#yokohama citizens looking at this guy going… ‘port mafia??!!?!?!’ *starts to scream*

[rosalinesurvived]

He’s so insanely Deranged i love him

He’s WALKING THE PEDESTRIAN WHILE CARS ARE STILL ALLOWED TO MOVE FUKUZAWA YOU MENACE

[patchwork-panda]

If A Moment Is All We Are (3/?)

TW (3): This chapter contains a mention of:

1) intrusive thoughts and suicidal ideation (Dazai dialogue). 2) fair amount of blood and physical violence in the form of guns, explosions and slashing injuries, as a "fight" chapter. 3) some descriptions of physical injury including broken bones and slash wounds. I tried not to let it be too graphic. Please proceed with caution.

For those who prefer AO3 format: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24121633/chapters/58072957

“Excuse me!”

The woman who now sat at the table, the one the old balding cop had vacated, looked up at me with a friendly, questioning gaze.

“Yes?”

I slammed my hands down on the counter, startling her into dropping her pen, and pushed my sketch of the green snake tattoo towards her.

“I need to make a report!”

“W-what sort of report?” she asked unsteadily, looking me up and down.

I could tell she was already evaluating my credibility but I had to listen to Detective Dazai. It was my only shot at saving Mrs. Yamazaki. I sat down in the same chair I had been in earlier and looked her right in the eye, my voice barely shaking as I gave her a slightly less nonsensical version of the story I had told her colleague earlier. When I finished, I got to my feet and bowed as low as I could.

“I’m not making any of this up and this is not a prank!” I exclaimed, head still bowed. “I, as a concerned citizen, am asking you, a member of the Yokohama Military Police for help. I’m begging you, ma’am: please, listen to me!”

“Okay, okay!” she exclaimed, waving her hands in the air as her colleagues turned to look at us. “I’ll listen to you! Please, sit down.”

Relieved, I sat. My legs were still shaking as I watched her get out a pen and a piece of paper and only when she started asking me for more details and slowly filling out her form was I finally able to breathe freely again.

It worked. I couldn’t believe it. That crazy detective’s advice had worked.

I was elated. I half-thought I was going to start crying with relief when the officer suddenly looked up and shot an anxious look out the window. Curious, I turned behind me and to my surprise, I saw Detectives Dazai (looking miraculously unhurt) and Kunikida passing by the station and going back across the street from whence they came. Seeing the recognition on my face, she turned to me with an odd look in her eye.

“Kusunoki-san,” she said, reading off her form. “Do you... know those two men? I thought I saw you talking to them earlier when I started my shift.”

“Not really?” I said, thinking back. “I mean, kind of? Armed Detective Agency, right? I actually talked to them about this earlier. Oh, but don’t worry! They insisted I talk to the police first before they got involved. They said that would be best.”

The officer looked contemplative.

“Yes, I would have to agree.” She frowned. “If they manage to solve your case before we do, again, my whole department would be completely humiliated. No, we can’t have that...”

She tapped her pen on the table as she thought to herself.

“Honestly, I have a few more questions I’d like to ask you, but I can’t ask them here.”

Once again, she looked behind her before motioning me forward, her expression grim. I scooted towards her in my chair, feeling slightly unsettled by the look on her face.

“W-why not?” I asked quietly.

“I know the man you’re looking for,” she whispered. “I believe he is a member of the Port Mafia.”

Not knowing who the Port Mafia was, I shrugged and her jaw hit the floor.

“You don’t know who the Port Mafia is?” I shook my head and she started laughing. “Wait, are you serious? What are you, some kind of shut-in? You don’t read the news?!”

As she sat there, laughing uproariously at her own joke, I twitched, trying to force a smile on my face as I waited for her to settle down.

“Oh, that’s a good one,” she sighed, wiping a tear from her eye. “Alright, let me tell you something about them since you don’t seem to know. The Port Mafia has been operating in Yokohama for decades. Decades. They have eyes and ears everywhere, perhaps even in this very police station. I want to ask you more but it’s not safe to do it here.”

She scribbled something down on a piece of paper and pushed it towards me.

“Meet me on the top floor of the South Pier Art Gallery in two hours. We’ll talk then.”

***

The rest had been a blur. I’d gone home, celebrated my win with a steaming hot bowl of ramen (topped with some of the veggies Mrs. Yamazaki had foisted on me) and watched some new seasonal shoujo anime titles to pass the time. Then, I took the train to the edge of town, found the gallery and blithely took the spiral staircase up to the top floor where they housed the stained glass window collection, not knowing what lay ahead. Not five minutes after I’d arrived, the young man named Akutagawa had appeared, killed the two curators lying on the far side of the room and blocked the way into the main entrance. When I ran for the fire escape instead, I found myself face-to-face with none other than Detective Dazai, who pointed a gun at me and instructed me to turn back around to face Akutagawa.

As I stood with my hands in the air, cold sweat running down my neck and my pathetic life hanging in the balance, I heard Dazai say something to me in a low, hushed voice.

“Sorry... this isn’t what I meant when I asked if you were doing anything later.”

As the memory of our encounter on the street floated back to me, something stirred to life deep inside my chest, something stronger than the panic that had been choking me since the start of this whole thing... It felt like anger.

“Is that right?” I asked. My voice was shaking but the words kept coming out. “You mean dates with you don’t usually end with somebody getting shot? What exactly did you have in mind then?”

“Oh? Are you interested after all?”

His tone was still light-hearted and flirtatious but I could sense his hesitancy; the gun against my skull pulled back just a fraction and for a second, there was hope. What if the gun fell away from my head entirely? Would I be able to make a run for it, make it back to my apartment in one piece? Akutagawa might try to rip my limbs off and I might still get shot at but what if I tried...?

Dazai didn’t say anything else; he was clearly waiting for my answer. I should tell him yes, maybe then he would feel less tempted to shoot me (why hadn’t he done so already?). However, something about the idea of spending more time in the company of this madman (that is, if I did manage to leave the gallery alive) was more nauseating than the smell of blood permeating the room.

“Not at all,” I replied coolly, “I don’t date guys who are two seconds away from blowing my head off.”

This time, it was Dazai’s turn to laugh.

“Well then,” Dazai mused, “Would it make you feel better to know I’d be joining you right after?”

I actually scoffed.

“What are you proposing, a double suicide?!”

“If you’d like.”

“You have a terrible sense of humor, Detective.”

I wasn’t sure if he could hear me over the deep growls coming from across the room. The monster coming out of Akutagawa’s cloak swayed slowly from side to side, clearly looking for an opening. Akutagawa hadn’t moved a muscle in some time but somehow this didn’t make me feel more comfortable. The sun was starting to set, the colors of the stained glass windows around us gradually darkening, making that cold, calculating gaze and quiet anger coming from the entrance more menacing than ever. Fruitlessly, I weighed my options again, looking around to see if there were any routes, any at all, that I could take to leave the gallery with my life. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find even one. I sighed, my shoulders dropping, that spark of hope fading with the last light of the sun.

“It was Dazai-san, right? Can I ask you a question?”

He didn’t answer, so I continued anyway.

“You talk about suicide so casually... You’re not afraid of dying?”

“Not really. It’s pain and suffering I’m afraid of, but dying?”

Dazai was quiet for a moment. When he spoke again, he sounded peaceful, hopeful even.

“No. I think about Death so often that it’s as familiar as an old friend to me now. Finally getting to die... It would be comforting, almost like coming home.”

“Huh...”

Flashes of my previous life appeared before my eyes, from more recent to further back... Mrs. Yamazaki bleeding out, alone in her own darkened living room room. A young man’s body flying high into the air after an untimely collision with a speeding black car. The shadow of a burning building on the water’s edge, down by the pier, windows shattering as it was rocked by a sudden explosion...

And finally, an image of a ghoul, staring back at me from just outside my own darkened windows, with long, black hair cut in the same style as my own, drops of blood instead of tears falling down her cheeks, staining the fingertips she touched to them, the blackness of her pupils deep like bottomless wells... As I stared into my own haunted reflection that night, the night before I stopped going to class, I heard it—the darkness within calling out to me, the intrusive thoughts that tempted me to jump when I looked out through the windows of tall buildings...

I heard a distant roar. The shadow monster commanded by Akutagawa surged forward, jaws stretched wide and at the last moment, I turned my head to look Detective Dazai in the face. I smiled.

“I understand.”

Dazai stared at me.

“You do...?”

Without warning, an explosive force shook the gallery, enveloping me in clouds of thick, acrid smoke. I heard a crack and coughing violently, I looked down just in time to see the patterned floor below me give way, the cheap carpeting disintegrating beneath my very feet. There was no time for me to scream or think. I fell into the void below, my watering eyes catching one final glimpse of Akutagawa’s pale face, twisted in anger, as the darkness claimed me.

Wind rushed past my ears. I could feel myself picking up speed and I covered my head, wondering if tucking myself into a ball might mean less broken bones when I finally hit the bottom floor.

But I had stopped falling.

I was caught on something sturdy, with long, dense, wiry limbs. A tree? No, trees weren’t this warm... and they didn’t smell like gun smoke, books and ink...

“Got you,” someone grunted from just above me and I realized I’d fallen not onto a tree, but right into a man’s arms. I pushed my tangled bangs out of my face and looked up.

“Kunikida-san?!”

“I’ll explain later,” he gruffly, crouching down and setting my feet on the ground as the lights around us snapped back on. “We have to go, now! Can you run?”

No sooner had I nodded than he grabbed my wrist, his fingers closing over the fabric of my jacket, and tugged me after him, wasting no time in tearing off down the nearest corridor as soon as he was sure I could stand. Paintings whizzed by as we ran, abstract portraits blurring into colorful landscapes as we raced down the hall, my wrist locked in the detective’s iron grip. I could hear gunfire and yells, occasionally an otherworldly roar echoing from the top floor and I shuddered and pushed myself to run faster, to put more distance between myself and the beast making those horrible shrieks. As we ran past the spiral staircase to the corner of the central gallery, I abruptly realized the explosion had taken me from the top floor to the second—that much closer to safety...

Just when I thought my legs were going to give out, Kunikida abruptly stopped at the end of the corridor and I almost crashed right into him. His head jerked up and I caught a flash of green from the exit sign reflected on his glasses as he barked his next command.

“This way!”

I was brusquely yanked forward again, Kunikida’s long ponytail nearly smacking me in the face as he dragged me into a stairwell, the walls and steps narrow and lined with cement.

“We’re going down. Hurry!” he ordered, finally letting go of my aching wrist.

Ignoring the burning in my legs, I bolted down the stairs as quickly as I could, the tall detective hot on my heels as a crack echoed above us, like fireworks exploding in our confined chamber. Instinct took over and I ducked, throwing a hand over my head as I felt projectiles whiz past my shoulder.

“Get up!” Kunikida shouted and I obeyed, the sight of freshly gouged bullet holes on the wall ahead of me spurring me on. I was almost at the ground floor when I heard gunshots from very close behind. At once, I realized Kunikida was not with me and I whirled to see him several meters away at the turn, firing a small handgun up the stairs.

“Kunikida-san?” I called up, dashing back to him.

“Don’t come any closer!” he cried.

A sharp pain ripped into my cheek, tearing off bits of my hair and splattering my clothes with hot blood. I could feel the blood dripping down my neck in rivulets as I squeezed myself back into the corner and out of the way, a fresh hail of bullets raining down on us from above. I heard excited shouting; someone had followed us, their heavy footsteps pounding down the stairs—

“It’s the Port Mafia. You have to go!” Kunikida hollered, the echo of his voice nearly overwhelmed by the cacophony of more bullets firing into the stairwell. The impact scattered rubble everywhere and forcing me to guard my eyes.

“What about you?!” I cried.

“I’ll be fine!” he shouted. “Just get to the lobby, now!”

Red bloomed in the shoulder of his beige vest. He stumbled and pushed himself further back into the corner of the alcove, his bloodied hand reaching into his shirt vest and pulling out a small, lightly-bound olive green notebook. There was a determined look in his eye.

“What are you waiting for? Go!”

He ripped a page out of the notebook and I was suddenly blinded by a flash of green light. An enormous explosion rocked the stairwell and I stumbled to the ground as smoke flooded the air.

“Kunikida-san?!”

There was no answer. I pushed myself to my feet, staring in horror at the spot where he’d been.

“Kunikida-san...”

Was he dead? Had he died defending me?!

Frozen, I stood there, utter shock pulsing through me as my cheek continued to drip blood onto my blouse. But all too soon, the sound of footsteps began to pound down the stairs, snapping me out of my daze and I uprooted my feet, following Kunikida’s last order and made for the door to the lobby.

I had to live. If Kunikida was really dead, living was the only way to make sure his sacrifice was not in vain. Living meant I was saved.

Throwing my shoulder against the heavy door, I burst into the lobby. To my relief, a quick glance around the ground floor assured me that the lobby was deserted, with no security guards and no trench-coat-clad figures with guns anywhere in sight. Taking one last, regretful look behind me at the stairs, I immediately sprinted for the front doors.

“Hold it, Prophet.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a ribbon of black and red streak towards me. Before I knew what had hit me, something slashed deeply into my left leg and I hit the floor with a sharp cry of pain, the back of my thigh burning like it was on fire. I could feel the warmth of my own blood pouring out of the wound, pooling on the ground and soaking wetly into my ripped jeans. As I struggled to get up, I heard Akutagawa’s voice again.

“Surrender.”

Somehow, he’d gotten past Dazai and Kunikida. Or maybe the Port Mafia had already finished both of them off, giving Akutagawa a clear path to me... Gritting my teeth, I got up, staggering a little as I stood, my eyes meeting with Akutagawa’s cold gray ones. My legs felt weak. I could tell that I’d been cut very deeply but I continued running for the doors, adrenaline pumping through my veins as I made a bee-line for the dim light of the setting sun outside.

“Don’t ignore me.”

There was an unearthly roar and something hit the ground where my right foot had been barely a millisecond before, sending small chunks of flooring flying into the air as I dodged Akutagawa’s attacks. For one brilliant, shining second, I thought I was going to make it—my fingers brushed against the glass and metal front doors—

“Rashoumon! Higanzakura!”

Black and red wires tightened around my throat, wrenching me away from the exit before I could push open the doors and lifting me high into the air. I could barely breathe and I scrabbled against my bonds in vain, the skin of my palms and fingers stinging and bleeding with every attempt to pry the coils off of me.

What was this thing made of?!

Through watering and narrowed eyes, I watched as Akutagawa approached in measured steps, his hands in his pockets, that cold, impassive face coming closer with every passing moment.

“You run pretty fast for an injured girl, I’ll admit. Unfortunately for you, I was ordered to capture you. And I don’t intend to fail.”

The weight around my throat suddenly became crushing. Spots appeared before my eyes and I fought to stay conscious as the last gasp of air was squeezed out of me. Akutagawa’s ragged, darkened form faded in and out of sight.

No! I can’t die here...!

I clawed harder at the thing holding me, desperation setting in. I’d escaped him once before, I had to do it again...! Kunikida might have died for me and if I died now, Mrs. Yamazaki didn’t have a prayer. I needed to make sure she was really saved...! I needed to live!

I watched helplessly, my arms losing strength as another tendril of darkness grew out of Akutagawa’s black coat. Crackling with energy, its shape twisted to become flat and angular until I realized I was staring at an enormous scythe.

“Dazai-san guessed correctly. My orders were to capture you alive. However, whether or not you need to be completely whole was not discussed. I don’t think the boss will care if I cut off your legs. If I do that, you’ll never be able to run away from us ever again.”

“No...”

My voice came out as nothing more than a weak gasp. Unable to hear me, he drew the scythe back in preparation.

“Don’t!”

There were several loud bangs and the vise around my neck abruptly loosened. I felt a rush of wind above me as I fell through the air, shuddering as I landed on my injured leg, which buckled sickeningly beneath me, leaving me in a bloody heap on the floor. Rubbing my throat as I coughed, trying to bring fresh air back into my lungs, I looked up to see Kunikida, bloodied but alive and well, firing a small handgun from behind a large metal sculpture at Akutagawa. He had been forced to retract the demon and was instead raising it as a shield to defend himself against the blonde detective’s onslaught. His pale hand was spattered with red as he clutched at his shoulder, blood coursing down the back of his black robe and dripping at his feet.

I could barely believe it; Kunikida had saved me once again.

I watched him dive out of the way as Akutagawa sliced up the sculpture with his black sickle and duck behind another statue, firing constantly out of his small hand gun. Sparks flew as he traded blows with Akutagawa and he shot at Akutagawa until I heard the hollow clicking of his gun; he was out of bullets. Gritting his teeth, he flung it out of the way. There was another flash of green light and within moments, he was firing at Akutagawa again.

As they fought, I scanned my surroundings again, trying not to think about the amount of blood I was losing, wondering if any backup was coming. Kunikida was holding his own but with no one on the way, he couldn’t last long. I tried to pull myself to my feet and almost immediately slipped back down.

There on the floor, amidst the splatters of blood, was a soft layer of long black hair. It was all over the faux-marble tiles and as I brought my hand to my head, I realized that it was my hair—Akutagawa must’ve clipped most of it from my head when he tried to cut me in half. Looking back up to the main doors, I tried to stand on my injured leg and immediately regretted it.

“Shit.”

My leg was in bad shape; I could barely feel it and everything from the knee down was soaked in blood. Even worse than that, my breaths felt shallow and my head was spinning from anemia; I had to be close to going into shock and judging from the small pinpricks of pain, there were probably micro fractures in my bones. In spite of Kunikida’s best efforts to keep me alive, I had no clue how I was going to make it out of the gallery.

And then a flash of a different shade of red caught my eye.

Rolling towards me from the far side of the room, where the battle raged, was a bright red fire extinguisher. Parts of it looked damaged, and as I stared at it, I was struck by a dangerous idea. If I had no chance of survival, I could at least use my last moments well.

I scooped up the fire extinguisher into my arms and headed back into the fray.

“Kunikida-san!”

They turned to me just as I flung the pressurized device at Akutagawa.

“Heads up!”

All eyes in the lobby lifted towards the extinguisher as it flew through the air, seemingly moving in slow motion as it arced towards Akutagawa. Wordlessly, Kunikida raised his gun and fired once.

The atrium shook. Glass shattered and plumes of white powder filled the air, blanketing the statues in the lobby like snow. My ears rang; something was dripping out of them. The force of the blast must have knocked out my eardrums and I could feel myself flying backwards through the air. Without warning, I was propelled through the doors of the gallery entrance and I was awarded one glorious view of the outside, of the building bathed in a twilight glow, the very streets illuminated in flashing red and blue lights. I saw uniformed police officers swarming out of their vehicles, towards me, towards the wrecked building behind me...

And then I hit the sidewalk with a horrible crunch.

The last thing I saw before the darkness took me was a woman in black and white racing towards me where I fell, a golden butterfly glinting brightly in her hair.