Dazai POV
The Yokohama salt air bit at my skin as I walked into the main Port Mafia building, my body thrumming with a relentless energy that I'd thought I'd gotten rid of years and years before. Everything felt twisted and wrong, warped now that I was back on mafia soil, though the problem was simple enough to identify.
The problem was that I was feeling anything at all.
Before going back to New York I had been able to look at the world around me with something of a comfortable, if not protective, numbness. Apathy seeping into my bones everywhere that emotion was supposed to lie. But now...
There was a gym in the Port Mafia building, several in fact in each of the five large pillars that stood a stark black among the middle of the city. Each of them were there for the mafiosos to train their skills with one another.
I've always hated using them, opting to avoid the two floors of the tall buildings dedicated to such facilities altogether when I could. There were too many people, too many heavy glances and wandering hands belonging to fools that believed that I would just let them do whatever it was that they wished with me because I was young and they didn't know who I was at the time.
They knew now though.
All those that had tried anything were met with a quickly darkening bruise blooming across their skin into a rich purple and blue at best, dead at my feet at the worst, though that had only happened a time or two. Any time that the worse of the two had occurred the boss hadn't done anything about it, saying that we were all no better than dogs deciding our pack order as if he hadn't done similar only a year and a half before. The others in the mafia knew that there was more to it, but just chose to stay a good distance away from it all instead, valuing their lives over verbalizing anymore of their curiosity.
Not that this stopped any of the wandering gazes.
The only reason that I was even stepping foot into the communal training room, onto the floor at all, was that the person that I had come to meet had insisted upon it, claiming it to be the best environment for what we would be doing. Though I knew that there were ulterior motives there as well, there always were with the mafia after all.
She wants to remind others that I'm dangerous, that I'm not something meant to be touched.
I knew that this feeling of her's came from the knowledge that the woman had become privy to not long after I had officially joined the mafia. Even though she had acted as though she couldn't have cared less about what had happened to me back then, this in itself was proof enough that the executive couldn't stop themself from meddling in matters that I hadn't asked them to.
Kouyou was dressed in her usual etier, as she tended to be when we met to spar like this. She's always held firm to the belief that one should train in what they would be most likely to fight in so that movements don't feel strange, foreign, once you try to execute them wearing something less comfortable than gym clothes. It was a stance that I shared with the older woman as I came to the gym dressed in my mafia attire, sans that jacket that the doctor had given me. The coat was draped over my as I walked inside and was thrown unceremoniously onto a bench when I grabbed one of the katana's lining the wall, finding one as similar in size to that of Riptide as I could. The coat always hung loosely on my shoulders and could be easily casted away should the need arise.
"Evening, Kouyou," I greeted, spinning the blade as I walked to meet her on the mat, reaffirming myself with the distinct difference in weight and length.
Other blades have always felt strange in my hands, ever since I was twelve, as if they weren't meant for me. And in every way that could be counted they weren't. Only Riptide had ever felt at home in my grasp, but it's a blade that doesn't harm mortals. Something useless in the world of monsters masquerading as men. So I tend to use guns instead while I'm here.
"Hello, Dazai," the woman spoke. Her voice was smooth though it wasn't as deep as the boss's. She was the picture of elegance even as she stood upon the mat dirtied by poorly cleaned blood stains, drawing her own blade from the sheath at her side in the hopes of leveling it at my throat. "Have a nice trip?" Though her voice was light, friendly almost if she had been speaking with anyone other than me, I could hear the dangerous undertones hidden just beneath the level of pleasantness like a monster lurking in the night. The monster was always there, lying in weight, where the gravity manipulator was concerned.
It was one of the reasons that I had chosen her to take the boy in after all.
"As pleasant as to be expected," I answered the woman plainly, making my boredom of the topic obvious to the Port Mafia executive before me. Though I had been expecting the question nonetheless. Humans are always predictable when emotions come into play. Something I suppose I no longer need to concern myself with anymore. "Though I move that we postpone discussing it in any further detail until after," I continued before slowly turning my gaze to the other mafiosos around the pair of us that were doing a horrid job at concealing their lingering gazes. "After all, we wouldn't want to ruin the show," I told her cruelly, speaking more to the small crowd that had gathered than to the other sword's man. "Now would we?"
The executive sighed tiredly, something that almost every adult in my vicinity seemed to do. Her face was still pulled into a pretty expression as he conceded, likely already expecting this outcome but had chosen to ask anyways. "Of course," she agreed easily. "Shall we begin?"
And so we did.
Kouyou moved like a slow stream of water, gracefully and calmly, slowly breaking down her opponent in such subtle ways that they would hardly even realize it until it was far too late for anything to be done. However, I moved like a raging sea, all brashness and relentless aggression, tearing the other apart as cruelly as I could. In moments like these, with our blades crashing violently against one another, time started to lose all meaning, pushing forwards and backwards so much that I felt like someone else, something else entirely. I couldn't even blame the interlopers for watching as shamelessly as they did, it truly was quite the show that we put forth, even when everyone already knew what the outcome would be like the lines on their palms.
The tip of a blade was pressed harshly against my throat in a way that almost would've drawn blood had the bandages not been there, as I knelt on the ground, my own sword digging into the soft flesh beneath the executive's jaw, that was the image that all of the mafia subordinates present saw. It, or a variant of it, was the image that they always were given. It really was a stunning show.
We each removed our swords from one another, putting them away, done for the day. It was quite pointless to continue to spar anymore as the results would only be the same as those prior. Kouyou hadn't managed to beat me since our first week of training as we were, and I would never be able to beat her unsung a style that went so against my natural instincts that always seemed to want to take control.
"You've fallen into that previous style of yours once more," the mafia executive noted as we left the training room and made our way to the elevator to go to her office. She wasn't strictly complaining, but I could tell that she was anything but pleased with what must appear to be a regression in her regal eyes.
"Greek," I told her, putting a name to the style that has annoyed the woman beside me since the moment that she first handed me one of her swords and all but told me to do my worst, thinking that I would fail horribly. I did at the time, just not for any of the reasons that she had strewn together at the time. "I had to practice it while I was in the states," I told her in a way of an explanation. She didn't press any further, at least not directly.
"Did you handle everything that you needed to then?" Kouyou inquired as we walked into the woman's office, a comfortable place with an atmosphere to it that was just warmer than the rest of the building. The light seemed to stubbornly cling to the room, to the slightly warm color within it, just barely even as it was drowned out by the darkness that tried to consume it. Not unlike the woman before me.
"If the boss wishes to know every intricate detail of my time abroad, then he can have me speak with him myself," I told the executive brazenly, sitting down on her couch that she had placed in the office sometime in the past few months as Kouyou herself made tea. She was not surprised or even bothered by my brash tone that most would not dare use when speaking of the man, nor did she seem to mind it much. She never did, not since having a child of her own in her care. "But yes," I confirmed, "everything was taken care of as it needed to be."
"Will you be going back at any point?" The woman asked, her tone level as she did so. Whether she was asking out of our curiosity or for the boss, I didn't know and quite frankly didn't care to waste the time or effort, no matter how minimal, that would be needed to deduce the answer. They each had ample motive to want to know either way.
I shook my head lightly, my hair falling in front of my eyes, now back to the color that it had been before my little trip overseas. All of the bandages were back in place as well, sitting like an armor on my skin now that the curse of Acheillies had faded as well since coming back to Yokohama.
"No," I told her plainly while accepting the cup of tea that had been pushed into my hands as the older mafioso took the other seat on the couch, keeping a comfortable distance between each of us, something that the woman always seemed to do seemingly without even noticing that she was doing so. "I took care of what I needed to and tied up any loose ends that there were."
She nodded, looking almost pleased. "Good," the Port Mafia executive decided, the word sounding heavy. "I'd hate to think of what Mori would do to you if this were to become a repeat performance."
Don't we both?
She didn't ask if I would miss my home or any of those that I had left behind there, turning them into strangers in my wake. She didn't need to. Everyone that comes to the mafia had their own reasons, rather it be a greed for riches or a lust for power, everyone that ends up here does so because the world that they were leaving behind seemed worse in some aspect than the hell that they were voluntarily putting themselves through. For most of us here, home is little more than the first place that we had learned to run from.
"And how did Chuuya fair?" The mafioso asked after a moment, the silence likely having become too heavy for her to comfortably bear anymore, the weight of her own memories mixing violently with the creations of her own mind.
Her care for the other ability user was honestly sickeningly sweet as the mafioso showed a protectiveness for the boy that a mother would normally hold for their young. Or at least a sister given the smaller age difference that the pair held with one another. But I never mentioned it, or pretended to have the right to act as if I was tired of the sight. I had been the one to go to the woman and asked that she do exactly this, knowing that she would act with such an honest display of humanity.
"Beautifully," I told her truthfully, choosing not to meet the woman's piercing gaze. In moments like these it felt as if that stare of her's would eat me alive if I were to allow it to. I didn't want to know of the broken mess that lay just beneath my cold surface, not again.
Absolutely beautifully.
We spoke for a little while longer as Kouyou informed me on mafia affairs and any prudent information that I had missed while overseas dealing with a temperamental titan. There wasn't really much to discuss, but Ane-San has always been decent enough company for me not to mention that I didn't truly need to concern myself with most of the information that she spoke of, something that I was sure that she knew as well. Though for her part, most of the information would undoubtedly be useful to have should I ever wish to hold it over someone's head in the near future.
Before I left I showed her the picture of Chuuya that I had taken at the dining pavilion during our first meal there. It brought an unashamed smile to the older woman's lips as I had known that it undoubtedly would.
But life could only hold the ghost of such pleasantries fo so long before reality seeped back in.
—-
On the second floor of the main Port Mafia building there is a room isolated from all of the others in the building with locks on the outside of the door but none on the inside. With no way to get out but to be let out. It was a room specifically designed for the ability users of the Port Mafia who have certain ability types that have proven to be dangerous, the skill user having no idea as to how to control or activate it. Exactly like the child confined within its walls.
The door opened up easily enough when I swiped the key card and pulled at the handle, the pitter patter of eager feet meeting me at the entrance.
Q had a crazed gleam in their excited eyes, their two toned hair messier than the last time that I had seen it. They looked happy to see me in the way that a convict looked pleased to see the sun once a day from the prison courtyard. I could understand the sentiment, it was a justified one after all. Q wasn't allowed around other people or out of their room in general unless I was present. We still didn't know the activation requirements for the child's ability, nor exactly what it did once activated, so I always needed to be close by when they were let loose.
"Mr. Dazai!" The child squealed happily, running towards me but stopping just short of touching me, clearly remembering what'd happened the last time that the had done so.
I hadn't expected the kid to attempt to attach themselves to my side at the time since they had every right to hate me even though I was the only way that they could be set free. Maybe because I was the only way that they could be set free.
I'd flinched back violently at the time and had instinctively thrown the child off of me, both of us landing harshly on the ground, but neither of us hurting anything vital. Since then the child hasn't made the same mistake again.
"Your back!" They exclaimed, a horrible mix of excitement and anger as their emotions so clearly warned inside of the child. "I'd thought that you'd died and left me locked up here," the small mafioso said in an accusatory tone.
No, you're my last matter of business to see to before I do just that.
"I had some business to attend to overseas," I told the young ability user, giving them just enough of an answer to know not to press it and ask anything further. To assume that it was mafia business and something off limits to them. It worked wonders as all the child did was nod.
I took that moment to truly take in the appearance of the child before me. They looked like they hadn't brushed their hair in days, but had at the least been bothered to brush their teeth. Their clothes looked dirty from continued wear, clearly not changed in days. Those looking after the kid while I was gone had probably just left the food inside of the bedroom and washed their hands of it all. The attitude was something that I had expected as the brat could seem very off putting to others that didn't hold such a sense of otherness as Q and I did, but those looking after them will need to be changed after this.
I saw that the clothes that the child had been given after they'd frost come to the mafia had started to cling uncomfortably to the child's skin now. It wasn't hard to guess as to why. Being here was probably the first time that they'd been given anything remotely close to a proper meal since being admitted to the hospital for whatever reason it was that they had been. Normal people have never taken too kindly to gifted, at least not those that knew that we existed, not even to a child as young as Q. They had probably been doing a battery of tests on the child much worse than the social experiments than we had been instrumenting.
"I was thinking that the pair of us would go on an outing today," I informed the child as we walked further into the room, the kid stubbornly sticking to my side while never brushing against it.
The room itself that Q had been given had purposefully been made larger than most of the other rooms in the building, aside for the boss's office and the former boss's quarters, since those put in this room are confined to it for so long. It was meant to be comfortable since those put here were still Port Mafia members and would stand to be useful once they knew how to control their mental or physical abilities that harm those around them in such a manner that confinement was needed. But I could tell that the child was still going stir crazy, something that would only make finding their ability more difficult as we had already ruled out emotions as a factor.
But the kid did not look pleased with the idea of leaving. "If we're just going to the rooms downstairs, then-" the child started to protest, but I held up my hand to make them stop, their strange eyes staring up at me with the star and the moon.
"I said an outing for both of us, not just for you," I reminded the brat coldly. A smile that somehow still managed to appear creepy even as the child tried to look deceptively innocent appeared on Q's face. "Go," I told them tonelessly, waving the child off. "Change your clothes, grab your doll, put on some proper shoes, and brush your hair. I'll go send for the car."
The way that they smiled in that moment was almost enough to make you forget that this was the mafia. Almost.
—-
The shopping cemetery was bustling with commotion by the time that we came to it as teens flocked to the mall to mess around with their friends after classes before they were needed back at home. Adults came and went as well, some dressed in business clothing while others donned a more casual look. At the end of the day it didn't matter though, as there were entirely too many people present.
"Remember," I started, staring down at the child that was currently clinging to the empty sleeve of my coat as they held onto their doll with their other hand, "don't touch anything or anyone unless given permission," I reminded them, something that I felt the need to everytime that I actually bright the child around other people outside of a test setting. "Understood?"
"No playing," the child said, nodding their head so fast that I almost worried that they would get whiplash. "Got it, Mr. Dazai." Over the past few months the brat had been getting better at speaking longer sentences in a way that could be understood by others around them, a far cry from the way that they had come to the mafia.
Even with the easy compliance I could tell that the child was feeling slightly put out by the restrictions, but the emotions of a child were not my problem nor did I ever wish them to be. I just had to make sure that Q didn't cause a scene in public with their ability that could be traced back to the Port Mafia as we still didn't have a gifted license, nor any chance of attaining one.
Nodding, I led the child inside and to the first children's clothing store that we came across, letting them lead me where they wished to go. I didn't care what clothes the kid picked out so long as they fit, and maybe a coat for them to grow into as the seasons grew cooler with the passage of time.
An hour or two passed like this, with Q dragging me around the store by the sleeve of my coat, pointing at the things that they liked. By the time that we were done we had amassed a small pile of clothing at the counter, but it would be enough to last the brat well enough until the next growth spurt hits the child. Most of the clothes were slightly oversized to allow for the child to grow into them with time.
There was a small tugging at the sleeve of my coat as I held the mafia's expense card out to pay, something that was sure to irk the boss and that knowledge only made me want to do it more, petty as the action was. It's not like he doesn't have it coming. I motioned to the chaser to hold on and looked down at the small mafioso.
The child was looking at me expectantly as they pointed out at something further into the store, a part that I'm sure we had passed earlier but the kid had obviously been too distracted to see. I followed the ability user's gesture to a small rack of little hats and purses that would look much too big against the current size of the slender kid. A sigh made itself known as I punched the ridge of my nose. I'd known since before we had walked into the building that something like this was bound to happen sooner or later. It was only natural that the child would want some kind of reward in exchange for their good behavior thus far. The fact that we had managed to pass four families since walking in here was proof enough of that.
"Okay," I conceded, too tired to want to deal with the child potentially running off in a temper tantrum. They were only six after all. "Go."
The woman at the counter was giving me something of a pitying look, more so than she had been when we had first walked in and her gaze had been instinctively drawn to the bandages strewn across my figure. But Q was smiling up at me in a way that actually seemed to have reached their eyes. It was blindingly bright and all but promised that the child would be on their best behavior for the rest of the day.
When they came back, Q had a small blue hat in their hand with a bale yellow bow on it and a little red purse with a face on it that somehow managed to look just as crazed as the child themself normally did. I almost wanted to object and tell them to put one back, but the hat was cheap and the purse would be good for them to carry a weapon in once they're older and have been cleared for field work. So I nodded and let the younger ability user put the things on the counter themselves, pushing up on to their tiptoes to do so.
The walk back outside went just as smoothly as the one inside, with Q still clinging to my sleeve and me hanging most of the bags between each of my arms as I called for the car. The kid had insisted upon holding at least one of the bags and I didn't see any point in denying it so they had a light bag looped through the arm that they carry their doll in.
We stopped at the side of the building, standing in the cool shade that it provided. The heat from the summer sun in Yokohama wasn't nearly as bad as it had been while I was in Manhattan, but the extra layers were enough to make me seek out the respite that the shade provided all the same.
"The car should be here in five minutes," I informed the child, watching as they nodded sharply in response, not bothering to look up at me as they played with their doll.
I was going to ask if the younger mafia members would be able to control themselves if we went to sit down on one of the benches near where some other people were currently doing so, but the question died on my lips before I had the time to voice it into existence.
There was a man dressed in dirty street ware that had clearly been worn a time or two too many from all of the poor attempts that the man had made at mending the holes and the copious amount of stains that could be seen. I knew his type, what he planned to do as his eyes shined with a predatory light that could be seen even from so far away.
Grabbing the child by the shoulder, I dragged them into the small alley that we had been standing at the mouth of. They didn't protest, knowing that I avoid physical touch as well as I could and that there had to be a good reason for me to initiate it. We disappeared into the darkness of the alley only to be met with two other men, each of them in a similar state of disarray to that of the previous one. I heard Q try to stifle a sharp intake of breath, betraying their surprise. Had I been more like my past self I would have felt more obliged to do just the same. I had been expecting one man to be waiting for us, likely trying to box the pair of us in. The appearance of a third man had been an unlikely probability, but was not as problematic for us as they each so clearly thought that it was, if the wolfish smiles on each their faces were anything to go by.
"Looky what we have here," the man on the left cooed, taking his time stalking forwards towards Q and I with the second man at his side.
"Two little rich pricks out and about," the one on the right said, his voice a sickenly sweet that shouldn't belong to men of their type.
Any normal child would have alarm bells going off in their mind by now, telling them to run as fast and as far as they could, back into the crowded area where nothing could happen. But all of my warning signals had been broken and bent when I was young, and a large part of me doesn't believe that Q has ever had any at all. The child had that crazed smile of theirs carved into their thin lips as I smirked in a way that no child ever should, but none of this seemed to be noticed by the men before us.
They didn't know that there was something wrong with the pair of us. That we weren't the ones in trouble.
"I'm sure someone will pay a pretty little sum for each of you," a cruel voice called from behind, making themselves known. "A nice little ransom, don't you think?"
Ah, the last actor in our little skit has revealed himself. How quaint.
A had grabbed at my shoulder in a bruising grip that should have been enough to cripple any other child that the man would have come across. It was bearable.
Flinging my arm back, I rammed it back into the man, forcing him to lose his grip on me as I twisted to meet him. My kindle was already comfortably in my hand before I had even seen the man's face from up close, slashing at the tender part of the other's thigh. A pained scream echoed through the alley, but no one came to the man's aid. Everyone in Yokohama knew better than to do something so foolish. It was a demon city for a reason after all.
A well placed hit to the head was enough to send the man sprawling to the ground with a sickening crack as his head met the concrete, unconscious.
When I turned around I wasn't exactly sure what I had been expecting to see, but the man that had been on the right strangling the other had not been on the list of probabilities that I had created.
There was a stark handprint on the man's face and a crazed, dissociative look in his eyes as if his body wasn't moving entirely of its own violation. Q seemed fine in constant as they had started happily giggling in the way that the six year old tended to do when they found something to be particularly entertaining. The child went as far as to clap their hands together in an unflinching glee that couldn't normally be found within the confines of the Port Mafia. There was a red mark on the kid's skin that stood out like beacon light against their pale complexion. It looked as if one of the two men had struck the child, something that was much more likely than I would have liked it to be.
The strangest thing out of the entire scene that had been laid out before me wasn't the madly giggling child, nor the crazed man, but the doll.
The brown doll was floating in the air, the doll's hand's raised to its head where a large tear had formed down its middle, as if it had been the one to do so to itself. From the very way that the object was shaking, maybe it had been.
Moving forwards lazily, I grabbed the toy from out of the air, watching with a bored interest as it disappeared into bright bands of blue light. My light, my ability. I knew that some abilities had a physical anchor to them, but this was my first time seeing it in person, in a case where touching the ability user themselves wouldn't have done a thing to stop the ability's effects.
The men collapsed to the ground only a moment later. One of them had passed out from asphyxiation, while the other was still reeling from the effects of having the ability set upon them. From the ability affecting their mind. The man was shaking as if all of the fight had gone out of his body. It was quite the pathetic sight.
The child made a disappointed noise from nearby as they turned to me, their shopping bag swinging lightly from the force as it still hung from the mafioso's arm. "Is play time over already?" Thyebasked, a sad look painted across the young ability user's face even as they still retained the excited gleam in their eyes.
"For now," I answered to the child simply. "You'll have some new playmates when we get back though," I promised.
The kid smiles creepily before bounding away to the mouth of the alley as I grabbed the hero of bags that had been cast away during the fight from earlier, if one truly wished to call it that. They didn't seem to mind the loss of the doll, all but confirming that they could just manifest another one after some time.
I placed a few calls while we waited for the mafia car to arrive and it was time to go back to the hell that some would call a home.
I guess it's time to play.
—-
The sub levels to the main Port Mafia building were just as cold as I remembered them to be. Just as inexplicably dark in a way that no light would ever be able to quell. Muffled screams filled the halls even though the thick walls and doors that some old boss had installed when the five large towers at the heart of the city had first been built.
Everything about the scene all but screamed danger to anyone that would bother to listen. From the way that the darkness seemed to cling to your bones, dying them a rich black that could never be changed no matter how much you tried to wash it away. To the way that time always seemed to lose all meaning the second that the door closed tightly behind you, the lock clicking into place. Seconds turned into hours before you even realized that minutes had passed or had time to mourn their loss.
But being down here always comes with the knowledge that for the first time in my very short, and all too long, life, I wasn't the one in danger. I was the one who possessed all of the keys that opened each of the locks to these doors.
Towards the center of the first sub level, there are two rooms connected by a one way mirror in a similar fashion as to how police interrogation rooms tended to be set up in most counties. The use of it was similar as well.
Whenever a new member of the Port Mafia joins the organization, they tend to follow in the footsteps of the one that brought them in, as they are that person's responsibility to train and to reprimand. Though sometimes, the roles can be changed and the grunt can be assigned to work in a different area than their handler if the mafioso that is responsible for them sees that they have an aptitude for something other than their own specialty. When a novice is brought on to become a torture specialist, they'll be brought to the observation side of the mirror to study the methods and techniques of their seniors.
Though my purpose for the room was a bit different than that, though most things had a tendency of being just a bit different than what was expected where Q was concerned.
The child was placed on the interrogation side of the mirror with two of the Port Mafia's junior members accompanying the young ability user. They were a pair of friends that have been known to have something of a prejudice against ability users despite the fact that there was an unusual number of them present within the city of Yokohama and within the Port Mafia itself. They were a pair of obnoxious pricks that needed to be taken down a peg or two, or die in the process of trying. Either was fine by me, though I know that the boss would like it better if all four of his members walked out of the bowels of the Port Mafia building's sub levels on their own two feet.
"Q," I called out steadily over the intercom that was put in the room for the senior members to be able to speak with those that they were teaching while they were inside of the room when the time comes for them to attempt their first solo interrogation, "play to your heart's content."
But just as I had expected, the child only turned to look at the one way glass mirror that they knew that I was behind, leveling it with a thick gaze. The look on their face told me more of what they were thinking in that moment than words properly ever could.
"I don't like this kind of game," the child protested in an almost whiny voice, crossing their arms over their chest in a haughty manner as the doll was held limply in Q's hand. The strange object had come back about halfway or so through the car ride back to mafia headquarters, dressed in an outfit almost identical to the one that the child themselves was wearing.
The two mafia grunts were looking at the child before them like they were some kind of brat. Not an entirely unfair assumption I'll admit, but the opinions of those with no right yet to give them will never really mean all that much to me. They weren't being barttish right now, just acting like a young child with no true control as to what happens to them. Either way that brat held a higher position in the mafia than either of them ever would.
"Fine," I spoke into the intercom boredly, a verbal concession to hide just how truly interested I was to see what would come out of the next few moments. "One of you go and pinch the kid hard enough for it to bruise," I ordered coldly into the mic.
While the man on the left had a hesitant look to him, the one on the right held no such morals or reservations about him. The mafia grunt moved forwards from his perch on the cell wall slowly, like a predator stealing their prey. There was hungriness to his gaze so consuming that the man didn't seem to notice how the look was mirrored in the child's own eyes.
Maybe he should have paid more attention, his friend surely had as they made a weak attempt to pull the man back. Futile really.
The kid yelped in pain before falling into a fit of giggles that seemed to finally have snooker the mafioso out of whatever trance it was that they'd let themselves fall into. The man stumbled backwards, away from the deranged child as they continued to laugh in a manner that was sure to send a shiner down the spines of the men in the room, but it was too late now. For either of them.
"Now, it's time to play," Q spoke excitedly, a surety seeping into their voice as their doll began to float up into the air behind them.
A handprint appeared on the neck of the mafioso, wrapping around the man's throat as if it were trying to choke him. The man went crazed as he turned to the other mafioso, his friend, lashing out with a brutal violence the other man ever had the chance to scream. The affected mafia member was acting with a mindless rage, berserk, lashing out at anyone or anything that moved.
Mind control.
The conclusion came to me easily as I left the viewing room and strode into the interrogation room. The doll was shaking as it had torn its head in half once more. I reached out and grabbed the toy, watching disinterestedly as it turned a familiar shade of blue. Q looked up at me with a pouty expression on their young face. I chose to ignore it as I always did when the child looked at me this way, motioning silently for them to follow me instead of wasting time on any kind of response.
The walk back to Q's room was quite at first, but I chose to break the rare silence as we left the sub levels. "What will you call your ability?" I asked the child, not bothering to look down at them as I did so.
"I get to name it?" The child asked curiously, bounding forwards as they struggled to keep up with my quickened pace. I nodded, knowing that they would be looking at me even as I wasn't looking at them. They thought for a moment, letting the silence ring between the pair of us as we walked, but I knew that it wouldn't take them long. The answer was already there, buzzing comfortably out of reach until they decided to reach for it. "Dogra Magra," the kid decided, speaking with a certainty that they had never used before.
I didn't need to ask what it meant, it wasn't really important after all. All that I needed to know was that it was the answer that they had found.
The door to Q's room closed soundly behind them as the child ventured inside and I remained on the outside of it once more. I knew what I needed to do as surely as the child knew the name of their own ability. It didn't mean that I liked the decision at all. It didn't mean that I ever would.
—-
Walking to the boss's office had the same oppressive feeling to it as it always seemed to, except this time it felt much more potent in nature. I was stepping into the lion's den voluntarily and was foolishly hoping that I wouldn't be bit. That I would somehow come away unscathed when I never had before.
I knew better than to believe such childish fantasies.
The monster behind the desk smiled as I walked into the office, his face curving into something gruesome. The ability laying on the floor beamed up towards me as if they were pleased by my presence, but I only nodded in return to the girl's gaze. I don't really care to see carefully crafted expressions on her face that looked so much like my own.
Stalking as close to the desk as I dared, I stopped just out of range of lunging distance, something that I am sure didn't go unnoticed by the creature before me.
I think I might like dogs more if I could throw him to the hellhounds.
The being laced his fingers together, placing his head upon them as he gazed at me. I shoved down the way that my skin crawled against my will at the action, the bile rising up in my throat. "To what occasion do I owe the pleasure of your visit, Dazai?" The boss asked, his eyes gleaming with a sadistic interest that made me want to claw them out.
"Q," I spoke firmly, betraying none of the emotions that always seemed to cling to me when I was put in this man's presence, in this room. "I've figured out their ability." The boss raised an interested eyebrow and motioned smoothly for me to continue. "Mind control," I told him simply.
I watched as the look that I had known was coming even before walking in here washed over the man's face. The calculative expression of someone imagining all of the things that they could do if only given the power to do so. The power that was now right within his reach.
"But it doesn't act as it sounds," I explained. "The ability allows Q to put those that have harmed them physically into a state similar to that of berserkers from mythology, where they attack anyone around them, friend or foe. It's nothing but a liability."
The calculative look had been drowned out by an equally interested one that made itself known once more. It was the same look that the boss often wore where I was involved, especially at the beginning of our time together. "And why is that?" The man asked, leaning forwards on the desk.
I shook my head at the man's arrogance as I was more than sure that he was still playing through all of the things that he would do with an ability like this given the proper chance. "The ability is indiscriminate in how it acts and the child attached to it reveals in the chaos that it creates. They would turn the Port Mafia upside down within only a few moments of being set free to do so."
The mafia boss seemed to consider this, to see the logic behind it as he nodded seemingly unhappily in agreement. The doctor was anything but good, a monster barely even playing at being human, something worse than I am, and he's supposed to be more human than I could ever hope to be. But despite that, he would never do anything to put the organization at risk, everything that he did was to do just the opposite. He was a good leader, but a horrible excuse for a man.
"And what would you have me do with them then?" The mafia boss asked, the implication clearly there.
'Would you have me kill the child?'
"The middle floor," I answered.
The middle floor of each of the five Port Mafia buildings were left empty, their uses undetermined as it changed with the needs of those inhabiting the towers. It wouldn't be hard to stick a child in one of the many empty floors.
The boss nodded as he took in my decision. "They could still be an asset once they're older," he decided before lowering his arms and pulling out documents from his desk drawer. I could only assume that they were forms to arrange everything as needed.
I took the movement as the dismissal that it was.
"Osamu," the doctor's voice called from across the room, the sound of it scratching angrily against my skin sharper than any knife ever could. My hand was hovering over the doorknob, so close to freedom, but I obediently stopped to listen as I knew that I should, knowing that I wouldn't like the consequences that would come if I did not. "You did well."
The compliment, the easy compliance, the documents waiting eagerly to be put to use, made me wonder if this was the right decision at all, or just another way to make me more like him.
It's too late to change it now. Any of it.
I left the room, mental scars growing across my body where the physical ones could never dream of reaching.
—-
The truth of the matter was that I didn't think that the strange ability that the child was cursed to possess was vile at all, but instead the actions of the man that would seek to use it as if it were his own. I didn't want to think of the things that he would do if given a power such as that (though they sprung into the back of my mind all of the way back to the storage container unabiden).
The only good thing to come of the whole ordeal that I had found myself at the center of was the knowledge that he would never be able to lay a hand on the child. No one ever would. They may hate me for this in the end, something that they have every right to do, but Q will be safer than I ever have been.
Then I ever would be.
—-
Third person POV
The next day the child was moved and a curious ability soon went to seek them out.