Atsushi and Dazai walked around the train station, and Dazai seemed to be completely drained. He felt even more empty than he had before, and he looked up at the sky blankly with a thoughtful look on his face. For the past day he had been almost completely silent, not saying anything, a melancholy expression clouding his face.
If she really is dead, then there's nobody left who knows me. How many times did I make her smile? Was it enough? Does the world have something against me?
"Dazai-san, are you alright?" Atsushi poked Dazai, trying to get his attention, and he seemed to snap back to reality.
"Huh? Oh, I'll be fine. Hopefully." He saw a figure briefly, one wearing a textured grey suit with a white shirt with sleeves that reached round 3/4 of the way down their arm, with black hair extending down one of their shoulders and accompanying a child with blonde hair.
Am I dreaming?
"Atsushi-kun, I need to go." He announced suddenly, waving and Atsushi looked confused, but nodded slowly.
"Where."
"Bathroom." He ran off.
Dazai followed the figure into an expensive looking store, and checking their watch and watching the child run around. It was clear the child was Elise, and he entered the door, tapping Elise's guardian on the shoulder.
"I was wondering if you were willing to commit double suicide with me. I'm not that picky with who I do it with, as long as it's a beautiful woman." He said in his usual tone, straining a smile.
"Bold of you to ask that when you don't even know my name." The voice was familiar, and he began to feel a sense of hope.
"Well then, what's your name?" She turned around, her eyes concealed by sunglasses, and she flicked them down, the corner of her mouth lifting up into a smug grin, the exact same one he saw on camera.
"You should know that by now." His eyes widened.
"生き...ている。(You're alive)" He felt a sudden sense of relief washing over him, and everything started rushing back to him, feeling a sense of happiness suddenly overwhelming him.
He tried to say more, but no words came out, and he tried to smile, though he stood completely still, staring at Ren with wide eyes, reaching out his arm. The rain had stopped, with the sun emerging slowly from the clouds. She could see the mix of emotions in his eyes, something which she hadn't seen much before. Thinking about what would've happened, she smiled.
"Don't tell me Mori told you I died. If I actually were, do you think he would've welcomed you with a smile on his face? Usually you would have figured out I was alive very quickly. Just goes to show that when emotions are involved, even you jump to conclusions." She saw a tear roll down his face, turning into multiple and dropping onto the floor, and she took his outstretched hand, which was almost limp but felt strangely stiff at the same time. "Are you ok...?"
He reached out, as if she were a mirage that would disappear, and he collapsed onto his knees, staring down at the ground, his eyes widening.
Ren kneeled down and lifted his chin up, worried, wrapping her arms around him and smiling to herself. He trembled slightly, taking a moment to register what was happening before relaxing, his tears staining her shirt as he gripped onto her jacket, crying silently and burying his head in her shoulder. She felt like she had messed up by making him worry and not providing anything saying that she was alive, and tried to provide some sort of comfort.
"I'm sorry." She said softly, and her voice was quite sweet, which was unusual but felt comforting. "I'm here now. Don't worry."
"The rain... it's gone..." He breathed.
"I'm guessing that's a good thing."
She pressed her lips to his quickly and Dazai looked at her, surprised, and he felt his face beginning to turn red, but she had turned back towards Elise.
"Stay in this store." She ordered. "Do you need anything?" She saw Dazai looking at her.
"Oh, I'm... happy." His voice was barely a whisper and he rested his head on her shoulder, feeling her warmth.
She ruffled his hair playfully and turned around, checking around for Elise. Pushing her sunglasses back up, she turned back to Dazai for a moment. "Just by the way, my phone was dead for the last couple of days. And I had to get a new jacket. My old one was destroyed in the explosion and I was in need of actual food and wasn't bothered to cook, so that's why I didn't come home until after you left and I couldn't be contacted. I do have a security camera outside my apartment." She began walking after Elise and carrying all her shopping, and Dazai walked out of the store, making his way back to Atsushi.
"Oh, Dazai-san, you're back." Atsushi stopped looking around. "You look significantly better... did something happen?"
"Maybe." Dazai grinned. "I found out someone had faked their death." He had a bright smile on his face, the complete opposite of how he was in the morning.
"Wait, she's alive?" Atsushi said suddenly.
"Hm... who knows?" He shrugged.
"God how much money does Mori have to spend on Elise?" Ren mumbled to herself. "This kid has spent what I earn in a month in three stores."
"Takahashi-san, does this look good?" Elise held up a flowing red dress.
"Looks like something Mori would like. You can get it." They walked into a Japanese store that sold traditional clothing, and there was a katana hanging on the wall.
Elise wandered around the store, but Ren could sense two people behind her, watching. She ignored them at first, waiting for them to do something, but she was still vigilant. She heard wind cutting through the door and she frowned, transferring the bags she was carrying on her right arm which still hadn't completely healed yet, and grabbed the katana on the wall with her left.
"Such a pain. Hopefully you'll let me speak Japanese here, and besides, haven't you broken the agreement already by working with the Tokugawa-kai?" She pulled out a mask from her pocket, putting her sunglasses in one of the bags, and turned towards them. "This outfit is uncomfortable, so excuse me."
She removed her arm quickly, taking off her jacket and rethreading her arm through and setting the bags down on the floor. Her gaze hardening, she pointed the katana at them, and the cashier and the others at the store started screaming as a piece of metal came flying towards Asimov's hand. He made an attempt to control her katana, but it didn't work, and she thought to herself for a moment.
"Asimov. My guess is that your gift relies on ferromagnetism, though you only seem to be able to control solid objects since you're not controlling the iron in my blood. This probably uses grade 316 stainless steel if it isn't ferromagnetic and looks to be quite expensive and good quality." She inspected it a bit, hitting it against the wall. "Soshu Kitae, famously used by the sword smith Masamune. This should be good. I'm surprised you have these lying around random stores. Elise, stand back. I'm alerting the Boss." Bringing out her phone, she said something into it quickly and put it back in her pocket.
"You're a smart one, Midnight. But how did you know about our involvement with the Tokugawa-kai?" Asimove scoffed.
"A magician never reveals their secrets." There was a crash as Asimov smashed the window, causing more people outside to scream and more people to go around them to spectate, where the only place they could look in was through the glass door. "Now, I don't think it'll be the best idea to show that you have special abilities to the public. Who knows what'll happen."
"Tch. I don't need these anyway. I just need to recruit you and we're outta here. Besides, we have the advantage since we're fighting in broad daylight." He had a look of annoyance on his face as he stepped forward, taking out a gun.
"We'll see about that." Asimov and Grahame sprinted forward, aiming their guns at her, and she stepped in between them, weaving through so their guns were flying everywhere as they tried to aim at her, before she stepped on their heads and jumped behind them, holding her katana to their throats.
A line of blood started dripping down their necks, and they pointed their guns at her head. Her fingers moved underneath their guns, faster than they could register, and they had their fingers on the trigger.
"What do you think you're doing, touching our guns like that? You're gonna dirty them." Asimov retorted brusquely, his finger hovering over the trigger, trembling but not pressing it.
"Asimov, you're being rude..." Grahame said quietly.
"SCREW THIS!" Asimov pulled the trigger, and there was a gunshot, but no bullets came out.
"Bang." Ren flipped Asimov and pinned him to the ground with her right arm, knocking his head, holding the ammunition in front of his face. "Fuck that hurt." She muttered to herself, wincing.
"Are you inju-" The sharp end of a clothes hanger flew towards Asimov's hand, and he swung his hand around, while Ren pulled Grahame down, and the hanger stabbed Grahame in the arm, sticking out of it as blood came rushing out. He screamed in pain and Asimov frowned, bringing a knife towards him and gripping the handle with white knuckles, aiming it towards Ren. She blocked it with her katana, and a powerful wind suddenly swept her up. Hitting the ceiling with the wind keeping her up there, she gritted her teeth, bringing her katana around and slowly shuffling, moving out of the wind's reach and landing on the ground gracefully. Grahame looked slightly tired, since the wind was so strong, and Asimov started bringing forward more metal objects to throw at Ren. She turned her gaze to the right, seeing that they started moving in that direction, and she darted towards the left. She moved past them, almost as if she was ignoring them, and making her way towards the light switch, stabbing it and turning it off.
Good thing they're the observant type.
"Hey, what are you doi-" The store was suddenly plunged into darkness, and everyone screamed louder, since the only source of light was coming through the door, where she pulled down the blind so that they couldn't see anything.
"Shit." Asimov grumbled to himself as he looked around.
The store wasn't entirely dark, but they couldn't track where Ren was. There was a crowd starting to gather outside, so they could go out, and they looked around, trying to see everything better. Ren's shadow darted around the room, and they aimed their attacks towards it, though some of it seemed to be objects she tossed up to throw them off. There was the sound of a katana being swung, and they felt a sudden pain in their arms as someone jabbed them in their temples with the hilt of the sword. Blood started to flow from their arms, and the world around them started spinning, but they didn't pass out. Something clicked, and their hands were secured behind their backs.
And the emergency power generator should be kicking in right now.
The lights were turned back on, and Ren kicked them in the back, and they fell to the ground, shouting as she pulled up the blinds, opening the door briefly and taking something.
"HEY-" She placed something over their mouths, and in a matter of moments, they were asleep.
Handing the chloroform back to the Port Mafia agent, two others came and picked up Asimov and Grahame. She placed the katana on the cash register, which had been miraculously wiped clean and slipped on her jacket, picking up her shopping calmly and turning to the crowd, scanning through.
"やれやれだぜ。(Good grief) I'm done wasting my time with these Americans who can't keep their promises." She muttered to herself loud enough so that everyone could hear, and she motioned for Elise to follow her. "Elise, we're going. I don't think Boss cares as long as you and your shopping is safe. Which it is. Is there anything else you want?"
"Can I get bubble tea and can we do some more shopping?" She seemed barely affected by the whole situation.
"Sure." Everyone in the crowd parted and she walked past, and Dazai and Atsushi began running towards where the commotion was.
"You're late. I've already beat up these guys." There was someone who shouted towards her, and she turned towards them, seeing that they were a police officer.
"Miss, you just beat up two people in public. What do you have to say for yourself." The placed a hand on her shoulder and she reached into her pocket, pulling out a card with the Port Mafia's logo on it. "Oh, I was mistaken. Have a good day!" They ran off and she put her hand back in her pocket, pointing Elise towards another store and tossing her bags over one shoulder.
"So you are alive." Atsushi breathed.
"I would expect anything else." Dazai smiled.
"Just a day in the life of a Port Mafia Executive."
- - -
That was a long chapter and I have an equally long rant or two.
First, the use of the word やれやれ (yare yare), which is also a JoJo reference (Jotaro's such a badass). The word is used to express mild dismissal but not actually hating it. So in JoJo, Jotaro's mom says goodbye to him, and he says やれやれだぜ, expressing mild dismissal towards his mother but not actually hating it. Same logic applies here. Ren is expressing mild dismissal towards having defeated two American Mafia agents, but didn't exactly hate it either because adrenaline. There are a lot more nuances, but I'm not a native Japanese speaker and I don't know a lot about this sort of thing.
Next, Asimov's ability: Caves of Steel. He can use his special ability to use ferromagnetism to manipulate metal. What is ferromagnetism? It is what a normal person would classify as magnetism, with a magnet with two opposite poles attracting other metals to it. That is classified as ferromagnetism, since they are all ferrous, meaning containing iron, which is why iron has FE on the periodic table. Steel is technically a ferromagnetic material, however, some steels with high amounts of iron such as grade 304 and 316 stainless steel contain austenite, meaning they are non-ferromagnetic. I also altered Asimov's ability so he can only control metal in its solid state, or else he would be able to lift up Ren and yeet her out of the store. If you're wondering, there are 6 types of magnetism, though I am only familiar with two. Ferromagnetism, diamagnetism, ferrimagnetism, super-paramagnetism, paramagnetism, and anti-ferrimagnetism if I remember correctly. An example of a diamagnetic thing is water. Diamagnetism essentially means that it repels magnetism. So if you have a syringe full of water and you hold it by a string, if you have a strong enough magnet, it will start to move away from it. In simple terms, he's a giant magnet. There's your science lesson for today.
There are many different folding techniques that you can use with your steel, and there are many different steel alloy variants, each with their different pros and cons. If a sword is strong, that means it's brittle, so it's not tough. Anyway let's move on to folding techniques. You obtain several rods of steel of different hardness levels: soft, medium and hard which each contain different carbon percentages (carbon is really hard btw it's what makes diamonds hard) and the rods are reheated until they can be manipulated. Then they can be folded in various different ways. The innermost layer provides the spine, while the exterior helps maintain a sharp edge. There are different folding techniques, such as Maru, Kobuse, Honsanmai, Shihozume, Makuri, Wariha Tetsu, Orikaeshi Sanmai, Gomai and Soshu Kitae. I will be focusing on the Soshu Kitae. Its a seven layer method, and was used by the famous sword smith Masamune. It is quite complex and it is quite flexible from having a softer steel as its spine, meaning that it is good at cutting stuff but won't break under too much pressure. In other words, fancy sword is fancy.
Both Asimov and Grahame used semi-automatic handguns, meaning that Ren could pull out the ammunition from under them instead of having to go around and take out the rounds like a revolver, and makes me kinda regret writing a scene about Russian roulette. A common choice is the glock (idk how to spell it) and Ren uses a Beretta, which is a military grade gun that is quite reliable, whereas Crimson (I'm not gonna say her actual name) uses an old fashioned revolver Ash Lynx style.
Now I can go on a rant about the ost in bsd. Taku Iwasaki is an amazing composer, and some of the tracks are really good. Good For Nothing is Kajii's theme ish, but it's very erratic and the timing is really weird, but I feel like it represents his character (I sound so boring rn) but it's easy to picture him cackling and blowing up trains. Eye of the Tiger is also good, and I like guitar lol. Ojoku, which is Chuuya's badass theme, has drums in the beginning, and I really just wait for the guitar to kick in, so I can imagine Chuuya beating the shit out of someone.
I didn't publish this earlier today because I was working on something for history.
Next chapter is more for fun, but I liked writing it anyways. And I need to keep improving this one fight scene that is like one of my favourites so yay.