily as an eel.

He’s going to lose you. He might’ve lost you already.

Dazai thinks that’s worse than the realization that he really might be about to die.

The car comes to a stop much quicker than Dazai had hoped, and he stiffens when you waste no time before getting out of the car. He makes no move to join you outside, and Chuuya sighs next to him.

“Get out,” Chuuya says flatly. When Dazai doesn’t budge again, Chuuya snaps, “Get out of the car-”

“-and go, we don’t have time! They’ve found us.”

Dazai draws his knees to his chest, breath becoming a bit labored as his aunt’s voice echoes in his ears. He doesn’t even realize that Chuuya has gotten out of the car until Dazai’s car door is pried open. For a split second, he confuses the executive with his aunt as he’s yanked out of the car—he’s fourteen again and being abandoned by the only person he has left, and he can just barely bite back the “don’t leave me here!” that almost spills from his lips as his knees hit the ground hard.

Dazai is instantly hit with a thick scent that makes him gag. It’s noxious, almost entirely unbearable, clogs his throat to the point he almost struggles to breathe—a blend of rot, acrid chemicals, and something he doesn’t recognize, but it’s sickeningly sweet. As he pushes himself to his feet, he notices you pass your gun over to Chuuya, but in that moment, Dazai is more concerned with figuring out where he is, and when he does, his stomach drops.

The dumping grounds by ports stretch endlessly under the heavy, overcast sky. Mounds of trash rose like grotesque hills patched with scraps of torn plastic and suspicious lumps that Dazai doesn’t have to get close to know what they are. The ground is uneven and treacherous—a mix of sticky mud and sharp shards of discarded glass and plastic, and pools of murky water shimmering with oil slicks. 

It’s disgusting, and Dazai has a feeling it might be his final resting place. 

He trails over to the side of the road and his gaze tracks down to the ground directly below him. It’s not a far drop, hardly a foot or two, and certainly less gross than some of the other parts of the area, but that’s a low bar to meet. He tears his eyes away from the scenery around him to look back at you, lips parted to speak but he doesn’t say anything.

You’re leaning against the front of the car, watching him with an expression that Dazai can’t describe. Sad, maybe, resigned. Chuuya is back in the car, from what Dazai can tell, he's still fiddling with your gun—he wonders if this is his way of letting the two of you say goodbye in private.

“I do love you,” Dazai says. His voice cracks over the words. “No ulterior motives. No schemes. I just loved you. Love you.”

You don’t say anything for a moment, eyes drawing from him somewhere over to the side like you’re looking for something, but after a moment, you look back at him, your face a little softer than it was before.

“I know,” you tell him quietly. “I know, Osamu.”

Dazai’s lips part to say something back—he doesn’t even know what he wants to say, because confusion fogs his mind. If you know, then why-

Why are you doing this?

He doesn’t get the chance to ask. The car door opens and Chuuya steps back out, he passes your gun back to you and Dazai sees you subtly slide something into his hand too, but he can’t tell what it is. You sigh as you look down at the gun before looking back up at him again, he holds his breath as you make your way closer to him.

His lashes flutter shut, expecting to feel the cool barrel of the gun against his forehead, but his breath hitches when he instead feels the familiar warmth of your hand cradling his cheek. Your fingertips are flaked with Ace’s dried blood, but Dazai still leans into your touch, eyes sliding back open to look at you.

Up close, your expression is twisted with regret and… is that fear? Dazai can’t tell, he doesn’t care, he’s more preoccupied with memorizing the image of you before he runs out of time to.

“Forgive me,” you whisper so faintly that Dazai almost doesn’t hear you.

“I do,” he replies just as softly.

Your face crumbles as you look away. You take a step away from him, and your hand drops down from his face. Dazai instantly mourns the loss. You let out a heavy, shaky breath, sparing one last look down at the gun in your hand, one to Chuuya who stands half a step behind you, and then you look at Dazai again.

“Forgive me,” you say again, this time as you lift the gun—your voice is raspy, breath uneven.

Your fingers tremble so violently that the whole gun is unsteady, but Dazai doesn’t even care to look at it, gaze focused on your face instead. 

“I do,” Dazai repeats.

You pull the trigger. 

[this-world-of-beautiful-monsters]

Sean Diazes Ranked On How Likely He Is To Eat Your Liver

Episode 1: 3/10. will beat you up and steal your shit if you're a douchebag, but probably won't do anything worse than a few stress bites.

Episode 2: 5/10. for himself? no. for Daniel? well...he'll keep it on the table, at least, if you'll excuse the pun. times are rough and a good cook needs to get creative.

Episode 3: 1/10. the munchies aren't that bad. besides, rn he's much more concerned about the entirety of Camp Half-Weed (drug dealers and little brothers included) being extremely desperate to fuck him.

Episode 4: 12/10. he'll eat your liver, he'll eat your heart, he'll eat your bones, he'll eat every one of your goddamn chock-o-crisps. he needs the calories and he's concussed/dehydrated enough he could easily believe you're just a talking sandwich.

Episode 5: 8/10. He might very well end up needing a snack for the road if you get in his way too long. do you want to get in his way? I don't think you want to get in his way.

[kyri45]

PREV / ALL / NEXT / FIRST (ISAT Sky: Cotl!AU!) AND WITH THAT FOLKS WE HAVE OFFICIALLY FINISHED THE VALLEY OF TRIUMPH!!!

HOLY SHIT! What a crazy journey has been in comic and IRL. 160 panels, 1 broken arm, a lot of pain for Odile. Thank you for staying with me even with all the health issue shenanigans.

So! As I think you saw, Croissaint boy is back! And him and Sif aren't the only ones that were outside the island at the time of the cataclysm! And Loop makes a comeback!! (Thought they aren't pleased with how things are going for the gang)

And here's the sky kid design submissions of this chapter!

Panel 2/3/4/5: @patoat

Panel 5: @1uminax & @royal-songbird

Panel 6: @miss-rainbow-sprinkles

I'm repeating this again for anyone who might not now, we are NOT going to wasteland in this AU, we go straight to the vault! This is my personal choice, I don't have all that much time and will to do all 7 realms, it would just burn me out and I would end up abbandoning this comic at all bc I'm just not so invested in those areas.

[olvitier]

Did some fanart for @hyolks wasteland AU, i posted it on twitter and figured id put it here as well go check their au out :3