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Dazai leaves the Port Mafia after Oda’s death and lies low. She doesn’t join any other organization; she’s not looking for forgiveness or redemption. It is a shock at first. Even her black, ugly blood rebels against the betrayal, against killing someone so close, so important. She understands that they are all just chess pieces on someone else’s board. She can’t go on like that anymore. She’s more broken and more devoted than ever before — so she leaves.
She leaves and hides out, trying neither to live nor to reconstruct herself from the pieces. She doesn’t know how normal people do it. Either of those things. She recalls Oda’s face covered in blood; he’s smiling in another memory. She buys or steals groceries and takes one step forward. Then another day passes. And the next after that. The girl in the mirror is as empty as before, but she starts to believe that Mori really let her go.
Or maybe she finally found the perfect hole to bury herself alive in.
When, on one of the following days, strange sensations begin tearing Dazai apart from the inside and she nearly coughs blood into the cracked sink of her apartment, she can't help but smile.
Poisoning a runaway, giving her weeks to come back and receive the antidote, and when she doesn't, knowing that even she won't be able to survive this alone.
Oh, Mori is a real bastard.
How unfortunate that Dazai understands him.
How unfortunate that part of her can't help but admire him.
The painful sensations do not pass after an hour, nor after two. Dazai curls up on the floor, arms wrapped around her stomach, breathing as deeply as her lungs will allow. She does not believe in gods, she is not looking for life. Part of her hopes it will end here and now, that she will finally see Oda again.
When a fucking tentacle forces its way out of her throat, only to slide back down and emerge again moments later, she wants to scream.
Of all the possible ways to make her life miserable, Mori chose the most twisted one.
Her screams dissolve into sobs as the tentacle continues violating her throat. Dazai clamps a hand over her mouth, finding a strange sort of comfort in the fact that the furthest it can reach is her teeth. Her breathing falters, but the painful spasms gradually settle into a rhythm. In. Out.
Maybe if I swallow, she thinks desperately.
The attempt to trigger her swallowing reflex only seems to encourage the tentacle. Horror floods through her as she realizes it is growing larger in her mouth, pulsing more intensely than before. The appendage lengthens, teasing her tongue, lingering there for a long, long moment and...
Dazai coughs cum onto the floor, then immediately doubles over, trying to cough up her insides along with it.
Fuck Mori. Fuck her.
It doesn't make sense. Her ability protects Dazai from the powers of others. And there is no logical explanation for whatever the fuck is living inside her, treating her body like a toy whenever it pleases.
It's fucked. So is she.
Dazai falls asleep feeling like a toy in someone else's tentacles.
Dazai lives through another meaningless day, trying not to tremble in public and trying to soothe the thing inside her by any means necessary.
Dazai remains in the alleys, held upright against the walls more by her own weight than by strength, while the appendage emerging from her mouth plays not only with her throat but with her face as well.
She tries not to think about the fact that the touch against her head was the only contact she has had in months.
She tries not to think about how painfully it had resembled affection.
After weeks in this new state, she learns the tentacle's habits.
It can change its size. It can play dead for hours, only to return later. It likes pressure and reacts to her voice. It's sensitive. It calms down only after it comes.
Dazai finds ways to hide her condition whenever the monster decides to become active in public. After the trick with controlling her heartbeat, dealing with something like this becomes much easier.
Dazai still spends her days planning all the ways she is going to kill Mori for what he did to her.
She doesn't think about how the nightmares of Oda's death have begun to fade, stolen away by the strange embraces of the monstrosity living inside her throat.
Of course, the strange balance doesn't last.
Dazai is in the shower when something presses hard against her cervix.
No, no, no, she panics, already knowing somewhere deep down exactly what is happening.
The sensation of the tentacle below is unlike anything she has experienced before. Dazai can breathe more freely now, and she doesn't bother holding back the curses she throws at the world while this thing coils around her legs and squeezes. While it branches out, finding access to her clit and to the curve of her ass alike. More movement. More thrusts.
Dazai feels heat spreading through her body. Her muscles weaken. She tries to brace herself against the wall, to find something solid to hold onto.
Her vision blurs.
She has never felt so vulnerable. She has never felt so good.
The tentacles stroke her skin, squeeze her thighs, and slip between them. They brush against her chest. They trace her lips. Hell, one of them even imitates the motion of fingers combing through her hair before another finds her clit.
Dazai hates herself for being able to admit it: The tentacles are good at this. The pressure. The pace.
The moment she allows herself to go limp, they lift her effortlessly from the floor, holding her suspended in the air. At some point she loses count of them. It is easier to assume they are everywhere.
That assumption is not far from the truth.
The tentacles press deeper, forcing her legs farther apart. The intrusion can hardly be called sudden after everything that came before. The pace remains slow, drawing broken sobs from her throat while another appendage continues to toy with her tongue.
Her body trembles through the first climax. It changes nothing.
The tentacles continue, taking and giving something that has no name. Weakness and warmth blur together. Dazai reaches out, running a hand along them, squeezing back in return. Harder. Faster.
There it is, madness, she thinks.
Then she hears a low, guttural "Dazai" breathed against her ear together with another spill of cum.
Madness indeed.
The thing learns from her.
It learns the intimate places, the rhythm, the preferences. It almost purrs with disappointment whenever its monstrous strength exceeds what a human body can endure. Sometimes it forgets. More often, it remembers and is gentler the next time.
It is still terrible at understanding that other people are not supposed to know what Dazai has become.
She doesn't know what she is, either.
The thing learns her name and is not ashamed to say it out loud.
The lonely isolation does not feel quite so lonely when there is someone to talk to.
Hopefully, the thing cannot read her mind.
Even so, it knows her better than anyone else alive.
And, little by little, Dazai realizes the opposite is true as well.
Dazai's luck ended the moment she was born. Of course, out of all the people in Yokohama, it is Akutagawa who finds her. And of course he finds her in the middle of one of Chuuya's games. Do not blame her for giving it a name. The only thing that has cared whether she lived or died in months deserves at least that much.
What surprises Dazai most is how little embarrassment she feels. Months ago, being seen like this would have horrified her. Now it barely registers. Akutagawa appears considerably more shoked by the situation, hearing his mentor moans. His eyes keep catching on the tentacles wrapped around her body, on the way they hold her upright when her own legs fail her, on the glimpse of movement that appears and disappears near her mouth.
They hold Dazai as if she were a doll. Helpless. Vulnerable. An easy target. Take her and drag her back to the Port Mafia, loyal mad dog. Perhaps the honor of executing the traitor will be yours.
Dazai smiles at him as a portion of Chuuya's cum drips onto the ground.
"Long time no see, Akutagawa-kun."
She is gentle. It’s just rude, to attack her with Rashōmon, just like the abilities could ever hurm her. What stupidity. No wonder the Mafia likes him so much.
"Bad idea," she drawls, finally finding her footing again.
Before her hand can reach Rashōmon, one of the tentacles lashes out like a whip. Rashōmon shatters instantly, black cloth exploding into fragments before dissolving into nothing. Both espers freeze.
Dazai had expected to stop Rashōmon herself. She had expected to nullify it the moment it touched her. She had not expected this. The Mafia's weapon wasn't supposed to turn against another mafioso. Chuuya wasn't supposed to protect her. And it certainly wasn't supposed to possess the same impossible nullifying effect as her ability.
The realization settles heavily in her chest.
The thing was evolving again.
Chuuya was learning from Dazai. He wasn't a mind reader, but he knew her body well. Dazai reaches for No Longer Human out of instinct and finds nothing. The absence hits harder than expected. For as long as she can remember, her ability had always been there. A constant presence beneath her skin.
Now there is only emptiness.
The realization lasts less than a second before Chuuya calls somewhere inside her. The sound slips effortlessly into the hollow place No Longer Human used to occupy, and Dazai hates how natural it feels. She reaches for her ability again and is met with the same void. Then Chuuya repeats her name, and the emptiness no longer feels quite so empty.
Dazai isn't sure whether that is comforting or terrifying.
She hides her shock, taking some satisfaction in the fact that now it is only Akutagawa who looks stupidly surprised. There is something strangely reassuring about being protected by the very thing that had been meant to punish her for betrayal.
"After all," she says softly, "I'm not so alone."
Chuuya purrs again, coiling possessively around her wrist. The sound is almost eager. Dazai glances at Akutagawa and can't help but wonder how he would react if Chuuya decided to share the same attention with him.
Dazai almost feels sorry for him.
Mori looks at Dazai as though he is seeing a corpse that somehow climbed out of its grave. In all fairness, that is probably exactly what he sees.
Akutagawa had explained that the creature's original purpose really was to prevent escape and the leaking of secrets. A slow descent into madness. The consumption of an ability. The transformation of its host into something dependent, something closer to a plant than a person.
Dazai strokes Chuuya, who is comfortably draped across her arms, fondling against her breasts. Other appendages keep her former boss restrained, nullifying his ability and squeezing tightly enough to break bones if he attempts to escape.
Or simply out of spite.
Chuuya had never been particularly kind to Akutagawa, whose only crime had been trying to capture Dazai.
Mori, on the other hand...
Oh, his name had never once crossed her mind without bringing hatred and murder plans along with it.
Chuuya might have been Mori's creation once. He is Dazai's protector now.
Dazai could tell how awful it had felt in the beginning. To lose the safety of her own body. To have no control over what was happening to her. To lose her ability and not even notice when it was gone.
Dazai could tell Mori that removing Oda had been his greatest mistake.
But actions speak louder than words, don't they?
Akutagawa's screams had been sweet.
What, Mori-sensei, will you give them?