Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

A storm raged over Camp Half-Blood the night that Tyson left for the Cyclops Forges at Poseidon's court. Due to the Golden Fleece having healed Thalia's pine tree sufficiently, the storm passed over camp like normal. However, this knowledge did nothing to help the foreboding feeling that had placed itself in my chest. My predictions always had a knack for coming true, and as if I was one of the Three Fates myself, they were almost never pleasant. My predictions were never wrong, no matter how much I might want them to be.

Lightning danced in the sky above camp as I feel asleep, as if the sky was sharing my feelings as well. My dreams were just as restless as they have been for weeks now. Demigods' dreams were almost never just dreams, but visions not meant to be easily brushed off as some nightmares dream scape.

When I opened my eyes in the dream, I saw the same cliff that I saw a year ago when Annabeth, Grove, and I had snuck into the Underworld. It was the cliff that Luke's shoes tried to drag Grover down into. Tarturus waited down there, with monsters and creatures older than some of the gods themselves. I could hear a voice calling from down below, taunting me. Polybitues sits alone in his cave, fooling himself into believing that he has won a great battle, Kronos' sickening voice calling up to me, what stops you from being the same as him. And there it was, a source for my uneasiness. Something had felt off since we sent Clarrise back to camp with the Fleece, it seemed as if Luke let us go too easily. Now I know that's because he had.

My dream changed as I heard Kronos' acidic laugh. This time I was following my brother, Tyson down to Poseidon's court. On a deep blue throne, with coral decorating it, sat a man that somehow looked regal in a fisherman's clothing. As if noticing my presence, he looked me in the eyes and spoke the same two words that had been mailed to me days ago, "Brace yourself."

I woke up with a start.

There was a loud banging at my door. Though annoying, it could not yet be called persistent since the perpetrator of the noise let themselves into my cabin before I could even call out to them. Grover. The half goat was stuttering something about Annabeth and the hill. "She's lying there... just lying there..." was the most coherent sentence that the boy could manage to form. The look in his eyes wasn't that of grief or wordiness like I would have expected if Annabeth had been attacked while on guard duty last night, or if she had been killed. Instead there was an intense look of panic, wrongness, and above all, fear.

Something was off.

I ran outside, across the central yard with Grover following close behind me. Dawn was just breaking on what would have been another pleasant day at camp. The horn for breakfast had not yet rung, but still the whole camp was alive due to the event happening at Half-Blood Hill. The campers were stirring and coming out of their cabins, whispers following us as we ran to the hill. I couldn't help but to recall my dreams as we ran, some of the other campers joining us in some bizarre fashion of armor and pajamas. Kronos' strange proclamation and my sense of foreboding. I think I'm starting to understand where this is going, and I wasn't sure I liked it all that much.

A familiar clop of horse hooves rang in my eyes, and out of the side of my eye I saw Chiron galloping up beside us. His face was grim. The centaur grabbed me by my arm, hurriedly swung me up onto his back, his actions telling just how dire the situation was since this was something the man would normally never do.

We thundred to Half-Blood Hill. Chiron was mumbling something to himself, like a scientist just figuring out why the experiment had not quite gone the way that he had wanted. "Cure the titan lord," he whispered. "He's tricked us again, given himself another chance to control the prophecy."

I didn't have to ask him what he meant.

We came upon the top of the hill, everyone lifelessly moving out of our way, their faces all similarly struck like they had seen a ghost. We stopped at the base of the tree, where a strange girl was lying. Annabeth, still clad in her Greek armor, was kneeling next to the girl.

Chiron was speaking to himself again, "The fleece healed the poison from the tree," he whispered just loud enough for me to hear, "but it seems that the position was not the only thing that the tree had purged"

I lept off of Chiron's back and went to the girl. Chiron was screaming at me to wait, but I ignored the centaur. Kneeling by the girl's side, I studied her as I put my hand to her cool forehead. She was freezing, but alive. The girl was dressed somewhere between the styles of punk and goth: a black shirt made ineffective by the holes in it from some monster's claws, the tattered black jeans of a street kid, and a well kept leather jacket with buttons on it of bands that I had never heard of before.

"She needs nectar and ambrosia," I called out. I had none on me, but I figured that at least one of the campers that had taken the time to throw on armor would have at least thought to bring something to help any wounded. The girl below me had just been removed from the tree and the fleece's care, and if no one did anything fast, her father would have to turn her into a tree once more.

"Come on! What's wrong with you people? Let's get her to the Big House." I screamed at them. I knew what was wrong with them, the demigods were too caught up in their own shock to be able to function efficiently. The campers that had all fought, and won, against monsters, were now standing uselessly around us.

Still, someone moved, just not a camper. The girl in question took a shaky breath below me. Her movement reminded me of someone who had just woken up from a nightmare that they had been unable to escape. She coughed as her eyelids fluttered open to reveal startling electric blue eyes. She stared at me, those same eyes holding a question in them.

"Who-" she started.

I cut her off, not wanting her to waste her energy on something so pointless. "I'm Percy," I told her, "you're safe now."

The girl commented on having a strange dream of dying. I didn't tell her that this had happened, nor how long ago it happened. This girl was the very same girl from my vision not too long ago. The one that had traveled with Grover, Luke and Annabeth. The person that I had been told would either be my best friend, or my worst enemy.

Though I already knew her name before she said it, I asked anyway.

"I'm Thaila," the girl said, "Daughter of Zues"

‐‐‐

Thalia passed out not much longer after that. She must have exhausted her limited energy while speaking. I glanced around and couldn't help but feel disappointed at the still shocked faces of the campers. My cousin was light in my arms as I picked her up and carried her down Half-Blood Hill. I would have to talk to Chiron about getting her on a proper diet now that she's no longer a street kid or a tree.

My movement must have woken some of the campers up from their stupor, because the next second I felt the wind of bodies rushing past me. Some of the older Apollo cabin members were running down the hill, golden hair blazing in the morning sun, to the Big House to prepare a spot for Thalia in the infirmary. I arrived a minute or so later, the place was bustling with movement. One of the campers directed me to a bed and helped me place Thalia down on it.

"Need a hand?" I asked the older boy. The camper was reluctant, but after glancing at the chaos surrounding us, he sighed in resignation.

"Sure. The nectar and ambrosia are over there," he pointed to a tall cabinet, "grab some of both."
I looked at the condition of Thaila's body for a second and asked, "child size amount? She doesn't like she could handle much more than that." Even though Thalia looked to be about fifteen, having still aged while she was a tree, she was still weak from the poison.

The camper's face became puzzled for a moment and then seemed to wash over with a pleasant surprise. "That's right," he nodded at me while smiling.

Over the next two days, I spent most of my time in the infirmary helping the Apollo Cabin with the minor day-to-day demigod injuries, so someone could always keep an eye on Thalia and her condition. I learned how dress wounds, preform stiches, and do other menial medical task that were too small to really justify the use of ambrosia.

"You sure your not a child of Apollo," the same camper from before jocked at one point. I only gave him a playful smile while messing with the water from a nearby pitcher as if to prove my point. The camper sighed jokingly and watched as I maneuvered the water and refilled all the patients' cups. Spending time here has helped with my control.

Despite all the positive effects of my being here, my motive wasn't to help, but to observe. I listened to the way the campers talked and gossiped about Thalia's sudden re-emergence. The campers were scared of what was to come. Now that there was a new child of a broken oath, there was a new chance for Kronos to control the prophecy.

Though no one out right said it, I could tell that most camper were wary of the girl for this very reason. Anytime someone came into the infirmary, they made sure to give Thalia a wide berth. In her frist life, the sleeping girl had been very close to Luke, they were like family. The campers were worried that this closeness. To them, she was a loose canon waiting to explode.

However, something told me this wasn't the case. Eventhough I know that their fears are plausible, I couldn't seem to make myself care about them. If Annabeth, a girl that was desperately and disgustingly, in love with Luke could stand against him, so could Thalia.
During the time that Thalia was asleep, Grover and Annabeth barely left her side. This was the other reason that I offered to help; it was easier to study people when they didn't know that was what you're doing.

For his part, Grover seemed stuck somewhere between sadness and relief. Thalia was the girl whose reaponsiblity for her death he had been carrying on his shoulders for years now. The thought of her being back was like drinking nectar after the hardest battle of your life.
Annabeth couldn't stop staring at Thalia. Every few minutes she would touche the sleeping girl in some way. It was like Annabeth was checking to make sure this wasn't all a dream. That her friend was really back.

Chiron stopped by on the second day, the look he gave Thalia was almost... fatherly. If I were to guess he and Annabeth had talked since Thalia came back. They both seemed determined to keep her on the path of Olympus and its perseverance rather than ruin. 

---

On the night of the second day since Thalia's emergence, I was cleaning the storage while the three were sitting with Thalia.

"It's like she's auditioning for Sleeping Beauty," I commented while walking over to them, "you know, minus the old timey clothing" Annabeth shot me an acidic look. "Okay. Not funny"

Just then, the Sleeping Beauty in question concluded her audition. The girl's eyes fluttered open. "Where-" she didn't get to finish her question as Annabeth threw herself at Thalia.

"Welcome back to the land of the living Mrs. Grace," Chiron said. He smiled warmly at the girl. "Maybe once your better I could teach you some tricks like controlling the mist"

Oh.

"Hey! Once your better let's go on a quest together, like old times" Annabeth exclaimed. She looked like a little kid again.

Oh.

"Yeah, I'll come too" Grover added.

"Yeah-" Thalia said. She seemed to be coming out of being startled. "I'd like that."

Watching the three of them. It felt like losing something that was never rightfully mine in the first place. Like I was the interloper instead of her.

They were all too consumed with eachother to notice that I was gone...

Chapter Text

Numb.

Numb was the only way to accurately describe what I was feeling. Even as the heat of the distant flames seemed to lick at my skin, I couldn't seem to feel it. There was a coldness in my chest that had never been there before. Not when I thought I saw my Mother die last year, not when leaving camp today with no intention of going back. No this coldness came from seeing my apartment complex up in flames in the middle of the night, and knowing that everyone in there had burned.

"There were no survivors," was what the firemen and police said to the press when they appeared on scene.

Just... numb.

—

After leaving the infirmary, I went and tracked down Argus and asked the eye covered man to drive me into town. He was reluctant at first, shaking his head not, but something in my eyes, some look on my face must have stopped him because the next thing I knew was on the road in the camp van with me having nothing but the things I could hastily throw in my bookbag. I guess he knew that even if he didn't do this, I would just hitch hike.

Argus drove me as far as he would normally for any demigod mission. The walk to my apartment wasn't a terrible one, but it would take a few hours to get there. I couldn't help but sigh. I have the time.

As I finally make it to the block my apartment complex is one, I start to get a headache from the smell of smoke. Not an uncommon occurrence in the city, but it's also not normally this strong either. The smell only gets stronger the closer I get to the apartment. I can almost taste the smoke on my tongue, and hear the sirens in the distance.

When I finally got home, the place was in flames.

I stand on the street, watching the vultures people deem fit to call humans, as they gather outside the building. Not a single one of them lived in the building. There's an alley close enough to the commotion that I can still hear the people and the police scanner talking. It's cool in here, letting me catch the breath that I didn't know that I was missing. Something swirled in my gut, and I puked up my lunch from earlier. Even then, crouching in an alley, staring at my home as it's in flames, knowing that my Mother was in there, that she's dead, I didn't cry. It was like something in me burned along with them, and I didn't know how to get it back.

I didn't even know if I wanted it back.

—

I ended up having an all night dinner not far from the apartment complex. The place was popular with college students during the school year, but only had a few customers at the moment since it was summer. I had dragged myself here and all but threw myself into the nearest seat to the T.V. The news was going, showing convergence of the fire.

"Just in," an over excited news reporter chirped, "a local apartment building has been set ablaze," my attention caught on the word set. Set meant it was on purpose. "The fire department and police department are working together to find the arsonist. Officers on scene have reported that there were no survivors of the incident."

Annoyance flashed through me. Of course it's arson. And of course it had to be my building at a time when I was away with no true alibi and a very strange criminal history for a thirteen year old. It was just a matter of time till the police saw this and decided that I was their pyro. It was ironic in a way, being the son of Posiedon and all.

The way I saw it, I had two options: since Posiedon has made his position on even visiting very clear I couldn't stay with him. Best case I end up in the foster care system, worst case, jail. Neither was all that appealing to me.

I left the dinner with a plan in mind for a third option.

—

There's a local library near the apartment building and the dinner. The place is small and not very popular, but there are enough students and scholars in the city to keep the place a float. The library itself was one of the shorter buildings in the city, older too, and possessing an olf money sort of feeling. There were only two stories to the building, made of dark brick and large windows thst open out onto a sloping roof. If i looked carefully, i could just make out what looked to be a hidden flat spot where all the sides of the roof meet. Looking at the library, it truly did seem like something found in the pages of the Great Gastby, a book that Annabeth had made me read during the school year. It was beautiful, ethereal.

The night cast dark shadows onto the street as I left the more well lit area of the street. Before stepping inside the alleyway that was half made up by the library, I stopped to listen. Stilling my breath, I listened for any sounds around me other than that of my own widely beating heart. The only thing I could hear was the scattering of a mouse's nails on the pavement as it rooted for trash nearby.

Dealing with and seeing homeless people in alleys was an average, everyday occurrence for those living in bigger cities, but I couldn't help but to feel some weight leave my chest when it seemed that none were there. Though normal, some of the drunker ones could get quite violent. Even though I'm a demigod, I was still a scrawny thirteen year old with a weapon that is harmless against mortals. In times like this, I began to understand why Luke would opt for a weapon that could hurt everyone. The quiet was also welcome because it meant that there were no monsters of Ancient Greek origin lurking about either. Monster and homeless people can really put a retch into a person's plans of committing a minor felony.

I made my way into the dim lit alley, walking to the middle of it where the light seemed to reach the least. There are openings into well lit city streets on both sides of the alley, so this would be the best coverage that I could hope to get.

At camp, there is a rock wall with lava that pours down it, trying to get to the campers. The exercise seems crude, having children climb a dangerous rock wall, the only thing keeping them going up it is the knowledge that if they don't move fast enough they will get burned. While speed is an integral component of making up the wall safely, it cannot always be relied on. I taught myself to jump and maneuver around the contraption, so that when the lava gets too close to invading my personal space, I could just escape it along with any pain it might bring. Pain has always been a nuisance following me, so I took any opportunity I could get to avoid it.

A little to my right was a large dumpster. The thing was mostly empty, only having a few trash bags in it. I smirked to myself and closed the lid on it. This will do. The space from the library wall to that of the adjacent building was a little more than the width of my arms from fingertip to fingertip when I stretched them out. The spacing was unforgettable, but I would make due. I have to afterall. I pressed my back on the library wall and jumped at the other building's wall, getting a feeling for the distance and timing. Timing was everything in this, one mess up and you're stuck on the ground with a broken leg.

I backed away a little bit, keeping close to the library wall, and then ran. I lept at the other building's wall, positioning myself so that when I hit it I could easily turn and jump at the dumpster when my foot made contact. A shit eating grin broke out on my face when I felt my feet make contact with the dumpster, but I didn't dare to stop or kill any momentum to rival in my victory. I kept back at the wall, higher than last time and repeated this course of action until I was standing on the library's sloping roof.

I glanced around the area and then crouched down and started climbing over to a nearby window. I kept low enough not to draw attention to myself, but still allowed me to make good time and keep a decent center of gravity. I couldn't suppress the shiver that sneaked its way up my spine. It had begun drizzling outside, the wind was picking up along with it. The coldness of it all bit at my skin, giving me extra motivation to move faster.

There were small knobs on the window, more for decoration than any form of practicality since there wasn't a balcony to allow for anyone to use the window from the outside, legally that is. I pulled a little on one of the knobs with my right hand, using the left to keep balance. There was a small spark of triumph in my chest when the window opened with little resistance. Slipping through the window, I was pleasantly surprised to find my feet landing on something plush much sooner than I had anticipated them to. There was a little window seat. I had always thought that these little book nooks were interesting, like your own little world.

I closed the window quietly and listened once more to the area around me. I was met with the beautiful sound of silence, the only proof that anything was living in here was the faint sounds of my own breath. The very same breath that I almost lost when I turned around to look at the surroundings.

While the first floor of the library has always seemed a little unremarkable to me the few times that I had ventured in here, the second floor was anything but. It was not easily seen when you were on the first floor, so not many people actually ventured up here. That and most of the books here were college type or just of the classical type. Below were all the modern books that people seem to seek out. But up here... Gods this place was beautiful.

Long tables were in the center of the area, each having some old type of lamp on them. Each lamp held images of stars. When I pulled one of the strings, the whole room was lit up in stars. The books shelves that otherwise filled the room were beautifully crafted, each having some type of fancy plaque on them, indicating what the shelves held. The second floor was like a reward to your curiosity.

It was all truly so breathtaking. And yet... a cruel part of me that I had never truly met before, wanted to destroy it all. That part of me wanted to see the places torn apart or in flames so that someone else might feel as horrible as I should inside. So something else might share in my ugliness. The numbness didn't leave. Not really. Small sparks of dull emotion seemed to break through, but even though I seemed to be able to identify it and react to it, these emotions were like white noise. I wanted someone else to share my numbness, to not be alone in it.

The rest of me was caught in the irony of this situation. All of these books might as well have been in French when you were a dyslexic demigod. The thought of sitting here was a pleasant one, but actually trying to read one of these books was a particularly cruel form of torture.

Still, I couldn't help but stumble over to the nearest book shelf. I found myself running my hand along the spines of the books, letting my mind wander as I did. I couldn't help but wonder at my inane ability to lose anything that I seemed to value. I went through six schools in six years, my mother was dead, my brother left me to live with my father that isn't even allowed to speak to me, I gave up my first real friends so that the prophecy could go smoother without me there to muck it up, hell even the prophecy that I never wanted was taken from me. It seemed the second that I obtained anything of any value, the faiths deemed it necessary to painfully strip it away from me.

My eyes caught at the title of the next section, languages. Being a demigod, my brain was naturally wired for Ancient Greek, and while I doubted that there would be any translating to or from the language, modern Greek might still be an option.

After searching the stacks for a good ten minutes, i found a book translate and teaching Japanese form modern Greek. It was a strange book to find in the United states, but if I had to guess it probably was a donation of sorts or something. Still, it was one of the only book in the library with any form of Greek, so I grabbed it. I skimmed through the Greek portions of the book. It took me longer to read it than Ancient Greek, but I could still somehow read it faster than english. The paragraph was saying something about the honorifics that the Japanese used. It was an interesting enough topic. Book in hand, I made my way back to the window that I had originally crawled through. There was better lighting here than in the library, since I didn't want to run the risk of turning on the lights.

I don't think I'll ever be sure how long I just sat there reading. It was certainly the longest that I have ever sat still in my life. It was like my ADHD decided to take a break today and just let me be for just a small amount of time. My brain and body were too tired from a[ll the events of the past few days to be able to ganer the energy needed to distract me for once.

Strangely enough, reading Japanese wasn't any harder for me than it would be for anyone else attempting to learn the language. The characters didn't seem to switch around like the anglo saxon ones have always done. It was refreshing to say the least.

I took off my back pack and slipped the book inside of it. Sunrise seemed to be coming soon as the sky slowly became lighter and the street light slowly shut off one by one. I needed to get out of here before the libraine came into work and I had to explain my breaking and entering to them. Yeah, that did not sound like my kind of Friday morning.

I glanced around the room and found an old wooden ladder, accompanied by an almost unnoticeable hatch above it that opens outwards up to the roof. Pulling out Riptide from my pocket, I popped of the blue cap and stepped up onto the ladder. Once the sword had transformed into it's full length, I used it to push the hatch open all the way. Morning mist drifted through the air, joining last night's drizzle on the job of making the ground slightly slippery. The roof had short brick walls bordering it, making it into something of a small patio.

Groggily from the lack of sleep, I stumbled over to one of the darker corners of the roof and plopped down. My body seemed to have just enough energy left to pull out my jacket from my book bag, ball it up into something usable as a pillow before everything just shut off. I laid my head on my makeshift pillow, I don't even remember thinking to close my eyes before everything just went dark.

For the first time in a long time, I did not have a single dream that night.

Chapter Text

When I open my eyes hours later, the afternoon light is filtering in through them. The light is harsh, as if it's punishing me for sleeping through the day. I can't help but wonder if this form of punishment isn't just. My Mother, the woman that protected me the best she could before I even knew what I needed protection from, was dead. She was nothing but a charred corpse.

If only I had left sooner, if traffic had been faster, if I had been there to put out the fire and got here out. But I wasn't. I wasn't there. I wasn't fast enough. Now there is nothing left of her but some unrecognizable figure in a morgue somewhere and I can't even go to claim it.

Stumbling to my feet, I walked close to the edge of the roof, crouching down behind the short wall. When I was sure that enough time had passed that any passersby that might have been looking up her hadn't seen me, I poked my head over the wall, just enough to glimpse at the world below. There was a heavy flow of traffic coming and going from all directions, drones of people crossing the streets in mass, hordes of cars driving widely. If I had to take a guess, I would say that it was just a little after five.

Going back to my bag and jacket, my stomach took the opportunity to rumble unpleasantly, reminding me of the fact that I haven't eaten anything since lunch the day prior. The taste lingering in my mouth told the story of just how well I had managed to keep it down. Sighing, I dug through my bag looking for any form of food. Instead, I found a piece of myself dying inside as I came to the realization that while packing up all my clothes and belongings from camp, I didn't think to pack any food. Of course not, I thought bitterly, this was never supposed to have happened. I was supposed to be at home helping my mother cook dinner right now. A frustrated groan slips past my lips before I can stop it.

I pull out the language book, placing it on the roof as I slide off my jacket. Running my fingers through my hair in an attempt to look presentable, I picked the book back up. Once the bag is on my shoulders, I can imagine that I look like a normal kid. I think I could at least pass as looking human. Without thinking much, I throw myself off the far side of the building, away from traffic, into the alley, and roll to disperse the force.

With a quick glance around, I walk to the opposite side of the alleyway than I had originally come in last night, and step into the crowd. To anyone walking past, I looked like a little kid taking a shortcut on his way home from the library.

I might not be able to manipulate the mist like Chiron and, eventually, Thalia, but there are always easier ways to fool mortals.

I went back to the dinner that I stopped by last night, ordering a plate of fries and a drink. While hunger was a nice motivator, food wasn't actually my only motive for leaving the safety of the roof. Tonight was a Saturday night, a designated party night while school wasn't in session.

Full on cheap fries and cherry soda, I left the dinner about an hour later. The sun had long since gone down and friends were already meeting up to go bar hopping. If a thirteen year old wandering the streets alone like this was strange, people pushed it aside because it was New York.

The streets are busy enough and loud enough that I can't hear my own breath as I walk. Everyone is so cramped together, if I was with someone, it would be easy to get lost. A drunk college student slams into me, causing us both to fall to the ground.

"Watch where you're going, scrawny punk" the boy sneers. His two friends send me an apologetic look. One abandons the other two and helps me up, stopping to scan me over as if checking for injuries. I hold my book and wrist protectively to my chest. Taking that as a sign of injury, the man apologizes profusely while the other boy is slowly guiding the drunken one to his feet. The pair walk away, going slow enough that the third boy can easily catch up.

"It's no big deal," I smile at him. "See," I gesture to the rest of me with my other arm, "not even a scratch on my."

The boy looks doubtful, but eventually lets out a small sigh, apologizing one last time for his friend's behavior before running after them. My smile drops the second that they are out of sight, already turned the corner.

Easy.

In my "hurt hand", being pressed between the book and my chest, is the drunk student's wallet and about twenty bucks off the one that helped me up. It was a petty trick, but it was still one of the main reasons that I managed to survive Smelly Gabe. Him and his poker friends sure were clumsy drunks.

I repeat this process a few more times, making sure to look weak and pathetic each time. If people saw you as weak, injured or just lesser then they were easy to fool. They were so sure that they had the upper hand, that they don't even notice when you break it. By the time I make it back to the library, it is well past closing time. I repeat the process of jumping up from the dumpster to the wall, crawling safely up the rest of the way to the roof.

When I'm safely on the roof, curled up in the far corner again, I pull out all the stolen items: six wallets and four assorted wads of cash. The city lights cast a harsh glare on me as I counted all the money: four hundred cash (between the wads and what was in the wallets themselves), a couple cards, and even a gift card or two. Hermes would be proud of me, I think belatedly.

Tomorrow, I'll walk south some and drop the wallets with their cards around the area. I hesitate. It would be strange for a kid to have so much money just sitting in their pockets. I look at the wallet of the first drunk student, I'll keep one and ditch the rest.

That was just what I did.

After that, I came back north to the shopping center close to the library. While it was nice walking around, instead of being stuck on a roof all day and night, one glance at the display T.V.s told me that doing this often would get me caught.

"Thirteen year old, Percy Jackson found in suspicion-"

"Do not approach-"

"Is considered dangerous. If seen-"

I didn't stop to listen to the rest.

The store I went to was only small by New York standaws, it could easily be considered huge to anyone from a smaller city. There was a technology secession,grocery, kid's toys, clothing section, and even a small food court. In a way, the place was something of a knock off target or Walmart. Maybe a strange hybrid of both, drawing in green instead of red or blue.

I skipped the shopping cart and grabbed the basket instead. Anything bought here today needs to be able to fit in my bookbag. I didn't need to buy anything more than I could wear or carry. I grabbed a shirt, blanket, toothbrush and toothpaste, a refillable water bottle, and found some small cans of canned food. If I was keeping a mental count in my head, and I was, of the balance so far, it would be somewhere in the ballpark of one-eighty as of now. Knowing this, I threw in a box of crackers as well.

Heading to the front, my eyes couldn't help but catch on the art supplies. Art had never really interested me much before, but I couldn't help but think of the fact that I'm going to be stuck on a roof for hours with nothing else to do but read and go insane. I grabbed a thick sketch book and some fine point pens. I'll grab a box of mechanical pencils and erasers from the school supplies section on the way out.

—

The next few months went much the same as the first few days. Pickpocketing strangers on the streets, sneaking down into the library at night to use the computers, and drawing during the day. I was able to continue learning Japanese through the computers, language learning websites and videos that taught grammar and pronunciation when speaking. If I had done this through school, I would have failed the class. But now, it was almost fun. It at least passed as a good distraction from everything else.

During the day, city scapes were the easiest to draw. I wasn't good at drawing by any means, but it was nice to be able to create something for once, not just destroy and kill. On the weekends, I liked sneaking down to the park and drawing the people there as well. They all were so content with their own happiness, I think a part of me wanted to learn how to have that again.

On my way home from the park one night, a large cat came up to me. It rubbed its head on the legs and circled around them, but something was off. As it did this, it seemed to grow taller as well. At first, I thought that maybe it was just standing up on its back legs a little bit, but with each passing turn, the creature seemed to grow.

Pulling out riptide, I sprung away from the creature. It looked at me with almost a human amount of hatred, staring at the blade in my hands. It arched its back and hissed as its body morphed. What was once a large house cat, became a three headed monster the size of a full grown lion.

"Ouch, that looks like it hurts," I would like to say that it was sarcasm, but it wasn't. The creature had the body and head of a lion, with a goat's head sticking up from the middle of its back, and a snake for a tail.

The creature, the chimera, lunged at me with its claws bared. I jumped back again, narrowly avoiding a violent death. The chimera slid past me, using the pads on its feet to turn around as the snake head tried to nip at my sword arm.

"Hey, I'm feeling nice today, so let me help you with that," swinging my sword at the snake head, I ran at the creature. I felt a clean slice and heard a dull thump to the ground, but I didn't look, I couldn't. I was too busy running at the creature again to be able to see.

The cap was back on my pen when the chimera batted its paw at me again with more force than last time. Instead of dodging backwards, I rolled forward, getting under the creature. I uncapped the pen again, letting the sword materialize into the chimera's stomach. There was a deep roar as the creature tried to stumble away from me. In a last bit of effort, I twisted the blade, and pulled it out of the beast's stomach. Like most mythological creatures, after it finally died its body disappeared. All that was left behind was the head of the snake.

When I looked around, I saw the city's nightlife, the criminal life anyways, back at the park. They were going through some kind of deal. At night the park morphed into an area of underground dealings and drug sales. I walked closer and watched them from the trees, listening in on the conversations. No one seemed to notice that I was there.

This activity was added to one of the things I did on a regular basis.

One night I waited for the main broker to finish up his dealings and start heading home. Just before he got to the tree that I was hiding in, I dropped out of it, already holding my hands above my head in a non threatening manner. Of course it didn't actually make me helpless. In time it would take him to pull out his gun, I could already have a tsunami coming at him from the fountain in the middle of the park. But I would prefer to stall that action, holding it off as a last resort measure. Using your godly powers attracted monsters and so far, the chimera has been my only run in. I would like to keep it that way. My precaution was deemed unnecessary. After the man caught his breath, he just stared at me, waiting.

"I need a passport," I told him. He only raised an eyebrow at me, obviously not believing the situation that he was in. "A good one," I finished.

The man scoffed at me, "Why not ask mommy and daddy kid? You know, get it the legal way?"

I knew his type, I grew up living in the same house as jerks like him. Went to school with bullies like him. He was the kind that believed he was the smartest in the room no matter the situation. That put him at a disadvantage.

"What? Can you not do it?" I asked. The man bristled at my words.

Bingo.

The broker gave me a shit eating grin. He looked young when he did that, somewhere in the ballpark of twenty. "Can I do it?" he mocked, all but laughing at the challenge. "Yeah, I can do it. The real question is: can you afford it?"

"How much," I deadpanned, having already predicted his reply.

The man's grin deepend, "two grand, cash only."

"Done."

"Wha-" the broker took a step back, surprised and confused. He had expected me to not be able to have that much. He should know that this is New York and drunks carry around way too much money in their pockets.

"I said," I stepped closer to him, closing the gap that he had made. "Done."

He blinked a few times, regaining his composure. "Okay. meet me at - - - - at seven. I want half upfront."

"And the other half when completed. I figured as much. See you then."

—

I stopped by the shopping market on my way to the library and bought a cheap box of brown hair dye and some reddish brown fashion lenses.

This will do, plain enough look to not draw attention or be memorable or describable.

—

I went to the library's bathroom, laid some paper towels down on the floor and took off my shirt. For the next thirty minutes, I worked the bleach and dye into my hair, covering it as thoroughly as possible. When I was done, I washed the substance from my hands and looked at my reflection in the mirror. I was scrawny for a thirteen year old boy, having lost weight since leaving camp. There were more scars there than I remembered having. They raced all over my arms and torso, made by laws, swords, and glass. Even with the use of ambrosia and nectar, scars are still sometimes left behind. Putting in the contacts, I watched as my sea green eyes were hidden. Covered by the brown lenses.

An hour or two later, I jumped down from the roof with my new features. I could have passed Luke on the street right now and he never would have known. He would have just walked past me like I wasn't the same boy that he tried to kill only a few months ago.

—

I went to retrieve the passport from the broker about two weeks later. Looking at the creation, it was flawless.

Name: Shuji Tsushima

Age: thirteen

Hair color: Brown

Eye color: Brown

Height: 5'6"

Birth day: June 19th

All of the forged and fake information was there.

"Perfect," I looked at the broker, he was smirking, obviously proud of his work. I handed him the other half of the money and walked away.

—

Going to the roof of the library and sneaking down via the window was second nature to me by this point. I didn't even make a sound on the way to the computer lab on the first floor of the building.

But before I could do anything, I had to make a deal first.

"Zues."

A dull thunder met my summons. The King of the Olympian Gods did not like to bother with calling demigods.

"I want to make a deal with you."

Nothing.

"If you agree, you'll be free of me for the next few years," I continued on. A non threatening thunder came back. He was interested. "As of right now, Thalia is going to be the child of the prophecy. She's somewhere in the age

of fifteen. You and I both know that. I've removed myself from her way, so no unnecessary problems should arise from her on my account," thunder almost like a thank you could be heard. "Let me fly once, and I won't bother you with my presence until I'm sixteen. Even then I'll only pop in to make sure she completed the prophecy."

At first I thought that maybe I had been too direct or demanding, because I was once again met with silence. But then...

Thunder shook the sky.

"One boom for yes, two for no," I instructed. I felt like a teenager hunting ghosts.

...thunder shook the sky, only once.

This was the night that 'Percy Jackson' died.

Chapter Text

Three days later, I stepped off the plane in Yokohama, Japan. Zeus had, surprisingly, kept his word and let me fly freely to the country of my choice. There wasn't even any turbulence. Luggage check-in was a waste of time, since everything I own fits in a carry-on sized backpack. But, there was one place I needed to stop by before leaving the airport.

The ATM transaction was simple enough that even someone with my seaweed brain could comprehend it. The only problem was how time consuming it was. Each machine could only give you so much Yen in exchange for American Dollars, so I had to go to several in the airport, my ADHD making it harder and harder to keep focused on such a repetitive task.

I left the airport and just started walking. I had no plans and no idea where I was or where I was going. I didn't mind that though, this was the first taste of true freedom that I've ever gotten in the fourteen years I've been alive. The rest of my life has been filled with Smelly Gabe, gods, and monsters dictating how my life would be run. Taking away my choices. All I needed right now was a library or a bookshop. I've gotten okay at reading and writing Japanese, but learning it from a book is different from truly speaking it or reading it.

I managed to stumble across a small bookshop, tucked neatly between a shoe and a clothing store. When I walked in, the woman at the front desk, most likely the owner, looked at me with tourist eyes. It was a look that those of us who live in New York and other often visited tourist destinations shared, no matter the city or country. I looked down at my shirt, feeling slightly ashamed for receiving such a look. I was wearing my camp shirt: Camp Half-Blood * Long Island Sound. She wasn't wrong to assume, most people wearing English shirts are tourists. But I didn't really qualify for that position anymore. Tourist are temporary visitors, I was a runaway teen wanted for murder back home and here to stay

Ignoring the woman and her piercing gaze, I walked over to the novel section of the store. Most of the books were simple paperbacks with familiar covers or overdone tropes, but one strangely caught my eye. I remember a song that the Stoll brothers used to sing until Chiron banned it from camp, something about all the dumb ways to die. Though the brothers must have modified it to fit demigods since whichever mortal that wrote it wouldn't have thought to add mintators or "challenge an Olympian god" to their list.

The book was titled The Complete Guide to Suicide. A crude title to put simply but who was I to judge. Without thinking too much on it, I picked up the book and leafed through it, surprised to find just how many things I have done in my life that have made it into this book. Demigod life is weird. I bought the book, receiving a worried look from the store owner. But her pity was useless, I wasn't planning on killing myself, not really, I just wanted to get a good laugh out of the strange book. It's not like I would ever use it seriously.

—

I'd been in Japan for a few months now, long enough that I didn't think of camp all that much anymore. After sleeping on the streets for a few days, I moved to Yokohama's slums, Suribachi City. It was a strange city built into a crater left behind by an explosion seven years ago. The city was deep enough that depending on where you were, the sunlight might never reach you. The sea, which could be seen from almost everywhere in this part of japan, could never be gazed upon from within Suribachi City. it was its own little world. The slums were not the cleanest of places, but they were warm. Nights were getting colder as winter drew closer, fall already almost done with. At least in the slums, there were always fires burning.

Food was scarce in the slums, but that wasn't anything new to me. Any fat or muscle I'd managed to put on since Smelly Gabe's death was gone in no time. I felt weak in a way that I hadn't since I was in elementary school. Even so, being here was better than any jail cell that the police would have thrown me in back in New York. The people here were more aware of everything, always watching their step to avoid crossing any of the organized crime syndicates that roamed the area. Pickpocketing here wouldn't work, at least not the way that I did it back in the city.

News of a new illness spread through the slums in the middle of winter. No one knew just how bad it was, but soon it had spread through almost all of the tightly packed city. Everyone in the city either had it or knew somebody that did. At the peak of its spread that winter, one of the people living next to where I'd set up camp, cme down with the unnamed plague. The man and most of his family died within the next few days, but just living this close to them allowed for the highly contagious disease to spread to me.

The first sign was a fever, blinding and violent. My skin felt like flames were constantly licking at it, the flames dancing horrifically on my skin. It felt like someone had thrown me into a vat of lava, just cool enough I wouldn't die right away. I tried walking, tried moving away so that the people near me wouldn't have to die with me, but just ended up crumbling to the ground as my head spun and delirium set in. Not long after, my eyes began to swell shut, my throat closing up. Most people that died from the illness didn't really die from the plague itself, but from coughing and choking on their blood in their sleep. The aches that took over the body made it too hard to move even if they had been awake.

When the aches set in, I accepted my fate. No one really survived this, not from what I'd seen anyways, I wasn't going to be an outlier. I don't know if it was day or night, my eyes to swollen to see, but I told myself it was night. Dying at night, under the stars in a foreign city seemed like a beautiful concept to me. It was something much more peaceful than I could have hoped for back at camp where even trees weren't safe from the claws of war. When my breathing slowed and my head dropped to the side, my struggle to keep it up gone, a smile curled on my lips, death would finally come for me. No more losing anything that I've worked to obtain, no more fighting to survive, starving at home or on the streets, no more killing.

Just peace.

Everything became still as dreams danced across my vision for the first time in months. This feeling... nothing in life could really compare. Not anymore

—-

Sometime later, I felt my body shift. I tried to open my eyes, surprised to find that the left one actually would. There was an old man in a hazard suit pulling on my leg. Behind him was a pile of bodies. The government had sent someone to care for the dead before the disease could spread past Yokohama. My leg was still stiff with aches, but the pain had lessened enough to allow me to kick the man's hand away with my other foot. He stumbled away, a brief scream escaping his throat as the man clutched his chest. I held up my hands, using my little energy to shoot the man the bird. He ran off, taking the dead bodies with him.

A sense of grief gripped my heart when I realized what this meant: I hadn't died. I remembered the way I'd felt when I thought I was going to, the way all my problems seemed to finally slip away. There were no worries or struggles in those moments. I missed the feeling. Living a life where everyone you allow yourself to love would just leave you or be taken from you, where everything you want is lost the moment you finally have it. Living a life with no real reason to continue it just didn't seem worth the pain, the agony, anymore.

Maybe it never did.

I've always been frustratingly careless with my life, finding no worth in it, maybe I'd just been living to realize that I wanted the peace of dying. Maybe I've just been living to die.

My book bag had fallen to the side, I went to grab it but something felt off. The picture was distorted and blurrier than it should be. It was like I was taking a vision test. I lifted my hand to my eyes, the left one was still swollen and irritable, but it was open. The right one was still swollen shut. I brushed the problem to the side, it would heal eventually.

Weeks later, my left eye was back to normal, but my right eye was still all but blind even when open.

—

Mine has been a life of much shame. Of much suffering.

When you spent your entire life fighting just to survive in a world that seemed bent on killing. It made you wonder what you were even fighting for to begin with. In my life, I've never gotten the chance to be a kid, not really. I don't even know what it feels like to truly be one. Are you even human if you were never a kid? Can you even be called that? When you were born into the life of a demigod, you're born into a life of pointless fighting. Of killing monsters and obeying the gods' whims just for the monsters to regenerate some time later and the gods to live forever and use someone else.

Tiredness had sunken deep into my bones. Exhaustion, yes, but also just general tiredness. Tired of fighting, killing, stealing, and being hunted. Tired of being accused of crimes I haven't even committed just because something was trying to kill me. I was tired of life. Tired of this thing that someone has deemed to call living.

Everyone out there was running around with some deep sense of purpose. Maybe it was just to live to the next day, or something greater like becoming a doctor. But I had nothing like that, not anymore. If my mother was still alive, I would've lived for her. But she's gone. Thalia should have already gone through with the prophecy at this point. New York and the rest of the western world wasn't in flames yet, so I can only assume she led the gods to victory. The gods who haven't tried to kill her for just existing yet like they have me. Maybe it doesn't even matter if she failed. I don't think I can bring myself to care either way. All I know is that completing that prophecy has been my purpose, but now it's lost to the flow of time.

When your life has been debated by a group of deities right in front of your eyes, is it even your's to live, or are you just passing time until someone finally says that you can rest now? That your fight is over?

When the scars on your body grow, when you add to them with your own hands, is it even worth living to just destroy yourself more? My arms were a torn story that everyone could see. Filled with deep cuts from swords, claws, spears, arrows. From me.

When you're not even mortal, do you have the right to call yourself human?

All these thoughts swirled in my head, they danced there singing a deadly duet. They led me to a bridge in the middle of the night. At least I'm smart enough to do this when anyone that would have tried to save me is long asleep. The only people up at this hour were the ones belonging to the criminal underworld of this city. None of them would save a child from doing something like this. From killing themselves.

The bridge was tall enough to kill any mortal the moment that they hit the water down below. This spot felt like coming full circle in a way, I was born from mortals and the sea and to the sea I would return. No one should've let something with the heart of the ocean, restless and forever changing, live on the earth. Not when life on earth felt like a prison. My bag was safely on the ground behind me, on the safe side of the railing. Someone else could have the things in there, I wouldn't be needing them. My demigod powers that would have let me survive this fall were gone. Being here, in Japan, was too far outside the realm of the gods' influence. This fall would surely kill a mortal, and now I was just as weak as one.

The wind blew strongly, encouragingly almost, as I stood there on the dangerous side of the railing. Maybe I was waiting to realize some reason, something to keep me alive, but there was nothing to find. My hair had gotten longer since I ran away. It fell in front of my eyes, nearly obscuring all my vision between it and my blind right eye. Maybe that's why I didn't notice the girl making her way to my side, staying on the safe side of the railing. Maybe I just didn't care enough to be aware of my surroundings anymore.

The girl was blonde, with long flowing hair and a colorful red dress that screamed money in many ways. Something about her was unsettling as she made herself known, clearing her child-like throat. I startled slightly at the noise, my hand instinctively reaching into my pocket, to Riptide. I turned to look at the girl, spinning my body so my back was to the water down below. Something about the girl was off, alien almost, but I couldn't quite place it. Something about gave off the impression that she wasn't quite human.

Was this how people felt when they looked at me?

"If you're going to jump," the girl started, leaning forward on the rail dangerously, "you might consider doing my friend a favor first." the girl was eerily calm as she stared at me waiting for an answer. Something told me this was not how she usually acted, she seemed like the brattish type. But this situation was delicate, so she was too. Though why a girl that looked three years younger than me knew to be calm in a situation like this, I didn't know.

I smiled at the girl, a fake well practiced smile that had fooled my teachers into believing that everything was okay back home. "Tell you what," I took one of my hands off the railing, "I'll make you a deal, if I survive the fall, I'll help that friend of yours."

A strange look filtered across the girl's face. I didn't waste the time to try and place it. My other hand had already let go of the railing as I was talking to her. I leaned back, letting gravity take me. Maybe it was cruel to make a young girl watch this, but her trauma wasn't my problem. The wind flowed around my body the way that water used to, chilling me as I fell. I watched for a moment as the railing became smaller, but as I was about to close my eye, the sight of a figure kept it open.

The girl had jumped after me.

She was glowing slightly, a pinkish hue encasing her. She fell faster than I did, like some force was pushing her down. Her hand was outstretched, latching onto my bare wrist. I'd thought her touch would feel warm, like another person's, instead it felt like nothing. The girl pulled at me, slowing both our momentums down forcefully. But just as quickly as she had done that, as the trumpet smile had morphed the girl's face, a blind blue light exploded between us.

The girl disappeared with the light as I hit the water.

Chapter Text

The first thing I noticed when I woke up was that I was not dead. I'd been to the Underworld before, and while some people might consider this place hell, it was not the real thing. I was strapped down on a medical bed, my hands pinned to my sides, unable to move. Suicide watch, smart. Not that I would if I wasn't, my entire body roared in pain just at the thought of moving. This pain too told me that I was alive. Chemical smells wafted through the air, revealing that I was in some type of medical facility.

My skin felt strange against the bed. Where sheets should've been soft and cool, they felt slightly rough, containing almost. There was a bandage covering my right eye, shielding it from the harsh lighting. From what I could tell, there were bandages covering my arms and torso too. I suspected that if I were to remove them, I would find bruises lining my skin. Whichever doctor I have probably put them there because some older wounds reopened when I hit the water.

There were clothes on me, fancy clothes almost. A nice dress shirt and dress pants. These were the nicest clothes that I'd ever worn. Someone must have changed me into them when I was brought here. This just added to my assumption that I was not in a real hospital, but some type of facility instead.

There was a man, a doctor judging by his long white coat, standing in the shadows observing me as I took everything in.

"I survived then," it wasn't a question, so the doctor didn't treat it as such. Maybe in this moment, I should have been feeling grateful to be alive. Instead I was just wondering how long it would be before I could leave here and try again, this time without pesky interference

The doctor stepped closer, bringing himself into the light where he could be better seen. His coat swayed slightly with him. The man wore a formal shirt and pants instead of scrubs like doctors back home. He had shoulder length black hair commonly found throughout Japan. Everything about the man was average, boring even, except for his eyes. The man possessed a pair of purple eyes, a color no human should have. More interesting though, was the intelligence those eyes held. The startling intelligence in those eyes was comparable to that of Athena. He looked like he was already screaming three steps ahead. This man is dangerous.

Maybe he will be the one to kill me.

"You were brought here after a suicide attempt," the doctor stated simply. "Before that, you made a deal with my Elise. Do you remember it?" he questioned.

I thought for a moment, remember the blonde girl on the bridge, she must be Elise. "I said I would help her friend if I survived," I stopped and looked at the man fully, "I'm guessing that's you." the doctor just nodded, pleased. "So what do you need me to act as a witness to?" I asked the man as if I was asking for the day of the week.

The man's eyes widened in surprise, but he quickly schooled his features back into a neutral expression. But his gaze on me felt different, almost like he was impressed with me. "How do you figure?"

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes at the man, he was tiring. Instead of just confirming my suspicions or calling me a fool like everyone else, he wanted me to explain my thought process. "A suicidal teenager who no one will miss and just kill himself after completing whatever recording of the events it is that you need me to do has fallen into your lap. What else would you need me for?" I didn't bother looking at the doctor anymore, the ceiling was much more interesting than him at this moment. "Besides, if you wanted me to commit a c rime that you couldn't, which I wouldn't say is many, then you would have found a common criminal, not a suicidal child."

I looked back at the man, my expression dead. The doctor smiled in a way that could have almost been described as warm if it weren't for the glint in his eyes. He found me interesting, it seemed. I'm not sure how I feel about that. "You're correct," the doctor said. "How strange," the last part was said in little more than a whisper.

"My turn," I interjected. If the doctor got to ask questions, then so did I. "The girl, Elise was it, what is she? Why did she disappear when I touched her?"

The man had a look on his face akin to that of a raccoon that had found something shiny and latched onto it. He knew something that I didn't, something important. "Do you know what ability users are?" the doctor asked.

I thought for a moment, the topic had always irked me since I came here. Ability users were gifted, they all possessed some type of supernatural ability. Most people didn't even think they really existed. And yet the one thing that everyone seemed to agree upon when it came to them was that almost no ability user had the exact same ability. Ability users and demigods were something different from each other because of that small fact. Demigods have common powers that come from their godly parents. The fact that abilities almost never repeat means that gifted were something else entirely.

"I've heard about them in the slums some, but no one has given me a straight answer as to what they really are," I explained. "Whenever I would ask, they always just brushed me off. The people there always just said they were rumors, myths made up and not worth spending time wondering about."

"Ability users are those born with an extraordinarily powerful gift," the doctor explained, "some gifted can manipulate time, some can heal people from the absolute brink of death, some can even see into the future."

A thought came to me, as swift and sure as a lightning strike, "Elise is an ability, isn't she? Was the blue light calling her back?" It was a wild guess,but judging by the doctor's approving gaze, it was at least half right. "What did I get wrong?" I asked him, genuinely curious to know. I felt like I was back in Chiron's class, trying to prove that his interest in me wasn't as much of a waste as I thought it was. That I wasn't a waste.

The doctor pulled up a stool, taking a seat next to my bedside. "Elise is an ability," he started, "but I wasn't the one to call her back. When she's in that form, I can't force her to do anything." The doctor sounded tired, like a man who's been run ragged fighting for control for years, he probably has.

"Elise is sitentent, or at least something close to it, isn't she. That's what you mean by you can't call her back in that form. You can only ask her to do things, but can't force her to actually do any of them when she's in something akin to a human form with human emotions," I analyzed. The doctor smiled at me approvingly. That look was enough to tell me that I was right about my assumptions. I felt my brows furrow slightly, not that it'd be easy to tell given the bandages on my face. I had a theory, a few actually, but I thought it best to wait it out.

"Correct, good job." a small flood of warmth rushed through at those words. I've been praised for my intelligence before, only combat abilities and success in battle. In school, everything was hard, I was always six steps behind, not being able to easily read what was right in front of me. At camp, I was still behind, not knowing enough of the Greek myths to even keep myself alive on my own. But this, this was all me. "Any other observations?"

I thought back to the fall. "Elise had a pinkish glow to her when she was actually acting as an ability. Since you say that you didn't call her back, then the blue glow was most likely the work of another ability user," I stated, summarizing my thoughts while still dancing around the theory in my head.

The doctor seemed to have noticed what I was doing. "You can say it," he encouraged, "I know that you've been thinking about it since your fall." I would have to learn to hide my thoughts and intentions around the doctor better.

I gathered up my courage, adults being anything other than displeased with my intelligence is a completely new concept to me. Something that I Know the doctor can easily see and is playing into. But this has never happened before. This, this moment here, was a fragile thing. Even though I know that once I act as a witness to whatever crime it is that he wishes to commit and lie for him it will be over. Even though I know that his whole scheme is built around me being disposable. This isn't something that I want to break just yet. But the doctor was encouraging me, telling me that this, me thinking freely, was okay.

"The other ability user," I started, my voice sure, “was me, right? My touch nullified your ability."

The doctor nods and I know I'm right.

"The way your ability is," the doctor explained, "you wouldn't have known that you had it until you ran into another ability user."

A part of me was curious if any of the other demigods at camp were ability users as well, but that theory didn't make much sense. My ability would have activated, canceling out theirs. But the demigod aspect did encourage some of the other theories that had been floating around in my head.

"Hmm," I responded non committedly. "How do abilities occur? I can guess that it's some kind of mutation, but can it be predicted? Are there common genes that all ability users share?" I spit the questions out faster than the man could answer them, but I knew the doctor understood my spiral. From the looks of it, he'd been here before himself.

The doctor held up a hand, signaling for me to stop. The gesture reminded me so much of something that Chiron would do that I did immediately. When I was finally silent the man answered my questions. "As best as I can tell from my experiments, every ability user shares some type of distant mutation that was weakened through the generations. The mutation comes from ancient times, and after lying dormant for some time, it tends to mutate once more. This second mutation results in abilities."

I nodded at him, accepting the information without complaint. My best guess was that the mutation comes from having a demigod as an ancestor. Mom was a mortal born with the ability to see through the mist and view the mythological world as if she belonged to it. While this may not be an ability in the sense that we are discussing, it does most likely come from some distant relation to the Greek gods. If she had been the descendant of a demigod, then that would be the residual power showing itself. It would also explain why I have this gift. The ability to nullify other abilities.

"Now," the doctor started, standing up from his seat, "before we go back to discussing our deal, I believe it's only fair that we introduce ourselves." The doctor looked at me expectedly. Personally, I could have gone on referring to the man as 'the doctor' for the rest of my short life, but I was in too much pain from the fall to argue.

My brain spun quickly. My birth name was out of the question and my fake name on my passport wouldn't be all that good either. "Dazai," I decided, "Osamu Dazai."

The doctor looked at me in a way that told me he knew that I was lying, but didn't feel the need to pry. To this man, whoever I was before falling into his hands didn't matter, not really.

"Ougi Mori," the doctor said.

Percy Jackson had died long ago, he had been destroyed by the flames that had killed his mother, his ashes swept away over a bridge. Today, Osamu Dazai was born from the fall.

—

Mori introduced me as his medical apprentice when he took me to where the Port Mafia boss was staying. The guards gave us weird looks every time we visited. They thought that my being there was some type of joke, that I was too young to be of any use to anyone.

They just didn't know the rules of the game that we're playing.

We would go do the Boss's check ups after Mori was done for the day acting as the general mafia's underground doctor. Surprisingly, there weren't many injured mafiosos during the week that I was with Mori leading up to the climax of the man's scheme. Most of the time, Mori just did paperwork or experimented with blood samples.

On the second day I was with him, Mori asked a strange question. "Dazai-kun," Mori said suddenly, bringing my attention away form the suicide book that I'd been reading to the underground doctor before me, "do you think I could have a sample of your blood?"

To be completely candid, I'd been expecting this to come, just not quite so soon. But, blood doesn't really matter to a dead man. "Sure Mori-san."

My arms were still securely bandaged, something that I've made no move to undo. If anything good were to come out of this it would be the relief that I get from having these bandages in place. Mori knew better than to remove them as well, so he took the blood from my neck. This happened multiple times during the week that I posed as Mori's assistant. At the end of the week, my neck was left bruised from the constant abuse to it. I wrapped some new bandages around it, stopping the extra stares that I received every time I left Mori's office to go to the room that he'd procured for me in the mafia building.

At the end of the week, before our last visit to the boss, Mori stopped me before I left his office.

"I'd like to give you something," he said, the man's hands were hidden behind his back in a secretive manner. I waited for him to continue, "a thank you of sorts for the help that you've been since you were brought here."

Mori held out a large black overcoat, big enough to fit the man himself. I took the piece of clothing, draping it over my shoulders. It was worn from use, but well kept. It was the first gift I'd been given since Chiron gave me Riptide when I was twelve. I nodded at the doctor in lieu of a thank you, not that he'd really been expecting one. I wouldn't waste either of our time on fake signs of emotions like smiles, something that Mori seemed to appreciate.

Like every other time we visited the boss, he was raving, spouting one crazed idea after another. This time he was giving the order to take out all other enemy organizations. A stupid order to give given the current state of the Port Mafia, but who was I to argue with the ravings of a senile man? I just turned the lunatic out and stood by the window, waiting.

Mori didn't make me wait long.

The scalpel had slipped into Mori's hand before the boss could even finish the brunt of his rant. In one elegant move, blood splattered the walls, running down. Blood gushed from the boss's throat, drenching the white sheets, dying them a deep red.

And there I was, watching the scene unfold. I should have been horrified, but there was only a dull sense of surprise. I'd seen countless beings die in my short life time, this death was by far the most tame of any of them.

When did I become so passive to the world around me?

"The boss has succumbed to illness. Before his passing he named me his successor. You are the witness to this fact," Mori turned around, facing me. There was blood splattering the man's face, making it look like an abstract painting created by some deranged fool. "Understood?"

I stared at him, my eye cold and lifeless, and nodded.

Chapter Text

Mori took me back to the room that I've been staying in for the past week to wait while he went to inform the higher ups of the boss's passing. I immediately laid down on the bed, savoring the feeling. After my testimonial, I would be back on the street. Only for a little while though, death would soon follow, but that time spent there would still be uncomfortable compared to a real bed.

Mori came back for me sometime later. I tried reading his expression, but it was carefully hidden behind his kind doctor facade. He was keeping tight lipped about the outcome of his talk. I wanted to tell the man to drop the act, but every conversation with him was a minefield where we were both planting deadly bombs in the other's mind. Every word was a chance to manipulate the other party, to turn them into your marionette while you played the puppet master. It was impressive, truly, until it was aimed at you.

Mori led me to the office of one of the mafia's executives. I didn't know this man. There are five executives within the Port Mafia: an older man with a monacale, a lady with long red hair and more classical Japanese style clothing, a foreigner with a permanent chill, and two others that I had yet to meet.

The man sent me a harsh, appraising, glare, and for a moment I imagined just slitting his throat like Mori had done to the previous boss. The thought came unbidden. The most startling thing about it was not how easy it would be for me to do with my training, but how little the thought seemed to affect me. In that moment, I could have killed the man in cold blood, and I don't even know if I would've felt bad about it. Maybe everything good in me died with me when I jumped. Or maybe it was earlier than that, with the fire. I stood up straighter, pushing the thoughts from my head. Demigods killed monsters, not mortals.

The man had short blue hair, pulled into a ponytail at the base of his neck. His eyes were an eerie blue green that seemed to almost glow as he stared at me. He held out his hand and introduced himself, though I didn't listen to his name. I was too focused on the way my ability showed itself when our hands met.

"Mr. Osamu," the man said in a haughty tone, using my first name freely without permission, "I'd ask that you not use an ability in here." The man looked terribly offended with me. The hypocrite.

I gave the man a smile that was all sharp teeth. "My ability is a passive one Sir," I explained, enjoying the way the man's confident expression turned into a complicated one. Passive abilities were dangerous. They were weapons without a sheath to protect others from being cut.

The man coughed, alarmed, "What does your ability do?"

I lowered my face, showing the executive a hooded glare. "My ability allows me to nullify all other abilities through touch," the man was sweating, like he was the one being interrogated instead of me. Messing with authority figures is the most fun I've had in a year. "It only shows itself like that when it comes in contact with another active ability," I explained, stressing the word. Cheap tricks wouldn't get the man out of this one.

I liked watching the way he squirmed under my gaze. There was something dangerous in the interaction, something alive. "What's your ability name Mr.-?"

"Dazai," I cut in before the man could finish his sentence, "my name is Dazai."

The man nodded and tried again, "what's your ability name Mr. Dazai?"

"No Longer Human" If my theory was right about the origin of abilities, then I really wasn't all that human. I was more god than human, more monster. That was the main reason I didn't fight Mori when he proposed the name earlier this week. It seemed Mori could feel the otherness in me too.

The man gave a stiff nod, seeming to find the name appropriate as well. I'm sure I didn't look all that human to him right now. "I just need your account from tonight and then you can go," he explained. The man sounded ready to be rid of me and never see me again. The feeling was mutual. The faster I got out of here, the faster that I could die.

"The doctor, Mori-san, and I went on our nightly visit to the boss's room. When we got there, the boss seemed a little erratic, more so than normal," I explained. The thing about lying was that the best ones were always a masterful balance between lies and truth. Enough of one to cover and support the other. "He wanted to make sure that he had a proper successor. I think he could feel his time running out," I lied, keeping my face the same careful blank. "He named Mori-san his successor just before going into convulsions. Mori-san acted quickly and performed a tracheotomy, but it was too late," I finished. That was a part of the lie that we had come up with to cover why the boss's neck had been slit.

The executive excused me after writing the story down, double checking the finer points with me before letting me go. Mori was waiting for me outside the executive's office with what appeared to be a proud look on his face. Though if he was proud of skill to lie or his plan succeeding at that moment was unknown, but if I had to guess it would be the ladder. We walked down the hall to the elevator, heading to the doctor's office.

I automatically moved to my spot at the stool while Mori collapsed at his desk. A thought grazed my mind as we sat there in silence. Mori was pouring over a set of lab results that came in before we left to go kill the boss. His face held a disappointed expression, but his body language gave him away. The doctor held the paper like it was a piece of gold.

"Mori-san," I called, pulling the man out of whatever spiral he was diving deep into.

"Yes Dazai-kun?" he looked up at me, placing the paper carefully on the desk. Seeing his whole face was even worse. Whatever was on that paper made the doctor look like Tantalus, a starving man presented with food, but was unable to eat it. Whatever he was looking for was just out of reach. He looked so disgustingly human at that moment.

"That executive, what was his ability," I asked, letting curiosity overcome my revulsion.

"Ah," Mori smiled, leaning back in his chair. He was doing that face where he was deciding how best to phrase his words. What information to give and what information to make me guess at. Always testing my brain to see just how fast I could make it work. "It's called the Lost Hero," he finally said. "The ability allows him to wander into your recent memory when he touches you," Mori explained, "though he doesn't remember what he's seen. Only when you tell him what happened does he get brief flashes of the past."

So it's almost like an amnesia ability.

I nodded my head, understanding now why he was the in-house interrogator. "Is that why you walked me to my room before going to his office, so you could draw out some sort of time limit?"

Mori gave me his small proud smile, the one that he always gave me when I did something intelligent that he liked. "Correct," he confirmed.

The look of the doctor's face changed, like a thought had just occurred to him. I knew him well enough by now to know that that look was complete bullshit, nothing more than a clumsy facade to fool lesser men. Mori never did anything, never said anything if he hadn't already thought through all of the details of it. He never shows when he gets an idea either. "Dazia-san," he started, leaning forward to garner attention, "what if you stayed here with me, in my care until you find a suitable way to kill yourself?" he proposed.

I know that he's playing me, that whatever motive he has for doing this has to do with those test results. Probably something to do with me having a more potent concentration of the original mutated ability gene. And maybe even a little bit to do with the encroaching loneliness that will take him away once the only other person that knows the truth of our crime is gone. Even so, my only other option was to leave here and try killing myself again. Though suicide attempts would undoubtedly happen either way, at least here I had more access to resources to do so. Back on the streets, I would starve again, something much more painful than I'd originally thought it was. I could always try my luck at jumping again, but last time I fell from a deadly height and didn't even break a single bone. This, this offer, was easier. It was a cheap way out, but still it was easier than going back to the slums.

Despite my better judgment, I found myself agreeing.

—

To celebrate Mori's successful promotion, he took me out to eat. "Being a doctor among mafioso is a lonely profession," he explained when I asked why it was just the two of us. "When you are always the one cleaning up their messes and not out there causing them alongside them, an invisible barrier seems to form."

Some people might have thought he was crazy, but strangely I understood what he meant. Going back to school after spending my first summer at camp, going back into the world of mortals, it felt like I no longer belonged among them. In the end the only friend that I made there was Tyson, my half brother and a cyclops. Mortals were out of the question. However, ability users felt different. Each of them were off in some way. It was like you had to give something up to gain an ability in return. But it was this strangeness that made being around them slightly more tolerable than being around mortals, though being around either group still felt like it's own brand of torture.

We sat at the table with our food before us. I'd ordered some crab, finding it to be one of the few meals that I liked but even as I sat there eating it, I could only eat so much. Mori gave me a pitying look, it told me that he knew that when Elise found me about to kill myself and on the brink of starvation that eating would be a problem from there after. I tried to push the food away, but his look morphed into something else, it told me that we wouldn't leave this table until I finished all the food on the plate like he already had.

I'd shoved the last piece of food into my mouth when my gag reflex finally kicked in. I ran to the bathroom, throwing up the entire dinner. I'd know that I would regret staying with the doctor, I'd just not anticipated the regret coming this early, not even a full night later.

Chapter Text

Over the following year, I found myself regretting my rescuing to stay, though I know that Mori probably would have never had let me just up and disappear or die since I was the only other witness to the old boss's death. Dying of starvation while I had the chance would have been better than the nightmare that became my reality.

Things started off easy after that first night. I got to keep my room in the mafia building and Mori became something of a mentor to me. There was no real word to what we were to each other, but that would be the easiest one I suppose. I'm not his ward, or an orphan that he picked up off the street with the purpose of keeping, I'm not his medical assistant either like we told everyone I was at first. I was just the boy that he found and used to kill the old boss, but gave a place to stay when done.

The doctor let me read all of his medical books, going as far as to quiz me on their contents to make sure that I understood their contents. He taught me how to play chess and Go, two games that require great strategy. We only played them a few in those early days, the games became boring in their simplicity. Not long after that, Mori gave me control of the jewels business, wanting to see what I could do with the struggling trade. I had new strategic systems in place by the end of the first month, turning something close to a money pit into one of the mafia's most profitable assets.

But with all things good, they don't last long.

The test began the second month that I was with the mafia, not a formal member but still with them. My blood had a much higher concentration of the original gifted gene than any other ability user that Mori had seen. He began experimenting that month, seeing how different things would react to me, trying to activate something within me. He always said the shots wouldn't hurt, but everyone of them hurt more than the last. They burned their way through my body, fighting me every step of the way. I didn't tell Mori that they wouldn't work, he'd never believe me if I did. Ho wouldn't even believe me if I told him the reason they wouldn't work was because of my being a demigod, if I told him about Olympus. So I took the pain. The test continued for months on end. By the time Mori had done everything that he could currently think of, every last test his twisted brain could conjure, every experiment, poisoning, blood test, treatment, he could think of, the pain didn't even register anymore.

It was during that time that Mori moved me out to the middle of a landfill. The place was a dumping ground, toxic chemicals could be found throughout the site. Even the rats knew better than to come in here. At the heart of the landfill was a lone storage container that Mori gave to me. Despite this, I couldn't bring myself to care, not about the shipping container, or about the test, about anything at all. I just wanted for it all to be over, for life to be over.

Is that too much to ask?

The only thing that brought out any emotional response from me was death. Every attempt that I made, Mori somehow found a way to stop. Every painless method of suicide I could read about was negated by the underground doctor. But trying still brought me joy, being stopped brought me anger. That was more than I could say for my normal perpetual numbness. I'd been with Mori for about four months when the promise of a painless death became too elusive to keep pursuing.

One night, when the driver dropped me off outside the landfill, I headed into the gate, but waited for the driver to leave before making way to a nearby hardware store. The store owner was just closing up, but the elderly man took one look at me, my clothing, demeanor , and unlocked the door in a rush. The Port Mafia was weaker now than it had ever been, but it was still feared by those who remembered its viciousness.

I grabbed a piece of long rope, shoving some money into the man's hands on the way out. The bag swung Bentley from my bandaged wrist as I made my way back to the place that Mori decided I should call home. The night whispered softly, an unheard calmness spreading through the darkness. Yokohama is a city of demons, for the night to be so quiet, it felt like the city itself was holding its breath.

I walked to the center of the landfill, my storage container waiting patiently for my arrival. The door swung open easily revealing my meager possessions: a bed, a fan, a chair, a desk, and a lone lightbulb hanging from the ceiling of the container. Most people would find the sight sad, but I didn't need much, nothing more than the basics. Tucked away into the bottom drawer of my desk was my book bag, untouched and neglected during my time here. On top of the desk was the only book that I owned other than my sketch book. The Complete Guide to Suicide, something that when I had bought it, I had never planned of using, but haven't gone a day without reading it since.

Stepping onto the desk and the papers that lined it, I took the rope out of the bag. There were some hooks lining the middle bar of the container, if I stretched out enough, I could just barely reach them. I fashioned a quick noose, copying the instructions from the book, I strung it up on the nearest hook, and jumped down from the desk. My chair sat in the middle of the container, below the light bulb. I rolled the object over a little bit, placing it directly below the noose. My hands went to my neck, unfastening the bandage laying there. With the bandage on the floor, I stepped onto the wheeled contraption.

The rope was harsh as I slipped it onto my neck, tightening it to the point that breathing hurt. This pain, the pain that I cause myself never decreases in its intensity. It's always fresh, a reminder that I'm still alive. A curse. The chair shook dangerously below me, threading to roll away at any moment. I smiled at the thought and gave the chair a small nudge. My body dropped from its height, but the rope was short enough that I dangled above the floor, my feet never touching. The air slowly left my lungs, being exchanged for an all too familiar pain. I'd been raised on pain, from starvation, glass bottles hitting me, bullies, monsters, Mori; this pain felt like coming home in a strange way. It greeted me, seeing me off just as it has seen me through everything else.

I wonder if this death will feel like it did all those months ago, the peace that came with dying.

One last strangle gasp of air escaped my lips as the world slipped into darkness, the drachma in my pocket weighing heavy. The pain slipped away, the feeling of the rope cutting into my neck no longer noticeable.

Finally.

—-

My eye opened, harsh light entering it abruptly. A heavy weight settled in my chest as I recognized the ceiling, the lights, the pain coursing through my neck as I breathed. Disappointment settling on my shoulders like the weight of Atlas holding up the world.

I'm alive.

There was a scribbling sound somewhere in the room, I didn't have to look to know what I'd see: a middle aged man in a white lab coat doing some type of paperwork at his desk. I started to sit up, fully prepared to just walk out of the room and go to work, but something stopped me.

Something is off.

My arms grazed the covers of the bed, it was soft. I managed to sit up, only to be met with an all too familiar sight. My arms layer delicately at my side, bare for all to see. The damaged, scared and injured skin out in the open as if on display. The air hit my body, bringing in an unfamiliar feeling. I lifted my hand to my neck, only to be met by a burning sensation. It was bare as well.

"The rope cut deep enough that it tore into the skin, a scar will be left there," explained a pitiless voice. Mori.

I turned to the man, dropping my hand into my lap, he was already looking at me. The only bandage that seemed to remain on my body was the one covering my right eye, everything else felt raw from overstimulation.

I glared silently at the man as I always do every time hentwarts one of my suicide attempts. I've been here for months, struggling to die, wanting nothing more than to leave this pointless life. There was no reason to continue it, I had no goal or purpose. Anything that caught my attention became boring too quickly to be worth the time I spent on it. There was no point in even looking for a reason to live anymore, nothing would fill the hole in my chest where a human heart should be.

"You know," I started, feeling the intense rasp in my voice but continuing anyways, "I'd sign a DNR if I thought there was a chance that you'd respect it."

I swung off the table, glancing around the room for the jacket that Mori had given me my first week with him. It was sitting folded up on my usual chair on the other side of the room. I walked over there, feeling Mori's eyes tracking my every move. I snatched the coat up the second it came into reach, draping it over my shoulders, never fully putting it on. Putting it on all the way felt like signing a contract, promising that this was permanent.

I resisted the urge to sigh as my arms were hidden in the oversized coat, away from the world to see.

"Bandages?"

"You'll get them back in three days."

I nodded and left the room. Pain meant nothing to me anymore, it was just something that I tried to avoid, knew how to inflict, and ignored when I came in contact with it. Mori resorted to taking things from me instead when I messed up like this, when I acted pathetic, when I let emotion impart my judgment. He took things when I tried to pretend to be human, something we both knew I'm not qualified to be. 

Chapter Text

"This is hopeless..."

I watched as Mori seemed to be having a battle of the wills with the documents in front of him. The man's once clean clinic was in complete disarray; more stethoscopes than I thought we owned were scattered across the room, medical files and other documents were placed hazardously on any flat surface that could be found, and the once orderly academic books were in no better shape.

Mori himself was no better. His lab coat hadn't seen the dry cleaners in quite some time, his hair was a half combed mess, and dark eye bags stuck to the man's face as if permanently glued on. I couldn't bring myself to feel sorry for the man though, he was just another monster in a city full of them. Another evil playing at being human.

Just like me.

"Our weapons smugglers are two weeks behind schedule. My men are going to be fighting with kitchen knives at this rate. And it doesn't stop there. We've already had three violent incidents this month where the city police had to be involved. I'm losing control of the low level grunts," the man complained.

Mori has only been the leader of the Port Mafia for a year, a position that I helped put him in. The doctor was still new to leadership, but familiar with the various hardships. The sight of him struggling like this brought me a slight bit of joy as it always did. Though the overly common sight has started to become rather dull with time, just like everything else.

The man continued to complain, going on about losing contracts for the protection business, the escalating conflicts, and the steadily increasing loss of the Port Mafia's turf. "Maybe I'm just not cut out for this. What do you think, Dazai? Are you even listening to me?"

I stared down at my beaker and the glass stirrer in it, watching the way the chemicals move. I was always listening, something that he seemed to know and fear. "Maybe, maybe not," I said, not giving the man any help. My bandages brushed reassuringly against my skin, a familiar weight.

"So which is it?" Mori questioned like a high school girl asking about a crush.

This man is wasting my time.

"Come on, Mori. Everything that comes out of your mouth is always so boring!" I complained, messing with a new medicine bottle. Mori's gotten so predictable over the year I've been with him. "It's starting to sound like you're chanting a mantra 'we don't have enough money. We don't have enough intel. My men don't trust me.' You knew from the start that things would turn out this way."

Another reason I couldn't feel sorry for the doctor. It was one thing to bring something on yourself by accident, another to do it purely on purpose.

"Well maybe you're right," Mori sighed. The man suddenly stared at me as if realizing something. "By the way, Dazai, why are you mixing hypertension medicine with hypotension medicine?"

"Huh? Because maybe something cool will happen and I'll be able to die in peace." I know that my mixing the hypo and hypertension medicines won't kill me, but maybe it will at least be interesting

"That isn't going to kill you. How did you even get into the medicine cabinet? It was locked." Mori snatched the new bottle from my hands before sighing deeply.

At this rate, I might kill him before I kill myself.

"Give that back! I want to die!" I reached for the bottle, but he just moved it farther out of reach. "Life is so boring; I'd rather die! But I want it to be quick and painless, help me out, Mori!"

"I'll teach you how to properly mix drugs if you promise to be a good boy and stay out of trouble."

Good boy? Gods, you make it sound like I'm nothing more than a misbehaving dog asking for a treat.

"Liar!" I screamed, calling the sadistic man out. "You're just saying that so you can use me! Do you have any idea how much you've put me through this year? And what did you teach me? Nothing!" Everything I've learned in the year that I've been here, I've taught myself. Anytime he stepped in to quiz or direct me, he controlled the information. Learning to mix chemicals and medicines was off the table. Outright teaching me strategies was a no-go since I wasn't officially a part of the organization. I haven't had any real combat training since I was thirteen, back at camp, nearly two years ago. My body has grown weak from all the failed attempts and experiments that I don't even know how well I would fare in combat. The only thing he has done was use me for his own gain, use my brain to further his own ends. "I'm gonna quit this organization and join one of our rivals!"

"Now, now, learn to think before you speak. Your death won't be quick or painless if you betray us," Mori smiled darkly.

Trust me, I know. That's the only reason I haven't up and disappeared months ago.

"I'm so bored. Why's the world such a boring place?" Everything and everyone are so predictable, nothing of interest ever happens.

I swung my legs like a small child. Nothing beyond what I expect has happened, everything is boring and repetitive. Even Mori's betrayal wasn't unexpected. Everything is too predictable.

"More importantly, Dazai, you were the only one there when I inherited the previous boss's position. I'm other words, you are the sole witness to his final will and testament. I can't have you dying on me."

Of course, always tracking back to that day. Mori seemed to believe that we were tied together from some string of fate. He seems to have forgotten that I was supposed to be an expendiable piece for him to throw away.

"It didn't work out like you planned, though," I told the doctor with a startling clarity. The man's eyes gleamed slightly in confusion at my remark.

"What do you mean?" He was subconsciously leaning forward.

I have him.

"Choosing someone who's attempted suicide to be your accomplice was an excellent idea. But here we are, an entire year later, and I'm still alive... and that's why that deep seated fear is still eating at you."

I could see the moment Mori's blood seemed to turn to ice. Something like the word miscalculation was ringing in his ears, haunting him for months now. This man has hurt me more in a year than anyone else has managed to do in my entire life. He punished me, trying to break me because I was still alive, and yet he wouldn't let me die. He feared my existence and yet wouldn't let me end it for the same reasons.

"... what are you talking about?"

"You know what I'm talking about. You're afraid that someone will find out that you assassinated the previous boss."

You're terrified of it.

I kept my face emotionless, making my thoughts impossible to read. I could see the fear tearing away at Mori, controlling him. I wanted to reinforce that fear, let him drown it. After all, it's only fair to share the pain.

"What do you mean it 'didn't work out'?" I watched as Mori's brows furrowed, looking at me as if I was an imprudent child. Was this how the gods looked at me when I sent them Medusa's head? "Nothing fell short of expectations. You and I successfully carried out the mission one year ago. It wasn't without hardship, however, which is exactly why I never want to do something like that again."

"The mission isn't over yet," I reminded the boss, staring him down with a cold gaze. "It only ends when everyone involved in the assassination and fabrication of the boss's final testament have been silenced... permanently. Right?"

I could see the emotions rolling through Mori, "... you..."

I stared the man down, seeing every late night worry and fear that had crossed his mind. The way he's fretted over what he would do if I decided to sell him out. I could see it all.

"To the end, I was the perfect accomplice. Nobody would suspect a thing. Once you became the boss after I vouched for you... I could simply killer myself for some unknown reason."

My eyes bored into him, watching the way he squirmed beneath my gaze. Bringing this man pain was like some kind of divine retribution. I could see the alarm bells ringing through the old man's head, with it, his regret in choosing me. My actions were too unpredictable, my mind twisted, observant, cold, calculating, and dark. The mafia is full of the most evil in the Yokohama district, even among them, I have no true equivalent. Mori knows this, he fears this.

"...I'm kidding. I was just making stuff up because I get a kick out of watching big shots like you squirm. It's what I've been doing to keep myself entertained lately," I told the doctor, slipping back into my usual, blank expression. The sea is always changing, forever unpredictable. As a child of the sea, so was I. One moment, I'm the smartest man in the room, but as soon as everyone believes they have it figured out, I'm raving about suicide once again, wearing away at the peoples' minds like the ocean against the shore.

"You remind me of someone," Mori said suddenly.

"Who?" I asked, curiosity lacing my tone. Mori has never compared me to anyone, not when I was as strange as I am.

Mori didn't answer the question.

How annoying, I thought bitterly.

"At any rate, stop teasing your elder," Mori scolded, a faint smile scaring his face. I knew better than to trust any smile of his. "Me? Permanently silence you? Don't be ridiculous. Besides, I would have done that long ago if I really had wanted to. It'd be simpler than breathing. How many times have I stopped you from killing yourself this year alone? It's quite taxing, you know. I even disarmed a bomb under your chair once like the protagonist in a movie."

I smiled slightly at the memory. He was sweating bullets that day, working furiously away at the device. I'd just been hoping it might take us both out at once so I could ask Uncle Hades about throwing Mori away into the Fields of Punishment or Tartarus once I crossed the river styx. There was always a coin tucked away in my coat pocket for that very journey.

"Dazai, if you really want, I can prepare a drug so that you can end things comfortably," Mori claimed suddenly. I watched as he opened a desk drawer, pulling out a sheet of paper, shifting writing on it.

"Really." I asked, my disbelief obvious. I didn't believe what the man was saying for a second. He'd just been complaining about the work it's taken to keep me alive not five seconds ago, now this?

"I need you to do a quick investigation for me in return, though," Mori said, still writing. "It's not a difficult task. Nothing dangerous. But you're the only one I can go to for help."

"Sounds fishy," I eyed the man reproachfully. Whatever he was scheming wouldn't end in my death, but I could make him keep his word.

"You know Suribachi City, near the Yokohama settlement, correct?" the man asked, rolling right over my previous remark. Mori never asked about my past, he had no true knowledge about where I was before I came to him. He only had theories and assumptions if he cared to think about it even that much. He probably at least assumed that I was from there. "Lately, there have been rumors that a certain individual has been seen in that area. I'd like you to go there and check if the rumors are true. This," Mori said, indicating the paper that he had been writing on, "is called a Silver Oracle. It's a decimation of authority, you could say. Show this to anyone in the Port Mafia, and they will do whatever you ask. Use it wisely."

I glanced between Mori and the document being held out to me, then asked, "who is this certain individual you want me to look for?" I think I already know, but hearing it from him would be better than going in half blind. Not that that's not the case already.

"Guess," Mori said simply.

I couldn't help but sigh, people were so tiring sometimes. "I don't want to guess."

"Just guess."

I glared at the underground doctor for a moment, but that got me nowhere. I replied slowly to the annoying man:

"... There's no way the most powerful man in the Port Mafia would give a second thought to some town gossip. That stays a lot about just how important this rumor is. Plus, you're giving me a Silver Oracle, which makes me think this individual isn't what's important. It's the rumor itself. You have to know the truth, and you have to quash the rumor at its source; it's spread alone is harmful. You asked me to investigate instead of a professional or one of your top subordinates, so there's only one person this individual could be: the previous boss. Right?"

"Exactly," the man confirmed. "There are some people who must never rise from the grave. I personally confirmed his death, even gave him the most exceptional funeral."

I'd dug around in the kitchen the night before the funeral and found some whiskey. Sleep has always been a hard thing for me to come by, with the demigod visions and all, but even after leaving the mythological world, falling asleep was still a nightmare in itself. I'd drunk myself sleep that night and slept through the day. Mori had been pissed that I had missed the funeral, but that was the most sleep that I had gotten in years. I drank myself to sleep most nights that I could get my hands on something before going back to my storage container.

"Someone who must never rise from the grave, huh...?" I let the words hang for a moment before sighing and standing. "Looks like I really am the only one that you can go to for help," I snatched the paper from Mori's claws. "You're gonna get me that drug then, okay? You better keep your word."

The 'Or I'll make you' went unsaid and unheard by everyone in the room.

The doctor smiled. "This is your first job. Welcome to the Port Mafia."

I made my way to the door, something close to eager to get this done with, when I stopped.

"By the way, who's the person you said I reminded you of?"

The man smiled cruelly before answering, his tone laced with something akin to melancholy and pride, "Me."

The word shook my bones, hurting what little soul I'd forgotten I had. I know that I'm similar to this man, but I didn't want to acknowledge the fact, much less have him openly do so. It was one of the many things that I just wanted to forget.

"Dazai, I may not be able to comprehend your answer, but I nonetheless want to know: why is it you wish to die?"

I couldn't stop the puzzled expression from morphing my face. Isn't it obvious? Him asking me this is like me asking him why he wants to live.

Something like youthful innocence to me over, my eyes, my voice, when I finally answered:

"Let's turn that question around. Is there really any value to this thing we call living?"

Chapter Text

Suribachi City looked just like how I remembered it, row after row of homes hazardly built into the crater in the earth, filling up the shape of a Japanese motor; a suribachi. The people that live here are like I was, like how I still am, they're society's outcast. They're the people society never acknowledged in the first place. The crater became a safe haven for those scorned by the rest of the world, a gray city for gray people. The entire area was out of the authority's radar, making it perfect for illegal organizations like the Port Mafia.

"Oh? So drinking metal-plating solutions is an extremely popular method of suicide abroad, huh?... interesting."

I was reading as I walked, I knew this area well after living here for so long. I could tell my expression was serious, when it came to suicide, no matter how joking my tone, I was always serious. I continued reading, talking and thinking aloud as I did. Apparently the method was only popular because it's an easy chemical for industrial painters to get their hands on. The death itself is neither quick nor easy.

"Anyone who drinks the solution dies after spending hours in agony as their organs dissolve inside of them... Ack! I'm so glad I didn't give that a try!"

Gods, who comes up with these ideas?

I looked at the escort following me, Mr. Hirotsu. He was the mafioso that I'd chosen for his knowledge of the area. I may have lived here, but he knew the city's underground that I had tried to stay out of. The ability user had graying, salt-and-pepper hair and wore a golden monocle on one of his eyes.

I could tell the man was wary of me, I could feel the unease almost rippling off of him. Everyone in the mafia that recognized who I was felt the same way as the man trailing behind me. I was one of two people present when the old boss passed, now I have the oracle and a mysterious mission that no one else knew the details of. Hirotsu was right to be wary.

We left the mafia building early this morning and have traveled the improvised city asking about the rumors since. I spoke to the sources while Hirotsu watched on. Many of the people we spoke with were easy to manipulate, telling me everything that I wanted to know without even realizing it. The more stubborn and aware ones I bribed, using the money that Mori had given me for that very purpose. When there was nothing else to gain from the city inhabitants, we started heading back to headquarters.

"Dazai... please don't walk too far ahead of me," a nervous Hirotsu called ahead to me. "I'm your escort, but this is nonetheless a conflict zone. There's no telling what could happen."

"'Conflict'?" My head filled with wonderful scenarios of being taken out in a crossfire or attack, i hadn't thought of that before.

My comment must have made it seem like I was either confused or uninformed, because he went into an explanation of the ongoing turf war between the Port Mafia, Takasekai, Gelhart Security Service and another group that calls themselves 'The Sheep'.

"This week alone, they killed two of our squads. The unofficial leader is especially hard to deal with. They say not even bullets work on him."

"Ohhh... no wonder I heard explosions and gunfire coming from over there," I said pointing vaguely in a random direction. "Doesn't make much difference to me though..." I grumbled, now bored once more. I knew all about the turf war from Mori's seemingly endless complaining. I knew about the Sheep too, just not all from Mori.

My phone beeped from inside my pocket, an annoying sound only associated with one equally annoying individual. I considered just letting the phone ring, but there was always the possibility that Mori would just turn around and call Hirotsu and then I would still have to talk to him anyways. I spoke with Mori on the phone, giving the man a small rundown of what I'd learned.

"The previous boss was here. He came back to life from the depths of hell, covered in black flames," I told him emotionlessly. I could only imagine the way Mori's heart must be beating right now, how nervous he must be. The thought alone was enough to bring a cruel smile to my face. If someone from camp were to see me now, they'd probably mistake me for a human-like monster roaming the streets.

"What?" Mori's shaky reply could be heard from the other side of the phone.

"There were a lot of witnesses. I guess the old man had a lot of regrets and couldn't let go of the world?" My lips curled further into the cold-blooded smirk, Mori must be close to a panic attack by now. The good doctor had been hoping that these rumors were nothing more than a trap being set by another organization, this discovery was something he never would have thought to be possible. Of course he didn't know shit about the world I come from, demons rising up from the ether was nothing more than a simple Tuesday from demigods. "At any rate, I'll give you a detailed report when I get back-"

Something hit me squarely in the chest, stealing the breath from my lungs and knocking me back, sending me flying through the air. My body flew through a roof, fencing, and other things, a path of destruction left in my wake. Pain ricocheted throughout my body with each hit. I could feel the spots that would soon be riddled with bruises. When I finally stopped, I was lying on the collapsed rubble of what had been a shed only moments ago and was leaning against another, intact, building. The shadowy figure that had hit was standing with his foot on top of my chest.

When my vision finally became clear again, I saw a boy around my age standing above me. His blue eyes stared down into me, his fiery hair tousled gently in the breeze. I had the sneaking suspicion that if my breath was already ragged, it would have caught in my throat.

Beautiful.

I didn't hear what the teen said, too surprised by my own thoughts, but seemingly unable to deny them. The boy above me looked prettier than anyone I'd ever seen. He was wearing simple dark jeans and a dark green biker jacket zipped up all the way. I pushed the train of thought away, I didn't have time for something so distracting at a time like this.

"That hurt, you know?" I told the boy emotionlessly, forcing my heart rate to go back to something close to normal. Mori and I had discovered in the past year that I could manipulate my heart rate, it was something that made situations like this and interrogations that much easier. "I hate pain."

"I'm gonna give you a choice, kid," the boy said arrogantly, his hands tucked away into his jacket pockets. "Die now or die after givin' me the information I want. What's it gonna be?"

Something gave me the idea that whatever the boy had said was most likely an insult of some form. A smile threatened to show itself, but I forced it down. If this kid is who I think it is, then he'll have no problem keeping that promise. "I like those choices. Both are very tempting offers," I replied, showing no signs of pain despite having just been thrown through multiple buildings. Each breath hurt, but my time with the doctor allowed me to keep a level and clear head if nothing else. "Okay. Kill me now."

The boy fell silent, obviously surprised. His expression morphed into an attractive expression of something akin to pleasure. He looked like he realized he'd finally met someone of character. I felt the same almost, this boy is interesting, even more so if he's the skill user I'm thinking of.

"Thought you'd just cry and run away. You're a suprisngly gusty kid."

"You're a kid, too," I reminded him, enjoying the flash of annoyance that filtered across his delicate features. He looked stunning when he was angry.

"Yeah, everyone I fight always says that at first, but they immediately realize their mistake. I'm no ordinary brat like you," the ginger says, assuming things. I could see his hands clench in his pockets, turning into fist. "Now talk. Tell me everything you know about this Arahabaki you're looking into."

"Arahabaki..." I rolled the name around in my mouth. The boy stepped on my hand, the sound of bones cracking echoed through the rubble. He wanted me to talk.

Does this bastard not understand that, that shit hurts?

"So you do know, huh?" His voice was thick with surprise, but also an underlying hopefulness.

How interesting.

"Nope. First I've ever heard of it," I told the teen flatly.

The boy grinned, obviously taking joy in what he was about to do. He kicked me swiftly, I could hear the bones creak beneath the weight of his kick. A slight moan slipped from my lips as my body contracted in pain.

I looked at the boy, everything about him screamed someone who's never lost a fight. I won't assume to know what kind of pain he's been through or what kind of life he has lived, but with combat at least, he's never lost. I knew people like that, I know how they think. I also know very well how to piss them off, that has always seemed to be my speciality.

"You'll let me go... if I talk?" I let my face twist in agony, not having to fake it. I let him believe that I'd given up, that he'd won.

"Yeah. I don't pick on the weaklings."

So not a bully then, that's good.

My experience with bullies has never been good, it was bad enough to make me consider looking back on when my depression started, or if it'd always been there. Gods knows there were enough reasons before I even found out that I was a demigod to justify the possibility.

I fell silent for a few moments before gazing up at the boy, he really was the most beautiful person I've ever seen. "Okay... I'll talk."

I imagined the way he would look moments from now, enjoying the image that my mind conjured. My voice was heavy and tense when I finally replied:

"You ought to drink more milk. You're really short."

The boy kicked me in the stomach once more, sending me crashing into a fence. His face was flushed red from anger, it was a sight worth the pain.

"I didn't ask, you little shit!" the boy shouted angrily. "I'm fifteen! I'm still growing!"

"Heh... then I'll put a little curse on you. I, being fifteen as well, will continue growing while you stay the same height."

I don't know why I did that, but this interaction was... fun? Something that I hadn't had in years, not really.

"You're really starting to piss me off!"

Good. Be pissed. Hate me. Maybe that will make these foolish thoughts go away.

The boy kicked me across the face, causing my neck to creak audibly. But. There was no remorse on the Ginger's face at all.

"That... hurt... you know?" I groaned, but a small chuckle made its way through. I looked at the boy, thinking aloud again, sure of my line of thought now. The Sheep are a group made entirely of children and teens and yet they are still one of the most feared. "Now it makes sense. You're the Sheep king~ Chuuya Nakahara, gravity manipulator."

I thought he was since that first hit, the speed and power behind it was unreal, but I needed to gather more information before I just thoughtlessly said anything.

"I'm not a king," Chuuya spat, he said the title as if it was acidic. "I just happen to have something no one else does. Power. I'm simply fulfilling the responsibility I have." The boy paused as if realizing something and looked down at me, "you sure do know a lot about the Sheep."

"I got invited to join a while back. Obviously, I refused."

It was before the infection had hit. One of the members happened across me in the slums, offered me a safe place to stay, a group to be a part of and a place to call home. The sentiment was nice, familiar even, but the boy was around my age and already drunk well before noon. I didn't want to be a part of an organization where the only one doing anything was the leader. I don't want to have to rely on anyone that much, to be that defenseless, ever again.

"You made the right choice. I would have killed you in the first five minutes."

"I would have assassinated you before that," I shot back readily.

We stared at each other.

"Doesn't matter," the gravity manipulator decided, "I'm still going to kick you to death."

"You won't get that far," I told him, not even moving an inch. "Don't you hear the footsteps?"

Chuuya looked alarmed, but he didn't take his eyes off of me. "What footsteps?"

Just then, numerous mafia soldiers appeared and pointed their weapons at the boy, but he only laughed.

"Give it up boy," Hirotsu demanded from the crowd, "your far too young to see what your organs look like." I listened on as the two threw slighted comments at each other.

Chibi has such a foul mouth.

"Hirotsu," I called out, interrupting the pair, "you should probably sit this one out. He can manipulate the gravity of anything he touches. Your skill is a bad match."

But the man ignored my warning and the two launched themselves at one another, tangling in combat. The pair moved like seasoned fighters in an arena. A part of me wanted to jump in there with Riptide, but the energy required to do so was needed somewhere else.

The two fought each other, blocking and countering the other's attacks while countering with their own. It was almost like a dance, one that Chuuya seemed to be leading. It was obvious just from watching that Hirotsu was at the disadvantage skill wise, every attack was turned against the man. This continued until Chuuya aimed a kick at Hirotsu's neck, one which the man promptly blocked with his pistol. I could hear the way the device groaned from a few feet away and was happy that it wasn't me taking that burden for once today. I saw Hirotsu grab onto Chuuya's shoulder with his right hand and knew his intention. Anything he touched with that hand, he could repel.

"I've got you now," he said confidently.

"So what? Your skill won't work on me."

"I dunno about that," I chimed in. I'd used up my reserved energy and made my way over to the pair quietly when Hirotsu had set up the opportunity. I was right behind Chuuya, smirking as he looked back at me. "Sorry, but gravity is no longer yours to control." My ability activated as I grabbed onto the side of the boy's neck, blue light shining through.

"I can't... use my powers?" He reminded me of a god made human and losing their abilities to control their domains. It was strange to see.

A white shockwave blasted Chuuya backward, almost like he'd been hit by a truck. I flew back too, a new wave of pain shooting through me, I wasn't thrown by Hirostu's skill though. The old man called out my name, alarmed and confused. It made sense, since there was no reason for me to be all the way back here.

"He got me..." I explained sullenly, holding my thoroughly beaten stomach. "Kicked me right before we crashed... and I let go of him. He used his skill to fly backwards."

Chuuya called out something in triumph, but I wasn't paying attention to him. Everything hurts. The boy's kicks were a nightmare, especially since he had a knack for hitting the same spot each time.

I saw a blur as the boy launched himself at Hirostu, it was a powerful enough kick that even if I got there in time to nullify Chuuya's ability, the force alone would still tear the old man apart. But black flames blasted everyone backwards instead.

People, buildings, utility poles and even trees were blown away with the black shockwave. Everything was torn, as if the air itself had suddenly lashed out.

A black explosion.

My vision spun from the repeated force, heat cooking my skin, but when I could finally raise my body enough to look up, I saw it: glowing red eyes, a face wrinkled, aged from the death and destruction it's owner had caused. The long white hair was billowing in the wind. Standing in the flames was the devil himself, someone even Hades must have struggled to find the right punishment for.

"The previous boss," my words were swallowed by the flames before the heat and trauma of the day became too much for even my body to handle.

The last thing I saw before everything faded away was the black flames.

Chapter Text

I woke up sometime later in the small infirmary with fresh bandages lining my skin. There was a slight pain in my head and a dull ringing in my ears as I remembered the events from earlier. When I looked out the window, it looked to be the middle of the night, but my body felt rested. The fight and the explosion must have happened hours ago, knocking me out cold in the process.

On my usual chair were two jackets, each identical to the other except one seemed a bit frayed from the blast. I slipped on the old one and carried the new one on my arm. Since it was night right now, everyone else in the building was either out working the night shift, or asleep in their rooms. The halls were quiet as I walked through them, I could hear my almost silent footsteps and heartbeat in my ears as I made my way down to the front steps. I called one of the drivers while hobbling to the elevator, it was waiting for me when I got down there.

When I got home, I called Mori, leaving a voicemail detailing my report to him. I threw the phone down on the bed, grimacing with the sudden movement. My entire body was unbelievably sore from the occurrences earlier today. The worst of the damage seemed to lie in my arm. The appendage was done up in tight bandages over a heavy metal cast that I could guess the use for, though the good doctor did think to give me a sling, so that made the weight more bearable.

As I laid down on the bed, feeling the way that my stomach protested the movement after the abuse it suffered from Chibi's kicks, I knew that if I were to undo my shirt, the entire area would be a deep purple. Getting to work on time tomorrow was going to be near impossible.

—-

I stood outside of Mori's office the next day, waiting for the right time to go inside. Chuuya was brought in yesterday with all the other mafia members that passed out from the explosion, apparently. He was brought over to Mori's office not too long ago, Randou was with him. The ability user was using his skill to keep the gravity manipulator in check while they were in there with the boss. The sub executive could create sub spaces at will, anything within the space was under his control. Currently they were being used to trap the small teen.

I could vaguely hear the conversation on the other side of the door, I think the ginger had just mentioned something about the Arahabaki that he seemed so interested in. Chuuya's knowledge of a god whose origin is unknown was strange. It was definitely something that brought curiosity to me, as a Greek demigod in my own right.

I opened the door, startling all three criminals present in the room. I swept my gaze over the room, taking in the necessary details: Chuuya's arms were bound with leather straps, a chain was wrapped around his legs, his ankles were tied with industrial grade steel wire that was attached to the floor at the other end. Even his fishes were tightly chained. Randou's subspace skill was active around the gravity user's torso, with the skill user standing not far behind him. Mori seemed to be simply sitting at his desk, observing the scene.

"Scuds me. Coming in... oh?" I pretended to be surprised, an act that didn't fool anyone in the room. Well maybe Randou but his mind is focused on other things right now.

"Perfect," Mori said, his voice already grating on my nerves. "I was waiting for you."

I bet you were.

"Ah! You're that li'l twig from yesterday!" Chuuya exclaimed. I watched as the boy practically leaped in the air. Something told me that if he wasn't restrained right now, there would be a foot in my face. "You goddamn punk!"

"Oh wow. You seem to be doing well. I, on the other hand, got inquired pretty badly, as you can see," I held up my right arm, showing off the thick cast. My head was also wrapped up in bandages from the explosion and beating, not that you would really know since it was normally done up that way. "Where does all that energy of yours come from anyways? Are you having a growth spurt? Or is that what happened to all the nutrients that were supposed to make you smarter and taller?"

"Leave my height outta this, damn it!" I liked the way that he looked when he was angry, it was natural without all of the false bravado.

"Fine... I suppose it's pretty tasteless to criticize others shortcomings, after all. I'll never do it again, Pip-squeak."

What can I say, sarcasm and being generally sassy has how I've survived for years.

"Why you...!"

"That's enough," Mori chided, clapping his hands together to garner attention. "You two really hit it off for just having met a day ago." He observed.

Hit it off? What in Hades is this old man talking about? If this is what he considers 'hitting it off' then in his deranged mind, he and I are probably best friends.

"At any rate... yes, Chuuya, I would like to ask you about the explosion yesterday. Randou, could you leave the room for a moment?"

I watched as the skill user frowned, displeased with the idea. "I... cannot recommend that, boss. This boy is dangerous..." Randou trailed off. There was something strange about his response, something that I couldn't help but be naturally suspicious of.

"It's fine," Mori waved his hand nonchalantly. "Dazai can nullify his skill if it comes down to it. I already have measures in place just to be on the safe side. More, importantly, Randou, you look colder and paler than usual. Are you alright...?"

Randou had been acting strange for a few days now, staring off into space, shivering more than normal, even for him. His behavior was strange. It's good that Mori finally noticed it before I had to point it out for the man.

Randou was shivering even more violently than before, as if chilled by the question. "I am embarrassed to admit it... but I feel like I'm about to freeze to death..." the man admitted, looking away from Mori and I as if embarrassed.

He's almost acting like a meek high school girl in front of a crush... but why?

The ginger in front of him seemed to almost choke. "You're cold?" Chuuya questioned, his disbelief audible. The teen cocked an eyebrow while glancing at Randou. The scene reminded me of when I'd first met Randou. I'm starting to think that this was just about everyone's reaction to the man. "Wearing that? In this weather?"

Anyone could understand that small teen's reaction. The man's entire outfit was sturdily insulated all the way from the trenchcoat to the thick coat wrapped around his neck. There were warm earmuffs donning Randou's head, with tall leather boots going up to his knees. These were only what could be seen. I once saw him remove the coat to replace one of his dozens of heat packets lining his coat. Looking at the man, you'd believe that we were in the South Pole during a winter night's snow storm instead of a warm office.

"I dressed lightly for the occasion," the man explained, uttering the sentence with ease despite the fact that thirteen year old me would have choked hearing, "so as not to offend the boss, but..." the man shivered,"... it's so cold."

"Randou's medical exam showed no signs of physical or mental illness," Mori explained to the baffled Chibi. A part of me wanted to take a picture of the expression on the boy's face and use it as blackmail later on. But blackmail means having something to use in the future. Being in the future means having to live to that point, so the effort would be pointless. Especially with the drug Mori promised. "He simply hates the cold."

"... I want to work somewhere warm... boss, are there any Port Mafia branches near a volcano...?"

The question made me wonder if the man was joking. However Mori's response told me two things: Randou was not joking and this wasn't the first time he's asked something like this.

"Afraid not," Mori said simply.

"Mn. I'll be taking my leave, as you wish."

Randou released his skill, causing the glowing yellow cubes to dissolve before us, as he staggered off to the door. The three of us watched on as he left. I could tell that a part of the man was happy to go, the fire at his home seemed to be calling him. Can't say I blame the guy.

Mori explained to Chuuya that Randou was a sub executive and an exceptional skill user despite his strange appearance and behavior, but his explanation was predictably met with annoyed grumbling from the small skill user.

An awkward silence seemed to stretch on after the explanation. I watched as Chuuya stared boredly at the two of us. When I glanced at Mori I found the man glancing vacantly around the room and at the two of us in it.

"Mori, do you think you can speed things up and cut to the chase," I asked, rolling my eyes. The silence was suffocating and annoying.

"Ah yes, of course." The mafia boss took a few more moments before finally speaking. "Chuuya, how would you feel about working for us?"

The urge to slap my hand to my face was overwhelmed by a loud roar tearing through the room. My already sensitive ears burned from the sudden noise. Jagged fissures spread through the floor around the angered redhead.

"... excuse me?" Came what sounded like a voice from the depths of Tartarus. If I hadn't already heard Kronos's voice myself, I would have thought that he followed me here to Japan. But the voice belonged to Chuuya. The reinforced, bulletproof flooring was scattered across the room, some of it laying at me feet, from Chuuya's violent motion. Despite this, neither Mori nor I batted an eye. I'd know that this was coming sooner or later from the moment that I heard that the boy was in the Mafia building. "You drugged me all the way out here, just to listen to you talk out of your ass?" The teen growled.

"Well, I can't say that I'm surprised by your reaction," Mori said blandly. I watched his and Chuuya's interaction. Mori had the displeased look on his face that appears when he doesn't like the results from the medical test. "But from what I can see, we're essentially after the same thing. Perhaps you might consider what we can offer each other before giving your answer."

Chuuya laughed dryly. "Hilarious. I had no idea the mafia's new boss enjoyed wasting people's time like this." The boy sneered, going as far as to bare his teeth like a wild beast ready to tear their prey to shreds. Something about the hungry look in the teen's eyes reminded me of the Minotaur getting ready to charge at me and Ares swinging his sword at me when I was twelve. It was the look of a killer, of a monster. "You want me to join the mafia? Don't tell me you forgot what your organization did to this city."

"You're referring to the previous boss's atrocities, yes? I, too, am pained by what he did," Mori replied sullenly. It was hard to read his expression to tell just how sincere his statement really was.

The previous boss's actions were nothing short of a bloody tyranny that had plunged Yokohama deep into a sea of violence and terror of the likes that had never been seen before in the city. The tragedies that occurred under that man's reign were still fresh in everyone's mind.

No one could forget the young boy killed just for scribbling on a car that happened to belong to the boss, or the housing complex whose water tank he'd ordered the poisoning of, killing everybody inside on the off chance that a rival organization's boss was hiding out there. Another day, he'd issued a notice detailing that anyone who spoke ill of the mafia would be killed and that anyone who reported such talk would be reworded. Yokohama became a tightrope city, everyone constantly watching their step around others, never able to trust anyone around them. By the end, over a thousand people were executed, most of which were known at the time to be innocent.

Nobody was safe from the terror that the previous boss had imposed, not even a fourteen year old child. I could still remember the blood on my hands. Blood that for the first time, was not my own. Everyone in the slums had been hit hard by the disease. Family members were gone and with them went any income that they might have made by any means. The promise of a reward was too tempting for some people.

Someone had sent a collector after me. It was a safe choice for them to make, I was a stray child that nobody would miss or seek revenge for. When the collector came for me, ready to kill me where I stood for a crime that I didn't even commit, I snapped. Riptide is made of a substance that can't hurt mortals, but the racks and rubble that'd been laying around me were a different story.

He'd been the first man, the first human, that I'd killed, an action that a child should never do, let alone repeat. When Mori had offered to kill the man that made me into a killer, even if only for survival, it'd been easier to accept than I thought it'd be. Something that everyone learned in that time: opposing the Port Mafia meant death. Disagreeing meant death.

The merciless tyrant of the night and his army of death- that was how people called the Port Mafia.

"But the man is dead. I cared for him when he was sick and on his deathbed," the man said sternly. "If there's such a rumor that this tyrant has come back to life, wouldn't you want to know if it's true, to help you sleep at night."

Do you sleep at night, Mori? Do you sleep knowing that the boy you experimented on could spill your secrets at any moment? Knowing just how easy everyone would believe me since no one trusts you yet?

Chuuya stared at Mori with such a piercing glare that if looks could kill, he'd be dust right now.

"Still doesn't give you a good reason to push me around, Doc," Chuuya said with a slight sneer. "There's plenty of nasty rumors about you flying around as well. Like how your predecessor didn't actually die of illness, but instead you killed him," the boy paused for a brief moment as if considering how far he could push it. Smart. "... which you obviously did. Nobody with a functioning brain would believe that the old boss spent his final moments making his personal physician the next mafia boss. If I'm wrong then prove it. Prove right now that you're not just another inspiring grim reaper with a lust for power." The boy stared Mori down, it was a brazen gaze that I thought suited him. A big part of me was impressed by how fearlessly he could say all of this despite his position. "You can't, right?"

The doctor's assassination of the previous boss was a closely kept secret, especially within the organization itself. Only Mori and I knew the truth of that night with absolute certainty. It should be fun to see how the old man handles this.

"You're right. I can't prove it," Mori said, going as far as to shrug. "Because..." the doctor looked at me, it was the face of someone planning to do something stupid. I noticed the change in his demeanor and opened my mouth to try and stop him before he got us both executed, but he'd already started talking again. "Because I did kill my predecessor."

I sighed heavily and covered my face with my good hand, dragging it slowly down as if to erase the words I just heard the annoyance utter. When I looked at Chuuya, Chibi was quiet for the first time since coming here as if he too couldn't believe what the idiot just did.

"I slit the great boss's throat with a scalpel and made it look like he died from illness. What about it?"

The doctor's voice was completely calm as he said that. The way he spoke was like that of a younger sibling admitting to taking their sister's toy and not understanding why what he did was wrong, or understanding and just not caring. Neither his posture nor his expression changed very much and yet... the doctor felt like a completely different person. The being at the desk was t a man at all but a monster in human skin. A demon that would devour anything and anyone that got in its way.

I watched as Chuuya looked at the man, choosing to focus on the small man rather than the boss. I could tell that the boy was taken back by the sudden change. I didn't blame him, it was a shocking thing to see all the warmth leave the man's eyes, to see him transform into what could only be described as an evil incarnate. I'd grown numb to the sight over time, even learning how to replicate it. But for Chibi, I knew he could almost smell the deaths seeping from the doctor's pores. It was a transformation that had scared me too the first time that I'd seen it, just about a year ago.

"You've got to be kidding me," Chuuya said in a stiff voice. It was always hard to talk after seeing, feeling, that for the first few times. "He's just a timid doctor, they said... you make that old man seem like an unruly child."

"I appreciate the compliment," the doctor said, smiling as if talking to a patient. I was a smile that I knew well. "Forget what I said about working for me. I'd like to ask that you work with us, share information."

"... and if I refuse?" The stubborn boy asked.

I thought that Mori's answer would be obvious.

"Then I'll kill you," Mori said as easily as asking for a pencil. "However that would require a lot of effort and resources. That's why I'll simply just have all your friends killed-your Sheep-insetead. How does that sound?"

The restraints on Chuuya's arms and legs flew off, embedding themselves into the walls and ceiling. A slight jolt of surprise ran through me when I realized that most of that was brute strength from the small boy.

The boy screamed something as he flew forward, closing the distance between him and Mori in a second, but I didn't pay attention to what he said. I was busy watching the way that Mori reached behind him, pulling out a small black communicator. He held the object between them, effectively stopping Chuuya's incoming punch.

So this was the countermeasures he spoke of.

"Hey... Chuuya! Help! You're there right?"

A boy's worried voice could be heard from the earpiece. It wasn't a voice that I recognized, but it was one that Chibi obviously did.

"The Port Mafia's got us surrounded! C'mon, hurry...! Do something-anything-just like you always do!"

It's true then, the rumors that the Sheep are reliant on Chuuya. That they just go around making messes for the teen to have to clean up. 'Like you always do' the words left a bitter taste in my mouth.

I could hear the click as Mori switched the device off, I could see Chuuya's trembling fist pinned to his side.

"It was extremely simple, to tell you the truth," Mori sighed. "They may be armed, but they lack finesse. The Sheep... an organization holding Yokohama's prime territory, hell-bent on retaliation... aside from you, they're nothing more than children with guns."

I watched the teen's fist tremble even more, but there was no other movement in sight. No matter how much Chuuya wanted to, he couldn't. He didn't have a choice but to stand there.

"As a leader myself, I can relate to how you feel. Who knew that the force known as the Sheep was simply an overpowered king and the hangers-on who can do nothing but rely on you for their survival?"

"... you bastard," the teen muttered through seemingly clenched teeth. I could tell that he was barely restraining himself from doing anything too drastic.

"What's with this fist? Getting in some exercise?"

I watched the way that Mori calmly prodded Chuuya's raised fist. It'd been slowly creeping up since Mori started laying in on the guy. A palpable tension hung through the air until Chuuya slowly lowered it. I almost felt bad for the pretty boy, not even a saint could go long without wanting to punch the man.

"Well, there you have it, Dazai," Mori said in a teacher's voice, smirking. "Chuuya is the most violently powerful person in the room. But in the mafia, violence and brute force are merely a couple of tools at our disposal. Our strength lies in controlling rational action by any means. In this case, the disadvantages of opposing me outweigh the advantages. Just some food for thought."

This was a lesson that I already knew well. I learned it growing up with Gabe as a step father, with the teachers and kids in school, and with the gods that wanted to use me to clean up their messes. I even learned it again during the past year here. It was a lesson that I knew very well.

"I guess I see what you mean, but what are you lecturing me for?"

"Good question."

Mori looked at me with an ominous smirk. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Chuuya watching our exchange, looking at us like a hungry beast. The teen didn't like be the subject of a lesson for some 'punk' still, he didn't make a move.

"'A disadvantage that outweighs the advantage,' huh?" The teen growled, focusing his glare on the doctor. "We can trade info... if it benefits me. You two go frist, I'll decide what to do after."

For someone that hates the title, he acts like such a king.

Mori gave the boy a con artist smile as he explained the investigation, going all the way from the three sightings to the eyewitness that I found. "His fourth appearance was when he blew you two away with those black flames. It feels somehow connected. Do you know anything about that?"

I watched as the small teen stared at the mafia boss for servers moments before simply replying:

"The dead don't come back to life."

I wanted to smirk at how sure he sounded. If he knew anything about the world that I come from, he wouldn't be saying things like that.

"I agree. That would put doctors out of business otherwise. However... the evidence seems to tell a different story. Take a look at this."

Chuuya and I watched as Mori unlocked his desk and took out a video player about the size of the man's palm. The boss placed it on the desk and turned the device on. An image of the bird eye's view of a room lined floor to ceiling in cash appeared on the screen. Mori explained that this was footage from the mafia's vault, the place where half of the mafia's assets are hidden away, and one of the most difficult places to break into in the mafia. Just when the sight started to get unbearably dull, a shadowy figure started weaving between the stacks of bills.

"That's impossible," I lightly gasped.

The shadowy figure was startlingly familiar. It looked up at the surveillance camera, eyes gleaming with hatred. The figure was an elderly man, wearing the same tattered clothes that he'd been buried in: the merciless tyrant of the night. The old man looked at the camera, seemingly knowing just how any view seeing this must be feeling at the sight of him.

"I have risen," the deep voice crackled like flames. It felt as if the room had gotten colder when he spoke, as if the voice had stolen all of the warmth for itself.

"I have risen from the raging flames of hell. Do you know why, Doctor?"

We watcheted as the man's figure flickered slightly like a mirage, the body of someone simmering in heat. I felt my heart chill at the sight of the man.

"It is anger-fury born from resentment," he explained. The body spoke of a devouring wrath that summoned him to incite more. "The black flames, the powerful divine beast Arahabaki is the very embodiment of rage itself. I will fulfill its wishes and have my revenge as I sow even more anger. Tremble as you try to sleep, and regret ever killing me."

On the screen, massive flames poured from the body, devoting and melting the stacks of bills and the walls themselves. Then the screen went black, the footage stopping there.

"This is all the footage that we have on him," Mori explained. "The only people who know it exists are the head of security, one executive, and myself. There is a very strict gag order in place, but even that might not be enough. There's no promise that he won't repeat this performance elsewhere."

I looked at Mori with a stiff expression. This was a dangerous situation for the two of us to be in. "What are you going to do if he gives an encore?"

"I have a good idea what would happen. In this, he made it clear that his death was not by illness, but by assassination. If any of his supporters were to find out, a third of our men would turn on me. Win or lose, the mafia would be finished."

I looked at the blank screen, running through the information. Monsters come back from the dead all the time, but even in most resurrection myths, things like this don't happen. This isn't the work of some god or goddess, not even an angry titan could do something like this. No matter the mythology, the deities have kept a low profile for the past hundreds of years, thats why they're considered myths, the mist makes sure of that.

This is someone else.

I heard Mori ask what Arahabaki was, but he was met with silence. "I did a little research myself. Legend has it Arahabaki was a servant deity, the god of habaki. A god so old that he predates Japanese mythology, making its origins remain unclear. Apparently, no one even knows how the name was originally written. As such, there are numerous variations of the god according to local legends across the country."

Well, that saves me from having to do my own research.

"Do you seriously believe in gods?" Chuuya said, seemingly mockingly. There was something about his tone that made the question feel... off.

"No." Mori said bluntly. "I believe only what I can see for myself... which is why I can't deny that the man in the footage looked exactly like the old boss."

Believe only what you can see for yourself, huh? I wonder how he would react if I told him that the secret to abilities that he's been chasing lies in what he just claimed to not believe in.

"It's no coincidence that you're searching for Arahabaki. My guess is that you heard the same rumors that we did and went searching for the truth."

I watched the boy's eyes quickly dart around the room, his nervousness evident.

So he is related to the god in some more personal way then, I thought. Rumors are a good source, but they're just that, rumors. This seems more like an obsession of his than anything. This obsession is built on hard evidence.

I could see the hesitation in Chuuya's eyes before he finally answered. "Who knows what true," he said, evading. "We get a lot of drifters. There's no way to pin down where the rumor started. But anyways... Do you know where Suribachi came from?"

"The city?" Mori asked, raising an eyebrow. I could tell that he didn't understand the seemingly sudden change in conversation. "It was built within a crater formed at the end of the conflict. The cause of the explosion remains unknown-"

It was Arahabaki, supposedly," Chuuya says, cutting the mafia boss off. I could see the way that the boy grimaced. Obviously he didn't mean to sound so sure. Chuuya went onto tell a well fabricated, but obviously outlandish story about a rumor the sheep had heard regarding the explosion. He told Mori about a foreign soldier that'd been captured and tortured at a secret military base there. He said that the soldier had died, but his rage had summoned Arahabaki from hell. "Regardless, the resurrected soldier killed the torturer he despised . More specifically, he blew up the entire facility along with all the soldiers. And that explosion created-"

"Suribachi," Mori cut in. "I see."

"Yeah. Arahabaki's power is too great to be contained in one person, so the soldier lost his mind and turned into an uncontrollable monster. They say the flames consumed him and the ground below him till there was nothing left."

"Hmm. The return of an angry god... what do you think, Dazai?"

"About what," I shrugged, laying the disbelief on thick. "It's impossible. Grudges beyond the grave? Souls? Yeah, right. Someone's just making stuff up for cheap thrills."

Gods, monsters, ghosts... of course I know that they're all real. But the thing was, even if they wanted to, they couldn't show themselves like this. The mythological world is kept separate from the mortal world by the mist, that's why those born without the sight believe that the myths are just that, myths. Even if skill users have the sight, there aren't enough of them to make up all of the eye witnesses and put Arahabaki behind this. Besides, they're no way that a deity is just going to let a soul come back from the dead. Even in Greek myths, when something like this happens, there's always a catch that stops them from being able to do it or that shortly returns them.

Mori's expression turned serious. "Nonetheless, my predecessor did kill a lot of people and died filled with anger. That much matches up. Furthermore, he clearly mentioned Arahabaki by name in the footage. No ordinary person would be able to sneak past the vault's top security."

"Then the answer is simple," I decided. "It's a skill. Someone with a skill that we don't know about made that footage. All they had to do after that was take advantage of the rumors about Arahabaki and make it seem like the old boss came back to life."

"Why would anyone do that?"

Seriously, such a stupid question.

"Isn't it obvious? To make people believe you assassinated your predecessor..." There was also the problem of Chibi over here, but I'll let that rest for the moment, "and destroy the mafia."

Mori sighed and shook his head. The exhausted look came back to his face. "'Death returns upon the murder' as they say. Dazai, this is an order: find who's behind all this before they do the same thing they did in the video in front of my predecessor's supporters. Got it?"

"I guess I can help. After all, they'd end up torturing me to death for being your accomplice if they ever found out," I agreed. I'd known for a bit that this might be the case, the possible torture. They'd make sure to nab me before I could painlessly kill myself. "We don't have much time, though. I hope you're sure about sending me alone."

"I'm not," the bastard replied, smirking. "Chuuya here is going to help you."

The ginger and I locked eyes as we bought shouted in unison. "What?!"

I could feel a heat creeping up my neck and cheeks at the thought of spending that much time with him. This could not happen.

"The hell is wrong with you? You lookin' to die? I oughta-"

"No, no, no! Anyone but him! I'd-"

"-kick your ass, you-"

"-do so much better on my own."

"-piece of shit!"

"Stop shouting over each other," Mori interrupted, raising his voice to be heard. I watched as he eyed both of us. Maybe I could just rip those eyes out. "Chuuya, I trust that you understand you're in no position to refuse."

"Oh, come on, Mori, that's-" I shouted.

"Don't get cocky, you damn octopus!"

"-downright dirty!"

"Screw you!"

"Yes, yes," Mori said, waving his hand in a dismissing manner. I could tell that he was refusing to engage with our yelling, even if it was all pointed at himself. Annoying bastard. "I have several reasons for pairing you up. First, someone outside of the mafia will have an easier time investigating these rumors given how dangerous they are to the organization. In addition, I need someone to keep an eye on Chuuya so he doesn't betray us. That's where your nullification skill comes in, Dazai. And the last, most important reason is..."

I could feel myself lean forward, and could see Chuuya unconsciously doing the same thing. However when Mori spent the next few moments letting the words sit on his tongue and his face morphed into a grin, I knew exactly what was coming.

"... a secret."

"The hell?" Chuuya growled.

"Simply consider it a grown man's intuition." I watched as Mori's lips curled into a mysterious smirk, it made me want to learn to sow just so I could sew them together. "Get along, you two. That's an order. If I hear you're neglecting your duties because you can't make nice... well, no need to explain, yes?"

He slowly smiled at us once more, an invisible chill swept through the room. In moments like this I wondered if the thing to ward off evil that Grover showed me would work on the mafia boss. Who knows, it just kill him

Maybe not even sowing, stitching his lips together should work.

"So? Do you understand?"

Silence rang through the air.

"Do you understand?"

"...yes," we mumbled just loud enough for the old man to hear.

"Good. Then go. I'm expecting great things from you two."

Chibi and I turned and made our way to the door at the dismissal. Chuuya put himself on my blind side, making it harder to gauge where the small teen was as we shoved each other back and forth on the way out. There was no friendliness in the action, and yet it reminded me of when I'd frist me Annabeth.

Then again there was no friendliness between her and I in those early days either.

I shook my head before my mind could go to a dangerous place, it always seemed to do this around the small ginger.

Let's just get this over with

Chapter Text

We stopped shoving each other around once we left the mafia building, we stopped even standing close enough to each other for that to be an option. 

I started walking towards a witness's house, letting the small criminal trail behind me. The two of us made sure to stay a good fifteen feet apart from one another, hoping that nobody that saw us on the street would think that we were traveling together. Chuuya most likely wanted the distance so that he wouldn't look suspicious in front of the Sheep. I was fine with going along with it, if Chuuya was behind me then I could pretend that the teen didn't exist. That all the annoying thoughts and feelings that creep up when I see him don't exist either.

I stared up at the pale blue sky. A younger me would have thought that the picture it created was perfect, a sight that made you want to take in a deep breath when you stepped outside from just seeing it. The cynic in me knew that the sight was too perfect. 

It's the calm before the storm.

We made our way down an alley, listening to the quiet of the city. It was truly a peaceful day. So of course someone had to ruin it.

"...hey," I heard Chuuya mutter softly behind me.

His voice was quiet enough that I could just pretend I didn't hear it and keep walking. Anything but having to look at the boy.

"... hey, I'm talking to you," Chuuya repeated. His voice was louder this time, something that could be heard. That couldn't be ignored. "Tell me where we're going."

I considered just turning around and answering the teen, but a better idea sparked my interest.

"Gosh, the weather is really nice today. In fact, it's so nice, I think I can hear a little fairy talking to me."

A sense of satisfaction runs through me at Chibi's annoyed response.

"Aw, piss off. You know it's me."

How could I possibly forget?

I looked back at the teen, a fake look of surprise on my face. I focused on the sense of annoyance that comes when I see the boy, ignoring the heat on my neck. Not that anyone could see the blush creeping up it anyways, I had the bandages to thank for that. "Oh, how long have you been there? Do you think you could leave me alone? I'm kind of busy breathing right now?"

And you make that hard to do.

I could hear the boy's frustration, could almost feel it. "I'm about to rip that head right off your body, mummy boy," the teen growled. "Anyway, forget it. Just tell me where we're going."

'Forget it'? Was there something else that he was going to say?

"Fine, you win. But would you mind keeping your distance? I don't want anyone to think that I know you."

We'd gradually closed the distance between us while talking, I needed that distance back. It's not like there's anyone that would recognize me, but it was a good enough lie to fool the small teen.

"Don't worry. I feel the same way."

Right, he actually has people that could recognize him. If I were to run into my friends, they'd just pass by me like a stranger.

I faked a laugh. "Look at us getting along so well. That's what makes me love you!" I said jokingly, smiling at the small teen.

Of course it was a joke. Something like me, something that can't even be called human anymore, falling in love? I don't even know if that's something that I'm capable of anymore, or if that part of me died with the person I used to be. 

Besides, Chibi over here is a boy. I'm not... I don't...

"The hell?! Quit that! You're making me sick!" Chuuya said, nauseated.

The teen's voice pulled me from the train of thought. I decided to never revisit it again.

"... yeah, I felt pretty sick myself after I said that," I grumbled remorsefully. Just not for the reason that you would think. I turned back around, refusing to look back at the boy. "What was your question again? Oh, right. You wanted to know where we're headed. We're going to investigate," I said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. It was in a way. "I thought we should start asking people who saw the explosion up close what they witnessed."

"You wanna interview people? Ugh... I thought we were gonna kick some ass, make the enemy spill their guts."

I resisted the urge to drag my hands over my face. 

What enemy? You have to know who you're supposed to be beating up to actually go and do it. Such a brute.

"Well, you were wrong," I said, shooting the boy a quick look of disgust.

At this rate, I may not have to worry what these funny feeling are, Chibi's stupid comments might just kill them on their own.

"What are we investigating the explosion for?" Chuuya demanded, obviously worried by the turn in the investigation. "Why not focus on eyewitness accounts of the old boss?"

I regarded the boy for a moment. For someone so bent on learning about Arahabaki, he doesn't seem to want anyone else knowing the things that he wants to learn.

"Because we aren't tracking rumors about the old boss." Doing so wouldn't get us any further than where we already are. "We're tracking rumors about Arahabaki itself." I explained. "If the resurrection is a fake created by a skill user pretending to be Arahabaki, then we can work with that. No matter how perfectly they're pulling off the act, they can't just stop eating, breathing, going about their usual life. That's what we're after."

These guys wouldn't just disappear off the grid, they're not the type. If they want to end Mori's reign, or whatever it is that they're after, it wouldn't do them any good to disappear, that would raise too much suspicion. Garner too much attention.

I turned around, seeing the way that Chuuya's lips form a cute frown "But... My guys in the Sheep already looked into the rumors surrounding Arahabaki. Like, a ton."

I grinned, liking the feeling of having a leg up on the suspicious boy. "Just because they love gossip doesn't mean they've gotten to talk to everyone."

Though the idea that they're just doing this because they're gossipers is total bullshit.

I turned ahead once more, keeping the distance between us, and continued speaking. I told him about an explosion that happened in the same place in Suribachi last week as the one we experienced. "It took me a while to realize since nobody mentioned seeing the previous boss there, but that explosion was likely caused by the same thing we're investigating. We're going to talk to a survivor of that explosion."

"'A survivor'," Chuuya's surprised voice came from behind me. "You mean there were casualties?"

"Yeah," I sighed. "A whole group of mafia members, and only the skill user survived," not that either of us really cared about that part. Pipsqueak over there hates the mafia and I just can't be bothered to care. "You've already met him once. His house is right over there," I pointed ahead. "He should be expecting us-"

When I started to lower my hand, an earth shaking roar erupted from the direction that I'd just been pointing.

"Ah?!" Chuuya's squeak came from behind me. I could tell that the boy was startled by the sudden noise.

"Oh, great..." I cursed. This situation just got even more annoying. "That was an explosion we just heard."

The blast occurred at a nearby mansion, the mansion that we were supposed to be going to. Black smoke rose delicately from the building, seemingly dancing in the air to the sound of gunfire that accompanied it.

"The hell?!" Chuuya yelled from behind. "Didn't you just say that we were gonna go meet some survivor over there?"

I stared at the drifting smoke, guessing the most probable explanation. "It looks like the enemy might have beaten us to the punch."

"Seriously? That's definitely not good. Oh, man."

I listened to Chibi's words. The words themself weren't the problem that I found, but the tone the boy used. When I turned around, I saw a beautiful boy positively brimming with excitement at the situation. 

There may be a lot wrong with me, but there seems to be a lot wrong with this lunatic as well.

"Guess that means we've gotta forget about that boring investigation that you wanted and go kick some ass instead, eh?"

The boy didn't even have the nerve to act disappointed.

"...what?"

Is this boy a descendant of Ares? That really would explain a lot.

"All right!" The teen screamed, a childlike expression detailing his face. "Time for a beat down! C'mon!"

As soon as the words left the ginger's mouth, the boy dashed away, moving like a tempest. I couldn't help but watch him tiredly as the wind he created ruffled my hair.

"...What a child..."

—-

By the time I caught up with the red headed monster, over half of the European-style mansion had been destroyed. The right half of the building looked like something out of an old, classical book. The left, however, seemed like something from a modern dystopian series, captured just as the world is crashing down. When I looked around, I noticed the man made forest surrounding the area. This was the only protection from onlookers that we had.

Though busybodies are the least of our worries right now.

There were seven or eight armed men facing the ruined mansion. Each of them had their pistols drawn and were firing shots at the build every few seconds.

"Looks like it's already started," I observed from my spot at Chibi's side in the forest's cover as we studied the scene. "The explosion sure caused a lot of damage. If only I'd been in the middle of that," I said wistfully, "I would've had a quick and painless death..."

"Yeah, yeah. I'll beat you to a pulp as many times as you want later, so focus on the mission right now, okay?"

The boy shot me a reproachful gaze, as if to make sure that I knew that he wasn't speaking from any form of kindness, before looking back at the scene. "This place is under attack from an armed militia," he observed. "They've got eight outside, but who knows how many inside."

The instant the Chuuya finished speaking, a wall on the buildings second floor exploded, an armed man came flying out with the derbies. It was as if someone had ejected the poor bastard from the building.

"Oh... yep. A few guns aren't gonna help them against Randou's ability," I whispered, watching the way the man crumpled to the floor, unmoving.

"Randou?" Chuuya asked with a cute titling of his head. The bastard.

"He's a skill user with the mafia. We were supposed to meet with him today," I explained. "Remember the guy in the winter clothes who restrained you in the boss's office?" I asked casually. "That's him."

"Oh, that guy." Chibi seemed to frown at the memory. "Wanna go save him?" The teen asked the question like one might ask for a person's favorite color. It was simple and without much emotion, like he didn't really care about the answer much.

We have to go to him, at least for the information we need.

"Well, we first need to find out who this armed group is working for and the scale of their operations..."

All of the sudden, Chuuya and I heard the sound of metal clanking behind us. It was the sound of a gun being raised.

"I could tell you that," a man's voice said gently. It was a soft sound, delicate almost, it felt like the kiss of death. "Hands in the air and turn around."

Chuuya and I exchanged a brief glance, a silent conversation passing through the gaze. We did as told, turning around slowly with our hands raised above our heads, what a strange pair we must seem.

The man with the gun was wearing a charcoal-gray military uniform on his burly figure. The man strikingly resembled a massive tree come to life. The best part of the whole situation was that he had the gun pointed right at me.

The man barked in surprise, clearly unimpressed, "just a couple of kids." The man smirked sadistically, "I thought the mafia called for backup. Are they really this short-staffed, or is the Randou guy just not very popular?"

His demeanor reminded me of Chuuya's attitude the first time that we spoke, but where Chibi had the advantage of being pretty, this guy was just an asshole with a punchable face.

A strategy came to mind when looking at the man.

I felt my body start to shave with fear. "W-w-we're so sorry! We're just some kids who live in the neighborhood!" I let my voice tremble with fake fear as I pleaded for our lives. It was nothing more than a stalling tactic. "We were delivering something to Randou's house, but when we got here-"

"Hey, Gramps," The small teen cut me off mid sentence.

This little punk...!

"Let's save each other some time. Frist, you shoot me, then I'll knock you into the next town over. I'll even kick the rest of your buddies asses while I'm at it. Then, bam, we're done. What do you say?"

"What?" The man blanched. He changed the aim of his pistol to Chuuya.

Idiots, both of them.

I sighed heavily and stopped my fake trembling, finally giving into the urge to bury my head in my hands. I shook my head too while I was at it. "I had the guy completely fooled. We could've gotten some information out of him," I complained.

"What's the matter, you don't shoot kids?"

Chibi is enjoying this a little too much.

I watched as Chuuya walked up to the guy fearlessly and pressed the muzzle of the gun to his head. But he simply acted like it wasn't there at all. "You gotta know not to judge a book by its cover if you want to survive in this world. You work for GSS, right?"

We watched the way that the man grimaced at being so easily recognized. GSS is one of the three organtions wrapped up in conflict with the Port Mafia. They used to be a forgiven funded protection organization, but when their government cut them off, they chose to become an illegal organization instead. To define them simply, they're pirates. They ravaged the ships of those not under their protection, but protected all those that are. Their leader was a military drill instructor, making all the members trained soldiers.

"Hurry up and shoot me," Chuuya encouraged while pushing at the muzzle on his head. If you didn't know any better, you would think that he was the suicidal one out of the two of us. The man tightened his trigger finger, but was unable to pull it. Not because he suddenly got a conscience, but because the gun started to sink to the ground.

The man mumbled in disbelief, not understanding why his weapon was suddenly becoming heavier.

"Don't tell me you're worn out already. You're a man, right? It's not that heavy."

Sadist.

Chibi touched the gun lightly, but that was enough to make the man groan like he was holding a ton of metal instead of a light weight gun. I watched as Chuuya nudged the gun gently again. The action sent the gun into the soldier's chest, burying itself in the bullet proof vest with the weight of a cannon ball. I could hear something crack from the force, but the sound was overwhelmed by the man's agonizing scream. The man's hands went to his chest, dropping the gun. I heard the soft click as the gun hit the ground, back at its normal weight.

"A kid who can manipulate gravity... Don't tell me, you're the Sheep's Chuuya Nakahara!" The man screamed. He seemed like he thought that he was some sort of genius. "So the rumor we're true! You really did become the Mafia's dog," the man shouted in rage, raising his fist.

Rumors... Mori what exactly are you up to?

I walked past the pair, letting them have their very violent moment, and letting my hands wander to the distracted man's pocket. A communicator was my prize instead of a wallet this time.

The man tried to punch Chuuya, but before the punch could reach Chibi, what appeared to be a black whirlwind slammed into the guy's chest. It was one of Chibi's kicks that I knew too well, though this one was a roundhouse.

He really should have kept his mouth shut.

"I didn't join the mafia, damn it. Got that?" Chibi asked pointlessly. This guy wasn't going to live long enough to relay that message. Nor did he even hear it.

The man was laying flat on his back, knocked out cold from the small teen's onslaught of abuse. It will be a while before he wakes up again.

"Impressive," I said, giving the angry teen a hollow applause. "What speed. You threw the roundhouse kick after he threw the straight punch, and you still hit him first."

"All you did was watch like a wimp, mummy boy," Chuuya complained.

"Unlike a certain schoolboy who likes to show off just how tough he is, I was gathering information on the enemy."

I held up the gunman's communicator that I'd swiped during the conflict, pressing the device to my ear.

Great.

"Apparently, the rest of the crew are coming here after hearing his scream when you hit him."

As if by magic, the moment I finished my sentence, around a dozen armed men spread. They slowly surrounded us, their rifles already aimed and ready to fire.

"Hey, bandages. I'll kick their asses, so play me some background music. Something hard rock."

I shot the boy a steely glare. "Did you hit your head as a child?" I asked the boy seriously.

He must have if he thinks that there's any chance in Hades that I'd do that.

One of the men screamed to open fire, an order that all the soldiers followed at once. Bullets shot through the air, each of them aimed at the small boy in front of me. The bullets came from all sides, each of them hitting the ginger teen. If he'd been anyone else, Chibi would have been turned into a pretty corpse.

But the bullets were ineffective as Chuuya returned them with a roundhouse kick. The moment the bullets touched the teen's body, Chuuya stopped their gravity. It was a well trained use of skill.

I forgot to breathe as I watched the beautiful storm that was Chuuya.

I watched as Chuuya launched himself at the enemy soldiers, letting the bullets fall to the ground like snow. Each of them the boy brought down with some form of kick. The teen sometimes seemed to move like a tornado at other times, he was like a comment crashing to the Earth. Every movement was done with ease

It wasn't long until the slaughter slowed down, yielding to only one enemy left. The man had blood seeping from his shoulder from a bullet wound as he approached Chibi, but there was no reason to warn the boy. The soldier uselessly pulled the trigger of his gun, but all that could be heard in the now silent battle field was a light clicking noise.

"It's over," Chibi said, sauntering up to the soldier like some kind of king. "Tell me why you guys attacked. What do you know about Arahabaki? Why did you guys attack one of the mafia's sub-executives?"

The man growled angrily.

I let the two have their fun, distracted by the strange feeling on my cheek. When I whipped it away, I felt a strange hot liquid on my thumb. Blood was smeared on my thumb. On impulse, I brought the thumb to my tongue, and licked the blood, letting the metallic taste fill my mouth. It was strange to be in the field again.

When I looked back at the two, the man had collapsed to the ground, in too much pain to even scream properly. A gunshot had rang earlier. He must have tried to fire a gun despite the condition of his body.

I heard Chibi click his tongue, making a tsk noise. "You should have listened," he said, apparently having warned the man not to do something so stupid. He turned around and started walking towards me and away from the dying man. "That's the last of them, let's go."

I didn't say a word, choosing to walk over to the collapsed man instead. I felt strange looking at the dying man on the ground. Watching the way that life left his body.

This... this is what I want.

I crouched down next to the man's head, staring down at him. "You're one unlucky guy. Does it hurt?"

My expression was calm as I spoke, but I couldn't help feeling a sense of childlike wonder when I looked at the man. I felt like a little boy meeting his hero for the first time.

The man made a strangled noise in response.

"The bullet pierced your neck. It's to last to save you now with a wound like that. But it's still going to take about five minutes for you to die. You shouldn't have used that gun of yours." I shook my head in what could pass as remorse. Really I was fighting down the urge to smile at the chance to watch someone die. Smiling wouldn't sell the act. "Those five minutes are going to be pure hell for you. I wouldn't be able to handle it. What do you want to do? Do you want me to end your suffering with this gun?" I held up the deadly device.

It would be so easy to just pull the trigger.

The man groaned painfully like he was trying to say something, but the bullet hole in his neck was making that difficult.

"I'm doing work for the mafia, that means I'm your enemy. But your showing me something extremely valuable-your death-so I want to pay you back. Now, if you want me to kill you, you should ask while you still can talk."

I could see the man's eyes shimmer with despair. He didn't want to die, but he didn't want to suffer either. "Shoot... me..."

"All right," I told him softly.

I stood up and without another thought, shot the soldier in the head.

A fuzzy feeling filled my head with the action.

Something that had been building up in me, finally broke. The childlike glee flooded out of me, taking over my body. Someone was laughing, it took me a minute to realize that that person was me.

I fired again and again, shooting the body until it started to bounce from the force. I couldn't tell anyone what happened if they were to ask, because I didn't know. I didn't even know how to stop.

"Quit that, you idiot."

Chuuya kicked the gun from my hand. I watched as the gun slid away, looking from it to the body at my feet. And finally at the small teen in front of me.

"He's already dead," the boy said. "Quit shooting his corpse."

Looking at Chuuya, hearing his voice, it had a surprisingly grounding effect. I could feel my lips curl into a gloomy smile.

The body below me was the first person that I've killed just because I wanted to. I gave into the urge and lost control. Demigods weren't supposed to kill mortals and yet... Living in the world of death, seeing it up close... It was wrong to like this, to want this,  but then again so was everything that the mafia did.

"You're right. When you're right, you're right. That is the most normal reaction to have."

I kicked the gun away as if it were a piece of trash when I walked past it. My face was back to its normal lifeless expression, bored once more of the area around me.

Chapter Text

We walked into the building, carefully treading through the wreckage. I could guess by the state of the house and the drafts coming in through building the current state of our dear sub executive. I found a piece of wood lying on the ground and scooped it up before Chibi could notice.

We found Randou on the mansion's second floor, about where the grunt from earlier was evicted from the building, judging by the hole a few feet from him anyways. Everything around the man in the room was in shambles. The explosion had caused parts of the wall to peel away, the ceiling thighs were on the ground, the wires exposed. Corpses littered the ground, laying on a bed of broken decorations that used to hang on the walls. The blood splattered on the ground made the scene seem like an abstract painting.

The sub executive shivered violently. "So cold. The drafts make it three times colder..." he said. The ability user mumbled something about wanting to be a cicada nymph so he could spend the rest of his years below ground. Something about there not begging any wind or something, I didn't catch all of it as the man trailed off.

So I was right then, huh.

"Rough day, huh, Randou?" I asked, stepping towards the man sitting in the chair, huddled in front of the fire. "Here, I got you some wood for the fireplace." I handed over the wood that I grabbed on the way up here.

"Thank you, Dazai. I'm so glad that this mansion has a fireplace. I might've thrown myself into the fire otherwise just to warm myself up."

I watched as Randou wrapped his blanket tighter around himself before grabbing the wood from my outstretched hand and throwing it into the fire in front of us. The flames roared powerfully, like they'd been lit by Heaphestust himself.

I stepped back to go and stand by the oddly staring redhead. He leaned over to me and spoke at a tone that was slightly lower than what seemed to be his average. "Yo, bandages, where'd you find that wood?"

I glanced at the boy before taking the chance to lean in and whisper into the other boy's ear. "It was one of the building's studs," I whispered nonchalantly.

"I have a good idea why you were attacked, Randou," I said, dipping down to pick up a ruined book from the floor and tossing it into the fireplace. "It was to get people talking, to spread more rumors. If a Mori supporter like you were to die in an explosion, it would get people talking more about the old boss's motives. We checked the GSS captain's car on the way here. I actually found a set of instructions for how to stage a black explosion."

"A black explosion..?" The man asked, shivering with his entire body.

"I don't really get how it works myself," between dropping out of school at fourteen and the instructions being completely in Japanese, a language that I can speak pretty fluently but am still struggling in some specialized areas to read and write, the words went mostly over my head. "We'll need a specialist to look into it for us later. But apparently they were going to use the chemicals from a sodium lamp to create a reaction that makes fire look black, like they do with fireworks," I explained, flipping through the manual. "A really cheap attempt if you ask me. Not only did they fail to kill you, their entire group that they sent got taken out."

"Lemme get this straight," the hot head threw a hand onto his hip with a disbelieving look painting his face. "These GSS guys tried attacking this man here," he pointed at Randou, "pretending to be Arahabaki in order to get the Mafia to turn in on itself, but failed?" He sounded like he thought it was the most stupid idea someone could've had. Not my theory, but their plans.

There probably was too much planning, not enough head on violence for Chibi to be happy.

Randou had been here since the old boss's reign, but he didn't become a sub-executive until I helped Mori take over last year. The old boss had apparently treated the ability user poorly during that time, so it made sense for people to believe that the man was Mori supporter or at least a supporter of the current system and be targeted. 

"That's it," I confirmed.

The teen still had the look of disbelief on his face. "Then the GSS leader is behind all of this?"

No, there's something else at play here. You and I both know that.

But all I said was, "it's highly possible."

"The current leader of GSS is a cold, calculating skill user... They say he also has close connections to the Guild, a top secret North American organization..." Randou said, trailing off.

If it's so secret, then why do you know about it, Randou? I know that you're a sub executive, but... That aside, why was it so important that their leader is so calculating?

"It's safe to assume that getting rid of him would be no easy task," Randou said. "Dazai, some more fuel for the fireplace please..."

I looked around, this place was given to Randou by Mori, none of it was stuff that the skill user had bought himself. It didn't seem like he cared about it much judging by his lack of reaction to me throwing his book in the fire. I spotted a relatively large and expensive-looking painting with a nice, large wooden frame.

"Here you go," I handed him the painting. "We don't need to dispose of him, though. Our mission is to prove that the old boss hasn't actually risen from the dead..." I thought about our original purpose in coming here and rather or not we should deviate from it. Randou was so quick to jump to taking out GSS's leader... "which is why I have some questions for you."

"Go ahead. I couldn't possibly refuse someone with a Silver Oracle. And regardless, I wouldn't be where I am today without Mori's help. I owe him everth."

It would seem that way, wouldn't it...

"Glad to have you on board," I decided to say, playing the role of the bored detective. "Now do you think you could tell me what you know about Arahabaki? I want to know in detail what you saw in Suribachi. It's our only lead to finding out who's behind all of this."

Cause it's sure as Hades not GSS's brain child.

Randou shivered violently, earning an odd look form Chuuya who was watching the scene silently from behind me. The teen really didn't seem to care about the whole investigation part of this investigation.

"Oh yes... I remember it vividly." I watched as the man tucked his chin into his blanket like a scared child. "I could never forget that day," he said softly.

I looked at him, watching the way that the man's hands seemed to tremble. I could tell that it wasn't from the cold for once.

"I survived... but all my men... were reduced to ash in the fire-in those black flames."

... what men exactly? He wasn't with the mafia at that point, the old boss found him after... Didn't he?

"Dazai," Randou continued," your strategy is sound. You only want to expose the conspiracy, not kill the person behind it... That's exactly what you must do. Because that truly was a work of a god. It doesn't matter how many people get together to fight it, it cannot be defeated."

I could see the undeniably fear in the sub executive's eyes. I've never seen him this scared before, at all even. He was a man that had seen countless corpses on numberless battle fields without so much as flinching. I think the closest I saw him come to being scared was when I told him about groundhog day in America. I told him that the fate of how long winter lasted there was put in the animal's paws, I think he almost had a stroke.

"Tell me everything you know, Randou," I said with a gentle, encouraging smile. "This is getting interesting."

Randou cleared his throat. An appropriately gloomy look took over the man's face as he looked at the two of us and began his story.

"When it happened, we were almost at the center of Suribachi. The Port Mafia were fighting the Sheep gang. The mafia decided to engage them in hostilities that day. The Sheep had destroyed a mafia aircraft with our men on it two days before, because a week before that we had attacked one of their warehouses, since the month before they'd-ahem..." he trailed off, seemingly embarrassed of his ramblings.

Was the loud mouth there at that time? He's their heaviest hitter, the only reason that they can actually, truly fight back... if he wasn't there, would they've had the manpower to fight the Port Mafia so extensively?

"At any rate, no one really remembers how it all started, but that was the gist of things," the man sighed, tucking down deeper into the blanket. "Real life isn't like a film noir; there is almost no clear distinction between the causes and effects of good and evil. Or even a way to classify which is which in these kinds of situations. But surely that goes without saying."

The man shivered violently, looking at us with an almost helpless expression. "So cold. Sorry," he apologized, "but could you do something about the draft?" Chuuya and I looked at one another and nodded. "There should be enough rubble to cover the crack.

Chuuya waved me off when I went forward to try and pick a small piece up. "What're you going to do, mummy boy. You got a broken arm, idiot"

I spread my arms out wide, a bright smile on my face. It was fake, but that doesn't matter. "Aww, short stack, you really do care!"

The teen was picking up heavy rubble, seemingly without the use of his ability. Jeez, how strong is this boy? "Fuck off, bandage waste!" He yelled

Randou ignored our bickering, more focused on where the short criminal was placing the rubble. "Yes, there." The teen added another piece of concrete to the mix. "That should do, thank you."

"At any rate," the sub executive continued his story, "we were heading to the battle when we got caught in a searing black explosion." He waved his hand around at the ruins of his home, though with his hands under the blanket, it looked more like a cat or something was settling in his lap instead. "What happened at my mansion today is child's play compared to what I saw then. All the great men on my team were killed. I only managed to survive thanks to the subspace that I'd created with my skill at the time."

The man shuddered, seemingly from the memories. "... No words can describe the state of things that day. It didn't seem like something of this world, not even close. The black flames, the boiling earth... the houses instantly melted as the air burned, the telephone poles morphed into ash before they could even fall to the ground. Simply put, it was hell itself. The carnage I witnessed that day was like something out of an ancient scroll of the underworld."

The underworld... I've been there myself, about three years ago now. The place was more toned down than the old paintings depicted it to be... unless you were in the Fields of Punishment that is.

I watched as the man stared off, gazing at something that neither I nor the school boy next to me could see. "And there it was, in the middle of it all... At the center of the blast wasn't the previous boss, that thing didn't even bare the slightest resemblance to a human, let alone the previous boss."

Randou stopped speaking for a moment. "It was a beast, a pitch black beast. It's fur, it's tail, even the thing's eyes were made of flames from the depths of hell. Its size and silhouette resembled that of a human on all fours, but that was where the similarities ended. It felt almost as if all the disasters and genocides in all of history had been put into a physical form. Or maybe... it was the energy that created the universe itself- all the galaxies, stars, the planets-had materialized into that single being."

A beast...? All of the gods I've met have had a human form, but that could be because we imagined them to be humans, to look like mortals. If Arahabaki wasn't thought to be like that, then... this formless beast...

"The only thing I know for sure," Randou continued, "was that it held neither hatred nor malice. It had no emotions at all. The beast simply existed. At first I searched for a way to explain things logically, I thought that maybe it was just an enemy skill, but looking back... there was no way that a single person could have that much power. And yet... It was the only explanation I could think of, even though there weren't any skill users around.

"Everything seemed to shimmer from the heat. Looking up, I couldn't even tell what color the sky was. Strangely, I can still remember seeing the sea in the distance as it kept its calm surface."

The sea...? But if he was in Suribachi, then...

"It had annihilated everything but the ocean," the skill user said. "Then the beast looked my way, the heat from its gaze came barreling at me like waves. And then, something unbelievable happened, something I've never seen before or since. The subspace... it started to crack."

I looked at the redhead listening along with me. Having witnessed Randou's ability himself, it was safe to say that he was surprised. The subspace skill... it wasn't something that could be broken by the things of our world. Because Randou created his own dimension when he made the subspace.

"I immediately made more subspace, but the brief moment of the break was more than enough. The beast's power hit me with the power of a storm. It was beyond anything that a skill user could ever dream of doing.

"By the time I was able to create another subspace, I'd already been sent flying back. If I'd been a second later, my body would have been reduced to ashes like I'd never existed at all. One of the last things that I remember before passing out was the terrifying sound of the beast's roar. There was no emotion at all from the beast's voice."

There was a scared look on the sub executive's face. "If somebody had told me that was a god, I would've believed them. Natural disasters unfeelingly kill scores of people in the blink of an eye. The beast was no different. A god... what else could you call that?"

The man fell silent. There was no response that either of us could come up with. All the gods that I met have been boiling over with emotions, to think of one without any... it would be uncontrollable destruction in the flesh.

"... I apologize..." Randou muttered. "I understand that you both want to prove that the previous boss wasn't resurrected by Arahabaki, but an enemy skill user. But if you tell Mori what I just told you... he would believe that Arahabaki really exists. Your investigation would be for nothing"

Yes, it really would appear that way, wouldn't it?

I laughed. "No, it's fine. That was extremely interesting." I smirked at the sub executive and Chuuya. "I figured the whole thing out thanks to you."

It's all so clear now. Truly, I feel like such a Seaweed Brain for not seeing it sooner.

"What do you mean?" Chibi asked, too confused to even hold any real anger in his voice. I saw him turn and look at me out of the corner of my eye, but I was already turning towards what was left of the doorway, letting my coat swish dramatically in the gentle breeze.

I glanced at the boy over my shoulder, grinning like a child. "I mean I figured out who the real criminal was all along, as well as the trick behind the act." I shrugged, turning my head back to the door and walking away. "Mystery solved."

Thank you Randou, really. You made quite an interesting case for us.

Chapter Text

Chuuya and I left the remnants of Randou's mansion, and began heading back into town. The streets were full around us, swarming with people, but that didn't stop either of us from arguing with the other at a steadily increasing volume.

"Come on, mummy boy tell me who the enemy is and we can go beat the crap outta him," the red head punched his palm with his other fist, a confident smirk gracing the boy's face. It was an attractive look on him. "Get this over with already."

"Are you a complete idiot," I asked earnestly. I'd admit that the boy's attractive, even if only to myself...

"Huh!?" Chuuya growled, looking about ready to punch me.

"I mean really, you have no idea who they are and you want to just dive in with no information," I looked down at the cutely fuming boy. Really I don't know how the Sheep functions so well with him in charge, there's no strategic thinking once so ever. "You'd think that you were the suicidal one out of the two of us."

"Crazy bastard, as if I'd ever try to kill my self. That jobs all yours." The boy grumbled "it's not like planning even matters when we have my ability though."

I laughed humorlessly. "Your ability?" I questioned, looking down at the confused ginger. "All it takes is me turning off your ability and bullets work on you like anyone else. A sneak attack with poison would handle you without me. Going in blindly is idiotic. We need to plan and prepare thoroughly to make the job easier."

"Why you-" the ginger raised his leg to try and kick me. "I bet you don't even know who they are! You're just spewing shit to make yourself feel smart!" He decided.

Our voices were gradually getting louder as we continued walking around aimlessly. I knew what part of the city we were in, there's an arcade just down the street from here that should do for what I have in mind.

"I know who they are, but why should I tell you if all your going to do is run off and get us both killed painfully. That's why a plan is needed, schoolboy." I goaded the small teen.

The second that the name was out of my mouth, Chuuya would go running to the enemy's home without a second thought about it. Even a power house like Chibi wouldn't be able to beat our foe on his own. If it was as easy as sending an attack dog at the man, I wouldn't be bothering with pushing for tactics, but the simple truth is that it's not that easy. And sadly, I didn't really want to see the short boy dead just yet.

We argued back and forth the rest of the way down the street. Everyone else on the street stared at us with angered gazes, having two teens arguing back and forth during an otherwise good day probably wasn't their idea of a good time.

"I swear if we were allowed to hurt each other..." the teen growled. Mori had forbidden us from harming or threatening each other to solve our problems.

I stepped in front of him, stopping the boy from moving. "Hey, copper top, what about settling this the old fashion way?" I asked, smiling unsettlingly.

The boy groaned before going up on his toes and knocking on my head like I was a door. "Is it empty in here? I just said we're not allowed to hurt each other."

"Look to your left, carrot top." I jerked my thumb over my shoulder at the building next to us.

"An arcade?" He asked, raising an eyebrow. "We're not here to waste time, punk."

I sighed heavily. "Since we can't physically fight it out, why not a game. Winner gets to pick the course of action. Looser obeys the winner no matter what."

A devilish smirk appeared on Chibi's face. "Your going down, bandages."

A part of me wanted to refute the boy, but my only experience playing video games was when I got trapped in the lotus hotel when I was twelve. A child from a broke family with no friends outside of camp and a record of six schools in six years didn't really have time for going to arcades with their nonexistent friends.

But I'm a quick learner.

—-

"Tell me who's behind this!" The small teen demanded, swinging out a deadly punch.

"No way," I yelled back, meeting his punch with my own.

Our fists collided with a defining blow.

The red head swiftly moved forward, not giving me time to formulate a proper response. Chibi unleashed a powerful downward kick that would have hurt like a mother if I hadn't leaped into the air, evading the assault. I used the momentum to swing down my weapon at the teen, a long black metal club. The moment I landed the other boy unleashed a flurry of punches.

"You really don't know who did it, do you?" He asked, clearly annoyed.

"No, I do. Unlike a certain little schoolboy."

I blocked the onslaught to the best of my ability, stepping back and letting the other boy back me into a corner. Chibi chose a high kick for his finishing move, a powerful kick that would launch his opponent into the air. That would be if it landed. There was no way in Hades that I would let the brief opening slip by.

"Oh, too bad!" I said coyly, pretending not to notice the other boy's anger.

Quickly pressing a button on the gaming console, I watched on as my on-screen avatar began to glow with energy. The club in the thing's hand emitted a deadly stream of light, shrinking Chuuuya's avatar in the chest.

"What the...?! Wait!" Chuuya yelled, just noticing the situation his character has been put in.

If your opponent lets you put them in a corner, there's normally a reason as to why. It was a basic strategy of chess that I learned from playing with Mori. Also from the mind games that he pulls, but that's besides the point, I was too busy dealing with his current manipulation.

Chibi's current bout of yelling was drowned out by the loud electronic noise of the machine. The metal club on the screen continued to deal countless rays of light until Chibi's character fell face first to the ground, K.O.Ed all the other boy could do was watch as my character killed his.

"I guess that's that," I shrugged nonchalantly. "Did you learn your lesson?"

"Damn it!" The boy screamed, something that should have drawn attention from the other members in the room but only got the occasional annoyed glance. "One more match!" He demanded.

Chibi and I were seated at opposite cabinets, we had been for a while now. I'm not quite sure how long it's been since we came in here, but I know that's been a couple of hours at the least. We've played close to a hundred games after all, but that's a story for another time I suppose. In a way, it kind of felt like my time at the Lotus hotel, just without the forced time altering drugs.

... I felt like a kid for once.

"I don't mind playing another round, but you're still going to lose. I'm good with my hands, after all," I boasted with a distracting wave of my hand. A slight heat was creeping onto my face at the double meaning behind my words. I don't really know where that came from. The other boy either didn't notice, or didn't care cause he didn't immediately start yelling. "Anyways, it's time for you to keep your end of the bargain. Loser has to obey one command like a dog, no matter how humiliating it may be. Now, what should I have you do?"

"Damn it... I was so sure that I would win!" Chuuya's head fell into his hands with confusion. He really didn't see this outcome coming, did he.

I couldn't see Chibi all that well, but I could guess the look on his face. "You must have bought that confidence of yours at a bargain bin," I jeered, swinging from side to side in the arcade chair. The aurora of the other boy reminded me of the Olympian gods for some reason... It was strange. I couldn't stop myself from wanting to antagonize the other. He was attractive like the gods and just as arrogant, maybe that was it.

"You want to know why you lost? Because your skill is strong. It's so strong that you never learn to be cunning and strategic." Before I got my ability and before I even learned that I was a demigod, I had to fight to survive in a place that should have been a home. I was cunning and strategic, making myself small when needed and invisible when necessary. The same was said when faced with the bullies at school. When I started using my godly powers, that type of thinking went out the window for a little while there, but after leaving the world of the gods, I managed to get my brain back. "You're stunted not only height wise but mentally as well it seems. That's why you can't win. Not in Video games and not in a battle of wits, either."

It was a lesson that Chibi needed to learn if he wanted to survive in the world of the mafia. Right, Mori? You're planning on bringing him in aren't you? That's why you've spread those rumors about Chuuya switching sides, isn't it?

"A battle of wits?" Chuuya mocked, glaring at me. "I didn't remember agreeing to that, and I sure as hell don't remember losing an argument! You just claimed that you know who did it. As if I'm going to believe that!" He stood up in his seat at the end, screaming at me loudly.

Never lost an argument huh? Just how long have you been in a position of power then where others can't argue with you?

"Understandable." I've provided no evidence about how I know who it is, copper head over there has nothing more than my word to go on. Which is less than nothing to him. "But you still haven't figured it out, have you?"

"...Huh?"

"Did you? Or did you not?" I prodded.

Really it's a simple question.

"What do you think?" The boy averted his gaze away from me, the grimace on his face evident still.

He really doesn't want to know my answer to that question.

"... Course, I..."

"Hmm? What was that?" I asked, cupping a hand to the ear on the good side of my head.

"... I know, but..."

"What? I can't hear you."

"Course I know who did it," the teen finally said confidently, though I could tell that he was lying, still working on the small details of it all. "Quit acting like you're so much smarter than me, ya twisted little freak!"

Little freak? Haven't heard that one before.

"Ah, my apologies. Then let's play a game. Whoever catches the perpetrator first wins. If you win, I'll call off the bet that we had. But if I win, you're my dog for life."

If Mori was planning on bringing gravity boy into the mafia, I might as well milk the situation until he gives me that drug.

Chuuya laughed haughtily. "Psh. You don't scare me with threats like that. Your just bluffing anyways," he decided. I watched as the boy confidently smirked. "Whatever. Let's do this. You think I can't be crafty and strategic? Pfft. As if I'd show you what I got hidden up my sleeve."

Can be crafty and strategic, huh? Being crafty and strategic would mean knowing when something was a trap and not falling into it like you are right now my dear Chibi.

"That's the spirit, little man," I said like a father cheering on their child. "Quite a speech for someone who responded to cheap provocations." I stood up leaning towards the other boy. "Here let me give you some head pats."

"Keep your filthy paws off me," the boy screamed, kicking away my outstretched hand before it could touch him. Though I couldn't help but be grateful for the considerably less strength he used.

I watched as Chibi's hands stayed firmly stuffed in the pockets of his biker jacket. Just as he always does. The only time that I've ever actually seen his hands was when he almost punched Mori earlier today.

"By the way," I interjected, watching as Chibi's kick gracefully fell to the side with a swiftness that Hermes would be jealous of. Really the two should never meet, he'd be jealous of all of the short stacks moves. "I still haven't seen you fight with your hands yet. Hirotsu, GSS, you've only used kicks. Got a reason for that? Afraid of breaking a nail?"

Why purposely limit yourself?

"Hell no. And who the hell cares how I fight? It's got nothing to do with you anyways." The boy spat back, avoiding eye contact.

I shrugged, "Never said it did. Aha, I see. So you're just being lazy and sloppy on purpose." A know it all expression appeared on my face. It was one that I could tell pissed the other boy off to no end. "There seems to be some kind of conflict here. You never know what's going to happen in a fight between two skill users. Just like how you had the upper hand against Hirostu, perhaps there's a skill user out there that can rival even yours. And the worst part about it is that you won't know until you run into it. That's why in our line of work, you can't let your guard down and get last even during chance encounters. The only exception to that rule is me of course since I can nullify all other skills... So what are you thinking when you fight? Why are you putting yourself at a disadvantage?"

It's not like I care... Schoolboy could jump off a cliff and die for all I care. It just doesn't make sense to me... why would he put himself in a position to get hurt?

"Mind your own damn business," Chibi said, avoiding looking in my eyes.

Hmm... more subdued, less loud than normal... almost like when he's talking about...

"Then I'll rephrase my question," I decide. "Why are you looking for this powerful deity Arahabaki?"

Mortals search for deities for all sorts of reasons, but not so much in modern times when no one actually believes their real unless they are the children or descendants of said gods. And if that's the case... we'll we kinda give up on trying to get their attention pretty quickly. We know that there's no real point and if we do get their attention then they'll just be a let down to us.

So why is Chibi after such an obscure god of all things?

"Because..." he starts, but he freezes. At first I think that he caught onto my manipulating him into answering, but the look isn't quite right.

I stare at him a moment longer, waiting for the normal anger to come back, but when it doesn't I can't stop the slight worry that comes to me.

"Hmm? What's wrong, Chuuya?" I ask, the boy's name slipping from my lips accidentally. I ignored the way that a rush surged through me at the sound.

The boy in question swiftly pulled his hood over his head, turning his back to me and the door behind me as he crouched behind the gaming console.

"Don't say my name," the boy hissed in the quietest voice I've ever heard him use. "And don't talk to me, either! Just quietly stare at the screen or something till they leave!" The boy demanded.

They?

I looked around, my eyes falling on the two teens at the door. There was nothing particularly striking about them. They were about our age and of average height. Nothing about their looks screamed skill user either like some other people's did. The only thing that did stand out about them were the blue bands on each of their right wrists.

The Sheep.

So they came then...

It was no mistake that I chose a popular arcade in the downtown area to go to for setting the bet. If Mori is pushing rumors saying that the punk switched sides then I need to test the faith that his friends have in him. If they pass then there's nothing we can do... but if they fail... well we'll find that out soon, won't we?

I put a thumb to my chin, wondering just how horrible I should be. On the one hand, this has been the most fun that I've had in years. On the other hand, I really did need to pull them in to set the stage...

"Come on, Chuuya! We've got work to do! Boss's orders and all!" I screamed, throwing my voice.

The two teens at the door perked up at the mentioning of their friend's name.

"You piece of shit! What are you a head case?" The boy yelled seemingly without thinking.

Of course I am.

The two teens followed the sound of Chibi's yelling and walked over to us, their smiles evident from all the way over here. "Chuuya! We finally found you! We've been looking for you everywhere!"

I watched as Chuuya sighed, regaining his composure. When he did this, it looked like the weight of the world settled on his shoulders. "Hey, guys. Looks like you're all okay. Thank goodness." Chuuya spoke in a mature voice, taking on a stony look that even Medusa would be jealous of.

"What are you doing goofing off around here?" The silver hair guy asked, seemingly pouting. "You know that Akita and Shougo and the others got captured by the mafia, right?"

He's talking so loud for such a small place. Gods it's like he wants everyone to know that he's a gang member. If this was any other city, the cops would be called and we would all be arrested because of his loud mouth.

"Don't worry, I'm taking care of it," he said almost emotionlessly. "I'll get them all back safe and sound."

"You're 'taking care of it'? In an arcade of all places... People are talking about you back home, you know. They're saying that you're the mafia's errand dog now! Do you have any idea how hard I've been working to dispel the rumors" He yelled. Such a temper, though he too seemed to notice that he was being over the top as he reigned himself in. "I-. Fine, whatever. Just break into wherever they keeping them and kick some ass! Like you always do!"

'Like you always do' there's that phrase again. So these two are no better than the other Sheep on the phone, expecting short stack to clean up their mess. It's obvious that they created this situation somehow.

I couldn't help the way that my eyes sparkled at the scene before me. Really, it's going to be so easy to nab Chuuya now.

The boys talked about Arahabaki while the girl and I watched on. They talked about the rumors, though it was nothing more than anything that we already knew.

"Then, what's the oldest reliable rumor?" I chimed in, surprising everyone.

The three Sheep stared at me with identical looks of distaste.

"Yo... Chuuya? Who's this guy? He looking to join us?" The silver haired boy asked, jerking his thumb at me.

Wow, make me feel welcome, why don't you.

"Yeah... sure, something like that." Chuuya glared at me, seemingly wanting to make good on the promise he made earlier to beat me up later now. He looked back at the Sheep before speaking again. "Just tell him what he wants to know."

"... fine," the silver haired boy agreed reluctantly, looking between Chuuya and I. "The oldest one of any definiteness would have to be the explosion eight years ago. There were no explosions or anything before that."

I nodded. "I knew it.."

The old gods need worshipers and believers to stay alive, or else they fade like Pan supposedly did. Some no name ancient bastard like Arahabaki wouldn't have the kind of following like Olympians do.

"Hey, Chuuya is this guy really looking to be a new Sheep member. You know that you can't bring people,in without future approval. I know that your technically the strongest, but your still just one of thirteen board members. Doesn't help that a lot of people already think that you overstep your bounds as-"

"I know," Chuuya interrupted, his voice thick.

So, not everyone is happy with their fearless leader it seems.

The boy smiled, relived. "Good. Who cares what their saying anyways. Everyone depends on you, that's what matters. Now let's hurry back and come up with a plan to save our friends. They got kidnapped on the factory road across the river. I was there too, but I managed to hide."

So a coward, of course.

Chuuya's face contorted into an expression that I hadn't seen on him before. Betrayal. "Hang on. You went to the factory road," he asked in a low, sharp voice. "Did you go to steal booze again? This is a war, ya know! And you went that close to the mafia base? We're you asking to be kidnapped?"

Ah, so they've been in this mess before. They knew that they weren't supposed to go there, but went anyways expecting Chuuya to clean up their mess.

"Quit yelling. We didn't go there to kill anyone or anything. We're only acting on self defense, just like the rules say. The Sheep anyways get revenge, right?"

"Yeah, but-"

"Chuuya, your always telling us that those dealt a different hand in life have a responsibly to fulfill. So you gotta use your powers to help us fix things!" The boy pulled on Chuuya's shoulder, or at least tried to. It didn't really work. "Now come on, let's go!"

I couldn't help but clap at the scene.

"I'm impressed, really" my lips curled into a cruel smile. "You guys are fascinating to watch. Chuuya's got all the power and yet here he is, like a sheep being stared down by wolves."

I mean, really it should be the other way around.

"You little suicide obsessed-"

"Listen, Sheep-you can't take Chuuya with you. He already had a job to do. Mafia orders."

"I just told you that was just a rumor," the silver haired boy said.

"No... it's true," Chuuya said firmly with a shake of his head. "The mafia boss isn't joking around and I can't outsmart him. Doesn't help that I'm being watched."

"Being watched?" The pink haired girl asked, speaking for the first time since coming here.

Chuuya just turned and looked directly at me.

"You're with the Port Mafia?!" The Silver haired boy asked, pulling out a switch blade and pointing it at me.

I put my hands up in surrender. "Oh my, I'm scared," I said in a too high voice. "I'll do anything you ask, just don't kill me." I curved my smile, having my face seemingly light up like I just got an amazing idea. "Oh, I know. I could ask Mori to release the hostages as long as you spare me from any harm." I pulled my phone out, flipping it open and punching in a few numbers.

"Who the hell gave him permission to contact him, damn it!?" The silver haired boy yelled. "Are you even listening to me! Hey!"

"Hey Mori," I said, listening to the tired voice on the other side of the phone.

"Ah, Dazai. I trust that the job is going well?" Mori sounded amused. Bastard.

"The jobs going smoothly. We're just wrapping things up now. About that-I actually wanted to ask you a favor. Do you think you could release the Sheep hostages?"

It was a strange thing for me to ask, but I knew that he would grasp the situation.

"Ah, so they no longer serve a purpose, then?"

"Uh-huh."

"You ran into some of their members, didn't you?"

"Yep."

"Immediately reasalse then?"

"Immediately, unharmed."

I pressed the end call button on my phone before stuffing it back into the pocket that it came from. The silver haired boy's phone range in his pocket, it was the guards.

"Seriously, they've been released?" The pink haired girl asked.

"What are you playing at?" The silver haired boy asked right after her.

"Are we done here?" I asked Chuuya, cutting them both off. The Sheep underlings were boring. "Let's go," I said, turning to the short teen, "we got some work to finish up."

The silver haired boy put his knife away as the pink girl separated herself from him to attach herself to Chuuya's arm. "Chuuya doesn't do work for anyone in the Port Mafia," she said confidently, laughing with an ugly look on the girl's face.

"Yeah, and now you have no more hostages."

Oh, I know. That makes whatever comes next Chibi's choice and if he chooses the way I think he will... we'll let's just say it won't look pretty.

"Come on Chuuya, let's go," she said, pulling lightly on the other boy's arm. She called Chibi's name in surprise when he didn't move with her. "Chuuya?"

"I'm sorry, but you guys will have to go without me." He said coldly, not even looking at the other two Sheep. Not looking at anyone.

"What are you talking about?" The Sheep boy asked.

"Arahabaki comes first," Chuuya said, shaking the girl off. "I made a bet with this guy to see who'd find it first, and I'm not going to let him win."

"Are you kidding me?!" the silver boy yelled. "We're depending on you to teach our enemies a lesson."

"Lay off already, little lamb," I cut it, not being able to stand the scene any longer. "He is perfectly capable of deciding for himself how he wants to use his own power," I said coldly. "Even a five year old kid would be able to figure out that much." I turned to the door and started walking away. "This discussion is over." I didn't have to look back to know that Chuuya would follow.

"So we're all the rumors about you actually true then?" I heard the silver boy ask. "Would you really abandon the Sheep to become a member of the Port Mafia?"

"It has nothing to do with the Port Mafia," was Chibi's annoyed response. The sound of light footsteps following the words. "This is my own problem."

"Really? Then can you prove it?" The boy asked loudly.

"He can't," I called back. "All you can do is trust him. Isn't that enough?"

I know it's not. They just want to use Chuuya for their own gains, like they're the wolves. Like they're gods. It's sickening.

"Don't you dare forget, Chuuya!" He yelled at us as we walked away. "You had no family before the Sheep took you in! You had nobody in the world!"

But neither Chuuya nor I responded or even acknowledged the screaming boy. We simply let them watch as we disappeared.

I went in there hoping to set the stage to get Chuuya for Mori, but honestly... I wouldn't mind having Chibi join as my dog. Normally coveting things that belong to other people like this is frowned upon, but this is the mafia after all, so possessiveness is allowed.

Honestly, I'd been hoping for better from his friends. Oh, well. No use in complaining about an easy set of marks.

Chapter Text

Chuuya and I walked back onto the street outside the arcade, leaving the two Sheep behind in the building. Chibi looked anxious, like he wasn't sure that what we just did was the right choice for him to make.

How stupid, worrying yourself sick over something that's too late to change. No matter how bad it's gotten since leaving camp, I've never looked like Chuuya does now.

"Stop it."

Chuuya looked at me, all the pent up emotions turning his ocean blue eyes into the color of the deep sea. It was a look that I'd seen well enough in the mirror to know what comes next.

A fist swung weakly at me, the person behind it too emotionally tired to put any force behind it. I grabbed the wrist, stumbling a little from the weight, even though I could tell his heart wasn't in it, Chuuya is still naturally stronger than anyone that I've ever met.

"Shut up, piece of shit," the boy growled. Even when cursing me out, Chibi wasn't looking at me, he was looking through the shop window of the arcade, staring at the two Sheep.

Not thinking much about it, I stretched out my other hand, putting a finger under the other boy's chin and guiding him till he was looking at me. The fact that he didn't immediately try to kill me told me just how out of it the boy was.

"What's done is done," I told him firmly, watching the anger begin to boil in the other boy's eyes, sweeping away the sorrow. "Get your head in the game if you don't want the enemy to put it on a spike."

Chuuya paused for a minute before pulling himself out of my grasp, each of our hands falling slowly to our sides. He laughed a little brokenly. "Now who's guilty of caring?" He asked, alluding to the conversation Randou's mansion. Despite the annoying remark, I could see some of the boy that I knew coming back... it was a missed look. The look of a breaking boy didn't fit the redhead.

"Yeah, as if," I spat, taking care to meet the boy's eyes. I haven't cared about anything in years, not even myself, there's no reason for someone who's planning on killing themselves to suddenly care for anyone else. Even if the world of the mafia is something that's becoming increasingly more interesting, that's a fact that only a fool would think to try and change. "We have a bet remember, you pint sized criminal. You're only interesting if your head is in it."

I turned away from the boy, not caring to see whatever boring emotion might be there. "May the best monster win," I called out as I walked away.

After all... neither of us can really be called human.

—-

I called Randou after leaving Chuuya outside the arcade, asking him to meet me at a reception room in an old shipyard building. The old owner had gone bankrupt years ago and nobody has bought the place since, making it the perfect place for illegal dealings to take place.

"You want me to bring party decorations?" The voice on the other side of the phone asked, in obvious disbelief. A rustling noise could be heard, most likely Randou shivering from the breeze in his room.

I shrugged despite knowing the fact that no one could see me. "What can I say? Todays a good day for a party."

Everyone deserves a going away party, Randou. Even you.

—-

The Sub executive and I spent over an hour decorating the reception hall, changing it from a room trashed from a run down mess into something closer to my liking. The entire room was a flurry of colors, every wall filled with vibrant decorations either put up by myself or by Randou. Even with my arm in the heavy cast, I was still able to help decorating the space. We even went as far as to buy a two story cake from a small bakery.

"I'm so excited," I said in a monotone voice that contradicted the words spoken. Randou was seated at the head of the table opposite to mine, watching as I sat down at the other end with a slightly nervous look. "I bet Chuuya's gonna be thrilled once he sees the huge party we're throwing him to celebrate his newfound freedom from the Sheep."

"I don't know, Dazai," Randou said, shivering in his seat despite the layers of clothing that the man was wearing. "I think that most people would want to kill you over something like this..."

"What? It's just a party," I said coyly.

Of course the boy is going to want to kill me. I'm the one stealing a loyal dog away from the ones he's summited himself to being controlled by.

"By the way, Dazai... you said you found out who's behind the whole Arahabaki ordeal," Randou started, gracelessly changing the subject. It was a change that I'd been waiting for since we came to be in this room together almost two hours ago. "Is that true? Or were you simply trying to tourment Chuuya?"

I smiled cruelly at the fidgety man. "Both," I told him flatly. "I brought it up infront of him so that he'd make a bet with me. But I really do know who's behind this."

The bet was a scheme that'd I've been working itself out in the back of my mind since the fight in the yard... No it was before that... Since Mori threw us together in his office.

"Oh..." Randou said nervously, leaning forward in his seat. "And who is it?"

I leaned forward, enjoying the dread in the other man's eyes. Randou was still confident he was fine, but anyone that'd spent enough time in the underground knew that becoming cocky was a sure fire way to get yourself killed.

My mouth curved into an inhuman smile. "You, Randou."

Silence rang through the room. It was the absence of sound, a vortex consuming it.

"You impersonated the old boss and spread the rumors about Arahabaki," I continued, watching the way that Randou seemed to be fortifying his mask. Really his whole scheme was something worthy of the gods, that saying that they wouldn't smite him for it. "Anything you want to say for yourself?"

Randou scratched his head as if he thought me accusing him of this was extremely vexing. "I must say, I've never been called a criminal before."

I laughed slightly. "How amusing. You've been in the mafia longer than I have. Well, I guess there's a first time for everything after all." I watched the way he composed himself and thought through all the things that he could say. Really it was all too predictable. "Here, let me tell you from personal experience how it would go. First, you'd deny it. Say, 'I'd never do that,' or maybe, 'funny joke, you had me there for a second.' Anything to make the accuser second guess themselves. Then I'll reply, 'but you are the criminal.' That's when you get heated, when you get mad. It's one thing to be falsely accused, but the guilty ones always get overly angry trying to mask their fear of being caught. Maybe something along the lines of 'that's crazy! Why would I try to destroy the mafia? I'm indebted to them, I owe Mori for my position.' ...Are we good so far?"

The man looked at me, fear increasingly slipping onto his face. "I suppose so... you've said everything that I would've said," he told me uncomfortably. "For the sake of learning, what would be your rebuttal?"

"Simple," I told him, leaning back in my chair. "I'd say: 'your debt to him means nothing to you, Randou. Because attacking the mafia isn't your goal, just a byproduct of it.' Would you like to take over now?"

"I suppose... I don't particularly like being called a criminal, so I should probably take your claim seriously... What evidence do you have? Because you have shown no-"

"'No theoretical evidence that shows that I am behind this other than simple speculation,'" I said, cutting the other man off and finishing his sentence. "That's precisely how you're supposed to do it, Randou. The smartest way to do it is to leave no evidence, but would I really be stupid enough to accuse a sub-executive without any?"

Randou seemed to stop to think for a moment, but I knew he wasn't thinking about the answer. He already had that. No, the man was thinking of what to do once this turns south when he can't explain away the evidence I have on him.

Smart.

"... Given how confident you are, I suppose you have something. Something that seems like evidence to you, but was overlooked by everyone else."

Something that he wouldn't think to imagine.

"You must be curious, right?" I asked. This was honestly turning out to be quite the fun afternoon for me. I shrugged. "I feel bad for making you wait so long, so let me tell you." I leaned back forward, looking the man straight in the eyes. "You made an extremely basic error, a boring one even. It's something that every lier does to make themselves seem more credible. You're really going to hate yourself when I tell you what you did."

"And what was it? What could this error possibly be?"

"The ocean," I told him plainly, wagging my pointer finger back and forth at the man like a disapproving mother. "You said when you saw Arahabaki's flames that you could see the ocean-that only the sea in the distance remained calm."

The man nodded, not understanding what was wrong with what he said. "Yes... I did say that, because that's what I saw happen."

I laughed looking at the clueless man.

"It's really quite simple. Are you sure you don't want to figure it out?" I asked.

Really if an ADHD fifteen year old could figure this out on his own, then Randou should already know the answer.

He shook his head. "My apologies, but it seems that I'm not following. Just tell me."

"Fine," I nodded and smiled sweetly. "Your work of fiction took place in the middle of Suribachi, but the city was turned into a hemispherical basin valley in the explosion. Which means..."

"Ah, yes... I see."

"Exactly. There was no way you could have seen the sea. If you were inside a giant bowl, roughly eight kilometers wide, the sea would never be within sight no matter how tall you stood. So why would you say you saw it if it wasn't possible? I believed you when you said you saw Arahabaki, since it sounded like you were telling the truth. So it's strange. Isn't it? It's because you previously had seen the sea. That's why you made the mistake. It's subtle, but it was enough. You saw the sea before the city was ever created, before the giant explosion eight years ago at the end of the conflict."

The other didn't respond, only stared at me.

I looked at the other man for a few moments, staring him down as if I was waiting for him to make a move that I knew he wouldn't. I sighed gently when nothing happened. "That one gossip loving Sheep said that the rumors about Arahabaki went back eight years ago to the explosion that created Suribachi," I said, more to myself than to Randou, since he wasn't there for that. "That incident was probably what started the rumors about an ancient god running around. Someone else must have witnessed it from a far. However, you saw the entire event up close. You were so close that any normal person would have been vaporized in an instant. You described that memory with such accuracy that you accidentally mentioned the sea as well. And now your motive has become clear."

That's the problem with those telling a story, if they're not careful, it gets away with them. They give away too much. Looking back on it, I could tell all the instances that Luke had seemed off. All the times that I should've known what he was planning. I'm not going to let myself get played like that again.

Randou, who'd been listening quietly to my reasoning the entire time, sighed quietly in defeat. "You had a bet with Chuuya, didn't you?" He asked, seeming to recall my words from earlier. "Well it looks like you won. You found the perpetrator first."

I smiled at the man almost excitedly. "Thank you, Randou. Now I have a loyal dog for the rest of my li-"

My head jerked to look at the window as a screaming could be heard from outside. I sighed heavily, knowing what was coming. The sound got closer until it was replaced by a crashing noise and the melody of glass breaking. The blur knocked straight into Randou, blowing the man away.

In the wreckage stood a triumphant looking redhead, glowing from his supposed victory. He looked like a modern god standing in the ruins of an old battle field as the sunlight fell down onto him, casting him in an attractive glow. It was a sight that would have made anyone fall for him... Or would've if it wasn't for the screaming that followed right after.

"It was you!" Chuuya screamed, all but jumping for joy. "I beat that sly bastard! I win!" He thrusted a hand at the man on the ground, "you're behind all of this!"

I blinked a few times, staring at the sight. My mind was fuzzier than I wanted to admit it could be, but the obnoxious screaming was enough to keep any... unnecessary thoughts at bay. "Wow..." I whispered, just loud enough for the other two to hear.

Chuuya, who had been boasting, turned around in shock when he heard me. "Ahhhh?! What are you doing here, you slime ball?"

Slime ball...? That's a new one.

"I'd like to ask you the same thing, pip-squeak," I said, clearly annoyed. I smirked at the other boy, "Just so you know, I already announced that he was the culprit before you even got here. I was in the middle of explaining how he did it when you showed up."

"Hmm? You were in the middle of explaining... which means you haven't finished yet, right? Then it looks like I win. I defeated the mastermind behind all of this. Which means my victory. The strongest always wins. That's just how the world works."

You only say that because you've never know what it's like to be weak... Someone that only knows what it's like to win, someone who's never tasted defeat in their lives... They shouldn't speak of victory. You don't know what true victory is until you've been stripped of it, that's a lesson that every demigod... that every bullied child knows well.

"It's people like you that make me sick," I told him, letting something close to acid slip into my voice. "There's no way that you won, but I'll let you explain your version of the riddle. How did you reason that he was behind it?"

The boy looked at me like I was the dumb one. "What's there to conclude? Anyone could have figured it out from what he said. Every single eyewitness account has clearly stated that they saw the former boss, then this guy comes along and say that he's seen Arahabaki itself. That's impossible, though. That's why I know he's lying."

Randou, who'd sat up during our conversation, stared at the two of us almost grouchily, which was fair for getting thrown through a wall. "Basically you said that you decided that I was the one behind it because you don't believe in gods. Is that right?"

"No," Chuuya said sternly. "It's quite the opposite actually." The boy sounded confident as he always did, but instead of his loud boasting confidence, this was more restrained, quiet even, like a teacher talking to a student. His face was serious, grave as I saw him staring Randou down. He was planning on saying something soon, something he really didn't want to have to say. "It's because gods do exist. I'm sure of it."

He's sure of it... so there is a connection. Chuuya... could you be like me?

I was a spectator, watching the scene, and yet in my memories were things that would fit me right into their verbal battlefield... Still there's a difference in believing in your gods and in all of the others too, me joining now would just be fanning the flames.

"So you're confident that Arahabaki does exist?" Randou asked, still on the ground.

"Yeah, you saw it too, right? Eight years ago? I mean there's now way you could have given such a precise account of it otherwise."

"It's true, I did see it," Randou admitted. "But I didn't just see it, I experienced it. The explosion came out of nowhere... I was severely wounded, hovering between life and death. The impact of the fire caused me to lose my memories. I wandered the streets until I caught the previous boss's attention, and he invited me to join his organization."

I knew he didn't join until after the explosion. If Randou had found a way to explain away the ocean, that was my next piece of evidence to bring up. I was going to slowly chip away at his story till there was nothing left.

Well now I don't have to.

Randou fixed Chuuya with a heated gaze, something with so much emotion and longing that it made me sick that it was directed at a child even if it wasn't intended in that way. "Chuuya, you know don't you? You know where Arahabaki is."

For once Chibi chose not to speak. I watched as he only stared at the man that's caused us both problems over the past couple of days.

"Tell me," the adult demanded.

Why does he care so much?

"I guess you would want to know, huh, Randou?" I asked, smirking at the older man. "After all, that's why you started the rumors. The only one that could see through the lies that you planted was the person that knows the true Arahabaki. By describing it in as much detail as it did, you painted a target on your back leading whoever knew the truth straight to you."

I saw Chuuya look back and forth between the two of us for a few moments before shaking his head tiredly.

"Damn it, what the hell is it with everyone?" Chuuya asked in a tired annoyance. "Why does everyone want to meet that thing? It's not like it has the power to revive the dead or something. That thing doesn't have any kind of personality or even have a mind of its own. It's like a typhoon or an earthquake. It's nothing more than a mass of energy and destruction, y'know. Ya might as well pray to a power plant."

Typhoon? Earthquake? My father is the god of them both, if this thing is on that level, then I could see why someone would want to hunt this thing down.

Randou stood up, looking at Chuuya hungryly, as if I wasn't there at all. 

Fine by me.

"Having a personality, a will, or being capable of thought is of little importance," Randou said solemnly. "It's a massive force of destruction. It's capable of scorching the earth, staining the skies, and rumbling the very air. It is not something of this world, it's something that the human mind could not possibly hope to understand. That power is enough for me."

Of course he's after nothing more than power. That seems to be all anyone wants in this world. Is that why I don't want to live in it? I was born powerless, but eventually came into my own power. Now that I have more of it than I could possibly want, even if I can't use it right now, I have nothing left to hunger after like everyone else.

"Tell me, Chuuya," the foreigner demanded. "Where is the being that defies human comprehension? Where is the god that set me aflame?"

I know that he's only after power, but when Randou says things like that, it's almost like he's in love with the thing. Though most likely, Arahabaki is the only thing capable of making Randou feel warm once again, and we all know how much he hates the cold.

"If you know, you should tell him," I interrupted, causing them both to look at me, Chuuya in surprise and Randou... well his face just seemed to be stuck in a stern expression. "Randou's going to executed for endangering the Port Mafia, so there's no harm in letting him know."

Anything to get rid of that look. I've seen enough of it in my life from Gabe, the gods, and the monsters to last me a lifetime.

"All right. If you really want to know, I'll tell ya." I watched as Chuuya left the space close to me and made his way over to Randou like a prisoner when his time is up on death row. I saw a hint of the boy's eyes before he turned to walk to Randou, they were crystal clear, as if soaking up everything in their sight. As if they wanted to remember their last moments of freedom.

"Arahabaki..." he started, stopping to take a deep breath in and out, "... is me."

Chapter Text

"What... What did you say...?" I whispered so quietly that no one else seemed to hear me, or if they did they just didn't care.

I stumbled back, surprised for the first time in over a year. I felt like I was drowning in my own thoughts as I stared at the boy in front of me. All the light seemed to disappear from the world, all sound was ruled irrelevant.

A god... I've been...

I ran away from that world. I left it so far behind that those at camp probably thought that I was ashes by now. I changed my name and my looks, everything about me. There's no reason for me to be near a god right now.

Chuuya... he can't be...

But it made sense. This boy's ability is stronger than any others that I've seen. He's beautiful, annoyingly so, and strong even without the use of his abilities. Even his presence felt like that of a minor god's. I just didn't want to believe that he was one, because this boy... he doesn't seem cruel or manipulative like the gods I've met, only showing that side to those that would try to harm the people he cares for. He seemed like someone who wants to protect people, not use them, and while I haven't had any of it directed at me, he seemed like someone who could be kind.

Was it all just an act?

Chuuya's voice was calm in every respect. It wasn't forced like that of a lier's, it only offered the truth as he knew it to be.

"I had a feeling it would be you," Randou said happily, a smile gracing his lips.

"I only remember one part of my life," the supposed god confessed quietly. "Unlike you, I didn't lose my memory from a cute bump on the head. My life began that day eight years ago. Everything before that was just... darkness. Somewhere in that darkness, I was floating aimlessly. Eventually a hand pulled me out into this world. It was you, wasn't it, Randou?"

The man only laughed, his smile spreading wider.

"Arahabaki isn't a god," Chuuya said, his words washing over me like a cool river stream.

He's not a god then...

I couldn't fight the wave of relief that washed over me when Chuuya said this, nor did I want to.

"It can't resurrect the dead, either. I don't know why I as a person existed, so I followed the rumors and went searching for answers. Looks like we finally meet again, now tell me everything that you know."

But the man didn't respond. Not right away anyways. His body was taken over by the laughter tumbling out of it. For once he wasn't shivering because he was cold.

"Of course. Of course I'll tell you... of anyone you have the right to be told." The man raised his hand, a small yellow orb forming above it. I started to move, not liking the look of what the skill user was doing. Randou is a sub executive for a reason, his skill is dangerous, but before I could take a step, the orb shot itself at Chuuya, knocking the boy in the just and shooting him back. All I could see was Chuuya's faint red glow as he flew through the air.

"Why didn't his gravity powers work?" I asked Randou, not taking my eyes off of the darkness that the Sheep king disappeared into.

"Unlike a bullet, the subspace I control doesn't abide by the laws of physics." I turned back to the man when i heard a familiar sound coming from him. Above his palm, there was a small yellow cube floating delicately. "It is of another world entirely, closed off from this one. And I alone hold the key."

We watched as the small cube fell like snow to the ground, landing softly, soundlessly at Randou's feet. The cube spread out like water, coating the floor around it in its golden yellow hue, the color spreading like a stone dropped in water. "As such, only if I allow you to, may you enter. And only if I allow you to, may you leave."

"You left me outside of the sub space you created, so you must know what my ablity is."

The whole dock was quickly covered in the golden color, everywhere except for where I was standing. A tall box formed around me, keeping me in the normal dimension as Randou entered his own.

"Youuu Son of a!" I heard someone yell, immediately knowing who, as a dark blur shot through the space like a rocket.

Chuuya landed above my box, planting his feet on the subspace lining the pillars on the roof of the shipyard building.

I watched as Randou looked up at the boy above me. "I see that blast didn't kill you," he stated almost boredly. "I expected nothing less from Arahabaki."

There was a thundering sound as Chuuya kicked off the pillar, coming into my field of vision. I didn't fight the proud smile that started to curve my lips as I watched the boy throw one of his deadly kicks at the mafia sub executive, only for it to fall when the man avoided it. Randou used his subspace to propel himself out of Chuuya's attack and into the air, the golden boxes stuck to his feet like Hermes's sandals.

I watched as Chuuya followed the man up into the air, following Randou's example with a piece of rubble. Both him and the chunk of rock were glowing a faint red. But he was stopped when Randou created a shield of sup space between them.

"Nice try," the man said. He looked like a supervillain from movies that I used to watch as a kid when Gade was out of town or at work. Randou's hair was flowing gently in the breeze created from his ability. "It is of no use. You cannot hope to reach me while I am in this space. I, on the other hand, can strike you at will," he said like a father reprimanding a small child.

I watched Randou smile as he shot cubes of subspace at Chuuya like projectiles, sending the redhead crashing to the ground in a plow of smoke. All I could do was watch as Chuuya ran, trying to stay ahead of the deadly, never ending onslaught. The boy hid behind my box, out of Randou range, though we could all still see one another.

"Any ability that touches that kid gets nullified," I heard Chuuya say from behind me, seemingly thinking out loud. How annoying. "You're trying to quarantine him with your sub space."

"His existence is heretical," Randou said, acting as if I couldn't hear them both talking about me. I get that I'm in a box, but I'm not a monster on display for your amusement. "The ultimate anti-gifted weapon, unrivaled even back in the West."

"The West...?" I wondered aloud.

"But that's fine," Randou continued, acting as if I never spoke at all. I narrowed my eye at the man. He's starting to piss me off.

There was a strange noise behind me, like someone trying to disguise their steps. I turned around, dodging back in just enough time to avoid being setherd in half by a scythe. A flurry of pain ran along my chest, throwing me back as blood spewed everywhere, staining my shirt red.

Guess I didn't dodge quite fast enough.

I landed on my ass, getting the full view of a blood red and onyx scythe cutting into the ground and being pulled out by a hauntingly laughing old bastard.

"It's been a while, hasn't it?" The old boss asked, letting his weapon of choice rest on his shoulders as he looked down on me, his eyes flaming red. Just behind him, I could see Chuuya watching the two of us, his eyes glued to the dead man walking.

"Yeah," I rasped, my body shaking as my good hand clutched my chest. "You look good for somebody who's dead, boss. Eh- well, should I say, former boss. Maybe dying was actually good for your health."

"There's no way he could hurt that idiot with a special ability," I heard Chuuya say for inside the sub space.

"Your right!" I called out, still gripping my chest. "The scythe isn't an ability at all, it's as real as you or me."

Which isn't really saying much given the face that he's something akin to a god and I'm more god than human.

"I see... so there's a possibility that it could really kill you then," Chuuya said, almost sullenly. I could guess the thoughts going through his head. If I die, he has no real way to get rid the the sub space.

"The former boss is dead," I said, ignoring Chuuya's implication. I turned to look at the still floating man who was quietly watching the scene play out. "What exactly did you do, Randou?"

"My ability can turn corpses that reside in my sub space into supernatural beings which I command," he explained plainly. "The only drawback is that I can only control one at a time."

Corpses, huh. No wonder he wants shorty dead.

"Heh, quite a gift," I complimented as I started standing up. "You've been hiding that ability from the organization the whole time?" Really it would be impressive if he was... but something told me that he hadn't been. "Just who are you, really?"

"Before joining the Port Mafia, I was a gifted spy from the west. I traveled to this country to obtain a being of unimaginable power that the government of Japan had discovered."

"That being was Arahabaki," I guessed. It was the only logical one to make after all.

"The sole purpose of my plan from the very beginning has been to kill you, Chuuya. And then use my powers to control both you and Arahabaki from beyond the grave."

I thought back to the hungry look that was in the man's eye earlier and felt sick knowing that it really had been directed at the teen standing farther back, behind me. People with that kind of hunger for power should be snuffed out before they get out of control like this.

"Dazai," Randou started, looking down at me once more. "If the boss we're to learn what you just did about me, he would have me executed, so for that you must die here with Chuuya."

I couldn't help but think back to when Mori was pitching this mission to me... what was it he said again, 'nothing dangerous... no big deal.' Lier.

I thought about this past day, I've felt more alive and have been more interested by other people today than I've been in years, since before knowing about being a demigod. I smiled as I gripped my bloody shirt, it was the smile of a killer.

"Dangers fine with me," I said, hearing the slight emotion trickle into my voice.

When your whole life has been one endless tightrope crossing of one dangerous situation after another, you can't help but seem to chase it, looking for your next fix.

"Hey," I said, turning to the quietly watching boy. Chuuya was one of the people that have made this life interesting again, there was no point in ignoring that. "I say we kill them both. Together."

Mori sent Chuuya to me to be my partner, that's a gift I'll gladly accept.

"Huh," the red head said, I could see his surprise from here. "You mean you actually want to live now?"

I laughed. "Believe it or not, I'm actually starting to like working for the Port Mafia. In the outside world, death is kept away from everyday life, but in the mafia's world p, death is an extension of and even a part of everyday life."

I lived in a world of fear since I was young, only to be thrown into the world of demigods and death for two months every summer. There's no denying that I felt more real in those months than I did any other day of the year. If I could have that all the time...

"I personally find more truth in that way of thinking, after all death isn't the opposite of living like the majority of people think it is, but a part of the experience of life itself. Without observing death up close, one can't capture the full experience of what it means to live."

The gods will never know what it means to truly live despite being immortal beings destined to live forever. They'll never know because they'll live forever. If I am cursed to be more god than human, then I might as well live with my mortality as much as I can. I may never know what it means to be human, but...

"Really?" Chuuya said, he tilted his head down, his lips curving into an amused smile. "You, the suicidal manaic actually wants to live?" There was something dangerous in his tone, it almost sounded like hope. He stared me down, as if looking for humanity in my eyes. "You serious?"

I smiled, a smile that's the closest I've come to a genuine one in years. I made sure to look the other boy dead in the eyes before speaking, "I figured it's worth giving a shot." I saw a little light ignite in Chuuya's eyes, the will to fight I suppose. "I can't promise more than that." You shouldn't let people believe that you're getting better when you know just how probable a relapse is. The things that catch my interest now may bore me tomorrow. "Besides... I've got this new dog-you. And I still haven't given you any commands," I said with a playful smirk.

I could hear Chuuya snort. "Yep, you're still a piece of shit. Let's win this, or I'll kill you, Dazai."

Something about Chuuya makes me not want to die just yet, though I'm sure he'll get boring, everyone does, but for now... the boy was interesting enough to stick around for.

I smiled back at Chuuya. "I'm fine with that, Chuuya."

"I see," I heard Randou sigh. "Mori would jump for joy if he heard that. After all this would normally be something worth celebrating. I'll do my best to make your death as painless as possible."

"We'll see about that." A blade swung in a deadly arc, one that I just barely dodged beneath. Old jackass. "Time to die children," the former boss grumbled.

"Oh, really?"

I dodged back as he swung the scythe at my head, dodging to the right when he went for my side again, and under the blade when he tried to slice me lean through. I used every bit of fighting skills that I could remember to read and predict the dead bastard's movements and doge them accordingly.

The old boss swung his scythe down, I took the moment to dodge to the side and run to where Chuuya was waiting for me on the other side of the wall. Randou, ever the spectator, saw this and pushed the wall back, causing Chuuya to have to move back or be run over.

We were both crouching, looking at one another through the golden wall. "You see it now right?" I asked, "what you need to do?"

"Don't you start giving me orders," the boy complained before jumping out of the way of an incoming projectile. But despite the hostile rebuttal, I knew he understood.

Finally, someone of interest who can keep up with my schemes.

I watched for a few moments as Chuuya continued to dodge the incoming sub space bullets, before having turn my attention back to the former boss. I continued to buy time as I dodged his attacks, but even adrenaline couldn't make up for my lack of endurance forever.

I heard the two of them talking, but only got small bits of the conversation. Something about Randou trying to steal Arahabaki in the past, but him making a mistake and accidentally creating Suribachi instead. All I could be certain of was that the man was letting his mask fall more and more as he increasingly seemed to become more deranged while Chuuya became more pissed.

"Hey," Chuuya said, speaking loud enough to let me know that he was talking to me more than to his opponent. "You want to know why I keep both my hands tucked away this whole time?" I risked a glance and watched as the boy pulled his delicate hands from his jacket pockets. As I watched for that moment, I saw the red glow surrounding Chuuya grow bigger, until it looked like he'd been set aflame. He looked ruthless yet still beautiful as he was losing control. "It's a simple way for me to keep my cool. It helps me stay rooted when I'm afraid I'm gonna lose myself. But the gloves are coming off now."

I dodged to the side, noticing that the old boss wasn't slowing down in his attacks, even as I began to tire. "Let's go, Chuuya!" I screamed out.

"You better move your ass, Dazai. You little shit." I heard Chuuya grumble from behind me as I dodged, trying to get out of the old boss's considerable range. His hand was stretched out me, it was his way of saying that I had to be the one to come to him. 

'Asshole,' I smirked.

"This is the end for you!" The old boss yelled, swinging his weapon like a baseball bat, where my body was the ball.

I managed to dodge, but the attack left me unbalanced and unable to avoid the next swing in time. The scythe rammed down straight onto the cast, somewhere behind me I could hear Chuuya call out my name in worry.

Guess he does care, though he probably just doesn't want me to die before he can get out of here alive.

The blade ate away at the bandages lining my arm, until there was nothing left to destroy.

"What?!" The old boss yelled out in anger. His blade had been stopped by a heavy slab of metal. Mori had known the old boss's signature weapon and chosen to put a metal cast on my arm instead of a normal one.

"You ready?" I called, turning to the boy with the outstretched hand, using the boss's moment of confusion to slip away.

"Yup! Let's go!"

Randou screamed something as he tried to pull Chuuya back with his sub space wall, but a funnel formed around the ginger, not moving him an inch.

"Chuuya!"

"Dazai!"

We yelled out for each other as our hands touched each other, our fingers interlocking, breaking through the sub space to do so. All around us, everything lit up in a dazzling blue. Chuuya dropped my hand as soon as he took it, flying off to meet Randou in the air.

"It's over," the boy said while punching the skill user, "not even you can escape gravity."

I looked away from the two, trusting Chuuya to be able to handle himself without my help. I had other beings to worry about.

"If Randou's sub space disappears, then naturally so will you," I said, slowly walking to the old boss. The deceased man was shaking, his body covered in a strange golden glow while red danced across his skin. Maybe death wasn't the best thing for his health after all.

"Anyway," I sighed, watching as he slowly brought down his scythe, the old boss screaming his guts out. I dodged to the side and aimed a punch right for the man's mouth. My fist lodged itself in the old man's mouth, going as deep as to allow for some of the metal cast to be caught as well. "I won't get another chance to say this, but thank you." I pulled my hand away, watching as the man disappeared in a blue blur, leaving nothing but his weapon behind.

If it wasn't for him being such a shitty leader in the end, Mori might never had wanted to kill him, and I would have starved to death on the streets. Even if I lived, I might never have met Chuuya.

The setting sun shined through the shipyard as I dropped the heavy metal cast to the ground. I could hear Chuuya land softly not too far behind me. I turned to him, and saw the boy standing over the body of the man that had caused so much trouble to us today.

"You some kind of shitty magician now, Dazai?" The teen asked as I made my way to his side.

I noticed the way that he said Dazai, still choosing to call me by my name instead of whatever insult came to mind at that moment. His jeans were ripped strangely on his right, probably some trick that Randou pulled. I think it's the first time that I've seen Chuuya hurt.

"Really, Chuuya? Did you think I was wearing a cast for. No good reason?" My arm really had been hurt by the small redhead, but not enough to warrant a cast. "You'll tell us everything we want now Randou, won't you?"

The man was still alive, but just barely. His body was laying in a human sized crater around him, seemingly unable to move even if he wanted to. He looked like he was in pain, but unlike earlier, the thought to put him out of his misery never crossed my mind.

"It was on that day eight years ago," the former sub executive started, "I had infiltrated this country with my colleague. That is when it all happened."

Colleague... he had a partner then. Another spy.

I thought through what the other person could be like, wondering if there would be any cause to prepare plans to kill a formidable opponent trying to destroy us in the name of revenge.

"What did?" I asked. I knew he was referring to the explosion, but it seemed like there was something more to it.

"We came here in order to steal a being of remarkable power. It was being housed in a secret military facility. But upon reaching our target, before I was able to obtain it, my partner betrayed both me and our country."

One of those stories then...

I wanted to pity the man, I knew the bitter taste of betrayal just as he did, as Chuuya soon would. I knew it as well as I knew the sting of a scorpion's venom and Kronos's laugh, but I couldn't bring myself to feel sorry for the man laying on the ground.

"He and I fought over the entity, and amidst the struggle, we were discovered and apprehended by the Japanese military." There was true sorrow in the man's voice. He looked to Chuuya, but there was no hunger in his gaze this time, only the knowledge of death soon to come. "In order to escape with my life, I had no choice but to unleash you, the being I had stolen, from your dark prison. And I attempted to use my ability to take control, but before I could react, you blew up the facility in an instant. Your records were lost along with my memories."

So that's how the explosion happened... Chuuya had no idea how to control his powers... such destruction.

"My name isn't Randou," the man said, drawing me out of my thoughts. "Someone I met here simply mistook the type of hat I was wearing as a Randou and that became my name."

He's as real as I am it seems.

"What happened to your partner?" I asked. The last we'd heard of him, he'd been at the base, but when Randou had spoken of escaping, it was alone.

"I killed him with my own hands," the man said plainly. There was no grief in his voice, merely a spoken truth that he'd accepted. Maybe getting his memories back made the deed seem less real to him. "Chuuya," he said, causing the teen to startle slightly, "I suspect that you are not Arahabaki, but a human vessel that was chosen to keep it restrained."

A vessel... it wouldn't be unheard of, I read some stories about it napping with the Egyptian gods. That would also explain why I can cancel his ability when my gift does not affect the demigods at camp.

"You are very strong, not because of Arahabaki, but simply your strength as a human being," the spy said earnestly.

I could hear the boy scoff in disbelief, turning away from the man on the ground and towards me. "Sure. Whatever."

"Regardless of what's living inside of you, you'll always be yourself. That knowledge is enough, is it not?" The man asked, looking saddened when Chuuya didn't answer.

Of course he's still himself, still so disgustingly human. He's much more human than I ever was or could ever hope to be. But while it's not hard to tell someone that they're real, it's hard for them to believe it when they've spent their whole lives thinking otherwise.

"Every human being, every living creature, they go about their lives on this earth without knowing what they truly are." The man stared up at the ceiling, no longer looking at the boy he'd been so consumed with. His mind seemed to be on something else, on someone else. "...How strange... for the first time I actually feel warm." There was a smile on the man's face, a beautiful smile of someone released from the life that had cast them aside. He looked like someone finally free. The expression faded from the man's face as the light went out from his eyes. The sun was setting in the background, casting a golden light on the corpse.

Chuuya turned his back to the body with a heavy sigh... For once I didn't know what to say. 

Chapter Text

I went back to the mafia building to report what Chuuya and I had found. It was the first time that I was alone all day. Chuuya had split before Randou's body was even cold, saying something about needing to get back to the Sheep as soon as possible to 'fix this mess.' I didn't tell him that his efforts would be futile in the end, nor did I try to stop him from leaving me there. I had no reason to make him stay with me. Chuuya will find his way to the mafia eventually, but for now, it was okay to part ways. I can survive alone for a little bit longer...

I'd be lying if I said I didn't watch him go...

It's been a long time since I've fought alongside someone that could keep up with me. All day... I felt like I was back on the first quest with Annabeth and Grover again, doing crazy shit and breaking more laws than someone our age should be. He made me want to see the end of the fight.

It was night by the time I made it to mafia headquarters. Even though the sun had only set a little bit ago, it seemed much darker now than it should, like the night was hanging from the building, consuming all that came close to it.

Staring up at the building and the office on its top floor, it felt as if there was a claw digging into my chest, pulling and shredding at the thing that used to be my heart.

Heavy gazes fell on me, weighing me down with each step, as I walked closer to the private elevator that brought the occupants straight to the floor that the boss's office is on. They're always like this. Someone who moves throughout the mafia without being an official member of it themselves... They don't like it. It's not normal. All the owner's of the gazes knew was that I've been Mori's right hand man since before he rose to power last year. I'm an oddity in their eyes. Someone that they didn't yet know how to comprehend.

Not that they'd try to anyways.

The guard standing next to the elevator barely spared me a glance as I walked up to the space next to the man. He just continued to stare forward, looking for actual threats. After all, what was a child going to do, especially a favorite of the boss. He's right to think lowly of me, my ability is my only defense against others. I don't even have a gun like everyone else in the building.

I treated him with the same attitude and pressed the button at the man's side without saying a word to him. All of the guards know who I am, and they all know that I'm one of the only people to be able to go see Mori without an appointment, and to survive when I did.

The doors closed behind me moments after I stepped inside. They clanged together loudly, the noise as heavy and damning as the closing of the doors of death. The clawing sensation worsened with each passing second as I rose higher and higher. Dread pooled at the bottom of my stomach, filling my body with irrationality. I'd never felt such an impending sense of doom when going up here before. It's as bad as my first trip to Olympus, but at least then I had three hundred floors to collect myself.

I couldn't shake the feeling that something was about to go wrong, that something was about to be done that could never be undone.

It's not like I'm going to the clinic for one of his endless tests. It's just an office...

But Mori is in it, so it can never be just an office. Mori is a man that possesses an overwhelming talent of twisting everything in his presence, warping it into something... or someone... unrecognizable. He could turn a holy place into one of sickness just by stepping foot on the grounds.

A resounding ding echoed through the small room as the elevator finally reached its intended floor. I left the safety of the metal coffin, dragging my body down the doorless hallway to the office at the end of it. The guards outside of Mori's office gave me a pitying look when I went to knock.

It seems that they can feel it too...

I opened the door to the sound of pencil scratching lightly on paper. In the middle of the office, there was a blonde girl laying on the floor, colored pencils and paper strewn around her hazardously as she drew morbid pictures in it.

Elise.

Where she is, he's not far behind.

Looking away from the ability, I turned my attention to the desk nestled dangerously in the dark of the back of the room. Mori was seated there, his foul mood all but visible as it hung in the air.

It's never good when he's already angry.

There was a scalpel in the underground doctor's hand. It glinted prettly in the light as its owner twirled it around.

"Ah! Dazai," the Port Mafia boss called out, his voice too bright for the look on his face, "how was the mission?"

I looked at the psychotic smile on the good doctor's face and fought away the gnawing in my gut. Every conversation with Mori is a mind game, emotions would only get in the way here. They'd make me lose this round, something I can't afford to do.

"Dangerous," I responded curtly. It was the way that I've always spoken to the man, informal and rude, changing it up now would only be giving away how nervous I really was. "You know, the opposite of what you said it would be. But we found the truth in the end, so that's that I guess." I shrugged nonchalantly.

"'That's that'?" Mori laughed hauntingly. I watched as the man glanced around like a parent who's lost his child at the store. "Where's the culprit? Where's your partner, Osamu?"

I hated the way that the name that I'd chosen for myself sounded coming from him. It was sickening enough to make me want to change my name again.

I watched the way that he twirled the scalpel, faster and faster with each passing second.

Fuck, that'd hurt the get hit with.

The blade is thin yet sharp enough to kill, something that Mori has proven all too well on his own.

Looking the man in the eyes, I decided against trying to lie or sugarcoat the situation at hand. It wouldn't do me any good in the end. "Randou's dead; Chuuya went home," I told him in a bored voice. I stepped forward, going around the ability that was still drawing on the floor, and stepped up to the doctor's desk. I pulled out the set of instructions for the black explosion from my pocket and placed it on the desk. "Randou regained some of his memories recently and used his ability to reanimate the old boss's corpse to spread false rumors," I explained before moving backwards, stopping between Mori and Elise.

"And the King of the Sheep?"

I grinned, remembering the way that the gravity manipulator reacted each time that someone called him that.

Maybe I should have chased him down, just to see the two of them fight it out without hostages on the line.

"He didn't seem to believe that you'd let him leave again if he came back with me."

I watched the way that Mori laughed, his head hung low as his hair fell into his eyes. It was a deep laugh that shook the man's entire body. "Smart boy," he said, speaking almost too softly for me to hear. When he looked back up at me, his eyes were all but glowing in the dim light. "It's too bad for you that you weren't smart enough to follow his lead."

What?

My entire body went cold at the words, but like most things these days, I ignored the feeling.

It was my turn to laugh. "I did what I was supposed to; I found the person behind the rumors and even worked well with the insufferable punk. I don't understand the issue."

But I did. I could tell where this conversation was going, I just didn't want to believe that the man before me could be so irrational as to think the way that he seemed to be thinking. It's not like I set out to kill the man, or hand the chance to bring him in. The bastard was a sub executive for fuck's sake.

"'Did what you were supposed to'?" He asked, leaning forward. Something flew from the man's hand almost too fast for my eyes to track. Even after being away from the gods for over a year, some of my senses were still better than most mortals. It was something that I've worked with and trained since losing vision in my right eye. That was the only reason that I could dodge to the side with enough time to avoid the small blade flying at my arm. "Good dodging, it would be a shame to get even more blood on your clothes... You we're supposed to find and report the culprit, not impart your vigilante justice upon them. Now I've lost a sub-executive and a new subordinate to your deplorable judgment."

I clicked my young loudly at the already angry man. "Chuuya was the one to kill him, not me. And you'll get him in a month anyways, so, again, I don't see what the problem is."

The boss smiled an inhuman smile. "Do you know how hard I could work someone of his caliber in a month?" He smirked.

No, but I'm sure I will...

"You truly do disappoint me with your insolence, Osamu," Mori said. I rolled my eyes.

Tell me something that I haven't heard from the six schools I got kicked out of before coming here.

I watched, my eyes tracking the man as he stood up slowly from his desk and walked leisurely to where I was close to the center of the room. He didn't stop until he was a hair's breadth away from me. I could smell the cologne that he used and the scent chemicals below it. He was too close.

The sound of his voice and the look in his eyes was sickening enough to make me want to flinch back from the deranged lunatic, but I didn't. If I acted upon that instinct, it would be worse for me in the end. Besides, my family is worse than anything a mere mortal could dream to be. Mori isn't shit compared to the wrath of an Olympian god.

"I'm sad, any right hand of mine shouldn't make such rookie mistakes like this." He paused, the dangerous gleam in his eyes sharpening more than I'd seen it since that night last year. "You took something from me, the chance to publicly execute the traitor, and make an example out of him. It's only fair that I take something irreplaceable from you as well."

What is there to take?

Everything that I owned could be replaced, even the sketch book hidden away in one of my desk drawers would be an acceptable loss. There wasn't anything 'irreplaceable' for him to take from me. I had nothing to lose anymore.

"What about the drug that you promised as payment for when I finished the job?" I asked. I figured that Mori would show his hand sooner or later, all I had to do was wait him out on that front. Even though I may be giving living a shot for now, having a back up plan for when things undoubtedly went downhill and got boring again would be nice.

The being pretending to be a man laughed soulessly. "Consider that your payment for making me wait on my newest subordinate."

I couldn't help but shake my head at the senile old man. He's acting as if I should've been able to pull Chuuya away from the Sheep somehow. That I could've stolen him away from the people that he's been with and been loyal to for years.

Idiot. I'm nothing to that boy.

"You knew," Mori continued, ignoring my earlier response, "what I was doing to bring him in. Spreading rumors throughout Yokohama's gangs is not an easy thing, my dear protege. It's a fair payment for making me wait."

I wanted to scoff at the man but didn't get the chance. Suddenly, a harsh hand gripped my chin, forcing me to look the owner in the eyes. "Now," Mori said, his voice dangerously low, revealing some of the hidden anger that he'd been restraining since I walked into the room, "be a good boy and stay quiet."

Lips crashed harshly into mine. I tried to pull away, to look for something or someone to help, but I was weaker than the monster before me. The only weapon that I have would've just pass harmlessly through the soulless creature that someone messed up in classifying as human. No one was in the room to help either, not even the blonde ability that hates her master enough to help.

That was the day that any humanity left in me died.

—-

My driver picked me up outside of the mafia building sometime later, a worried look on his normally stoic face. The man didn't say anything, he never does, but when he looked me up and down, I could tell that he knew.

There was pity in his eyes, an useless emotion for someone in the mafia to feel.

We didn't speak during the ride to the junkyard, not until we parked outside the gate. He didn't rush to open the door like he normally does, instead he just sat there.

"Do you..." he started, speaking for the first time in the year that I've known him, "Do you need help getting inside?"

I considered just ignoring him, but decided to answer in the end:

"You shouldn't waste your kindness on beings like me, sir. Reserve it for the ones that can afford to be called human."

The car door closed behind me as I limped away.

—-

I arranged a meeting with a certain Port Mafia executive at a small tea shop well out of the way of the mafia and gang territories. It was a hassle to get there, the drive was too long and tedious to go regularly. But the annoyance was worth it for a safe meeting place without outside influence or spies listing in.

I walked into the shop almost a minute before the agreed upon time, ignoring the lingering pain coursing through my body. The day in the office was two days ago now, I haven't seen him or been into work since.

He really did manage to take something that couldn't be replaced after all...

"You know," a voice called out impaintly when I sat down across from them, "it's rude to leave your guest waiting for you to show up, when you're the one that arranged the meeting."

Kouyou. A mafia executive and gifted killer. Ability: Golden Demon.

Her hair was done up in its normal convent style, up and out of the way while still remaining in as much of a traditional style as her classic Japanese clothing.

"Surely Mori must have at least taught you this much, kid."

My body jerked hearing the name, flinching away from the woman across from me. It's a problem I'll have to fix before Chuuya comes to the mafia in about a month. Not that the red head boy would care, but it would be a hassle if he got bored and decided to pry into things he shouldn't.

"I'd say sorry, but I'm not," I told her bluntly. "I need a few favors from you."

I watched as the woman raised her hand delicately to her lips, the clothing covering close to half of her face. Her body shook lightly in what I assume to be a soundless laugh.

"Such forwardness for someone so rude." She leaned forward, lowering her arm swiftly and surely like she was taking out a target. The woman's eyes seemed to shine with a sudden interest. "Alright," she decided, "I'll bite. What is it that you need from me, right hand, that you couldn't possibly get from the dear boss?"

"Protection from the boss," I said plainly.

The executive's eyes widened in a shocked expression, her eyebrows rising high enough that I couldn't help but wonder if they would fly off her face all together. Kouyou seemed to school her expression into something more closely resembling amusement before responding with a simple: "Oh?"

"Not for me," I added, watching the woman raise her eyebrow slightly.

Our tea came, it was brought by a young waitress not much older than myself. The steam floated into the air as the girl stood there awkwardly. She seemed to be debating whether or not she would do something. Really it was quite annoying. In the end, the girl stretched out her hand towards me, most likely about to lean down and whisper some annoying thing into my ear. It's happened before, the women and some of the men in the city like to be on good terms with the people that they were able to identify as mafiosos. Normally, I would just slap the hand away when it came too close, but I flinched away from the girl before she could get that close.

When the sound of footsteps finally faded away, I glanced up at the woman sitting across from me. I saw a new sense of understanding in the ability user's eyes.

"Are you sure about that?" Kouyou asked, her voice notably softer than before.

I rolled my eyes at the adult, though I'm not quite sure how well it came out since you could only see the one eye. "There's going to be a punk my age coming to the mafia in about a month," I told her, pushing the tea away from me. "I want you to take him in under your guidance."

The executive could read between the lines easily enough, keeping children away from the mafia boss was the main objective here. The woman agreed without any complaints. "You said a few favors, what are the others?"

"I want you to do the same and try to get the other kids that are sure to come into the mafia sooner or later. Someone like... him... shouldn't be allowed around kids."

Kouyou agreed easily again, seeming to like the idea of the boss having more kids around him about as much as I did. "Let me ask you something then."

I looked at her, I could guess what it is that the ability user wanted to know. "Shoot."

"Why are you doing this?"

I turned away from her, looking out the window at the dark streets, at all the innocent people on them. "I'm a being born with only half a soul, created for the purpose of killing. It doesn't do one good to neglect their nature. I figured I might as well do one last thing before I give in so completely."

All demigods are good for is killing monsters, but what else is there to do when there are no more monsters to kill.

"Hmm... You're right, it dosen't do anyone good to try to live in the light when you can only bloom in the dark," she smiled cruelly at me, understandingly. "Anything else?"

I looked the woman clearly in the eyes, staring into her with as much honesty as I could muster. "I want you to teach me how to fight with a sword."

Riptide... it couldn't help me the other night, but on the small chance that I have to return to New York if I make it to see sixteen... I don't want to feel that hopeless against a Titan of all beings. Other than that, I couldn't help but want to feel a sense of control. To finally make a choice that's purely mine without outside manipulation. This... it's not much but at the end of the day it's still my choice. No gods, no titans, no bosses, just me.

"Have you ever even held a sword before... Dazai?" She asked. I noticed the switch in the way she called me, but like with most things, I chose not to call attention to it.

I could understand where she was coming from. Over the past year and a half since I left camp, I lost all of the muscle that younger me had somehow managed to build up at camp. I looked like I probably couldn't lift a sword without falling over. A fair assumption to make I suppose.

"A while ago," I told her honestly, "before I came to the mafia."

She laughed danity before we worked out a decent time for both of us to meet.

A successful day... too bad it couldn't just end there.

Chapter Text

I watched as Kouyou's car disappeared down the street, melting into traffic, while waiting for my own. When he finally arrived, the driver hopped out of the car as fast as normal, however there was the stink of panic surrounding him. It only got stronger the closer that I got to the man. I got in the car and wait for him to sit down in the driver's seat again and buckle up before asking the obvious question:

"What the hell is wrong with you?"

I didn't need a distracted driver taking me home. While dying from a car crash sounds nice in theory, the actuality is quiet painful if I remember correctly, and obviously not as fatal as one would think.

The driver froze on the spot, but began to stutter annoyingly once he started to regain his senses.

"Spit it out," I growled.

"The boss has given me orders to bring you back to headquarters, and to tell you to report to the basement."

"...Ah, I see."

The 'basement' is where we keep prisoners to interrogate and torture them down there. It's the real reason that the Port Mafia building had so many stars that you have to go up to in order to reach the lobby. There's at least two layers of soundproofing between the basement ceiling and lobby floor so that no outsiders can hear the screams.

He probably thinks that I'm about to be tortured by one of our inquisitors... Too bad, the bastards already done his mental scarring for the week. As the boss once said, 'you don't always have to engrave a lesson into someone's skin for them to remember it.'

"Let's go then."

—-

I walked down the basement stairs slowly, too slow in fact, but it hurt too much to move the way that I'm used to. There was a cold looking man standing at the bottom of the stairs, impatiently waiting on me to finally make it to him. His face looked like someone had carved it out of the side of a glacier with the amount of the warmth that it held. A trait fitting of a torturer I suppose.

I could tell that he didn't want to waste his time on such a pointless endeavor as teaching me how to torture and interrogate people.

Good thing I'm a fast learner.

The man jerked his head, beckoning me to follow him as he strode down the dimly lit hall, deeper into the endless darkness. There was no point in avoiding the inevitable, so I did as told and followed the man.

We went down a set of stone stairs, down into the older part of the building, stopping outside of a cell door a few doors down from the entrance. The interrogator turned and looked at me, looking me in the eye for the first time since I got here.

"I don't care who you are, or why the boss himself assigned me to do this, but I'm supposed to teach you how to extract information, so either learn through practice like this, or being practiced on," the man growled. I thought about a snarky reply I could give the man, but fought back the urge.

Torture is a useful skill after all.

"Right."

He nodded, pleased with my easy compliance. "I want to see what you know first, so they'll be your test subjects for today," he said, pointing through the one way glass in the door. There were five men in there, each of them either roaming the small room or sitting down and staring at nothing.

"Here." He handed me a small dagger not much shorter than the one Annabeth has.

I took it, experimentally twirling the blade in my hands. It felt... nice. It wasn't Riptide, but it was a feeling that I didn't hate. The interrogator had a weird look in his eyes when he looked at me doing this, it was as if he was reappraising my worth.

"What information do you need?" I asked, turning my attention back to the five, studying them while tucking the blade away.

The man clicked his tongue, annoyed at my useless question. "We already got everything out of them that we need. Like I said, they're your test."

Cause as much damage as possible, got it.

I asked one last question before going inside:

"Do you have any handcuffs?"

—-

Third person POV

The door slammed open as a boy no older than fifteen was shoved harshly inside the room, falling onto his side with a loud smacking noise. The men in the cell began to smile cruelly to themselves, something that they were sure that the boy on the ground didn't know they were doing.

All of them had one thought on their minds:

This is going to be fun.

"Here, let me help you up," one of the men sneered, going to the boy and pulling harshly on his arm. It'd been a long time since he had any entertainment.

"Looks like we have a brand new plaything," one of the other men added, smiling like the Cheshire cat. He walked up along his friend, enjoying the way that the boy flinched away when he dragged the back of his hand along the boy's cheek.

The boy tried to pull away from the two of them, that was when the five prisoners heard the clinking of metal on metal. The boy was in handcuffs, something none of them had to deal with. Something that made him much easier prey.

"If this is a prize for talking, then I think we should have caved in earlier," a third man said, all but licking his lips as he joined the other two.

The boy shook in the man's grasp, seemingly too scared to move a muscle. This made the men in the room laugh.

"He can be our little freak," the fourth man said, joining the growing circle around the boy.

The first man let the boy go, knowing that he had nowhere to go. Not that there was much space in the first place, the cell was just bigger than a large bathtub.

"Freak...?" The boy whispered brokenly as he finally looked up at the men surrounding him. "I-I can be your freak show, just don't hurt m-me," the boy pleaded, his voice shaking with fear.

The men in the circle all smiled like a four headed demon.

"I like this one," the third man said.

The boy looked at him, the fear in his eyes overwhelming, but the boy still stepped towards the third man when he called him over. The boy stopped just a step or two away from the man, looking away once again.

The man opened his mouth to say something to the teen, but the sound of metal was heard instead. The noise was loud enough to draw everyone's attention away from the boy to the object laying at the boy's feet: the handcuffs.

Using this moment, the boy moved like a blur, pulling out a small blade out of nowhere and stabbing it into the man's chest in the same move. The dagger was angled carefully, piercing the heart. The man looked into the boy's eyes as he went into shock, but there was only one that he could see, but there was nothing in the eye as the teen twisted and pulled out the dagger, watching the man crumple to the ground.

"Creep," the boy cursed, all hints of fear and any other emotion gone from his voice.

Two of the other men in the circle stumbled back, away from the boy with blood dripping from his hands. The logical part of their brains told them that he was just an underweight teen with a knife, but when they looked at him, all they could see was a monster pretending to be a boy.

The other man in the circle, the one that first grabbed the boy, surged towards the teen without fear. The boy had killed his friend, the least he could do was kill the small bastard.

What the man didn't know was that he was up against a boy that'd been taught to kill since he was twelve, a boy that hates pain and will do anything to avoid it.

The man raised his fist, pulling it back as far as he could in the tight space that he was given, and swung at the slender teen. He was ready, his weight distributed in a way that would allow him to dodge to either side, following the direction that the boy dodges to. However, the boy didn't move, he stayed rooted where he was, only raising his hand as if to block the man.

The man continued forward, not caring if the boy was suddenly acting cowardly. He didn't notice the way the boy moved just slightly to the side so that the fist would go over his shoulder, or the way the boy flicked his wrist as he got closer. He didn't notice any of this and that was the reason that he ended up with a knife through his neck, drowning in his own blood.

One of the other two remaining from the circle lunged at the boy, trying to take him by surprise like he took them, but the teen only sidestepped the man. He let the man trip over the bodies behind him, even went as far as to help the man down by grabbing his head and knocking it into the wall.

The last of the four men that made the circle saw the boy's back turned to him and tried to do what his friend had failed to and surprise the slender teen. He latched himself onto the boy's back, weighing the malnourished teen down. But the boy had fought creatures bigger and stronger than the man latching himself to the teen's back.

The boy let them fall to the ground, using the momentum to roll out of the man's grasp. There was a sickening crack as the man's head hit the ground. The boy looked at the man, noticing the way that his eyes were still moving and the way he seemed to be attempting to stand. The boy surged forward and grasped the man's face, lifting it and bashing the man's head into the ground until he stopped moving.

The teen leaned over, grabbing the dagger that had fallen in the struggle, slamming it into the soft spot where the head connects to the neck, killing the man that had been knocked out earlier.

There was blood all over the boy when he stood up and looked at the fifth man in the room, the only one that hadn't moved or said a word the entire time that he'd been there. He knew what the man was going to say before he even spoke.

"What are you, some kind of demon?"

The boy wiped away the blood that was on his lips with the back of his hand while stepping over the bodies around him. "Do you really have the right to call me that when you just stood there this whole time, watching them die?"

There was an inhuman smile on the boy's face, it was what convinced the man that the being before him wasn't human. There was no way that a human could look like that, not while still being able to call themselves human.

"You little freak," the man growled, stepping towards the boy.

The boy only smiled at the man's show of anger. "Now now, you've gotta come up with something better than that, I've been called worse by seventh graders."

The man watched as the boy seemed to kick his feet uselessly, but he didn't notice the hand cuffs that flew into them, not until they were on the man's wrists.

"I think I'm going to have some fun with this," the boy said, putting a finger under the man's chin. "You're my test subject after all."

Outside the room, a man was watching this all through the one way glass. Watching the boy that he had dismissed as useless tear through the five men all taller than him and each easily double the boy's weight.

It was beautiful destruction, but what was better was what came after.

The boy strung the handcuffed man up on one of the hooks that he found nailed into the wall. The man fought against him, but a dagger pressed deeply into his throat was enough to keep him docile. The interrogator outside the room watched as the boy sliced away at the older man. The boy handled the blade with practiced hands, knowing just where and how deep to slice so as to not kill the victim. The interrogator's eyes fell on the bandages lining the boy's body, knowing the reason for this level of knowledge.

The boy smiled cruelly at the man hanging in front of him. "You called me a demon... I think I like that title, mind if I use it?"

The boy didn't wait for a response as he moved to the man's chest and began carving through the man's screaming.

D

The man let out a blood curdling scream as the boy started carving the letter into the man's chest.

E

The interrogator smiled, enjoying the efficiency of the slender teen that he's been given the responsibility of teaching.

M

The boy laughed like a man possessed by something sinister.

O

The man on the wall cried and began begging for it all to stop, going as far as to give up information that he and his followers had refused to give up before.

N

The teen dropped his hand, stepping back to admire his handy work. In the boy's mind, the person on the wall was a very different man. The boy grinned as he slit the man's throat, enjoying the thought of watching the other man's death.

The boy stood in the room, the only living being left in a room of corpses. There was blood covering the boy's clothes and skin. It was the same blood that covered the dark stone walls, floor and ceiling of the small room. He looked like a monster, something less than human. If you were to cut the boy's skin, one couldn't help but wonder if he would bleed black. The boy resembled nothing of the one that'd been brought into the mafia building last year, nothing of the boy that left camp in the middle of the night.

He left the room before the bodies were even cold.

The interrogator smiled proudly at his newest student, a boy with much more potential for their art than he originally thought possible. A prodigy.

A demon prodigy.

"Come on, we'll get some fresh clothes," the interrogator said, leading the boy back down the hall.

Chapter Text

The Arahabaki incident, as people tended to call the series of appearances of the old boss, was treated as a crime committed by Randou alone. After it was announced by the doctor to everyone else in the mafia that Randou was a traitor, the forginer's house was burned to the ground, all of his possessions thrown into the ocean. It's the common producer of our organization, a way for the traitor's family to be punished as well through their actions. Though I suppose it was a little lost on Randou, since the spy had no family. The boss let his body stay where Chuuya and I left it for about a week before having the man buried in a rural public cemetery on a small cliff that overlooks the ocean.

A month had passed since the day that Chuuya and I killed the man. During that month, whispers could be heard on the streets of Yokohama. Strange alliances and back door dealings between the other three organizations that never would have happened before. It felt like the whole city was a balloon filled too much, one wrong move and it was sure to pop.

It was on that day that I was called to the boss's office again for the first time in a month.

I stood outside the door, my hands in the pockets of my pants. In one pocket was Riptide as it always was, and in the other was a switch blade that I'd gotten from Kouyou the day after our meeting. The interrogator taught me how to use it. It was a small weapon, my only real defense against someone stronger than me without the use of an ability, though it was wasted on the underground doctor. I couldn't touch him without being marked a traitor and being brutally killed. While the death part still sounded nice, that was much too gruesome of one... not that the alternative was any better. I just knew that even if I did fight back if he tried something again, he probably wouldn't have me executed, he'd lock me up instead. Then I'd never die.

I nodded to the guards, telling them to open the doors as they stared at me with their pitying looks. The secret of that day was one ingrained in a few minds, not that any of them could do anything with the information.

The doors opened slowly, soundlessly, as I stepped through them. I didn't have to look around to know where the boss was. My eyes fell to the figure standing in front of the large windows spanning the entire length of the large room, from the floor to the ceiling, overlooking the city. The view was pretty as I walked closer to the figure. It was a sight that I wouldn't mind being my last.

I stopped an arm's length away from the figure and stared out the window as well, waiting for the other to speak.

"Lovely to see you again, Dazai," the boss said.

The man turned to me, away from the window. I followed his lead, my gaze falling onto him once more. The sight was sickening. The monster before me was smiling with eyes much too cruel to be those of a human. In moments like this, I couldn't help but think about pulling out Riptide and seeing whether or not the blade would really pass harmlessly through the creature before me.

"... Not going to speak? That saddens me," the man said, his hand clutching the place where his heart should be under his white coat. "I have a job for you."

I didn't have to think about it to know what it was. "Chuuya."

The monster's smile deepened further. "Correct, always so smart," he complimented. It was similar to the way that he'd spoken to me when he first found me, back before I knew just how dangerous of a weapon my mind could be. Thin flattery wasn't going to work on me anymore. "There's a battalion of soldiers that should be gathering as we speak in the conference room on the floor below us. They're yours to command now. They're called the Black Lizards. Think of them as a present, something nice for finally joining the mafia."

"... I take it this isn't a one time thing?" The man's wording was strange. It almost seemed like...

"Correct again," the monster said sweetly. "You'll be leading them from now on. They handle the mafia's most unsavory task. Our most elite team. They'll be your job now, the gem trade I'll give to Nakahara once he joins us. With all of the plans you've set, not even a kindergarten could run that thing to the ground. You don't mind giving away your old job to your new partner, do you?"

The monster was looking at me with such an innocent expression that one could almost be tricked into thinking he was actually the good doctor act that he pretended to be. I knew better, I've always known better than to believe that act.

"Of course not," I told him emotionlessly. "It became boring a year ago."

It wasn't a lie. The job was much too monotonous for me to stay interested in it. Though that didn't mean that I wanted to deal with leading more people. I couldn't help but sigh tiredly at the thought.

"GSS and the Sheep have formed an alliance," he informed me. Useless information that we both know I already knew having been keeping tags on the Sheep this past month. "Wipe them out, but leave me a few sheep. We need something to keep the little wolf in check."

I nodded, turning to leave, fighting away every instinct in my body telling me to run from the room. Maybe I should have given in because a hand grabbed onto my shoulder, a body pressing itself into the back of mine before I could get away. Stars started to flutter across my vision as the memories of that night resurfaced, vile little memories that haunted me even at night. I controlled my heart rate, something that we'd learned I could do during one of the doctors endless tests, not letting anymore weakness show than I had to.

"You'll do the job right, Osamu? You know what will happen if you mess up again," he whispered, his voice floating into my ear as the hand not on my shoulder trailed down to my hip.

I couldn't even force my body to move, not to get away or to grab the blade in my pocket. I was frozen like one of Medusa's statues, too consumed with instinctual fear to be able to function logically. All I could do was nod and fight back the gasp as his hands dug harshly into my skin. Into the wounds that I put there after the last time that he touched me, carving away the feeling of his hands on me. Not that the feeling ever truly went away.

"Good." He shoved me away. I could feel his eyes on me as I walked to the door.

How could you possibly be so weak?

You're a demigod and yet you're acting like some stupid mortal?

It's like you want to be hurt.

I shoved away the voices in my head. They'd been there, tearing away at my mind as I tore my body to shreds. Appearing not long after the day I went to meet Kouyou. They only went away when I slept, but even then I wasn't free as dreams came to haunt me every night.

I guess it's only a fair punishment for a killer, a monster worse than most of the ones I killed during my time with camp. I'm sure if this hadn't happened, I'd have nightmares of the people I killed...

I shook my head, getting off the elevator on the floor below the boss's office. Such thoughts wouldn't help right now. I walked down the hall, glancing through the small windows in the door of each room, looking for the one filled with killers, a cruel smile forming when I found it.

There were at least twenty soldiers, each with their own weapons at their sides or on their bodies. All of them except for one man were dressed identically in black suits and black sunglasses, it was their uniform I suppose. Each looked expressionless, emotionless when I stepped through the door. They were all cold and unfeeling, knowing nothing of compassion.

Perfect for the mafia.

"Dazai," a man said as a greeting, bowing his head slightly. He was the one person other than me not dressed exactly as the others.

"Hirostu." I turned away from the old man and looked at the rest of the men in the room. "We're going to be taking out GSS and the Sheep today," I told the men. They all stared straight ahead like trained soldiers. "Kill the GSS members only, leave the children. The boss wants them left alive as leverage." I fixed the men with a cold glare. "If even a single one of them dies, I will dismember the accusing party slowly and thoroughly while keeping them alive for as long as possible. Understood?"

The soldiers all nodded as one. I could tell by looking at them that they'd listen easily to me, even if only for today. Men like them only understand power. Those who have it and those who don't. They only follow those who have it. I walked in and they just saw me as a child, that should've been fixed with the very real treat I just gave.

"Dismissed. Go down to the vans, we leave as soon as everyone is there."

The old man and I watched as they filled out of the room, one after another.

"Hirostu," I said once the last soldier was out of the room and down the hall. "Call for a medic and have them meet them at the vans with their gear." The chances of us finding an unhurt Chuuya were too low for my liking.

The man nodded. "Should I go down with them?"

I grinned at the understanding man. "No, Chuuya is going to be there, and even hurt he's liable to put up a fight like before if angry enough."

The old man only nodded.

"Whatever you say, Mr. Handler."

I called my driver on the way down in the elevator, having him meet us where the vans were parked. I gave him the andress and the name of the place where we will be going. He gave me a questioning look, but knew better than to voice it as we began to drive, the vans following close behind us.

—-

The strong smell of the ocean floated into my nose when I got out of the car. I looked to the driver, shaking my head no when he tried to get out of the car as well. It was probably his first time coming and most likely wanted to see the ocean. While normally I would allow it since most mafia shootouts and fights are done indoors where civilians can't see, I couldn't promise that man's safety this time since it seemed like the Sheep were planning to ambush Chuuya at the cemetery itself, which is right above the sea.

The others filled out of the vans parked around us. We were just outside of the treeline, parked at the short edge of the woods to the small graveyard. A thick sea breeze blew through the air, getting stronger the closer we got to the shoreline. A small shudder shook my body as we excited the trees, stopping at a boulder amongst the cliffs and tall rocks that'd been worn down from the sea and the wind day after day. I've been close to the harbor for almost a year and a half now, but never close enough to touch the sea itself. Being this close to it, even without the gods influence, it brought a small rush of power.

I climbed on top of the boulder, having the men stand behind me. If I was right when I saw Chuuya again, it would be down here, if not, it's still a decent place to hide while waiting for the ambush to begin.

"Medic," I called out quietly, just loud enough to be heard by our group but not anyone nearby. The twenty year old in question came up to my side, standing next to where I was crouched on the boulder. "You are to only help our people and a red headed boy in a biker jacket. Understood?"

The medic in question nodded violently, fear all but oozing from his eyes. I dismissed him with a bored wave of my hand and looked up to the abandoned graveyard and the small figure sitting on top of the gravestone closest to the edge.

Chuuya.

It had to be. No else would sit like that on a gravestone of all things.

I watched the small, distant figure for a few moments. He seemed to be talking to himself, or the Randou who's grave he was sitting on, either way, we were too far away to hear what he was saying. I watched the boy twist around and kick off of the gravestone gracefully, he started walking away from the cemetery, and out of my line of vision. I didn't make a move to go after him, he would come to me soon enough.

Off on the other side of the sea, I could see all of the Yokohama district. It was a pretty sight I suppose, enough to keep my attention while I waited for the chaos to ensue.

There was a loud thudding noise from above us that sounded like someone's body crashing to the earth. It was followed by an obnoxious voice, one full of supposed righteousness. Though I couldn't understand the words spoken, I recognized the voice well enough.

Shirase, the silver haired sheep from the arcade.

The clicking of guns echoed through the cliff moments after an angered scream.

"GSS is on sight," I told them. The Sheep didn't have that kind of weaponry, it's why they had to team up with GSS to take Chibi down.

Angry screams floated back and forth until a rumbling shook the earth as a chunk of the ground began to crumble, a dark blur falling through the cliff to the ground beneath. Gunshots echoed through the air, tens of them from at least six shooters. But their target was already gone.

"He threw himself off the cliff!" An angry voice screamed out, Shirase, who seemed to have made himself the new leader I suppose. "The poison might've weakened him, but he ain't gonna die from a fall like that! Hurry! Finish the job!"

Poison...

I thought they might try something like this... how else do you weaken someone like him who's ability made it to where he can only be injured if he was taken by surprise.

I watched Chuuya pull the blade out of his side with pain lacing his features. Even injured and bleeding he was still beautiful... I shoved that beauty away.

... I don't know if I'll allow someone to touch me that way now that what's happened in the office occurred. I don't think I'd ever want anyone to touch me again at all.

Fighting was one thing, it forced you to be put into a situation where someone can and will touch you. But at least then it's to kill you, they don't plan on attacking you in such a cruel way and leaving you alive.

Most of these thoughts and emotions were mute within me, even as I thought about them, they held little power in many ways. There are two types of people when faced with the cruelty of the world: those that continue to fight, that stay true to themselves and are rebellious to the cruelty of the world, and those that give in and give up to survive.

I may want to die, but I hate pain. Being rebellious in a world like this was like asking for your soul to be tortured... that's why it's better to not acknowledge that you have a soul at all.

Chuuya threw the blade away from him, to the ground close to where we were waiting. It was a switchblade, a very familiar one...

Even still with everything in me feeling dead already, a Corpse carrying the broken remnants of a soul, I couldn't seem to stop the string of emotions associated with the smaller teen. I couldn't stop the small wave of anger that threatened to make itself known the longer I looked at my dog's condition.

"Hey, Chuuya," I called out, making mine and everyone else's prescience known. "Looks like you're having a rough day. Need a hand?"

The boy looked at me with an unfocused gaze, everything about him slowed from the poison that the silver bastard used.

Nothing too deadly... maybe rat poison? Should account for the way he seems to be having less movement by the moment. And it's cheap and common enough that a bastard like Shirase could get his hands on it.

"Dazai...?" He asked, his voice the most vacant and broken I'd ever heard it. "What are you... doing here...?"

Definitely rat poison.

"You wanna join the festivities and kill me too?" The boy on the ground asked tiredly.

It's like he's forgetting that he's the one that promised to kill me.

"Work," I told him emotionlessly. "When I told Mori I was going to join the mafia, he jumped for joy and said he was going to give me something nice. 'Something nice' being putting me in charge of a bunch of soldiers and a new job I was forced to do."

I almost gagged on the name as I forced it from my lips, but I couldn't let the other boy know that there was a weakness that he could exploit if he tried hard enough. The story I gave him was one that the underground doctor fed to me over the phone on the way here.

"The Sheep and GSS formed an alliance, so the boss wants to eliminate them before they get too coordinated... Which is what brings me here," I explained to the boy still sitting on the ground. "Anyways, it shouldn't be a difficult first job. If I do it right, it should be over before lunch."

Not that I'll be eating lunch, my eating habits have never been the best between living with Gabe, on the streets, and in a storage container. Now I couldn't even really keep down what canned or dry food I managed to force myself to eat when I got 'home'.

I watched the boy hold his still steadily bleeding wound while panting heavily. The boy glared at me tiredly. "What are... you after...?" he eyed me sharply. "I know you well enough to know that you're obviously running some type of scheme. Finding you here... today of all days... definitely wasn't a coincidence." He narrowed his eyes before somehow speaking in an even more suspicious voice than before, "you trying to save me... so that I'll owe you?"

"Hmm, saving you is just an unfortunate side effect I suppose. Really we just came here to slaughter our enemies, every last one of them."

I spoke cruelly, observing Chuuya's reaction. I needed to speak cruelly for the message to get through, for the fear to get to someone like him. He needs to think that he has no other options but the one I'm giving him.

"Every last one...?" Chuuya asked as he froze. "You mean... all the Sheep, too?"

I watched the boy, observing him as I forced a smirk onto my face. I let several moments pass before I finally replied:

"Yep," I told him, popping the p. "That's our policy. They're a dangerous organization, after all. But, well... let's say a mafia associate- someone with inside information on the enemy- was willing to tell us how to weaken the enemy without killing them, then I'd consider revising our policy."

"Help from... an associate...?" Chuuya asked, his eyes narrowing angrily.

"Of course. We can't trust tips from the enemy, but the word of one of our own could definitely be trusted. That's how organizations work after all, right?" I asked, laying it on thick.

The red headed boy groaned angrily. "So you want to make a deal, huh? You really are the devil."

I couldn't help but smirk at the small teen. "But don't forget though," I said, dodging the question, "a certain someone lost our little game at the arcade, so if they join the mafia, they're gonna spend the rest of their days working like a dog."

Chuuya's glare deepened as he looked at me, still breathing heavily. "I'll definitely kill you myself one of these days... just don't kill the kids."

I stood up on top of the rock, towering over everyone there for a moment or two. "Very well," I said, turning to face the soldiers behind me. "Just as we discussed earlier, none of the kids are to be harmed. It's time to remind our enemies why they called us the terror of the night."

I smirked to myself. Everything went just as planned.

I looked to the medic hiding at the back of the ground and jerked my head to where Chuuya was still laying. The young man scurried off quickly, taking off the medical bag at his side as he did.

I followed the soldiers to the small path leading back up to the cemetery, if they ran quickly enough we might even make it before the GSS bastards made it too far down that same path. I could hear gunshots as I got closer to catching up with the soldiers, though the noise didn't last long. When I rounded the corner, I could see six bullet ridden bodies laying on the ground, dying the earth a deep red with the final beatings of their hearts. It was a beautiful sight, one that made me both excited and jealous.

This... this is why I joined the mafia, to observe death up close. Though unlike these poor bastards, I already know what comes next.

I glanced around the area, pleased to find that none of our men had been stupid enough as to get themselves killed on my first job with them. Though I was even more pleased to find a streak of silver in the close by woods.

"Leave the children for now, we'll wait for them to all regroup with the rest of their organization before taking them all in one foul swoop," I called out to the men before going after the flash of silver.

While the mafia soldiers did an in debt check of the mountain to find any other GSS soldier that might be waiting to ambush us, I hunted my own prey in the woods, smiling like a demon when I finally found it.

I walked up to the boy slowly, soundlessly, as Shirase leaned against one of the thick trees, his hand clutching his chest as he seemed to be catching his breath. I walked up to the boy casually, my demeanor relaxed with my hands in my pants pockets, everything about it was none threatening. It was calm that when I stopped in front of the boy, I could tell that he forgot for a moment where he was and what he was just doing, because it felt like we were just meeting on a casual spring day.

"Hey man, wh-" the teen looked up at me with a calm gaze that was quickly tainted and destroyed by confusion and fear. The boy that'd forgotten the situation at hand for a moment... I could almost smell the panic on him as he seemed to remember it all. "You're the punk from the arcade... the one that Chuuya was working with..."

I could almost see the memories floating through the boy's brain as I gazed into his eyes. He was remembering the way that I arranged for the hostages to be released, the way that it almost seemed like I was the one in charge.

Manipulation really is more fun than fighting.

By twisting the two teen's brains that day, I was able to set this scene today... Though there were some unforeseen consequences... But that's my fault I suppose, I should've planned better...

I twisted my lips into a smile not fitting for a human being before responding to the boy, towering over him with my hands still in my pockets. "Dazai Osamu, the Port Mafia Boss's right hand."

As much as I didn't like the man attached to the position, it was a title that carried some weight. Why shouldn't I use it now?

"Right... hand...?"

The silver haired boy's eyes shook as he looked at me, he looked like someone that finally relized just how bad he fucked up. For a moment I thought that maybe the boy was smarter than I previously had given him credit for, as he stumbled back, pushing himself farther into the tree. That was before I saw him reach into the pocket that he had his switchblade in last time.

Trying to fight someone when you don't even know they're skills...? How foolish of you.

"Looking for your blade? You left it in Chuuya, rember?" I sneered as I watched the boy's hand dig father down into the pocket, each move painted with desperation.

However, contrary to the boy's movements, when Shirase looked back up at me, after he stopped digging through all the pockets in his clothes, his eyes were full of defiance. He was planning on fighting,even without a weapon it seems.

How foolish, fighting without even knowing the other's capabilities.

It was something that I'd done too much on quests, nearly getting myself and others killed in the process. My fight with Ares, the god of war, when I was twelve is a prime example of this. Even before going to camp, I still got the crap beat out of me at school when I bothered to fight back against the bullies.

Though Gabe learned this lesson well enough as well, it was imprinted in stone after all. You don't mess with people without knowing at least a little bit of what they're capable of, for all you know, your wife and step son could murder you one day without a second thought about it.

I couldn't help but sigh deeply at the look in the boy's eyes.

What is it with teenagers and fighting? It's tiring having to deal with them.

I pulled my hand out of my pocket in a swift and clean move, copying some of the mannerisms that Kouyou often used during our training, before flicking my wrist delicately a time or two. It was a swift and graceful move that ended in a dazzling red sight.

Blood dripped from the other boy's side, a twin wound on his and the gravity manipulator's bodies. "I'm sorry," I apologized to the boy, "I didn't have the foursight to think about bringing poison. I'm not omnipotent after all."

I'm the child of a god, but not one with the gift of prophecy. Though, I'd figured that there would be poison involved, if I'd had time to do so, I would've bought some on the way here.

A blade was stuck in Shirase's side, a switchblade with a hand holding it and twisting it in the other's body. I leaned down, digging the blade in as far as I could, and whispered in the crying boy's ear, "You know, you shouldn't damage things that aren't yours." With that, I pulled the blade out of the other's side, wiping the switchblade clean on Shirase's clothing before walking away and leaving him there to slowly crumple to the ground and pull himself back up to run away.

I walked to the mafia soldier that'd been lurking behind us during the whole ordeal, quietly watching but not interfering. He'd let me handle it, but was there on standby it seems, waiting to see if I'd need his help with the annoyance.

"Follow him," I said, not bothering to turn my head to where the soldier was hiding in the trees. There was a startled gasp from the direction of the mafia soldier, but I ignored that too. "If he looks like he's close to death or the wounds have gotten infected, hit him with a tranquilizer dart and take him into the nearest hospital as a John Doe. But only under those two conditions. No Sheep casualties."

What kind of owner would I be if I didn't keep my word?

I walked away, leaving the whole ordeal to my mafia subordinates.

Chapter Text

It'd only been a few days since the mission to get Chuuya, but somehow, it felt like it'd been weeks. The boss has been working me to the bone ever since 'gifting me' the Black Lizards. It was an endless supply of small, quick missions. The missions themselves didn't take long, all of them could be day missions, done before lunch, but they become exhausting when there's two or three each day.

The last mission yesterday didn't end until well into the night. We were supposed to take down a small group of gifted and non-gifted soldiers that were running around attacking different organizations around Yokohama. They'd only managed to hit one of our smaller bases, but that was enough to send out a team. I ended up getting in a fight with one of the gifted soldiers and breaking my left leg in the process. The doctor had put my leg into a boot and is forcing me to use crutches for the next six weeks.

Fine by me.

With my leg in the cast, I was stuck at headquarters, running missions from behind the scenes. To put it simply: manipulate the scenario, play puppet master for six weeks. It's what I'm good at after all. The only horrible thing about the situation was the cast itself. Annoying piece of shit.

The driver dropped me off at the back entrance of the mafia building, it was an area out of sight of most civilians, with a ramp that could be used by hurt and injured mafia members who would end up with similar injuries to mine.

There was an elevator at the end of the hallway that you immediately walked into from outside. It had a fingerprint key lock next to the elevator button, a precautionary measure that the old boss had put in when he started going senile in his old age.

At least it's a decent investment.

The back entrance wasn't as heavily guarded or servailed as the front entrance of the Port Mafia, so the extra measure made a twisted kind of sense.

I was prepared to go to the small, temporary, office that I'd been given on the eighth floor and dig through the material that I'd downloaded on my computer regarding coding. I wanted to add my skill set while I was stuck at a desk all day, but I didn't make it as far as hitting the floor number button before an annoying ding came from my phone.

I flipped the device open with an apprehensive sigh. Only three people texted me these days: Hirostu, Kouyou, and the boss. The twisted feeling in my gut told me just which of the three it was.

Boss Bastard: come to my office. I have a new project for you.

I thought about how easy it would be to just ignore the message and throw myself out of the eighth story window, but I couldn't really do that. I brought Chuuya here, I can't leave him alone after only three days... even if I haven't seen him at all in those days.

The boss bastard talked so much about Chuuya and I becoming proper partners over the past month, and yet he's the one that has been assigning missions to keep us apart.

A final punishment for making him wait I suppose.

I hit the button for the top floor, riding the elevator all the way up to the top floor before walking down the hallway and taking another elevator to the boss's floor. I didn't have to walk far after getting off the elevator, the boss was waiting outside his office, his black coat and red scarf on today. That meant that he was acting as boss right now, and not a benign doctor. It was a sight that I was used to after all this time, it wasn't what made me pause. What made me stop just after getting out of the elevator was who he was talking to.

Bile rose up in my throat.

... A child. He got his hands on another child...

There was a kid no older than six, dressed in white clothes that could pass as both street and bedtime clothing.

An orphan then...

The kid has two toned hair, one side was a brown color similar to my own dyed color, while the other was a perfect white color. They didn't look at me, too engrossed with the strange doll in their hands, but I could see their eyes. One had a golden star shaped pupil while the other had a golden circle around the pupil itself.

A gifted child... of course.

The mafia isn't a philanthropist organization, this kid has to be useful somehow. Any case that is brought into the building had a purpose in being brought there.

"Ah, Dazai," The boss said, turning to me with a too innocent smile that didn't fit on the bastard's face and his hands behind his back. "Perfect timing, we were just about to head down to the meeting."

We... he's bringing the child with us.

"Sure," I used my crutches to maneuver myself back to face the elevator. Seemed to be all I was doing today was riding elevators.

The two got in behind me. I moved myself to the back corner of the elevator, as far away from the underground doctor as I could get myself, using the guise of needing to lean against the wall for support.

I didn't want to ask the obvious, but after standing in silence for multiple floors, I knew that the boss wouldn't say anything until I asked.

"What's with the kid?" I asked coldly, speaking as if they weren't there. Though they didn't seem to care.

We left the elevator, making our way down a beautifully lit hall. The windows went from the floor to the ceiling, all of them stained glass. It almost felt like we were going to church, a strange feeling for someone who would likely be struck down on the church's steps by multiple gods for just touching the door knob.

"The child has an unknown ability that is highly destructive, but they don't know how to control it, and we don't know the trigger of it either," the doctor explained, letting some intrigue flow into his voice.

I glanced down at the brat as we continued to walk, the loud click of crutches hitting the stone ground at a constant pace. I could tell what the doctor was doing here.

"Which is why I am giving this to you as your next job," the black haired man said.

I wanted to laugh. Only he would think of a child as a job.

"Uh-huh... so this kid is an ability user?" I summarized to myself out loud. I looked down at the small child in front of me. "Hey, kid. Show me your skill," I demanded.

I didn't expect them to actually use their ability, but instead wanted to see the child's reaction. They didn't so much as look at me, not even a glance, as we continued down the hall. They just stared straight ahead, doll in hand.

The boss sighed, clearly annoyed by my demand. "I told you already. This child still cannot use the skill at will. That's why I don't even know exactly what the skill is," he explained.

That's why I'm here, I can turn them off if the skill accidentally activates and gets out of control.

I watched the underground doctor reach forward and the child gently on the head, he looked like a viper waiting to strike. "This little one apparently hurt another child at an associate's hospital, so I decided to take the tyke under my wing. I hear the kid didn't even lift a finger, and yet the other child was severely injured. In any case, I want you to figure out what this skill actually does. Shouldn't be much risk for you, Dazai, since you can always nullify it."

Knew it.

My ability, No Longer Human, was useful for things like this after all. But the ability itself was a double edged sword. While I could nullify all other abilities, I had to rely on myself and my own strength after that point. Unlike most other ability users, mine is a purely defensive ability, I was on my own when it came to offense. Something that wouldn't be a problem if I was still able to control water.

I leaned down on the crutches and looked at the child in their strange eyes, staring them down. Those eyes spoke of something strange laying beneath, an insanity waiting to take over.

"Kyuusaku," the child suddenly yelled cheerfully, causing me to flinch back from the screaming child. They laughed with a sudden glee that wasn't there moments before. "I'm Kyuusaku! Come on, let's pway! Let's pway!"

Pway...? Speech issues then.

The child is young, but the word 'play' is one of the first things that most children learn how to say. This child is not used to being around and talking to other people it seems.

"Yeah, yeah. When you're older," I told the child indifferently.

I don't want to get involved with this child. I don't want to be around them. I don't want to see the moment that the light in those strange eyes goes out. I don't want to be around to see the aftermath of when they eventually disappoint the man walking next to us.

But I don't have any choice. All my choices have been stripped away by that very same man.

I fought down the repulsive feeling in my body before I started to speak. "Hey, Mori. Is this kid a boy or a girl?"

If I was stuck with them, I should at least know this much.

The man all but stopped, seeming to suddenly realize something. "Now that you mention it, I still haven't asked... I suppose I can check their files later."

I nodded slightly before pausing, there were voices at the other end of the hall. Very familiar ones.

Kouyou and Chuuya.

Kouyou looked as she normally did, dressed in a formal kimono. Chuuya, on the other hand, had a completely new look. He was dressed in nice clothes, from the jacket to the dress shirt and pants. For the first time, his hands were not in his pockets, instead there were gloves donning them, I compromise that I'd spoken to Kouyou about before Chuuya got here.

On the boy's head was a hat, one that I couldn't help but want to destroy. It was a black piece that could easily be mistaken as a Randou if not closely looked at. It used to be the possession of the subspace ability user before we killed him. Now, it was a gift from the boss to Chuuya. It was the mark that claimed the red head as one of ours, one of his.

On the boy's neck was something that I was particularly proud of. A black collar that I gave Chuuya when we brought him in after taking care of everything.

—-

The medic approached me as I made my way back to my car. All of the GSS soldiers were dead and the Sheep were scattered, each of them with some type of tracker or tail on them to track their movements from here. It was time to leave.

So what is this guy doing?

The medic stood in front of me, blood staining his clothes as he wrung his hands out of nervousness. I waited a moment, but my annoyance tolerance for the day was already up.

"Speak," I told him harshly, rudely.

The medic flinched at my tone. "Th-her wasn't enough space in the vans, s-so I put the patient in your car, s-sir."

I sighed.

Great.

"Leave."

The medic nodded before all but running away from me.

I went to the car, opening it to find the small teen sprawled all the way across the backseat of my car. He was pale, knocked out from pain and the poison. I sighed heavily before going into the car as well, sitting down in the floor board by the boy's head and nodding to the driver to close the door. He gave me a weird look but didn't say anything about it.

I stayed like that, watching over the other boy's condition as we made our way back to the mafia, not leaving his side even as the mafia grunts carried the boy on a stretcher up to the clinic for better, cleaner treatment.

The boss gave me a knowing look as I walked in with the small group, but I didn't look at the man. I just stuck my hand into my pocket, gripping the switchblade there like a life support.

The grunts left at the boss's dismissal, but I stayed, taking my spot at the stool. I watched as the doctor worked on Chuuya, making sure he didn't try anything. When he was done, I stayed still, watching over the teen until it looked like he was about to wake up, early the next morning.

There was almost no evidence that I was ever there, except for the choker left at Chuuya's side, with a note.

'For my dog.

Welcome to the Port Mafia, 

-Dazai'

—-

"...Ah!!" I screamed out.

"Ahhh! You've got some nerve being here!" The other voice yelled.

Our shouting filled the hallway as Chuuya dashed forward and I maneuvered to meet him halfway. I could see Kouyou standing behind him, watching us in utter astonishment, I could guess that Mori was in a similar state behind me. I could see the two adults and the small child move to where they could see both of us at once.

"What do you think you're doing here with her, Chuuya?" I yelled. "Don't forget, you're my dog!"

"Huh!?!" The other screamed back.

We screamed insults back and forth at each other, an endless trade of barbs that would make any adult watching sigh tiredly while trying to scheme how to keep us apart. But the two adults just watched as we screamed. At least they weren't doing what the kid was doing and moving their head from side to side to look at the person currently yelling.

Chuuya took off his, seemingly wanting to scream at me better than before. I used that moment to look at Kouyou, the woman that'd been escorting Chuuya to the meeting. I nodded slightly to her, a small show of gratitude at her keeping her promise. Despite what I was yelling before, I was pleased that Chuuya made it into Kouyou's hands.

Eventually the adults pulled us apart, using the meeting as an excuse to make us drop it and go inside the room.

—-

Chuuya pov

The boss called me to his office not long after the meeting concluded. I really didn't want to go, the bastard creeps me out more than a doctor should. But, not having much of a choice, I went anyway.

I looked at the two guards standing outside the door. They were both glaring at me with the same harsh gazes that they had the first time that I was brought to this office. I knocked on the door without further acknowledging the two grunts.

"Come in," a distorted voice called through the door.

The guards opened the door for me, still glaring. I wanted to kick them through the wall, but held back. 'Not everything can be solved with violence' that seems to be the lesson that everyone wants to teach me these days. It would look bad if I beat the shit out of them now.

I walked into the extravagant room, walking up to the man sitting in the chair and staring out the large window at the city below. I knelt down, pulling my hat from my head respectfully. "Boss."

"Chuuya," a calm voice came, "stand."

I looked at the man, only to find that he had moved as well, already standing. He walked up to me, stopping an arm's length away. A shiver went up my spine at the slightly cruel smile on the man's face.

"Come with me," he said, walking to the door. "We're going on a little field trip."

I followed behind him without any outward complaining, but all I could think about at the word field trip was the lanky bastard calling me a schoolboy.

Asshole.

"Permission to speak?" I asked, biting back the bitter taste in my mouth at having to ask about things that I used to be able to just do.

"Granted," Mori said, pressing the down button on the elevator.

"Where are we going, boss?"

The man laughed like he'd been expecting this. "We're going to see Dazai, the new Dazai."

I felt my eyebrow arch as a scoffing noise left my mouth before I could stop it. "We just saw the tricky bastard not an hour ago. There wasn't anything 'new' about him."

"We'll see."

... I don't like the sound of that.

'Neither of these bastards are humane,' I decided.

Mori, Dazai, they're the same, both demons living in human skin.

We rode the elevator down to the basement, something that I didn't know that the Port Mafia had until just now. When we left the elevator, everything was dark. Every wall was black, no other light except for the fading light coming from the closing elevator. It felt like it was night here even though it was the middle of the day topside.

Of course a bastard like him would hang out in a place like this.

We were met at the elevator by a pale man in dark clothing that looked like he hadn't seen the sun in years. There was the cruel look of an experienced killer on his face.

...This is where they... we... torture people.

There was no other explanation.

I wanted to bring this place down on everyone in it, but I couldn't. Mori is basically holding the Sheep hostage... he'll kill them all if I try anything.

"Boss," the man greeted, either ignoring or not seeing me. My guess would be the first one. "Come to see how Dazai's doing?"

"Correct," Mori said.

The interrogator waved over his shoulder, motioning for us to flow him deeper into the darkness. "That boy of yours is a prodigy, boss. I can see why you let him stay without joining up for so long."

Let him stay...? Just how long has Dazai been here?

We walked down the hall, the faint sounds of screams slipping through the thick walls and doors. We stopped outside of a door.

"He's in the next room right now," the man said, pointing to the door down from us. "But this is a project of his you might like."

Project? Just what is this bastard doing?

"Ooh," the boss remarked, suddenly sounding intrigued. "Do tell."

"There's this myth from Norse mythology that Dazai told me about. One of the gods' children were fated to die, so the mother went around to every type of rock and plant, creature, everything she could think of, making them all promise to never harm him," he explained.

I stared at the man blankly, already bored with whatever test the waste of good bandages is doing.

And here I thought there might be some action down here.

But when I looked at the boss, he still looked interested so I kept listening.

"She got to everyone, or so she thought. The goddess held a party to celebrate her son's survival, and invited all of the gods. But she forgot one, small plant. Mistletoe. Loki set up a trick and used the plant to kill the child. Loki was locked up in a cave, his two sons' intrals served as his bindings. Venom from a snake was dripped onto the god's face. His wife was put in there with him, she held a bowl over under the snake, trying to catch the toxic, but it would fill and splash, the god still getting burned."

The man pointed to the window with one way glass. There was a man strapped to a table with some type of liquid dripping onto his face. He looked like he was in pain. Like he was crying.

"So what exactly is Dazai doing to him," I asked. While the man obviously looked in pain, there were no signs of injuries on him.

It was Mori's turn to answer. "The brain is a powerful thing, Chuuya. He probably convinced that man that it's snake venom or something similar."

... Wow...

"Who's he with now?" Mori asked, pointing to the room that the man had indicated earlier.

"The leader of that group they took down yesterday," the interrogator told us. "He said something wasn't sitting right with him about how easy it was all cleaned up."

The boss hummed lightly, nodding.

There was a series of banging noises in a pattern from behind the door. The interrogator went to the door and opened it for the person on the other side, temporarily disappearing from view. A moment or two later, two figures appeared from the other side of the closing door.

The interrogator had a notebook in his hands that he didn't have before, while the other figure was using crutches to move around. The boy was covered in blood, though he didn't seem to have any injuries himself. Well... anymore than normal that is.

I watched as the boss stepped forward, closing the space between himself and Dazai, stopping much closer to the other than he did with me earlier.

"What did you find?" The boss asked, staring at Dazai with a look that was similar to the one he had when I met him in the office a month ago.

I watched Dazai look up at Mori with a look that seemed like it should've held defiance, but it seemed like Dazai couldn't manage that much emotion.

"It's not just a small group, it's three. A triumvirate. We took down one third yesterday, but it's not likely that the others will come for retribution anytime soon. The group is low on funding. They were hitting organizations here to grow their weapons supply. The other two branches are in another city and don't have any strong gifted that would end up being a problem for us. All the notes are in the notebook"

The boss smiled benignly before reaching up and patting Dazai on the shoulder. "Good work, Osamu," Mori said. I watched the boy shift seemingly uncomfortably, but didn't think much about it since he's on crutches. "Why don't you go and bond with your new partner now?"

"Right," he said emotionlessly.

I watched Dazai maneuver away from the boss, finally getting a good look at him. His eyes were completely blank and his face devoid of any emotion. There was no light in those eyes. It looked like not even death could make him happy right now. He looked worse than when I first met him, back then he just looked bored with life, now he looks like nothing more than a walking corpse.

Just what the hell happened in a month?

"You coming?" Dazai asked coldly from the elevator.

"Whatever, bastard."

I followed him into the elevator, letting the silence hang.

We went back up to the ground level, without a word. Dazai started moving away once the elevator opened, going in a direction that I don't know where it leads.

"Where are you going, bandages?" I asked, following him.

Dazai turned to look back at me for a second before continuing forward. "They keep alcohol in the kitchen if you're up for that."

For once we had nothing to fight about.

Dazai and I moved to the room that Mori had given me in the building. We sat on the floor in my room with a bottle between us, drinking well into the night. We didn't talk about anything, just drank until whatever we were each running from became a memory.

Chapter Text

Chuuya POV

Smoke filtered through the air as the city buzzed down below, still alive so late into the night. We didn't say anything to each other as Dazai handed me the cigarette that we've been passing back and forth between the two of us. Nights like these were some of the few where we didn't speak to each other. We didn't fight, just stood here, leaning against the railing of the mafia building, each of us slightly seeming to wonder just how we got to this point.

Of course I know just how I got here. The shitty bastard next to me manipulated everyone into believing I was a traitor so they would throw me away.

What stung the most even after the time that had passed wasn't that he did that, knowing more about Dazai it was almost expected that he'd try something like that. No, what hurt the most was that it worked.

I inhaled some of the smoke slowly, trying to drive those thoughts away. I'm already here, stuck. There's no turning back and going home to the Sheep.

There's no Sheep to go home to.

Anger boiled in the pit of my stomach at the thought, at the memories always threatening to resurface no matter how many times I bury them. I always push the thoughts away, letting them build like a pile of complaints, because I know that there's nothing I can do now to change anything. The only way out of the mafia is death. I'm stuck here until then, with him.

However... contrary to what my anger tells me, the mafia has been good to me. There's always enough food in the kitchen and around the base that I can eat my fill without having to feel guilty about taking too much from the kids around me that need it. The boss gave me my own place to live after the first few months that'd I been here. Now there's always a warm house and a bed to return to. There's people here, that while care might be too strong of a word to use, look out for me. People that don't seem to only keep me around because of my ability.

Even the bandage waste...

I passed the cigarette back to the teen in question before my brain went down a dangerous path that should be avoided at all cost. I let my eyes dance over the Yokohama skyline and my mind wander instead.

Dazai and I, we come out here and smoke together, sharing a cigarette or two, never saying anything. It's a silence that starts heavy, burdened by the reasons for one of us seeking the other out and coming up here to be stuck in one another's company even though the thought of doing so on a normal day would make either of us want to throw ourselves off this very rooftop just for fun. The silence becomes lighter as the time passes. When we're both okay, one of us throws the cigarette away and walks inside, the other tailing behind. No words ever spoken.

It's on nights like these when the memories of the people that I've killed, not just in the mafia, but in the Sheep as well, keep me awake at night. Keep me from falling into another dreamless sleep. I can't go to my few friends in the mafia with these troubles. The Flags are seasoned mafia members despite their young age, they would try to help in some way, but something tells me that it would only make me feel worse.

So I go to Dazai instead.

I hunt him down, normally finding him in his office late into the night. I show him the pack of cigarettes in my hand and wait. The sixteen year old, knee deep in paperwork, will put his pen down without a word and follow me to the roof, never asking what's wrong or why.

Dazai would also seek me out on nights like these. He'll show up with cigarettes and a lighter in his fingers. We'll go to the nearest roof if we're not still at the mafia building, and stay there until the ever fading light comes back into his dark eyes. On these nights, the ones that he comes to find me, there would always be a look on his normally expressionless face. It always looked like he was one wrong word or stray thought away from going against what he said that day at the shipyard. Like he's about to give up on giving living a try.

We pass the cigarette back and forth, breathing in the smoke, until I can see some of the light come back into his ever darkening eyes.

But it doesn't always get that far.

A ringing sound filled the air around us, breaking the silence that had previously presided there. It was the bandaged boy's phone. I could see the younger boy tense up next to me as he reached for the offending phone. The tension in his frame was there one second and gone the next, almost unnoticeable, but I still caught it. I've been Dazai's partner for months now, going on missions with him nearly every week. You'd be hard pressed to find someone that knows him better than I do. Though I may not understand him as well as the boss seems to, I know him. Because of this, I didn't miss the way his eyes got darker when he looked at the caller I.D. either.

I watched in anticipation as the bandaged boy threw the almost finished cigarette over the side of the railing, letting the wind catch and carry it before flipping open the phone and putting it up to his ear.

"Boss," the other teen said in lieu of hello, using a voice so emotionless that I couldn't even be called cold. The boy nodded and hummed in response to whatever Mori said on the other side of the line before hanging up and putting the phone back into whichever pocket he pulled it from this time.

"...We have a new job," Dazai said boredly, still not looking at me.

I could feel the cruel and excited smile tugging at my lips before the words even fully registered. "What is it?"

The other teen sighed tiredly before walking away from the railing to the roof access door, me following closely behind him. "We'll find out when we get there."

My body seemingly buzzed in silent excitement. One thing that I loved about the mafia, despite all of its cruelt and many sleepless nights, it was never boring.

It was a place I could finally let loose.

—-

"Boys, it's been so long," the man in the long dark coat and red scarf said in a sickly sweet voice that no one in the room seemed to believe. The man was standing in front of his desk with his arms opened out wide as if he was asking for a hug. "You should both visit more, Elise gets so lonely." He turned to look at the brunette next to me before continuing. "She'd especially love it if you came, Dazai, help her with her art. We both would love it."

Mori.

It was a pleasant greeting, one much too nice to be given by the body of the Port Mafia to people that aren't even at the sub-executive level yet, but it was still the one given by the doctor. I glanced at Dazai to see if he found this odd too, but all I found was a cold, lifeless, trained look on the suicidal maniac's face.

Right... he gets weird around the boss.

A brief memory filtered across my brain. The day the boss brought me down to the torture chambers in the basement of mafia headquarters. The way he proudly showed off the teen's apathetic, unfeeling look after committing such atrocities as if it was the prize he'd been hoping to get for a long time.

It was almost as if he was showing off his new toy, the newest monster that he had created.

I fought back the urge to roll my eyes at such a useless thought. Both of the other men in the room are dangerous, their brains make them so. Neither of them would ever let themselves be so thoroughly manipulated or changed by others.

The doctor frowned almost childishly at our lack of response.

"... Anyways, I've got a job for the two of you," Mori said after a brief moment. "Nothing too hard, just tracking down some missing weapons of ours."

Dazai crossed his arms across his chest in a disbelieving motion at the words 'nothing too hard' as if he didn't quite believe the boss. I didn't question the response, it wasn't really important whether the boss was telling the truth or not, we still had to do the mission either way. I chose to divert my energy to not looking too bored instead. Meetings are not the least bit interesting, I'd much rather jump straight into the action now.

But not everything can be solved with relentless violence. My first case with Dazai taught me that.

"No weapons have gone missing lately," the bastard observed, uncrossing his bandaged arms as he spoke, "are we talking about from the early days then?"

My eyebrow quirked up on its own. "Early days?"

The boss sighed as if the memories of those days tired him still, whether it was real or not, I don't really know. "Yes, back when I first came into the position of the boss of the Port Mafia. Between the change in power and the old boss's destructive orders at the end, the mafia was much weaker in those days. We got hit by a couple of smaller groups, taking out weapons from us so we couldn't fight back when they tried to take territory."

Thought so... Now I see... this is why we have the case.

Of course I knew all about the actions of those smaller groups, having been in one of them myself. Although the Sheep never broke into the mafia directly to take their weapons, we did intercept a few of their shipments here and there.

"If the weapons are from back then, why wait until now to go after them?" I asked, slightly annoyed that we'd have to poke around my old stomping grounds after being forcibly removed from them by some of the very people in this room.

Dazai sighed in a way closely to how Mori did earlier. "You don't sell weapons just after you steal them if you want to survive," he explained, almost like he was speaking to a child. It made me want to bash the arrogant bastard's teeth in. "You wait until the people you took them from have moved on, stopped looking for them, and began to forget about them altogether. It's safer that way. Even then, sometimes you wait longer so you can sell them when they're worth more."

"Like when an organization has risen to power and all of the smaller ones are now trigger happy, squirming in fear, desperately looking for a way to defend themselves," the boss finished. "Very good, Osamu. I see you've taken the information I've taught you to heart."

There they go again... The boss and the bandage waste's little dance. I guess this is what the Port Mafia classifies as a mentor-mentee relationship.

The boss walked closer to the two of us while pulling something out of his pocket. He held out his hand, palm down, waiting for the brown haired boy to hold out his own. When he finally did, the boss put a thick stack of money into the boy's palm. The whole time, the boss was wearing a sick smile that could almost look benevolent to anyone that doesn't know the things that the man has done.

"There you go. I'm sure you know what to do with all this, boys."

We nodded. It really is quite obvious.

"Bribes, got it," I said, ready to be out of this room. The air was becoming heavier by the second, and while I can manipulate gravity, I'm not as skilled at manipulating emotions as the other two beings in this room.

The boss let us go after that, but not before placing his hand on my shoulder and the other on the stuff that comes with the bandages' back. He pressed down on my shoulder with just enough pressure to tell me that this man was t playing the role of the benign doctor right now, but the mafia boss that I met in this office for the first time all those months ago.

"Play nice," he all but growled. The pressure didn't let up until we both told him that we would.

Dazai couldn't seem to get out of the office fast enough, not that I was all that far behind him.

—-

We trudged our way through the slums and back alleys of Yokohama for the rest of the night, effectively finding nothing for our efforts. Of course I already know who to go to. I know it and Dazai does too, but he's not saying it just yet for whatever Dazai reason he has to prolong this mission.

I sighed heavily, fighting the urge to dart my feet like a small child at the end of the day at a theme park as I saw the sun come up, just beginning to light the early morning sky. I would have done it too, but these shoes are too nice to ruin on a whim.

"Can we at least get coffee while you're playing your little mind games, bastard?"

I looked at the other teen. Always being on his blindsided, I can never quite see his face, but I know he must be tired too.

The jerk sleeps less than I do after all...

The boy in question threw his hand to his chest with an overdramatized gasp before speaking in an overly enthusiastic and offended voice. "How rude! I'm not such a bad owner as to not take care of my pet."

I swung my leg at the other boy, feeling the sting of disappointment when the teen read and dodged my movement easily. "I'm not your dog, you tricky bastard!" I screamed, not caring about the annoyed and strange looks thrown at the two of us by the early morning risers. Anyone up this early, voluntarily, deserves to be annoyed.

"I seem to remember someone losing our little bet," the demon shot back, his voice returning to its normal step above apathetic tone.

"I went back down there after that day, you know. Found that someone had poured some soda on the controls to make them stick!"

My aqusation went unanswered as the accused party all but skipped away, ahead of me.

"Get back here you ugly cyclops bastard!" I yelled, chasing after the bandaged teen. I'd never cop to the tired smile on my lips when I did this, not even if it was that or death.

—-

Dazai POV

Tyson... my little brother...

I managed to put some distance between me and the angry ginger behind me after hearing him yell that. I needed the time to school my features back into place.

The brother that I haven't seen in almost two years...

I shoved whatever train of thought that was threatening to form to the back of my mind, burying everything down so deep inside that it would suffocate and die with time.

It's almost time...

My face was back to its normal expressionless setting by the time that Chibi finally caught up with me.

"I'm going to kill you if we're not getting coffee right now," the ginger boy threatened. I could see him glaring at the slowly lightning sky as if he found the site offensive, not that I blamed the boy.

I made my voice slip into a false cheery tone. "You promise?" I asked, sounding like a little kid on Christmas asking for their favorite sweet.

Maybe... living with Gabe never really did give me a good idea of 'normal' holidays.

The gravity user gave a dismissive wave. "I really will if I don't get something soon."

If I'd been another person I might've laughed, but as it is, I'm not. A part of me can't help but wonder if I'm even capable of such a genuine show of human emotion anymore after these past two years. I could fake ones as well as any other trained mafia soldier though. Not that this situation called for it though. I don't need to fake emotions around the ginger boy, he already knows how much of a monster I am. The only time I do is with jokes like these.

"Aww, you're making me regret coming all the way here already," I cooed childishly at the other boy, leaning down to look at the other while walking backwards.

I watched Chuuya glance around the street we were on like a drug dog looking for the source of the smell. The small teen's face scrunched up in a mixture of disgust and confusion. "Where?"

I simply just pointed, not having the current motivation to do much more after already expending so much energy on walking through the night. There wasn't much energy there to begin with between my aversion to sleep and avoidance of sleep.

Chuuya followed the path that I was pointing with his eyes. The boy's annoyed expression only deepened. "A bookstore?" He asked dangerously.

I kept walking, all but ignoring the fact that Chuuya seemed to have stopped in mute disbelief. "Yes, Chibi. A bookstore. They added a cafe sometime last year," I explained to the teen behind me, not even bothering to look back at the other boy as I turned back around.

Hearing a light patter of footsteps trailing behind me after a moment, I slowed down my pace to let the other catch up to me. We walked through the store door together, Chuuya holding the door open with his foot for me.

The heavy aroma of coffee was the first thing to set me on edge. It's never really been a smell that I liked all that much between Gabe drinking it every morning to deal with his perpetual hangover and Mom trying to keep herself awake for all the extra shifts. It didn't bring back any pleasant memories to say the least, but at least I know we're in the right place.

Chuuya rushed past my side to the small cafe in the corner of the store, pulling his money out along the way. It was a small childlike move on his part, but I couldn't help but find it fitting.

This is how sixteen year olds should act.

In another world I would've stood here watching the smaller teen with a smile on my face. Maybe I would've even gone up there and stood with him while he ordered. But I'm still me no matter how much I hate the person I've become, that's a fact I can't just change. I'm the boy that can't smile or stand anyone's touch. The monster that torments even the mafia boss's nightmares. The bastard that can't even be classified as human by anyone's standards.

The Demon Prodigy... such a fitting name I suppose.

I left the boy alone at the counter instead, going to roam the shelves of the book store in the small amount of time we have till we need to leave. It didn't take long for my feet to carry me to the mythology section of the store. I felt almost like a child drawn to the pictures of their parents in the school trophy case, not that I had much experience with that either.

Most of the books, I noticed glumly, were Japanese myths. While those might prove to be interesting to read for leisure if I was such a person, they were useless for anything else. As it stands to date, the beings of Japanese mythology haven't made any contact with me. There wasn't really any need to waste energy on a nonexistent threat.

I almost gave up on this section of books when something caught my attention out of the corner of the unbandaged eye.

Greek.

The words on the spine of one of the books were in Greek.

I crouched down and grabbed the book from the bottom shelf, a triumphant sneer carved into my face at the words on the cover: Greek Myths and Legends

Found you.

Walking over to checkout, I saw Chuuya sitting down at one of the tables near the center back of the room. It was a good spot to choose, one that would let him easily see all of the small shop without looking suspicious.

Good, he's learning well.

The woman at the counter, the store owner, greeted me with a pleasant smile that soon turned lopsided as she soon stared at my face for a moment too long, confusion written all over her's. She seemed to have mentality written herself off as she stared at me for a beat longer before fixing her expression.

"Good morning, sir. Find everything you need?" She asked, sliding the book I'd put on the counter towards herself and scanning it.

It really wasn't her fault that she was so confused, I wouldn't have recognized me either if I were her. She was the same woman, and this the same store, that I bought my suicide manual from close to two years ago. Back then I was wearing a camp shirt and looked like a foreigner. Now I had on nice clothes and too many bandages to count. I look like a completely different person from the child back then, though I suppose that was the point.

I paid quickly for the book before slipping it into one of the many pockets in the coat that he gave me before walking over to the red head and sitting in the seat on his left.

"What'd you get?" The other teen asked in what seemed to be slight curiosity between sips.

"Just another suicide manual," I lied easily. "Can never have too many."

The way Chuuya sat his cup down on the table seemed to say otherwise.

"If you're done with that, let's go," I told him in a cold voice.

I could hear him shift at my side, turning his body towards mine. I fought back the urge to move away from the other boy. "Where?" He asked, clearly annoyed. "We just searched all night and found nothing."

He was wrong though, we found everything we needed during our earlier escapade through the district streets.

I stood up, smoothing out the nonexistent wrinkles from my clothes. "Come on, we have a Sunrise Auction to attend."

The teen sent me a questioning look that I promptly ignored.

It's time to get to work.

Chapter Text

Dazai POV

"'Sunrise Auction'?" The ginger haired boy asked from my side while we were walking down the empty street. I couldn't see the expression that Chuuya was making, but I could still imagine the slightly scrunched look of confusion painting the other boy's face. "I thought most illegal auctions were done at night. You know, clandestine meetings and the stereotypical stuff you see in movies."

"Wow Chibi, those are some big words, did you check out a dictionary since our last mission?" I snarkily replied to cover up my own realization. The other boy seemed to be screaming something, but I wasn't really paying attention to the words coming out of the smaller teen's mouth.

I hummed slightly instead. Having only seen the movies that the substitutes would show in class on the days that the teachers were out, I didn't really know all that much about the stereotypes that Chuuya was talking about, though I'd already assumed as much.

I guess they really do make movies about everything these days.

"You would think so," I responded, switching back to the original topic before our newest bout of bickering. I kept my voice as plain as possible so it wouldn't sound like I was looking for more of a fight from the temperamental teen next to me. "But I'm all actuality, no." I waved my hand in a dismissive manner as we walked. "Think about it, where are things when you lose them most of the time?" I asked, giving the smaller teen a moment to think about it. "They're hiding in plain sight. They're right there in all of the places that you would just look over in your search."

I'd been digging into the missing weapons shipments from before since the doctor started grumbling about them during my forced visits to see him and Elise a month ago. After the last time that he constantly complained about groups brought me to those very people, I'd figured that he'd send Chuuya and I after them eventually. With this in mind, I went ahead and got most of the information gathering out of the way ahead of time so Chibi wouldn't have to complain about being bored as much. Last night's wandering was just me listening to the rumors to make sure the location method hadn't changed.

The other boy grunted in subdued agreement. "But wouldn't all of the people they stole the weapons from still be able to figure them out?"

It was a decent question. If an auction was just held for the organizations of the city, instead of doing a direct sale, wouldn't the original possessors of the product figure out who took their supplies and just hit them back before they could sell them?

I hummed slightly, noncommittal. "That would be a problem if it was just a local auction."

The Sunrise Auctions have participants from large mafias and other illegal organizations from all over Japan. All of them flying or driving to Yokohama in the days before the auction and leaving at staggered times during the week following its conclusion.

The auction is held in Yokohama because of its reputation for lawlessness and little government influence or control. It's a city of demons as outsiders like to call it. A city full of ability users and criminals.

Where better to hold such a thing?

We continued down the street, me leading the way since the smaller teen had no idea where we were going.

Chuuya and his... connections will become more useful once we are actually inside the auction house. A fact that I am sure he is well aware of by now.

I pulled a small silver pocket watch from my side pocket as the surroundings around us started to become older and more expensive in nature. The current time was six thirty.

Good, just enough time then.

We have twenty minutes before the auction doors close and a little over an hour before the auction itself begins.

I could see Chuuya drawing himself up in the reflection of one of the store windows. The teen straightened out his spine, standing up properly and schooling his features into a more respectable look now that we were in the more expensive shopping district. He made this change in dame or without having to be reminded or told. It was a lesson that everyone in the mafia knew well enough if they wanted to survive: adapt your attitude to the situation. A small spark of pride went through my chest at the sight, not that it lasted all that long.

I glanced around at all of the shops on the street, seemingly taking them all in like an aspiring customer should if they were planning on coming back once the shops were actually open... window shopping I think they call it. Though I was really more interested in the steps leading up to the shop doors.

Every so often there would be a flower outside of a shop door, a black rose. The flower would be wilted and dead, almost completely dried out from seemingly baking in the sun all of the previous day. It was truly an innocent enough thing to see, almost as if a young school child had left them outside the shop doors as a form of gift to the owners of the establishments that the shop owners just couldn't be bothered to pick up and bring inside. There was even a little red bow tied around the stem of the once beautiful thing.

Of course there was nothing innocent about it at all.

I followed the petals, walking the way that they were pointing on each of the doorsteps. That's all you had to do to find the Sunrise Auction, follow the petals once you knew what area of the district to look in. Shops in the rest of the city would have vibrant and lively red roses with little black bows on them in the same place as these. Anyone that followed those though would end up walking in a spiral for hours on end, conveniently avoiding the true location of the auction.

Such a simple, yet efficient means of misdirection.

I followed the roses, Chuuya following me until my sight landed on the abnormality that I'd been scouring the area for this whole time.

On the other side of the street, placed delicately in the metal cage that was once commonly used in Europe during the Middle Ages to hold torches, was a black rose. The flower was freshly picked and dyed, not whiter or dried in the slightest. On its stem was a small black bow where the red one should have been.

Got'cha.

I looked both ways before crossing the street, holding myself with the respect of someone that should be going to an exclusive auction like this. Chuuya shot me a wry glance at the sudden change in direction, clearly thinking that I was doing something strange again. I promptly ignored the look and the meaning behind it, pretending that he was too close to my covered eye for me to be able to see him clearly.

Without thinking twice about it, I ducked into the alley next to the flower, vaguely noticing the same rose on the other building's wall as well. The whole alley was dark, almost impossibly so, but Chuuya and I didn't struggle much to see. We're members of the Port Mafia after all, it would be disappointing if we couldn't see well in the dark like this.

The darkness didn't last long either way, as we soon saw the soft glow of light coming out from beneath a door in the wall to our right. The door was painted black, blending into the shadows almost like it was made of them. No one would have noticed the thing if it wasn't for the light coming out from under it.

I opened the door, liking the way that the handle turned easily without any protest. It meant that I didn't have to waste the time or the energy picking the lock. Though the easy feeling was short lived, as it always is with mafia types.

When I pulled the door open more, I was met with a soft resistance that sent a small jolt of surprise up my spine. Doors stick all of the time sure, but never in a way that could be called soft.

Ignoring the sudden change, I opened the door the rest of the way, finding the source of the small change anyways. As I opened the door further, the tension gave out from above, letting the door move freely once again with a small plucking sound being the only evidence that there was ever a problem. When I looked up, I saw a rose cut in half at the stem, hanging down like a store bell normally would.

I watched a dark petal fall elegantly to the ground, joiming the slowly growing number already there.

Definitely the right place.

Chuuya and I didn't look at one another, choosing to just walk into the lion's den instead. We walked in calmly, like people meant to be there instead of monsters sent to ruin the fun.

The room was small, painted in a light golden yellow, empty save for the light hanging from the ceiling, lighting up the room, and the man standing by the only other door in the room.

The man was dressed in a nice, expensive, black suit with a red tie, too closely resembling the color of blood to just be a coincidence, hanging from his neck. Everything about him screamed strength, from the large stacks of mussel that someone deemed acceptable to be called arms, to the brass knuckles glinting dangerously on the man's hands.

Not that Chuuya still couldn't take him down in the time it took for the man to raise his fist, with or without the use of his ability.

So this is the first checkpoint then...

Unlike most exclusive auctions, the Sunrise Auction did not have a set guest list. Anyone could come to the auction as long as they knew how to find it, and passed the first checkpoint.

Walking up to the man as if I was walking up to an old friend, I plastered a pleasantly fake smile onto my face, one that for all the wrongness that it rung in me, should work well enough for the situation at hand. Mafia types weren't supposed to be gleeful after all, not unless there was something completely wrong with them that is.

The man didn't say anything, only holding out his hand expectantly. Though he held it out much faster than one would expect for someone in his position.

Crazy types really are the best part to play after all. No one wants to deal with them.

The first checkpoint, also called the money checkpoint, isn't hard to pass, it's actually said to be the easiest of all of them, entry and exit. All you have to do to pass the checkpoint is pay the man at the door as if you were paying entry into a club. The money itself actually went into paying for the event and the food inside of it. The checkpoint wasn't unreasonable at all, just a way to weed out any cheapskates that wouldn't be able to afford anything inside of the auction.

Numbly, I pulled out the thick wad of cash that the bastard had given me earlier, placing it down into the man's hand without complaint. There was even a little flare in the movement. It felt good to spend the mafia boss's money after all.

The man pocketed the money and opened the door wordlessly for the pair of us, barely even sparring the two of us a glance as he looked back to the door we'd come through before.

A proper guard dog it seems.

A smirk threatened to force its way onto my lips but was killed before it could make its presence truly known. The quiet mummer of people filled my ears as we crossed the threshold of the door. I knew exactly where we were from research on this group.

The second checkpoint.

The ability checkpoint.

—-

Chuuya POV

I could all but feel the suicide enthusiast tenseing up at my side, but I knew better than to look like my instincts were screaming at me to. They told me that something that I wouldn't like was about to go down, but even with that knowledge in mind, I kept my eyes trained forward. Nervous looks during missions signal you out. Being signaled out by your mark gets you caught.

Getting caught means failing the mission. I don't want to know what failing a mission entails in the mafia.

So I just looked forward instead, taking in the new surroundings that we'd just walked into.

The room was a slightly darker golden color than that of the previous room that Dazai and I had come from, but the new room was still as sparsely decorated as the last one. Color aside, the only other major difference between the two were the people.

There were over thirteen people in the room, six pairs of them were lined up, single file, at the center of the room, seemingly waiting to see the man at the door. Each of them were dressed in nice clothes, like they were going to an elegant gala instead of an auction.

You have to get through the man at the door to get into the next area.

Just like the last room then.

To get into mafia headquarters, unless you were a well known member like the boss, one of the five executives, or Dazai, you had to go through a series of security checks. Just like with government buildings and airports.

This situation reminded me of that, except they weren't checking passports, finger prints, or I.D.s here it seemed.

So what are they checking?

The bandage waste walked forward surely, as if the tension had never been there to begin with, I wasn't really given much Choice but to follow the insufferable teen, keeping close to the other boy's side as we joined the still line. I tried to glance around the people to see exactly what they were doing at the front of the line, but a small tug on my sleeve stopped me short.

Right, signaling out.

I shot the other boy an annoyed look, not liking being pulled around by the taller teen, but only got a small toothy grin in return. It was as fake as every other one I'd ever seen on the boy's face, but it seemed to do it's intended purpose of only making me more annoyed.

Shitty bastard!

I clenched my fists at my sides, sinking into the feeling of my nails digging into the soft material inside of the gloves and the creaking of the leather. It was reassuring in a way that few things in the mafia, in life, have proved to be.

The line crawled forward in a way that I couldn't discern I'd it was slow or not. Time seemed to ebb and flow strangely when you were operating on such little energy, not that I haven't done it countless times before with the Sheep. My body has just become weak, too used to more than it usually does. When the line had dwindled down to Dazai and I being third in line, I was finally able to see just what was happening up at the front of it.

An ability user.

There was a man dressed in a black suit similarly to how the bouncer from the last room was. The only difference was the loose collar around the pale man's neck. There was a metal piece around the young man's neck, clunky and impractical to say the least. It looked like a zap collar that one would find on dangerous animals to keep them in line. I could feel my fingers twitching at my side, all but begging to touch the collar at my own throat, but I forced them to stay where they were.

Now's not the time.

I watched the man closely, seeing how he held his bare hand out for the couple in front of him. A woman in a fancy ball gown put her hand in the ability user's after a small pause. I watched the exchange, waiting for something to happen, anything. But there was never any flash of light or any other abnormalities that one would expect to find with the activation of an ability. The man simply just let her go and turned to the man escorting her.

"It's an ability that checks for the presence of other abilities," Dazai explained, whispering in my ear in a way that made me want to cut the appendage off. "It only activates if the person he touched is an ability user."

"What happens then?" I asked begrudgingly, my curiosity winning out in the end. I wanted to know if it was a visible thing like Dazai's nullification on larger abilities, or if it was more subtle like when he nullified my ability when we first met.

"That," the teen whispered, raising his hand ever so slightly and pointing.

I followed the path that the slender finger indicated, watching the scene play out like a movie. A soft glow could be seen coming from the collared ability user, lighting the room a dull green. I could see small runic marks dancing around the man.

Another man moved to the collared man's side, another bouncer type. The new man was holding a small silver bracelet, playing with it while walking up to the other ability user. The bouncer opened the bracelet and closed it around the man's still outstretched wrist before letting the couple through the door.

Watching the couple slip away, a small spark of curiosity took hold. "They're still letting them in?" I asked, whispering to the taller teen.

Dazai hummed lightly like he tended to do when he thought a more human response was needed, something he didn't seem to believe himself able of doing naturally. "Unlike most private auctions, ability users are allowed since many of them have deeper pockets than most of the nonability users that come to these auctions. They're abilities are just bound until after the auction so no one has an unfair advantage over the others at the auction. In a city that seems to pull in ability users, it would be full hearty to exclude so many potential members."

It was my turn to hum thoughtfully.

If they erase Arahabaki...

My mind wandered to useless thoughts of failing this mission because I didn't exist to go through with it.

If they stop Arahabaki, the mission will become ten times harder as in most of our missions, my ability is the heavy hitter while Dazai is the strategist that uses it to its fullest potential. If you, even temporarily, erase it like it never existed, the mission could fall apart. With that aside, there was no telling what erasing Arahabaki for such a long time will do to its vessel.

Dazai's only erased my ability once or twice since we met, only for a few seconds at a time, long enough for the repressing feeling to set in.

But what happens after that?

"What are we going to do then?" I asked, carefully shoving down the thrum of fear making itself known as it reverberated through my body. But I was sure he still heard it, Dazai was annoyingly perceptive that way.

Maybe he can erase my ability while they're testing for it, that would work well enough. I'm sure.

I looked over at the other teen, waiting for him to spell out the same answer that I wanted to hear him whisper, but being on his bandaged side, I couldn't read him to see if that was likely or not.

"You're going to pull up your sleeve and hold out your arm," he said emotionlessly, turning to me and making a swishing movement with his arm that seemed to be ordering me to do just that right then.

I shoved down the shock that coursed through my body at his callous reply. I looked in front of me, not wanting to see the taller teen anymore, but ended up almost taking a step back in apprehension.

We're already at the front of the line.

I looked at the man, the collared ability user, watching the way he held out his hand as if waiting for me to place my own in his. I really didn't want to, but in the end I forced my hand to move to my sleeve. Watching the way that the collared man held his hand out expectantly, waiting, and the bouncer glared at me as if asking me to screw up. I rolled up my sleeve carefully, showing off the scoreless, pale skin before shoving the limb over to the other ability user, making sure that my movements betrayed none of the hesitance that I felt.

When the man reached out to me, meeting me halfway since I wouldn't go all the way to him, I couldn't help but think of the glimpse I got of Dazai's face. It was the look of a man that was hoping his plan would work.

—-

Dazai POV

I watched on as the other boy rolled up his sleeve, carefully pulling the shirt sleeve up just high enough so the other ability user could do his work. Only a small expanse of pale, scarless skin was showing as Chuuya held his arm out, but it was enough to send a shiver down my spine at the strangeness.

The other boy has always been wearing long sleeves since we first met, his skin as covered as my own. It felt wrong to be able to see his skin like this.

I couldn't see the other boy's face, but I could feel the nervous tension radiating off of the older teen, coming at me in waves.

Though, unlike him, I wasn't worried.

This part of the plan is fine. Letting Chuuya be caught eases the suspicion on us. Being the newest people to join the auction all of the guards will be keeping a careful eye on us from the moment we enter the auction. Not a welcome thing to have on any mission when you're not doing it intentionally.

... It's the part that comes next that's the problem.

The ability user grabbed Chibi's bare wrist, barely holding onto it for more than a full second before a strong green light erupted from the man's skin. This light was much brighter and had a much deeper hue than that of the soft pastel green that the ability user had shown with the previous auction attendant.

The light tented the entire room, casting it in a deep green so strong you'd think there was no other light source in the room other than the glow of the active ability to begin with.

The shade of green decides how strong an ability is, it seems. The darker the shade, the more dangerous and powerful the other's ability is.

The bulkier man beside the collared ability user pulled another thick metal bracelet from one of his pockets, stepping up in front of the red headed boy. I saw the way that Chuuya seemed to go impossibly still as the guard opened up the bracelet. The boy didn't move again until he flinched at the sound of the ability blocking bracelet snapping closed around his wrist.

Something dark twisted at the bottom of my stomach at the sight of the normally overconfident older teen acting in such a way so far from who he normally is. He looked too much like how I felt every time I stepped into the boss's office these days. But I didn't have time to think about or analyze my reaction to the other boy's predicament.

It was my turn.

The ability user turned to me, expectant. The man moved his arm from where he'd been holding it out for Chuuya, placing it out in front of me. I couldn't help but stare down at the hand outstretched to me for a moment in what could only be called blatant horror and disgust.

I forced my mind to go passive, to go numb for the rest of our time in the room. To shut off as I placed my bare hand in that of the ability user's. Something told me that if I didn't do this simple thing, if I didn't shut myself off like that, revulsion would sink into my skin and take over my mind. There would be too much all at once. Too many memories would surface, too many thoughts and feelings that are better left avoided and ignored would make themselves known.

But despite knowing all of this, I didn't close my eyes either.

The man's skin was pale as I stared at it, almost impossibly so. He looked like someone that'd overused his ability hours ago, going past the limits that should've been set there as if they didn't exist at all. He looked ready to drop dead on his feet, a feeling that I knew well.

This is one of the problems with passive abilities like ours, I suppose. There's no way of stopping them, even if you wanted to.

I focused on the skin around the man's collar that was lining his neck instead of the hand grasping mine. I watched the way that it retained its natural, pale color throughout the process, showing. I saw no signs of the tell-tell green that it should've.

No Longer Human worked first.

The other man's ability, as I saw demonstrated on Chuuya Ned the man from before, takes more than a full second to activate. No Longer Human only takes one second to begin working upon contact with an ability or its user.

Just a little too slow.

The other ability user withdrew his hand slowly, a twisted look on the man's face. He looked like someone that thought that something was seriously wrong, but couldn't seem to pinpoint just what it was that was so amiss.

His partner didn't seem to notice the change in the ability user's demeanor as he stayed where he was, unmoving.

The collared man seemed to be trying to shake his gut feeling off as he stepped to the side, letting the pair of us through to the next set of doors. I moved quickly, quietly revelishing in the feeling of having my hand free once again. My heart was beating steadily through the entire ordeal, but if the ability user had touched me for even a moment more than he did, my ability to control the beating of my heart may have fallen through.

We walked through the door and into a long narrow hallway that was not big enough for the pair of us to walk at each other's sides. I went in first, letting the smaller teen trial behind me. The ginger grumbled discontentedly as we walked in, but didn't make a scene. Chuuya's always been a strike first, ask questions later type, maybe he knows that this tactic won't work out very well for him in this situation at hand.

Or maybe I just got through the door first.

This hallway, like the last two rooms, was a golden color in nature, one darker than that of both its predecessors, getting closer to a truly golden color. There were only two doors in the narrow passage, the one that Chuuya and I came through, and the one at the end of the long hallway that we were steadily walking towards.

Just like the past two rooms.

The teen behind me oozed an annoyed aura, seemingly wanting to shove past me, bulldozing me over to get to the other door already, but he controlled himself, as he had done every time before during this mission. After all, there was no telling if this was a normal hallway or another test.

Of course, I know it's just a hallway, but if the intimidation factor keeps Chibi in check, then I won't say anything to correct him.

The dull thrum of music slowly filled my ears, seemingly muffled by the walls and the faraway door. It was a gentle lull of classical type music, something that I would never listen to willingly on my own. It got louder as we continued down the long hallway, loud enough that by the time we finally reached the door, I could pick out each of the instruments being used.

We got through the checkpoints unscathed. The hard parts are done. Now all we have to do is wreak some havoc. Something Chuuya and I are very good at.

Not a bad start to the day.

With that in mind, I grasped the handle of the door, twisting it open without any second thoughts.

—-

Chuuya POV

Dazai opened the door, letting in warm, golden light into the otherwise gloomily lit hallway we were in. When I followed the bastard outside and finally got a good look at the next room, I couldn't stop the small gasp that formed on my lips.

The entire room, shaped and designed like a ballroom fit for English royalty, was decorated in gold and light. It was more extravagant than anything out of a fairy tale. The walls were painted in a crème white with golden designs painted onto them. At the back of the room were four pillars made of marble with golden leaf on it. They made a rectangle with a stage in the middle of them. The stage was also white, but had wooden designs decorating the piece, painted in gold leaf as well.

Only one thing prickled my mind At such a sight:

"How did they manage to fit this inside of the building?" I wondered aloud, softly to myself.

It didn't seem to be an ability because of people like Dazai and the ability user from before, but the room still seemed much too large for the building it was supposedly in. I wasn't really expecting an answer, not truly realizing that I'd spoken aloud.

"We've been walking on a downhill slope since we entered the alley," Dazai said, walking down the white marble steps with golden flakes mixed into the stone. "It was subtle enough that you wouldn't really notice it unless you were expecting it."

Was that why that damn hallway was so long?

"Who comes up with a crack brain idea like that?" I asked, just loud enough for Dazai to hear me while we walked down the long stairway, the annoyance evident in my voice.

"The United States in the 1920's," he answered back, I raised an eyebrow at the boy, restraining myself from my normal outbursts. "During the war, the U.S. outlawed alcohol, going into a prohibition since most of their drinks were from Germany at the time. But a country built on drinking, smoking and playing cards would never easily give up one of those that makes the other two more fun.

"So, they made speakeasies. Secret clubs and bars beneath and inside of normal buildings. Of course their hiding techniques were much more sophisticated than a simple basement and slope, but this gets the job done all the same."

So he's not just smart, but a history nerd too, huh. And the bastard calls me a school boy.

"The secret bars caused a rise in organized crime in the states," he finished as we stepped down onto the flat ground at the bottom of the stairs, taking in the scene at eye level.

There were people dancing around the ballroom, each of them dressed in fancy clothing just a bit too eccentric to fit the typical ballroom style. They spun each other around, occasionally trading dance partners as we watched. They moved like people that were here to dance until dusk, not people that were here looking to cheat each other out of a surplus of illegal weapons.

"Never took you as a foreign history buff," I grumbled lightly, continuing the conversation as we took in the scene before us.

Dazai just shrugged nonchalantly. "The boss likes for me to pursue different studies that peak my interest. The engineering and complex layouts of the secret rooms were just interesting enough to do that."

The taller teen held out his arm to me at the bottom of the stairs. He did it in a way that seemed to suggest that we'd be joining the other mafiosos on the dance floor... together.

I wanted to smack the boy's arm away hard enough to break something, an action that I am fully capable of with or without For the Tainted Sorrow, but the clicking and clanking noises behind us made me stop before I could get to it. Pity.

When I turned back to the door we'd just come through, I saw it shaking slightly as the noises continued. It seemed like chains were being put on it from the other side. I knew that if I tried to open the door I wouldn't be able to actually do it without a little violent persuasion.

Turning back, I looped my arm through Dazai's still outstretched one, ignoring the look of triumph the other boy seemed to be wearing, walking with him over to the dance floor against my better judgment.

"Why are they locking us in? And why now?" I asked on the way there.

Why would they lock dangerous criminals together in an auction? And why would they do it only moments after we get into the room?

The timing didn't sit right in my stomach, nothing about this did. My life since coming into consciousness almost eight years ago has been my descions. It was my choice to join the Sheep and they acted under my orders after that. Sure I had to do a lot of work for them too when they asked, but it wasn't like they were using me. But since meeting the bastard, all of those choices have been stripped away from me. This felt like just another mission where I was being dragged along, missing all of the needed information. Dancing on the strings that the bandage waste pulled.

Where I was nothing more than a weapon.

The only difference with this mission and the ones before was that now I was a weapon without any ammunition to fuel it. My ability is locked away, close enough to know it's there, but too far to call on it if I needed it. I could still feel the small flames running through my veins and under my skin, fighting against the newest set of restraints, but every time I tried to bring them out they just seemed to move farther away from me.

Even if I'm just another weapon for the bastard to use, even if that's all I've ever been no matter who the owner was, what good am I without my best card?

Dazai sighed tiredly as if I was asking annoying questions again. It was a sound that I've become all too accustomed to. "Everyone in here is a highly valued target to everyone else present," he explained. "In order to have a safe auction, they lock us all in here together. That way if someone does decide to try something stupid, there's nowhere to run. They're locked in here with everyone else," he finished as we reached the center of the dance floor.

Dazai took my gloved hand, grasping it lightly in his own. Glances were thrown our way at the sight of us, two boys, standing in the middle of the ballroom floor together, unmoving even as everyone around us was in constant motion. When it seemed like the taller teen was content with just standing there, taking all the stares in, I grabbed the boy's waist, taking the lead. I ignored the small jump of surprise that came from the other at the sudden action. I especially ignored the way that my heart fluttered in an unfamiliar way at the feeling of the two of us.

"Trust built on the complete absence of it," I commented lightly, lowering my voice so as to not be overheard while I led our dance.

The younger teen nodded. "Precisely," he commented. "As for why now, the auction starts an hour from now, they stop letting people into the auction house an hour before the auction itself begins and the first item is put up for bidding."

This bastard...

I dug my finger into the other boy's hip roughly in annoyance. "You waited until the last possible moment for us to get here, why?" I growled lowly.

If we'd been a minute slower...

The other boy's only visible reaction to my actions was him squeezing my hand harshly, holding it in a vice grip until I finally released my hold on his hip.

"You show up to missions early to gather information on the unsuspecting targets without being noticed yourself," he said, his voice a careful monotone. "That doesn't work when the target-" the boy held out his hand to me, palm up, clearly implying he would not continue until I took it. I grabbed the teen's hand again, letting him walk me around in a circle around him, observing the crowd. "-is also watching you," he finished, returning us to how we were before.

I thought about the subtle stares we'd been getting since the pair of us walked in here. At first I thought that they were just being prejudiced, judging us based on how the situation made us look, but that theory didn't age well. On the walk that Dazai forced me on, I saw several couples in similar pairings as us. The only thing that stood out was...

"These people have known each other for years," the younger teen explained. "They've fought by each other's sides and against one another more times than they can probably count. The only people they don't know are us."

There it is.

Dazai purposely had us come in here at the last possible moment so that they had less time to observe us before he put into motion whatever his newest insane plan is.

"Now that that's done," I said, my voice prematurely tired because of the shit show this was bound to be, "what are we going to do about this?" I drew our connected arms up slightly, just enough to draw attention to the monstrosity that was attached to my wrist.

A smile spread across the taller teen's lips. It was something bone chilling and dangerous that could only be classified as evil in nature.

"Have you ever heard of Skill Singularity?"

Chapter Text

Dazai POV

Skill Singularity, a natural phenomenon that the Japanese government has been looking into as of late since the rise in the number of skill users. Now that more skill users seem to be interacting, especially in cities like Yokohama that seem to draw ability users to them, the government has started to notice the way that skills interact with one another.

In some rare cases when multiple skills interact with each other, they'll act in a completely different way from how they're normally supposed to. The Japanese government has been looking into what happens when these interactions occur, at the phenomenon that takes place that isn't initiated by either party.

Chuuya shook his head lightly, just ruffling his slightly grown out hair as he tried not to draw attention to the conversation. "No, but I can guess," the boy replied easily, his voice holding its normal cocky tone. "Interactions between abilities, right?" He guessed. "Are you saying we're going to see whatever that is now?"

I leaned down, whispering into the other boy's ear like I was telling him something supposedly seductive. "Not likely," I told him quietly, "but it should be fun to try, right?"

The other boy jerked lightly at my sudden action, seemingly caught off guard at how close I was to him. I didn't feel too bad about making the other boy uncomfortable as I could still taste the blood in my mouth from biting my tongue when he dug into my hip. It was an action that'd been done to me before under different circumstances, but the memories still arose all the same at the other teen's actions.

But the satisfaction was short-lived.

The smaller teen lifted himself up on his tip-toes, putting his lips at my ear just like I'd done to him. "Pity," the boy said in a falsely upset tone, "I wanted to see a light show."

You might still.

I guided our still connected hands down to our sides, basically holding the other's hand. The shorter teen grumbled as he tried to pull his hand away from mine, but one word stopped him short:

"Bracelet," I whispered softly, pacifying the other boy as best as I could.

Chuuya stopped resisting as fast as he started, seeming to remember the situation at hand and deciding to bear with the discomfort for a few moments longer.

I led the other teen away from the crowd, moving like we were a couple looking for somewhere private. People always avoid public displays of affection, finding them nauseating and uncomfortable to look at or be in the presence of back in the states. It's the same for Japan, more so even because the Japanese people are still much more conservative than most of the countries in the western hemisphere.

There was a stage at the back of the ballroom with four pillars around it and a dark blue curtain behind it, separating the goods being sold at the auction from the anticipating audience on the other side. Walking over to one of the large pillars, trailing the other boy behind me through our joined hands, I smiled like a love sick teen, something I was much too tired at the moment to be. I made sure to carefully hide us in the marble pillar's shadows before finally letting go of the smaller teen.

I chuckled lowly at the sight of Chuuya wiping the hand that'd been holding mine on his pants, seemingly forgetting the fact that he'd been wearing gloves the entire time.

"Let's get this over with," he grumbled, still wiping off his precious leather gloves.

I held out my hand, making a silent grabby motion at the other teen, motioning for the boy to give me his wrist. The older teen rolled up his sleeve again, slowly showing off the small metal device for all to see once more. He held his arm out, meeting me halfway between the two of us. I stretched my own hand out to meet the other boy, but right before the device brushed against my skin, Chuuya jerked his arm back, holding it protectively against his chest.

"First," the boy started stubbornly, ignoring the tired sigh that escaped my lips, "tell me why we couldn't have done this before."

'Tell me why we had to act like a couple,' the other boy seemed to be saying.

"I already did," I told him slowly, the lack of sleep over the past few days catching up to me. The other boy only raised an eyebrow, signaling for me to continue with my explanation. "Skill Singularity theory," I repeated from earlier. "We have no idea what's going to happen when a skill that nullifies all other abilities comes in contact with an item acting in a similar fashion."

Though it likely won't be too big of a problem, if it's one at all. Since the two abilities are not the same, it will come down to which ability is stronger in the end. There's always the possibility that the item's ability might not even be strong enough to trigger the blue light into making itself known.

Binding vs. nullification, I know who I'd place my bets on if I was a gambling man.

The other boy shoved his arm out in what could almost be seen as defeat. "Just get this off of me," the shorter boy ordered.

"Gladly~"

I glanced around us quickly, making sure that no one else was around to see what I was about to do. Another reason for doing this out of sight, it wouldn't do us any good if the prying eyes knew that we could disable their handicaps for them with nothing more than a single touch. It would be even worse if they knew that we could become those handicaps in the same way.

Satisfied with the lack of people, I reached out to the shorter teen, taking care not to touch the other as I did, only the piece of metal at his wrist.

A single touch, that's all I need.

Placing one finger on the cool metal, I felt a surge of energy run through me as brilliant bands of blue bursts from the point of contact, circling around the small object. For the first time since I discovered that I had No Longer Human on that bridge, I felt something fighting back against the ability. The other ability, the binding ability, wanted to suppress No Longer Human the same way that it did For the Tainted Sorrow.

But it was exhausting itself.

The bracelet is just a piece of machinery embedded with someone else's ability, but unlike me, it didn't seem to have an endless supply of energy to maintain the ability. No Longer Human is a passive ability, as long as I am breathing, it will continue to fight, the binding ability didn't have the same privilege.

The other ability fought back like a small beast, foreciesly trying to overcome the nullification trying to destroy it, causing the rings of No Longer Human to grow thicker and brighter as they continued to spin around the metal. The rings spun faster around the metal piece, seemingly wanting to tear it apart at the seams. No matter how good the binding ability is, it's just a mortal ability.

With one last bright flash of light, the rings gathered together, forming a small ball of light at my fingertip, where it connected to the metal, before erupting like a dying star.

When the light faded, I saw the bracelet fall slowly from the other boy's wrist to the ground, clanking loudly as it hit. When I went to pick up the slender piece, it turned to dust beneath my fingertips.

Made by an ability and filled with another...

I had many theories on where such feats could have come from, but decided to save my conspiracy theories for another day when the screaming in my head wasn't so intense.

When I stood back up the other boy was rubbing his wrist thoroughly as if he was trying to rub away the feeling of the bracelet on his skin. I wanted to reach out and stop him, knowing from experience that what he was doing wasn't going to erase anything, but stopped myself.

Chuuya wouldn't like it if I actually did that.

"Behind the curtain," I said slowly, drawing the other boy's atten to me and away from his now red wrist, "are the weapons being sold tonight and the people that brought them here to be sold."

"Why are they here?" Chuuya asked, the confusion and disbelief evident in the other's voice. The teen seemed to have dropped his hands to his sides subconsciously, more interested in the new puzzle presented to him. "Don't those guys normally just get an estimated pay out and then dip to find the next big score?"

"Normally, yes," I agreed. "However, this auction does things a little differently to ensure that they get the best prospects, from guns to jewels," I explained, glancing at the curtain beside us. "The suppliers take ten percent of whatever the winning bid is in the end, while the auction house gets the rest."

It keeps the sellers and their thiefs loyal to the auctioneers and the auction house.

"Okay-" the ginger started, stopping suddenly at the presence of a new sound.

Click... click...

The echo of footsteps on marble getting closer sounded like gunshots to my ears. Each one as damning as the hammering of nails into a coffin. There's not enough time to run and get away cleanly, and Ben if there was, there's nowhere to go.

Dread started to pool in my chest, becoming thicker and more potent with each step closer to our location. When I looked down at Chuuya, I could tell that he understood the situation well enough as he always seemed to be able to do. While we could easily get out of this with violence, the space was to open for us not to get caught. There was fear in the other boy's eyes, fear and something else...

Without warning, Chuuya pressed me up against the stone pillar behind us, digging one hand into my hair while the other went to its place at my hip. My eyes snapped shut at the sudden action by the shorter teen, not that you could really tell since you could only see the one. I forced my heartbeat to remain steady as I felt the other boy's breath on my neck. Everything in that moment was too close, too fast.

Too much.

But I could still hear the real world as the voices in my head screamed at me to run away. I could hear the way that the approaching steps stuttered to a surprised stop only a few feet from the pair of us before quickly scurrying away in what could only be described as an embarrassed manner.

No sooner than the sound of fleeing footsteps came to be heard was Chuuya off of me and a careful distance away, noticeably farther than he was before. I didn't look at the other boy, choosing to keep my eyes closed as I turned my head to the side. I didn't want to see the other boy right now.

I didn't want to associate the teen's action to get the guard off of our back with him.

"Knock out the suppliers and find the stolen weapons while I deal with the guest side," I ordered the boy, my voice thick with something unidentifiable. "No killing."

These people are all high ranking mafia officials from enemy organizations or favorites of them, killing any of them would bring the wrath of their organizations down upon the Port Mafia, something I don't want to be held responsible for. One of the other reasons we couldn't kill the guard.

"...Right," Chuuya said, his voice just as thick as mine when he disappeared behind the deep blue curtain, leaving me alone to do the job that I needed to do.

—-

Chuuya POV

Removing myself from the lanky boy as the guard's footsteps faded away, I noticed the heat that had risen to my feet unabiden. But as quickly as I noticed it, I ignored it, rationalizing the stupid reaction in a thousand different ways. But I quickly stopped thinking about it all together when I saw just what Dazai was doing.

The younger teen had his visible eye closed tightly with his head turned to the side, away from me. He looked like a child trying to make his presence smaller so no one would notice him. While that was strange enough on its own, it wasn't the main thing that caught my attention.

The shitty bastard... he's shaking...

The trembling in the other boy's body was so slight that I'm not even sure if they knew that they were doing it themselves, but I could see it. I could see the tremors running through the younger's body as clearly as I could see the way that he was scratching at the bandages at his wrists.

Maybe that was why when Dazai ordered me around, I just agreed to what he said, not blowing up at the suicidal bastard as I normally would've. Anyone would be shaken up if they saw their normally heartless bastard of a partner behaving in such a way.

I left the other teen there without a second glance, Dazai's mental breakdowns aren't my business or my responsibility to deal with. I'll leave that mess to the boss to fix.

The dark blue curtain was made of a velvety substance that was thick enough to cancel light and sound from either side of the divide to carry over into the other. The curtain was weighted, purposefully making it harder for people to move, slowing them down.

Though it was nothing for me.

I pulled it so the side slightly, just enough to not be noticed by anyone that I wouldn't want to, sliding into the excess bunched up at the end of the line. Dazai said that we couldn't kill any of these assholes, a restriction that he doesn't normally put on me or himself, so I needed to take a page from his book and gather information first.

Peeking through a small sliver I made in the curtain, I could see the scene on the other side of the divide. There were people moving around backstage, roughly close to ten of them at a quick count. Some of them were sitting on one of the many large wooden crates, while others were leaning against the walls. The space as a whole was small, just large enough to house all ten of the stolen crates and allow people to move them around in the backstage area.

The part of me that was itching for a fight was revolted by the actions that I was about to commit, but discretion was needed in this particular case... sadly. I focused on the people, getting a feel for where they were and where the equipment was in the room. I reminded myself while doing this, that this is one of the few cases where I am not allowed to let loose.

Control.

I felt the ground beneath my feet, the way it connected me to the other people in the speace, to all of the people in the room if I felt hard enough. I felt the gravity around me, around them as well. I could manipulate the gravity of anything that I touched or that touched me.

Since joining the mafia, I've been learning to think in different ways, to think about how all of the gravity is connected.

My feet are touching the ground below me, the gravity that I've manipulated carelessly with ease in the past. Connected to the ground is everything else in the room.

Everyone else.

I reached inside myself, revealing the flames hidden there, letting them run out and catch at the people around me. Just enough to catch fire, not enough to get burned.

My body started to glow a deep red color, something akin to the color of blood and flames, as the gravity spread, ensnaring the ten or so men in the small space.

I watched the panic accumulating on their faces, the confusion there as they each started to feel the effects of weightlessness, lifting off from the ground. The men hovered about half a foot in the air, some of them flailing around as they struggled to escape the invisible hold of gravity they were in.

One of the men closer to me regained his senses sooner than the others and opened his mouth to let loose a scream. Whether he was going to call out in fear or for help, I don't know and really, really don't care. A viscous smile that Dazai and the boss would be proud of took over my face as I suddenly increased the gravity of the men, slamming them down to the marble ground below them.

Groans could be heard throughout the small space as the men landed on the ground, a sudden agony taking over each of them. The men on the floor were only able to do this much because I was going easy on them, making sure not to use enough force to kill them or to do damage to the white marble beneath the men.

"How boring," I sighed, complaining to no one in particular. Fights are always more fun when I could actually hit the other people involved in them.

Letting go of For the Tainted Sorrow, I moved to the closest person, striking them quickly across the face before moving onto the next victim. As far as I know, the suicidal bastard wants to find the stolen weapons and connect them to the supplier that brought them here, so we could trace it all back to the theif that gave the supplier the weapons in the first place. He doesn't really seem to give a shit about the middle men involved with the whole shit show.

I moved through the people, glancing at the crates around them on the way to the next supplier. Each crate had initials on them that corresponded with that of other gangs and mafias not currently participating in the auction. I didn't really recognize most of them, but I knew that if Dazai were seeing this he would be having a field day with identifying all of these.

I guess people pay good money to kill their enemies with their enemies own weapons. I'm sure there's some irony in there.

Stomping on the hand of the sixth person as it tried to grab at my ankle and kicking him in the face with my other foot, I noticed something on the offending outstretched hand. Well on the wrist attached to it.

A marking.

Leaning down, I grabbed the knocked out man's wrist, turning it over to where the veins are showing. There was marker on the other man's wrist making up letters. The initials of one of the mafias that the weapons were stolen from. It matched the letters on the box that the man was laying next to.

"This is going to be easier than I thought it'd be," I grinned. At this rate I'll be able to go to bed in two hours from now once we wrap this up and write the preliminary report.

I went through the next three grunts quickly, moving fast before they had the time to clear their heads and try to pull themselves up from the ground to run or fight back. Letting them get started would only slow things down and I just wanted to go to bed.

Ten crates, nine men... where's number ten?

The silent question didn't go unanswered for long.

A small clicking noise could be heard from the far wall, followed by the sound of something heavy sliding against the very same wall. Sliding down it. I snapped my head to the side to look at the source of the sounds, immediately regretting my decision.

"Chuuya," the last man growled from the ground like some rabid beast in disbelief. "What the hell are you doing here?"

—-

Chuuya POV

The Sheep were an organization that was created in the slums of Yokohama's Suribachi city to help the children that needed up living on the streets there. We didn't take all of the stray kids into the organization since some of them were just passing through the area while others already belonged to smaller organizations themselves, but we tried to protect and help them all the same.

The man before me is one of the leaders of one of those smaller organizations.

Before the Sheep were forcibly disbanded and redistributed among the branches of the Port Mafia for observation, we acted as something of an umbrella organization, protecting the smaller organizations in the area that were made up of kids born without the cards to protect themselves. We protected them so long as they didn't do anything disgusting that went against the Sheep's beliefs.

The supplier was one of the only adults to fall under that umbrella of ours, having turned eighteen only a month before the fall of the Sheep. Their group wasn't into anything heavy back them, just some petty crimes to stay afloat like the rest of us. If they were doing something serious, it was nothing that we knew about at the time. Back then they were under our restrictions, but since leaving it, he seemed to now have gotten into the more serious dealing that we avoided.

"Damn it, Dazai," I cursed quietly at the teen that wasn't even in the room to hear it.

The cyclops knew that whoever the thief was that took the stolen shipment would be someone local, someone that would most likely be using one of my old contacts as a middle man for the auction house.

But I don't really have the right to be too pissed, I knew it too after all.

There are plenty of low level grunts in the mafia that could've handled this mission with the proper amount of information from Dazai and the boss. Mori sent us because of my connection to the mission. It's a test of loyalty to see if I'll help the thief get away or help the mafia catch them. I won't help them get away though, despite everything that happened to get me here, the Port Mafia is my home now. I won't betray my new home for the old one, especially after the old one betrayed me first.

"Dazai?" The supplier asked as if tasting home the name felt on his tongue. The other man's expression turned bitter, more so than it had been before the name had been spoken. "Why are you with him?"

I stared down at the man, watching him as I walked closer to the other. I crouched in front of the supplier that was still trying to push himself up from the ground to stand. "If you don't want me to put a foot through your gut," I threatened in a low voice, anger seeping into my tone, consuming it, "you'll tell me just what the hell you mean. And you'll do it fast."

The man below me paled, seeming to remember just how dangerous my temper can be when tested. Just how dangerous I can be.

He nodded quickly, his entire body shaking so severely one would think the man was in a snow storm instead of a decently warm room.

"D-Dazai," he started, all the fiery anger lost from the other man's voice, fear filling it instead, "he's... he's the son of a bitch that stabbed Shirase!" He all but yelled at the end, seemingly that desperate to get the words out of his mouth.

I saw the supplier swallow thickly as if he was waiting for judgment, but my mind wasn't on the shaking man. It was on him.

The bastard! I told him not to hurt the kids... I told him not to touch them and the asshole fucking stabs one!

My mind ran through hundreds of ways that I could hurt the other teen, thousands of ways to destroy the punk, each of them more painful than the last. Anger flooded through my body as if it was the only thing there, but it wasn't. Beneath all of the anger was a stinging feeling that I knew all too well.

Betrayal.

I didn't trust Dazai, not even close to it. He's a lying, killing, manipulating bastard that anyone would be a fool to trust wholeheartedly, but a part of me thought that I could at least trust him with this.

God, I'm such a fool.

It's almost funny just how stupid I could have been to actually try and get along, to form a bond of all things with the monster masquerading as a teen.

I felt myself beginning to lose control and took a deep breath. The anger burned away, forcibly reducing itself to nothing more than an ember waiting patiently to reignite when the time is right. Now is not the time to lose myself in anger, that can wait until we're back at headquarters. Then I can kill the son of a bitch.

The supplier was still looking up at me, his fear seeming to rise endlessly by the second as my silence continued. I stood up, towering over the other man for the first time in either of our lives. I don't know what I looked like to the man on the ground, but I knew how I felt inside: a savage animal barely being restrained by the self imposed chains around it.

I kicked the man swiftly across the face, reveling in the feeling of getting to hit something after the news I just got.

Once the man had slumped back to the ground, I crouched back down, grabbing the man's wrist on the way down as I had done to the other supplier before. The letter written in dark ink there wasn't a surprise to me, but a confirmation.

P.M.

Port Mafia.

The curtain opened just enough to let in a sliver of light and the smell of something sweet as I stood up, dropping the man's hand to the floor carelessly. A slender boy stepped through the curtain, just barely able to hold it open as he came through, smoke tralling at the teen's feet.

Dazai.

—-

Dazai POV

The curtain fluttered closed as Chuuya disappeared behind it, but I didn't pay it much mind.

Chuuya can handle anything behind the curtain himself, he's good that way.

I took the moment alone to collect myself, to turn off the necessary parts of myself that if left alone would only get in the way. It wasn't a hard thing to do, though it should've been to any normal person.

To any person.

But as it stood, I was well practiced in the art of shutting myself down and doing what was needed to get through the situation at hand.

I messed up my hair a little and loosened the tie around my neck. Between the overall lack of sleep and mental strain associated with this mission, it wasn't hard to make myself look like a typical teenager that just made out with their teen in the corner.

Walking out from behind the pillar, I pretended to fix my clothes as I walked away leisurely from our hiding spot, righting the tie that I'd just loosened moments ago, and running a seemingly self concise hand through my hair. Even going as far as to smooth out my shirt that just barely had a wrinkle or two on it. Anything to play the part needed of me, to make it convincing.

Gazes flitted to me from the ballroom floor and from the guards on duty, each of them trying to be inconspicuous. Well, trying as hard as they thought they had to for a supposedly sixteen or so year old child. However, I've lived in the mafia for over a year, constantly being watched by the gods before that. Gazes are something that I'm used to. Something that I knew how to sense and track down to their sources better than any other fifteen, almost sixteen year old should. They'd have to try a lot harder than they are to not be noticed by something like me.

Still, I pretended not to notice as I made my way to the open bar in the corner of the room, by the only door in the entirety of the place. There was a,most every type of drink there and a bowl of ice for whichever glass you chose to compliment the drink.

Good, make this easy on me.

I walked up to the bar like I was nothing more than a spoiled child already used to drinking all of his father's expensive liquor. Weird looks were openly shot my way, but no one came to stop me. These people are mafiosos, if children drinking set them off on a moral tangent then they are in the wrong profession, and should be looking into a career change.

Grabbing a random bottle of something clear, vodka maybe, I snatched a glass with the other hand before moving to the bowl of ice. Something I did manage to learn since coming to the mafia was that some chemical reactions are more favorable at lower temperatures than at higher ones. Some are even favorable at the temperature of melting ice.

Reaching into one of my many pockets in the jacket, I pulled out ten little tablets, throwing them into the bowl of lic like I was throwing flower petals. Not even a minute later plums of smoke started to rise from the bowl, more being made by the second.

A sickly sweet smell floated through the room, seeming to follow me as I walked closer to the crowd. One of the pellets that I put in the ice is enough to fill a normal sized meeting room, given the proper conditions are met. Ten should do the trick for dealing with the mafiosos in the vicinity.

The criminals around me all went for the weapons hidden in their extravagant clothing, pulling out knives, guns, and other assortments of weapons that they could easily conceal on themselves like good little killers should.

But it was already too late.

The men and women in front of me, along with the guards running towards us to inspect the scene, all began to sway on their feet, moving like drunken teens on prom night. Some tried to cover their mouths, something that should've been their first response if they weren't all trained killers used to solving everything with violence. Their efforts were useless now though that they'd already inhaled enough of the smoke and its fumes.

The sound of bodies and weapons falling to the ground could be heard as the knockout gas took effect, effectively eliminating all of the threats in the room. There wasn't any satisfaction at the sight of the mafiosos crumpling to the ground though, after all, I still had work to do with them before I could finally rest.

Kneeling down, I reached into the nearest man's coat pocket, one of the executives of a northwest mafia. Popping the back off of the flip phone in my possession with practiced hands, I hid a bug in the device where it would be hard to easily be seen by prying eyes.

The whole floor was filled with executives and other high ranking members of various mafias around the country. All of them would have bugs put into their phones within the next five minutes. Though some of them will be smart enough to get new ones after this, it should at least be a decent scam.

This should be enough to soften up the doctor when I talk to him.

Smoke was still floating out of the ice bow, drifting lazily on the ground as I left the sleeping criminals on the ground, heading to the tall blue curtain at the back of the room. Some of the sweet smelling substance had already made its way over there, dispersing and sticking low to the ground.

I gripped at the curtain, pulling at the velvety substance with as much strength as I could get my body to muster. The weighted curtain was thick beneath my fingers as I pulled it away from the wall, just managing to pull the curtain enough for me to be able to slip through quickly before it fell shut again.

I saw Chuuya crouched in front of the crumpled body of whom I assumed to be our supplier. The boy stood up, dropping the wrist that he'd been holding mercilessly to the ground. The teen's eyes were cold when they locked onto mine.

"Dazai," the boy said, uttering the name like it was some kind of curse. Many people have said it in such a way since I gave myself the name more than a year ago, Chuuya being one of them but never with such conviction.

I looked down at the man knocked out at the red head's feet. He was an old acquaintance of the boy and the rest of the Sheep... an acquaintance of Shirase...

... Chuuya.

Chapter Text

Dazai POV

I studied the other boy, taking in the smaller teen's steely gaze as he stared back at me from his spot across the room. Those blue eyes reminded me of the ocean, relentless and forever changing. Today there was a storm in those eyes, dangerous tides known to drown men at sea. Looking at him with my own falsely brown one, I was able to read just what the other boy was thinking behind his own.

There wasn anger there, anger not only directed at me but at the teen himself as well. Anger as endless as the sea itself. But it was just being restrained by the unshakable will of its owner. It was a look telling me to keep to as normal for now, to finish the assignment, that the true showing of the shorter boy's anger would come once we were done.

Okay then, we'll do what you want, for now.

The sweet smell scenting the small subtly became stronger as we stood there together, each taking the other in. Reaching into my coat pocket swiftly as I moved closer to the other teen, I pulled out a small black gas mask from one of the deeper pockets, holding it out to Chuuya. The other teen stared at me with the same cold gaze, only a small flit of curiosity briefly taking over the boy's features.

"Knockout gas," I told the other boy in lieu of a proper explanation, shaking the mask slightly at the teen as I spoke with an emotionless voice.

He needs to put this on quickly. I don't have the physical strength to carry the weapons shipment, the supplier, and Chuuya back through the strange layout of the building.

The gas was currently being filtered through the thick curtain that created this small space, but given enough time even the filtered gas build up will be enough to knock out the other teen before long.

Chuuya grabbed the gas mask after another moment or two of waiting. The other boy put it in hesitantly, pulling the wavy hair away from the mask as he did. It wasn't long enough to pull into a ponytail quite yet, but it wasn't far off from being there.

"Grab the weapons crate and the middle man," I ordered once the other teen was situated with the mask in place, "the effect of the gas won't last much longer."

The smaller teen did as instructed without complaining, a soft red glow taking over the boy's body. My brain buzzed lightly as it always did when the other used his ability, a sense of an unknown power making itself known, of a godly power.

The vessel moved, touching the crate and the body on the floor lightly. The warm glow spread quickly to the two, consuming them just as it did the teen himself.

I started walking to the curtain, trusting the other boy to properly manage his own ability as needed. I got about half way to the curtain before something made me stop again.

"Bandage waste," a gruff voice called out, making me pause in my step. I turned to the other boy, doing a slow about face. "What about you?" Chuuya asked, pointing to the black mask on his own face. The question itself sounded like the other was concerned, but there was none of that in the other boy's tone. It was a purely self interested voice. "I'm not carrying you and this baggage all the way back, Mr. Nullification."

"Immune," I answered bluntly, turning back around to continue making my way to the velvet curtain.

"How?" Chuuya asked, the smallest note of surprise sinking into the other boy's tone.

I waved my arm passively, letting the loose sleeve of my coat flap lightly as I still refused to wear it properly. "Misadventures in suicide," I told the other teen emotionlessly, as if it would explain everything.

And it did, in its own way.

I wasn't looking at the small redhead, but I could still picture the way that he was drawing his own conclusions from the information that I gave him, creating small scenes in his mind of just what these 'misadventures' could've been.

However, my misadventures were nothing more than fiction designed to placate the inquisitive mind of the other boy. In reality, I had the good doctor to thank for my strange condition.

While the mafia boss was running his tests on me, my ability, and the high levels of pre ability mutation found in my DNA, he took the liberty of running a slew of other tests. The doctor said at the time that he wanted to see just how the pure unmutated DNA reacted to different things, one of them being anesthetics. By the time that he got bored with that brand of experiments, my resistance to drugs of the kind was much higher than it should've been.

The mask would be useless to me in this situation.

I yanked on the curtain, slipping through it as quickly as possible to keep it from closing on me. Chuuya followed close behind me, floating the baggage in each hand as he went.

—-

Chuuya POV

The sickly sweet smell got immensely stronger as Dazai and I slipped through the thick curtains. It was strong enough that I probably would've started coughing if it wasn't for all of the late night smoking with the stuff that comes with the bandages.

Not that I'll be doing that anymore.

I fixed the mask that Dazai gave me, tightening it in the spots that let the gas in. I knew that the smell of smoke still hanging on my clothes from last night was quickly being overpowered by the reaction that bandages set off in the ballroom, erasing the smell like it was never there. The entire room was covered in low hanging smoke, lazaily drifting at about the height of the passed out crooks on the ground.

"Just what the hell did you use?" I asked, looking down at the damage caused by the other teen. A bowl that looked like it used to be meant for ice was still lightly smoking near the door. The people on the floor showed no signs of waking up anytime soon despite what Dazai had said about needing to rush.

The other teen glanced back at me over his shoulder, wearing a fake smile that seemed more frayed than it's normal seamlessly put together con. I wanted to punch the look off of the boy's face, vowing to do it later, after the mission was over.

Dazai shrugged lightly as he answered in that falsely happy voice of his. "Swiped it from the boss's office months ago," the teen spoke carelessly as if what the teen did didn't mean a thing to him.

Of course you did.

A sigh muffled by the mask escaped my lips, once again making me feel tired at the knowledge that I could understand the bastard's tiredness when dealing with my fighting antics.

We made it to the door, stepping over the passed out mafiosos carefully, without speaking or looking at each other again. When we got close, I pushed ahead of the other teen up the stairs, ready to be out of this place as fast as possible, but when I tried the door I remembered that it was locked, reinforced from the other side.

Raising my foot, prepared to just kick the door down with a little gravity behind it, I froze, my body suddenly stiffening up at the strange feeling that took me a moment to process. Something had touched my head, flicking my hat lightly. The offending party brushed past me, taking care not to touch me further as I restarted my ability.

"Really, Hatrack?" Dazai asked, crouching down in front of the door in question. "Do you feel the need to just destroy everything that gets in your way? So primal," the other boy antagonized.

I thought about just kicking the teen in the head, leaving him here and just telling Mori that Dazai wandered off somewhere after the mission. It wouldn't be the first time that the teen avoided coming back to headquarters after an assignment for whatever reason. The fact that I knew the other boy was right, as we weren't supposed to be causing property damage didn't help much.

"You slimy bastard," I cursed, digging my nails into my gloves harshly to keep my ability from running out of control as I was still using it on the supplier and the weapons crate.

The taller teen rolled up the sleeves of his dress shirt, revealing the endless rolls of bandages hidden beneath the clothing. I watched as Dazai placed his hand flat against the door, a bright burst of blue light coming from the contact.

"Ability reinforced locks," Dazai sighed, seemingly uninterested in the precautions that the auction house had taken, "how boring."

The boy flicked his wrists lightly, a metal lock pick sliding smoothly into each hand. Dazai barely touched the lock with them before standing back up, seamlessly sliding the lock picks back into the folds of his bandages.

He moved to the side, pressing his side against the wall as he held onto the door handle. The teen jerked his head to the side, motioning for me to go stand by the opening of the door. Only when I, the supplier, and the weapons were in place did the brown haired boy finally open the door, letting me and the things enter the hallway. When we were in and everything out of the way, Dazai rushed in behind us, closing the door quickly behind himself.

I reached a hand up to the mask that the bandage waste had given me to wear, ready to be free of the damn thing. Before I could pull the damn thing off, a hand waved in front of my face, careful not to touch me as it did.

"Just what the fuck do you think your doing?" I asked, the annoyance in my voice clearer than it's ever been before. I just wanted the thing off and Dazai wasn't doing himself any favors by stopping me from doing just that.

The teen slid past me and the beings under my ability's influence, all but hugging the wall so as to not touch anything involving For The Tainted Sorrow again so he didn't accidentally nullify it.

"Let the gas dissipate first," the boy instructed, not even looking my way once as he did all of this.

My thoughts were bitter as I thought about the scene that just played out.

Why is he avoiding looking at me? I'm the one that's supposed to be mad at him.

Still, I listened to what the teen had to say, keeping the mask on until the bandaged teen nodded at me when we reached the other side of the long hallway. No sooner than the boy moved his head was the piece of plastic off and thrown to the floor. In the air I could still smell the sweet smoke, but it was much weaker now than it had been before. The scent of fresher air made me realize just how drowsy I'd started to become from inhaling the smoke while behind the curtain.

I watched Dazai pulling the same trick that he'd done before, kneeling down, rolling up his sleeves and pulling the lock picks out from thin air again before taking care of the locked door. The only difference this time was when he stood up, Dazai reached behind his loose hanging coat, and pulled a handgun out silently.

The teen opened the door swiftly with his right hand, holding the gun with his left before smoothly changing the hand that the gun was in as the boy raised his hand.

I could see just what Dazai was pointing the gun at, but the image of the man that put the bracelet on my wrist, binding my ability came to mind. The thought of that man having a gun pointed at his head wasn't an unpleasant one at all.

This should be fun.

—-

Dazai POV

Pointing the gun at the soft spot of the man's skull, having to hold my arm up just a bit as the adult is taller than I am, I turned the safety off, letting the man hear the click of the weapon before I spoke.

"Don't move if you want to live," I told the man darkly, digging the gun into the man's skull harder to drive the point in.

Of course I was lying, there's no way that this man is getting out of here alive even if he follows all of my instructions to the letter. The middle men and the mafiosos might be off limits because it would piss other organizations off if we killed them, but the grunts manning the checkpoints are fair game for any contestant willing to play.

I could almost feel Chuuya all but begging the man to disregard my warnings and move anyways.

The man instantly stilled, seeming to value his life more than I do. A grin split across my face at the sight, it was a smile that I knew if I were to actually see it, I'd hate myself even more than I already do for how similar it is to his. Despite possessing that knowledge, I felt the grin only deepen more.

I can't understand why someone would want to live. That was simply something that when looking back on my past actions as Percy Jackson, I really didn't seem to understand then either. I always threw myself into the fray back then, never caring if I got hurt in the process. I fought the god of war at the age of twelve, led a suicide mission into the Underworld and sent the head of Medusa to the same gods that are famously known for smiteing the mortals that disrespect them all in the same week. Not even getting started on my trip to the Sea of Monsters a year later that made the Underworld seem like nothing more than a school field trip.

So after almost sixteen years of not caring about myself and living to the next day, it is still interesting to see just how easily I can make those that do care about such things dance on the strings that I've made for them.

"Good," I told the man coldly, mockingly. "Now, are there more of you than there were earlier?"

"No," the man answered in the voice of someone trying their best to seem tougher than they clearly were. "We haven't had our shift change yet," he explained, probably thinking that giving more information freely would boost his chances of living longer.

With anyone else, this might be a smart move to make.

I hummed lightly, pulling the gun back slightly as a form of reward for the grunt on the other end of the firearm. The man's shoulders relaxed slightly at the movement as well.

"Where's the ability user?" I asked, bringing attention to the fact that I knew the guard was alone in the second checkpoint despite not being able to see into the room.

"In the next room, waiting to be taken away during shift change," the man said swiftly, showing no hesitation in selling out his coworker or anyone else for the sake of his own survival.

While I may not care about the Port Mafia or many people in it, I at least knew not to sell out my own organization like the man currently being held at gunpoint was doing. He could've lied or at least shown some hesitancy in giving up his coworker's position so easily.

But his cowardice really isn't my problem. Just like how the grunt's lack of loyalty will no longer be his organization's problem anymore.

"Thank you," I told the man sincerely. Really he did make this much easier for us then it really should've been if the man had an ounce of backbone in his bulk build. "So much."

The shot rang out loudly in the otherwise quiet room as a crater was created in the back of the man's skull. Blood splattered on my face, staining my bandages red as the corpse crumpled to the ground at my feet, showing off all more blood splatter on the other side.

Stepping on the corpse's chest like it was nothing more than a stepping stool there for that purpose, I moved into the next room. I thought that Chuuya might've been mad at me for killing the man on the ground after I'd told him no killing earlier, but the sound of the corpse being kicked across the room told me otherwise.

"Bastard," the boy cursed, for once not aiming it at me. "Why'd you kill the bouncer?" The teen asked, a grumble in his voice at the fact that I got to let loose but he hadn't been able to quit yet.

I shrugged slightly, moving to the door that would take us back to the first checkpoint. "No loose ends," I told the other teen. "He's one of the few people that got a good look at us while we were here."

"The whole ballroom got 'a good look at us'," the other boy shot back, his voice raising in a manner that seemed to suggest he thought I didn't plan for that.

I thought he knew already, I plan for everything.

"Aww, Chibi, I'm disappointed," I cooed in a falsely sad tone, "I thought you knew me better than that." I leaned down, picking the last lock as I talked. "The gas has some memory altering chemicals in it," I explained. "No one in that room will remember the events leading to or directly after the gas."

Sometimes it's better to not remember the events leading to things like this.

The smaller teen mumbled something about me being some type of demon, not that I blamed him. It takes a demon to make something like that and another one to use it.

Opening the door just as I had the last one. I pointed the gun at the last guard's head, firing without any of the questioning that the previous one got. More blood mixed into my bandages, caking my skin as the last shot had. I could only imagine what I looked like to the collared ability user as we stepped fully into the room, staring the man down.

"Are you going to kill me?" The ability user asked in a soft voice, noticeably devoid of any true fear that it should've held.

"Do you want me to?" I asked, purposefully matching the other's soft tone, noticing how he didn't even flinch as I walked closer to him.

The man looked down as his hand reached up, ghosting the shock collar at his throat before looking back at me. "I don't want to go back to them. I don't want to be used anymore," the man said, the smallest bit of defiance slipping into his tone.

To be used...

The thought left a bitter taste in my mouth as I continued towards the other ability user, but I ignored all of the thoughts and memories that threatened to bubble up at the words. Those kinds of emotions were lost on something as wretched as me.

"Dazai," Chuuya warned from across the room. I could guess the thoughts filtering through his mind at this moment. I could also guess at the anger that he'd been suppressing that was about to bubble to the surface once more.

"Okay," I told the other, my voice just above a whisper.

The man smiled sadly, a thank you ghosting on his lips as I raised the gun a final time, waiting for the ability user to close his eyes for me to pull the trigger.

The bang from the shot filled the room, but it was soon drowned out by the sound of something hitting the wall. Looking behind me, I saw Chuuya's raised fist slowly falling from the wall back down to the teen's side as hundreds of cracks formed on the wall behind him.

"You didn't have to do that," the ability user growled lowly in a dangerous tone. "We could've-"

"The Port Mafia is not a philanthropist organization, Chuuya," I cut in, cutting the other teen off midsentece. "Even if we were, the auction house would have chased him down until he died anyway for trying to get out." I walked away from the steaming teen, opening the last door into the darkness of the alley from earlier.

"This was the best outcome," I told him, walking away to call for the car.

This was the only option that didn't put a target on the Port Mafia's back.

—-

Chuuya POV

I looked at the cooling body laying on the ground, at the blood pooling around what used to be the ability user's head. I thought about the easy way that Dazai shot the man, about the almost peaceful look on his face when he looked at me after killing the man that'd just been asking for death.

I know that I've killed more than my fair share of people during my life. I see their faces as I try to fall asleep most nights, but every death had a purpose. Whether it was for revenge because they tried to hurt my people, or simply a part of the job, it was something that needed to be done.

Never did I look so calm about it though.

I know that I'm the vessel for an ancient god, but watching Dazai shoot the ability user that was asking for help was like watching a monster at work. Like watching something less human than I am, if Dazai could've ever been called human at all.

Leaving the first room that we came through, I walked into the alley, noticing that while it was still dark, it was much brighter than when I first walked down it earlier today. I could see the Demon Prodigy at the opening of the alley, getting off the phone and walking over to where I'd sat down to wait.

"They'll be here in about five minutes," he informed me emotionlessly before walking back to the mouth of the alley, sitting in a spot visible for the car to see.

When they came, I put the weapons container and the supplier into one car, while Dazai and I rode in another.

It was the first car ride that we had together that wasn't filled with bickering, but a heavy silence instead. In the end, I fell into a dreamless sleep for the rest of the ride back to mafia headquarters.

—-

Chuuya POV

When we got back, Dazai and I took the elevator up to the boss's office quietly, keeping a tense distance apart as anticipation for the fight that would follow our report took over. At least it did for me that is, there's no telling why the other teen was also keeping the distance.

We got off the elevator and walked down the hall in silence, such an odd sight for us that when we got to the door the guards startled at our sudden appearance. I glared at them, waiting for them to open the door so I can be done with this already, yell at Dazai, and finally go to bed.

The two guards opened the door in a small frenzy, seeming to remember the last time that Mori personally gave us a mission and they made Dazai and I wait to give the debriefing to him on it after.

The pair of us walked in, more than an arm's length between us as we did, the air only getting tender as we walked inside the room. However, the clouded anger at the other teen that was filling my head disappeared for a moment as I took in the scene playing out before us.

Just what the hell is going on here?

"Come on Elise, just try on one dress," a grown man yelled, scurrying around the room after the blonde ability. "You'd look so pretty in the dark green one. Just try it one once," the man begged, the dress in question clenched in his hands as he ran.

The ability was running away, keeping a good distance from her ability user, Mori. The girl was wearing her normal red dress and striped leggings, though she had her shoes off, thrown on the floor in different spots around the room to allow her to run faster.

If this was anyone else with any other child, I would be concerned and would probably kill the man that dared to look at a child that way. But this is the Port Mafia boss, my boss, and the child in question is just his ability, an extension of himself that he can decide how she looks and acts, choosing to make her young and bratty on purpose for whatever reason. It still wasn't a pleasant sight, but it's better than the alternative.

At least it's not an actual child.

Dazai walked ahead, narrowly avoiding the running duo as he walked across the room to the boss's desk, sitting down on it when he got there. This was something that only the taller boy could do without being killed on the spot.

"Hello, Elsie," the bandaged boy called out when the girl ran past him again.

"Dazai, Chuuya," the ability greeted as she continued to run away from the mafia boss.

"Ah, boys," Mori said, suddenly stopping as if he only just noticed that we came into the room.

I can never really tell when he does things like this if it is real or just an act that the boss puts on to make himself seem less harmful than he actually is. Most likely the latter.

The boss walked over to his desk, sitting down in the chair there, not seeming to care about the other teen on the desk. "Report," he commended coldly, dropping all of the childlike desperation that he possessed only moments ago.

He changes his emotions so fast that it makes you wonder if he has any at all, kind of like the other teen in the room.

"We recovered the weapons," I told him, stepping further into the office now that the scene from before has died down, "and the supplier is being prepared for interrogation in the sublease as we speak."

The boss hummed loudly before looking at the teen sitting sideways on his desk. "Anything to add, Dazai?"

"Three curtains, all auction workers, no witnesses and no mafia casualties, foreign or domestic," the boy reported in a tone just as monotone as the boss's. "I also planted bugs in the phones of each of the mafiosos present. You should be able to have someone track the information gathered from almost any of the Port Mafia's computers."

"Untraceable?" The mafia boss asked. I could almost hear the sparkle in the older man's tone, a far cry from Dazai who seemed to be becoming more and more dead as the conversation went on.

"Of course."

The mafia boss smiled in a way that I wouldn't call warm, but something almost akin to proud. "Good job boys," the boss complimented before waving his hand in a shooting manner. "Go. Sleep," he ordered, "I want the written reports by the end of the week, but go sleep for now."

It would almost sound like Mori was being a caring boss if you didn't remember that fact that this was the mafia, a place where caring is overrated. Where caring gets you killed.

I could hear the undertone in the man's voice.

You're useless to me if you're exhausted.

Dazai slid off of the desk lazily, following me out of the room at a pace just barely noticeably slower than his normal stride. I dug my nails into my gloves, clenching and unclenching my fist as we walked to the door.

A part of me still wanted to believe that the supplier had just been lying about the bandaged teen behind me hitting Shirase despite saying that none of the kids would be hurt. That he'd just been saying it to get under my skin and throw me off my rhythm. But the rest of me was smarter, I knew that the bandaged boy is a lier, and that it's entirely possible that what the supplier said was true.

Dazai plays the part that is needed at the time, changing his emotions fast enough to match the situation. He's a manipulative bastard that only cares about himself and suicide.

And yet, I'm stuck with the asshole.

The Sheep betrayed me, even if it was through the other teen's manipulation. And now I'm here, walking through the halls of the Port Mafia headquarters, partnered with a demon that, surprisingly, normally keeps his word.

I just want to know what made Shirase so damn special.

It would be different if I'd been the one to dig a knife into the guy's gut, since he was the one that stabbed me, but Dazai had no reason to go and do that.

I'm tired enough that all I really want from the other teen right now is a damn straight answer for once in the boy's life.

—-

Dazai POV

The mafia boss's door closing shut sounded like the slamming of a coffin to my ears as Chuuya walked away, leaving me to trail behind him. The red head was quiet as we walked, something that he'd been since the job began at the auction house. It was an unsettling silence, like the one that looms over the graveyard at a funeral.

We walked into one of the spare rooms on the floor below the boss's office. There was a small western style bed, a desk and a chair in the room, along with a small dresser and a door leading to the personnel bathroom.

Chuuya flopped down on the bed while I slid down into the chair across from him. We let the silence hand in the air for a moment before either of us spoke.

"Why did you do it?" Chuuya asked in a tired voice, his words barely audible.

I didn't have to ask what he meant, it was obvious enough.

The silence continued on as I didn't know just how to respond to the teen. I'd only really seen the boy in a mood similar to this one once, the only difference was that he had a knife in his side.

"Tell me," the teen demanded, still clenching and unclenching his fist.

But it felt like I had led in my mouth.

Apparently silence was not the right answer.

"Damn it, Dazai!" The other boy exclaimed, slamming his hat on the bed and running a hand through his hair like he thought that would calm himself down.

A flinch ran through my body at the boy's actions, turning me into a little kid again. A little boy huddled on the apartment's kitchen floor as Gabe stood over me with a broken beer in his hand, waving it around dangerously while my mom was still at work. It wasn't long after that incident that I was sent to my first boarding school.

But the other boy didn't see my reaction and didn't hear the thoughts in my head as he continued on.

"I only asked one thing of you!" Chuuya yelled, his voice breaking at the end. "You manipulated me into joining the Port Mafia, people that I hated," he continued, his voice softening in that of a hushed defeat, "and all I asked of you was that you didn't hurt the kids."

The kids...

He still holds them dear even after all that they did to him. Betraying him, using him to get out of their own messes and gaslighting him into thinking that he still owed them, especially Shirase from what I gathered the first time that I met him.

Like you always do.

"I didn't," I told him simply.

I kept my promise. I always do.

"You stabbed Shirase in the gut!" The boy said, gaining some of his volume back. "Is stabbing not considered hurting anymore or something?" The boy continued, the anger in his voice evident.

This might just be the angriest that I've ever seen the other teen.

Still...

"He doesn't count," I deadpanned, knowing exactly what the other boy's reaction was going to be, but saying it anyway.

He's the one that wants the truth after all, that's just what I'm giving him.

I could easily see the vein protruding from Chuuya's forehead as his anger raised impossibly higher.

"He was included," the other boy argued. "He was a child-"

"And so were you," I cut in, stopping the other boy in his rant before he could go on saying any more meaningless things.

For the first time in a long while, I was having to fight to keep my voice down, to remain the emotionless bastard that the mafia had turned me into. Fight to keep from screaming.

I just didn't get it, couldn't comprehend it despite my IQ. Shirase tried to kill Chuuya and yet here Chuuya was, months later still defending the self obsessed asshole, mad at me for bringing a form of karmic justice to the silver haired teen.

"That's besides the teen," the other teen snarled. "You took them from me and all I asked was that they come away from the ambush unhurt." There was a dangerous glint in those blue eyes of his when the boy looked at me. "I thought even a demon like you could at least do that much."

I felt like I'd been shot at the words from the other boy.

A demon, I'd been called it enough by the other mafiosos in the Port Mafia, but Chuuya had never said it out loud, never to my face like this.

"He stabbed you first," I reminded him coldly. "At least I didn't poison the blade." My voice was its normal calmness, just barely betraying the anger and frustration hidden beneath the layers of apathy.

"That gave you no right to do it back!" The other boy countered, his arm swinging out in a deadly arc towards the head post, running clean through it.

I opened my mouth to speak, to do something to stop the other boy from acting in such a way that didn't cease to remind me of the people that I'd rather forget, but Chuuya beat me to the punch.

"And don't say that you did it for me," the other boy growled. "You didn't and you know that. You did it because he was there, or maybe you just thought that it would be fun," the shorter teen decided, finally seeming to be making up his mind on the question that had been burning in there.

He leaned forward, staring me down with those blue eyes that used to remind me of home. "You did it for yourself," he whispered just loud enough to make sure I heard it. His voice sounded like a curse. "You're not human enough to have done it for me."

He was looking at me like he was daring me to fight him on this. To somehow prove him long. But I couldn't because he was right, I wasn't human enough. But I knew he would never believe me either way if I tried to argue that I had done it for all of the reasons that he was burning.

I stood up, walking to the door without looking at the other teen. I didn't want to see the boy's face or for him to even get a good glimpse at mine.

"I sent a grunt to watch over him, make sure he got proper medical attention and that he made it through the following week," I told him, my hand grasping the door knob. "Shirase was never in any life threatening danger."

The unlike you goes unspoken and unheard by those of us in the room.

I opened the door, leaving Chuuya alone in the room.

Walking down the hallway, making my way to the place that someone deemed fit to call a home, I felt so... numb.

Maybe it's better this way.

Chapter Text

Dazai POV

The light bulb hanging from the ceiling of my shipping container flickered lightly when my eye preyed open late the same evening of the Sun Rise Auction. The cold bit at my skin despite the fact that it was the middle of a warm summer day, sending a shiver down my bare spine. The scent of iron hung in the air, a familiar scent for this space, but today it was much stronger than how it usually was. My slender body was curled up on the dirty, cold floor, my arms and chest bare of anything but my own blood.

After the fight with Chuuya I called my driver, having the man pick me up from the lobby of mafia headquarters. The ride had been as quiet as it's always seemed to be when I rode alone with the other man, without the noise of the smaller teen that I'd grown accustomed to on the way to most jobs.

But the silence was more one sided than it had been in months. Then it had been since Chuuya officially joined the mafia, since he became my partner.

It was just that the other man in the car couldn't hear the conversation that I could.

Voices ran through my head, voices that weren't mine and yet seemingly betrayed all of my darkest thoughts, all of the truths that I always tried my hardest to forget. They whispered these things to me, screamed them at me at the top of their nonexistent lungs.

They said these things so much that I had no choice but to believe them more than I believed myself.

Each and everyone of them was screaming at me by the time I finally made it to the heart of the junkyard, to the place that the mafia boss had given me to live in for the past almost two years. They were loud enough, persistent enough that in a moment of weakness, in a lifetime of it, I gave into them.

I'd told Chuuya all those months ago, on our first mission together back when he was still with the Sheep, that I'd try. That I'd give living a try. I'd told him this because he'd managed to make the idea of living, the act of it interesting again. He was something wild, all but feral, and above all else, honest, and I'd told him that I'd try.

I also told him that I wouldn't promise anything more than giving it a shot.

The skin on my arms stung as I dragged myself up from the ground, a wince that I normally wouldn't have released escaping from my lips. Last night I'd done something that I hadn't really let myself do since the shorter teen became my partner months ago. I'd dug the blade that I'd gotten from Kouyou deep into my skin, deep enough that I'd passed out after only a few cuts. I hadn't been aiming to kill my self, but I wouldn't have been disappointed if it'd come to that.

Staying alive, wanting to live, those are two things that I've never been too familiar with. My self preservation skills are more lacking than that of a small child's that hadn't had any reason to have to develop them just yet.

But despite all of that, despite every fucked up thing that had happened to me since joing the mafia, since I'd been born, I'd been trying. I'd been trying even if it was only because the other boy had been just interesting enough to warrant it, even if it just was to keep Chuuya alive a little longer like he'd been doing for me. I had been trying for the first time in two years to stay alive, to try to want to live. It'd been months since the doctor had had to patch me back together from the mess that he caused me to make.

I had been trying.

And yet, pulling myself up from my dirty floor and onto my thin bed, I couldn't find it in myself to want to try anymore, to see the point in it.

The voices were quiet, but my thoughts were bitter enough to poison the silence.

How pathetic is it, to live for someone that hates you?

—-

Mori POV

The sun outside of my office was setting lazily over the Yokohama skyline, casting a red hue in the dark room, coloring the room a deep blood red. I read over the paperwork in front of me with a passive gaze, looking for any signs of lies or backhand deals that should cause me to have to take action. Today's file was a report on a ghost-like organization sweeping through other counties since the end of the war.

The mafia is a bloody place, a dark one filled with night terrors that we choose to disguise as humans. But just because we all share these monstrous traits, that doesn't mean that there weren't still some men stupid enough to try and betray the ruler of these monster like men.

There was a knock on my office door, firm yet sluggish at the same time, almost as if the person on the other side of the door had given up on trying to care at all. Like they'd all but given into the monster living in their brain, almost ready to be shaped into the perfect monster that I'd been seeking to create all along.

Moments later the door opened letting a thoroughly bandaged Dazai into the ghostly room. There was a look on the teen's face, one that I'd barely seen since the appearance of the former Sheep King, Chuuya Nakahara. The boy's gaze was cold, devoid of almost anything resembling what one would call life. It was a look that I hadn't seen since the shorter teen officially joined the Port Mafia.

It was a look that I missed dearly.

The darkness there reminded me of the night that Dazai failed to bring his partner to me despite all of the perfect preparations that I'd made for the boy. It'd been a disappointment that I'd have to wait for the shorter teen to join us, but the punishment had been worth the wait.

The results of the two of them working together since haven't been bad either.

The whole situation would be perfect if it wasn't for that pesky light in the younger boy's eyes. I'd been watching the way that the boy's eyes seemed to become impossibly darker as his days spent in the mafia went on, coming closer and closer to a complete darkness, but then Chuuya came along. The other teen lighted that darkness, undoing so much of the work that I'd put into molding the younger boy. It was almost enough to make me wonder if my trying to polish a diamond with a diamond had only served to make the original one duller in the end.

Good to see that I was wrong.

The slender teen had those ever present bandages of his wrapped tightly around his malnourished frame, though they seemed different today. In recent months, the bandages had served as little more than a form of protection, hiding the pasts attempts of the suicidal teen and his various sessions of self harm, only being using the bandages for their intended purpose on a few areas of his body.

Today they were being used for their old purposes, showing that something had happened for the teen to revert to his old habits.

How interesting.

The bandages were wrapped securely around the boy, shown in the way that the boy's movements were more stiff than his latest bout of easy, lazy gestures.

I guess the boy's pain tolerance has gone down since the appearance of the older teen.

I watched Dazai as he held his arms carefully at his sides while moving from the door to Elise's side, keeping a careful distance from the girl so as to not accidentally nullify the ability in the process. The brown haired boy always greeted the sentient ability first when he came into my office, forcing me to wait, something that he knew better than anyone that I didn't like to do.

If anyone else were to have pulled something like this, shown such disrespect to me as their boss, they're body would've already been cooling on the ground and a cleaning crew called in to make sure that the blood didn't stain anymore than it had to. But it makes the bandaged boy happy to make me wait when he knows that I won't do anything about it, and it makes Elise happy to be given special treatment by my right hand, the reason why I let the teen get away with making me wait. It doesn't hurt that their little exchange of greetings gives me time to finish any thought that I was in the middle of writing or processing.

"Beautiful as always, Elsie," the lanky teen complimented, his softened just enough to be heard if you were truly listening.

Dazai is always the softest when around the ability and the vessel, maybe it was something to do with connecting with them on the fact that none of them will ever truly be human no matter how much they look it or pretend to be it.

"Bandages," the girl happily greets, taking a moment to look at the teen, giving him a clear sight of the newest work of art by the ability. The teen taps the printer paper lightly before leaving the ability's side to cross the room to me.

Dazai doesn't greet me like he did Elise. He doesn't even greet me at all in fact, choosing to level me with that dead look of his instead, one of an intensity that I haven't seen since the last day in the old boss's room.

"Interrogation cases," the boy says, his voice just as dead as the look in his eyes. Neither were fitting for that of a sixteen year old boy, but they were perfect for the future that I was trying to create through the teen. "If there are any particularly reselant cases, I want them."

If someone had told me earlier that Osamu Dazai would all but waltz into my office today and, to put it nicely, request extra work, demand to put it factually, I would have sent them to that very boy and had him use his ability on said person. In the past, the teen had taken extra work upon himself by choice, but then it had always been to execute some type of experiment of his, getting proper answers had just been a pleasant side effect for the rest of us involved. But this was different, this was him asking to actually work.

The last time that the teen asked for extra work himself instead of having it thrown on him, the boy just happened to have to set a new record for breaking hostages. The brutality of that day was so horrific even by mafia standards that the head of the interrogation had to duck out of the room despite his own years of experience.

I studied the boy, taking in the options that I had, the countless plays that I could make. In the end I didn't see any problem in giving the boy what he wanted, only the potential profits.

"Six cases," I told the boy, gathering the files in question from one of the drawers in my desk and handing them over to the teen standing in front of my desk, "standard procedure, the third page of each file shows what information we need from each of them."

It was the best thing for all parties involved not to question the boy when he gets like this. The devil would run scared if he pissed off the little prodigy right now, when his eyes were as dark as they currently are.

The boy walked away from my desk, hitting the spine of the files I'd given him against his open palm absentmindedly as he sat down next to the blonde ability, keeping a careful distance from the girl. The girl continued to draw on the various papers of her's as Dazai read through the files that he'd acquired, familiarizing himself with the cases. The ability would occasionally tap on the table by the teen's files, drawing the boy's attention to ask about what color choice she should use for whatever it was that she was drawing this time. Dazai would silently point to the one that he found appropriate, not even bothering to glance up from the files.

They really are such an odd pair.

Watching the two of them together sent a shiver down my spine as I moved back to doing my own work, fantasies of our happy little family running through my head.

—-

Dazai POV

I left the boss's office not much later, removing myself from the unsettling company of the seemingly young ability and her master, getting out of there while I still had the chance to leave with only my self inflicted injuries to show for my efforts.

The sun had already set a good while ago by the time that I made my way down to the sub levels of mafia headquarters. The cold bit at my skin, stinging the still open wounds as I moved through the underground, going down to the room number attached to the file at the top of my small stack.

I could feel the small slice of excitement coursing through my body, the slightest pinch of adrenaline making my steps just a bit faster in anticipation. It had been a while since I'd allowed myself to succumb to the dark impulses that tended to take over my mind. I'd been trying to play the human despite constantly reminding myself just how truly inhuman I was. Maybe I thought that if I acted more human, if I forced myself to feel enough emotions, I could become something akin to a human being.

But I am someone born to die.

A sacrifice for the gods in their little prophecy, a creature designed by one of the cruelest men in the demon city, Yokohama. There was no way that something like me could dilute themselves into thinking that they ever had a chance at becoming something resembling a human being.

Emotions were pointless for something like me, a fact that I finally let myself accept as I opened the door to the first cell.

By the time that I left the sublevels hours later, making the trip back up to the boss's office late that morning, my body was covered in enough blood that the monster inside my living corpse was finally reflected in the appearance of the teen on the outside.

The mafiosos coming into work avoided looking at me as best as they could, slight tempers of fear ruining through the criminal's bodies as they passed me in the halls. Their reactions didn't make much sense to me, each of them were trained killers, I couldn't understand why the sight of a little blood set the grunts so on edge, it wasn't even like it was theirs.

The trip was quiet, boring aside from the endless gazes and more bleak than it had been since the last few ones that I made back during the doctor's first year as mafia boss. Really anything could be described as boring when you only had the work bobsled mafia boss for company like I did during that time. As of lately, I would normally have been accompanied by a certain red head during this journey, making the apprehension that should have been taking over my body lessen, but this wasn't a mission for the pair of us and that emotion wasn't there to be placated.

Not that I would've brought the smaller teen with me even if it was. Not for this.

A new set of armed guards were placed outside of the boss's door when I finally got there. But they weren't there to protect the man inside, but instead were here to be watched, to be endlessly observed. They were some of the last people left that were still suspicious of the doctor and I after the mysterious circumstances of the old boss's untimely death.

Fixing the walking time bombs with a dead eyed glare, I moved past the men, knocking on the door behind the pair. A part of me wanted them to try something while both the boss and I were in the office together, something deadly that would end with me, or better yet the boss, six feet under.

But I knew that they wouldn't and I couldn't even find it in myself to feel disappointed at this.

"Come in," a tired voice called out from the other side of the door, the noise was muffled by the distance but still audible enough for us to hear.

One of the guards opened the door for me, barely soaring me a glance as if the sight of me was something too gruesome for them to stand. Pathetic, the pair of them, their old boss had much more blood on their hands than I do at the moment, died with more on him too.

The door closed firmly behind me as I made my way to the blonde ability sitting in her spot at the long table, ignoring the other monster in the room. The girl had a fresh paper in front of her, the first one of the new day it seems.

"Lovely as always, Elise," I complimented, looking at the crayon drawing that the girl was making. It was one of her more detailed drawings, one of the guards outside of the door with his severed head by his side, the wounds still bleeding.

Guess we're going to need a new guard or two pretty soon, what a shame.

The ability giggled lightly as I walked away from her, making my way over to the doctor's desk, the energy draining more and more from my body with each step that I took. Conversations with the man on the other side of the desk have always been a strain, even before the incident.

"Ah, Dazai," the doctor cooed, a smile carved into the man's face as he looked up at me. It wasn't a threading smile by any means, but instead one that I've seen just as much as the other. A look of interest. "Twice here on your own in twenty-four hours," the man observed, laying his chin lightly on his crossed finger. "To what do I owe the pleasure? Did you already run through all of your newest outlets?"

I sighed heavily, throwing myself down into the nearest chair in front of the man's desk, faking a smile as I looked back up at the other demon in the room. He always does seem to like it when I smile at him, especially when it's fake.

"How do you know I'm not just here to see you, like old times?" I asked the man, carefully piling my pained limbs over my stomach as my feet dangled over the side of the armrest.

The mafia boss's smile only deepened at the thinly veiled attitude that I gave the man that most in the mafia thought to be a mentor of sorts to me.

"You have Chuuya for that now Dazai," the doctor said after a moment, never lessening that haunting smile of his, "do you not?" The implication in the other's words was as harmless as a sheathed blade, benign until someone chooses to use it.

"No," I told the man plainly, cutting off any chance of confusion, "I don't."

Not anymore, if I ever did.

I looked at the man out of the corner of my good eye, watching the interested sparkle there as the mafia boss raised an eyebrow slowly at me, knowing that I was watching him. A heavy sigh escaped my lips as I looked at the man, knowing that the words that were about to come out of my mouth would come back to haunt me one day.

I just need to not be alive when that day finally comes.

I looked away from the other mafioso, suddenly finding the ceiling to be much more interesting than the cruel doctor.

"I have some things to deal with... back home," I finally told the doctor. The intrigued look on the man's face only intensified at the words spilling from my mouth. The mafia boss motions for me to continue, waving his hand lightly. "I need a week off to set some things straight," I explained, cutting to the point, "deal with the last of my unfinished business there. I'm prepared to take extra jobs before and after I leave to make up for the time I'm gone if that suffices."

Surprise was something rare to see on the doctor's face, something that I'd only seen a few times in the year and a half or so that I've known the monster, but today it was there.

And I knew exactly the reason why.

I'd never mentioned home to the doctor before, the man had no idea of my past before that day on the bridge. The most that I was sure that he knew, but had no true confirmation of yet, was my time in the slums after coming here, but nothing before. I'd never spoken of it, and he'd never asked, not really caring about who I was before I fell into the devil's hands.

But even a man that didn't care that much before couldn't help but be interested when the curiosity was laid out on a silver platter for him. But being who he was, the mafia boss was able to quickly stifle the look.

Running the long game it seems.

I could tell before he said anything that he would let me go, the information and leverage that he would gain in the long run being too precious of a thing for him to give up. The puzzle too interesting to just throw away. Plus, he knew that I'd most likely just go anyway and accept the consequences when I came back, if I came back at all.

"Alright," the man agreed easily, leaning back in his chair, "just bring Elise back something sweet as well and I'll allow it."

We glanced at the ability together, watching the aggressively coloring girl who'd moved to the floor at some point during the conversation, most likely wanting more room to work.

Vicious little girl.

I nodded at the man when we were done observing the sentient being. I'd already been planning on doing something along the lines of that anyways, wanting to stay on the good side of the ability. The girl enjoyed inflicting pain just as much as her owner does, though she couldn't touch me without being nullified, it didn't mean that I was safe. She's the only one that has the boss's ear more than I do after all.

I went over to the girl, looking at the crude drawing thay the ability was creating while the boss shuffled through the available assignments, looking for some to give to me. I sat down next to the girl while waiting, pointing out some shading tips for the ability to use that made the girl beam up at me from her drawing.

A voice cut through the one sided conversation that me and the ability were having, calling attention to its owner from across the large office.

"When do you plan to leave?" The underground doctor asked, still sorting through papers while doing so. A small stack had already formed on top of the man's desk, one much larger than I wanted but about the size that I'd expected.

"Three days from today," I called back, never fully looking at the man if I could help it.

The thick smack of a file told me that he'd added the last one to the stack of what he was going to give me before I left for New York. I also knew that one the same size, if not bigger, would be waiting for me when I got back.

I got up from my spot on the floor, using my legs to maneuver around to avoid using my arms since I was much too tired to change the bandages again because the cuts reopened. I walked over to the desk, avoiding the gaze of the sadistic man as I grabbed the files, taking them away from the boss.

I walked to the door, feeling the thickness of the files in my hands as I narrowly avoided running into the ability that had sprawled out even more in the time that it took me to walk to the desk and back.

Today is going to be a long day.

—-

Chuuya POV

The days passed in a seamless blur, each one just like the other. The driver that I was assigned would come and pick me up from my apartment, I would go into work with the gem industry and then I would head back to my apartment and lay in my bed until a dreamless sleep finally came to me. Normally I would've met up with the Flags at some point during this time but I wasn't really in the mood for Piano Man, Albatross, Lippman, Iceman, or Doc. They were great, but I felt like crap and I didn't know them well enough to bring them into it.

It had been four days since the events of the Sunrise Auction. In this time I hadn't seen the bandaged once in these days, not that I'd really been looking for him either. It wasn't all that unusual for the two of us to go a day or two without speaking to each other, each of us having our own jobs outside of our joint assignments, but it was strange for us to go almost a whole school week without one of us seeking the other out whether for our clandestine meetings on the room or to just annoy the other. Aside from solo missions, this was one of the longest times that we'd been apart since I'd joined the Port Mafia months ago.

Not that I wasn't enjoying the detoxification period from the other teen.

The sun was high in the noon sky when my driver dropped me off in front of Port Mafia Headquarters. Walking up the long staircase to the building door, I thought about the only reason that I still knew that the suicidal teen was still alive during the time that we've spent apart lately.

The whispers.

Everywhere I went within the mafia circle there were whispers floating around, spreading like smoke.

Whispers about him.

"That weird bandaged teen set a new record for the quickest interrogation the other day," the whispers spoke to each other.

"Four missions in two," they would wistfully whisper back.

Tremors would seep into the people's voices as they described the scenes that they'd been told. "The interrogation squad got sick just watching apparently."

"Demon Prodigy," they all spoke, fear lacing the grunts' tone as if they were drowning in it.

The lists went on, continuing to grow as the days went on without me. Anger flared through my chest every time that anything regarding the teen was brought up. I haven't forgiven him by a long shot for the information that I found out about the day that I was brought in, but even I'd admit that the rumors were strange. If I didn't know any better, I'd almost think that the teen was seeking the extra work out himself.

A new set of guards let me into Mori's office without any hesitation or questions when I got there. They weren't as squirily as the last ones that all but jumped at the door, but they still moved to open it a little too easily for my taste.

Mori must have told them that I was coming.

It was a rational assumption, better than the alternative that they were just too green to not know to just open the door for the first face that waltzed up to the boss's office. Not that anyone other than Dazai is brazen enough to come here willingly unannounced, most people that get called here don't make it back out in one piece.

Walking in, I saw the boss sitting in a chair in front of his large wall length window, a report balancing on his leg while the man drank some type of expensive tea from an equally expensive tea cup. The mafia boss had a regal air about him even when doing menial tasks like this, the air of a ruthless ruler. It was something that I wanted to learn from the other man. There was a stack of reports on the small table to his side that looked like he hadn't gotten to just yet.

"Sir," I spoke firmly, kneeling down near the man, ducking my head to hide away the confusion at my presence suddenly being needed here. At me having to be here alone, without the boy that was supposed to be my partner.

It wasn't unusual for us to be given solo assignments, but normally we'd be given those over the phone or a grunt would just give us the file. But being called here on my own... This was the first time since the day that he gave me my hat that I'd been called here alone.

"Ah, Chuuya," the man said with an air of surprise that from my experience with the man's right hand, I could tell that it was faked. He looked at me before motioning for me to stand. "Come," the man continued when I was on my feet again, "sit."

I took the seat to the boss's right, a force of habit on my part developed from the fact that the bandaged bastard always took the left seat. When I looked back at the other man in the room, I could see a sly smile on the mafia boss's face that told me that he was well aware of this fact and found it vaguely amusing as he chuckled lightly to himself.

This time when I ducked my head it was to hide the heat on my face that came with the knowledge of the fact that I'd been caught.

"I have a job for you," the boss started, setting down his tea cup elegantly to the side as to give me his full attention and to call for my own. "Tough," he continued, "I'll admit that my level of information on the job itself is next to none."

I couldn't stop my eyebrows from scrunching together in surprise at the words that came from the other mafioso's mouth. They were words that I'd never thought that I would hear from the man in the dark coat.

Since when does the boss have little information on anything? Since when is he not stubbornly five steps ahead like that bastard protege of his?

But the surprises didn't end there.

"Dazai came to me the other day," the man admitted, continuing on as if he didn't just drop a minor bomb shell in my lap just moments before, "the boy requested time off for the first time since I met him."

The crease in my brows only increased at the other's words.

Requested time off...? Doesn't he normally just not show up for a day or two, blaming it on some new suicide attempt of his being more important and taking priority of his time?

"He said that he needs to deal with something back home," the mafia boss continued, taking a pause to study my reaction throughout the briefing. If he was looking for facial acrobatics, he got it. "Normally, I wouldn't send someone out to watch a member for just that, but given the boy's current mental condition, it's likely that whatever Osamu is getting himself mixed up with this time will get him killed before it's over."

My expression fell flat at the mafia boss's words, nothing in any of the words that I just heard making any sense to me in the slightest.

Current mental state?

The other teen had been the same since I met him, constantly talking about death but never truly doing any attempt that would surely bring himself closer to it. I mean if the bastard really wanted to die, he always could have just shot himself in the head, he has enough access to the guns around him for that.

And since when does the bandage waste have a family?

In the time that I'd known the other boy, he'd never even mentioned where he was from before the mafia let alone any family that he had from back then. I'd never really given it much thought, but the time or two that it did flit across my mind, I'd just assumed that they all died, creating the monster that we know today.

"So you want me to spy on him or something," I asked, finally looking back up at the mafia boss.

I knew that that wasn't what he really wanted, Dazai would figure me out way too soon for that to be it, but I really couldn't come up with anything else for it to be.

The underground doctor only laughed, seeming to find my attempt at figuring out the situation amusing. "He would know that you were there in seconds," the man said, finally calming himself down after a few more moments, "something that you and I are both well aware of."

True, the bastard has basically begun writing the book on the Black Lizards' current tactics.

"No," the man decided, "I want you to accompany him." The man reached into his coat pocket, a move that reminded me of the boy that pulled endless objects out of his own, pulling out a thick slip of paper. "I already have the ticket for you."

The man stretched out his hand lazily to me, holding the paper out for me to take. Sure enough, when I took the slip into my hands I could see that it was a plane ticket, just as the mafia boss said. A fake name that matched up with my forged passport that I'd gotten the other month already on it.

I looked back up at the man, holding onto the ticket tightly. "When do I leave?"

The man grinned darkly as if he found this whole situation to be rather interesting.

"Tomorrow."

Chapter Text

Chuuya POV

I left mafia headquarters, arriving at the airport about an hour and a half before the flight was scheduled to take off, horror stories from other mafiosos ringing in my ears from missing the flight because they were caught in airport security and having to figure out how to get a new one without the boss finding out. When I made it to the gate indicated on my ticket, I saw a sight that I never thought I would see.

Dazai was standing alone in the airport with a bookbag of all things on his back, a blue one at that. I'd come to the airport early fully expecting to be waiting on the other teen to show until just before the flight was called for from final boarding. The bandaged teen was good at showing up exactly when needed for missions, but tended to avoid people as much as possible for as long as possible when he could, a fact that I was sorry to have to know.

On top of that, the teen was actually wearing his jacket the correct way, his bandaged arms going through the sleeves instead of letting them hang loose like he always does. It was such a strange sight that my eyes glazed over him when I was scanning the crowd the first time on the way to the terminal's gate.

Walking up close to the teen, I noticed the way that the other boy had his hands in his pockets, reminding me of the way that I used to keep mine. The taller teen had his back to me, watching the large screen on the wall, probably double checking that the terminal hadn't changed last minute since the flight was supposed to arrive any minute now.

The boy hummed lightly when I was right behind him, stepping up to my spot at the other teen's side. "I was wondering when you would get here," the teen started, tearing himself away from the board to look at me, "Chuuya."

My body shook subtly at the sight from the other boy, at the sound of the teen's voice. There was a deadness in the other boy's expression, one much more profound and pronounced than what usually reseted there most days. He looked like a living corpse.

Chuuya.

My own name stung in my ears as the other teen said it. It wasn't that Dazai hadn't said my name before, one of the first times that we spoke it was on our first mission together when Shirase was pointing a knife at the teen's throat, it was just that he'd never said it this way before. There was no scorn, anger, or playfulness in the other's tone, there wasn't anything at all.

"You knew that I was coming?" I asked, shifting the weight of the strap on my duffle bag.

I wasn't too surprised that he already knew, expected it even. Despite the way that the other teen tends to act, the boy had a real level of intelligence to him, one that I'm ashamed to admit that I can't measure up to. He had to be that smart to properly play his role in the mafia. Something like this would be child's play to the mafia boss's right hand.

"I figured that Boss would send someone to watch over me and make sure that I didn't get myself killed, or just off myself all together during my leave," the other teen explained.

The taller teen didn't even look at me as he spoke, opting to just watch the rest of the people walking around in a rush around us. They way that the other boy spoke just now, it wasn't his normal hopefulness or childishness that he used when talking about death. There was no longing in the other's tone, but a seriousness that made me wonder if it was a joke or not, if it ever was. In this moment, in the other's tone, the boy's death seemed as real of a thing as the bandages lining the younger teen's skin.

I stood there, wondering just what to say to this new version of the teen, how to speak to the boy that I didn't really seem to know. The last time that Dazai had spoken like this, I'd only been in the mafia a few days at the time, but I didn't really have to deal with him then, we'd just gotten drunk instead.

Our flight was called over the airport intercom after not much longer, a bored sounding woman that seemed like she needed a cup of coffee calling out the boarding groups right after the announcement.

"Come on," the taller teen says, already walking away towards the boarding gate without looking to see if I was following or not.

I stared at the other teen's back feeling my anger levels rising at the taller boy's blatant dismissal.

"Hey!" I yelled, following behind the other teen to the boarding line, picking up speed as he did. "Don't order me around, you shitty walking roll of bandages!"

I was expecting some type of quip about my height to come shooting back at me, maybe something about seeing if we had enough time to buy milk real quick, or if they offered it on the plane, but nothing like that ever came. The only response that did come was one that almost made me screech to a halt in the middle of the airport.

"Fine," Dazai agreed easily.

The teen continued forward, not seeming to notice or care about the consequences attached to the teen's words. About the strangeness of them.

Just, what the hell happened to you?

Dazai, since the day that we met, when I crashed him through a building or two, the other teen always seemed like he didn't care about anyone else, only caring about himself and his perfect, painless suicide. To say that he cared about himself was stretching it all a little far as well.

The only reason that the other boy seemed to tolerate me was because he found my willingness to argue and fight with him, with someone that most in the Port Mafia were wary of before he even officially joined, entertaining enough to keep around. That and I'm one of the few people that can read the teen well enough for him to not have to explain all of his convoluted schemes and scams to me for me to understand what he wanted from me.

But now...

The other teen's behavior was something that couldn't even be properly described as cold. To be purposefully cold to some, that takes emotions from the other person, but the boy before me didn't seem to have any to spare. It was almost like he didn't care about anything at all, like I was nothing to him at all. But for that to be true, it meant that the bot standing in front of me did care before, cared about me of all things. And now, he doesn't. Now he can't.

I don't really know how I was supposed to feel about that.

—-

Chuuya POV

We boarded the plane, finding our middle class seats towards the back of the machine. Dazai let me through first, willingly giving up the window seat without any type of fighting as he put my bag in the overhead luggage, choosing to keep his own at his feet.

There was no one else in the row with us, so when the other boy sat down, he took the far right seat, leaving the middle empty of everything but whatever emotional baggage we seemed to be carrying hanging between us.

I glanced out the window, taking in the night scene of the airport. The flight is supposed to be about sixteen hours from here to New York, something that I was tired just thinking about. Whether we're going somewhere else after New York or staying there, I didn't know, but I did know that I was going to try and sleep during this long, awkward flight, jet lag be damned, as New York is thirteen hours behind us.

I glanced beside me, bored at the sight out of my window, we haven't taken off yet, so it was just a bunch of commercial planes taxiing around the airport, the sight beside me was much more interesting than any of that.

Dazai was sitting in his seat with something akin to perfect posture for the first time since I've met the boy, his back was so straight that Mori might faint if he saw it from all of the time he tried to get the teen to sit properly during meetings. The other boy had a hand on each of the armrests, his nails subtly digging into the cheap leather, as the teen's lips moved in something of a silent prayer.

"Are you scared of flying?" I asked bluntly, not really caring if it was insensitive or not. Dazai and I have never really been a pair that carefully treads over the other's boundaries. We either know better than to ask about some things, or just come right out and say it, like now.

"No," the other teen replied in a more monotone voice than normal. The boy loosened his grip on the armrest almost subconsciously before crossing his arms slowly. "Just the forces in it."

Forces in it?

I shook my head, turning away from the teen and back to the window. I didn't even want to ask what the younger boy meant by what he just said, deciding to leave the teen alone until something that actually made sense came up.

I layed down in the seat, leaning my head against the window as I tried to move into a more comfortable position, letting the pre take off announcements flow in and out of my ears like some kind of odd white noise.

I was asleep before the plane even took off.

—-

Dazai POV

I let the other teen fall asleep before I moved my arms back to their spot on the armrests, my nails digging back into the poorly made leather. Really, it was as I told the other boy, I didn't mind flying, but the idea of being shot out of the sky by my temperamental uncle didn't really seem like to pleasant of a way to die, Icarus sure didn't seem to like it when it was his turn all those years ago. I wasn't really all that interested in seeing if the water truly felt like cement when you hit it after falling from the height that we would soon be at after take off.

The plane jerked forward, moving towards the runway as it steadily gained speed. The seat belt light came on, something that I'd already taken the liberty of putting on myself before they chose to remind us of it. The plane moved faster and faster, gaining speed with each passing second.

I felt the moment that the plane took off from the ground, the way that gravity seemed to be calling it back down to the safety of the earth below us. The way that the thrusters fought back, securing our spot in the air. I didn't need the window seat to know what the scene outside looked like, all of the small buildings and even tinier city lights.

It made my dead heart thrum wildly in my chest.

I held onto the armrest with a death-like grip until the final bit of turbulence calmed down, slowly retracting my arms and placing them back into my lap, being careful not to upset the still sore wounds there.

The cabin lights dimmed overhead, darkening the plane for the other passengers on board to sleep during the long ride. Reaching up, I turned on the dim reading light, angling it towards me before reaching down to the blue book bad at my feet and grabbing the thick book from inside of it.

Greek Myths and Legends.

Leaning back with the book and pulling a blue highlighter from my jacket, I opened up the thick volume to the first story, skipping past the boring introduction that lied about everything in the book being nothing more than a work of ancient fiction.

Creation myths. They were boring but gave some background information as to some of the older parts of the mythology that were layers beneath the newer, more relevant stories. Not anything in this book could really be called new by any means.

Stretching out my limbs, I rearranged myself highlighter in hand, getting ready for a long sixteen hours.

—-

Chuuya POV

My eyes peeled open groggily sometime later, still filled with sleep as my body shook lightly from the rocking of the plane. Twisting my head to the other side, I tried to get comfortable again, hoping to cram in another hour or two of sleep. However, the sight that I turned to was enough to wake me up real quick from whatever slumber I was trying to go back into.

Dazai was hunched over in his seat with a book in his lap and a blue highlighter twirling in his fingers. At first I thought that it was just his damn suicide manual, but I'd seen that book enough to know that this one was much too thick to be that guide of his. Sitting up, I didn't even bother to try and hide my staring as I looked down at the pages, but when I did I was left with more questions than answers.

The words on the pages were written in an unfamiliar horizontal fashion similar to how English books are written, but while the letters were similar in fashion to the Latin alphabet, the letters themselves were strange with symbols mixed in that don't show up in Latin based languages.

"Greek," a dull voice says, the sound of highlighter being painted onto the page following the word.

I startled slightly, expecting to be caught but not have the other boy so easily explain it to me without me having to make a deal with him or do anything strange for the information. I tried to look at the other, tried to get a gauge of his expression as to why he would so easily give up something that he could have held over me, but while for once I could see the boy's face, because I was on the other side of his bandages, the teen wouldn't look at me to give me a good picture. All I got was the image of the teen putting the lid back onto his highlighter, then continuing to twirl it some more like some type of student studying for an exam.

"You know Greek?" I asked, my tone betraying just a bit of the surprise that I felt.

Although Greece is a lot closer to Japan than some of the western countries like the United States, we didn't do dealings with them. We don't really do dealings with any foreign countries, so there wasn't really a reason for anyone in the Port Mafia to have more than a passing knowledge of the English language like most non English speaking businesses. But knowing Greek, being able to read it fluently, that was definitely an oddity, especially since I've only seen the other teen studying like this when it's the books that Mori gives him on strategies and such.

The other teen nodded slightly, not seeming to care about the state of confusion that he's left me in. "Among other languages," he added tonelessly.

Realistically, I know that I really shouldn't be all that surprised at the new knowledge that I was gaining, the boy beside me was a legitimate prodigy after all, learning new languages probably wouldn't take him as long as it does for the rest of us, but it's still a strange thing to know.

I shook my head lightly with a disgruntled sigh, thinking about the late nights that we've spent on the floor in one of our offices working through what seemed to be endless amounts of paper work together. Sometimes during those nights, when we'd been at it for hours on end, I'd hear the other teen cursing lightly under his breath when he misspelled something for the third time that night. When he'd do this I'd always think that I'd just been up for too long and would call it a night not much later, because when he caressed it always sounded like it was in another language. Now I know that it was.

"What other languages do you know?" I asked, wanting to pry as much information as I could while he was so easily giving it out as the other teen was right now.

The boy highlighted a section at the bottom of his page before flipping it lazily. I almost didn't think that the other teen was going to respond as he did this, but then he puts the cap back on his highlighter and shrugs lightly before finally answering in an annoyingly emotionless voice.

"English, Ancient and Modern Greek, Russian, Morse Code and Latin if I think about it hard enough, and some basic sign language," the other teen finally replied before shifting in his seat to get to a more comfortable position.

Eight languages.

The bastard beside me knows eight languages and just says it nonchalantly as he reads through the newest page in his book.

"Why do you even need to know that many languages anyways?" I asked, my voice thick with a bitter tone close to that of envy.

The other boy simply keeps on reading, highlighting something from the section of his book that he'd just finished.

"What do you care?" The other teen spits out not bothering to look at me or acknowledge the strange glances that we were getting from the passengers around us. The boy's tone wasn't angry as his words would suggest, but was hinted with a touch of annoyance at the constant pestering.

It's progress.

"I guess I don't," was my only reply as I laid back down, closing my eyes for the rest of the flight, though I didn't get any more sleep.

—-

Dazai POV

We landed in New York at about eleven at night New York time, not making it through the endless American airport security for another hour and a half as they rechecked all of our luggage, passports, and asked our reasons for coming to the states and being in Japan. The normal invasion of privacy that they've introduced since nine-eleven.

The night was still alive with people roaming around by the time that we actually left the airport. The streets were filled with teens and college kids going to and from last minute parties and get-togethers before the start of the new school year, children enjoying their last few moments of freedom. The bars were open in full swing by now, bringing about the usual New York hub bub of motion.

Looking around at everything, at all the familiar sights, I realized that I never really thought about how I would feel when I finally stepped foot here again. A large part of me seemed to think that it didn't matter how I would feel coming back here, because I wouldn't be. I'd hoped that I would never have to come here agian, that I wouldn't be alive to have to come here and see if Thalia went through with the prophecy or not.

I'd hoped I would be dead by now.

And now that I'm here, surrounded by all of the lights and colors, the normal people doing typical things in the night, surrounded by all of the people that would find a fifteen year old with a gun or a sword strange, I couldn't really find it in myself to feel much of anything at all.

"So," a familiar voice starts at my side, cutting through my haze, "where to now?"

I turned to the side, facing the direction that the sound came from, finding a small angry teen staring up at me. For a moment I was confused by the other boy's presence, confused as to why he was there and talking to me of all things. The teen stared up at me, cocking an eyebrow at my continued silence.

"What?" The other teen asked, the annoyance evident in the other boy's tone.

Standing here, in the middle of the only city that I've ever called home, I felt like a fourteen year old kid again looking for my next mark to pickpocket. But I wasn't fourteen anymore, and I'm about the farthest thing you can get away from a kid.

Chuuya, the other teen was still looking at me with that strange piercing gaze of his. I resisted the urge to shake the useless thoughts and memories of a child long dead from my head when I saw that blue eyed stare.

You're not a lonely street kid anymore, so snap out of it you useless prick.

"First," I decided, finally answering the other teen, "we need to get you a change of clothes."

The boy glanced down at his nice clothes, the clothes that he was proud of to have picked out with Kouyou's help during his first few days in the mafia. The teen's face quickly flushed a bright red with anger.

"Hey!" The other boy protested, glaring up at me from his spot in front of me. "My clothes are fine, jackass!"

Sighing, I began to walk away, not truly in the mood for having to explain just how wrong the other teen was, but knowing that I would have to do it anyway since Chuuya wouldn't properly listen until I did.

Such a bad dog.

"You can't really believe that, can you?" I asked, glancing back at the smaller teen. I could see one of the veins on the boy's head protruding, betraying the teen's annoyance.

I slowed down a bit, letting the older boy fall in step at my bandaged side. Leaning down a bit so that the other could hear me better and so I would have to waste energy having to talk as loudly.

"Look around you," I told the other teen, waving my hand subtly at all of the passing people dressed in normal party clothes, or just regular clothes in general. "The New York scene is different from that of Yokohama, only businessmen and cosplayers dress the way we do back in Japan," I explained, pointing out the other teens running around in jeans and sneakers. "You'll attract too much attention like this."

Chuuya glared at me from my side again, not liking how sound my reasoning was. "What about you?" The teen asked, a hint of scorn entering his voice making him sound like a child that was calling their parents out on being hypocritical. "You don't exactly fit the bill either, you modern nineteenth century knockoff."

I didn't want to spend the energy needed to figure out the ginger boy's latest round of insults, so I simply just gestured to the book bag on my back, giving the smaller boy my best sly smile. I only fake it for a moment or two, just long enough for the other teen to sigh in exasperation at my antics.

"Fine," the older boy gives in, shooing me away from him with the wave of his still gloved hand.

I looked forward, digging my hands back into the coat pockets at my sides, letting my feet guide me down the old familiar paths that I used to take before. I didn't really pay attention as we walked, letting my mind wander, thinking of all of the things that I'll have to do in the near future regardless of whether the prophecy has already come to pass or not.

I was tired just thinking about it.

Only when we turned the corner did I finally come back to my senses.

We were at a familiar corner that I hadn't seen in two years, but still knew as well as the scars lining my skin. We were at a fork in the street, one that I used to walk down nearly every week. If I walked down the left street, I would end up going to the library that I used to break into and sleep at. The right street would take us to the convenience store that I would buy non-perishable foods from almost every week with my stolen money.

"What?" Chuuya's taunting voice floats into my ears, pulling my mind away from things that I hadn't thought about in almost two years. "Get lost?"

"Only in your eyes," I retort, turning away from the left street and heading down the right, sighing through the annoyed scoff that the other teen directed at me. "No," I insisted. "Just spaced out and almost went the wrong way," I explained, prepared to leave it at that, not really expecting the other teen to care enough to ask more.

The smaller boy hummed lightly. "Where does that one go then?" He asked, ignoring the weird glances that we were getting from the other people on the street. Strange looks were being thrown our way due to the way that we were dressed and the language that the two of us were speaking. Because we were different.

I thought about just lying to the boy or not answering him at all, but our relationship was already strained as it is and it was bound to only get worse from here. There wasn't really any trust between the two of us, having only met a little over a few months ago. The other teen didn't trust me and he was right not to. I've lied about everything since the day that I set foot in Japan, not even the way that I looked was real, so if I sprinkle in some truths now, maybe we can make it through this trip without killing each other.

"The library," I decided, not looking at the other teen.

The sweet sound of laughter fills my ears. It was an honest laugh of surprise without any signs of hidden malice behind it. "The library?" The boy questions once he pulls himself together, a laugh still hidden in his voice. "So you used to be a soft little nerd?" He laughs, "What happened to that?"

I shot a small glare at the boy that the other teen, regrettably, couldn't see all that well due to the bandages. "I grew up," I told him smonley. "Besides," I started, waving my hand lazaily, "I wasn't a nerd, I just slept there during the day and taught myself Japanese at night."

I looked at the other boy's reflection in the store windows as I said all this, using the light from all of the billboards and stores to catch the complicated expression on the other teen's face. He looked like someone had just told him that the world was ending.

Strange.

"You were a street kid."

It wasn't a question, but an observation made by the shorter teen, a fact that he didn't know before and was trying to see how it pieced into the image of me that he had just before.

I considered how to reply to the other boy, not wanting to give much more of myself away than I'll already have to soon enough.

"Until I fell into the hands of the Port Mafia," I confirmed, deciding to give Chuuya this final piece of honesty for now, "yeah."

I walked faster, speeding up enough that I couldn't see the other boy's reflection, that I wouldn't have to see him at all, effectively ending the conversation there.

—-

Chuuya POV

The other teen sped forward, quacking his stride to put some distance between as he's done before in the past. It was fine, I let the other boy gain enough distance that I could still keep up with him, I needed my own moment to collect myself anyways.

I stared at the boy's back, letting my mind do summersaults as it tried to process the information that I'd just been told, as I tried to stitch in the piece of information, trying to fit it seamlessly with the picture that I had of the other teen. But all I could see were the still jagged edges.

In my mind, Dazai was a young man, an annoying one who despite his penchant for suicide, never seems to try any methods serious enough to actually kill him. He was a cruel boy who's methods made even the head interrogators of the Port Mafia sick. Someone that always hid behind a mask that protected the monster living inside his human corpse from being seen when he didn't want it to be. Even when the other teen showed signs of humanity, I could never help but still see something of a thinly veiled demon hiding beneath the teen.

And yet...

Now all I could see was a little boy wandering around the streets alone. A scared boy. And even though it's just a picture in my head, something that I conjured all on my own from information that might not even be true, it hurt. It hurt to know that the other boy walking in front of me, another monster in human skin, used to be where I was only months ago. But where I had the Sheep back then, he was most likely alone. Multiple people can't live in a library together and not get caught after all.

Just how long was he alone before he found his way to Japan, to the Port Mafia?

Isn't he still alone in a way?

But when I look at the other teen, I remember the fight that we had only a week ago. The reason for the fight, the events that led to it.

He's the one that took the Sheep away from me, he made sure that I would share in his loneliness as my family was stripped away and shipped off all over the Port Mafia's reach in Japan.

The anger that I'd been fighting off ever since our fight, the anger that I'd been holding in so the few people that I'd grown to care for in the mafia didn't have to feel its sting, it started to come back to me unabiden, swelling inside my chest.

I looked away from the teen, all previous sympathies forgotten in the storm raging inside my head.

The crowd around us was still thick despite the lateness of the hour. The bandage waste was walking in front of me, leading the way to wherever he'd decided to drag me today. Drunk frat boys and sorority girls took control of the streets, each of them drunk enough that the air itself smelled like cheap alcohol.

The boy in front of me fell back into step with me, falling in close enough that it actually looked like we were out together. I glanced up at the other, wondering at the sudden change, but the sight I found was sickening in a way.

The taller teen had morphed his face into a sudden show of innocence, a look so pure from him that it reminded me of the one that he was wearing when he shot that GSS punk during our first mission together. He held that expression as we walked down the street some more, never wavering even as we entered the swarm of walking alcohol bottles that was coming our way. I was about to tell him to erase that unsettling mask from his face, but the teen's next action stopped me.

Dazai stumbled.

I looked at the younger teen, an expression of bewilderment taking over my face. The other teen never stumbles or trips in any way, he was remarkably sure footed despite his lanky form. The only time that the bastard ever stumbles is when he's hurt, but we haven't done anything in the last almost twenty hours of traveling to get the teen hurt. He never stumbles and he never does it in any way that makes someone else fall with him.

And yet, here we are.

I watched Dazai catch his balance before turning to the drunk college boy on the city sidewalk, his face made up in a convincingly apologetic expression.

"I'm so sorry," a voice said in perfect English. It took me a moment to make sense of the foreign language, only knowing a little bit of it myself, a little bit longer to place where it was coming from.

Dazai.

The boy was helping up the drunk student that he'd just knocked down, pulling him up from the concrete ground. He was apologizing while doing this, something that I didn't think that the other teen was even capable of doing.

"Are you okay?" He asked once the student was on his feet, patting the drunken teen down lightly as if to check for injuries that weren't there. "We're on our way to a costume party," the other teen lies easily, making up a convincing explanation. "This is my first time walking around like this," the boy said, gesturing to the bandages on his face. "Again, I'm so sorry."

For his part, the college student looks thoroughly embarrassed, ringing the back of his neck lightly. "It's okay," the guy said, brushing his clothes off lightly, "just don't apologize anymore, man." The student was smiling a drunk smile that I'd seen on my own face in the mirror the few times that I've gotten my hands on liquor since joining the mafia. It was a smile that said that he was too drunk to think straight. The student looked the pair of us up and down slowly as the smile deepened. "Have fun you two," he said before drunkenly walking away to catch up with his group.

I turned on the lying idiot once the student was out of earshot. "What the hell was that?" I asked, knowing that what just happened wasn't an accident, but some type of scheme that the other teen had cooked up.

The boy in question continued walking forward, not bothering to answer my question. The younger teen doesn't stop walking until we're outside some twenty-four hour store. The boy turns to me, his face back to its normal emotionless expression that I liked better than the fake.

I watched on as the teen reached into his coat pocket, pulling out a wallet that I'd never seen him have before. The other boy opens it up, pulling out all of the cash inside before casting the, presumably, stolen piece away into the alley close to us.

"That should be enough to get a shirt or two and an appropriate jacket if you really want one," he says, holding out the wad of cash to me, waiting for me to take it.

I grabbed the money wearily, not used to the other teen being so generous with his profit. No sooner than the cash was out of his hand, Dazai went inside the store next to us, leaving me to follow behind him.

When I walked inside the somewhat large store, I found Dazai waiting for me, standing by one of the benches near the store's door.

"Meet back here in an hour at most," the teen said. "If that's not enough," he said, pointing to the cash sitting uselessly in my hands, "come and find me."

With that, the boy walked away, leaving me to wonder just what the fuck just happened. 

Chapter Text

Dazai POV

Leaving a conflicted Chuuya behind at the front of the convenience store, I wandered around, finding my way to the hair products aisle near the middle of the store. The last time that I was here, I was fourteen and on my way back to the library before heading down to the broker's office to discuss the passport. Back then I bought the cheapest box of brown dye that I could find that also came with bleach. I'd been a kid trying to save money for the prince of the forged passport.

Now...

That boy, someone that was already so different from the teen that had existed only months before everything fell apart, the boy didn't quite exist either.

Scanning the shelves, I looked for a good box of black dye, one that wouldn't wash out by the end of the week or bleed horribly anytime that the hair gets wet. My eyes land on a decent American brand dye sitting on the top shelf, when I reach for it, I'm mildly surprised to find that I can reach the box easily, something I hadn't been able to do before. Back then, I had to stand on top of the bottom shelf to reach the top, just barely able to grab it even then. Grabbing the box, I swipe the box of brown dye next to it as well for later.

Walking away, I grab one of the shopping baskets sitting at the end of the aisle, throwing the boxes of dye into it as I made my way over to the medical supplies aisle just a few rows down. There were your normal supplies on the shelves, boxes of band aids, antibacterial wipes, and boxes with rolls of bandages in them.

Positioning the basket beneath the middle most shelf, I reached my arm back behind the boxes and harshly jerked them into the basket in one smooth motion. When I turned to the side, there was a brown haired girl staring at me from the end of the aisle, apparently having just watched the little scene. I only shrugged at the teen, brushing past her on my way out of the medical aisle.

The art section wasn't far away from there, the store being as small as it was. The left half of the aisle was art supplies while the right was what was left of the school supplies that hadn't been bought just yet. I lazily grabbed one of the smaller sketch books, one a little shorter, wider, and thicker than the average paperback, holding onto it as I snatched some pens, pencils and erasers from either side of the aisle.

Everything that I'd just picked up was the same as what I'd bought at fourteen just after leaving camp. All of the things that I'd bought then had either been used up or lost to time. The only thing that remained anything close to intact was the over filled sketchbook that I'd gotten before.

With everything piled together, I shoved the bandages aside, tucking the supplies beneath it and burying it to where it couldn't be seen.

Having everything that I needed for the rest of my little summer trip, I went off to find the smaller teen that I'd come all the from Japan with, wandering off towards the clothes section where I thought that he'd be. I made my way to the teen's section, scanning the clothing racks until I caught the glimpse of fiery red hair that I'd been looking for.

The other boy seemed to have already picked out a pair of dark gray jeans, folding them over his arm while he flipped between three or so shirts that he looked like he was trying to decide between. Eventually I saw the teen fold two over his arm with the pants, putting the other back onto the rack with a seemingly satisfied nod of the older boy's head.

Taring my eyes away from the other teen, I realized that I'd probably been staring for a few moments too long. Maybe more than a few. Instead of going to talk to the other teen like a mute part of me seemed to want to, I walked over to the jackets that were close by.

The jacket that the Port Mafia boss had given me after he sought me out on that bridge when I was fourteen was fine for dealing with mafia affairs back in Yokohama, but it wouldn't work out all that well for the upcoming sword combat that I had coming, not when I wasn't used to moving I that way with it. Whenever I practiced with Kouyou, she always had me take off the jacket, worried that either she or I would fall over the thing and fall onto the other's blade. The blue jacket that I had before the mafia had seen better days as well, claw marks ripping through the cotton from a small encounter that I had on my way to the airport before leaving for Japan.

Standing in the clothing section, I mindlessly followed through the racks nearly knocking half of the pieces of clothing off of their hangers as I did. Everything here was things that I'm sure that I would've liked had I continued to live the somewhat normal life of a teenage demigod. Everything was colorful, decorated with lively prints that wouldn't make it a day in the life that I'd chosen to live. We wear dark colors in the mafia to blend into the scenery around us since most of our operations happened in the dead of night.

One thing did manage to catch my eye though.

There was a black jacket hanging from a hanger in the clearance section of the clothing department in the store. When I picked it up I saw that it was a black zip up hoodie, bleached orange from the way that bleach reacts with dark clothing. The bleach made up a skeleton print, showing off the bones that make up the ribs and arms. The jacket was on sale, a leftover from last Halloween. It was strange, not something that the old me would've worn at all, but I liked it.

Maybe I liked it because it was nothing like what I would've worn before.

Being here, back in New York, I felt like I was trying to fit back into a skin that I just couldn't seem to get to fit anymore. Like walking on the ashes of a bridge that I'd Bruner a long time ago and expecting it to still be just as solid as it was before I ever found it.

And I knew that it would only get worse from here.

Soon, I would have to make my way to camp, back to the people that knew the person that I used to be the best out of everyone that I've known. They'll expect that boy to exist as he did before.

But Percy Jackson died in a house fire, the ashes of the soul that used to exist scattered in the summer winds.

On an impulse, I grabbed the jacket, throwing the thing into the basket on top of everything else that I'd gotten before making my way over to self check out.

—-

Chuuya POV

Catching sight of Dazai walking over to the self checkout area, I noticed something that I truly didn't want, he was right. All of the other customers in the shopping center had been attempting to shoot me unnoticeable glances whenever we crossed paths, some of the less covert ones were just outright staring at the pair of us. The feeling of being watched never really seemed to leave me since the moment that we stepped in here.

Though I knew this would happen.

Ever since our first joint mission together, Dazai has always been someone that I've known to be calculative, always a few steps ahead of everyone else. He knew that this would happen, just as I knew the moment that he said it, that he was right.

The other teen's predictions have never been wrong.

Sighing in defeat, I turned back to the problem at hand, leaving the ignmia that I called my partner to be dealt with another day. Back with the Sheep, I wore whatever I could find and easily steal from cheap stores around the city. It was never really a preference of if I liked the clothing, but what piece of clothing is worn out enough that I need a new one. The only thing that we really had that was ours were the blue bands that all of the Sheep wore, though bracelets themselves were stolen as well, the little horn symbols on them were embroidered by one of the girls with us at the time.

Ever since joining the mafia, I had choices on what to wear and when, ones that didn't revolve around stealing and theft since I now had the money to buy the clothes myself whenever I wanted them. But even now, Ane-san tends to help me pick out clothes from the different stores, knowing that I would get lost in whatever fancy retail store that she sent me to if I went on my own. Not that I complained, it was nice having someone that would actually put in the effort to try and make you look good.

In the end, I settled on a plain black shirt, a black flannel that I could wear as a shirt or light jacket, and some type of American band shirt that I'd never really heard of before back home. The choices were random and spontaneous, me grabbing whatever I saw that I thought looked nice and appropriate for a normal teen, but I felt a warm wave of satisfaction roll straight through me at the fact that this choice was mine, no one else had to help me make it.

It felt a little like control.

I followed the younger teen's example and made my way to the self checkout area once everything that I didn't want was back in their spots on the racks. Paying with the cash that Dazai gave me before, I couldn't help but remember the way that the other teen got it from that man. My eyes rolled at the memory, but there was a small smile there too. After all, it wasn't every day that you got to see the infamous Demon Prodigy almost fall, even if it was fake.

Heading to the front of the store, I found the bandaged teen himself sitting near the exit on one of the benches that he'd indicated earlier. When I got there, the other teen had his foreign book opened, reading it as he twirled around a blue ballpoint pen that I'd seen him messing with during the more boring meetings. If it wasn't for all of the bandages he would have looked like just another college freshman despite the fact that he's sixteen.

But he did look sixteen even with all of the bandages. That in a way reminded me of the first time that I'd seen the other boy. The taller teen had been reading a book that day in Suribachi city too. I remember standing there for a moment watching the other boy as he became impossibly more animated by the moment while reading his, but then he'd taken that call. It was like when an artist has the perfect picture and then they add a bold stroke of paint that ruins the whole painting all together.

Sitting down next to the other boy, I lazily looked down at the other teens bags before adding my own to the mix while I waited for him to finish the paragraph. While doing so, I saw what was in one of the bags, more annoyed than surprised by most of its contents, but pleasantly intrigued by what else was in there.

The bag was about half way filled with a seemingly endless amount of bandages, enough to last the other teen a good while if he plays his cards right with how he uses them. The other thing that was in there was a jacket that I'd never seen before, one other than the one that Mori gave him when he joined the mafia.

Reaching for the piece of clothing, I looked at the other boy to see if he was going to stop me or not from doing so, but all the other teen did was slowly snap his book closed. Taking this as a sign of permission, I snagged onto the piece of clothing, pulling the jacket out from the plastic shopping bag.

The jacket that the other teen had chosen had a bleach design that showed the rib change and the bones that matched up with those found in the arms. Looking down at it, the design wasn't really something that I ever would have expected for Dazai to buy, let alone plan on wearing. It had too much decoration, too much taste for a boy that normally only can be found wearing a plain black suit day in and day out.

And yet in a way, it suited him.

The jacket was all dark colors with the illusion of death, something the other teen so longs for, presiding over it. It made me wonder what the younger teen would have dressed and acted like if he'd never found his way to the mafia or to the streets.

A small part of me, the part of me that always wanted to be angry at the other teen, started to get irritated by the line of thoughts, the ones that almost made the other teen seem human to me. But that senseless anger flaring up now when the teen hadn't even done anything to me for the past few months, that anger that lingered there because he took my home away from me, I knew that I needed to cast it aside, even if only for a week.

Dazai will always be a demon walking around in human skin to me, but if his family is anything like him, I just might need a monster on my side. What happens after this week is up for future me to decide.

"It suits you," I decided, voicing my opinion out loud as I watched the other teen taking up the piece of clothing in question and placing it to the side.

The younger teen only hummus lightly in response, seemingly more concerned with standing up than giving me a proper response. For some reason that hurts. It hurts that the other boy will barely even glance at me, that he all but refuses to argue with me like we always do. It hurts that he called me by name earlier instead of one of those nicknames of his that I despise. It all just hurts, I don't know why but it does, and I can't seem to shake it.

Following the other teen out of the store, I grab my shopping bags and duffle from the ground, tiredness setting in at the knowledge that I'll have to deal with people just like Dazai soon. We stop at another bench in front of the store, setting the bags down on top of it once we're there, Dazai pulling his book bag off while he was at it.

I watch the way that the boy unzips the front pocket of his book bag in one quick jerky motion. The teen reaches for one of his bags, pulling out a pack of pens before ripping them open violently and packing them into the all but empty front pocket. The only other thing in there was the taller teen's forged passport with a fake name on it as well. In no time, Dazai has done the same thing with a pack of erasers and a pack of mechanical pencils, each time more violent than the last.

The teen zipped up the pocket with the same aggression that he opened it before moving to the main compartment of the bag. When he opened up the bag I saw that there wasn't much in there, just some neatly folded clothes and a sketch book of all things. Looking down at the scene, I wasn't sure what surprised me more, that the clothes were neatly folded in the bag, one of the shirts was orange-the brightest color I've ever seen near the other teen-that there was an old sketchbook in there, or that the taller boy added another sketchbook in front of the old one.

The other boy's bag, as it turned out, was just big enough to fit my bags and what was left of the bag that Dazai didn't completely unpack and the one he'd barely touched. The other boy slid the book bag back on once the bag was closed, shifting and fighting with it once it was on. He looked something like a kid on the first day of school not yet used to the new weight on his back after a long time of not having it.

"Where to now?" I asked, looking at the other teen as I swung my duffel bag onto my shoulder as I did.

The bandaged boy didn't even spare me a glance as he before he answered me very montonely, bluntly, "A nearby hotel."

I felt my face fall into a numb expression as shock took over my body. I heard a small noise of surprise fall into the air and realized that it came from me. Fully turning to the other boy I saw the bandage waste walking beginning to walk away further down the street.

Taking off after the boy and falling back into step with the taller teen, the confusion didn't fade. "I thought you were here on family business," I started, understanding what the other teen was saying, but not why he was saying it, "why not just go there?"

Pushing forward so that I could see the other teen's face better, Dazai's expression had turned complicated, not like someone that was confused about the situation itself, but the proper way to explain it to someone else. It was an expression that I often saw in the other boy during meetings and while doing paperwork for mafiosos other than the mafia boss himself. It was the most emotion that I've seen the other boy show since that day in the spare room.

"It's almost one in the morning, Chuuya," the taller boy berates, reminding me of the customs of normal people that wouldn't take too kindly to being woken up at such an hour for a late night visit by a pair of teens. "Besides, even if it wasn't, the security around the place is... strange to say the least," the teen decides, seemingly purposefully choosing vague wording that wouldn't give away the true nature of the situation. "So," the teen started, his voice stern as if he was talking to a miss behaving child, "if you don't want to die tonight, I suggest that we wait till morning."

Security is strange... dying... just where the fuck are we going tomorrow?

I glanced at the other teen, wondering at the secrets that the other was hiding. Wondering just what secrets he has that are stone enough to potentially kill someone with an ability like mine.

What do they have that is strong enough to fight against gravity?

But in all of the things that the other teen said and in all those thoughts of mine that followed, one thing stuck out to even more than the idea of someone defying the laws of gravity:

He's talking like someone that plans to live to the next day.

A small rush filled my body at the idea that the person that I've called my partner for months now might just want to live, even if only for a little while.

"So you don't want to die tonight?" I asked, feeling a small rush of deja vu.

It felt like when we were fighting Randou together in the shipping yard and Dazai had said that he wanted to give living a try. When he promised that he would try.

But the other teen just sighs at my tactless question.

"This isn't like when we were fifteen," the boy said, immediately shooting down the idea that he seemed to know had formed in my mind. The other teen wasn't one to give out false hope to others or to accept it from others. "I'm not striving for a reason to live," the boy explained, walking lazily alongside me as if he wasn't talking about giving up on life altogether.

A part of me, the foolish part of me that had grown attached to the bandaged boy that could read the way that I fought as well as I could read his schemes. The part of me that could look past the way that I got here, even if only a little bit, to continue this dangerous duet of ours. That was the part of me that crumpled slightly at the other's words, at my partner's words.

Back then, during our first all out fight together, the teen had looked like a little kid as he stared gleefully at all the death around him, at the idea of studying it up close. When I saw him again after a month there had only been a portion of that boy left, a portion that faded with each day into the ghost before me spewing such viscous nonsense as if he was talking about what we should do for breakfast.

What happened? What went wrong between the time that we met and our reunion? What's been going wrong since?

Those were the questions that I should've asked him when I first noticed the change but never did.

"I'll live through this trip," the teen seemed to decide, or maybe he'd already decided but was just now choosing to voice his opinion out loud, "and get you home safely, that's a promise that I'll make you. And then, when the boss's back is turned, I'll die," the teen proclaimed calmly, almost hopefully. "Hades," the boy said, a small surge of energy suddenly filling the younger teen's voice, "if I do it fast enough I won't even have to do the extra work that I promised the bastard that I'd do."

The boy has a slight jump in his step as he talks at the end, as if he couldn't wait for this to be over with so he could finally have the one thing that he'd been denied for so long now. He was speaking like someone happy to have finally given up, even if there was only the slightest hint of joy in the other's tone.

Maybe a part of me didn't want to know what's been happening to make the younger teen this way.

—-

Dazai POV

There is a somewhat rundown hotel that you pass on your way going to Central Park, but never really seem to notice despite its strange shabby exterior that should make it stand out even more than some of the other city sights. The building is small, only about two or three floors, but more narrow than the buildings around it as if it's trying to squeeze into space that it's not supposed to be occupied. It's always a little hazy when you look at it, a fog seeming to permanently cling to the building itself. Its a hotel hard for mortals to look at when passing by it, even harder for them to remember that it ever existed at all even an hour later as the mist worked at their memories.

This was the place that I dragged Chuuya to.

Taking the handle gingerly, I pulled the door open letting the pair of us despite the look of displeasure filling the other teen's face. Chibi seemed to have grown used to living nicely these past few months, and didn't seem to understand why people with our kind of money would voluntarily stay in a place like this when we could afford a nicer room. I didn't mind the look, the other teen wasn't meant to understand just yet.

When we walked inside, the smell of the city seemed to fade as the smell of nature began to spread through the air. The desk clerk, a tall man with the tanned skin of a farmer, stared at us with a strange look in the man's eyes. The clerk seemed to be slightly impressed that we had made it past the mist, most likely mistaking us for mortals born with the sight instead of the strange beings that we truly were.

The man sighed heavily, a tired look talking over his face before he seemed to be able to stop it. "We don't cater to those under the age of eighteen without a parent present," the clerk proclaimed in English, making a shooing motion with one hand while writing with the other.

Chuuya glanced between me and the man, only seeming to understand some of what the clerk had said to us, but seeming to understand and correctly interpret the unwelcome tone that the man had used. I let the other teen's confusion and irritation stay, not trying to placate it as I stepped up to the desk, my hands still resting in my pockets.

"Will this change your mind?" I asked, lazily leaning on the clerk's desk as I pulled a hand out of my pocket in a regal way that made it seem like that was the only natural thing to do.

The clerk's eyes went wide at my sudden change to Ancient Greek, a language that he obviously didn't suspect that I spoke. They grew wider still when he finally looked at the object that I had pulled out of my pocket before, watching with me as the golden coin rolled gently across my fingers. A smile soon crept across the clerk's face, a soft one of pleasant glee so unlike the smiles of the mafia that it didn't seem real for a moment.

"Yes," the man seems to decide, switching to Ancient Greek just as I had moments before, "yes that does."

I smiled at the desk clerk in a purposefully non threatening manner, sliding the coin across the counter to the man when he motioned for it. The golden Drachma was soon in the other man's hand as he brought it up to his face, seemingly inspecting its authenticity.

"How many rooms?" The hotel clerk asked, switching back to English while putting the coin into the cash register next to him.

I watched the way that the clerk glanced behind me, surely looking at the short and confused red headed boy behind me that I was sure was staring at the pair of us like we'd sprouted two heads.

"Just the one," I inform the clerk, wanting to preserve the small number of the golden coins that I have left for as long as possible.

The older teen in the room might not be overly thrilled about staying in the same room as me, but there should be two beds so he should be fine. When we get to camp, there'll be multiple bunk beds between us to pacify the shorter teen.

The man nods, understanding as well as he could without knowing too much about our situation. I watch as the clerk reaches behind him, pulling a key off of one of the many hooks holding them. He started to hold his hand out to me, but stopped halfway there.

"Where's your third?" He asks, glancing around the small lobby as if he was expecting for another person to appear out of the air somewhere and complete the puzzle going on in his mind.

I laugh in a way that would seem good natured to anyone that didn't know me, but would sound unmistakably fake to those that did, hoping to distract the clerk from reading too much into the situation. Into the two boys still dressed too nicely for how demigods normally do, into one teen that didn't seem to understand more than a few words that were being passed between the clerk and I. To keep the demigod that is obviously strong enough to survive to adulthood from thinking too hard on the situation at hand. While I knew that it was a fight that we could win, killing a demigod on our first night in the states was not the ideal way to start the week.

"We're not on a quest," I correct the man easily as if it was the most natural thing in the world for it to be just the pair of us, "just from out of town. We're on our way to camp," I lie shamelessly to the man before me. "We had some summer plans before this," I falsely explained, the fake smile plastered on my face never slipping as I did.

The man makes a small noise of undes before nodding his head and holding out the room key to me the rest of the way, actually letting me grab it this time. The clerk pointed us down the hall to the nearest set of stairs to our room from the lobby. Probably the only set of stairs if the man were to be honest.

Chuuya truly is looking at me like I've grown another head when I turn to face him, shooting me a dangerous glare when I quirk my lips mockingly at the other's expression. I led him down the hall and up the stairs to the second floor of the hotel, glancing from side to side for the room that shared a number with that on our key.

A quietness ruled over the hall as we walked down it, the only sound filling our ears was the sifting tapping of our shoes on the cheap hotel carpet giving the illusion that we were the only ones here. We walked inside our room for the night, closing the door tightly behind us once inside. No sooner than the door had closed did the other teen turn to look at me, an expression between anger and confusion shaping his features.

I wave my hand lazily, encouraging the other teen to speak like he so clearly wanted to.

"What," the other teen started, stopping himself after the first word as if to gather the exact words that he wanted to say but coming up empty in the end. "What the fuck just happened?"

I knew that Chuuya could tell that the desk clerk and I had switched between languages during the conversation. I was also sure that the older teen knew that the U.S. didn't use golden coins like the one that he had seen, certainly not ones worth enough to pay for a hotel room.

"I got us a hotel room," I deadpanned to the other boy.

I watched the way that Chuuya's face scrunched up in frustration, looking moments from punching me or locking me out of the room. As if deciding that he wouldn't get anything else out of me, a fair assumption on his part, the ginger threw his hands up and turned dramatically towards the room in a fashion more suited for me to exhibit than for the shorter teen too.

Brushing past the other boy, I walked over to the bed, setting my book bag down on it. Pulling the ginger's things out from within the bag, I towed them lightly on the bed before swinging the bag back over my shoulder and looking back at the other teen.

When I looked back at the older boy his expression was twisted in a way that I could only describe as disgust in its purest and most raw form. I look around the room, finding nothing out of the ordinary in it. There's a bed, two nightstands, a small closet, and a door leading to an American style bathroom. There was nothing here that should incite such a response from the other teen. In the end I chose to wait the other out.

"There's only one bed," the ginger boy says, spitting the words out like they were nothing more than acid in his mouth.

Oh.

Oh.

Something twisted violently at the disgust in the other boy's voice, something that I'd been fighting off for days now but still seemed to stubbornly remain. I imagined killing that thing, that monstrous little thing in me that seemed to believe that I could still love someone like a human could, that I could still be loved by someone. I shot that piece of me in the head and left it to rot on the ground.

I looked the other boy in the eyes, seeing the older teen flinch slightly at the cold look coming from mine.

Good.

"Take it," I told him icily. "My sleep schedule is shit and I have something I need to do anyways," I explained in as little detail as I could.

With that I walked away from the other teen, leaving him without so much as a sneaked glance in the other's direction as I walked into the bathroom, my bag still on my shoulder. Closing the door, I felt a form of grim satisfaction at the noise that it made when it snapped shut, locking tightly behind me.

—-

Chuuya POV

I watched as the door closed calmly, effectively cutting Dazai off from me and me from him, putting the pair of us each into our own little worlds where we couldn't cross into the others even if we wanted to.

The look on his face...

There were no emotions there when he looked at me. The other boy looked like he did while we were on missions when he shut himself and thought that I didn't know what he was doing. He looked like a demon in human skin. I'd seen that look more than a hundred times before, but it had never truly been directed at me, not like this anyways.

Heart heavy in a way that it hadn't been for a while now, I slid my bags of clothes onto the floor weakly, not caring where they landed. I felt my body crumple onto the bed, sliding beneath the sheets of the strange American style bed. Curling up into a ball like a small child, I felt my body shaking and blamed it on the cold. Any thoughts that I might've had, any regrets, were drowned out by the sound of the shower going sometime much later that night.

—-

Dazai POV

I ran my hands through my hair, moving it around and feeling for any dry spots until I was sure that all of it had been covered by the slippery black dye that I'd gotten earlier, but never looking in the mirror. All of my clothes were strewn across the closed toilet as I did this, leaving me in nothing but pajama shorts and all of my bandages from the neck down.

Scrubbing the dye off from my hands, I watched as the one clear water running over them blackened at my touch, running down the sink to the drain. I tried to think of anything but the image that I would see if I were to look in the mirror right now, the pair of sea green eyes with red from an infection clouding one, the sopping wet black hair, the scars poking out from beneath the bandages. I tried not to imagine it almost as much as I tried not to think about the bloodstains decorating the once clean counter.

This hotel was one of the few ones in the world that was run by demigods and surged as a safe place for demigods to come and clean up during quests. The mist hangs around the building to keep mortals away from the hotel and to make demigods just interested enough to wander in on their own. I'd found it doing just that no more than a week before leaving for Japan, but never stayed here, not trusting anyone inside to not report back to camp about where I was once they realized just who I was.

Setting a timer for an hour on the flip phone that the doctor had given me a little bit after he took me in at fourteen, I finally allowed myself to crumple to the floor, letting my legs give out from under me as they stopped being able to hold my weight a long time ago.

The look on Chuuya's face before, the dye beneath my fingernails, the reality of everything was begging to set in, crashing in on me like a tidal wave that I saw coming but ignored thinking that I still had time before it would reach me. Thinking that it would be smaller once it finally found me in the sea of my thoughts.

It was small right now, just barely enough to make it a little hard to breathe, to make the bandages decorating my skin feel just a little tighter than normal. I could tell that the true wave was still coming, but I'd just been too focused on the smaller one to see it.

I repeated the name that I'd given myself well over a year ago, over and over in my mind, hoping to find some sort of shelter in it, find some way to stop the inevitable wave from reaching me and drowning me in it.

But every time I said it, it only sounded more and more like a lie rather than the truth that I'd wanted it to become.

It chipped away at the walls that I'd been building since I joined the mafia, since I left camp, since I lived with Gabe, it chipped away at it and let some of the water in, tearing the me that been created in the past two years apart piece by piece, slowly revealing the monster that's always been there. Revealing it just enough to know of its existence, but not enough to truly see it.

The tide chipped away at the lie that I'd told myself in the market earlier, about the boy that I used to be dying in the fire. He didn't die then, just boiled into water vapor that rained down and mixed with the being that had taken its place inside the vessel that it used to call home. He laid there in wait, slowly revealing himself as the monster's heart began to thaw, making himself more and more known as time slowly crept on and the monster took him back home.

I didn't call out the boy's name, scared that if I did, any walls that I'd managed to build would turn to dust.

I ignored the incoming wave, hoping that if I ignored it like all of the other times it threatened to drown me before that the distance would somehow grow again. Pulling out the old sketchbook from my bag, I cracked it open, gingerly flipping through the pages like I had so many times before, taking in the grounding effect that it had on me.

At some point during my time with the mafia, between the doctor's experiments during that first year and everything that I'd endured before that, the mafia boss knew that nothing that he could do to me would ever be enough to hurt me, truly hurt me to where I could physically feel it, without coming too close to killing me for the boss's liking, something that he knew I saw as more of a prize than a punishment.

So he took things instead.

One of the first in a long list of things that he took was my sketchbook. I don't even remember what I did or said to set the underground doctor off that day, or if I even did anything at all other than still exist when I shouldn't have, but I haven't done it since. It wasn't long before he came to my shipping container that day and found the bag of things that had been brought to the mafia with me.

That's when he found the sketchbook, hidden away in one of my drawers.

The demon took the book, countless hours of work rested in the man's nimble hands as he walked up to me and fished the cigarette lighter out of my pocket. We watched together in a screaming silence as the flames ate away at one of the few things from the past that I had left.

Eventually he left, letting me put the flames out, but the damage had already been done by then. There wasn't a page in the thick book that the flames had been kind enough to leave untouched.

I flipped through the early pages, each of them filled with a diff ent sanction of the New York skyline or drawings of camp from memory. Pictures of Grover as I remembered him from school and him running around the fields at camp, Annabeth in the picture that she sent me in seventh grade and during the chariot race, pictures of capture the flag, and our better memories from camp. Though it wasn't long before those turned into that of the Yokohama skyline, sketches of the city from the boss's office in the mafia building.

Of Chuuya.

The alarm sounded softly as I snapped the book closed and placed it lightly on the counter near me. I turn it off quickly and place myself in front of the sink, making sure not to look up too far. Pulling lightly at the bandages, I let them fall silently to the ground, not needing to hear them hit the ground to know that they're there.

I didn't have to look in the mirror to know what I would find there if I did. I didn't need to see the damage that I've done and has been done to me over the years. I knew that there was no part of my body that existed without scars, none of them pretty. But I knew as well as anyone that they told the story of my life, no matter how ugly they were.

The shower water was warm as it ran across my skin, tainted by the extra dye bleeding from my hair. I wash at it, rinsing out my hair until the water finally begins to run clean again. I ignored the way that my skin seems to sing beneath the water, wishing to knit itself back together as it used to. I forced it not to, the same way that I forced my body to let the water soak my skin instead of staying dry beneath it.

I wasn't quite ready for the newest bout of damage to become memories just yet.

When I finally turned the water off and step out of the shower, I let my gaze fall to the mirror, sure that it would be fogged up from the steam by now.

But it wasn't.

When I looked into the mirror I felt a sick feeling rush through me, shaking me to my core as it threatened to knock me over with it.

I felt like I was looking into the eyes of a demon.

I couldn't stand the face staring back at me from the other side of the mirror. It was my face. The dye was in, the contacts long forgotten by anyone in the room. Looking into the mirror, I was Percy Jackson, son of the sea god, once more.

A living corpse of a boy that I'd somehow had convinced myself that I'd buried long ago.

Sea green eyes stared into what little was left of my soul, seeming to find my heart as unimpressive as I did.

Dripping black hair stained the picture, reminding me of just how fake the face that I now wore was. Looking at the boy mirroring all of my movements as I did them, the reality of the situation finally set in, the barrier cracking more than it ever had.

When the wave finally reached me, pulling me into its violent embrace, the voices came with the sea. There was nothing I could do to stop them this time.

Chapter Text

Chuuya POV

The bathroom door was open when I woke up the next morning. The light was still on, just barely filtering through the slight opening in the door. There was no sound anywhere in our small hotel room, no quiet footsteps or the sounds of anyone moving about.

For some reason that didn't sit right with me.

During long missions Dazai is always the first one up, most likely not having gone to sleep the night before. He always took the night shift, keeping watch to make sure no one tried to come into our room when they shouldn't. Everytime that I would wake up during a mission, it would be from the sounds of the shower going, the younger teen brushing his teeth, the boy packing everything while I still slept.

But never to silence.

Never like this.

Something heavy settles on my chest as I scramble off of the bed, nearly tripping over the bags that I had thrown onto the floor carelessly last night. My body was no longer slowed from sleep, but something akin to dread. I saw my hand on the bathroom door knob more than I felt the cool metal beneath my fingertips pulling it farther open with a slow tug of my arm.

I couldn't tell the moment that my heart stops, that my breath violently catches in my throat. I couldn't tell when I finally let go of the door knob, because there was a body on the floor. There was a boy laying in the middle of the bathroom floor, the tiles around him stained red.

A boy with bandages on his skin that looked too much like someone else.

The boy had black hair crumpled together in odd chunks, almost as if someone poured glue on it. The bandages decorating the body looked all but drunkenly put on, gaps of skin peeking out hazardously from beneath them in ways that it shouldn't. The boy's shorts were hanging low on his hips, revealing the thin and orderly rows of scars at the hip bone that would normally be covered by clothes and properly worn bandages. Despite the changes I still knew who it was.

Dazai.

Laying on the floor, covered in his own blood like it was some kind of blanket.

I could feel my breathing growing ragged as I looked down at the scene that the other teen had created while I slept. I knew that the other boy did things like this, everyone did despite never having seen it for themselves. A never ending assortment of bandages donning the teen’s skin, the occasional favoring of one arm over the other, it could only mean so many things. But it had never been this bad.

I shook my head violently, trying to trick my body into regaining the ability to move.

It could always be this bad and I just wouldn't know. I don't care enough to know. I pick fight-real fights-with the other teen when I'm angry and never let the younger boy explain, only let my hate of him grow as some kind of justification for how I ended up here.

How would I know if this, waking up in his own blood like this, was the other teen's normal or not. I don't even know where he lives to check on the younger boy if it is, though he knows where I live and always pries the bottle from my hands when I'm too drunk to know to quit.

Falling to my knees by the boy, I noticed in faint horror that there was blood on me, on my knees, my hands, my bare feet. His blood. My vision shook at the sight, but I ignored the feeling of drowning that wanted to take over. This wasn't the time to be worried about myself.

"Dazai," I mumbled, shaking the other teen's shoulder slightly, watching in mute horror as the blood from my hands stained the previously clean bandages there.

"Dazai," I said again, a little louder this time. "Come on, wake up."

The other teen still didn't move, but at least being this close I could see the younger's light breathing, the only proof that the other was still alive.

"Osamu," I cried out, tasting the desperation in my own cry.

The other teen needed to wake up, he had to. He needed to stop teetering on the line between life and death like he was now.

An eye fluttered open, the other still being obscured by the bandages covering the teen's face, the only clean bandages left on the other teen's body. I could feel my lips tugging gently at the corners, a relieved smile starting to shape my lips, only to freeze to freeze before it could fully form.

The other's eye borrowed into mine when it fully opened, the other's green eye. A fierce green, glinting darkly like the sea on a stormy day stared into blue. The reddish brown color normally present was nowhere to be found. The look was hazy and unfocused from sleep and blood loss, but the gaze felt familiar in a way that a stranger's could never.

"Chuuya?" A soft voice asked, one much too soft to belong to the boy that I knew. The other boy's brow tugged towards the middle of his face, scrunching up in confusion.

"Osamu," I said again, my voice stronger than it had been before, than it had been since I walked in here.

Black hair, green eyes. There were so many questions that I wanted to ask, that bubbled up in my throat waiting patiently to be released. Questions from yesterday, from right now. But now wasn't the time for them, it definitely wasn't the place.

I felt the other boy shifting beneath my touch, almost like his own name haunted him more than a name should. But he was just moving to point behind him.

"Water," the other teen croaked out, pointing at the bath that he was laying beside.

I didn't know how much good it would do to put the other in there right now, but I didn't have the energy to argue with the younger teen and he didn't seem to have the energy to speak anymore.

I pulled the teen up from the ground, almost buckling under the other weight, or lack thereof. It was like when you pick something up expecting it to be heavy but then it's as light as a feather. Holding him up, I wasn't really sure which of us weighed more.

I shook my head slightly, knowing that it was none of my business but adding it to the list of questions for later anyways. The ever growing list.

Carrying the other boy into the shower, I set him up against the wall, not trusting the other to try and stand on his own just yet. I watched as he leaned down, reaching for the shower knob just in front of him, his arm shaking more than lightly as he did.

"Stop that," I spat out, grabbing the reaching hand and looking into the other teen's green eye. I stepped into the shower with him, standing between the taller teen and the knob. "I got it," I told him, turning on the warm water, not caring in the slightest if I got drenched.

I looked back at the other boy whose hand I was still holding, gripping it like it lightly as if I was scared he would try something stupid again if I didn't. A stray tear fell down my face, hidden by the water running over us. One of anger and frustration that had no place expressing itself.

"Why?" I ask, hoping for an answer but not setting any bets on one actually coming.

Why did you do this to yourself?

The question goes unanswered as Dazai just looks away from me, seemingly finding the shower curtain to be much more interesting. But when I look to the side with him, I see that the other boy's eyes are fixed on the mirror, on the pair of teens standing there. I look at the scene, wondering how the other teen must be seeing it, the blood, the bandages, the scars. The foreign image staring back at us.

In the end I just close the curtain, feeling the other's hand relax the smallest amount as I do.

There's a bar of soap laying on the shower ledge. The other boy follows my line of sight, nodding slightly when he sees where I'm looking, a silent bout of permission that he seemed to struggle to give.

Instead of reaching for the soap, I raise my hands to the younger's face, noticing the slight flinch that comes in response from the movement. I curse myself internally and move my hands slower, giving him all of the time in the world to pull away. I pull off the small bandage on the boy's cheek, struggling slightly with the tearing wet tape there. The white mass comes off, discarded to the floor with a loud plopping noise, revealing the ugly bruise resting there.

I look at Dazai, finding the eye of the younger boy closed tightly like a child that hears a strange noise in the night and convinces themselves that if they can't see it then the monster can't see them.

Changing objectives, switching from Dazai to myself, I took off my gloves, giving up a bit of control as the other teen had. Pulling back the curtain, I threw the wet masses of leather into the sink, knowing that I'd most likely have to get new ones once we got back home. When I move back to the bandages covering the taller boy's face, my hands are bare.

My hands graze the other’s face, searching for the spot where the bandages stick. I could feel the younger teen shiver beneath my touch as the bandages unravel beneath my fingers falling to the floor, the noise just barely covered up by the sound of the water running.

A small gasp slips past my lips at the sight that the other had hidden away by the other teen. Dazai's eyes snap to mine, open and borrowing into my eyes. For the first time I could see the other teen's whole face. Could see the matching green eye and the hair falling over it.

The eye was fuzzy, the white part tinged with an angry red that matched the slight swelling around it. It was something found commonly in Yokohama's slums, the aftermath of an infection that ran through Suribachi city close to two years ago. I'd noticed the way that blood would occasionally seep through the bandage when given enough abuse during missions, I saw it the day that we first met.

I let my hands cup the other's face, looking for any blood that I needed to wash away, feeling the way that the other trembled at the touch, but still leaned into, if only a little. I brushed my thumb across his newly exposed cheek and waited until the teen's eyes closed again before I moved onto the rest of the bandages.

My hands slid down to the bandage on the other teen's neck, keeping contact with the younger so he knew where I was. Stepping closer to him, I let my knee press up against the ability user's thigh, keeping him steady so I could use both hands while dealing with the rest of the bandages.

Unraveling the white cloth, I passed the excess bandage from hand to hand in a quick motion, wanting to get them off of him so we could deal with the real damage. This time, when the bandages fell, I managed not to slip up and gasp as I had before, keeping my reaction to myself.

The other teen's bare neck had track marks on it, covering each side like permanent tattoos that could never be removed. My brows scrunched together at the sight.

Dazai doesn't do drugs. Smoke, sure, and the other teen was known to drink even more than I did, but not drugs like this. Not the injection kind. The other teen hated needles and doctor's tests almost as much as I do.

More concerning than the track marks was the deep image of a rope circling the boy's neck. My fingers ghosted across it, feeling the slight indent that's been left there. This was my first time seeing the evidence of one of the other teen's attempts, seeing the proof. It was old. The wound that was once there was healed, just leaving behind a scar.

How old was he when he did this?

My hands moved down the boy's arm to his wrist, but as I searched for a way to undo the wrapping, a sudden weight found its way to the top of my head. Dazai was resting his forehead there against mine.

He's trembling.

"Osamu," I whisper gently, speaking as gently as I knew how, as if talking to a small child, "look at me."

Green eyes meet mine, every emotion that I never thought that the other could feel displayed in them: fear, confusion, terror, hurt. A kaleidoscope of things that I didn't believe I would ever see, that I didn't know the other was human enough to feel.

"Your arms are where the damage is," I tell him, using logic against the overly intelligent teen. For once my eyes stare into his. "Please."

More emotions than I've ever known the other was capable of filtered through Dazai's eyes. But the newest one, one that I've never seen displayed so easily or felt too strongly for the other, was trust.

"Help me," the teen whispered, matching my tone, saying words that he's most likely never said before.

"Let me."

The other boy removes his head from mine, going back to his passive stance that he had before as I worked at the bandage. I didn't look at the damage until the wrappings had dropped to the ground at our feet.

The entire arm is littered with scars, from the wrist to the thick lines on his shoulder. Most of them are uniform, as if done carefully by the other teen. The ones like this are as fresh as last night and as old as almost two years ago. Among them are slightly deep cuts, not enough to kill, but enough to take a while to heal. They looked like he did them within the last week.

The damage below them was the real problem.

Six ugly, jagged, cuts still bleeding and staining the water red.

"I didn't cut deep enough to kill myself," the other boy assures, "or even in a good spot for it."

The other teen wasn't looking at me, his eyes still closed, but he seemed to know where my thoughts were going. If I didn't know any better, I would've thought that the younger boy was trying to reassure me, something that the teen I know would never do.

I just hummed lightly, letting him say what he wanted.

"I promised to get you home safe after all," he continued. "I can't do that if I'm dead," the teen finished, a small sarcastic tone coming into his unusually soft voice.

It was a promise in a way, one that said that while I might find him like this again, have to help him again like this, he wouldn't die.

Not yet.

Something sick goes through my stomach, finally catching up to me after everything that's been happening since I woke up this morning.

I wanted him to act more human and it looks like it just might kill him if he's not careful.

I turned back to his arm, finding more track marks showering it like a summer rain. That still didn't make sense to me, but neither did what looked to be an old blade wound from something like a sword or a dagger at the top of the teen's arm.

The other arm yields much of the same results: track marks, cuts, and large slashes. The only thing that I haven't really seemed to find on the younger's body were bullet wounds, though at least that made since.

The younger mafioso only officially joined the mafia about a month before I did. Since then, we've both gotten hurt in stupid ways, falling from heights we had no business being that high, twisted and broken limbs, but he had never been shot on the job. Dazai was the boy rumored to have had a picnic during a shoot out, something I'm a little skeptical of since I've only ever seen the boy eat once.

I brushed my fingers over all of the scars, feeling the smoothness of some and the nasty raised ridges of others. Below me, I felt the younger boy barely contain a flinch.

I moved onto the last set of bandages, the ones covering his chest and torso.

The arms have to be the worst of it.

I didn't know if I was lying to myself, or if it would be the truth, but a part of me really didn't want to see any more damage.

And I was right, in a way.

There were large cuts criss crossing his chest and stomach, like those on his shoulders. But among them were what looked like surgical cuts, living alongside those were nasty, ragged scars from what looked like glass.

All of the damage here was healed though, most of them could even be classified as old even. What was more pressing was just how thin the other teen was. I could see the taller teen's ribs poke out from beneath his skin, the details of each one apparent for everyone to see.

When I was with the Sheep, we had shared all of the food that we managed to steal, rationing out like those left on the home front of a war. None of us looked this bad. It looked like he had never eaten a day in his life.

The last place covered was the area beneath the other's undershorts, and while I really didn't want to have to go that far, I could see the blood on his shorts, the small flash of a bandage below the loose clothing. I knew from that glance that the damage wasn't just limited to the other teen's arms.

Moving my hand to the hem of the younger teen's shorts, I hooked my finger there and pulled down on the clothing just a bit, but stopped and quickly pulled away at the violent flinch from the boy.

I almost didn't catch the taller teen in time as he stumbled, slipping to the shower floor. I guided the boy the rest of the way down, silently hating the way that he shook in my arms.

The other boy's eyes were shaking violently as he stared into mine, terror taking over them completely. He looked impossibly like a scared little kid.

"No," the other teen said like a plea, quiet but firm. It was the only word that Dazai seemed to be able to choke out.

"Okay," I told him, "I won't, I promise."

The other boy only nodded in response.

I settled behind the other teen, the bar of soap in hand. I was really not liking the picture my mind was painting right now.

—-

Dazai POV

Chuuya was gentle as he washed away the dried blood cracking my skin. Something in the back of my mind could help but note that this was the gentlest I've been touched by anyone since I was thirteen.

I'd expected revulsion when the other had first touched me. I'd expected memories that I never wanted to relive to come crashing down on me, suffocating me as the teen had reached for the first bandage. And they had. But then bare skin touched mine and I felt like I was being grounded. I didn't like the feeling of the bandages leaving me, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be when he took the first one off.

And then fingers ghosted along my hip line, tugged at my shorts and everything that I'd worked hard over the past few months to forget started to flash through my mind. The feeling of hands touching skin, my body in places that they had no right to. The feeling of my face being shoved into the carpet as those hands gripped my shoulder, my hip. It all came crashing down on me and the next thing I knew I was on the ground and all I could manage to say was the same word that I always said and was always ignored.

But he listened.

I could feel hands on my back, tracing some of the uglier scars there, but for the first time, I didn't feel the need to run.

"You didn't do all of these yourself," Chuuya whispered, almost to himself it seemed.

"No," I told him, giving up one more truth, one more piece of myself to the other teen. "I didn't."

The other teen just hummed like I thought he would, not seeming to know what to say that wouldn't accidentally set off another round of memories.

When all the blood was gone from my skin, Chuuya moved onto my hair, washing the blood out of it too. As the newly blackened water rolled down my skin, I couldn't help but wonder why the older teen was doing this. Every touch was careful, tender almost, like he was scared I would break beneath him if he pressed too harshly.

Why are you doing this? You could have just left once you got me in here, why stay?

I didn't ask anything out loud, because despite the strangeness of everything, I didn't want him to stop.

But when do I ever get what I want?

"Can you stand?" Chuuya asked from behind me, reaching past me to turn off the water seconds later.

I nodded lightly, using the wall for support as I pulled myself up to my feet. It was easier than it normally would've been when I did this back in Yokohama, the water giving me some extra energy, but I could still feel the other teen behind me, waiting to help if needed. My demigod abilities are weak right now from continued disuse and space from the gods, barely taking any energy to stop the skin from healing before the other boy, but they were back enough to allow this much.

Chuuya worked as I moved myself to the toilet lid and sat down on it. The other teen threw away the soaked bandages and pulled out new ones from my bag by the door. My blood was still on the floor, on the other boy's clothes. I couldn't stop staring at it all, not used to losing so much. Chuuya just shifted so that I couldn't see it all.

The truth was, I lied when I told Chuuya that I didn't cut in places that would kill me, that I didn't cut deep enough. I did, I just knew that the water would stop it from getting that far, but then I passed out and that plan was ruined.

Just as careful as before, the older teen wrapped me up in bandages. The other boy was slow, almost methodical with it, but through, leaving no patch of skin visible for others to see. As the bandages began to grow in number on my skin, I felt more myself and less like a child trapped in a skyscraper office. I could feel Chuuya's breath on my chest, neck, and face as he put me back together, it didn't feel threatening like all of the other times someone had been this close to me. It felt good, making me shiver for a different reason than all of the times before.

When everything was back the way it was supposed to be, I could feel the older boy's eyes on my skin, staring at me but he knew better than to wait for me to look back. Out of the two of us, I've always had the better patience.

"Why...?" The teen trailed off, but his question was clear enough, there was only really one thing he could be asking after all.

The other teen didn't know just how bad my mental state was, how it's only gotten worse over the past two years since I left camp. He and the other people that I talked to at the mafia have guessed at it, but no one really knew just how deep the rabbit hole went.

"Sometimes the voices get too much and I just can't stop them," I told the other teen, revealing something entirely my own that no one knew. "This... it stops, even if only for a little while."

I could hear the smaller teen suck in a small pained breath at the truth, but it wasn't really all that surprised. I finally looked up at the other boy, water was dripping from his still short hair, splashing down on my bare skin. He'd mentioned in passing once wanting to grow it out, I'd only laughed at him then, but I knew that he would look beautiful that way.

"Why don't you go change?" I suggested, motioning lightly to the other boy's frame. "You're soaked."

The shorter teen looked about ready to protest, probably not wanting to leave me to my own devices again, but a look from me chipped away at his resolve. That and his own shivering.

When the door clicks shut, I finally let my concentration go, waiting patiently for the insistent stars to clear from my vision. The skin on my arms tingled like live ants were crawling all over them. I watched on with a strange fascination as the wounds there slowly began to knit themselves back together, scabs forming over the long thin lines as the older wounds began to scar. It wasn't the first time that I'd seen this, but it'd been long enough that I forgot what it felt for the damage to so easily disappear.

To heal rather than destroy.

When the almost foreign sensation finally stopped, I got up and grabbed my bag from the door, digging past the bandages down to the bottom until I finally caught a flash of orange.

Pulling it out, I held the bright orange shirt in my hands, taking in the worn letters, the fabric soft and worn. Memories of long nights at the campfire listening to the Apollo cabin's awful songs, listening to Annabeth's gentle lull as she talked about architecture, playing capture the flag, slipping Grover some of Mr. D's Diet Coke cans when the god wasn't looking, and that final chariot race filtered across my mind. They were sunny memories much too bright for who I became. Painfully almost.

At the edge of those memories were ones much more aligned with the darkness of the world that I've come to know. Kronos's voice haunting me in my dreams, Grover screams as he was being pulled into Tartarus, the relentless nightmares and visions plaguing me evernight, Luke's betrayal and Thalia's return. Those were memories tinged with a darkness that I've only dived into since leaving.

In the end I just pushed all of those useless memories away and slid the jeans on, sitting the shirt aside for the moment. The pants were black, holes covering much of the fabric from continued use while on the streets. Next was a ratty pair of high top converse that I stole when I was fourteen. The camp shirt was after that. Ignoring how odd it felt, the wrongness of the piece of clothing in my hands, I slid the piece on. The easiest thing to put on was the jacket, the piece of clothing having no ties to my old life, to the person that I used to be. Out of everything it felt the most right. There were no memories of strawberry fields and an old library to cloud my mind.

All of the clothes had been too big for me when I'd first gotten them, my mother prioritizing clothes that I could grow into and beggars not being able to be choosers when it came to free clothes, so everything seemed to fit well enough now despite the last in time. Though it seemed that they only fit better now because I'd grown taller, they still hung too loose around my body despite the differences in height.

The last thing to put on was the beaded necklace that each camper got when they survived to the end of the summer. There was only one bead on the thick brown chord, a black piece with a turquoise trident painted on it by the careful hands of the camp counselors that year. There would be more if I'd stayed longer, a Golden Fleece and who knows what else, but I didn't and I don't have the right to regret that now.

Looking in the mirror, I could see the boy that I could have been: a kind smaller on my lips that wasn't faked but filled with sincerity instead, someone who skated and surfed in their free time, someone with friends. I didn't recognize the boy in the mirror, he looked so... human. Too human.

If I had stayed at camp would I have always looked like this? Would I have learned to drive, maybe gone to a mall?

I felt a sharp bite of pain in my palm, the slight trickle liquid that made itself known there. When I held my hand up, there were small crescent moons carved into the skin there, red blood dusting the palm like a cry from reality.

The sound of someone shuffling on the other side of the door catches my attention. It was the soft sounds that you would expect to hear when someone was changing and rustling around in shopping bags. I couldn't help but think of the boy attached to those sounds, the one waiting with more patience than he's known to have on the other side of the door.

I wouldn't have met Chuuya if I'd done any of that.

The realization hits me hard enough to force my body to move towards the door.

The fates really were cruel.

—-

Chuuya POV

I feel like I'm fourteen and back in the Sheep, trying to stop the idiots from stealing booze from the disputed territories again.

The clothes were about the same style of what I wore back then, the dark jeans and teenage clothing. The only big difference other than the actual color of the clothes was that my biker jacket was replaced with a flannel.

As much as I hated to admit it, I felt a little lighter knowing that I could walk on the streets like this without getting strange looks from ignorant adults or the cops actively tailing me, waiting for me to openly screw up. It didn't quit feel right on my skin anymore, not after the events of the past few months, but I knew that the younger teen was right about the temporary change in attire.

Dazai...

I glanced at the door, waiting for the taller boy to come out of it. I couldn't help but wonder what had set him off last night. I wouldn't say that the other teen had been doing well since I met him, but I've never had to piece him back together like that before. The younger teen has always been able to hold it together when it counted before.

The bathroom door creaked open slowly, almost hesitantly. There was a small rustling behind the door as the light turned off and the taller boy finally stepped out of the room for the first time since we got here the night before.

"Dazai..." I questioned, looking at the lanky teen that had come out of the bathroom. Despite knowing subconsciously just who the other was, the appearance that the boy was choosing to wear was still about as strange as it could become.

He looked like a completely different person altogether.

The boy before me had a skater look to him; worn jeans, converse, a skeleton jacket and an odd shirt beneath it. The shirt was the orange one that I'd seen in the taller boy's bag the night before, officially making this the most color that I've seen on the pale teen. It had some words in English written on it, something about blood, and a black Pegasus below the script like it was some kind of symbol.

Maybe it's an American thing.

Looking to be about the same age as the shirt the other boy was wearing some type of necklace, a far cry from his usual neck tie. It was a brown leather chord with what looked like some kind of oddly painted bead on it.

All that I really knew was that the teen before me looked nothing like the one that'd walked in here only the night before.

The other teen looked at me as if he found my obvious, and seemingly all but constant, confusion to be amusing in the same way I found the image of him tripping and falling to be.

"Ready to go, Hatrack?" The boy asked, smiling falsely as he always does when he's trying to appear more human than he is, a facade that I could only see through because I knew it all too well myself.

I couldn't help but be a little stunned by the other's sudden change in emotions. Less than an hour ago I was staring at a passive Dazai, wrapping his body back in the bandages that he seemed to cherish more than himself, trying not to touch the other teen so as to not set the boy off again. Now he was smiling fakely as ever, hoping to annoy me with the nickname, and calling me 'Hatrack' again, something that I would make sure to punch him for once I'm done being relieved that he's not calling me Chuuya anymore in such a detached way.

Dazai's smile faltered ever so slightly, making me realize that I had been staring for too long at the changes in the other teen. I hopped off of the bed and walked over to the other teen. I didn't want to push the boy back into his shell, even if only for the purpose of not wanting to have to carry a ussless suicidal bastard around to wherever it is we're going, but curiosity has been killing me since the day in Mori's office, and if I didn't ask about this now then my mind would travel to other things. Things I'd rather never have to think about again for a long, long time.

I stopped in front of the other, waving my bare hand in front of the teen's face-the gloves truly were damaged beyond repair after being soaked-with an impatient look. "Explain," the word came out gruff sounding but firm enough for the other to know that I meant it.

The bandage wasting machine only looked at me with a stubbornly emotionless look and shook his head no as a small, sly smile formed over the other's mouth. The boy tapped his finger on his and cocked his head to the side before seemingly deciding something, though I knew from experience that he'd planned his response before even walking through the door.

"Hmm," the other seemed to ponder for a moment. "Nope," the boy decided, lightly popping the p, holding his hand up like he was a professor or something proposing a solution to a delima.

I kicked the teen in the shins swiftly, purposely kicking him lighter than I normally would most other people in his position, something that the teen was well aware of having been on the other end of a few of my better ones. The teen only held his hands up in a mock defensive posture.

"Later," the teen said in an almost bored tone before adding the last bit in the small dull voice that I was used to, "You wouldn't believe me right now anyways."

The boy's mood did another one-eighty as he happily bounced away to my bags on the floor, throwing them into his own as he'd done the night before at the store. I wanted to yell at the other, force him to explain all of the craziness of the past over twenty-four hours, but as with most things, I figured that he was right. I barely understood the other's choices on a good day, his stratical thinking being the only true exception. Anyone who understands the teen's mind well enough to fully decipher the teen is a monster in their own right, and while I'm already one, I don't want the second qualification for the role.

So, instead of pressing the other teen further I just sighed and grabbed my duffel from by the door, knowing that it was nothing more than deadweight right now since all of the clothes in there weren't appropriate for this mission, and slid my hat on into place.

"Hand it over, Chuu Chuu," the other teen said, walking up next to me with his hand out expectantly.

A brief moment of confusion took over my body before I realized just what the other wanted. "The hat too," I asked, a small growl in my voice, "seriously?"

The other simply just makes a grabby motion with his hand.

Instead of giving it to the other teen, I take the accessory off and put it into my own bag, the collar that the other had given me when I joined the mafia going in there with it, watching with annoyance at the way that the other just shrugged at the action.

We passed back through the front lobby on our way out of the strange hotel. The same man was at the desk again, maybe still depending on the older man's work hours. He was reading an English book this time. It was a small white book with an orange paw print of some sort on its cover.

Dazai left my side, sliding the room key onto the counter as the man put his book down. When the desk clerk looked up, the man instantly startled, a look of terror passing over his face as if he'd just seen a ghost. The teen just walked away from the hotel clerk, almost leisurely, not caring about the reaction that he'd ensued from the other.

The look on the man's face as we left was like that of the lower ranking mafia members when they realized that the bandaged teen was the infamous Demon Prodigy, another level of terror even in an organization filled with them. I wanted to ask what the boy had done to incite such a reaction from someone that he'd seemed almost friendly with just last night, but for the second time today I held my tongue.

We walked outside, the early summer sun immediately beating down on us as we did. I knew it was still early morning, early enough that if it was this time of day back home the other mafiosos would just now be waking up or going to bed depending on their jobs and hours, but it was still late enough that everyone already seemed to be at work if the amount of traffic was anything to say about it. This was probably the least amount of traffic seen in New York all day as everyone that had a place to be was already there.

Glancing at Dazai, I waited for him to walk one way or another, or even just call a damn cab like a normal person. Instead of doing either of those things the teen just digs into his jacket pocket and pulls out another one of the odd golden coins of his from last night, holding it gingerly as if dropping it would be a bad thing for any involved parties.

The younger teen steps up to the edge of the sidewalk, getting about as close to the edge as you could without actually being considered in the street. I watched on as the boy said something in a foreign language that sounded like the one from last night. Greek, maybe? He whispered the words like some sort of prayer.

Done talking, the teen flipped the coin into the air, purposefully angling it out into the street like some kind of deranged lunatic. Right as I'm about to chef the idiot out for throwing money around like that, the coin disappears, completely vanishing from the air.

I can't help but stare in shock at the sight, blinking my eyes a few times as if that would bring the coin back into existence. During what little life I've lived, I've seen a lot of strange things, most of them ability related. I should be numb to them by now, and in most cases I would be.

Most cases meaning that Dazai wasn't involved.

The younger teen's ability, No Longer Human, allowed him to nullify any ability that comes in contact with him, so things like this, vanishing coins, didn't happen around the boy. I look at the taller teen, but he has his eyes closed as if he's listening for something that wasn't quite here just yet.

Moments later I realized what.

There's a loud honking noise as a taxi comes barreling down the street, screeching to a violent stop only an inch or two from where Dazai was standing. The car had just barely avoided hitting about three cars on its way to the curb, and that's probably being generous.

The taxi looked like it was made from smoke, woven out of it almost. Black treadles came off of the vehicle giving the contraption something of a hazy look to it almost as if one strong wind would blow the vessel away. The back door opens seemingly on its own and Dazai crawls into the taxi without any outward show of hesitation. I followed the other teen, but only after checking that he hadn't just fallen through the seat.

Gripping the safety handle of the door as I pulled it closed, I noticed two things:

One: This isn't the work of an ability.

Dazai hadn't fallen through the obviously paranormal car, the vehicle was still here after touching the ability user.

Two: There were four voices in the car, and mine wasn't one of them.

Letting go of the door almost reluctantly despite the fact that my ability would protect me from any damage that might occur from this god damn ride, I turned and looked at the other boy in the taxi, but he was already talking to the women in the front.

All three of them.

Okay that's not legal... not that I have any room to talk.

When I looked closer at the women, I almost puked in spite of all of the things that I'd seen since I was eight.

None of the women in the front sea had any eyes, only empty eye sockets flailing around wide open as the women fought over something that I couldn't see.

Something white flashed in the middle woman's hand as she brought it up to her head, only to have her arm yanked down by one of the others.

They were fighting over an eye.

It looked like each of them wanted it as they struggled with each other like toddlers for something that none of them had on their own.

Personally, I think the driver should have it, but hey, maybe that's just me.

The eyes slipped from the middle woman's hand and flew into the back, baraling straight at me. I fired up For The Tainted Sorrow, fully ready to kick the disgusting thing through a window or two when it came near me, but the eye never touched.

Instead, Dazai caught the thing with a tissue that he must've grabbed from the hotel on the way out in preparation for this. Holding the thing by the tips of the tissue, the younger teen handed the eye to the driver in a desensitized manner, like it was the most normal thing in the world for him.

While the driver struggled to get the eye in while defending it from the other two that were still trying to take the organ, the bandaged teen just buckled himself into the car. I looked down, following the other's lead, only to realize that the taxi didn't have seatbelts, but thick chains instead. Sighing, I buckled up knowing that this took the top spot on my list of weirdest days in my life just by the events of this morning alone.

Once buckled in, I turned to the bandage wasting machine, ready to force him to answer my questions while he was stuck in an enclosed space with me for who knows how long, but the other was already looking at me. The teen seems to be waiting for something as he smiles cruelly when I open my mouth to speak, because the taxi chose that moment to have lurched forward with an ungodly force that no vehicle has been known to possess before.

The other teen seemed to be taking this experience as something akin to a rollercoaster, his smile almost completely natural for the first time since the day we met. I however knew that I looked like a deer caught in the headlights, because the buildings outside the window were moving so fast that blur wasn't even an appropriate term for the action anymore.

The city that we'd just come to vanished in nothing more than a flash, replaced just as quickly with a green countryside. When the taxi finally stops, I'm out of the death trap with my bag before the women can even restart their seemingly endless fighting over the shared eye. Dazai is not much farther behind me.

Chapter Text

Dazai POV

The Gray Sisters drop us off at the bottom of Half-Blood Hill, the cab stopping just as suddenly as it had started only a few minutes before in what should've been an over an hour trip had we taken a normal commute.

A jingling comes from my side as the shorter teen all but tears off his chain belt from where it'd been strapping him in only moments before. The red headed boy is out of the vehicle, flinging the door open before I'd even gotten the chance to grab the book bag laying at my feet.

I can't really say that I blame the other teen, my thirteen year old self had blocked out most of the ride that Annabeth, Tyson and I had taken back then. I followed the other out of the car, going through the door that the teen had left open, not wanting to risk walking in front of or behind the Gray Sisters' car when they decided to take off. The taxi disappeared into the distance just as fast as it had come before I even had the chance to close the older teen's door behind us.

I glanced around, looking for where the shorter teen had wandered off to, catching sight of Thalia's tree in the distance, ignoring the memories that threatened to surface as the scent of strawberries and pine drifted down from the hill.

A flash of a fiery orange caught my attention as I looked to the side, finding the smaller teen laying on the ground, taking the appearance of a normal teen during their summer break lazing around beneath the early morning sun. The older boy had his arms sprawled out on either side of him in a relaxed motion that did nothing to hide the anxiety clouding the other's face. If I hadn't seen the slow rise and fall of the other's chest, I would've thought that the teen was a corpse. The image was unsettling, bringing back too many of the memories that alcohol tends to help you to forget.

I considered just kicking the small redheaded teen in the stomach, but in the end I just layed down next to the other teen instead, positioning myself below the other's arm, careful not to touch the boy's bare hands. Our fight last week was still playing on loop in the back of my mind, reminding me to know better than to get too comfortable with the shorter teen. Chuuya seemed to have all but forgotten it, but I know that the other's care is a temporary thing. The tender way that he seemed to be dealing with me right now is temporary, driven by whatever lasting emotions he had from finding me the way that he did only hours ago.

Finding me close to how we're each laying now.

"Dazai," the other teen started, his voice a little rough as he spoke, like someone that's been screaming silently for a long time, "I think I'm ready now."

My thoughts flooded with a dozen dirty jokes and responses that I could give to the other teen, tens of different ways to get out of the conversation, child-like acts that would anger the other enough to forget, but I decided to follow the older teen's earlier example and bite my tongue. Even if it meant doing so until I felt it bleeds.

I let myself be quiet for a moment, forcing my restless mind to still just enough to allow me to think about just what to say. Being a demigod, I was naturally born with ADHD, my body always in a state of relentless motion, my mind no different. I could think at speeds that allowed me to analyze the situation faster than those around me, to come up with convoluted plans that others couldn't keep up with. But for the first time, that skill wasn't helping. I could think of a million different things to tell the other boy, and all of them be the wrong course of action as the information tripped over each other, because this wasn't a lie that I was fabricating, or a partial truth that I was giving up to vindicate my actions. It was an absolute truth that couldn't be watered down when spoken, one I knew would only taste bitter and wrong on my tongue if I tried to.

"I don't know where to start," I admitted to the boy above me.

I didn't know where to start that would let me give up only enough to keep the other teen safe in the world of monsters and gods that the boy clearly only knew so little about, too obsessed with his own predicament to dive into what else could be out there.

A humorless laugh floated into my ears, sounding as pleasant as a scratched record. It was a strange, hollow thing not fitting the boy behind it.

"The beginning maybe?" The shorter boy seemed to decide, the sarcasm all but dripping from the other's voice.

I swallowed down the momentary spike of panic that rose in my chest, shoving it away as far as I could. This was the first time that anyone had ever asked about my past, about that blank page in my story that no one could see any information on. The boss always seemed to think that it didn't matter who I was before he met me, before he made me his, so long as I went by Osmau Dazai and continued to be his right hand he didn't care. He just made sure to break any part of me that didn't comply with that and everyone else was too scared to ask. But now someone was asking for a black light so they could see the records of my past that were written there in invisible ink. And I'm going to give it to him.

Because Chuuya was different.

The other teen could hate me and say that he wants me dead for all of the things that I've done to him, but he still stays. He could be furious with me, but he still trusted me with his life. Yell at me with all the strength that he had in him at that moment, but he'd still take care of me only days later.

He trusted me to have his back, so I could trust him with this.

And who better to trust than the vessel of a god.

"I was twelve when I found out that the gods were real," I told the other teen, gazing up into the sky as the clouds above formed whisps, taking on a shape similar to that of an ancient monster flying through the sky.

—-

Chuuya POV

I listened to the younger teen's story, to the story of a young boy from New York that never knew his father but was one day thrown into the world of gods and monsters anyways. He told me the story of the son of Poseidon, a child born of a broken promise that was taken to a camp filled with others just like him, guarded by a tree made by another deity. The impossible story of a child with a prophecy laid upon his shoulders that left the only safe haven that he knew to get out of the way of the girl that took his place.

The story of Percy Jackson.

Dazai didn't go into specifics, only giving the details that he felt I needed to know. I don't know what his home life was like before or even how he made it to camp other than some accident at school, but I know that he was powerful. A being powerful enough for some titan to try and manipulate the possibly world ending prophecy to make the other girl the phropsized child instead. And after that he somehow found his way to Yokohama from here.

I knew that this was the reason that the other teen could so easily believe me when I told him what I was, why the way that he looked at me never seemed to change.

I was just another monster in a world filled with them.

Just another god.

In the back of my mind it numbly registered that at some point during the younger teen's story my hand found its way to the boy's hair, lightly twisting it as if to remind myself that this was real.

That he was real.

I twirled one of the thicker locks of hair between my fingers when the other was done talking, feeling my fingers gently brush past the bandages that always laid there, something dark twisting in my angut at the knowledge of what was hidden beneath. I let my mind wander, taking in the information that I'd been given. It was not often that the other boy so easily gave out pieces of himself like this, but I figured I'd take a page out of the taller boy's book and use the opening that the other willingly created for me.

"How did you end up with the Port Mafia?" I asked the other teen, my voice softer than I knew it could be, like I was scared that if I pushed the other too far he would revert back to the hollowed boy from earlier.

Dazai was silent for a moment, one so long that I thought he wouldn't answer me at all, but when the other finally spoke it was with an almost factual voice, closer to the monotone that he used when we weren't bickering. Though I knew better than to think that he'd so easily be over everything, not when I could hear the slight undertone hidden there, something that he was normally much better at hiding.

"I thought Thalia had already taken care of the prophecy," he started, a small huff that could almost be called a laugh pushing past the other's lips, "and for all I know she has. I was fourteen and, one way or another, I'd lost everything that I'd ever learned to value. So I jumped."

I felt my breathing hitch noticeably, not truly expecting, but knowing that I should've, that the other would have tried something like that at such a young age. He was fourteen, and while I was already a killer by then, no child, no matter how strange their world, should want to die at such an age.

But Dazai didn't stop there.

"The boss found me," the younger teen continued, seeming to unconsciously lean into my touch as he did. "He sent Elise to make a deal with me before I jumped. I went along with it, thinking that I would die from the fall, but I lived."

My mind spun with possibilities, each of them more improbable than the last.

"What was the deal," I asked, unsure if I really wanted to know what the product of two twisted minds could bring about, especially in a situation like this.

A louder humorless laugh escaped the other's throat, bubbling up from him like he found the whole occurrence from back then to have been nothing more than a waste of his time, or a plan horribly gone wrong.

"Back then," the other teen started once he found some resemblance of control over himself again, "the boss was just the former boss's personal doctor, but he wanted to be so much more."

I knew that much, everyone in the demon city's underworld did. There were rumors for over a year about just what happened the night of the former Port Mafia boss's untimely death. Though I knew the truth now, having been told personally by the culprit himself, I was no stranger to the story before.

"He needed a witness for the old boss's death," the other boy continued, "I was a suicidal child with no one to miss or question my death afterwards, the perfect accomplice." The boy lightly shrugged his shoulder against the ground at his own words as if the situation was something that couldn't have been helped even if he'd tried to change it. The sight set my teeth on edge.

Most days... Most days I could pretend that the teen laying farther down at the base of the hill was a demon that somehow found a way to hide itself in human skin. A monster somehow less human than even I was. But these truths, these outlandish truths, they were real. They all but screamed it in some twisted way that our world tended to.

Real.

Real.

Real.

They were truths that knocked violently against the walls of my mind, demanding not to be ignored.

For me to satisfy them by joining them with the rest of their kind.

"What happened after that?"

The other teen sighed tiredly, almost like even the thought of revisiting those memories tired him more than I could know.

"The boss... he saw something in me that he liked, something interesting that grabbed his attention enough that I wouldn't have been able to leave even if I'd wanted to at the time," the other boy decided, his voice growing colder with each word.

Belatedly I registered a small observation, something that I'd picked up on before but have never given much thought.

Dazai hasn't called Mori by his name since we first met.

"He raised me, with lack of a better term, from there on out," the younger teen continued, not knowing about the wildness inside my mind as he did. "I became his right hand from that moment onwards as he tried to mold me into another him."

'Mold me into another him' the words rang strangely in my mind.

Dazai and Mori, they were already impossibly like one another after only a year and a half or so together. They had the same smile and the same ability to switch between the emotions needed at the time within a moment's notice. Though there were some noticeable differences, they seemed more like one another than the green eyed boy seemed to want to admit.

"Do you want to...?" I started, letting the question trail off of my tongue, knowing that the other teen was much too smart to not understand what I meant.

But the other boy was stubborn, truly a poor choice in someone to try and break or mold.

I could see the other teen's jaw set in a stubborn lock before he even opened his mouth to speak. I could tell that some part of him needed to hear me say the words.

"Do you want to become him?"

A heavy silence settled over us at my question, something much deeper and darker than I could understand with the information that I'd been given by the demigod.

"No," the raven haired boy finally said, a firm voice filled with something akin to dread floating back to me, "I don't."

I'd figured as much from the way that the other spoke about the mafia boss... the way that he refused to even utter the older man's name.

"But I don't think I'll have much of a choice."

My heart fluttered dangerously at the rawness of the answer, the way that it felt almost like a child's plea for help. The way that it would've been had this not been the mafia and the teen speaking not have been the Demon Prodigy of all people.

Mori, the boss, will slowly kill off anything that he finds in the younger teen that he doesn't like. I'd seen it myself over the past few months, the darkness that seemed to grow relentlessly in the falsely brown-red eye of the other. I don't know just how he did it, but between the boss and the damage that the teen does to himself regardless, it seemed almost inevitable that the other would become just like him.

Almost.

I drew my hand away from the other, pushing myself up from the ground so that I was looking down at the other, unknowingly letting the midday sun shine down on me, making my hair look like dancing flames in the slight summer breeze.

I held my hand out to the other teen, the pale skin shining like silver under the sun as I spoke, "So we don't let him. I won't let him."

I know that it was a futile statement, a promise of sorts that I'd never be able to keep, but it was still my offer to him. A way for me to keep the other as human as beings like us possibly could be after the way that we were made and things we've done.

I could see the hesitation in those sea green eyes of the other teen, the disbelief there at such a bold statement. He knew as well as I did, most likely better than I did, just how presumptuous I was being, but from the way he grabbed my hand he didn't seem to care all that much either about how foolhardy we were being, all but believing ourselves to be gods that could defy fate.

"Okay," the other whispered in a sure voice as he let me pull him off of the ground.

In the other teen's eyes I could see something that I hadn't seen in months, a small fire burning in the teen's eye, one akin to what I saw the day that we fought Randou.

The day that he told me that he would try to live.

I don't know if it was me or Dazai, but one of us laced our fingers together, the pair of us holding the other's hand like some kind of lifeline as the taller teen led me up the hill to the place that I could only assume to be camp. Holding the other as we carried an impossible promise between each other.

—-

Dazai POV

The other's words stung in my mind as I led him up the hill, swirling around in there like the pipe dream that we both knew it to be. A large golden structure caught my eye as we climbed the hill, a creature much larger than what he'd been when I'd left two years ago.

Peleus, the guardian dragon of the Golden Fleece and Thaila's tree that was instated after Annabeth, Grover, Tyson, Clarisse and I brought the fleece back to camp. He'd grown a lot since then from what I could see towards the bottom of the hill, big enough to completely encircle the tall tree as the Golden Fleece hung from the tree's thick branch.

We only made it about halfway up the hill before an all too familiar figure was rushing down at us from the top of the hill, a spear already poised for attack in the girl's hands.

"Always attack first, ask questions later," I grumbled as I dropped Chuuya's hand, sliding the bag off from my shoulders.

I couldn't see the shorter teen, but from the small thud that followed my actions I could take a guess that the other boy had dropped his duffel before letting For The Tainted Sorrow color his skin red.

I held a hand out to the other boy, motioning for him to wait as I reached into my pocket with the other hand. I knew that. Chuuya could easily handle the demigod rushing at us, but I didn't want the teen to expose even a sliver of his ability until I could speak to Chiron first, until I knew just how much the centaur knew by just being in the presence of Arahabaki's vessel.

I pulled out my ballpoint pen, fully waiting for the grating remark to come from the other teen as I did. In times like this, when stealth wasn't necessary, our bickering knew no bounds, even during missions.

"What good is a pen going to be in a fucking sword fight?" The other teen grumbled, a legitimate concern if it had been anyone else with any other pen.

But it wasn't, it was me with mine.

I just glanced back and smirked at the lightly glowing teen, pulling off Riptide's cap where I was sure that the shorter boy could see while I could still see the angry daughter of Ares running at us. I watched with a strange sense of nostalgia as the pen grew beautifully into that of a perfectly balanced Greek sword. Pleased by the other's shocked expression I turned back around to Clarisse.

It was one thing hearing about a world of such things existing, another to see one of them with your own eyes. It also didn't hurt that I neglected to tell this part of my story to the other teen, call it payback for the panic that I felt when the small red head boy told Randou and I that he was a god.

I pocketed the cap and looked at Clarisse. I could tell that the daughter of Ares was ready for a fight, her mind too consumed with a sense of urgency at defeating the person that she'd deemed an enemy to truly study me as she swung her spear in a painful, but nondeadly arc.

I blocked the girl's attack with the side of Riptide, twisting away and swinging the blade at the girl with an elegant move that Kouyou taught me not long ago.

The pair of us swung our blades, slashing, striking, and parring as we fell into a rhythm close to one that we formed while sparing during the summer. I let the other girl enjoy this familiar rhythm, fall fully back into it before I changed it suddenly. A cheap trick, but while it might not be as pretty as the artwork that Kouyou made of her trickery, it still got the job done. You didn't have to be pretty with your every movement in the mafia. Elegance won't get you anywhere if your corpse.

Clarisse's spear flew high into the air as I disarmed the buff girl, watching as the brown haired teen fell into a state of anger and shock, the teen's face going stiff. Beating a child of Ares, the war god, was a rare thing in the demigod world. Rare enough to justify her surprise.

"You know," I started in english, laying my sword lazily across my shoulder with one hand while I kicked the abandoned spear into the other, "I fought your father when we were twelve. At least he put up a fight when I beat him back then."

I thought the sky might rumble at the insult, but it retained its summer quiet.

A new wave of shock swept over the older girl's face as she proceeded the words that I'd just spoken and finally took the time to look at me, really look. The fiery anger in her eye was doused out as if by a wave, the hand that'd been reaching for another weapon froze as Clarisse took in a startled breath.

"Jackson?" A surprised voice asked, spitting out the name like it was some kind of curse, some kind of hope.

"Long time no see, La Rue," I greeted, waving my free hand lazily in greeting while still having my sword prepared to defend any attack.

I left camp in the middle of the night with no word or warning as soon as the daughter of Zeus woke up. The present me, the one that's survived the Port Mafia for a year and a half now knows how that must look. If someone disappeared from the mafia in the middle of the night they would be hunted and executed in the painful manner that we deal with traitors.

But the other demigod didn't seem to have any intention of fighting.

I kicked the girl's sword up into the air and back at the daughter of Ares, feeling a small burst of pride at the look on the other's face. I am someone that holds grudges like they are some kind of lifeline, and even though it's far into the past now, I still remember just how the other treated me in those days.

Catching the spear with ease, the other demigod stalked closer to me, her eyes tracing my small frame like an auctioneer surveying the newest piece added to the collection to see just how much it is truly worth.

"Why are you covered in bandages?" The other demigod asked at last, her voice just as gruff as I remembered it to be from back then.

"Tried killing myself," I told her honestly, not finding the use in lying to the other when the evidence was written all over my skin. This is camp, accidents happen, even if the war is already taken care of by Thalia like it should've been back then, there's little chance of making it a week here without someone seeing all the bandages that were hidden beneath jackets and shirts right now and asking questions. I shrugged lightly before continuing, "Didn't work."

The girl shot me a deadly look, obviously not buying into the rare truth that I offered her without asking for anything in return.

"Not funny, Jackson," Clarisse declared, a tired light shining in the other's eyes as if she'd been dealing with bullshit for the past and couldn't stand to hear anymore from me. It was a look that I saw almost every time that I looked in the mirror to check my roots.

I simply just reached into my pocket and pulled out the cap for Riptide. "Not joking," I told the girl bluntly, not truly caring how or if my words affected the other.

Clarisse seemed about two seconds from running me through with her returned spear, seemingly still having decided that I was lying to her. The teen never had much of an anger control, so her lasting this long really was impressive since she tended to make Chibi look like he had a long fuse. But the girl's face contorted into an expression of confusion as she glanced over my shoulder, seeming to find something interesting.

"What's that?" The other demigod asked, raising her spear as she did, pointing it to the spot behind me where I knew a small teen was still standing, narrowly missing slicing my skin as she did.

Raising a hand, I lightly pushed the girl's spear away, absentmindedly wondering just who raised this thing before answering the other.

"Chuuya Nakahara," I told her, the teen's last name tasting strange on my tongue as I'd never said it before, "my partner."

The girl's eyes snapped back to mine at my words, something like surprise being displayed there for a reason that I really couldn't seem to understand. Emotions were tricky for me, they were something that I traveled violently between having too many and and not enough of. I couldn't really understand why my word choice elicited such a reaction from the girl, as the demigod opened and closed her mouth, not seeming to know what to say.

"If I had known that this was all it took to shut you up, I would've done something like this ages ago," I told the other demigod flatly, enjoying the silence that my earlier words had brought forth from her.

Really camp would have been so much easier if I'd known that all it took to get the daughter of Ares to hush was surprising her.

Clarisse shot me a deadly glare with enough heat behind it to start a forest fire, but I just took the look in, uncaring if the heat that it held. I've seen worse than the likes of her in the mafia.

I am worse than her.

"Whatever, Jackson," the other demigod said, giving in for the first time since I met her when we were twelve, "but don't think that Chase is going to let you so easily off the hook like I am."

I only waved dismissively at the non threatening child, knowing that the daughter of Athena didn't stand a chance to pick me apart in the way that the other demigod seemed to believe that she could.

There was nothing to tear apart anymore.

I turned to Chuuya, abandoning the angry daughter of Ares for the smaller teen. The other boy watched my movements carefully as I tapped the cap of my pen to the tip of the Greek sword. The other teen watched with strange eyes as the sword changed back into the blue capped ballpoint pen that I'd mess with during meetings, before I slid it back into my pocket.

The smaller teen pointed an ungloved hand at my pants pocket, a delicate eyebrow raised ludicrously high.

"That's Riptide," the other boy asked in a low voice, glancing carefully at the silently fuming demigod standing at my back. He obviously didn't know whether or not to trust the girl after the scene that we'd just shown him. It was a fair hesitance, I would have been disappointed if he'd acted any differently.

"Very good, Chibi," I cooed, lightly motioning with my head for the boy to pick up his bag as I grabbed my own from the ground. The other teen hit me on the head lightly before doing so, an action that I'd expected to come from the other in some form. "Fair enough," I conceded, sliding my bag onto my back as Chuuya put his on his shoulder.

I turned away from the teen back to the other demigod, knowing that the smaller boy would fit himself at my blind side as he's done countless times before. By the time that we made it over to Clarisse, the smaller was in his spot, Clarisse begrudgingly falling into step with us on my good side as the three of us made our way up the hill. I could hear the daughter of Ares grumbling Greek curses from beside me, but said nothing. Just as Chuuya and I said nothing about how we'd previously been waking up this hill only a few minutes before.

Chapter Text

Chuuya POV

We reached the crest of the hill, the unmistakable smell of summer strawberries greeting us as the far away sounds of metal crashing and children playing filled our ears. The bandaged teen pushed ahead a little bit, his longer legs letting him easily gain distance as he stopped next to a pine tree, Thaila's tree if I had to guess. The other teen turned, leaning against the wood and watching me as I made my way the rest of the way up what he called Half-Blood Hill. I don't know what he was looking at or waiting for, but whatever it was, the girl that Dazai fought earlier was not interested in it. The female demigod simply scoffed and brushed past the green eyed boy, continuing to the other side of the hill. When I saw where she was heading, I couldn't help the small gasp.

There were twelve cabins setup in a U shape, each with their own special design. Blond kids fired away relentlessly at targets in a large archery range not far from the full sized battle arena. The campfire burned brightly despite it being close to lunch by now. There was a large main house and a smaller lake connected to the seashore that served as a border for the camp, sparkling in the midday sun. The camp itself was nestled neatly in a clearing surrounded by woods where there wasn't hills.

Turning to Dazai, I found him still watching me, his gaze heavy with an emotion that I've never seen on the other's face before.

"I know that you told me about this place, but I didn't expect it to be this..." I heard my voice trail off, not really knowing what word to use.

We didn't have scenes like this back in Yokohama, not with the Sheep or the Port Mafia. Everything there had a dark almost classical feel to it, but here... the colors came alive in a way that I didn't know that they could. It looked like a place that someone would want to call home instead of only doing so by circumstance.

The corner of the bastard's lips twitched into what could've been a true smile in another life. "Beautiful?" He supplied, finishing my thought for me.

It wasn't really a word that I thought that the other teen would use, but it is one that seemed appropriate. Dazai let me soak in the image for another moment or two before following the girl down the other side of the smaller hill.

—-

Dazai POV

Clarisse was waiting for us at the other side of Half-Blood Hill, twirling her spear boredly as she stood there. The girl looked annoyed as the spinning got faster the longer that she waited on us.

"Finally," she all but snarled, reminding me of the way that she acted when we were twelve and she tried to dunk my head in the camp toilets. She slammed the spear down onto the ground like some kind of mage when we stopped in front of her. "I thought I was going to have to drag you down here myself."

The scary thing is that she would.

I rolled my eyes at the other demigod's antics, as unsavory as I remembered them to be.

"Where's Chiron?" I asked, glancing around the camp. Normally at this time, from what I can remember, the centaur would be instructing the archers, but he wasn't there.

The girl sighed as if the thought of the half horse creature drained any energy that she'd managed to gather during the past few minutes, drawing atten to the eyebags painting the demigod's face. Something twisted in my mind at the state that the daughter of Ares was in. It set a sense of foreboding running through my body.

"Big House," Clarisse said before leaving us for whatever commotion was happening at the Ares cabin.

Chuuya watched as the girl stomped away in a tired anger before turning to me, his eyebrow slightly raised in the way that it did when the other teen started to get impatient. He didn't really seem to like not being able to understand what was going on around him.

"Now what?" The smaller teen asked in a tone of annoyance, his hands shoved impossibly deep into his pockets as he looked around the camp.

I looked around with him, no one else seemed to have really noticed our presence just yet. I want to keep it that way for a little bit longer. Being noticed means questions, questions means explaining, and I've already done enough of that for one day, but here I was getting ready to do more.

Yay me.

"Now," I decided, turning towards the Big House, "we go meet Chiron."

The other teen seemed to be raking his memory at the name before hesitantly speaking.

"The centaur?" The other boy asked, finally landing on the term that he wanted to use.

I nodded at the older teen, privately pleased that he cared enough to listen to what I told him earlier.

That he remembered.

The shorter boy put himself back at his place by my side during our short walk to the Big House, his eyes aimlessly wandering around the camp and taking the scene in during the trek. I didn't blame him, this place really is different from that of any other place in the world.

"So," the teen started, his movements practically buzzing with a battle ready energy that will make him blend in well with all of the demigods here, "who here can we fight?"

I smiled falsely down at the smaller boy, knowing that the teen was ansty from all of the travel. "Why?" I asked, my voice all but dripping with a teasing tone, "that desperate to prove your strength, shortie?"

A faint red glow started to form around the other teen, dancing along the boy's skin like a live flame, but I only waved the annoyed redhead off.

"We're here," I told the other boy, waving vaguely at the building beside us, "pay attention, short mafioso."

The other teen reluctantly disabled his ability, but I knew he would try and get me back later for what I'd said the next time that we were alone. I just stuck my tongue out at the smaller boy and knocked on the door. The whole interaction was childish, but it was us, our dynamic that somehow still stood without the taint of secrets and lies.

There was a rustling behind the door as two muffled voices spoke to each other hurriedly, both steaming with impatience. I was close to knocking again just to cure my boredom when the door finally opened to reveal what I could only assume to be a grown up Charles Beckendorf.

The last time that I saw Beckendorf he was a tall fifteen year old that spent most of his time in the forages and was covered in soot and grime anytime that he came out of them. He wasn't scrawny, but could by no means be classified as muscular. Now the son of Hephaestus looked like someone that could make most monsters cry just at the sight of them as the eighteen year old had filled out from working relentlessly in the forages every summer for years.

There was still soot and grease on the young adult's heavily calloused hands. He looked like someone that would still be kind after the toll of the past two years. The only thing that really seemed to have changed with the older teen was the number of beads lining his neck and the much more prominent eyebags he was wearing.

"Percy?" The demigod asked breathlessly. There was shock in his voice and a wistfulness that sounded like he thought that this was nothing more than some kind of dream. We watched as Breckendorf's hand flew to one of the beads on his necklace, holding the trident there like some kind of lifeline.

"Hey, Beckendorf," I greeted, shining an impossibly innocent smile and a small wave at the tall teen like I didn't just reappear after being missing for years now, like I didn't come back a monster.

Beckendorf surged forward, his hands leaving where they'd been glued to the door frame causing both Chuuya and I to tense up where we stood. Instead of attacking, the son of Hephaestus wrapped me in a hug, pinning my arms to my side as my body locked up on instinct. I could feel the bile rising up in my throat as Chuuya shifted at my back, trying to assess the situation before he did anything rash. The other demigod gave one last squeeze before pulling back and realizing me.

I tried to muffle my wince behind a seemingly good natured laugh as the demigod looked me over. It fooled the son of Hephaestus, but not the boy standing behind me.

I could see the redhead shoot the older demigod a dark look as he stepped up next to me, grabbing my arm wordlessly as he did. The smaller teen pulled back the sleeve of my jacket, inspecting the bandages beneath it. When he saw that the wrappings were still white he just gave my arm an annoyed shove, releasing it from his grasp.

"Perce," the other demigod started, his voice laden with more concern than I'd heard in years, "you’re hurt."

He eyed the bandages on my arms as I pulled the sleeve down before reaching a hand up to the ones lining my face. I felt my body go still, waiting for the unwanted contact to come, knowing that it wouldn't look good if I were to stop him, but Chuuya didn't have to play by those rules.

The other teen shoved the arm out of the way before it could come too close to me, earning a confused look from the eldest in our little trio, but I just gave the Hatrack's arm a gentle squeeze.

I snapped my finger in front of the other demigod's face, drawing his attention back to me.

"Chiron," I told him, hearing my voice drop into something slightly colder than the warmth that I was trying to fake. If the older teen found my tone off he didn't say anything about it, choosing to just walk into the house, motioning for us to follow.

The Big House was just as strange as I remembered it to be, right down to the ever strange decorations belonging to the camp director, Mr. D. The main room filled with what looked to be crappy seventies decorations from a failed decade party, Diet Coke cans dotting any available space that the god could find.

The older demigod led us to the ping pong table that I've never seen actually used for ping pong, where Chiron was patiently waiting for the taller demigod to come back while pouting over a sea of plans. The centaur was in his wheelchair form, dully reminding me of when he posed as my teacher in the sixth grade.

Not bothering to look up from the plans, Chiron called out into the room, "Who was at the door?" The centaur sounded tired, looked it too from the apparent sagging in his shoulders. He was as tired as everyone else seemed to be in this camp.

Beckendorf placed himself in front of the pair of us, shielding Chuuya and I from view. "Why don't you look for yourself, sir?" The demigod asked, stepping to the side so that we could be seen.

The centaur bristled at the other demigod's words, what looked to be a rant of manners forming on the man's tongue as he looked up at the three of us, his face morphing into a look of pure shock.

"Wha-?" The creature started, seemingly unable to finish verbalizing the thought.

I wasn't too surprised by the man's reaction, Chiron is a creature from Ancient Greek myths, someone that's raised the next generation of heroes for ages. This was probably the first time that one of those students left as I did and came back years later in one piece, more or less.

I turned to the smaller teen, a blank expression coating my face as we watched the wheelchaired man struggle to know what to say. "You know," I started, speaking in a low whisper that I knew was just loud enough for the other to hear, "if I had a drachma for everytime someone gave me that look..." I trailed off, letting the implication hang there between us.

The other ability user turned to me, fully facing me as a look of annoyance plastered itself onto the other's features. The teen looked annoyed that I was joking at a time where he couldn't understand what was going on, but that didn't seem to have stopped the small twitch of the boy's lips.

"Mackerel," the other teen threw back lightly.

My eyebrow spiked up into a disbelieving look, though I don't know how well it translated with only one eyebrow being able to be seen due to the bandages.

"'Mackerel'?" I asked, the word dripping with a tone that commonly got me in trouble during my days in grade school.

"Son of Poseidon," the teen said, shrugging his shoulders lightly as he knew that I would follow his meaning easily enough. And I did from the moment that he uttered the word, I was just more confused by his choice of fish.

"Slug," I shot back, not caring that Chiron and Beckendorf were watching us, the former trying to get my attention as the pair of us spoke. "Small and slow."

The shorter teen aimed a light kick at my head, something that both of us knew wouldn't hurt if it were to land. I jumped away, letting the other teen spin gracefully as he brought his foot back down to his side. We've done things like this all the time back in the mafia, from the name calling to the intensive bickering and playful violence. The other mafiosos were over used to our antics by now and just continued on with the conversation at hand, knowing that we wouldn't be acting this way if we didn't already know all of the information that they were uselessly going over.

"Percy Jackson!" Chiron yelled out, his tone bringing me back to when I was twelve.

My body instantly stopped moving, turning to face the angered man like a scolded child waiting for the newest bout of punishment. I caught the Hatrack moving similarly, only difference was that he shot the centaur an annoyed glare normally resevered for one of my ill timed jokes about suicide.

"Hello, Chiron," I greeted the other carefully, attempting to not set the centaur off anymore than I seemed to already have. It's always easier to deal with authority figures when they're in a more subdued mindset.

The man looked like he was preparing for a long winded speech, one that he'd most likely been holding onto since I was thirteen and disappeared from his care without a word. I decided to risk it and drew my hands up, holding them in the air between us as to temporarily ward off the beginnings of a rant.

"Before you start in on me," I started, cutting off the man's thoughts before he could vocalize them, "is there some kind of translator device or spell that we can use? Chuuya here doesn't speak English," I explained, pointing at the smaller teen who was quietly watching the scene with a sense of mirth in his blue eyes at the gesture that I was making.

The mythological pair looked momentarily startled by my proclamation before Beckendorf nodded lightly in a confused manner and stood up for the seat that he had taken sometime during Chuuya and I's bickering.

"I have something that should work," the young adult decided, glancing at the centaur as if for permission, but the creature was too busy staring at Chuuya to notice.

The gifted boy just sat down in one of the many nearby chairs and stared daggers right back at the man. I knew that the small redhead would have exploded on the man right now if he thought that the centaur would understand him.

Seeming to notice the growing tension, the other demigod made his way to the door as I followed him out. We made our way across the field to the Hephaestus cabin in silence, neither of us seeming to have much to say until we got closer and the other began buzzing with an excited energy.

"Excited to show off your creation?" I asked him in a faked playful tone that I often used with Chuuya when I couldn't stand the demigod's nervous energy anymore.

The other nodded happily at my question. "Yeah," he started in a voice much too bright for my taste, "with everyone here being all but bilingual at birth, no one really has any need for a translator, so this is kinda my only chance to put it to the test."

I hummed at the other's reasoning, not really being able to find it in myself to care.

We arrived at the cabin not much longer after that, the demigod disappeared inside as I stayed out and watched the camp, trying to fall back into the rhythm of it as the other got the device. Standing there for a minute, I watched the Apollo cabin members still practicing at the archery range. A smirk tugged at my lips as an idea sprung into my mind that I stored away for later. Chibi was sure to hate it, but I know it would do well to help him in the long run of this social experiment.

Beckendorf walked out of the cabin not much later with a golden glow lighting up his face. In the man's gloved hands was a small ball of glowing gears spinning and rotating around a central light. I gave the man a somewhat puzzled look, but I could guess at what was about to happen.

"I'm guessing that this was a combined work with a claimed child of Hecta," I guessed, not really seeing how else there could be such a magical aspect to what should've been a mechanical device.

The other demigod gave me his newly minted confused look, seemingly still not used to me having the capability of being smart and using a form of deductive reasoning. I only shrugged at the other, hoping to dispel the idiotic look painting the man's face.

"Y-yeah," the other demigod stuttered out, seeming to have found some resemblance of a mental footing in the conversation again. "You just touch it while holding the image of what you want it to look like in your mind, after that, it will take the shape you imagined... in theory anyways," the man explained. "The gears," he continued, pointing to the seemingly floating objects surrounding the central ball of light, "are spelled to translate the magic. The light is there to take the shape."

He held his hands out to me, waiting with a poorly field impatience. Even knowing that, I hesitated, thinking of the angry ability user waiting for us with Chiron in the Big House. Both the boy's hat and gloves were stored away where the other couldn't use them, something that I knew made the teen feel all but naked without them. But there was a reason that those things were locked away where they were.

So I chose the next best thing.

I took the small glowing object into my bare hands, feeling the warmth cascade through my skin as I did. We silently watched as the gears seemingly melted at my touch, coloring themselves black and silver that contrasted heavily with the golden light as it slowly faded away.

Falling soundlessly, a collar almost identical to that of the one that Chuuya put into his duffel this morning landed in my hands. The only difference between the two, other than it's abilities, was a small inscription on the inside of the new one. There was a small golden engraving there that read: mine.

The older demigod shot me an odd look at my choice of shape for the translator, but chose to say nothing in the end.

Smart.

"So, how does it work," I asked curiously, twisting the object around in my hands, playing with it lightly as I checked that it would be able to properly be worn

The son of Hephaestus motioned to the piece. "You just tap it twice," the older teen started as we began the trek back to the Big House. "Anything that your friend says will be translated to English, and anything said in English will be translated to his language," the demigod explained in an excited tone that made me feel a little sick. "What language does he speak anyways?"

"Chuuya," I told the other demigod, my voice a little rougher than I thought it would, "his name is Chuuya and he speaks Japanese. We both do."

The demigod looked at me with what seemed to be an impressed look as we walked, like he was pleasantly surprised that I could do something that almost any high school freshman could.

"That must have been hard," the son of Hephaestus decides after a few long moments.

I could easily tell where the other demigod was going with this, where this whole conversation had been going from the moment that the other first opened his mouth, but I decided to play dumb, to act more like the small teen that they remembered me being.

"How so?" I questioned, throwing the choker up into the air and catching it swiftly.

The older teen took off one of the gloves that he'd been wearing, waving it around slightly like some kind of burly debutant. "Nothing," the other demigod said, shoving the glove into his pocket while taking the other off, "just you had to learn another language for the guy, must've been hard is all."

Learn another language for him?

I gave the teen a shit eating grin that would make any teacher on sight immediately reach for their detention slips if they saw it. Being underestimated in a fight was good against an enemy, but deadly with allies.

"Actually," I said, beginning to correct the other teen, "I learned Japanese when I was thirteen, over a year before Chuuya."

The other demigod made a small surprised sound as a guilty look fell over his face. I pushed ahead of the older teen, not really understanding whatever it was that he was feeling, walking faster to the Big House.

When I made my way into what this camp deemed good enough to call a war room, Chibi and Chiron were still staring at each other with enough force for flames to spark if Arahabaki were to get out of control. I shot the mythological creature a questioning look, but otherwise left the situation alone. The centaur would come to find me and express whatever concern it is that he so clearly has when he was ready, and the Hatrack can handle himself better than anyone else in this blasted camp.

"Shitty Dazai," the ability user cursed, shooting to his feet and walking over to me like some kind of lost puppy. "You could have at least said something before leaving me alone with... that," the teen growled, clearly not pleased with the situation that the other demigod and I left him in.

I waved the boy off with a dismissive noise, "Didn't want to upset the staring contest." I pointed an accusatory finger between the two, my voice much more tired than I thought it would be when I spoke. "Did you at least win, Chibi?"

The teen only scoffed, not answering the question. "What did you do anyways?" The other boy finally grumbled out, crossing his arms like a pouting child.

I smiled down at the older teen, pulling out the choker from where I'd stashed it in my coat pocket before walking in here, holding the magically made leather piece between us. The smaller boy simply sent me a confused look, glancing between the object in my hand and his duffel at the foot of his chair with a furtive glance, clearly wondering when I had time to swipe it.

"It's a translator, Slug," I offered tonelessly, watching as the other boy only raised an eyebrow, making no immediate move to grab the foreign object. "Demigod logic," I told the other in lieu of a proper explanation.

Chuuya held out his bare hand expectantly, clearly waiting for me to hand the collar over, but I just brushed the hand aside, promptly ignoring the ginger boy's glare.

Stepping up close to the smaller boy, as close as the other was this morning, I could feel the teen's eyes on me like some kind of weight. I unclasped the collar, reaching behind the other teen's neck to put on him, the silver part at the front of the boy's neck. My fingers brushed the other teen's throat lightly as I did, causing the other to shiver, but I ignored the reaction, figuring that he just didn't like being touched.

I stepped back, taking the other teen's appearance in, a small smirk tugging at the corners of my lips at the image.

Yes, this is right.

The other boy finally looked a little bit more like the short tempered teen that I knew. A small smile crept onto my face, but I forced it off just as fast as it came. My smile is a weapon, not something to be seen as pretty or soft by those around me.

The shorter teen cleared his throat lightly, forcing my mind to go back on track. "So," the other boy started, lightly gesturing to the choker lining his neck, "how does this work?"

I pointed to the collar, running a finger along the stitching there almost subconsciously as I did. "You just tap it twice to activate it and two more to deactivate it," I told the other teen, watching as his hand twitched lightly in his pocket at the words.

The other boy nodded lightly and reached up to the magically inclined creation there, but I grabbed the teen's sleeve first, earning myself a well aimed kick to the shin.

"Remember my birth name?" I asked the smaller boy, knowing that everything would go to Hades if he called me by the wrong name while we were here.

The other teen rolled his eyes in an annoyed manner at my intervention, but still answered despite that.

"Percy," the boy said as if tasting how the name sounded on his tongue. It didn't seem to agree with him.

I released the teen's sleeve, watching as the other boy's hand double tapped the choker at his neck. I waited for something to happen, but when there was no physical change I just looked at the other teen, finding him already looking at me.

"Well, Mackerel?" The small mafioso asked in a slightly accented English that seemed to agree with the boy.

"Perfect, Hatrack."

-Switch-

Beckendorf whooped, punching the air in an excited manner clearly pleased to see that his creation worked the way that it should. The centaur gave him a proud, almost fatherly smile, always the teacher it seems.

The man motioned for us to sit down with a small wave of his hand. The smaller teen returned to the seat that he'd claimed earlier, sprawling out in it. I looked around the ping pong table, considering my options and chose the one that I thought would annoy the boy the most. I sat down on the armrest of the chair that Chuuya was using, balancing my body on it and the wall behind us. The teen poked my leg lightly while Chiron sent me a pointed look, I promptly ignored both of them.

"Percy," the centaur started, his voice thick with a teacher's reperminding tone, "you did something incredibly foolish, if it wasn't for your empathy link with Grover, we would have thought that you were dead."

Empathy link, right. Even though I was in a place beyond the god's reach, if I'd had died, Grover would've felt the loss of link.

I fought back the urge to make a joke about hoping that that would've been true. Even if I hadn't, the smaller teen's glare would've effectively silenced any joke that I could've come up with anyways.

"Jumping right into it then," I said in an annoyed tone, not really used to having to censor myself around authority figures anymore. Anyone that I mouth off to in the mafia is either below me, or I knew was going to hurt me no matter what I did or said. The other teen just sighed, knowing that this was better than the alternative.

Chiron did not seem to share Chuuya's opinion.

"Percy," the centaur said sternly in a voice that made me wonder if Camp Half-Blood had installed a detention system since I've left, "be serious."

"Fine," I agreed coldly, looking at my former teacher. I dropped any facade that I'd been holding since stepping over the camp boundary causing the centaur to flinch noticeably at the look on my face. The other demigod just looked away, hiding his face in the plans, suddenly finding them much more interesting than the conversation at hand. Oddly enough though, the older ability user seemed to relax at the look. "I left when I was thirteen, what else do you want to know?"

"Why?" The man decided to ask, seeming to have gotten over his initial shock by now.

There were a lot of possibilities in that question, a lot of answers that I could've given. I could've told him about the boy hood jealousy that I felt back then, about the sorrow of watching those that I used to care for putting me into the second string. In the end I just chose what was easiest.

"You had Thaila," I told him, watching the realization don on the man's face, "I wasn't needed anymore. We would've just gotten in a fight and caused problems if I'd stayed."

I was a thirteen year old boy and my first real friends weren't even rightfully mine, I watched them being taken from me by the girl that had them first. I was thirteen and I couldn't understand what I was feeling, suddenly not being important enough to my best friends for them to even notice me, so I left. But it seemed almost cheap to use that as an excuse now when I couldn't find it in myself to feel even a fraction of those twisted emotions anymore.

Chiron seemed to understand that I wasn't telling him everything, a skill that living since ancient times would give someone I suppose, so he simply nodded and moved on.

"Why are you back?"

I studied the older man's expression, not liking what I found there when I did: anxiety. The centaur was anxious of my answer.

"My birthday is in a few days," I explained, watching the older man's anxiety vastly grow. "I came back to check that Thailia took care of the prophecy already like she was supposed to."

I was hoping with what little part of me that still seemed able to do that, that she had taken care of it. That this would just turn out to be a break from the boss and everything he's done and yet to do, but the centaur and the other demigod glanced at each other in a way that said I was right to doubt the girl.

"Tell me," I ordered, subconsciously slipping into the voice I use with the subordinates that the boss had given me.

The other demigod took the fall, glancing up from his plans momentarily. "She didn't," the eldest teen said, his voice dripping with an almost fearful awkwardness.

I looked at the centaur sitting at the head of the table that was quietly observing my reaction. "Is she dead?" I asked, tone growing colder as the conver went on.

The creature flinched at the overall lack of emotion in my voice. "No," he assured, squaring any gratification that my younger self might've felt. When it seemed like the centaur wouldn't explain anymore I simply glared at him, waiting the other out. "She joined the Hunters of Artemis just before her sixteenth birthday," he explained, finally giving in. "They don't age."

I looked down at Chuuya, but I found the other ability user already looking at me. "So the war?" The teen asked, speaking for the first time to someone other than me since we left Yokohama. "The prophecy?" The teen sounded angrier than normal for some reason that I couldn't comprehend.

Chiron wouldn't look at either of us, not that we were too inclined to look at the centaur either. "Percy's responsibility," the man told us as if it was the most natural thing.

"Bandage waste, you good with this?" The other teen asked, not looking away for a moment. Despite the anger evident on the boy's face, the other's tone was soft.

I thought for a moment about the absurdity of this situation: a suicidal teen that wants nothing more than to die promising to live, only to be thrown into an impossible prophecy.

The fates really do have it out against me it seems.

"I don't really have much of a choice here, Slug," I told the smaller teen, trying to placate the boy's horribly hidden anger.

In all actuality, I don't really want to do this, to have Chuuya near it. I left this place, this world behind a long time ago, but it's my responsibility so I have to take care of it.

"We could leave," the other boy offered, ignoring the startled looks and noises from the other two men in the room. "Go home and never think of any of this again," the teen continued, his voice tinted with something close to desperation for some reason, "or find a way out of it like Thaila did."

I shook my head, already having thought through those actions over the years I've been away from camp. Though I could only predict how each scenario would go up to a certain point, none of the outcomes ever looked particularly promising or bright.

"Chu," I started, putting a hand on the other teen's wrist where the Sheep bracelet used to rest to stop the rant forming on the other's lips. In the background I could hear Beckendorf asking how many names we had for each other, but I ignored him. "If we go home, they lose and Olympus falls." I could tell that the other boy was about to protest as he always does when I say something that he doesn't like, but now wasn't anything close to the time, not when we were talking about powers that the other doesn't yet understand.

"I can feel it," I tell him, knowing that the other teen knows just how good my predictions have always tended to be. "I don't know what's going to happen to you if Kronos wins."

The older teen, he's the vessel for a god. I have no way of knowing how the power shift from the gods to the titans would affect the other boy, or even if it would at all. Though if the stories that I read on the plane ride here were any indication, the titans ruling once more wouldn't be good for anyone.

"You'd hate immortality," the teen says in a small voice, finally giving in now that I'd brought him into this as well, "it'd be like a curse to you."

I laughed lightly, surprised to find that it was almost a real one. "Gods, yes it would be," I agreed, watching as the other boy grimaced a little at the wording. "Besides," I continued, something akin to miniscule lightness worming its way into my chest, "I don't really think that the Hunters take boys into their ranks, not if the story of Orion says anything."

Turning back to the bystanders watching our interaction with a strange look in their eyes, I motioned to the plans in front of them. "Now, tell me about this latest concoction of yours."

—-

Chuuya POV

The bandage waste, the demigod punk, and the horse-man hybrid talked through the plans for over an hour, incorporating the youngest demigod into them. Apparently everyone involved had been struggling with the safety of the mission and finding a reliable escape route that wouldn't get everyone involved killed. But with Mr. Stuff Attached to the Bandages and his godly abilities in the works, they weren't as worried since the mission is a water based one.

We left the building that Dazai had called the Big House, the grease covered demigod and the centaur staying to go over the plans one last time before tomorrow, a pointless endeavor really. The younger teen led me to the army of cabins, ignoring the endless stares and whispers from all of the campers that seemed to finally have noticed us.

"What the fuck are they looking at?" I cursed.

We'd made it halfway across the field when I couldn't take the absurdity of it anymore. I felt like the new kid in some crappy teen movie, except I didn't want to meet and be hated by the random popular girl. I was more likely to kill her and that seemed like something that would be frowned upon here.

"Chibi, please~" the taller teen said in his trademark annoying tone that did nothing to help with my rising anger level, "most of them have never seen me before, the ones that have probably don't even recognize me, and you're a completely new face among the campers. People stare."

We stopped in front of a cabin that was painted blue on the outside that seemed like a fisherman and a surfer had drunkenly fought over how to decorate it... in the dark.

Perfect for a child of Poseidon.

Dazai stepped forward and opened the door with little visible hesitation, but I could see from the set of the other boy's shoulders just how bad the temptation to walk away was. Inside the cabin was a few bunk beds lined up in a eat row against the wall, though only one set really seemed to have been used in recent years, a bathroom, dresser, a mirror with some type of horn or something hanging from it, and strangely enough, a fountain in the middle of the floor with a little thing of those golden coins next to it.

The demigod just let me look around while he put our things away, not really unpacking them so much as just getting the things separated out and out of the way.

After a few minutes the teen turned to say something to me, but paused at the seemingly angry knock at the cabin door. Almost identical flickers of annoyance flashed over our faces at the sudden sound before I schooled mine back into its resetting look. I don't know any of these people, or even what they're capable of, so I knew keeping something akin to a level head at the moment would be for the best, something I think that Mori would be proud of if he were to see me attempting to do so.

The bandaged teen opened the door, a young girl's voice echoing through the room before he'd even had the chance to let go of the door handle.

"Seaweed Brain," the mystery girl started in something that could be called a wistful voice. For the second time today, someone lunged forward and hugged the younger boy, something that anyone who was paying any amount of attention could see that he didn't like. Had we been back home, both of the offending parties would have a broken bone or two at best, dead at worst if anyone had tried that.

The blonde girl, as I could now see, restricted herself form the taller teen just as quickly as she'd hugged him before pulling back a hand and slapping the boy across the face with enough force to leave a red mark.

"Two years, Percy," the girl growled in an angry tone, "that's how long you've been missing."

Dazai just walked away from the girl, going back to our bags with much less energy than he had before if that was even possible for someone that runs on little to no sleep.

"Good afternoon to you too, Annabeth," the teen greeted tiredly.

I walked slowly to the nearest bunk bed, climbing up to the top and getting comfy for the show that the pair were creating. I could help, but it's more fun to watch the bandaged teen try and deal with this in a more normal manner than he's had to act in over a year it seems.

"Where even were you?" The girl continued, moving father into the room. "After a few months, Grover could barely even feel the empathy link to know whether you were dead or not, idiot." The blonde girl followed Dazai around the cabin as he put some of his things away in the bathroom for the night.

The taller teen turned around, narrowly avoiding the angry demigod as he walked towards me, climbing up beside me on the bunk bed.

"Japan," the other boy replied flatly once he was comfortable on the bed, ignoring the way that I flicked the side of his head.

The blonde girl's gaze flicked to me as if she'd just noticed my presence, though I knew that she'd known I was in here the entire time, having taken a quick visual sweep of the room before walking in.

"Who's this?" The girl asked, swinging an accusing hand at me even though her eyes were still trained on the son of Poseidon.

I was decidedly against the daughter of Athena.

"My name is Chuuya Nakahara" I started, drawing the girl's attention fully to me for the first time since she walked in here. "You must be the one that Percy calls Wise Girl."

The girl's stony gray eyes settled firmly on me with a look that would've had the potential to be threatening in nature had I not spent that past few months working with Dazai, Mori, and the rest of the Port Mafia, along with my life before them. Even then, I'm a killer in my own right, the teen before me is just a glorified monster hunter.

"Don't call me Wise Girl," the blonde haired teen ordered.

"Fine," I agreed easily, glancing at the bandaged teen next to me to gauge his reaction to our little interaction. For all intents and purposes, he seemed to find thesis mildly amusing, hardly as concerned about the red spot blooming on his cheek as he should've been. "Wise Ass."

The girl, Annabeth, laughed dryly in a way that didn't really fit her. "Gotta say, Seaweed Brain, I like your other brother better," the girl remarked before waving a hand at me again, "this one takes too much after you."

I dared a look at the other teen, finding that he looked almost sick at the girl's wording for whatever reason. "Chase," he said, demoting the blonde girl to her last name, a fact that the other definitely seemed to have noticed, "Chuuya is not my brother, he's my partner. Treat him as such."

I heard the undertone in the other's voice, it was the same one that I've heard him use with his subordinates when they didn't listen to orders fast enough. To the daughter of Athena's merit she noticed the subtle change, something that already made her twice as perceptive as half of the new recruits that I've seen when they first joined.

Though the other boy's choice of wording was strange. Dazai doesn't normally say things like that for other people's benefit like this. It's probably just because we're the only two here that know the cruelty that the other is capable of, some sort of solidarity thing in the teen's twisted mind.

The girl stormed out of the cabin without so much as another word, the door banding shut dramatically, leaving us alone once more.

I flopped back on the bed, silently enjoying the feeling of my feet dangling off of the edge of the bunk bed. The other teen let me shift around and get comfortable before following me down, positioning himself below me as he had earlier today. I let my hand go back to his hair like before, silently twisting the locks of hair, careful to avoid the bandages there, using my other hand to prop my head up just a bit.

"How's your cheek?"

I couldn't see the other's face anymore, but I could almost feel the teen rolling his eyes. "The pain didn't even register," he told me dryly.

I hummed lightly. I guess I'd forgotten for a moment that I was laying with the boy that had been raised by the Port Mafia boss since he was fourteen, not some normal teen that would've been hurt by what the other demigod had done.

I don't know how long we laid there like that, me messing with the younger boy's hair, the other teen letting me. It was a calm that we seldom got or let ourselves have back home. At some point, my breathing evened out as the inky blackness of sleep took over.

Chapter Text

Chuuya POV

There was a loud banging noise in my ears sometime later. When I tried sitting, there was a weight on my chest holding me down. I looked down, confused by the unfamiliar presence, and found Dazai laying there, the other teen's head resting on my chest. Glancing around the cabin, I saw that there was still a fair amount of light everywhere and knew that we couldn't have been asleep for more than a hour or two at most. I really didn't want to wake the other teen up, knowing that this was probably the most sleep he'd gotten all week, and would get for the next few days, but the banging continued relentlessly and the other boy didn't stir.

Nudging the other boy's head, I tried to get him to roll over and move on his own enough for me to slip away without waking him, but when the sleeping teen finally started to shift, he was lucid enough to hear the noise.

"Lunch," the younger teen mumbled out, curling in on himself like that would make the world go away.

No sooner than the word was out of the other boy's mouth did I feel my stomach start to grumble, the noise startling the other teen enough to make him dig his head deeper into the comforter that he'd rolled onto.

I was tempted to leave him here and go eat on my own, but I don't know demigod customs and I knew just how much the other teen needed to eat. I poked the younger boy in the cheek where the blonde girl, Chase, had slapped him earlier. While it didn't do much to hurt him, it seemed to be just strange enough to make the other teen sit up, looking back at me with an eye still heavy from the thralls of sleep.

I watched silently as the other teen hopped off of the bed, seemingly waking up mid fall as his stance became more aware. The younger teen turned back to me, resting his arms and head on the bed, looking at me with clear eyes.

"Come on Chibi, it's lunch time," the taller boy mumbled out before slipping away from the bed, waiting for me by the door.

Jumping down from the top bunk, I felt every bit the slug that the other teen had taken to calling me recently as my body moved at a subdued pace. Food sounded great, but the prospect of having to deal with the other campers, or worse, another staring contest with the supposed centaur almost didn't seem worth the trip.

We left the safety of the cabin, making our way to what I assumed to be the dining pavilion, my skin prickling the entire way. I felt like crushing all of the staring demigod punks into the ground as they bunched together and whispered among themselves, staring at the pair of us, but went against it in the end. Killing children right before some big mythological war didn't seem like the best of ideas that I could have, but that didn't stop me from staring back.

We sat down at what I assumed to be the Poseidon table, all of them looked exactly the same except of the twelve present, four were completely devoid of any people. A new wave of whispers and stares erupted from the campers as we sat down, but Dazai just returned their gazes with vicious glares until they looked away for the most part.

I really don't understand children.

Cups and plates were whisked around to all of the tables quickly as more and more campers joined. The teen across from me grabbed the cup in his bandaged hands, holding it seemingly gingerly as we watched it fill quickly with some type of blue colored soda.

"The hell is that?" I asked, pointing at the glass in the other boy's hand.

The other teen only shrugged and took a small sip of the fizzy drink in lieu of a proper answer.

Shitty Dazai.

A certain amount of grogginess from jet lag weighted down my body, but I knew that it was only lunch and the chances of us going back to sleep were slim to none, so I decided to try my luck with magic made coffee, pleasantly surprised to find that it was exactly the way that I liked mine made, right down to the temperature.

My plate filled with a healthy serving of tea on rice the moment that I touched it, something I haven't really had since leaving the Sheep. It tasted exactly the way that we used to make it. I got a few bites in before I noticed something.

"Mackerel," I chided lightly, feeling like I was mothering the younger teen, "you've got to eat something."

The other boy hadn't so much as touched his plate since we sat down, the magical entity still laying there empty of anything. It will take me a long time to forget just how light the teen was this morning, the definition of his ribs. It wasn't something that I was planning on letting continue.

"Sorry," the other teen apologized in a tone that told me just how little he meant it, "just waiting for someone to smite you. Or would that be sacrilegious?"

My face scrunched up, my eyebrows pinching together at the other teen's statement. The boy simply just pointed to the small fire burning in the pavilion and the kids throwing a portion of their food into it like that was something you're supposed to do. Dazai stood, holding a small plate of what looked to be canned crab in his bandaged hands. The teen walked over to the fire, scraping more than he probably should've into the flames. I followed the other boy's lead, half expecting lightning to strike me down on the way there, but I made it there and back without a scratch.

We ate our food quickly, the younger teen seemingly picking at his more than eating it, though I did notice him take a few bites here and there. When we left the pavilion, I took a hopeful step in the direction of the Poseidon cabin, but a hand waving in front of my face stopped from walking any farther.

"I have a training idea," the taller teen said, his voice tinted with something close to excitement that made me decidedly against anything that was about to come out of his mouth.

This might've been one of the strangest things that the other teen has said to me since I've known me, that includes the conversation this morning at the bottom of Half-Blood Hill and a very weird cover story that he came up with one time to get the cops off our asses during a mission. The boy that I know is someone that had a tendency of throwing himself into work when he needed a distraction, but never seemed to actively create it. Training definitely counts as work, the only type of work that I've seen the other teen avoid as much as possible.

The boy pointed at the archery range, ignoring the headache that he must've known was growing in my mind.

"We don't really use bullets all that often here," the teen explained emotionlessly, "but we do have arrows."

The other boy's logic was impeccable in a way that made me want to shove the teen into a wall if only to kill some of those brain cells that come up with shit like this.

I sighed heavily, following the teen to the range.

—-

Dazai POV

We made our way to the range where Michael Yew was instructing the older campers on the archery lesson. I waved the teen down as we got closer, getting his attention while the others were retrieving their arrows for the targets they'd been using. The boy's head tilted to the side as he walked over, his eyes slightly glazed over as if he was lost in a memory that the rest of us didn't seem to quite share.

"Hey Michael," I greeted, making my voice purposefully soft to put the teen at ease.

The boy blinked a few times, the haziness slowly fading from his gaze as he did before he smiled at me warmly. "Heya, Percy," the other demigod started, his voice tented with a poorly concealed awkwardness, "I thought I heard a rumor that you were back."

I could see the other boy shifting with a nervous energy that seemed to be faked by the ADHD tendencies that demigods tend to have. The other demigod and I were never close in the little time that I spent at the camp during two summers that I was here, so I could tell that he was grateful when I finally decided to cut to the chase.

"I need a favor, man," I told the other, slipping on the smile that I used to wear. I pointed a thumb at the shorter teen next to me. "Chuuya here can manipulate the gravity of the things that he touches," I explained, waiting for the other boy to come to the proper conclusion like I knew he would.

Michael Yew's face fell with every word that I spoke, the other boy seeming to be adopting a look that said that he'd already dealt with too much shit for one week for me to throw this at him too.

"Perce," the other boy started, his voice careful as if he was talking to a small, upset child, "don't tell me that you want to..." the other demigod trailed off, seemingly unable to finish his thought.

Though he didn't really have to worry about that for long.

"He does," the manipulator of gravity in question cut in, further throwing off the son of Apollo with how willing the redheaded teen seemed to be with this inane plan. "The mackerel is crazy, but he's still right."

In the other teen's tone I could tell that he understood why I was having him do this. Stopping arrows and stopping bullets may be the same to someone with the teen's ability, but what the ability user did with the ammunition after that was going to feel completely different to the boy, the sooner that he gets used to this, the safer and easier life will be for the shorter teen.

The other demigod's face looked torn as I knew that it probably would. Had we been back at the mafia, Chuuya and I wouldn't have even had to explain ourselves since requests like this were more normal for us than it really should be.

"If he ends up with an arrow wound it's not my fault," the other demigod said, steadily glaring at me as he gave in.

Perfect.

—-

Chuuya POV

The bandage waste had the demigod archers surrounding me on close to all sides while I faced the line of targets not far from the lot of us. Each of the archers were set at varying distances from where I was, the other ability user had justified that this was to help with timing and distance judgment as any of the arrows fired at the same time wouldn't hit at the same time or place as any others, though while I knew that was one of the reason, I figured that the boy just liked the idea of playing conductor for a little while. The teen in question was standing right behind me, using the coverage that I created to point at the archers that he wanted to have shoot me from a safe place.

"You know," I called out to the boy hiding at my back, my voice dripping with a snarky tone while all of the campers involved loaded their bows, "there's got to be easier ways to kill me if that's what you're aiming for here."

I could hear the other teen scoffing in a mock offended tone. "You don't have to do this," the boy retorted.

But I knew that I did have to do this. Learning to adjust to kicking arrows in the middle of a fight wouldn't do me any good against beings, some with powers possibly much stronger than ability users back home, aiming to kill me. The other ability user knew this too of course, maybe even better than I did, which was why he didn't give me time to come up with a proper response.

Dazai must have signaled for the first archer to begin, because an arrow came shooting at me from my right. I stopped it like I do with bullets, just barely letting the projectile touch me before I took away the thing's gravity, encasing it and myself in a deep red glow.

Twisting my body, I aimed a small kick at the arrow, releasing it from my hood as it fired off. I couldn't help but grimace at the feeling of kicking the long slender arrow instead of the bullets that I'd grown accustomed to over the years, that and just how poor my aim was with the wooden piece.

We kept going for over an hour, only stopping to retrieve the arrows from the targets and replace the arrows that I accidentally kicked wrong and broke along the way. By the time that we finally stopped, I was used to the feel of using the arrows in the way that we were, even going as far as to almost have fun with it, trying for fancier moves at the end. When we called it quits for the day, the teenage demigods around Dazai and I all smiled, seemingly happy to have just practiced as we had, solidifying my impression that all demigods were crazy, just as all gifted are.

I turned to the bandaged teen, only to find him staring off at the arena with a strange gaze.

"So," I started, drawing the other teen's attention back to me, "do you want to go and practice sword fighting or something?"

The other boy was staring at the arena with something close to a thoughtful gaze for long enough that I'd figured that something like that must be up.

"No," the teen replied dully, looking back towards the arena, "I'm good. I've been practicing with Ane-san for the past few months."

A dull shock of surprise went through my body at the sudden information,dulled only by the soreness in my legs from doing almost nothing but kicking for over an hour. I haven't seen the two of them so much as look at one another outside of meetings, let alone train together like the bandaged teen was suggesting. Though it did make sense in a way since they're both use swords for combat, apparently.

"So then why are you looking at the arena like it personally offended you then?" I asked, almost immediately regretting my choice as the other boy turned to look at me, his eyes still seeming to glow slightly as they always tend to do when he's serious.

"I have an idea."

—-

Dazai POV

Taking the other ability user over to the arena, I readied myself for some mind numbing training on my part. It's been two years since I've consciously tried to use my godly powers, I couldn't help but feel like a beginner all over again.

But instead of a quiet training arena or the loud thrum of kids playing at heroes, we were met with hell on earth.

I opened the arena door only to swiftly close it back not even a moment later. The other ability shot me an amused look, clearly entertained by how I reacted to whatever was inside the battle arena. Stepping aside, I made a sweeping motion with my arm, indicating for the other teen to try.

The other teen stepped forward with a cocky look on his face, head held high and shoulders straight as he pulled the door open, only to copy my move and close it right back, the door shaking in its hinges from the sudden force the other boy put into the action.

"Big dog," the smaller teen choked out, still standing frozen by the door.

"Hellhound," I corrected, not in any better state than the other ability user.

We looked at each other and then back at the soundly shut door next to us. Stepping forward, I slipped by the other boy, creaking open the door just enough to peek inside like a small teenager spying on their parents. The other boy slid under me, fitting himself to where he was kneeling down between me and the door so he could see too. The demon dog was running around the arena, throwing around one of the practice dummies like it was some kind of chew toy meant especially for him.

The smaller boy looked up at me with a serious gaze. "Do you think it's safe?" The teen asked, poking a finger in the hellhound's general direction.

I looked down at the other boy, trying to discern whether he was joking or not. I knew that Chuuya loves dogs, but even he must see that whatever this social experiment is with tailing one is just a little on the crazy side, even for us.

At least it only has one head.

"Did you kick out some brain cells while I wasn't looking earlier?" I asked, flicking the other teen on the back of the head lightly. The other boy shot me a dark look before we both turned back to the scene on the other side of the doors.

"That's Mrs. O'Leary," a small, quiet voice called out from behind us.

Chibi and I whipped around, instinctively pressing together with our hands behind each other's back in a practiced motion. The older boy and I have done this movement too many times to count before when sneaking in alcohol from the kitchen or from a mission to one of our offices. No one else in the mafia really cares if two teens get drunk, but it's too much of a pain to have to deal with the boss.

The owner of the voice was a small itialn boy that somehow looked like he'd managed to get even less sleep than I have. The younger teen was wearing an avatar jacket that seemed to swallow him, his pale hands pressed Getty against his cheste as he messed with some kind of silver ring on his finger. A skull ring it seemed.

"The hellhound," the smaller boy elaborated, "her name is Mrs. O'Leary. She's friendly."

I couldn't help but observe the small teen, the way he stood and speaks, how he was able to sneak up not only on Chuuya but me as well, two of the people with the most situational awareness in this gods forsaken camp. The smaller boy's eyes were shifty, like he couldn't hold our gaze, like he never learned how. In a way he looked like a boy that used to be in constant motion, brought to a premature stop. It was a look that you become all too familiar with in the world that Chuuya and I have come from, but for much different reasons. He looked like he couldn't be older than fourteen.

How strange.

"Are you her owner," the other ability user asked, seeming to have finished his analysis of the pale teen as well.

Chuuya seemed almost as dazed as I was by the whole situation at hand. The sudden arrival of the boy, the mere idea of taming a hellhound of all things, they were strange.

Something dark flickered across the younger boy's face but was gone before I could place it with a good amount of certainty.

"No," the youngest boy said in a thick voice. "I just help when I'm here," the teen explained, "her real owner is dead."

Now that's interesting.

"Who was her old owner?" I piped in, drawing the boy's dark, lightless, eyes to mine.

There it was, that flicker again.

"Daedalus," the boy answered after a small pause, "he was the sword master last year."

A quiet noise of surprise slipped past my lips as something vicious carved itself onto my face. "The Ancient Greek inventor," I mused, enjoying the possibilities running through my mind. "Robot body with a transferred consciousness?" I guessed, knowing that immortality wasn't something that would be granted to someone like him, not after what he did to his nephew.

The redhead teen shot me a look that seemed to imply that I've finally lost my last marble, if I ever had it to begin with. "I didn't kick you in the head earlier, right," Hatrack asked, glancing up at my head as if to check for damage, "just arrows?"

My hand flew to my chest in a dramatic manner, tacking on a dramatic gasp just to annoy the other boy further. "So mean Chibi," I whined, seemingly pouting, though neither of us believed the act for a moment.

"A-actually," the youngest boy broke in, his voice sounding shaky and unsure, "that's exactly what he did." The teen tilted his head like some kind of lost puppy. "How did you know?"

Chuuya just groaned loudly, too used to the workings of my brain to really be surprised that I ended up being right.

"I'm Percy Jackson," I said, grimacing internally at how strange the name sounded on my tongue after such a long time being in disuse. The name tasted like ash. I held out a hand to the supposedly younger boy, letting the smaller boy shake it while I ignored his question.

"This," I gestured to the Hatrack, "is Chuuya Nakahara." The gravity manipulator followed my example and shook the dark haired boy's hand quickly before shoving his hand back into his pocket.

"And who are you?" I asked, stepping closer to the small boy, watching as his eyes shook lightly with something close to fear. "Son of Hades, a child that is most definitely not in the right time."

The boy stumbled back in shock, I followed the teen forward, getting closer to him as the boy's eyes moved quickly between Chuuya and I as if asking for help. The sun was beating down on the three of us, I moved around the smaller boy, cutting him off as he tried to step into the shadows for whatever reason. I knew that demigods had strange powers according to their godly parents, cutting him off from what he so clearly seemed to be sneaking to seemed like the only logical thing to do.

"How?" The pale boy asked, steadily losing the fight with schooling his features as panic seemed to take over.

"Your all black clothing, minus the jacket, with the skill ring points to you being a son of Hades," I said, pointing to each piece of clothing as I called it out. "That and the fact that you just tried to escape to the shadows instead of running away like a normal, cornered child would."

I watched the way that the boy's eyes shook even more violently as I spoke, clearly not used to being found out as quickly as he was.

"Now, out of time is another thing," I continued, watching as the teen twisted the ring faster and faster with each passing sentence. "Thanks for confirming that for me by the way," I said, snapping my finger lightly into a finger gun motion. The boy looked to the ability user standing at my side for help, but only found a sullen teenager, too used to having to sit through my explanations before he could call me a show off and move on.

"The avatar jacket looks to be an authentic one from around the World War II era, that also seems to be in as good a condition that you can get for a demigod child of the big three, and shows no real signs of aging.

"You're Italian, but have no real accent, Italian, American or otherwise. Now this could just mean that you moved around a lot, but I don't think so. Your mother seems like she was probably pure Italian as well."

"A bigger factor," I added, slightly enjoying the look on the smaller boy's face, "is the promise between the Big Three."

I held up a finger as I spoke.

"Zeus broke it first with Thalia."

Another finger.

"And Poseidon with me."

The boy nodded along, seeming to already know all of this from camp gossip and the like.

"But Hades isn't the type to break promises. When I visited your father a few years back, the god was overly angered by my mere existence," I continued, circling the boy, watching as his head spun around to keep an eye on me. "Well I thought he was mad. Now though, I can't help but wonder if he was just jealous. Posiedon could flaunt me around as much as he wanted now that everyone knew I existed, but Hades had to keep you a secret, a child of a world war, born before the prophecy was given."

I stopped in front of the smaller boy, my cousin as it seems, looking him in the eyes with my own. "Tell me, dear cousin," I said, looking down on the boy. I had a good few inches on the smaller teen, but he in turn had a few on the eldest in our little trio, if you go by apparent physical age, "how was the Lotus Casino?"

"Damn show off," the older ability user cursed from my side, slapping me on the shoulder lightly. "You can't just say shit like that, Mackerel," Chuuya reprimanded. I didn't really understand why, but I knew better than to act sorry or to keep pressing the child.

"You wound me, partner," I said, stumbling as if I'd been shot, an experience I, surprisingly, haven't had the pleasure of just yet.

"Jackass."

"I hate you," I lied.

"Hate you too," the other teen shot back, but the smile on his face seemed to say otherwise.

The small demigod was giving us a look similar to the one that Kouyou will give when we bickered during meetings right before she complained about how two executive candidates shouldn't be acting so childish.

"So," I started, diverting my attention back to the other demigod, watching the way that the boy's eyes shook with something like fear when I started talking again, "what's your name?"

"Nico di Angelo."

—-

Annabeth POV

I walked over to the arena dressed in light body armor. Playing with Mrs. O'Leary is always a good workout and a way to erase pent up frustration, something that I had a little too much of right now after Percy came back. A haunting sea green eye flashed in my mind, accompanied by the trickle of fiery red hair. Di Angelo was supposed to be leaving on some type of trip before dinner, looking for something to help with the upcoming war. I don't really know, but I figured I might as well keep the big dog company.

As I got closer to the arena, a loud banding noise entered my ears. I looked around at all of the other demigods in the area, but everyone else already seemed used to the isenent noise, still going about their days as normal. The archers even had the guts to look mildly amused.

"Little less gravity, Chibi."

"Maybe try less water, Mackerel."

I finally made it to the arena only to find the owners of the voices destroying it in a way that not even the hellhound had managed quite yet.

Percy had a half filled bucket of water sitting at his feet while the red head boy, Chuuya apparently, was standing at Percy's side, his arm crossed against his chest. The pair looked as if they were fighting, but from the smiles on both teens' faces, I could tell that it wasn't anything remotely serious.

The two were standing in front of a set of heavily beaten practice dummies, each of them looking like they'd seen better days. The dummies were ridden with holes and splatter of mud, each spot a kill shot in its own right. There were holes carved into the ground all around them making the area look a lot like the pictures I've seen in history books of lands after a series of minefield explosions. I watched as the two boys moved with each other and learned why the arena had this effect to it.

Controlling some of the water from the bucket, the son of Posideon moved it to the arena's dirt floor before shutting it quickly at the other boy. I tensed up, waiting for the the inevitable, incredible splatter of mud onto the other boy's clothing, but it never came.

The shorter boy light up with a brilliant dull red glow comparable to that of the blessing of Ares, the mud stopping as it touched the teen and floated in the air almost gently. The boy flicked his hand lightly in an almost bored motion, sending the mud flying at one of the dummies. The ball hit the dummy straight in the heart, another deadly shot to add to the collection that the boys seemed to have made.

The pair sleeked forward, seeming to inspect the damage before steeping back to where they were. The partners turned to each other, looking at one another almost simultaneously.

"Keep the gravity level," the suspiciously bandaged teen suggested, seeming to look over the damage once more.

"And drop the mud level," the supposed gravity manipulator finished, Percy agreeing while mumbling something about not being allowed to use lethal force on non monsters.

Non monsters...?

Ideas ran around in my head, none of them any that I particularly liked, so I decided to ignore the encounter all together.

After one last peek through the arena doors to check that Mrs. O'Leary was fine with the strange pair invading her space, I left the arena without speaking to either boy, though I couldn't shake the feeling that I saw them glancing at me out of the corner of their eyes. I just shook the thought from my head. The boy that I remembered was someone that would get too engrossed in training like this to notice a door being slightly ajar. Him and the other boy, Chuuya, didn't seem to have the situational awareness needed for that, not really.

The dull thrum of hooves stomping on the ground caught my attention as I walked away from the arena, heading to the Athena cabin to catch up on some of the sleep I've been missing from all of the extra missions and war preparations. Looking up I saw the centaur waving me over tiredly with ink covered hands. The ink that was apparent even from across the field told me that they were finally making some progress on the escape plan. Chiron walked away knowing that I would follow as he led us down to the beach.

We stood side by side for a few long moments in the sand. The sun still had some time before it would go down for the night, but the air felt cooler here than it had earlier. We didn't say much for a little while, only staring out at the sea in front of us as if something, or someone would appear and give us all of the pieces that we seemed to find ourselves missing today.

"What do you think of Percy?" Chiron asked, his voice carefully neutral. The centaur didn't look at me as he spoke, but that was fine, I didn't look at him either.

I thought for a moment, considering how to word my answer in a way that wouldn't dim the memories that we both had of the sarcastic little boy.

"He's changed," I decided, stating something that was obvious for anyone that ever met the boy from before to see. The Percy of my memories was a boy that was goofy and sarcastic, a living, breathing teacher's worst nightmare.

He was the child that sent the head of Medusa to Olympus just to be imprudent to the gods. This Percy... this boy that I barely recognized would do it in hopes of turning a god to stone.

He's dangerous, they both are.

Chiron sighed heavily, similar thoughts probably going through the older man's head as well. "Time will do that," the centaur said as if it explained every problem in the world.

"He's different," I countered, "he's cold."

Time will change you sure, but how could it completely change some like it did to Percy. Like it did to Luke.

I could see the man nodding out of the corner of my eye. "I noticed that too," the teacher commented, seeming to agree with me, "the only person he's been anything like himself with is the strange boy that he brought him, Chuuya."

I couldn't help but think back to the scene I saw earlier in Poseidon cabin:

Percy never called me Wise Girl like he normally does. Instead the other boy, Chuuya did, before switching to something much less favorable. The black haired teen all but leaped to the shorter teen's defense, taking a tone with me that he's never had before, not even when I was rude to him when we first met. The two were close in a way that seemed hard to touch.

"Percy's fatal flaw has always been loyalty," Chiron continued, the tiredness in his voice increasing by the second. "He left us and came back because of that loyalty. It just seems that he's more loyal to Chuuya than he is to us."

I couldn't help but wonder what the pair have done with each other over the last two years to call each other partners of all things. To read each other the way that they do.

Percy was my best friend for two years; him, Grover and I, we were a team. What kind of experiences does it take to just erase all of that like it was never there?

"Do you know what all of the bandages are from?" I asked the centaur. If anyone could study the other demigod and know what was going on with him, even this much, it would be someone that's trained demigods since ancient times. But Chiron only sighed tiredly once more in return. "I'll take that as a no then."

We left the topic at that, knowing that between the two of us we would find out eventually, and switched to the plans for tomorrow. The centaur ran all of the improvements and modifications made past me, startling me with the knowledge that almost all of the suggestions came from the pair, came from Percy of all people.

Percy was never smart like that, not really, not that I knew of. Strategy and the like was always my job.

Guess that's changed too.

—-

Dazai POV

After using what water was left to clean the mud up and fill in the holes that we'd created, Chibi and I made our way to dinner, sitting together again at the Poseidon table. Chiron shot us a look across the pavilion that said that I was pushing it. It was a look that I knew all too well, I just smiled at the man, scraping a portion of the canned crab into the fire before joining Chuuya at said table. The boy in question was slumped against the table like a child, staring at his glass with a look of deep sadness that didn't fit the content mood that he'd been in only moments before.

The other teen shoved the glass away like a pouting child when I sat down. "This glass is defective," the other boy decided, poking the thing harshly.

I wanted to tell him that it was a cup endowed with magic and that it being 'defective', as he put it, wasn't really a possibility, but decided against it. It would be far more entertaining to let the scene play out.

"How so?" I asked, already having a good idea as to what the issue was, but asked anyway.

I stabbed my crab with a fork while the other boy drew himself up from the table, resting his chin on his pale ungloved hand in a tired manner. The food was halfway to my mouth when the other ability user finally answered.

"...It won't make wine," the older teen said in a slightly unsure voice.

My fork dropped from my hand to the plate with a loud clattering noise that drew the attention of the other campers to us more than it'd already been.

Of course, ever the acholic.

"My dearest partner," I cooed, enjoying the disgusted look that painted the smaller boy's face as I spoke, "you're underage," I reminded him. The red headed teen shot me a dark look that seemed to be implying that I was testing the teen's patience more than normal. "Besides," I continued, not really caring for my own safety, "even if you weren't, alcohol isn't allowed on campgrounds, especially wine."

The other boy's head fell back to the table, landing not so softly there. "Why?" He grumbled out, not bothering to look up.

Pulling out my phone, I took a quick picture of the older teen for Ane-san, knowing that she would like to see this once we got back. "Mr. D, Dionysus, cheated with some off limits nymph or something," I explained, sliding the phone back into my pocket with a mental note to leave it in one of our bags for the rest of the trip as Chuuya pulled his head up off of the table. Smirking at the other teen, I leaned in before continuing the story. "Zeus wasn't happy about that, so he banished the god to working here, putting a restriction on the other god that he couldn't drink wine," I explained. Chuuya looked at me fully, our faces close enough to each other that I could see the different shades of blue in the other's eyes. "Anytime that he tries," I continued, purposefully ignoring the feeling building up in my chest, "it just turns to Diet Coke in his hands."

The other teen held my gaze for a moment more before looking away, a small smile on the other's lips as he laughed silently despite his own predicament. The boy pulled the cup closer to him, seeming to think for a moment before touching it decisively. We watched as it filled with something fizzy. I didn't ask, he didn't tell.

Dinner came to a close not long after that as everyone shuffled out of the pavilion to the campfire. The shorter teen had convinced himself that I'd exaggerated the horribleness of the campfire songs that the Apollo cabin wrote, so we were going to put ourselves through the experience of listening to them. I waved to Hestia lightly as we walked past her, she was probably one of the only gods that I could really stand these days.

I watched the older teen throughout the entire ordeal. The songs sung were some of the weirder ones that the Apollo canon had come up with over the years, causing the Hatrack to constantly look about two seconds from laughing at us all. The boy smiled at me, it was a pure, carefree smile that I'd never seen the other teen wear before as his hair danced like flames in the summer breeze. The pang came back to my chest, only going away once the boy turned back to the show. Even so, I kept gazing at him.

If Chuuya and I were normally campers, normal teenagers...

I shoved the thought away, not wanting to know where a teen's childish delusions would take my mind.

Even if Chuuya doesn't seem to hate me right now, even if he's tolerating me today because of what he knows, he could never care for me.

Monsters weren't made to be loved.

The fire went down a little bit, but no one else seemed to notice.

Chapter Text

Chuuya POV

We went back to the cabin after the campfire songs, avoiding whatever mischief that the campers were planning on getting into. Well two cabins were getting into. Neither Dazai nor I have cared enough to have asked it, but for whatever reason the Apollo cabin and the children of Ares seemed to be feuding, something that I'm sure everyone else is tired of by now.

The other teen didn't make it thirty seconds before he was already on the top bunk, the boy's face pressed deep in a pillow as if he was hoping to suffocate like that. I wasn't much farther behind the younger teen, the effects of the day finally catching up to me and weighing my body down.

Digging through the cabin's dresser drawers, I felt a small spark of thankfulness to past Dazai, Percy, who kept an extra pair of clothes here when he was younger, though I knew it was probably just a precaution in case all of his clothes got ruined on the way into camp.

I found an old camp shirt that most likely was from the other boy's first year here because, while it would be a little too short for the other teen, the shirt did fit me just fine. The camp shirt that the younger boy was currently asleep in right now was probably something that he'd gotten, or been given, a bit larger than needed with the idea of growing into it over the years. With the idea that he would be coming back here to use it.

I nabbed the shirt and a pair of ratty pajama shorts before heading to the bathroom to change into them. The clothes felt strange on my shin, the vibrant colors clashing horribly with the style that I've taken over the years, especially since coming to the mafia where everything was shades of red, gray and black. The most color you found back home was Ane-san's brightly colored pink kimono.

Brushing my teeth, I took the time to glance around the decently sized room, taking a survey of the space that the sleeping teen and I would be sharing for however long we actually stayed at the camp. Nothing in here looked sharp enough to pierce skin or potentially be leathal, not that that's never stopped the suicidal mainic in the past.

Following the younger's lead, I crashed down onto the bottom bunk, not wanting to be too far from the other boy in case he woke up and decided to try something stupid again like the night before. Sleep was not far behind.

—-

I woke up sometime later to the bed shaking violently as the night waged on. I waited, listening to the quiet sounds of the night, not quite sure what noises might follow, whether it was just the younger teen turning over in his sleep, or the boy about to get down from the bed. But in the end it was neither.

Quiet sounds came from above. Soft whimpers like that of a wounded animal or small child floated into my ears as if delivered by the summer winds. It sounded like the younger boy was having a nightmare.

I thought about just leaving the other teen, pretending not to know and just going back to sleep, but I couldn't find the will to close my eyes as the younger boy continued to thrash around. I couldn't find it in myself to leave him like that even though I knew that he probably deserved it for all of the things he's done, we've done, I didn't stop myself from crawling out of the warmth of the small bed and walking over to the fountain.

When we'd first come in here earlier today I'd seen some of those golden coins, drachmas I think the other teen called them, in a little bowl next to the small fountain. I tucked one in my palm, feeling the weight of it in my hand, the heft of it, as I thought about what I was about to do.

Turning around, I faced the fitfully sleeping boy, taking in the other's pale complexion as he slept with the moonlight falling down on him. Dazai has always been something of a light sleeper, something that I'd thought he'd learned from having to be ready to move at any time during long missions, now I wasn't so sure that that's how he formed the habit, but I knew that if I were to try and wake him up right now on my own I'd be met with a violent reaction. There were very few times that the other had been a heavy sleeper, driven by exhaustion from countless sleepless nights, but I knew tonight was not one of those nights.

Tossing the coin at the other teen was as much force as I thought was necessary, I watched as the old currency bounced harshly off of the boy's chest with a resounding thump. The teen himself was sitting up, the air rushing deep into his lungs with startled gasps before the golden coin even had time to hit the wooden floor.

The boy swung his arm out in something of a lethal arc, the blade from earlier poised in his hand as if it was always meant to be there. Had someone actually been standing there, their throat would have been slit at best, their head rolling uselessly on the ground at worst. Subconsciously I felt my hand go to my own throat, running my fingers over the skin there as if to check that it was still intact.

The teen's head was moving around from side to side violently, the panic more evident in the other boy's features than I'd ever thought I would see. On the younger's face was the most emotion, the most dread and fear, I'd ever seen the other wear, and yet it was stuck to him like some kind of sickening second skin.

It wasn't long before the other boy's eyes settled on me, softening noticeably with recognition even as the fear still seemed to be filling his heart, something that before today, this morning and now, I wasn't even aware that he had. I wanted to erase the look from the other's face, knowing that he would never look at me like this if we'd been back home. He would never have allowed himself to break so openly that anyone else could see it, anyone other than the ones so clearly haunting him.

"Hey," I spoke softly as I approached the other slowly, slipping closer to the bed with my hands held softly in the air. "You're fine, it's okay," I spoke as if I was placating a small child, soothing a trapped animal. Watching the erratic, heaving breaths coming from the younger, the comparisons didn't feel so far off.

I put my bare hand on the soft sheets of the bed, feeling the moment that the other's bandaged on gripped my own only moments later. My gloves were tucked away neatly in one of our bags, the hat that the boss had given me and the original choker tucked away in my own, but I don't think that I would've worn the gloves at this moment even if they weren't stored away and ruined from the water.

The bed shook lightly as the younger boy shifted backwards, toward the wall and away from me. I thought for a moment that this was his wordless way of dismissing me, but the other kept our hands linked, his eyes still burrowing into mine, that look of trust still burned into him like some kind of branding that would disappear by morning. The younger teen moved, pulling the covers up from the bed in a blanket invitation of sorts.

Crawling up into the bed, I let our hands drop long enough for me to climb up, laying down beside the boy, shifting into the new arrangement. There was a small gap between the two of us as we laid there, the only point of contact between us was our newly joined hands, holding us together like some kind of string.

Nothing was said that night as we drifted back off to sleep, the younger boy's breathing soft and steady. Nothing was said in the morning either when we woke up tangled together, the other teen's head resting on my chest, our hands still connected even through the rest of the night. I couldn't help but wonder that morning as we got ready for the day if the whole thing had just been a dream.

If it was then it had been a nightmare because this just being a dream is one of the cruelest things that could've been done at that moment.

-—

The pair of us were back in the camp's battle arena before breakfast could even come to a close. Back home, our entire fighting dynamic has always been built on the other's ability to formulate the best strategies and deal with any particularly annoying gifted whoms abilities were a bad match for mine while I executed his plans and took care of the rest of the chess pieces in our little games. But now, instead of bullets it arrows, instead of guns there are swords. Instead of shooting to kill, it's aim to incapacitate.

It's children fighting in a war where they barely have any idea what it means to live through one.

We spent the entire morning and a good bit of the afternoon in the arena, convincing and provoking the older and more capable campers into fighting the pair of us as we relearned how to work with each other in ways that we didn't dare think of before. Dazai fought with his sword, keeping the rest of the demigods off of my back while I took the chance to jump around, dealing the final blow to those foolish enough to agree to fight us. It didn't take long for us to start coming up with ways to incorporate his water abilities. It wasn't long before we became a devastating duo, one even more fearsome than we normally were. No one else stood a chance against us when we were like this.

But everything good comes to an end.

The demigod punk that met us at the Big House, Beckendorf I think the centaur called him once during the strange meeting, walked into the arena sometime after lunch with something of a grave expression drawn on his features not long after lunch. The demigod had a pack with him, one that I could only assume was filled with the strange Greek explosives that the demigods seem so proud of.

The eldest teen forced his features into a carefree smile and shown it at Dazai, waving at the bandaged teen as he walked the rest of the way across the arena to the pair of us. I wanted to punch the soon to be college student as he smiled like that for some reason that I couldn't comprehend, but restrained myself from doing so.

"'Sup, Percy," the son of Hephaestus greeted when he got closer. The teen tried for an easy voice, but there was an undertone of tension there that both the Mackerel and I could easily hear.

The youngest teen looked over at the other demigod while touching the pen cap to the tip of his sword, a sight that I'm not sure I'll ever truly get used to. I looked at the man too.

The other was dressed in clothes ready for combat, with a bronze breastplate adorning his chest, a sword strapped to the other's side, a war helm under the teen's arm, and black camo pants. He looked like someone out of a child's comic book about to go and burgle the nearest museum for an ancient artifact, nothing like how we dressed for missions of this caliber back with the Port Mafia in Yokohama.

"Time?" The bandaged teen asked. The other boy was dressed in an outfit similar to what he wore to camp yesterday, except the obnoxiously bright orange shirt was replaced with a black t-shirt, the dark colors standing to make the teen look more like the boy I've known for months now.

The eldest demigod nodded, his face growing serious as Dazai bypassed the friendly formalities.

The other ability user looked at me with dark eyes. It was the look that he always gave me the night before any solo mission that either of us had, right before he left to go back home. It was a look that most people would take for nothing more than a passing glance, but to us it was one that seemed to whisper things not meant for others to hear:

Be here when I get back

It was a promise that the other would strive to come back alive. It was a peak behind the mask that the younger teen always wore, the only glance that I ever got before this week.

I nodded at the boy, that was a promise in itself:

I'll be here, make sure I'm not here waiting for nothing.

The two demigods left the arena together without so much as a second glance back at me and everyone else here. The remaining demigods in the arena looked to me, waiting to see what I would do, but I waved them off, letting the others go free. I didn't know how well I would control myself right now, and combat like this only really helped with the other teen present. That was the whole point of it after all.

No, I had someone else in mind.

—-

Dazai POV

We made our way to the pegasi stables in silence, neither of us having much to say. I closed my eyes along the way, trusting my memory of the camp and the teen next to me to get me there without many issues. I closed them, ingraining the image of the smaller teen into my mind. The other's hair messy from hours of training, the old camp shirt on his skin. It wasn't a horrible thing to remember, there were far worse things in this world to be unable to forget.

I was so caught up in my own little word that I didn't realize just how close we'd gotten until the voices in my mind took on a strange shape.

I heard the creatures before I saw them. Because of Poseidon's connection to horses, the sea god having created them himself, I could hear their voices talking to me in my mind, a small detail that I neglected to tell Chuuya of, not wanting to hear the other boy asking if I was sure that it was the my father's creatures and not just me slowly loosing what little sanity I have left.

Hey Boss.

A chorus of the greeting made its way into my mind like a sudden and almost painful wave. It made me nauseous in a way as the voices bounced around in my head, reminding me too much of the ones that already seemed to have a permanent residence in there, making my brain feel much too full, much too fast.

"Heya, Blackjack," the other demigod said in greeting, throwing the false enthusiasm back into his voice while walking over to a strong looking pegasus with an all black body and feathers.

Hey Boss, the creature greeted, sounding excited for whatever reason, his voice becoming louder in my mind than the others in the area. I haven't seen you in here in a while.

I looked down at the large creature, racking my memories for something to register the way that it should. It didn't take me long.

If I was remembering right, the pegasus before me was the same one that Chase and I freed from the Princess Andromeda while we were out looking for Grover and the Golden Fleece. He was a product of the illicit actions of two thirteen year olds.

"Hey Blackjack," I said at last, somehow managing to only feel midlily idiotic despite the fact that I knew that the hybrid horse could understand me and talk back in his own way.

Got any donuts?

Donuts? What the fuck do they feed the creatures here?

"Not this time," I told the Pegasus, speaking like I was expecting to see the creature again. With the war coming, I knew that I most likely would. It was a good idea to keep the creature fond of me.

We walked the Pegasus out into the yard, me quietly explaining the situation to the mythological creature as we went so that it would understand what was expected of it before we even took off from Camp Half-Blood grounds.

I jumped up onto the hybrid's back, not knowing the other demigod well enough to trust the man with something like this, but the other teen didn't seem to really care as he quietly laughed while getting on behind me, resting his hands on my shoulders. I fought back the sickening feeling that rose up in me from the contact, fought back the urge to run as far away as I could. It wasn't the older teen's fault that I felt this way. The blame lies with a man thousands of miles away in another country all together, and with me for antagonizing that demon masquerading as a man.

Blackjack flapped forward, gaining speed as he leapt into the air, the laws of gravity and physics suddenly becoming mute to us. I didn't look down at the arena, even though we flew right over it, just as I'm sure the small red head down below didn't look up into the sky for us although we could be seen from anywhere in camp. Something like that was too much like a goodbye, something that neither of us actually believed in.

—-

Chuuya POV

I found a certain blonde girl talking with an older blond teen that looked to be one of her brothers, or maybe a child of Apollo. You can never really be too sure with all of the strange godly relations that the bastards above decided to have.

Annabeth Chase, a bright girl with a mind like Dazai's without all of the cruelty twisted into it by the mafia and time. She was one of Percy's best friends from his time at camp, her and some satyr that I haven't yet seen since we came here.

Any thought of the girl brought a bitter taste to my mouth with the knowledge that she knew a version of the bandaged boy that I could never hope to meet. She knew the boy, the child unplagued by all of the demons that haunt him endlessly now. She knew the boy that was kinder and remembered how to smile softly without the viscous touch to it.

"Chase," I called out, grabbing the girl's attention.

I watched as she glanced at me, something akin to venom flooding into the girl's eyes as her eyes settled on me. The blonde said something to the boy before they parted ways, the girl walking over to me.

The blonde girl crossed her arms, the dagger at her hip glinting dangerously in the midday light. "What do you want?" She asked, her hands dyed different colors from ink and hair messy from endless work.

Looking at her, I could tell that the other was pretty, someone that you would even think might be beautiful, but I couldn't really find it in myself to care about whatever beauty she might have. I needed the girl's brain, not whatever looks others might think that she has.

"I need your help," I said, cutting straight to the point, taking care not to choke out the words. I hated the way that the words tasted in my mouth, but I spoke them anyway.

The other seemed to know just how hard it was for me to say those words because even as she popped her hip to the side, drawing more attention to the bald there, the girl's eyes had softened as she gazed at me.

"Why should I?" Chase asked, speaking almost as if it was more to save face than to be rude as she was earlier.

"You care about that idiot, right?" I asked, forging ahead as the other teen reluctantly nodded in answer. "He and I are partners," I told her, watching as the girl scoffed at my words, clearly not wanting the reminder of the relationship that I had with the boy that used to care for her like something out of a Greek tragedy. "If we want to keep him alive, I need to know what's going on."

The girl stared at me, her stony gray eyes studying me like I was some kind of math problem for her to solve, but eventually she nodded, softly beckoning for me to follow her as she walked away, leading me to her cabin.

The Athena cabin looked like something of a nerd's dreamworld. There were books and plans strewn everywhere that the children seemed to be able to find the space, the beds and the rest of the living space was shoved to the side as far away as the children of Athena seemed to be able to get it. It was the complete opposite of how I lived back in Yokohama, no decorations, only the basic necessities, by choice.

The daughter of Athena sat down in one of the few chairs that the cabin owners still seemed to tolerate and allow to take up space. "How much do you know?" The girl asked, leaning forward in her chair. There was a tiredness in her voice that seemed to present in all of the campers.

They've let the build up to this war drag on for way too long, if it was done our way this whole ordeal would've lasted a year at most.

"I know there's a prophecy," I started, "that the Mackerel is wrapped up knee deep in it. I know that some Titian is getting testy, trying to come back and gain the control that he lost in B.C. times, but we haven't been briefed on anything recent."

The blonde girl sighed as if she didn't want to relive the past two years but knew as well as I did that she needed to. The daughter of Athena told me that the titan, Kronos, how he was gathering pieces of him in a coffin, and how he somehow made it to where Luke, an old friend of the trio, became his vessel. That the man was prepared well enough to survive the fall from a mountain that should have killed him.

"It's not looking good," the daughter of Athena admitted, rolling up a set of plans with nervous energy.

I could tell in a way that out of everyone here, she was probably that one that wanted this war least. The girl before me still seemed to love the man that used to be her friend before becoming the vessel for a titan. I didn't tell her what I was, how I knew firsthand how it felt to house a deity within you, mostly because I didn't think that it would help. Arahabaki is a being of mindless destruction, almost a demon more than any kind of god, however, this titan is something that has a will of its own, maybe a will even stronger than that of its host.

I knew that the bandage waste had probably already figured most of this out on his own with that twisted brain of his after hearing that lighting girl didn't go through with the prophecy, but it was good to hear the facts like this from someone that was there and would give the report with some semblance of emotion to it.

"Yeah," I said, standing up and heading to the door with every intention of leaving it at that, but felt myself stop with my hand grasping the doorknob. "Don't worry too much," I told the girl, for some reason trying to sooth her, "he's got this."

No matter how cruel it was, how horrific, Dazai was a bastard that always had a plan. He's always been someone able to plan impossible things out, only allowing the acceptable losses for either side, going as far as to manipulate the enevident battles into different locations as to keep the unwarranted casualties to a minimum.

With that knowledge in my mind, I left the daughter of Athena alone.

—-

Dazai POV

It was almost dark by the time that land turned to sea and we made it to the Princess Andromeda. The cruise ship was floating lazily in the water as yellow and white lights shone from places all around it, giving the ship a golden hue, like the eyes of Kronos. As we got closer to the ship, the other demigod and I could smell the thick stench of monsters long before we got close enough to the sea vessel to see any of the creatures in question.

Looking down at the floating catastrophe, complicated memories came to mind like some kind of anchor trying to tie me down. I'd almost died on this ship, twice, when I was younger. My younger self had been terrified of the idea of dying here, he'd fought to live. Now I'm just a little disappointed that they failed.

"You know what to do?" The other demigod asked, yelling over the sounds of the wind.

I nodded to the man behind me, knowing better than to scream at a time like this. Chibi and I have done similar missions like this in the past few months, not that I would think to tell the son of Hephaestus that.

"Blackjack," I called, speaking just loudly enough for the creature to hear me, "set us down on the lowest stern deck."

We were still a little ways away from the ship, but even the hatrack and I knew better than to yell when you were close to your targets, especially when you don't know what kind of abilities they have. One person with some kind of enhanced hearing ability and the mission turns into a slaughter instead of a quick in and out, then the boss gets mad.

Gotcha boss, the horse hybrid easily agreed. I really hate this ship, the Pegasus added on, almost as if it was an afterthought.

Hearing, for lack of a better term, the way that the creature speaks, it made me wonder just how much free will the beings that fall under my father's domain have when it comes to the children of Poseidon. If I were to escape somewhere like this, truly escape it, I don't think that I'd come back as willingly as Blackjack seemed to be. Well, maybe I would, if only to see the place burn.

"It's going to be smithereens before long," I said, trying to sooth the obviously agitated creature. If the Pegasus messes this up because of past events then we're all dead. "Better?"

Loads.

"Don't wait for us," I commanded, knowing that the mythological creature really didn't need to be told that twice, I could already feel his muscles moving slower with the strain that it took to force himself to fly closer to the cruise ship. "We'll get out on our own."

The Pegasus seemed a little reluctant to just leave us here, but didn't take any more convincing as he agreed.

The mythological hybrid folded his dark wings in swiftly, tilting his body, and us with it, forward at a downward angle, shooting the three of us like a bullet at the ship below. The wind whistled harshly in my ears as we plummeted faster and faster down. I couldn't help but wonder if this is what roller coasters feel like at those big theme parks down in Florida.

I used the time of the free fall to take an account of the monsters patrolling the upper decks of the ship. There were the snake-like women that the book I bought called dracaenae, hellhounds, giants, and the creators of the sea, telkhines. I'd read about all of these different monsters on the way here from Japan, along with many other types from the myths. It should be interesting to see them in reality like this.

We zipped by the creatures fast enough that none of the monsters below had the chance to notice us, like a sniper bullet, not noticed until it became deadly. Blackjack landed as lightly on the deck as his and our weight would allow him to, before letting the pair of us off of his back.

The Pegasus didn't wait as it took off into the air, seemingly not wanting to be on the ship for any longer than he had to. I didn't blame the creature, if I could fly away from this smell, I would too.

Good luck, don't let them turn you into horse meat! The creature called cheerfully as he flew away, putting a much more violent image into my head than what was already there.

I took out Riptide, having the sword poised in my hand and ready in case any of the monsters around us got wise to our presence here. The other demigod took out a folded piece of paper, something one might have thought was a map, but was much too small to be a good one. I glanced at it, wondering if it was maybe something else useful to the mission, but instead I found the prettily smiling face of Silena Beauregard looking at me. Looking at how disgustingly fond the other teen's gaze was right now, I'm guessing that the pair must have gotten together at some point in the last two years.

I didn't say anything encouraging to the other teen, knowing that if I opened my mouth it would just be to reprimand the other demigod for wasting time on something like this when he had the entire flight over here to play lover boy where I didn't have to see it. Instead I clapped the man on the shoulder, not quite harshly but not so warmly either, letting him take whatever it was that he wanted for the gesture, knowing that my kinder emotions were limited to one boy.

The older demigod smiled softly as he quickly fooled the piece of paper back up the way it was before, stashing it away in one of the many pockets that he had in his pants.

"Let's go blow Kronos back into a million pieces," the man said, his voice almost wistfully.

—-

The other demigod led the way down one of the many narrow corridors of the ship to the service stairwell. Halfway through I grabbed the older teen's sleeve, stopping him from moving as a noise came from above us, close enough that if we made any unnecessary sounds, we'd be heard.

"This is half-blood scent," a voice insisted, seemingly used to not being believed by who, or whatever his counterpart was, "I swear." The voice was coming from right above us, close enough that I could hear the underlying wine in the monster's tone. "They're on board."

The other voice only scoffed, clearly not believing the first monster and tired of the past false alarms. "Your brain isn't on board."

I thought about the absurdity of the situation, that we were right below them and the other had been wrong one too many times for the second monster to readily believe him. It was an amazingly fortunate mistake on the monsters' part.

A little bit like the boy who cried wolf I suppose, I do love being the wolf here. Beats being the hunted.

The two voiced bickered back and forth, each holding onto the idea that they were right and the other was wrong. It reminded me a little of how Chuuya and I are with each other, the only difference being that we would go and look into whatever it was, even if it did end up being just another false alarm. I shook the thought from my head, distractions are detrimental right now, and I have a promise to keep.

Once we were sure that the voices were gone, the pair of us decided down the last two flights of stairs, stopping at a metal hatch that led to the engine room if the sign on the door was any indication. The door was, annoyingly, locked and while I had my lock picks with me, Beckendorf had brought chain cutters with him that split the bolt open like it was made from butter.

What are you teaching these children, Chiron?

The engine room was filled with yellow turbines the size of silos. Pressure gauges and complex turmoils lined the entirety of the opposite wall. Absorbed in his work at the sole desk in the cramped room was a telkhine. The monster hadn't noticed us yet, too consumed with growling and typing away at his keyboard to notice the newest presences in the room.

I stepped forward, keeping my steps as soundless as possible as I raised my sword, prepared to cut the monster in two at the neck, but the seal-demon tensed, lunging for the red alarm button at his side. I stepped forward quickly, adjusting the way that I held the long blade. Meeting the monster halfway to the button, my sword was already swinging down in a deadly arc, splitting the telkhine in two in one clean motion, dissolving the monster into nothing more than a burst of dust.

"One down," I said, stretching my body slightly, knowing that more were to come.

"About five thousand to go," the other demigod finished, there was a tiredness set in his voice as he threw a bottle of a thick green liquid to me.

Of course I knew exactly what was in the jar. Greek Fire, one of the most dangerous magical substances in the mythological and mortal world. Honestly I wouldn't be throwing something like this around, seeing as how violatal it is, but we didn't have time to get into that.

Next the older teen threw me a roll of duct tape to attach the Greek Fire to the console with. Demigod life really was different from the missions that I'd grown used to while being in the mafia, duct tape would never be an acceptable adhesive back in Yokohama.

Being the son of Poseidon, I could tell a lot of things at sea, a lot more than I wanted to know if I was being honest. One of these things being the rate that we're currently going, about eighteen knots. At this rate, the ship was bound to reach New York by dawn if not stopped here.

Not long after I'd finished attaching my second jar of Greek fire to the console, a sound like the pounding of feet on metal came from outside of the door. It wasn't hard to know what was waiting out there:

Monsters, a lot of them by the sounds of it.

My eyes snapped to where the other demigod was. "How long?" I asked, my voice colder than I intended it to be, but the other didn't seem to notice or was too panicked to care.

"Too long," the man said, tapping the watch currently sitting uselessly at his wrist. It was our remote detonator. "I still have to wire the reviver and prime the charges. It'll take ten minutes at least."

I'd figured that it would be around that time, I would be able to do it a bit faster if I were to take over, but we would waste time with me having to convince him to let me do that and by the sounds coming from outside, we didn't have the time to waste. We had made ten seconds at most.

"I'll distract them," I decided, already starting to turn to the door, "and meet you at the rendezvous point."

The older demigod looked torn, clearly not sure about my capabilities after being away from camp for so long, but I didn't intend to give him any choice in the matter.

The whole plan behind this operation had been to get in and get out without being noticed, but I knew that plans like that hardly ever go accordingly, even with professionals. One witness isn't where they're supposed to be and everything goes to shit. So needless to say, I had a back up.

I charged out of the door, finding half a dozen telkhines waiting for me on the other side of it, filling down the stairs like they were being chased. I moved towards them, distantly registering the shock on the creatures' faces as I dashed towards them without any signs of hesitation.

I sliced through each of them easily, moving just as Kouyou had taught over these past months that I've been training with her. I was moving through them faster than the time that it took for their bodies to turn to dust as I claimed the stairs. I left one of them alive, moving right past it, so that it would alert its friends and they'd follow me, just like the boss had taught me.

Bursting through the door of deck six, I lept out, running faster than I've had to in years now. Silently I thanked the smaller ability user for dealing with the annoyances like this on our missions while I did what I was best at and dealt with things like what Beckendorf was doing down below.

The deck was deserted of any mortal passengers as I ran across the ship. The rooms were all destroyed, shredded by monsters. The last time that I was here, Luke had kept the dazed tourist all but prisoner in a gilded cage. If I had to guess, he'd kept them here as a buffet for the monsters, arranging it to where they would run out of food at the same time that the boat was scheduled to reach port.

I didn't agree with the demigod's methods, but I could see the ingenuity behind it, using the willing sacrifices as a way to keep the monsters content from eating the other demigods on board. It was a sick plan that made me question how the younger Annabeth, and possibly the present one, could still see good in the mind that created this plan.

I stopped cold in the middle of the ship, a big shopping mall that seemed to take up the whole place. It was filled with stores like what you would find at an airport terminal, ones selling the needed essentials that tourists so often forgot and the little souvenirs and trinkets.

At the center of the courtyard was an expensive and extravagant fountain with an extremely preculerier choice of decoration sitting in it. In the fountain was a giant crab, its body spilling over the sides of the stone structure as it was bigger than the fountain itself. The monster turned to look at me with a hate filled gaze, intelligence lacing the creature's eyes that made me wonder if it knew that it was one of the few things that I could stomach eating these days.

The alarms blared through the room, telling me that the creature and I would have company soon.

I need to keep moving.

The creature, seemingly tired of our little staring contest, moved with a startling speed, dashing from the comfort of the fountain straight at me in a matter of seconds. My body moved in an instinctual way, diving into the nearest store, a gift shop or something, as a pincer came crashing down on the spot where I'd just been standing with enough force to crack the floor.

That would have been a painful way to die.

The monster, seeming to have realized the trick that I'd played, swung its claw into the shop, breaking the glass and somehow managing to tear apart the room more than it already was before. Dashing back into the courtyard, I saw that the crab just followed my movement.

Bastard.

"There!" a new voice screamed through the room from the balcony above me and my newest friend. "Intruder!"

I'd succeed well enough in creating the distraction that I'd promised, but this was nowhere close to where I'd wanted to fight. In an enclosed space like this, I couldn't afford to get pinned here, not if I wanted to make it back to a certain boy.

The crab, as if teething like a small child that didn't like being ignored, lunged at me, drawing my wavering attention back to the fight at hand. As if by reflex, I sliced through the creature, a deadly blow that would've taken down any man had the crab been one, but only served to take off the tip of one of its claws.

As expected, the damage only made the monster more mad in the end.

I shuffled through my limited memory of crabs, living ones, that is, remembering a guy with a crab-like ability on a mission who could himself into a crab of considerable size, though much smaller than this one. At the time, I'd just gotten close enough to touch the gifted, nullifying his ability and turning the shifter human once more.

But something close to a morbid curiosity had gotten the better of me back then.

When I got back to the Port Mafia that night, I'd researched how to kill the man, curious to know what would've needed to be done to kill the man had my ability not worked. What I found was that there's a chink in the cresation's armor, a soft spot that leads right to the heart of the beast. The only problem is that this vulnerable spot is right on the underside of the creature's stomach.

I glanced at the fountain, holding out my hand to it as if I was reaching for something. There was a small twinge in my gut as the structure exploded, water rushing three stories high, but the crab didn't care in the slightest, it loved the water, welcomed it even.

The creature came from my side, snapping and hissing like a wild animal, but I ran right at it. Before we had the chance to collide, I hit the ground, sliding easily against the soaked marble floor. I slid beneath the underbelly of the crab, slipping Riptide into the soft tissue there, using the hilt of the blade to slide myself away from the crab before it could come crashing down on me as it died.

The monster shuddered violently, dissolving into dust. Only the shell was left behind, holding a strange faint red glow to it. There was no time to retrieve the sword from beneath the crab remains, nor do I think I would have the strength to do so even if the monsters and demigods weren't invading the area as I ran.

I dashed for the nearest set of stairs, the elevator foyer on deck eight. Dracaena blocked my path, clad in their scaly skin, snake like eyes, and forked tongues. They all had spears and weighted nets that would be deadly to be caught in. In the stories that I've read they actually knew how to use them.

"What's this," one of the snake women cooed, a hiss in her voice. "A prize for Kronos?"

I almost physically cringed at the monster's words. After living with demons speaking elegant threats, the monster's words just seemed childish and crude. Besides that, I wasn't in the mood, nor did I have the time to deal with the snake-women standing in my way.

In front of me was a scaled model of the cruise ship, I ripped it off of the pedestal that it was nailed to, throwing it at the group of monsters. The boat hit one of the snakes in the faces, knocking her down and shattering the model into pieces. Using the distraction, I jumped over the fallen monsters, taking care to step on one of their heads as I snatched the monster's spear for her hands. I swung the blade tipped staff like a bat, knocking the snake-like women that hadn't fallen into the wall as I ran towards the front of the ship.

The monsters behind me screamed out in frustration while the hellhounds bayed, as arrows whistled past my face like bullets landing themselves in the staircase. I didn't care, anger and property damage were a staple in the mafia, honestly it wouldn't be a proper mission without one or the other.

I just needed to buy the older demigod more time.

Running up the stairs, a kid no older than twelve, a child, charged down them at me. I stepped into the boy's strike zone, grabbing the child's wrist and twisting the boy's body to where he slammed face first into the wall, his arm twisted behind his back.

I looked down at the idiot child that allowed himself to get caught up in a war much bigger than the scope that a twelve year old could handle and thought about what Chiron had asked out Bechendorf and I. He told us during planning to save any demigod lives that we could, something about manipulation and neglect. I didn't really care, I just thought that the centaur didn't want the children's deaths on his head.

"If you want to live," I growled, whispering into the boy's ear, "get off of the ship, now." I've warned this child, all of the rest were on their own.

I shoved the kid down the last few stairs, putting some distance between us in case the child decided to try and attack me again, but I didn't look back to see if that was the case or not. I kept climbing.

Making my way onto the deserted deck, I knew that all I had to do was make it across to the other side, take the staircase there down to the helipad and wait to meet Beckendorf there. I knew this, but a sinking feeling in my chest told me that this was not what was going to happen. Not even close.

I ran, putting as much strength into my legs as I could muster, but halfway across the deck, a chill ran down my spine. Against my better judgment, I turned towards the balancing above me, only to be met with a gaze that I haven't seen in years, tainted by someone that I've only heard in dreams.

Luke.

"You're late, Percy," the demigod called out, holding onto the banister of the balcony like some kind of king looking over his disobedient subjects.

"Sorry blondy," I growled, yelling up at the man, "flight troubles."

The man above me looked something like a normal college student, like the thing that he should've been, the thing that so few demigods live to become in this world, but the eyes told another story.

They were gold, a color that Luke's hadn't been.

"So the son of Posideon had returned," the body spoke, at first the voice coming from the vessel sounded like how I remembered Luke's to be, but then it changed into something deeper, something that cut like a knife. "Gotta say, I didn't think that you would make it this long out there on your own, Perce." He looked at the bandages lining my skin with a careful gaze, "Well, mostly survive it seems." The being snapped his fingers, pointing down to his feet like I was some kind of dog. "Come," he ordered, "bow before me."

"Yeah, that'll happen," I muttered, the defiance obvious on my face.

I don't bow to the man that I'm supposed to call boss, there was no way in Hades that I would bow to this creep.

Laistrygonian giants filled in on either side of the swimming pool that separates me from the titian. Each was easily eight feet tall and dressed in full battle armor. Archers appeared on the roof above Luke, hellhounds leaping out from behind them. I was surrounded within seconds.

A trap, an ambush.

I'd like to say that I didn't see this coming, but double crossings are far too common in war. Though I still knew that the boss would be disappointed if he saw me right now. I'd thought that my last minute addition and changes to the plan would save us from something like this, but apparently I was wrong.

I was wrong.

I haven't been this wrong, this naive in months.

The old me would have charged at Luke without so much as another thought, justifying trying to beat the man because of my birthday being in seven days from now, calling it close enough. I'm not that stupid now, nor am I blunt enough to believe that I'll get out of here without one.

The titan smiled, using a look more suited for my face than for the demigod vessel. "Come forward," he beckoned, holding himself like the king that he used to be before his throne was usurped.

Honestly, I've had enough of monsters playing king and coming back from the dead to reclaim their throne after it's been taken.

The crowd parted for me like a tide, the monsters stumbling over themselves and each other to clear a path. I walked forward through the path created for me, knowing that the monsters would be stupid to try anything. Kronos wanted a fight, the ant monster that dares to attack me before he could get it would just become dust even if they succeeded.

I tapped my pocket, feeling my pen waiting for me there. Reaching in, I pulled it out and uncapped the ball point, watching as Riptide grew into its full length.

The titan's current weapon of choice appeared in the demigod's hand: Backbeater, a weapon made of half celestial bronze and half mortal steel. A weapon deadly to monsters, demigods, and mortals alike. A vile thing not belonging to this mythological world.

As I walked towards the demigod vessel, time seemed to slow down around me.

Time did slow down.

Kronos is the titan lord of time just as Zeus is the god of thunder and lightning. My movements slowed down to a sluggish speed while the titan walked towards me at a normal, almost relaxed pace.

Concentrating on the sea surrounding the lot of us, I willed for something to happen, anything that might get me out of this mess that returning here and working with the fools that play heroes has landed me in.

There was a painful twisting sensation in my gut as the entire boat lurched to the side, throwing monsters off of their feet, some even into the sea as thousands of gallons of salt water surged up around us, dousing everyone on board the deck. While the water annoyed some, drowned others, it only revitalized me.

I lunged forward, swiping my sword at the golden eyed titan, only missing the man by a hair's breadth. The titan sliced down with his scythe as I lept backwards like Chuuya, neatly avoiding the blade as it crashed down into the deck of the ship, splitting it open.

I kicked the lord of time in the chest, but, as expected, the titan was much heavier than he had any right being. The presence of a deity in one's body would do that to you I suppose. When I hit the man, it was like hitting a brick wall, something extremely easy for dear Chibi, but pointless for me.

I could only deflect Kronos' scythe as the titan attacked. The blade grazed my arm, cutting it slightly as I tried to parry it. I knew that it shouldn't have hurt as much as it did, my pain tolerance being that which it was, something like this should barely even register, but instead it felt like i was being split apart.

I thought back to what the sea demon had said about the bastard's blade the last time that I was on this damn ship: one touch and the blade will sever your souls from your body.

So that's what this feeling is. Too bad, I don't have much of a soul for it to sever anymore.

I stumbled back, switching to my left arm as the right grew weak, silently thankful for all of the times that Kouyou forced me to practice with twin blades despite my protests. Lunging forward, I recoiled as my blade just bounced uselessly off of the demigod's stomach.

Some type of invulnerability then. Something used to prepare the body for housing a titan?

The titan just laughed at my actions as if they were the most amusing thing he's seen all day. To be frank they probably were.

"A poor performance, Percy Jackson," the vessel chided. "Luke tells me you were never his match at swordplay."

I could tell that Kronos was trying to get a rise out of me, something that might have worked had I not been partners with Chuuya for months now. I just let the man talk, barely listening to the other's words.

My vision began to blur in the way that it always does just before I passed out from whatever ailment I've taken upon myself that day, I knew that I didn't have much time left.

"A shame to kill you now," the psychopath continued, "before the final plan unfolds. I would love to see the terror in your eyes when you realize how I will destroy Olympus."

Destroy Olympus? Does he seriously think that I care about the gods that debated if they should kill me or not when I was twelve, left me to live with Gabe, used me to clean up the messes that they made all on their own? How foolish and self centered is he? It's not Olympus that I'm here for, even in another life where I'd stayed, it wouldn't be Olympus that I would be fighting for right now.

Black dots began to dance across my vision as my right arm throbbed painfully at my side. "I've met scarier than you, Dipshit," I sneered.

"Such foul language, son of Poseidon," Kronos's eyes glittered with something close to glee as Luke's face seemed to glow unnaturally. "Are you hoping to buy time for your friend with those little explosives of his?"

Kronos looked down at the pool as he called out an unfamiliar name, "Nakamura!" The name felt like a knife in my side, much too close to Chibi's for my liking.

A teen in full Greek armor was produced from the crowd of monsters surrounding us. Though his name was similar to the gravity manipulator's, his appearance was much more similar to mine except his eye was covered by an eyepatch instead of bandages.

"Success, my lord," Nakamura answered in a monotone voice much like my own. "We found him just as we were told."

Beckendorf was dragged out from the sea of creatures and thrown in front of the crowd by two giants. The demigod had a swollen eye decorating his face, body riddled with cuts, stripped of the armor that he'd worn before, and shirt nearly torn off.

I didn't say anything, choosing to only watch silently as the son of Hephaestus met my eyes and then glanced at the watch still donning his wrist. I gave a silent nod, understanding what the other meant easily, though I knew that we both realized that the chances of them not already having dismantled the bombs were slim.

"We found him amidship," one of the giants said, "trying to sneak to the engine room. Can we eat him now?"

Gods, I'd forgotten how bent these monsters always were on eating us.

"Soon," the titan promised, turning to the one eyed demigod. "Are you sure he didn't set the explosives yet?"

"He was going towards the engine room, my lord."

I couldn't help but be pleased by the slight cunning of Beckendorf and amazed by the stupidity and hubris of Nakamura. If he'd been one of mine, I wouldn't have let him live, I can't wait to see what Kronos will do.

"How do you know that?" The titan rightfully questioned.

Nakamura shifted uncomfortably beneath the weight of the titan lord's gaze. "He was heading in that direction," the teen insisted, though his voice sounded unsure now. "And he told us. His bag is still filled with explosives."

Kronos hesitated.

I knew that he wouldn't just buy the story, no one in their right mind should ever believe a lie so pretty, even when the one giving it believes it to be a truth.

The pain in my arm was so bad at the moment that I could barely stand, let alone take glee in the situation.

"Open his bag," the titan barked, a sense of urgency lacing his tone.

One of the giants ripped open the satchel, the contents within it falling hazardously to the ground. The monsters surged backwards, some of the ones farther back shooting hateful gazes at the giant, but nothing happened. If the bag had still been filled with the Greek Fire explosives, we would have all been blown to pieces before we could even feel the pain of the action. Instead, a dozen cans of peaches fell to the cruise ship's desk.

I could hear Kronos's breathing as he tried to control his anger. It was an all too familiar sound to me.

The titan lord glared down at the teen. If I could've slapped my face without being in pain from moving right now, I would've. It was almost painful to watch the idiocy being displayed in front of me.

I looked to Beckendorf while the titan lord was distracted from yelling at the other teen. I managed to catch the demigod's eye, a silent question in mine:

How long?

The other teen cupped his fingers and thumb, making a small circle.

Zero.

Instantaneously after the other demigod pressed the detonator button, the ship would blow and we would never be able to make it away in time.

The titan lord turned to me, shooting me a crooked smile that no one should ever believe. "You'll have to excuse my poor help, Percy Jackson But it doesn't matter. We have you now, and you have no idea how pleased I was to hear yesterday that you were coming."

The titan held out his arm, holding up a small bracket with a charm on it, a scythe charm. Kronos's symbol, his symbol.

"Never thought that you would be the jewelry type, Gramps," I responded weakly, voice still thick with defiance.

The charm is a communication device, there's a spy at camp, one that can directly speak and share information in real time.

"You can't count on friends, Percy. They'll always let you down," the titan said, speaking as if he thought his words had an effect on me.

The being kept talking but I tuned him out. There was no point in listening to the vessel, not when he was speaking lesions that I already learned all on my own a long time ago.

I watched as Beckendorf slowly shifted his free arm to his right where the watch laid in waiting. Knowing what he meant to do, I threw Riptide like a javelin at the titan, watching as it bounced harmlessly off of the beings chest. It was never meant to hurt him, but keep his attention away from the son of Hephaestus and the monsters around him. I pushed through the crowd and jumped off of the side of the ship, dropping down into the water a hundred feet below, waiting to hear a second splash.

There was a deep rumbling from within the ship, the seemingly endless sounds of monsters screams layering over it. A spear sailed past my ear, an arrow piercing my thigh where the bandages were. I couldn't really find it in myself to care about either as I plunged into the waters, willing it to take me as far away as possible from the massacre.

Even from the distance I could still feel the heat and force of the explosion. It felt as if the entire ocean shook as I watched. Heat seared my body as the Princess Andromeda blew up from both ends in an endless bout of green flames.

Beckendorf.

The name sounded glum in my head. I'd watched the side of the ship before I fled, but there was no sign of the other demigod jumping off of the ship. Even if he had, I wasn't naive enough to believe that he would've survived the blast.

The darkness that I'd been fighting burrowed into me, pulling me towards the bottom of the sea. It was a peaceful feeling, just how I always imagined that death would be when it finally comes to take me.

—-

Chuuya POV

I sat up in Dazai's bed, waiting for the other to waltz obnoxiously through the door, believing himself to be larger than life as he always did after an suspenseful assignment. I knew that this mission shouldn't take all night, so I thought that I would stay up for the other teen, let him get whatever gloating he had in his system out so I wouldn't have to hear it tomorrow. It's a simple explosives mission, something that the Mackerel and I had done in half of the time that they were planning to take tonight.

But morning soon came and Dazai never did.

Chapter Text

Dazai POV

One thing I can say for certain about leaving the world of Greek mythology for that of demons was that the dreams in Yokohama were much more pleasant than the ones here. Back in Japan, outside of the gods' reach, the dreams there were just that, dreams. No matter how horrific and toturious they stood to be, they were predictable. They were nightmares built on everything that's happened to you, building on the theory that there was nothing worse that could be done to you than what you've already done to yourself.

But demigod dreams were never just dreams.

Here, dreams were visions that showed you unpredictable sights of occurrences happening far away, or omens of disasters soon to come. And while they were helpful, I'd much rather be the architect of such wreckage than on the receiving end.

As I slept, my sight was plagued with visions of a dark place atop a mountain that I've never seen before, but I could tell in some strange way that it wasn't anywhere close to us.

I was in some kind of open air pavilion a lot like that of the dining pavilion back at camp. It was open to the night air as columns of black stone and intricate statues of the old titans held the space together. Torchlight glowed lightly against the dark stone, casting tall shadows where the moonlight couldn't reach.

At the center of the dark room stood a giant dressed in Greek battle armor, a swirling mass crashing down on him from above as he struggled to hold it. I could tell without having known him just who this was-Atlas, the titan cursed to holding the sky so that it may never touch the earth again.

Two other giants stood near the cursed being, watching images in the flames between them as if it were an Iris Message. They were looking at the pictures as if what was in them was all but insignificant.

One giant was dressed in black armor that made him all but bleed into the darkness around him, the armor was studded with dots of silver, giving off the illusion of a night sky like that not much farther behind him.

The other was his complete opposite. Dressed in golden robes with piercing golden eyes similar to that of the titan lord of time. The giant's body seemed to glow with the harsh light of a much too close star. The giant wore a cruel expression as if the world around him was something to be destained.

"Quit an explosion," the night sky said, his voice much softer than I thought it would be, like the gentle lull of sleep, but with harsher edges to each word.

"It doesn't matter," the sun spoke back, his voice as harsh as the light coming from him. "The gods have answered the challenge. Soon they will be destroyed."

He spoke as if the prospect was an inevitability that no one could change, something set in stone since the beginning of time. And maybe to a giant that's how it would seem. In their eyes, there must be no way that demigods of all creatures could stand on even ground against a titan born of primordial beings.

The images in the fire flickered cruelly, images of storms rampaging across the earth, buildings crumbling down as if they were never made to stand at all, and mortals screaming in pure, unabridged terror could be seen in a hazy light.

The golden titan looked at the sights with a small hint of mirth in his sharp gaze, as if the sights there amused him. It was a look that I knew well, having worn it many times myself. But the difference between the two of us was simple: I may hate the city that I live in, but even I know better than to see it destroyed, especially if I wish to inhabit it.

"I will go east to marshal our forces there," the titan said, speaking as if it was the only acceptable conclusion. "Kiros, you shall remain here and guard Mount Othrys."

The other titan, Kiros, made a disgruntled noise as he complained about the assignment from the other, clearly discontent with being stuck having to play babysitter to a titan who couldn't give up his burden unless another was willing to take it. It really did seem like a foolish assignment, but I wasn't going to give the enemy forces any tips on how to hurt us more.

From beneath the loud sounds of a swirling sky, I could just barely hear the third titan screaming out to the golden titan and the Lord of constellations. The former general was ranting about how he was the greatest warrior that they had, how one of the others should take his burden so that he may fight. Honestly it sounded like a child's temper tantrum, a sentiment that the golden titan must have shared with me since he told the cursed titan to quiet.

"As for you," the glowing titan started, turning to the night sky titan, "Kiros, do your duty."

The titan's voice was harsh, cold and commanding enough to not need for it to be raised for the point to get across. Honestly, watching the trio the way that I was, I couldn't help but wonder if Atlas and the Lord of constellations had taken lessons in survival skills from me as they continued to question the already angered titan that obviously had a higher ranking than them.

"And if you need more warriors?" The titan dressed like the night sky asked, continuing despite the other's temperament. "Our nephew will not do you much good in a fight if it comes to that."

It was a decent question, something that all leaders must know before going into battle. If you don't have a way of getting reinforcements when they are needed, then the fight is all but lost from the beginning since in large scale wars, reinforcements are historically almost always called in at some point.

But the other titan only laughed as if the thought of needing more warriors was as foolish as letting the other titan out from beneath his curse.

"Don't worry about him," the golden titan said in a voice much too harsh to be of any reassurance to anyone in the room. "Besides, the gods can barely handle our first little challenge. They have no idea how many others we have in store. Mark my words, in a few days time, Olympus will be in ruins, and we will meet here again to celebrate the dawn of the sixth age!"

The titan erupted into flames at the end of his hubristic speech, blazing like a bonfire with the bucket of gasoline tossed into it.

So it's not that he doesn't have reinforcements, they have plenty, but they're just using them strategically to play the board master in the twisted game that the titan lord of time has designed for us.

Jokes on them, I never lose a game.

The night titan grumbled as the scene shifted, pulling away from the two remaining titans to one of the tall Greek columns just outside the pavilion. Hidden in the shadows behind the column was a small teen quietly spying on the scene that I'd just seen only moments ago. The shadows seemed to curl protectively around the boy, licking at his skin like they wanted to pull him into them.

The teen looked at me, straight at me as if he knew that I was there, a grave expression coloring his face. "I have a plan, Jackson," the boy whispered, loud enough for me to hear, but quiet enough that the giants wouldn't know that he was there. "It's crazy, I'll be the first to admit that, but based on this, we don't have time for anything sane."

It sounded like the younger boy wanted to drag me along on some kind of suicide mission, something dangerous enough that he didn't believe that I would easily agree to go along with it as willingly as he needs me to. I could feel that there was some type of ulterior motive to whatever the other teen had in store for me, but at the root of it, his intentions were pure. Something that you rarely find so earnestly in the mafia where everyone is almost always blunt in saying that they were going to use you.

How interesting.

—-

"Percy?" a deep voice asked, speaking a name that I'd given up a long time ago, reminding me just where I was.

My head felt heavy like the doctor had been messing with the drugs again, though I knew it wasn't quite that since I could still seem to be able to move freely.

Forcing my eyes to open, I noticed how cool it was here, the unfamiliarity of the place that I'd woken up in, the only thing remarkably similar to what I've come to know was the darkness of the place, the way that sun seemed unable to reach here.

A large shadowy figure was standing beside me, of course I knew exactly who the other was just by glancing at the creature, but I also knew how strange it would seem if I so easily regained my bearings after waking up only moments ago.

The owner of the voice was a tall figure with a face that many would describe as misshapen if they didn't understand exactly what the other was. A rather large boy with what someone would call doe eyes if there were two of them, was staring at me with an emotion that I haven't seen directed at me in some time: concern.

"Tyson?" I asked, already knowing the answer. No one else who knows me would be caring or foolish enough to still look at me in such a way.

The cyclops that I call my brother immediately broke into something of my toothy grin as his features were overcome with a childlike glee. It was a warm expression, unlike the way that I'd worn the expression when I killed the GSS soldier only a few months ago.

The child made an excited noise, all but jumping up and down. He probably would have if he could've. "Your brain works!" The boy happily said as if there was a possibility that it wouldn't have.

I sat up, listening to the other's voice, the vibration of it as he spoke. I knew where we were, there were really only so many options that I could've come after the earlier events and since it was so cold and dark and Tyson was here, I was able to support my thesis with something a little bit more factual.

We watched as a gossamer sheet that'd just been covering my body floated away, weightless in the area around us as I sat up from a more eastern style bed made of carefully woven kelp. The room was something out of a fairytale, tirelessly decorated with various kinds of shells, glowing pearls much bigger than any that the Port Mafia has ever gotten our hands on floated lazily around the room, acting as a source of bioluminescent light.

I was in a place that I never thought that I would come to even before I left camp. A place that after leaving the states I never had any real desire to come to despite how much I had dreamed of visiting while still at camp.

"Daddy's palace," the cyclops said, seemingly tired of waiting for me to question where I was, that or he was just too excited to wait another moment.

I only nodded having already figured that much out for myself before, but I immediately regretted my action. My head started pounding more severely than most of the hangovers that I've had the moment that I moved it. I could see that my shirt was the one that I'd worn to the mission, the burn marks on it proof enough of that, this told me that I'd only been out for a couple of hours at most, that and the deep rooted ache in my body from where the scythe had cut me.

The thing that surprised me the most wasn't the underwater palace, or seeing the brother that left me to live here two years ago, it was what happened when I ran a hand carelessly through my hair. How easy it was to do just that.

The bandages aren't there.

In a silent flurry of panic I looked down at my arms, finding the rest of the bandages still on my left arm as I'd left them, though they looked a little worse for wear from the explosion. However the bandages from the elbow up were missing, likely cut off from the damage that the titan lord of time had done on the ship.

I crossed my arms gently, holding myself like a teething child. There weren't many scars there, but the ones that were there were still private enough that I didn't want anyone else to see them if I had a choice about it.

My brother looked at me with a more concerned look than he had before. I knew that I should ask about Beckendorf and the Princess Andromeda, that these questions were what the other was waiting to hear from me, but I didn't want to play the part of the caring demigod when I already knew the answers to all of these questions. I just wanted to get back to camp, back to the cabin and change the bandages lining my skin before more had a chance to fall off like the ones on my eye and arm.

The room shook violently as a distant blast sounded from outside of the room, the ocean lighting up a green so bright that it was a wonder everyone under the hadn't already gone blind a long time ago.

"What was that?" I asked, an idea of what it could be already forming in my head before the light had even faded.

The young cyclops's eye filled with concern as he looked down at me, clearly not liking the scene outside anymore than I was at the moment. "Daddy will explain," the child decided. "Come, he is blowing up monsters."

A part of me wondered what I'd done wrong in a previous life that talks of monsters and explosions and things of the such were a normal conversation no matter where I went, but the rest of for once wanted to remain ignorant.

-—

We swam from the room into a long corridor much older than the ones back at Port Mafia headquarters, but also much brighter and more welcoming despite the state that they were in. Everything around us was in the process of being destroyed, not from weathering and time, but an external, unnatural force wishing to tear the kingdom down. The scene was a lot like the one from the fire, bringing back much of the same sentiment that I had before.

I could tell that palace was a word used loosely among the Greek gods as Tyson and I swam over the rooftops, finally giving me a clear picture of the world that my father had never let me see before. The palace was as big as the city at the top of Mount Olympus, with a design just as intricate too, if not more than. Courtyards and gardens decorated the lands, sculptures of artistic feats that could not be accomplished on land accompanied each. Sea life darted around the grounds, bustling about in and out of rooms, each of them moving with purpose as a battle raged on in the distance.

It really was a place worth leaving camp for, a place that I'm sure that Tyson is happy living in even with whatever war there seemed to be plaguing what I was sure used to be a quiet place. Maybe when I was younger, I would've been jealous of the other son of Poseidon for getting to live here when I couldn't, but now I see that everything here would've been much too beautiful for the person I've become and even the boy that I was back then. The peace would have driven me crazy before long.

The main courtyard, the largest of all of them in the underwater city of sorts, was filled with the warriors of the sea, the merpeople. Their skin was a deep shade of blue that was probably helpful with various gorilla warfare tactics that their strategists have come up with over time. One swam past us in a rush to get to the courtyard, his eyes were a toxic green, the creature's teeth as big as those of the smaller sharks and just as sharp. It was a gruesome image, but one that I was almost put at ease by, much more used to images like these than the prettily decorated palace.

Down in the courtyard, some of the merpeople were tending to the wounded while others were sharpening their various swords and spears. Honestly I would've moved the wounded to another courtyard, or maybe just moved the impromptu armory that seemed to have formed among them so that if any of the wounded were to become I'll, they wouldn't infect the others around them. But this war wasn't my business to mess with, I had my own above the sea to deal with already.

I could see a seemingly endless array of battles raging on past the crumbling fortifications of the palace walls. Explosions shook the water around us as flashes of light continued on for miles and miles around us. Armies clashed furiously against each other, more and more from each side dying by the second.

I knew that any normal being would've been long dead by now for how far down we are, crushed by the pressure of the ocean or frozen by the cold long before they could make it down here. I also knew that if by some miracle that they did, no human would be able to see in the darkness, but I could because I was the son of Poseidon, someone less than human in every right.

"Have you been fighting?" I asked the other child of the sea god, my brother. I figured that I already knew the answer but there was no harm in asking instead of swimming along in such a heavy silence.

But the cyclops only pouted telling me all that I needed to know about how the other has been spending the past few months here beneath the sea. "I have been fixing weapons," the young cyclops mumbled, obviously finding no joy in the job that he'd been given. "Come," the other commanded glumly, "let's go find Daddy."

—-

We swam to a decently sized temple that was currently being used as a makeshift war room by the beings of the sea. Going in, I was sure that I wouldn't recognize the sea god that I called my father. I've only seen the deity twice since I was born, both memorable enough to ingrain the god's image into my mind. But I wasn't foolish enough to believe that gods who can look however they would want would look the same as I remembered them to be under circumstances like these. Gods draw their power from the realm that they rule. With the sea being as war torn as it is now, there was no way that the ruler of the sea would look as he had before I left.

There was a mosaic in the middle of the temple floor that created an exact map of the palace grounds and the surroundings. It was spelled in some way, enchanted to move and adjust accordingly to how the sea did. Colored tiles shifted as armies moved, changing positions to keep up with the change in the tides of the war.

Standing around the colored mosaic were an assortment of warriors, well what could be called warriors for the most part if you were to throw appearances aside in some cases... one case.

One of the warriors was a merman with two tails instead of the seemingly standard one, his skin was a deep green similar to the color of my eyes, with black hair less unruly than my own, tied back in a long ponytail in something of a Japanese fashion. The merman looked young, though I knew that if he was the child of Posiedon, as his looks suggested, and another immortal being , then he could be any age that he wished.

Standing near him was a woman in Greek battle armor the same color as the merman's skin, with hair the same shade as his as well. She has strange little girls in her that closely resembled crab claws that were assembled in a fashion similar to that of a crown. She must be Poseidon's wife.

The last of the probable warriors, appearance wise anyways, was a dolphin of all things that was staring at the map like an analyst. Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if he was, dolphins are known to be the most intelligent creatures in the sea, possibly the most intelligent animals in the world. Though scientists are hesitant to give them such a title since so much of the jungles and the seas have yet to be explored.

Standing at the center of them all was the one warrior out of them all that didn't quite seem to fit the bill anymore. The man was old, looking to close in age with what the old boss had been before we'd killed him. His hair was completely gray, no streaks of color left inside of it, with a stark white beard to go along with it. The man had green eyes like mine and the merman's and was holding onto a staff as if it was the only thing allowing him to remain upright. The warrior was dressed in Greek armor like the others, but unlike them, his seemed to be weighing him down like a child wearing it for the first time. He didn't look like he was in any shape to get out of bed, let alone fight a war.

But I still recognized who he was, he just wasn't as I remembered him to be.

I watched as the man dismissed the dolphin, telling him to go send the legion of sharks to the western front. The dolphin gave a chattering noise as it swam away at the fastest speed that it could go.

"Father," I called, watching the way that the man's head snapped up in surprise. When he looked at me there was more warmth in the man's gaze than I've seen since I saw my mother, but there was something else there too.

"Percy," the god called out, a hint of distrust in the other's tone. I guess disappearing one day would do that, not that I really trusted adults all that much these days either.

I watched as the man took in my appearance, his eyes lingering just a moment too long on the exposed skin on my arm that was normally hidden by bandages. There looked to be too many questions to count swimming in the deity's eyes, but there was no time to really ask any of them, not with all of the wars commencing at once.

"You've grown," the man decided to say at last, seemingly at a loss for words.

I nodded, wanting this conversation to be over with as fast as possible. "Time does that," I told him, my tone about as warm as the ocean floor.

"I... I suppose it does," the sea god agreed before looking to his side. "This is my, er, wife, Amphitrite," he introduced, gesturing to the beautiful woman at his side.

The queen of the sea looked at me with a glare as warm as how I imagine the Arctic tundra would feel at night before crossing her arms like a pouting child. "I'm needed in battle," she said haughtily before swimming away.

Honestly, I didn't blame her. She is my father's immortal wife, someone that is stuck with the sea god for as long as they both live. Me, Tyson, and all of the other children of Poseidon are all bastard children born of broken vows. She had every right to hate me, to curse my existence. 

That's fine, I wish I'd never been born too.

The sea cleared his throat in an awkward manner much to human for someone of his position. "Yes, well... and this is my other son, Triton."

I'd already figured as much, he mentioned in the book that I'd read on the way here and his appearance is much too similar to my own for there to not be some kind of famila bond. If I remember correctly he's-

"Your son and heir," the deity corrected, his twin tails swishing back and forth like an angered cat preparing to strike. Honestly I've always liked cats, but he was making me question that presence. He smiled at me, but there was no warmth there. Somehow this was easier than having to deal with Tyson, a brother that genuinely cares for me for whatever reason. It's much easier to deal with those that wish you harm than those that care for you, much more familiar too. "Hello, Perseus Jackson. Come to help at last?"

He was looking at me like I was some kind of lazy child that refused to help with the chores so he had to take care of them before mom got home.

And honestly heir? Heir to what? Poseidon is immortal for gods sake.

I looked at the two tailed man like he was one of mine, fixing him with a cold gaze that implied that even if he was older than me, I held his life in my hands. I watched the way that the other blinked at the look, clearly not expecting such a reaction from a demigod of all things.

"You seem to be handling that well enough on your own by the state that Father is in," I started, my voice as cold as the treatment that I've been given from the sea god's wife and child so far. "I mean it's just one titan isn't it, Oceanus right? I'm just a demigod and I'm supposed to kill the king of the titans. So one lowly titan that was a neutral player in the last war must be nothing for a deity like you."

As I spoke the expression of the gods in the room changed more and more from what they were when I first walked in. Triton was looking at me with an almost explosive anger that was only furthered by the fact that none of the statements that I'd just given could easily be refuted by either of the deities in the temple. Poseidon, however, was looking at me like he couldn't recognize me anymore.

"But if you really need help," I continued, caring about my own safety about as much as I ever did, "Tyson here would love to fight."

Triton looked to the other sea god as if to see if our Father would just let this stand, but the god was too busy staring at me as if he'd seen a ghost to really be of much help to either of us. I saw the sea messenger form a fist at his side, gripping so tight that blue blood started to leak out from his palm into the water surrounding him.

"I will see to the front lines, Father," he decided, seemingly thinking better of starting a brawl with the child of the Great Prophecy just days before it was supposed to come to completion.

He started to swim off, but I stopped him. "Hey Triton," I called out, watching as the god paused, not bothering to look back at me I didn't mind, whenever gods slipped into their true form, the light that they emitted could turn a mortal to dust before they had time to even look away, and what I was about to say was definitely going to piss the other off. "If I find that my name is still on your tongue, then I'll rip it out myself."

We were cold in the mafia, harsh, killing off any semblance of humanity that we had when dealing with those that would do us harm. We treated them as if they were less than nothing and made sure to put them in their place, killing those that would kill us if it was needed. And while I wasn't stupid enough to believe that I could kill a god, I would sure as Hades love to give it a try, Ares was proof enough of that.

More blood spilled out into the ocean from the younger gods hand as he swam away from the three of us to join the battle.

"Percy!" My father exclaimed once the other deity was out of earshot and he'd recovered from his initial shock. "I know that he was rude and I apologize for that, but he is still a god! What gave you the idea to talk to him like that?"

"He was making a power play, I made one of my own," I told the god, watching the spring of shock in the other's eyes at the way that I spoke. "Mine was just more effective it seems."

The god looked like he had enough questions to fill the sea, but neither of us had the time for them. I need to get back to camp, and he needs to get back to fighting if either of us want any chance in winning either of the wars occurring right now.

The god sighed heavily, seeming to understand that I already knew this as well as he did. "Tell me about your mission. Did you see Kronos?"

"We snuck onto the boat and planted the explosives in the engine room, but the monsters seemed to know that we were there faster than we'd expected them to find out. I left Beckendorf to plant the Greek Fire while I drew the monsters away, but when I got to the deck, Kronos was waiting for me," I explained, watching the calculative look in the other's eyes that seemed to mirror my own at most times. "Someone told them in advance of our plans. We managed to blow up the ship, but I doubt that did more than buy us a little time."

"You’re right," the god agreed, "but even a little time can be the difference between winning and losing the war."

Of course I already knew that much, but since he obviously knew that I left camp, it would be difficult to explain just how I learned such a lesson.

"Were there demigods on the ship?" The deity asked, seeming to realize that I was done with the extent of my report.

I nodded. "There were." It was a short answer, but it was the only one that I could think to give the sea god.

A solemn expression was spread across the god's face, as if he was expecting some kind of angry outburst from me at the fact the there'd been demigods on the ship that we'd been sent to destroy, but had decided that my cold nature was some type of trauma response from killing another human.

"You shouldn't blame yourself for their deaths," my father said in a voice that I assume was supposed to be reassuring, it didn't really make a difference.

"I don't," I told the other sternly, catching the god and cyclops by surprise, "I blame Kronos."

He was a titan and they were children that weren't even intelligent enough to know what they'd gotten themselves into as I'd been when I joined the mafia.

I don't blame myself at all.

I blame the bastard that I'm going to kill.

"I know that this is frustrating," the god started, "but know that Beckendorf's sacrifice wasn't for nothing, it gave Olympus time to deal with the bigger threat heading for New York."

"Bigger threat?" I had a feeling as to what this threat would be if what it was last time the gods fought the titans like this was any indication, but I figured I should ask anyway. If Kronos was smart he would change the game plan after his failure last time around, I know that I would anyway.

A shadow passed over the sea god's face, something like a long forgotten fear rising up within the deity. "You've had enough sorrow for one day," the god decided. "Ask Chiron when you get back to camp."

I wanted to tell the sea god that I've had enough sorrow for a lifetime before I was ever even introduced to the mythological world, let alone what's happened to me and because of me over the past two years, but I knew that he wouldn't budge in this. So I only nodded instead.

"Go back to camp and tell Chiron that it's time for you to hear the whole prophecy," the god instructed.

"Right."

My father blinked lightly, obviously expecting to have to give some kind of speech to make me leave and was shocked to see that this wasn't the case. When I was younger he would've been right, I would've argued with the god to be allowed to stay and fight, but I knew that my fight was above. It always has been and will be until the day comes that I'm finally allowed to be put in the ground.

I bit back a flinch as Tyson suddenly grabbed my hand, gripping onto it tightly, a little too tightly for my own comfort. "I will miss you my brother."

Our father watched us, seeming to gain another ten years to the forty that he'd already accumulated before I came down here. "Tyson, you have work to do as well. They need you down in the armory."

The cyclop only pouted more at the mention of having to return there. But agreed to go after giving a torn goodbye.

I waited for the young cyclop to be out of earshot before I spoke to the sea god again, knowing better than to get my little brother's hopes up for something that may not change.

"You should let him fight," I advised. "As far as I can see, you need almost every able body that you can get, you're only limiting yourself by forcing him to do something that he doesn't like."

There's a reason that we test our recruits in the mafia to see what they're best at. If they're already good at something, then we will assign them a job that encourages that growth, but even we know that sometimes you have to throw that idea aside. If they don't like what they're doing, no matter how good the recruit is at it, they I'll do a shitty job of it. Sometimes you have to let them go somewhere where they want to flourish.

But the god didn't know my thoughts and only shook his head no. "It's bad enough that I have to send you into danger. Tyson is too young."

I looked my father in the eyes, seeing the sorrow there that you would think would have disappeared by now after watching countless of his own children die with the sands of time.

"I was a child too," I reminded the sea god.

I was a child when I joined the mafia.

I was a child when my mother died.

I was a child when I felt camp.

I was a child when I was first introduced to this world of mythological monsters.

I was a child when me and Mom were left alone with my step father and everything that he did just because he had the power and we didn't.

My feelings for the sea god weren't really as warm as they had once been.

The god's eyes flared, making me believe for a moment that my luck had run out with the sea gods today, but instead of striking me in some way like I thought he would, the god looked to the tile mosaic.

"Oceanus approaches," the sea god reported. "I must meet him in battle."

I wasn't scared for the god, I knew that he might get the shit beat out of him in the process, but if he'd been holding for a year then he could hold a little longer now.

My father quickly swam over to a desk that was in the far corner of the temple and pulled out a small white object for the drawer before closing it back. "I was going to give this to you last summer, but... anyways this is for your birthday, it should come in handy during the upcoming fight."

He handed me the small object. When I looked down, I saw that it was a sand dollar of all things. For once I had no idea what I was supposed to do with this, but I tucked it into one of my pockets anyways.

The entire sea grew dark around us like a storm was rolling in beneath the sea. The ocean grew colder with the newest appearance in the battle.

"I must go now. Good luck, my son," the god said beginning to swim away towards the commotion.

I nodded even though I knew that he couldn't see it and willed the water to take me far away to the surface above before the sea god took on his true form as he most certainly would have to before going down there.

When I looked down all I could see were wild flashes of green and blue as the two beings collided.

—-

Poseidon POV

I waited for my son to be far away before I took on my godly form, watching silently as he left, but even as I watched the boy with the same black hair and green eyes that he'd had the last time I saw him, the teen felt foreign to me.

The way that the demigod had spoken and acted was nothing like the kind boy that I'd been expecting to meet here today, the one that would've fought me relentlessly on my making him leave until I came up with enough reason for him to go than he had for himself to stay.

Instead he hadn't even tried to stay at all.

He'd spoken to Triton, a god, in such a way that I was honestly surprised that the god didn't try to kill him where the demigod stood, and then had acted as if he'd done nothing wrong.

Being immortal, I knew the damage that time could do to someone, but this wasn't just maturity gained over the past two years on his own. This was someone having taken the boy that he was before and turning him into something unrecognizable.

After the war is over, I'll find the bastard that did this, even if it means expanding the reach of the gods to do it.

Chapter Text

Dazai POV

When my head broke the surface of the waters of the ocean that Camp Half-Blood has a beach on, I heard a tumbling sound and the rustle of trees as someone fell down from said tree. I swam over to the shore, willing my clothes to dry as I got out from the water, watching as the unlucky camper on lookout stumbled slightly at the base of his tree while trying to regain his bearings. The camper had curly brown hair and a crooked smile that I could see in detail as I got closer to the teen.

One of the Stoll brothers from the Hermes cabin.

The older teen blew the conch horn in his hand to signal the camp of my arrival before making something of a mad dash at me, all but leaping away from the tree as if he hadn't just fallen from it only moments before.

"Percy!" The teen exclaimed, stopping just short of knocking us both over, something that I would not have been happy with had he done it. "Your back, like back back!" He glanced around wildly, looking for someone that wasn't there. "...Where's Beckendorf?" The demigod's voice was drenched with uncertainty, like someone that's something but is sure that it was just right there where he left it.

I didn't know how to respond to the other teen in a way that he would perceive as normal for the situation at hand. In the mafia we just report any deaths as a casualty of the mission, something factual and closer to numbers than anything personal. Something told me that this approach wouldn't work here. But I didn't have to do anything in the end as the seemingly conflicted look on my face told the son of Hermes everything that he needed to know.

The other demigod's expression finally broke, falling into something that I guessed normal, human grief was supposed to look like. "Oh, no. Poor Selina. Holy Zeus... when she finds out."

We started walking together, climbing the sand dunes to the other side of the beach to where the rest of the camp was already starting to gather, waiting for us, a small frenzied feeling in the air. I scanned the crowd, searching it for one person in particular. A small smirk curved itself on my lips when I saw the figure of the older teen walking angrily towards us from the lava wall. The boy's hands were shoved deep into the pockets of his pants as he walked quickly to join us, going around the crowd instead of through it.

Chiron made it to the pair of us first, galloping to the front of the crowd. "Percy," the centaur said, his voice holding relief instead of anger unlike the last time that we met. "Thank the gods. But where..."

Chase ran up right behind the centaur, reaching me just as Hatrack did. The girl made a move to grab my arm, panic lacing the demigod's eyes, but Chuuya made it there first, slapping the teen's hand away as it came too close, a movement that the blonde girl barely seemed to notice in her state of panic.

"What happened?" Chase asked, anxiety lacing the teen's voice as the girl looked at me for some answer that she didn't seem to really want to hear. "Luke, is he-"

Ah, so that's what this is about.

I'd hoped that the daughter of Athena would've outgrown her obsession, her faith in the traitor son of Hermes in the time that I'd been gone, but apparently some bonds run deeper than time and foolish decisions can erase.

"The ship blew up," I told them factually, not really caring enough to play the part of the grieving friend when facial expressions alone can apparently reveal all that you need to, "but he wasn't killed, if that's what you're asking."

I felt a slender elbow dig into the side of my ribs as I spoke, the owner of which clearly did not share my sentiments on being as blunt as I currently was. I looked down to the side at the other ability user, but the other teen's image was blurry as he was still keeping to my blind side. Before I had a chance to move and get a better look at the other boy, someone was pushing their way through the crowd, drawing all attention to them.

The girl that was in the picture that Beckendorf had on him was standing at the front of the crowd, Silena Beauregard. The daughter of Aphrodite had a concerned look painted onto her face, the girl's hair wasn't combed and wasn't wearing any makeup at all. Everything about her seemed off for how a daughter of the goddess of love should be right now. Her eyes held just a little too much worry, her appearance just a little too ragged for someone used to having their lover going on missions over the summer.

...Strange...

"Where's Charlie?" The older teen all but demanded. She was looking around the space like she thought that he would just magically appear if she asked loud enough, but of course he did not.

I could feel the centaur's eyes on me as if he was waiting to see if I would step in or not, of course I didn't, I was more content with studying the other demigod.

The man cleared his throat as if that would somehow help the words that he was about to say come out easier, a useless action in every way other than how it brought the girl's attention to him. He said something to the daughter of Aphrodite about going back to the Big House, but any words that he'd managed to speak were drowned out by the cries of the older demigod.

"No," the girl whispered, saying the word like it was some kind of lifeline. "No. No," she insisted.

Tears started to run down the girl's face as stained sobs wrecked the girl's body. Everyone watched on in a shocked silence, grief clenching at the other campers' hearts as they struggled with what to do.

I didn't share the sentiment.

Apart from not knowing the deceased all that well, I couldn't stop myself from staring at the older girl with a more calcutive look than I probably should've been wearing at that moment.

The other demigod's loss was laid bare for everyone around her to see and yet it felt as if there was something else there, some unspeakable emotion that the older girl was trying her best to push down until she was alone.

It flickered across her face again but before I could properly identify whatever emotion it was that the other demigod was feeling, Clarisse of all people pushed through the crowd and put an arm around the other demigod's shoulder. I felt an eyebrow raise at the sudden display, something that I was sure from the returned feeling of an elbow digging itself into my side that the other ability user noticed, but honestly it was a surprising display of affection between the two. Looking around though, it seemed that whatever friendship of sorts that the pair have, the other campers have long gotten used to it during my absence.

It was interesting, sure, but it didn't really matter all that much to keep paying attention

The daughter of Ares, despite being dressed in her normal permanent scowl, softened her expression towards the other girl, saying something to her in an equally soft voice as she led the girl away, almost everyone else taking this as their cue to disperse from the crowd that they'd formed as well and go back to their cabins. Only Chase, Chiron, Chuuya and I stayed behind to deal with the aftermath of the mission.

"Idiot, Mackerel," Chibi said, rounding on me as soon as most of the other campers had left. "What happened to Mr. 'I'm not going to die', huh?"

I turned to the other ability user, seeing a familiar anger there. That and something else that I didn't quite know how to identify just yet. I thought about making a comment about the other teen being worried about me, something that I knew he probably wasn't actually but just didn't want to have to return to the Port Mafia having failed his own mission and letting his partner die in the process, but one glance at the bags under the other teen's eyes told me just how good of an idea that would be.

"I'm not dead though," I reminded him, a mix of the annoying comment that I wanted to make and an obvious truth that the other couldn't deny.

I watched as the other teen looked me up and down, his eyes lingering on the exposed skin on my arm for just a beat too long as the sea god had done. "Obviously something happened," the other boy decided.

I watched in a mute silence as the other teen took off the jacket that he'd been wearing and handed it over to me. I didn't waste any time in taking and sliding the warm piece of clothing on, feeling tension that I didn't know that I was holding release from my shoulders as everything was finally covered again.

"Yes, well," the centaur said, forcing himself into the conversation, "I'd really like to hear just what happened last night." A small nod from the blonde next to Chiron told everyone else that she shared his sentiments on the topic, just as I'd expected that she would.

I let myself slip into the voice that I tended to use when giving a verbal report to the boss back in Yokohama, an emotionless tone that only spoke facts and left no room for any vulnerabilities to fall through. I told the trio about everything that had happened from the moment that the son of Hephaestus and I left campgrounds to my dream about the titans. The only thing that I left out was how di Angelo had appeared at the end of the vision-like dream, knowing that I would need to speak to the younger demigod first.

The centaur had a faraway look on his face as he gazed down the small clearing that we were in, his eyes seeming to wander over the campers as they roamed the grounds. "We must call a war council immediately, to discuss this spy and other matters as well," the creature decided, leaving no room for arguing, not that anyone seemed particularly inclined to do so.

But I had one thing that I needed from the centaur before he went running off with the daughter of Athena in tow.

"Posideon said to tell you that it was time," I told the pair, knowing that if the centaur were to have a right hand it would be the blond girl standing next to him in a similar fashion as the ginger boy standing next to me right now. "I need to know the full prophecy."

Chiron's shoulders slumped in the way that a doctor's would when they were being told to remove the life support from a brain dead patient, but he didn't look surprised by the development. Not that I'd expected him to. Honestly I would have been disappointed in the archer if he had been.

"I've dreaded this day," the centaur said, stating something so obvious from the way that he moved that I couldn't help but wonder why he wasted the time verbalizing it as he just had. Though it did seem that his dread had a different base to it than it should have. "Very well. Annabeth, we will show Percy the truth—all of it. Let's go to the attic," Chiron decided.

The pair shot Chuuya a questioning look, but that didn't stop the other teen from walking with us to the Big House, or waiting with Chiron at the base of the stairs.

"You know where it is," the centaur said to the daughter of Athena, pointing a hand up the stairs. "Bring it down, please," the man instructed.

The girl only nodded before motioning for me to follow her. We walked up the three flights of stairs to the ladder that led to the attic at the top of the staircase. I honestly had no idea what was on the other floor of the Big House, only having been allowed to really the ground floor since I've first come to camp, but if the resident god of Camp Half-Blood had as much say in their decorating as he did with the ground floor, then I was fine with letting them remain one of the mysteries of this world that I didn't know.

Old hero momentos littered the attic when we got there, bringing back an air of familiarity to the first time that I'd come up when I was twelve. Back then a green fog had come out of Camp Half-Blood's resident mummy's mouth as she spoke the prophecy that I'd been too young to understand was all but laying at my feet Luke's eventual betrayal. Though, I didn't think that she'd be doing something like that this time.

We walked over to the window, to the three legged stool laid out before it with the Oracle of Delphi sitting upon it. Despite the title, the mummy was wearing her usual tie dye dress, something that looked to actually be from the seventies if the amount of weathering it had was any indication to it.

"I never understood this," I told the daughter of Athena honestly, silently hoping that the other would have some kind of explanation for the predicament that we were currently in.

"What?" Chase asked, seemingly unable to follow my train of thought as well as I had thought that she would.

I gestured to the slowly decomposing corpse before us. "Why the Spirit of Delphi stays within the mummy instead of seeking out a new host as it should've when the old one died."

But even as I said it a theory started to bloom inside my head.

The girl only shook her head sadly. "She was the last," the daughter of Athena said in lieu of a proper explanation.

"What happened to her?" I asked. I was already forming an idea of what could've led to this, but I was nothing if not lazy in situations like these when I didn't need to overwork my brain when the other obviously already had all of the answers locked up and entrusted inside of her's.

She looked like she was considering answering for a moment, but a coldness found its way into the other demigod's eyes as she quickly changed her mind.

"Let's just do our job and get what we came for and get out of her," the other teen decided, turning her full attention to the corspe infornt of us.

So, most likely some kind of curse then it seems.

"So, where is it?" I asked, stepping up beside the girl as she whispered some kind of prayer to the oracle.

I'd known coming up here that this time wouldn't be like any other time that someone came to the oracle for a prophecy. The mummy wouldn't be speaking it herself as she normally would. The main reason for this assumption was that Chiron had instructed the girl to 'bring it down', implying that there is some kind of physical object for us to carry. That and all of the other times that the oracle had issued a prophecy and smoke had come from the corpse's mouth, they'd been telling it for the first time. This prophecy had already been told long before.

I watched on silently as Chase approached the mummy, unclasping one of the necklaces that's been hanging from the corpse's neck and holding it between her hands. It was a long leather cord with a small Native American medicine pouch on it, the necklace braided with feathers that helped it blend in more with the rest of the mummy's attire.

The other demigod silently opened the pouch, carefully pulling out a slender roll of parchment no bigger than the length of the girl's pinky finger.

"Great," I muttered, silently cursing my younger self for not realizing that the prophecy had been right in front of my face back then, but I'd been to stupid to check.

I walked away from the other demigod, knowing that she was sure to follow. If I were to guess right, I was supposed to read the prophecy aloud to the other head consoles at the war council happening downstairs, so there was no reason to waste energy trying to ask for the paper now or even pickpocketing it from the girl when Chase would just give it to me then.

—-

Chuuya POV

I watched as the pair disappeared up the stairs with a now familiar bitter feeling settling in my chest. Since we got here, it'd been like Dazai was a part of some secret club and I was just the useless tag along, not trusted enough to be allowed to even go on a simple bombing mission. Now the other was heading off to yet another place that I knew I wasn't allowed to follow.

The stares didn't help either.

The centaur has been looking at me with something of a piercing gaze that, while it paled drastically in comparison to Mori's, did the trick of leaving me unsettled instead of angry. The man had been doing this since the moment that I walked through the doors of the Big House with Dazai. It was like he could sense something that the others here couldn't.

It was like he knew.

"Chuuya," the man in question suddenly spoke, "why don't you go wait for Percy back in the Poseidon cabin?" He suggested in a much too kind to be genuine voice. "This shouldn't take long and it's already starting to get dark."

Shouldn't take long my ass, you just don't want me to overhear anything that you don't think that I should be allowed to know.

"Yeah, sure," I told the centaur, agreeing anyways. I knew that the Mackerel would tell me everything that I wanted to know anyways, this just means that I didn't have to deal with anymore of the grieving children, or their suspicious looks that the campers kept sending the bandage waste and I.

I just can't wait for the actual fighting to start, to make these punks truly fear gravity as they should.

—-

Dazai POV

Chiron was waiting for Chase and I at the base of the stairs where we left him, but this time he was alone. I took a quick scan of the room, wondering if the older teen had just gotten impatient with waiting for us to come back and decided to go sit down on one of the tacky couches, but the slug was nowhere to be found.

The centaur had a kind smile on his face that I couldn't find it in myself to believe. It was the same warm look that he'd worn when Chiron and Grover tried to convince me that I was losing my mind rather than tell me that the gods were real.

"You've got it?" The centaur asked the daughter of Athena as we stopped in front of the man. The girl only nodded at him, holding the time weathered piece of parchment up for the man to see. He returned her gesture and began turning around to walk away. "Good, let's go."

"Chiron," I called out, watching as the centaur's steps faltered at the sound of my voice. "Where's Chuuya?"

The man turned to look at me, that same warm smile plastered across his face as if nothing was wrong. "Your... friend went back to Poseidon cabin." There was more uncertainty in the centaur's voice than there should've been for such a simple question.

So you made him go back to the cabin then. You don't trust him. You don't trust me.

It's smart to be cautious as a rule of conduct, but it's foolish to limit your allies at a time like this.

As we walked into the rec room, I saw that all of the other senior counselors had already gathered around the ping-pong table, gathered together much like how we did for meetings back at the Port Mafia. However, unlike back in Yokohama where Chibi and I were the main source of chaos for these types of meetings, it looked like for tonight I would be the calmest of the fourteen of us here as the shouting match commenced before us.

The daughter of Ares and the head counselor of the Ares cabin, Clarisee, was towering over the son of Apollo, Michael Yew as the pair screamed at each other loud enough for my ears to feel as if they were close to bleeding. Though the girl was towering over him, the head consular for the Apollo cabin seemed to have another two feet of attitude attached to him, allowing the teen to stand toe to toe with the girl still dressed in full battle armor.

"It's our loot," the boy screamed, pushing himself to his tiptoes so that he was in the other demigod's face. "If you don't like it, then you can kiss my quiver!"

I looked at the other campers in the rec room, finding that they seemed to be trying hard to not to laugh, a look that I've seen far too often on the other mafiosos' faces to not recognize upon seeing it. The only camper other than the pair that, predictably, didn't seem to share the sentiment was the daughter of Aphrodite, Selina. The girl was sitting next to the daughter of Ares, staring vacantly at the ping-pong table as if it wasn't there at all.

I glanced at Chiron and Chase, but found that even they had long grown used to the other demigods' antics. I couldn't help but sigh, finding myself growing tired at the fact that I was about to have to play adult here.

"Will you all shut it?!" I asked in a voice just slightly below that of a yell. All of the eyes in the room turned to me as the room grew quiet, though not because I'd raised my voice but the cold voice that I'd used to do it. It wasn't a tone that the boy that they all remembered should have used right now. He would have yelled in anger, visibly pissed at the childish way that they were all behaving right now, instead I just sounded annoyed at best. "Anyone care to explain to me just what the fuck you all think you’re doing right now?"

Though some of the other demigods in the room had the self decency to look at least a little ashamed of their actions, Clarisse seemed unfazed as she looked at me. "The Apollo cabin are being self centered jerks," the girl said, acting as if that explained everything.

It almost did in a way.

The Apollo cabin has something that the Ares cabin wants, that they believe would be better suited in their hands than in the children of the sun god's. It could be a weapon of sorts, but other than bows the Apollo cabin didn't really use weapons, choosing to heal if they weren't archers, so a weapon wasn't likely. Something that both would find beneficial and could use... A chariot maybe?

"That's perfect coming from the likes of you," the son of Apollo countered, sounding as fed up with this as I already felt.

"The only reason that I'm here is for Silena!" The daughter of Ares shouted, all but throwing her hands up into the air. "If I wasn't I would be back in my cabin right now."

One of the Stoll brothers made a wistful comment about how good it's been not having to hear Clarisse's voice until now, sarcastically asking if we could go back to that as the girl spoke.

Ah, I see now. She went on some kind of strike when her cabin didn't get what they wanted.

The girl turned to Chiron, determination and anger filling the teen's eyes, leaving a hard set there. "You're in charge right? Does my cabin get what we want or not?" The demigod demanded, a question that the centaur seemed almost tired of answering if it wasn't for the tense feeling in the air.

The centaur shuffled awkwardly on his hooves, leaving small scratch marks on the wood flooring that no one else seemed to notice. "My dear, as I've already explained, Michael is correct. Apollo's cabin has the best claim. Besides, we have more important matters-"

Maybe if the centaur had been paying better attention he would've seen how thin the demigod's patience was becoming as he spoke, and could've chosen his words better before the girl snapped. "Sure," the teen said, cutting the older man off. "Always more important matters than what Ares needs. We're just here to fight when you need us and not complain when we're wronged, right?"

"That would be nice," the other Stoll brother muttered, something that I was sure that the girl heard from how she gripped her knife.

"Maybe I should ask Mr. D-" the girl started to threaten.

The demigods continued bickering for another moment or two longer, but I stopped listening to their nonsense, finding no more interest in their conversation now that I'd already figured out everything that I needed to know from it on my own.

Any more of this and I might start actually feeling bad for Ane-san for having to deal with the Hatrack and I.

I only looked back up when I heard the thunk of something heavy sinking into wood.

The knife that had been strapped to the daughter of Ares's waiste was halfway sunken into the ping-pong table as an all but furious look was carved into the other teen's face. "All of you can fight this war without Ares," the girl proclaimed. "Until I get satisfaction, no one in my cabin is lifting a finger to help. Have fun dying."

With that the daughter of Athena stormed out from the, everyone else in the war counsel seemingly too stunned to stop the girl from doing so.

I stopped a small chuckle from escaping my lips at the sight that the girl had created in her wake: the son of Apollo was, predictably, happy to see the daughter of Ares gone, while Katie Gardner could see just how dire the situation had become. Chiron seemed to have taken up a stance of believing that the daughter of Ares would come around eventually, though anyone that was listening carefully could tell that even he didn't sound too sure.

"Now," the centaur said, failing at a smooth change in topic, "Percy has brought something that I think you should hear. Percy-The Great Prophecy."

I held my hand out to the daughter of Athena in an expectant manner, pulling it away once the withering piece of parchment was in it. There was a small string tied around the middle of the rolled up paper, it was old enough that I couldn't quite tell the color anymore. I pulled at it lightly and unrolled the parchment, careful not to tear the paper as I opened it.

I quickly scanned the paper, feeling my brows push together at what I found there. Nothing here was anything that the slug would like, especially if one of the lines were to be interpreted the way that I believe Chiron and the others that've read it before believe it to be.

"Percy?" Chase asked, pulling me out from the whirlwind of thoughts and theories running through my mind.

"Right," I said, casting the paper away, having already have memorized what was on it. I noticed the small gasps coming from where the blonde girl was standing but I didn't care to look.

"A half-blood of the eldest gods," I started, knowing how that this line was why everyone believed the prophecy to be about a child of the big three. Poseidon, and Hades were the first two to come out of Kronos after being eaten by the titan, while Zeus had the luck to never have been eaten by their father at all, this made the three of them the 'eldest gods'.

"Shall reach sixteen against all odds," I continued, suddenly wondering if there had been other factors in my failed suicide attempts other than just the docotr's continued interference over the past year and a half I've been with the man.

"And see the world in endless sleep,

The hero's soul, cursed blade shall reap."

I knew from that last line that the teacher student duo believed that I would die, that they'd believed it the entire time that they've known me. And while Chuuya will be pissed to Hades and back if this line does turn out to be about me, I didn't really believe that it was.

I'm no hero, not anymore.

"A single choice shall end his days,

Olympus to preserve or raze," I finished, watching as everyone around me processed the information that I'd just given them.

The room fell silent for a few long moments before one of the Stoll brothers broke it in such a way that it might've just been better for the teen if he hadn't spoken at all. "Raise is good," the teen asked, glancing around the room at all of the other demigods present, "isn't it?"

"Not raise," Silena said, speaking for likely the first time since she first heard the news earlier. "R-a-z-e, it means destroy."

"Obliterate," Chase continued before adding on more. "Annihilate. Turn to rubble."

"Thanks for the English lesson, ladies," I said, watching as everyone's eyes turned to look at me.

There was concern in their looks, concern for me and for themselves. There was pity there too, that and a little more fear than I thought that there might've been had I chosen to stay all those years ago.

I saw as Chiron closed his eyes, the man's lips moving in what appeared to be a silent prayer. "You see now, Percy, why we thought it was best not to tell you the whole prophecy," the man started. I figured that he properly had more to say, but just really didn't have it in myself to care.

"You thought that I would freak out when I realized that you believed that I was going to die," I cut in, watching as the guilty look deepened on the centaur's face. "Yeah, I get it."

I knew that Chiron had seen countless heroes die over the couple thousand of years that he's spent training heroes, that the man knew better than to try and comfort me. Chase however, didn't seem to have gotten the message as she opened her mouth to speak. I only held up my hand to stop the girl.

"So what," I decided, watching the looks on the other campers' faces grow slightly more concerned for me than themselves.

The centaur's face changed the most, the hybrid seeming to have decided that I was in some kind of shock. "Perhaps we should let Percy think about the lines," he started, looking to the other counselors in the room instead of me while he was choosing to speak about me like some kind of child. "He needs some time-"

"No," I decided, surprising myself with the defiant tone that my own voice had taken. "I don't need time. If I die, then I die. It's not like it matters right?"

I almost wish that this part of the prophecy would be about me just so that I could finally die in such a permanent way that not even the boss could find a way to undo it, but of course even a prophecy seemed to have it out against my one goal in this life.

"Doesn't matter?" Chase asked, seeming to wonder if I was stupid or not. The girl seemed to have a rant on the tip of her tongue that had been brewing since she first realized that the prophecy that she'd read was about me, but I didn't let her get that far.

"We've got other problems, Chase," I said, stopping the blonde teen short. "Camps got a spy."

"A spy?" Michael Yew asked, a seemingly permanent scowl on the other boy's face.

I ran through a short version of the events on the Princess Andromeda, slightly finding it ridiculous that I was having to say them for a third time now. I told the senior consolers how he had already known that we were coming in advance and the silver scythe pendant that the titan had shown me.

I watched their faces as I spoke, seeing the acceptable reactions being displayed there; the anger and frustration that should be there, along with a healthy amount of suspicion of others. The only person that I watched for a beat longer than the rest was the one that everyone else seemed to avoid looking at as she cried while Chase held her. If anyone else had been looking at, studying almost, the daughter of Aphrodite as I had been, they would have seen what I did.

There it is again.

I remembered the flicker that went across the older teen's face earlier that I'd almost just passed off as grief, the premature reaction to Beckendorf's death, all of it. I was finally able to positively identify the look after seeing it again:

Guilt.

A smirk threatened to curl inhumanly on my lips, but I forced it down, telling myself to play along with the girl's game for now until I could get her alone.

"Well," one of the Stoll brothers started, shifting uncomfortably in his seat, "we've suspected there might be a spy for years, right? Someone kept passing information to Luke, like the location of the Golden Fleece a couple years ago. It must be someone that knew him well."

Almost unconsciously the son of Hermes glanced at Chase before quickly catching himself. I don't blame the boy for his suspicions, Chase had been one of the closest to Luke before revealed his true motives. "Um, I mean it could be anybody," the boy quickly back tracked.

It wasn't long before everyone started looking suspiciously at one another, more than a few looks being thrown my way, most likely from my sudden disappearing act two years ago. I didn't mind the looks, it was a suspiciously timed move on my part, though I did doubt the owners reasoning skills since the spy would've had to have been someone that stayed at camp if they were to have actually done their jobs correctly.

"We just need to keep an eye out for a similar charm to the one that Kronos had," Pollux, the son of Dioynisis said, drawing the campers away from their suspicions and back to the task at hand. "If he had one then the spy probably does too."

The son of Apollo grunted like someone that only partially agreed with something that had been said. "We need to find this spy first, we can't really plan anymore operations until we have," the teen decided. "Blowing up the cruise ship won't stop Kronos forever."

"Indeed," Chiron said, agreeing to the last thing that Michael said. "In fact his next assault is already on the way."

"The 'bigger threat', right?" I asked, allowing myself to put up a pair of air quotation marks with my fingers.

The centaur and the daughter of Athena looked between one another, having a silent conversation that I was not privy to but I could guess that whatever they were hiding was bad, only confirming my suspicions of what it might be.

"Tell me," I insisted, leaving no room for any more silent debate between the two.

The centaur picked up one of the bronze goblets from the snack table, tossing the water inside of it onto the hot plate that wasn't far from it. Steam immediately started to coming from the action, billowing up from the hot plate, creating a rainbow with the help of the lights. The man took out a golden drachma from a pouch that he had stuffed inside of his coat pocket before tossing it into the steam and whispering a prayer to the goddess, Iris.

The mist shimmered, revealing a news broadcast that showed a mountain all but tearing itself apart from the inside as an enormous form rose from the smoke and lava surrounding it like a phoenix rising from the ashes of its previous body. The giant was bigger than any being that I've ever seen before, vaguely taking on a humanoid shape as the mountain shook as if the being was laughing, seemingly glad to have been reborn.

"I thought that this would happen," I said calmly to the others as some of them shook while watching the images in the Iris Message. While it was nice to have my theory confirmed, I couldn't help but find the scene almost boring.

Chase sent me a questioning look as if wondering just what I meant by that, but Chiron beat her to speaking. "The most horrible monster of all, the single most threat that the gods ever faced. And now he's free," the centaur said with the voice of a man already imagining the graves that he would have to have dug. "This was two days ago," he continued, all but physically shaking the tone from his voice. "Here is what is happening today."

The centaur waved his hand, changing the image with the movement. A picture of lines of tornadoes took over, showing how they ripped through anything in their path, destroying everything that got in its way as easily as ripping up paper. As the camera zoomed on one of the tornadoes I could see some of the giant's true form as other smaller beings darted through the clouds, surrounding it, seeming to attack the giant.

"The gods," I said. It wasn't a question, but the centaur treated it as such, still seemingly not used to my level of comprehension.

"Yes, Percy," the man said. "They've been fighting him for days now, trying to slow Typhon down. But he's marching forward, towards New York and Olympus."

"How long?" I asked, mutely gesturing to the image in front of us.

Chiron sighed tiredly. "Unless the gods stop him? Five days at the best. Most of the Olympians are there, except for your father as he has his own war to fight."

I nodded, already figuring that to be the case. "I see."

I thought about the titan's words back on the Princess Andromeda, not bothering to stop the cruel smile that carved its way onto my lips in an unsettling way. I remembered how the titan lord had boasted about watching me as I saw Olympus crumble, and how the golden titan had spoken of this as if it was only the first of many challenges to come.

"We're showing you the possible end of Olympus and you're smiling?" One of the Stoll brothers asked while looking to the other in their set as if to check that he was seeing things right.

I let out a hollow laugh, watching how unsettled some of the other campers became. "It's nothing," I insisted. "I just thought that this was going to be boring is all, but everything is becoming much more interesting than I thought it would."

"And how's that?" The other Stoll brother asked, picking up where the first one left off.

"It's a trick," I told them, watching as the alarm bells rang in the other senior consulars' minds. "Kronos let us blow up the Princess Andromeda so that we would become complacent and believe that we won a temporary reprieve while he finalized plans for whatever surprise assault he's come up with."

It's always entertaining when an old dog learns new tricks.

"Gods I hope not," Chiron muttered, seeming to not want to believe me, but understanding my train of thought as best as he could. "Let's not cause any undue worry and keep this theory to ourselves until we have proof." He waited for everyone to nod. "Well, I think that's enough for one night."

The centaur waved his hand through the mist, causing the steam to dissipate and the battle to disappear. With that action, the war council was adjourned.

—-

Chiron POV

I watched on as everyone in the started to head for the door, moving in mass to it as if being around one another could give themselves some kind of solace for everything that just happened. The one that didn't seem to naturally gravitate to the others was Percy, but that was fine, better even. I walked up to the black haired teen and put a hand on the boy's shoulder, mutely noticing the son of Poseidon seemed to tense up from the contact. But the reaction was there and gone in a flash, fast enough for me to wonder if it happened at all.

The fifteen year old turned around and fixed me with a look of annoyance that somehow still seemed to fit with his new patented emotionless glare that he looked at most things with these days, everything but him.

"I was wondering if I might have a word with you?" I asked, releasing my grip on the younger's shoulder and letting the boy sit down in one of the chairs in the red room. However the teen chose to sit down on top of the ping-pong table, something that put him closer to eye level with me, though still quite far off, than sitting in chair would've.

I waited a moment or two for the demigod to speak, but all I got from the teen was his continued gaze from before. The boy that I remembered, if he'd been told to stay back like this he would've already been talking while looking at me like a child that's been called to the principal's office. However this teen just continued to sit there and observe me with those seemingly lifeless eyes of his, not even the normal relentless motion of demigods present in his movements.

"I wanted to speak with you about the boy that you brought to camp with you, your friend," I said, carefully watching the other teen so that he wouldn't know just how much I was studying him right now.

"Oh?" The teen asked, seeming to find my sudden interest in the red head interesting. I wanted to believe that it was a genuine emotion, but the dull look was still present in the boy's eyes as it had been before, as it had been since he walked through the doors of the Big House. "What is it that you want to know?"

I sucked in a small, steadying breath, finding myself on edg from the look that the teen was giving me. I'd never been on the receiving end of these looks from the son of Poseidon, but now I could tell why many monsters feared the teen even before he left and came back the way he was now.

"Do you know what he is?"

I watched the teen, expecting to find a look of confusion, no matter how small it may be, on the boy's face. I thought that maybe this was another Tyson situation where the son of Poseidon befriended someone and didn't know just what they were. It honestly would have been just the slightest bit comforting if that were to be the case, but I knew from one glance at the green eyed teen that it wasn't. There was a sense of intelligence in the boy's eyes, enough to make anyone that's never met the teen before question just who's godly parent he truly had. One look and I knew that this was not like the case with Tyson at all, Percy purposefully brought that thing here knowing full and well just what it was.

"Ah, so you finally figured it out? Good, I was starting to worry that you were losing your edge there, Chiron," the teen said, sliding off of the ping-pong table like a king descending from his throne. There was something dangerous in the way that the boy was moving, something that made my animal instincts scream out to run away while I was still being allowed to leave.

"Yes, Chiron" the boy continued, "I know exactly what he is, I know it better than you do even."

So it's true then, that child is...

"Why would you bring a vessel of a god here during as delicate of a time like this?" I asked, feeling the slightest bit of anger seeping into my normally calm tone. "And one not even of Greek mythology at that."

"He's my partner," the teen said in a voice much calmer than my own, waving his hand in a dismissive manner. "He's here to help. Is that not good enough for you?"

I wanted to take back my thoughts of the intelligence in the teen's eyes, because the words coming out of the boy's mouth right now were anything but. "The vessel may be here to help, but what happens whenever whatever god inside of the teen decides that they're done playing for our team?"

But the son of Posiedon only sighed as if he found my concerns to be dull. "He won't." Was all the teen said in his own defense.

"How do you know?" I pressed, not content to just take the words of a child that I barely even knew anymore to heart as I might once have.

"Because," the boy started, the annoyance back in his tone, "this isn't like what Kronos is doing now, or even what the Egyptian gods did with the Pharos, the god is sealed away inside of Chuuya. Chibi is in full control."

I stared at the boy, wondering just how he came to know about the Pharos being possessed by gods in the past, but now was not the time to ask. Not when the child was still talking.

"Besides," Percy continued as if giving a report and not talking about a potentially catastrophic ticking time bond in the camp, "Arahabaki is a mindless god with no motives of his own other than destroying anything that it comes across."

I took in the information, choosing to process it later once the words have had some time to sink in. "And what of the boy?" I asked, not quite ready to relent just yet. "Other than being your 'partner', why is he doing this?"

"Isn't it obvious?" The son of Poseidon sighed as if I was the one being difficult here, and maybe in his eyes I was. "Hatrack is the vessel of a god, Kronos is a titan. Do you really think that if we lose here that the fall of Olympus won't have an effect on the rest of the modern world? That just because all of the mythologies keep their distance from each other right now, that the titan will keep to that idea? He is the vessel of a god, Kronos is a titan, no one knows the violent shift in power would affect the other gods still alive today, or even mortals of this world. It's in his own best interest to help."

I listened to the teen's reasoning, trying to find a flaw within it, but I couldn't, not any that the son of Poseidon couldn't just explain away.

"Do you really trust him?" Was all I asked in the end.

A smile much too cruel to belong on the face of the child that I used to know found its way there. "He told me what he was the second day that I knew him," the teen started, a dangerous glint sparking in the boy's cold gaze, "which was a lot better than what you and Grover ever did." The teen walked to the door, pausing and turning his head to look at me out of the corner of his eyes just before leaving. "Chuuya... he's the most human person that I know, disgustingly so even" With that the teen left the room, closing the door shut behind him.

I thought of the boy that just left the Big House, the stranger almost. I'd seen it before, the way that Percy had changed from the boy that I remembered to the teen that he is now. I couldn't help but wonder just how much one person could change before they turn into someone unrecognizable to who they were before. Before it becomes some kind of murder. However much it was, I felt that the son of Poseidon had already crossed that line long ago.

—-

Dazai POV

Instead of walking back to the Poseidon cabin as I should be at a time like this, I made my way to the Aphrodite cabin and knocked lightly on the door. It wasn't long before it opened to reveal a scene that looked like a Barbie movie, something that Elsie had once forced some of the mafia grunts into re-enacting with her at the lead blonde, had thrown up all over the room. There was enough pink and other colors in there to make me nauseous just looking inside it.

"I'm here to speak to Silena," I told the son of Aphrodite who was unlucky enough to open the door.

The boy glanced over his shoulder at where I could safely assume the girl was right now. The teen scratched the back of his neck in something of a nervous manner as he answered. "Now's not really a good time."

I pushed past the teen, already in a pissy mood from the conversation with Chrion and the other events of the day, I didn't have it in me to be polite as I normally would have pretended to be in a situation like this. "Wasn't asking."

The boy stumbled back but I didn't pay him any mind, nor did I even look at the other children of the love goddess that were borrowing holes into my body with the weight of their stares.

I stopped in front of where the daughter of Aphrodite was sitting lifelessly in a chair and crouched down in front of the girl, taking her hands softly into my own and forcing a warm smile onto my face. The girl looked at me with the slightest bit of recognition as I did this, just barely pulling her from the all but catatonic state she seemed to have let herself slip into.

"Hey, Silena. Do you think that we could talk?" I rubbed the girl's knuckles lightly, hoping to put her at ease so that she would compile more easily. The girl nodded in a way that seemed to imply that she was moving on autopilot more than anything else. "Okay, let's take this outside then," I told her, standing up and dropping the girl's hands, "and do leave the charm here."

I saw the panic flood into the girl's eyes as I pulled away, the way that she seemed to come back to herself, becoming more lucid than she'd been since she heard the news. I walked away, trusting the teen to follow me out of the cabin.

Soft footsteps could be heard as we made our way away from the cabins. I could hear the girl sniffing lightly behind me as we walked, her tears entirely real despite the emotion that they were no doubt steaming from, fear.

I turned to the daughter of Aphrodite once I was sure that we were far enough that no one else could hear us without them being caught eavesdropping within moments.

"What did you want to talk about?" The girl asked. Observing the girl, I watched as she seemed to resist the urge to curl in on herself, knowing that in doing so she would only seem more guilty than I clearly already thought that she was.

"How does it feel," I asked, walking closer to the daughter of Aphrodite as she numbly stumbled away, "to know that you're tricking them all and they haven't got a clue?"

"W-what?" The girl muttered out. I could almost see the cold feeling washing over her.

"I mean I've manipulated my fair share of people, but never this many for this long." I stopped right in front of the girl, holding her chin lightly in my hand as I spoke, something that has been done to me, that I knew how unsettled it made you feel when the one doing it wasn't a lover but a threat. "And they haven't got a clue do they?"

Silena stumbled back, all but ripping herself away from my hold. I let the girl go, not really caring as my hand dropped back down to my side. "I don't know what you're talking about."

I couldn't help but laugh. "You don't think I'm that fucking dumb do you?"

"Percy, I-"

"What? Did he make you feel important? Wanted? Did he make you feel like you were finally worth a damn?" Even as I was speaking to the girl before me, it wasn't really her that I was seeing but a younger me, a child foolish enough to play into the hands a man that made me feel like I was smart when everyone else in my life just dismissed me as nothing more than an idiotic delinquent.

"Please, please, just stop," the girl pleaded, there were fresh tears in her eyes, ones that I put there but I couldn't bring myself to care because she reminded me of myself right now, and I am the person that hates me the most.

"You feel guilty don't you?" I asked, wiping the endless tears from the girl's eyes. "I could see it in your eyes when you heard that he was dead. It wasn't the normal amount of guilt that someone would feel when someone that they cared for dies, but actual guilt from having done something to have caused it."

Silena started crying harder as the burden of the consequences of her transgressions were laid bare in front of her, as someone finally spoke what had been going through her mind for hours now.

"I didn't- I-I wanted to stop after what happened with Thaila's tree," the girl said helplessly, "but I liked him and he knew that, an-and he convinced me to keep helping. He even said that Beckendorf wouldn't get hurt."

"And you believed him."

The daughter of Aphrodite only nodded her head.

"He lied," I told her softly, silently hating the forced vulnerability in my own voice, but if I was going to do this, I needed to do it right.

"I know," she whispered as her tears finally calmed down.

I put a hand under the girl's chin, but this time it was a soft gesture instead of a threatening one, something meant to put the girl at ease. "So help us instead."

"I don't know if I can."

"I'll give you time to think about it," I told her, dropping my hand from her chin, watching as she wiped the remnants of the tears from her face. "Here," I started, holding out my arm to the girl. "I'll walk you back to your cabin."

She nodded and looped her arm through my mine as I walked her back to her cabin door. She smiled sadly at me with the look of someone that was resigned to her fate, it was a look that I've seen in the mirror too many times to not recognize it myself. But there was something there that was completely foreign to me, a sparkle of hope. I knew that it wouldn't be long before the other demigod came around.

Good, I would've hated having to act nice for nothing.

Chapter Text

Chuuya POV

It wasn't that long before the bandage waste came stumbling into the Poseidon cabin for the night. The other boy had his usual emotionless look on his face, but I could see a tiredness there that told me that the other teen might actually sleep through the night if he were to go to sleep right now. It was such a rare sight for the teen that I almost forgot to ask the two questions that have been plaguing my mind for the past hour.

"Welcome back, crab for brains," I greeted, sitting up on the top bunk from how I'd been laying a moment before. The other boy only grunted as he went to his book bag and pulled out a set of pajamas from beneath the bandages. "How did the meeting go?"

I watched the other boy shrug as he piled fresh bandages on top of the clothes in his arms. "Everyone thinks that I'm going to die before this whole ordeal is over."

"Must be Tuesday."

The boy titled his head to the side in a way that seemed to suggest that he was agreeing with me as he made a move to start walking to the bathroom.

I don't really know what came over me, maybe it was the fact that I'd been worried all through the day that something had gone wrong when the mackerel didn't come back when he should've, or maybe it was the fact that almost the minute that I did get the other boy back, he was whisked away to a place that I couldn't follow, but I found myself calling out to the other teen. "Do you," I started, feeling the awkwardness of the question before it had even completely formed on my lips, "do you want me to do that for you?"

The poorly bandaged teen froze at my words, holding himself still for long enough that I almost thought that the boy would just continue to walk forward any moment now, pretending that he'd never heard me at all, but he didn't. Instead, the boy turned towards me, something of a look just below emotionless coloring the teen's face as he walked forward and layed the bandages and clothes down beside me.

I looked away, busying myself with opening one of the boxes of bandages while the other boy took off his shirt and changed into the pajama bottoms he'd brought, throwing the old clothes on the bottom bunk below me. The younger teen crawled up onto the top bunk beside me, letting me take off the ruined bandages from the explosion and replace them with new ones while he went over the details of the war council. My expression soured at the lines of the Great Prophecy, something that I was sure that the other teen noticed. He even went into minor detail about the discovery he'd made about the daughter of Aphrodite.

Are any prophecies ever just, I don't know, straight forward? What the fuck is with this endless sleep, hero's soul shit?

"What do you want me to do about your eye?" I asked, making a vague motion to the normally covered area on the other teen's face.

The younger boy's features scrunched into a look of genuine confusion that I was not at all used to seeing on the face of the Demon Prodigy of all people. "What do you mean?" He asked, the barest bit of confusion tainting the younger teen's tone, making him sound closer to his age than he had in months.

"Your eye," I started, "it looks normal." I leaned closer to the teen, noticing the way that the other boy's breathing hitched lightly but ignored it. "It just looks a little hazy up close is all, nothing like how it was before."

The other teen hummed lightly in thought, taking the new information in. He muttered something under his breath that sounded 'demigod healing', but I chose not to question it. Everything was complicated enough before finding out that other mythologies were real, some not even requiring vessels for the gods, while the ones that do go about a very different method then the one I was forced into, I didn't need anymore information.

"I'll leave it off for now, save some bandages while here," the other boy decided, handing me the box that the bandages had come in from beside his thigh, "and I'll just wear them as I had before back in Yokohama."

"Why?"

The demigod suddenly flicked me in the head as if that was a logical answer. "I'm still blind in that eye, Slug."

I threw the closed box of bandages at the other boy, watching in annoyance as he only swatted it away with the back of his hand towards our bags in the corner of the room.

"One last thing," the other boy said, his tone suddenly a little more serious than it had been only a few moments ago, "Chiron knows."

I looked at the younger teen, a list of things that the centaur could know that we wouldn't want him to know flooding through my mind. "What does he know?"

"He knows about you and Arahabaki," the other teen answered simply. "He could sense it on you."

"What did you tell him?" I asked, wondering what kind of convoluted plan the other teen had created for us to follow this time.

"That you were here to help," the younger teen said, though he said it in a way that seemed to suggest that the centaur hasn't had believed him all that much. "Don't worry about it. And anyways, no more awkward staring contest between you two should be happening... probably."

I rolled my eyes and flicked the other teen in the head as he had done to me not long before. I laid down in the bed, watching as Dazai swept all of the old bandages off of the bed and onto the floor before slipping his shirt on and laying down beside me, a decent distance between us. And it's no one's business if when we woke up the next morning, that distance was all but nonexistent once more.

—-

Dazai POV

Chibi and I walked back to the cabin after breakfast the next day, the pair of us bickering with one another as a thick stack of papers rested in my hands. Chiron, even in the brewings of a war, the centaur was still giving out morning chores to the head consulars of each cabin.

"Tell me why I should help you with reports when there's a rock climbing wall with lava pouring from it that I could be doing instead right now?" The shorter teen asked, crossing his arms in a way that seemed to highlight the absurdity of this situation in the other boy's eyes.

I looked at the other teen, resisting the urge to wince as my blind eye burned beneath the sun that it hadn't seen in a year and a half, watching as the wind gently moved the other teen's longer hair in the breeze. I wanted to tell him that I didn't trust the centaur not to try something or say something that he shouldn't. That even though I know that he's more than capable of handling himself, I don't want to leave the other boy with the other campers and their prying eyes again, but I didn't. Because those thoughts were dangerously airing on the side of humanity, a line that I haven't crossed in two years.

Maybe being back in New York is messing with my head.

"Because you missed me while I was gone," is what I said instead.

"Like hell I did!"

We argued back and forth for the rest of the walk back to the cabin, but I noticed that when I went to sit down on the floor and place the papers down in front of me, the other teen wasn't much farther behind.

We sat on the ground, Chuuya at my side listlessly playing with Riptide in pen form as I read the reports out to the other teen. The older boy would listen as I spoke and make comments on anything that he found interesting while helping me think through a word or phrase when my dyslexia became too much and started getting in the way. It was calm in the way that doing paperwork together into the early morning hours back in Yokohama tended to be.

But the scene didn't last long.

There was a knock on the cabin door not much later, one just abrasive enough that I could guess who it was even before the Hatrack got up to open the door. Chase walked into the cabin, a clipboard and a pencil in the blonde girl's hands as she looked at her new surroundings with an analytical stare.

"Cabin inspection?" I asked, putting the current report down as the girl looked around.

She nodded. "Cabin inspection."

The slug and I glanced at each other before looking around the room like she was doing, taking in the appearance of the place:

The Minotaur room horn on the wall hadn't been touched in two years and now had dust coloring it a deep gray color. All of the beds were made except for ours, but everything was packed neatly away in our bags. I saw the girl's eyes lingering on the one bed while glancing at all of the other untouched ones and felt a small heat rise on my ears.

The blonde teen cleared her throat before writing something down on her clipboard. "Well," she decided, "it looks a lot cleaner than it used to. Good job, I guess." With that the girl left the cabin, closing the door firmly behind herself.

"Well that was fun," the shorter teen said sarcastically, collapsing back on the wall behind him.

"Oh yeah."

I stretched out my back before lookin back down at the pile of reports laying around me and the spit that the Hatrack had been sitting at my side like a barcade. There were messages coming from mythological beings from all around the country, each of them detailing the latest developments in monster activity. Honestly, none of them were pretty, but I did know that I've seen worse than all of these back in Yokohama. I've helped orchestrate worse than all of these.

I could tell from the reports that it wasn't just that there were less campers here this summer, but that camp recruitment was actually down to zero this year since the satyrs haven't been able to find as many demigods to bring to camp due to the increased number of monsters. Between the numbers going down, demigods defecting to the other side, and those that died along the way, this battle wasn't going to be an easy one. Normally you would want to win a fight on overwhelming strength in numbers and fire power, but it was looking like we're going to have to press different advantages this time.

I looked through the rest of the reports, finding one of them to be particularly interesting as I did. It was something that I would have to talk with Chase or Chiron about if I wanted to get the full details, or at least what the pair knew of it.

Looking at the other teen, I noticed the fidgety way that the other boy was holding himself. After spending so much time out on the streets and then with everything that happened during my time in the mafia, I always found myself tired, but too on edge or haunted by night terrors to actually sleep. I found that over time because of this I've come to lack the normal relentless energy that demigods tended to have. In a way right now, it felt like the slug had taken it for me.

"How about we get some air?" I suggested, throwing the last report in my hands down onto the pile that had formed.

The other teen obviously needed to get out of the cabin and I needed to speak with one of the people outside, so I figured it wasn't too bad of a suggestion, but the way that the other teen was looking at me made me wonder if I'd said something wrong. The older teen was looking at me as if I'd grown a second head in the past twenty seconds, an unlikely occurrence, but not completely out of the question given where we were right now.

"Let's go," the other teen decided, shaking his head lightly before he spoke.

We walked outside, taking in the summer sun that we rarely got to see back in the darkness of the Port Mafia, but as we were walking a fight broke out across the commons area. I glanced at the other ability user and found that he was already turning to look at me. We jogged across the commons to the origin of the commotion to see just what was going on. We weren't the only ones.

Chase joined us halfway across the field as the three of us ran to the space between the Apollo and Ares cabin as some of the Apollo cabin members, armed with Greek firebombs no less, flew over the Ares cabin in a chariot I hadn't seen before. It wasn't long before the roof of the Ares cabin was aflame with green light, a color that I knew would burn for much longer than it should as the naiads rushed over to put it out.

The Ares campers called down a curse upon the Apollo campers. We watched as all of the arrows of the other cabin turned to rubber, useless things that could only be used to annoy the war cabin as the archer cabins fired them relentlessly. Some of the Ares cabin members were even screaming in riddles.

All in all it was a shitty situation that would have been fine during a normal summer but made me almost miss the structure of the mafia at the moment.

I thought that the blonde girl standing in front of Chuuya and I would try and stop the chaos that was ensuing before one of the campers actually got hurt right before a war, but all she did was grumble a complaint. "Not that again. Last time Apollo cursed a cabin, it took a week for the rhyming couplets to wear off."

Idiots, if I had a gun right now...

But I didn't, I had to leave all weapons back in Yokohama since they wouldn't make it past Airport security. Even if I hadn't, I wouldn't have been able to bring a gun since I don't even own one. The boss has never let me have one of my own, I always had to borrow one from one of my subordinates. The doctor didn't like how easy, how final my death would be if I were to be left alone with a firearm.

"What are they fighting about anyway?" Chuuya asked, even the other ability user was looking at the scene before us with a considerable amount of distaste.

The girl ignored us for a beat, writing the score down for the two cabins on her clipboard before answering the question from before.

"The flying chariot," was all that the teen said.

So I was right then.

"What does the chariot have to do with anything?" The other boy asked, crossing his arms in a haughty manner that I could see the blonde girl doing at some point if someone was being difficult as she is right now.

The teen sighed before going into a brief explanation of how the Apollo cabin had taken the chariot during a raid the week before, but that the Ares cabin had been the ones to lead the raid.

The three of us ducked down as Michael Yew's chariot attempted to dive-bomb one of the Ares campers as the camper in turn tried to stab the teen while cursing the son of Apollo out.

"Of course this had to happen in the week before the potential fall of Olympus," I muttered, but I could tell by the almost identical unimpressed looks from the other two teens that they heard me well enough. "Well it's true."

The demigod sighed in a way that suggested that she didn't want to have to deal with me right now, but I had one question to ask before the other teen left. "Where's Grover?" I asked, stopping the teen stiff where she was.

One of the reports that I was reading earlier was from a satyr located in Canada that had apparently come down to help with the situation here. It was something about summoning the power of Pan to fight off a monster, strange enough on its own that led me to believe that Grover had found the missing god, but the two things that stuck out the most from the message was that the protector asked where the other satyr was and that it was sent to Chiron and not Grover himself.

The demigod's shoulder became stiff at the mention of the other member of what had once been a trio as she turned around and looked at me. "We were hoping that you would have an idea," the girl said helplessly.

I didn't have to ask who the we was.

"Wait," the other ability said, the teen waving his hands lightly in front of his face. "How long has the guy been missing?"

The girl looked away from us and out towards the lake as if she didn't want to see our faces, my face, when she finally told us. "He hasn't been heard from in two months," the other demigod said at last.

The Hatrack and I looked at each other, a silent conversation passing between the pair of us. We both knew just how long two months was when it came to missing cases. Back in Japan, in Yokohama, the cops all but give up any hope of finding anything but a mangled corpse at that point, something that we are all too happy to give them.

I closed my eyes, feeling the silent relief that came from no longer exposing my blind eye to the elements, and let my mind wander as far as it could. There was a buzzing there, a slight feeling of something other, something that shouldn't be there, that I didn't want.

"He's not dead," I told the other two as I opened my eyes, watching the relief flood through the daughter of Athena and the confusion go through the vessel of Arahabaki. "The empathy link is still there."

"Empathy link?" The other boy questioned, an eyebrow raised in a way that seemed to be asking just how many worked demigod things I was going to pull before the end of this trip. But he didn't look angry with me, it was like he knew that it didn't really matter, because at the end of all of this we'll be going back to Yokohama. To a world of our own where none of this matters.

Chase shot me a disapproving look. "You didn't even tell your new little 'partner' that much?" She asked, her voice thick with a tone that didn't match her pretty face. "Have fun with that," the other demigod said before walking away, her voice was angry and hurt in a way that I could no longer understand. "Or maybe you'll just decide to run away first," she called back, a meanness in her time that told me that the other demigod was nowhere close to being okay with the decision that I made two years ago, "you know it's what you're good at."

I sighed, running a hand through my hair. Dealing with hormonal teenagers was a lot more tiring than I remembered it to be. I turned to the other boy, finding a slightly amused look on the ability user's face. "An empathy link," I started, drawing the teen's attention back to me and away from the scene of me being yelled at by the girl that was undoubtedly replaying in the boy's head, "is a telepathic connection between a satyr and someone else."

"And you have one of those?" He asked. I saw the boy glance at my head as if he wanted to know if he could see some kind of marking it.

"Not by choice," I grumbled lowly.

Chuuya shot me an inscrutable look that I didn't even try to decipher as we walked to the Big House to drop off a summary of the highlights of the reports for the centaur to look through.

—-

That afternoon we had an assembly at the campfire for the burning of Beckendorf's funeral shroud. It was a solemn event, something that even the two warring cabins agreed to call a truce upon and attend for the sake of the fallen demigod. Looking around, I could see that this wasn't an ordinary loss for the camp. The son of Hephaestus had been something of an anchor for the demigods here based on the color of the flames, black as the night sky that would soon come. I knew that this was something that was sure to weigh heavily on the daughter of Aphrodite.

The shroud made by the Hephaestus cabin for Beckendorf was made out of some kind of metal, forged to look like chain mail as it was laid upon the funeral pyre. I wasn't sure just what kind of metal that it was, but either the children of Hephaestus had found a metal that would burn in the flames, or the fates were for once being helpful, because the metal melted in the flames, turning to a golden smoke as it rose into the setting sky.

Something with a low specific heat temperature, maybe?

I stood at the edge of the crowd that had formed around the fire with Chuuya by my side, neither one of us really fitting in with those close to the flames. Despite the fact that we'd seen more death out of anyone here, and been to more funerals than either of us could probably count, we were the interlopers in this world that the other demigod's death had created.

We stood there together, watching silently as the other demigods slowly drifted off to their afternoon activities that they all had to see. In the end it was just the pair of us and the senior consulars of the Ares and Aphrodite cabins left at the burt pyre, watching silently as the last of the golden colored smoke cascaded into the air.

I sent the other teen a look telling him to stay where he was, the other boy only nodded back, seemingly understanding that I had ulterior motives for staying as long as we have.

Walking up to the other pair, I saw that there was a third person with them, a boy that I hadn't seen since the first time that I had found myself on the Princess Andromeda, Chris Rodriguez, a boy that had joined Luke.

Seems like he came back.

The daughter of Aphrodite's head was the first to snap up and look at me as I walked closer, fear lacing the girl's eyes that she was quick to mask as I approached.

"Hey," I greeted. Clarisse glared at me the closer that I got to them, but I didn't really pay much mind to it, the daughter of Ares glares at everybody. The other boy wouldn't even look at me, something that told me that the teen felt guilty about his past actions, something that I could use in the near future if I felt the need to. "I just wanted to say that he carried your picture around in his wallet. Beckendorf, he looked at it right before we went into the mission. He wanted to make it back for you."

The daughter of Aphrodite started to sob beneath my gaze, holding herself in a way that I used to when I went home to my mother and Gabe during the summer. It was a way that suggested that if you made yourself small enough and unassuming enough, then they wouldn't notice you. They wouldn't know to hurt you.

It never worked then and it wasn't working right now.

"Good work, Percy," Clarisse muttered, her glare growing harsher at the sound of the other girl's sobs.

"No, it's all right," the crying girl decided. "Thank... thank you, Percy. I should go."

The girl looked up at me as she stood, a look of defiance coloring her gaze, but it wasn't directed at me. The coldness in the other's eyes that almost mirrored my own when I saw my home in flames was directed at those that put that almost lifeless look there.

Gotcha.

"You want some company?" Clarisse asked, rubbing the other teen's arm gently in a soothing manner.

The girl only shook her head no and ran off towards her cabin.

"She'll be fine," the daughter of Ares muttered almost to herself. "She's stronger than she looks."

"Yeah," I agreed, walking away back to the older boy that was waiting for me on the other side of the fire. "She is."

—-

The slug and I were bickering as we walked down to the sword fighting arena. We were going back and forth arguing about what moves and combinations we should try next while there wasn't anyone there to hear what we said, but I stopped the other teen when I saw something out of the corner of my eye.

Just the boy that I wanted to talk to.

I tapped the other boy's wrist lightly before walking over to the edge of the woods knowing that he would follow at my side. There was someone there that I needed to speak with about a little vision I had.

There was a pale boy and pretty dryad with elf-like features standing together. The boy seemed like he was trying to comfort the dryad as the girl's eyes gained a chlorophyll tent from crying. The pair looked at me as I walked up to them, a look of anticipation in the other demigod's eyes.

"Welcome back, Nico," I greeted, plastering a smile on my face that no one other than the dryad seemed to really believe.

"Percy, Chuuya," the son of Hades greeted, a look just above stony on the younger teen's face. The boy blushed as he gestured to the dryad watching us silently. "This is Juniper, Grover's girlfriend."

"Percy Jackson," I said softly, holding my hand out to the dryad. There was a soft gasp of recognition before she took it hesitenaly to shake. Chuuya did the same though it didn't go unnoticed by me or the other ability user how the being's eyes flashed with fear before doing so.

So they can all sense it, they can all smell it on him like monsters smell a demigod's scent.

The dryad pulled her hand back quickly and fixed it at her side. She looked at me with a sense of urgency coloring her eyes. "You were Grover's best friend, right?" She asked. I nodded, not knowing if that was really an appropriate word anymore for the girl to be throwing around. "Do you know where he is?"

I shook my head no, a feeling of annoyance creeping up my spine at the fact that I was having to go over this again. "No," I told her, false concern filling my voice, "but I know that he's still alive, wherever he is."

The dryad looked like she was about to say something, but stopped as the camp's hellhound bounded over to us, sniffing the tree spirit with a look of interest on her face.

The dryad shrieked. "Oh no you don't!" The girl exclaimed, jumping away from the beast. "I know about dogs and trees, I'm out!"

The nature spirit disappeared with an audible poof that sounded kinder than the cracking sounds that gods made when they did the same move. A small smirk formed its way onto my lips.

Grover, you chose a good one.

Dogs are vicious little creatures that turn on their owners, biting the hand that feeds them as it tries to do so. The three headed one, Cerberus, would've tried to kill Chase, Grover and I when we went down to the underworld if it wasn't for Chase taming the beast. The dogs in the slums of Suribachi city weren't any better either as they would try to eat you while you slept. Anyone that hated dogs, no matter what size or type was okay in my book.

The three of us looked at each other as the domesticated Hellhound ran off to find a new target to torment. The youngest boy shifted uncomfortable beneath the weight of our gazes. "I had this vision," I started, seeing the alarm lights come on in the other demigod's eyes. "You were on this mountain that I'd never seen before and you said something about having a plan, I want to hear it."

The boy's eyes shot fated between Chibi and I as if asking if the other teen should really be allowed to stay. When no one made any sort of move he only sighed and started going through one of the crazier plans I'd ever heard in my life, and that's including the one time that I let the Hatrack play poker while I was breaking into a safe in the back room with an ability lock on it. The slung is horrible at poker and almost killed everyone else there.

But I still liked it.

It's definitely the right kind of crazy.

"I like it," I told the other demigod, seeing some strange light come into the boy's eyes, "but you can't prevent a prophecy."

"But you can fight it," the son of Hades argued, a strange, almost hungry light finding itself into the younger teen's eye.

"You can become invincible," the other ability user said, a gleam in the teen's eyes that almost mirrored that of the one in the younger demigod's.

I looked down at the ability user, seeing the way that his hands were curled into fists while in his pants pockets. It's like he thought that I was sure to die if we didn't do this. I couldn't blame the older teen for that thought, I'd gotten my ass all but royalty handed to me when I'd fought Kronos, and I don't think that he was even trying all that hard.

"All right," I agreed, crossing my arms so that I wouldn't pick at the bandages. "What do we do first?"

A smile curled onto the demon of Hades's lips, one that would've caused a shiver to run down my spine had I not been where I was for the past year and a half. Though it was almost ery how close it got to some of the less cruel ones that I've seen in the Port Mafia. The Hatrack seemed to agree.

"First we'll need to retrace Luke's steps," the demigod said. "We'll need to know more about his past, his childhood."

"Why?" The eldest teen asked.

A past, a childhood. Those were things that I knew that the other ability user didn't have the luxury of having, of remembering even if he did. Most people in the mafia didn't have a good childhood, one of the reasons that they don't really tend to matter once someone joins. So hearing that one of the keys to possibly winning this war relied on something that everyone ignored back in Yokohama, it was strange.

"I'll explain when we get there," the other demigod said, something that only increased the scowl on the mafioso's face. "I already know where his mother is. She lives in Connecticut."

If I remembered correctly, Luke had run away from home at a young age, young enough that any information that she had on the older man wouldn't really do us any good now.

So it must not be something that she knows exactly, but something that you have to be given or take.

"So how are we getting to Connecticut?" The other ability user asked before turning to me with an accusatory finger pointed at my chest. "I swear if we use that stupid taxi again I'm gonna-"

"No," Nico said, cutting off what I'm sure was about to be a very inventive threat, "that would be way too expensive for the three of us. No, we're going to shadow travel."

"Shadow travel?" I asked, as the ideas of just what it could be flooded through my head. Countless possibilities, each seemingly more interesting than the last.

But the other demigod only whistled in a high pitch, a sound that brought the foraging hellhound back over to the three of us. The boy glanced at Chuuya and I before walking over to the beast and whispered something into the monstrositie's ear. The mythological creature tilted her head to the side, a suddenly interested look on the Hellhound's dog-like features.

The demigod looked at me with his onyx eyes, the color of shadows. "Hop on," he instructed, gesturing to the hellhound next to him.

I could feel my heart racing silently, thumping against my chest with enough force that I had to force it to calm down before my breathing started to change.

I really, really don't like dogs.

But Chibi bounded forward, seeming to like the idea of being near the dog now that he knew that the hellhound wasn't going to kill him at the first chance that it got. The boy hopped up onto the beast's back, ringing his slender hands through the thick collar around the beings neck. There was a sweet smile on the teen's face, one that I rarely got to see.

I walked up close to the pair, throwing myself up onto the hellhound's back. After a beat of thinking about it, I rested my hands on the other boy's hips, feeling the way that he shifted beneath the weight of my touch. I tore my gaze away from the older teen before any thoughts that shouldn't exist came to mind.

"This will make her very tired," the demigod warned, "so you can't do it often. It works the best at night when it's darkest, but shadows all shadows are a part of the same substance. Since there's only one darkness, creatures of the underworld can use it as a road, or a door."

I nodded, having a good idea of what was about to happen a few moments from now.

The demigod turned, looking fully at Chuuya as he sat in front of me. "All you have to do is tell her where to go," the boy explained. "Tell her Westport, the home of May Castellan."

The other mafioso only nodded, most likely figuring out as I did that the smaller demigod would meet us there so as to not put as much strain on the hellhound. I felt the boy's hips shift forward beneath my grip as he leaned down and whispered in the beast's ear.

I felt the tops of my ears grow hot at the sensation, but any thoughts that might've come were stopped when the hellhound suddenly sniffed the air before lunging forwards into the darkness of the woods, straight towards an old oak tree.

The other teen tensed, seeming to fully believe that we were about to crash into the tree head first, something that I would have no doubt never heard the end of if we had. Instead of crashing, we plunged into an inky darkness made of shadows as cold as the bottom of the sea.

Chapter Text

Chuuya POV

I thought that the bandage waste and I were going to crash into the nearest tree as Mrs. O'Leary bounded forward towards it. Bracing my body for the inevitable impact that was to come, I mentally cursed the boy holding my hips knowing that I wouldn't be in this situation if it wasn't for him. My mind raced through all of the possibilities of ways to get back at the scarred teen, using it as a way to distract myself from just how much this was bound to hurt, but the impact never came.

A cold feeling swept over my body as the word warmth seemed to lose all meaning in the darkness that we'd filled into. The fur beneath my fingers felt like ice, the hands on my hips felt like a phantom's touch. It only lasted a few moments until the shadows melted into a warm evening light, thawing out the cold that had settled in my bones.

I felt something shifting behind me as the younger teen quickly slid off of the hellhound as if the dog was made of acid seeping into his skin. I followed the boy down at a more leisurely pace, taking the time to glance around us before giving up the vantage point that I had.

We were close to the edge of a cliff near the woods behind us. The area wasn't like anything that I'd seen in Yokohama before, the number of trees being more than I've ever seen in my life, a highway cutting through the ravine on one side of the cliff, as the other side of the cliff led directly into someone's backyard. It felt like looking at Camp Half-Blood again for the first time, like stepping into another world outside of the cities and slums that I could remember from mine.

The house at the base of the ravine was a two-story home, painted white with a colonial style to it. The only thing that made the picture more unsettling than it had any right to be was all of the weeds and tall grass growing around it that made the place seem like more of a jungle than a home.

Following the taller teen down, I got off of Mrs. O'Leary just before the hellhound began to stagger from bearing the burden of the travel on her own. I felt Dazai pull me back and away from the being as the hellhound opened its maw, but all the mythological creature did was yawn before turning in a circle and collapsing on the ground with enough force to shake the earth.

Looking down, I saw that the hand that had been holding my arm had already let go before I had to yell at him to do so, as the body that it belonged to surged forward to catch something. When I looked at the younger teen fully, I saw that he was holding the son of Hades in a manner that one would have mistaken as protective if they didn't know the teen as I did. Dazai let the boy go once he was sure that the other demigod wouldn't kneel over at the first step that he took on his own.

"I'm okay," the son of Hades managed as he rubbed his eyes harshly in a manner that I had seen the other ability user doing time and time again as the days without sleep started to get to him.

"Are you going to crash too?" I asked, jerking an accusatory thumb at the sleeping hellhound loudly snoring behind us.

The boy only shook his head no. "The first few times that I shadow traveled," the youngest teen explained, "I passed out for a week, but now I have a better grasp on it. I can't do more than two jumps a night though, but Mrs. O'Leary won't be going anywhere for a while either."

"Okay, we're here, so now what?" I asked, looking expectantly between the pair of demigods standing beside one another.

Nico only smiled in a tired way that somehow looked like it belonged on an American carved pumpkin for Halloween despite that obviously not being the younger boy's intention. "We ring the doorbell," he answered simply.

—-

Maybe I just didn't understand American customs all that well, because I couldn't figure out why this woman was letting three strange teenage boy's into her home at night. Maybe I could envision this being a more normal thing in a small town in the south where people are said to be more hospitable, but this was Coneticut.

Or maybe this woman is just insane.

We could all sense that something was wrong even before the three of us made it to the front door as a looming sense of dread seemed to hang over the house. The feeling was just minute enough that if you weren't trained to read the emotions in the air as the bandage waste and I were, and as Nico apparently was, then you would almost miss it or push it off as your own.

A thin elbow clanked against the side of my rib cage as the three of us walked down the sidewalk. I turned to the perpetrator, annoyed that the other mafioso would be pulling shit at a time where we needed to seem as friendly as we could so as to not scare off whoever was inside of the house, but when I shot the teen a dirty look, he only pointed down to the sidewalk at our feet.

There were little bing bag creatures like what you would find in airports and gift shops innocently lining the sidewalk. Each of them looked to be old, worn with age and exposure to the natural elements. There were lions and pigs, but also things that I didn't know were actually still real until this week like dragons, hydras and even a small Minotaur. Some of the creatures were so old that their stuffing was spilling from tears in their bodies, making the image look even more pathetic than it already did.

Among them one of the creatures, a hydra, had a tree sapling sprouting from inside of it. A part of me wanted to pull the tree out of the creature and replant it somewhere where it would have an easier time growing, the rest of me remembered that I was a Port Mafia member and a potential executive, not a philanthropist.

The front porch was covered with wind chimes, each of them giving off their own erry chime as we got closer to the metal and glass configurations. I didn't understand how someone could stand all of the noise and not lose their mind.

The son of Hades looked back at us as we approached the door, the question in his eyes evident before he even had the chance to speak it. Dazai and I nodded swiftly, neither of us afraid of what lay inside of the home. Though in hindsight maybe we should have been, even if only a little.

Nico had barely even knocked on the door before a slender woman old enough to be all of our mothers, well not Nico's if you go bye the actual year he was born, ran outside with her arms wide open. "Luke!"

Luke, right, that's the titan vessel's name.

The woman looked absolutely deranged as she wrapped her arms around Nico, something that made the demigod ion her arms go impossibly stiff upon contact. Her hair was spotty, chunks missing from as if fired from the skull. The house dress that the woman was wearing that was originally supposed to be a pink color, looked more gray from the scorch marks and smears of ash decorating it.

I looked at the woman, wondering just what kind of drugs she was on and how I could keep the mackerel away from them, when she suddenly turned to the boy in question, holding her arms out as she had before. "Luke!" She happily cried again, seemingly forgetting about the sin of Hades for the time being.

The woman stepped forward to hug the mafioso, but he only neatly side stepped the woman while shooting her an undoubtedly hostile glare. She tried the same maneuver on me, only to receive a similar result. The woman smelled like burnt cookies and ash as her thin frame moved.

Ms. Castellan gestured us inside, saying something about having our lunch ready as she moved. Something told me that what she had ready wasn't exactly going to be lunch.

The inside of the house was no better than the scene outside. Mirrors and candles filled every space that they could be put into. It was suffocating in a way that I didn't know seeing your reflection could be, but I knew that Dazai, and possibly Nico, was worse off. The bandage waste has never liked his reflection, not even when he looked like the boy that I first met, but it was his true reflection that set off his latest bout of harm. Honestly, I didn't know how someone so intent on destroying himself was still alive after all of this time.

There were framed pictures decorating the mantle as we passed by it. They were all of a little blonde boy, the oldest version of the little boy was when the boy was somewhere around nine. He had two missing teeth and a smile that didn't seem to care if it showed it. He looked like a carefree child, nothing like what the stories that I heard from Chase depicted him to be like now.

I wonder what happened? What causes all of these smiling children to turn into killers?

My eyes trailed to the mackerel, but his eyes were stubbornly trained on Ms. Castellan, looking only at her as to avoid looking anywhere near a mirror. Whether he knew it or not, the boy's hands were scratching harshly at the skin beneath his bandages.

"This way, my dear!" The woman called, leading us towards the back of the house as if we were one entity and not three boys all fully capable of killing her where she stood. "Oh, I told them that you would come back," she said, the happiness evident in the older woman's tone. "I just knew it!"

Ms. Castellan sat us at the kitchen table-except for the mackerel who chose to stand against the wall and somehow, much to my astonishment, got away with it-something that shouldn't even really be called that anymore given that there wasn't any room left on the table for it to be used as one anymore. There were hundreds upon hundreds of Tupperware containers stacked high upon the table, each filled with a sandwich packed like a little kid's lunch. I tore my eyes away from the lesser science experiment, finding the smell to be bad enough on its own with any form of visual confrontation.

The rest of the kitchen was no better off than the table that belonged to it.

On top of the oven was a seemingly endless stack of cookie sheets, each of the cookies on top of them somehow burnt worse than the ones prior. In the sink was a mountain of empty Kool Aid pitchers, enough that just looking at them was enough to make me never want to try the substance. The little beanbag creature even made it inside the house to add to the worsening of its condition, though I will say that this one was much better kept than the ones outside.

This woman... she's completely lost it!

Looking at the old woman, it was like looking at one of the people that the mafia torture experts broke. Some interrogatories chose to go too far and break the more difficult people that they were given to get information out of them. When they did this, the people were often broken in a way that couldn't hope to ever be fixed. Ms. Castellan looked like one of those people.

As if to prove my point, the woman started to hum to herself while she put together her latest bout of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the three of us. A burning smell filled the room, one strong enough to fill my nostrils in a way that smoke never could. I couldn't help but fear anything that this woman created, even her son seemed more monstrous than he had before if he was raised by anything of the likes of her.

Nico and I glanced at each other from opposite corners of the table, neither one of us wanting to speak to the woman currently making sandwiches at the kitchen counter.

Turns out that wasn't really an issue.

"Ms. Castellan," Dazai's cold, monotone voice echoed through the kitchen, though the woman didn't seem to notice just how unwelcoming it was, "we need to ask you about your son."

Luke's mother turned to look at us, and for the first time I got to see the woman's eyes, it was like there was a high voltage light put there. "They told me that he would never come back. But I knew better," she told us matter of factly. Her voice was turned down from the excited yelling from earlier, but I still couldn't help but be wary that she was going to jump and try to hug us when the woman walked over and patted the son of Hades on the cheek, smearing peanut butter stripes down his face.

"When did you last see him?" The teen asked, wiping the peanut butter off of his face with the back of his hand.

It was a simple enough question and even though I was expecting some kind of crazy in the response, I didn't think that the woman's eyes would lose their focus and go as dark as they did.

"He was so young when he left," she responded in a voice that could almost be called wistfully though I didn't think that that was the appropriate word to use in a situation like this. "Third grade, much too young to run away! He said he'd be back for lunch, so I waited. He likes peanut butter sandwiches and cookies and kool-aid. He'll be back for lunch very soon..." Her eyes fell on the don of Hades and then she smiled, wide and manic. "Why, Luke, there you are! So handsome, you have your father's eyes."

Luke's mother turned towards the sink, to the pictures taped above it. They were all of the same man. By her words I'm guessing that he's whichever god it was that fell in love with her. Or maybe it's just some random man from a magazine, it could really go either way. "Now that's a good man. He comes to visit me, you know."

When I glanced back at Dazai, I saw that he was looking at the woman with the same expression that he wears on missions when something isn't where it's supposed to be. "What happened to your eyes?" The bandaged teen asked bluntly, seemingly uncaring of how tactless he was being.

The woman's gaze became fractured in a way that I knew eyes weren't supposed to be. It was like she was trying to look at us all through a kaleidoscope. "Luke, you know the story. It was right before you were born, right? They said that I was special because I could see through the... what-ever-they-call-it."

"The mist?" Nico offered. He was looking at the woman with a gaze similar to the one that the mackerel was wearing.

"Ah, yes," Luke's mother said as she nodded like a mad woman. "They offered me an important job. That's how special I was!"

I glanced over at Nico, but I found that the younger boy looked just as confused as I was. However, when I looked back at the bandage waste, the other teen only seemed to be looking on at the scene with a faint level of amusement and none of the confusion that the son of Hades and I seemed to share.

"What sort of job?" I asked, speaking it when it seemed that neither of the demigods appeared to be particularly motivated to do so.

The frown that the woman was wearing deepened into something closer to a grimace than anything else as she seemed to be remembering memories that she hadn't thought of clearly in some time.

"Dear me, it didn't work out, did it?" The woman asked, speaking to herself more than anyone else in the room. "Your father warned me not to try, that it was dangerous, but I had to. It was my destiny! And now... I can't get the images out of my head. They make everything seem so fuzzy."

"Luke was so kind," Ms. Castellan insisted, speaking more of the boy that she knew as if she understood that he wasn't really in the house with us. "He left to protect me, said that if he went away, that the monsters wouldn't threaten me," she told us, a sadness seeping into her tone as if some reality was coming to the deranged woman. "But I told him that monsters were no threat to either of us, that they sit outside on the sidewalk all day, never to come in," she told us, picking up the small stuffed Minotaur as she spoke and holding it carefully in her hands.

"Ms. Castellan," the son of Hades started, only to be cut off by the older woman in question.

"Mom," she corrected the boy, not seeming to notice the uncomfortable way that he reacted to the title.

"Yeah, sure," the younger boy agreed, shifting back from the woman even though she was still across the room. "Have you seen Luke since he left home?"

"Of course!" The woman replied happily as if it was the most natural response in the world.

I couldn't help but look at the dazed woman with suspicion. We had almost no way of knowing if the boy that she was actually the demigod, or someone else entirely like Nico.

But the demigods in the room didn't seem to share my sentiments.

"When did Luke visit you last?" Dazai asked, pushing the advantage that had opened up.

Luke's mother shook her head sally as if this was a memory better lost to the sands of time than be thought of with too much detail, as a shadow passed over her face. "The last time," she started, staring off at something none of us could see, "he looked so different. A terrible scar and eyes so filled with pain..."

"His eyes," the son of Hades said, leaning forward in his seat as he did. "Were they gold?"

"Gold?" Ms. Castellan asked, blinking like a small, confused animal. "No, silly, Luke had blue eyes."

Blue eyes? The gold must be from the titan possessing him. So he really must've been here before becoming a vessel if his eyes were still blue as they used to be.

"Ms. Castellan?" Nico started, drawing the woman's attention back to himself and away from whatever memories she was about to become lost in if we left her alone for too long. "Did Luke ask you for anything when he came?"

The woman frowned like a child trying to remember how to do an equation. "My blessing," she said at last, looking at the three of us with a mute level of uncertainty. "He said that he was going to be going to a river and needed my blessing before he could go. I gave it to him, of course."

I could hear the bandage waste pushing off of the wall behind us. "Thank you, ma'am. That's all of the information that we-"

But the other ability user was cut off by Ms. Castellan's sudden gasp as she started to collapse, doubling over as the pan of cookies clattered to the floor. Nico and I jumped to our feet, but before we could move to her, Dazai was pulling the pair of us away from the woman by the sleeve of our coats.

The mortal screamed out as she straightened, but there was something wrong with her eyes. Instead of the crazed gaze that the three of us had come accustomed to since we met the woman, her eyes were glowing a toxic green like some kind of ability was being used.

The woman started speaking like a man possessed, her voice much deeper than it had been before. I couldn't understand everything that she was saying as the woman's voice rasped, but it sounded like she was talking about her son, about his fate. She didn't seem overly fond of whatever it was that she knew.

Ms. Castellan surged forward, grabbing the son of Hades by the shoulders and shaking the teen violently as if to force him to understand what she meant. The son of Poseidon moved and broke her hold on the other demigod, moving the boy behind himself and closer to me, out of her immediate reach.

I saw the son of Hades's hand move to the hilt of his sword, but I pulled it away. Creating a body count right now won't do any of us any favors, especially when Dazai had that look on his face that said that there was still information that he thought that he could get out of the situation.

Ms. Castellan collapsed where she stood as if all of the energy had left her body. I thought that she would hit her head on the table, which wouldn't be entirely unwelcome since we could leave while she was passed out, but surprisingly enough, the mackerel caught her. The other teen shot me a look that seemed to be saying 'come help me with this before I throw it on the ground at your feet', something that I did not want to be responsible for.

I took the woman, moving her into the chair with the ease of lifting a piece of paper. "Ms. C?" I asked, lifting the older woman's head up from where it was slumped against her chest.

The woman muttered something incomprehensible and gave her head a violent shake as she seemed to be coming back to herself, as best as someone like her could. "It seems I dropped the cookies," she observed, her voice back to its normal tone. "How silly of me." I watched as she blinked, the toxic green that was in her eyes disappearing to the strange way that they had been before the little outburst.

"Ms. Castellan," the bandaged teen started, "you were telling us about your son," he explained.

"Was I?" She asked, still seemingly a little bit more out of it than she had been when we walked in the house. "Yes, his blue eyes. We were talking about his eyes, right? Such a handsome boy."

"We have to go," the son of Hades decided, already getting ready to move to the door, a sense of urgency in his stance. "We'll tell Luke you said hello."

"But you can't go!" Ms. Castellan insisted as she got up from the chair to her feet, her frail body shaking as she moved, but no one went to help her.

The three of us moved backwards and away from the older woman as if her touch would be like poison on our skin. It felt stupid to be so cautious of the woman, but given that none of us seemed to actually want to kill her, all we could do was go along with her whims if she got a hold of us. The way her eyes had glowed green didn't help too much either.

We left the house as fast as we could without running out of it all together. I made sure to keep a good distance between the three of us and the older woman, unsure of how long Dazai would be able to deal with her antics without just breaking the woman's arm the next time that it reached for one of us.

Nico slammed the front door shut after we had all passed through it, the pair of demigods running as soon as they heard the river beat of the door slamming closed, me jogging alongside them.

I can't wait to get back home where situations like this don't happen, where I can just hurt those that choose to hurt my people and call it a day without all of these moral obligations.

—-

Dazai POV

The hellhound wasn't alone when we got back to where we had left the beast on the cliff.

There was a small fire burning warmly inside a ring of stones as a girl no older than eight years old was sitting cross legged next to the hellhound, scratching behind the beast's ears. Though I knew better than to believe the appearance before the three of us.

The young girl was dressed simply, her brown hair tied up in a scarf wrapped securely around her head. She looked like a child that should have grown up in the colonial home that we'd just left back when it was first made. The child poked the fire with a stick almost absentmindedly, but I saw that it grew stronger with her interference, confirming my suspicions on just who she really was.

I bowed my head to the young girl, gaining a strange look from my partner. "Good evening, Lady Hestia," I greeted, watching as the son of Hades did as I did.

When I looked back up, the goddess was studying me with eyes as red as the firelight sitting before us. "You have quite the strange friend with you, Percy Jackson," the girl remarked, her eyes turning to the older teen standing at my side. She must have felt my gaze harden as the goddess smiled softly at the pair of us. "Don't worry," she said as if placating a small child, "I have no intentions of hurting the boy. Fire recognizes fire after all," she looked the smaller teen up and down with an analyzing gaze. "Even if some are much more destructive than others."

The other mafioso looked at me with a gaze that seemed to be asking just who this strange girl was, and why she believed herself to be strong enough to harm the gravity user.

"This is Lady Hestia," I explained, motioning to the young girl, "the goddess of the Hearth."

The other boy's blue eyes widened at my words, clearly surprised that the eight year old child before us was truly a goddess, but only a moment later suspicion set in. "If you’re a goddess then why aren't you with the other gods helping in fighting Typhon?"

"I'm not much for fighting," the goddess explained, a gentle smile that made me wary instead of relaxed as it was intended to, graced the girl's face. "Besides," she continued, "someone has to keep the home fires burning while all of the other are away."

The goddess motioned for us to sit down, something that the son of Hades had no problems with doing as he was already fond of the goddess it seemed. Chuuya and I sat down next to him, with me between the two.

"Did you have a good visit with May Castellan?" The goddess asked, the same unsettling gentle smile on her lips.

"Ms. Castellan," I started, noticing the way that the other demigod seemed to shudder at the memory of the woman, "she's like how my mother was, she can see through the mist. But there was more to it than that, wasn't there?"

"She's not like the pair of you," the goddess confirmed, her eyes focusing on Chuuya and I, "though I believe that you knew that already. Some people bear the weight of the sight better than others."

"And some people go too far," I finished.

The goddess's face darkened as she looked at us. "I see you already have a good idea of what has happened to her," she said, nodding her head lightly.

"I've been putting the pieces together."

The goddess nodded once more. "And will you go down the same path that Luke has, seeking the same powers?" She asked, the gentle flame in her eyes flickering as we spoke.

"Luke and I," I started, glancing at the older teen at my side, "we're not as different as many would believe us to be."

We were both monsters masquerading as men. Beings shaped by a world much crueler than it had to be to us. Growing older meant seeing all of the flaws in the world that we had blindly ignored before, it meant questioning everything that we used to thoughtlessly stand by. The son of Hermes chose a path just as dark as the one that I have been walking, just as filled with hate and violence. I could understand him, in the same twisted way that I could understand the boss. They are the architects of the paths that I've been walking.

The goddess hummed as if considering my words. She seemed calm, but I could see a hint of fear coming into the goddess's eyes at my words.

"We have no choice, my lady," the son of Hades said, speaking for the first time since we saw the goddess. "It's the only way that Percy will survive."

The goddess flicked her hand as if considering the demigod's words, but the flames close to thirty feet tall, the heat baking my skin as that of the flames from the false Arahabaki had not so long ago. But then they were gone just as fast as they had come.

"Not all powers are spectacular," Hestia said, looking at me with the same flickering gaze. "Sometimes the hardest power to master is the power of knowing when to yield. Do you believe me?"

"More than you believe that I do," I told her, watching the goddess's brows scrunch together slightly.

I learned long ago when to yield. When to just hand over what little money that I had to Gabe because of the consequences of what would happen if I resisted like I wanted to. When to just give into what the teachers said about me because they would never believe anything different. When to just do as the doctor said because the pain of everything would be over faster if I just let him do as he wanted. I had been yielding almost since I was born.

The seemingly young goddess studied me as if she could see all of the things that the other two beside me couldn't, and then she hummed. "I see that now," she said, looking at me with a gaze holding much less fear than it had before. "I don't know what happened to you over these past two years, but I can see the lessons written as if in stone on your face... on your skin.

"When Dionysus was made a god, I gave up my throne for him, it was the only way to avoid the civil war that was to come over the unbalanced council. I yielded and slowly faded into the background. No one will ever write epic poems about me, or the deeds that I have done, but it doesn't matter. I keep the peace and yield when necessary."

The girl poked the flames once more. "I am here because when all else fails, when all of the mightier gods have gone off to battle and to wage war, I am all that's left. Home. Hearth. I am the Last Olympian. You must remember what I have said when you make the final decision that's to come."

I felt the hatrack's eyes on me, but I didn't turn to look at him. "I will do what needs to be done," I promised the goddess.

"Very well," she sighed, "I can at least send you along your way."

The goddess waved her hand in an elegant manner with much more sophistication than an eight year old child should possess, as everything faded into a darkness much warmer than the one we came here by.

Chapter Text

Dazai POV

When the darkness cleared, we were in Central Park, just north of the Pond. It had long become dark outside, so no one else that was at the park at this hour noticed when three teens and an overly large dog suddenly appeared. Even if they did, the mist manipulated them into passing it off as a trick of the light, like we'd always been there. The hellhound didn't so much as spare the three of us a glance before slowly walking over to a cluster of boulders a few meters away.

"Is she..." Chibi started pointing at the beast as it started sniffing the rocks in a way that most dogs do before they mark their territory.

"It's okay," the son of Hades assured. "She just smells the way home."

"Another entrance to the Underworld?" I guessed, remembering my last trip there when I was twelve.

The entrance that Grover, Chase and I had used then had been in L.A. Back then we had used the Charon's ferry entrance, pretending to be three children that had all drowned together in the same tub. Honestly I think the only way we got away with such a blatant lie was that we had money unlike all of the other souls waiting to cross the River Styx

The other demigod nodded. "The Underworld has two main entrances," the teen explained, "this is one of them."

"Which one is this?" I asked, gesturing veaugly to the rocks that the hellhound was still circling like a lost puppy.

I already had some idea, there weren't many stories of people successfully entering the underworld while still being one of the living. But there was one well known one that had to do with the earth as this did.

"The Door of Orpheus."

I hummed lightly, silently pleased that I had been right. "He used his lyre to charm the earth into opening up and creating a path for him," I recalled, speaking it aloud more for the hatrack's benefit than my own. "He almost got away with his wife's soul, but he broke the only rule that he was given and looked back to make sure that she was still there, so they both died instead of just the wife."

"Idiot," the slug said, spitting the word out like it was some kind of curse. I titled my head to the side to show that I agreed with the older teen.

All he had to do was not look back, how foolish.

We walked over to the stones. The other ability user stepped forward, kicking one of them in a way that was light for him, but left a small crack in the previously unmarred structure. I saw the son of Hades wince lightly at my side while watching the sight.

If I wasn't trying to be somewhat of a more normal teenager while we were here, I would've given the child nightmares and told him the Chibi wasn't even using his ability while he did that, that it was all natural strength. But I didn't say anything, I figured that the child already had enough nightmare material for the day from Ms. Castellan and the shit show that was soon to go down.

"The only thing I don't get," the son of Hades started, his hand resting on the cool stone, "is why Hestia sent us here and not to your mother when she knows that we need her blessing for this to work."

I felt my body stiffen at the other demigod's words. I'd honestly had been hoping that he would be too consumed with everything that's going on to notice the seemingly obvious flaw in the goddess's logic. I glanced at the slug, knowing that this was one of the pieces of my story that I hadn't told the other boy.

"Probably because she's dead," I told them, looking anywhere but the other ability user's face.

The demigod made a small sound of surprise before muttering a small apology.

I felt fingers tap the side of my hand gently in a reassuring way that wasn't too obvious to the other demigod, and I knew that it was Chuuya's doing.

"How does it open," the other gifted asked, coming back to stand in front of the pair of us, his hands resting lazily on his hips.

"We need music," the other demigod said. He looked between the two of us as if expecting one of us to step forward and start singing a love ballad to the rocks. "How's your guy's singing?"

"He sounds like a dying cat," Chuuya said, jerking a thumb in my direction.

"You've never even heard me sing!" I protested, not denying the accusation. "You're probably bad enough to make dogs cry anyway, or do they only howl acknowledging you as one of their own?"

The smaller teen turned to me, fully prepared to jump into the next insult that he had on the tip of his tongue, but a loud clapping sound jolted the pair of us to a stop. We turned to the side and saw the son of Hades slowly lowering his hands down to his sides.

"Someone needs to sing," the boy insisted, "and it's sure as Dad is not going to be me." The teen mumbled something about rather living with Demeter and her cereal than sing, something that I found as entertaining as I found it useful.

"I have a better idea," I told the other two, a crooked grin plastered onto my lips, surprising myself to find that some of it was even real.

—-

Chuuya POV

"I have a better idea," the suicidal manic announced, a machevious smile on the boy's face that I had never seen before. The strangest thing about it was that it almost seemed real, seemed genuine behind the levels of apathy that the younger teen normally operated behind. But before I could think about it more, to try to figure it out, the boy dropped to the ground with his legs crossed over each other as if he was meditating.

"What the hell are you doing?" I asked, but the demigod on the ground only held up a hand to stop me from speaking anymore than I already was.

I thought about knocking the bastard over, showing him just how much I liked being smushed in such a way, but it was rare for him to ask for silence like this rather than just bickering. Nico and I looked at each other, but both of us chose to remain silent as we watched the third teen.

The boy's head moved from side to side slowly as if he was looking for something, reaching out to something that he hadn't searched for in a long time. A look of annoyance twisted onto the younger teen's face before it changed into the small twinge that I've come to know as his triumphant look.

The teen's green eyes snapped open as he stood up just as suddenly as he had collapsed to the ground. "He's coming," the boy announced, looking to the wooded area right next to us.

"Who?" Nico asked, his hand going to the hilt of his sword, ready to unsheath the blade if the one coming turned out to be an enemy.

"Grover."

—-

Grover POV

My body shifted lazily as my mind came back to me, the drowsiness of sleep slowly slipping away. There was a faint hum at the base of my skull, there always was since I created the empathy link between Percy and I four years ago, but today it was stronger, active.

Jolting to my hooves, I pushed off of the giant elm tree that I had been sleeping against, only vaguely noting the twigs and leaves that fell from my body as I did. They didn't matter, the only thing that mattered was getting to the other side of the empathy link.

Percy.

He's alive.

He's here.

I ran through the woods, the dryads deciding to help half way through as they passed me through the trees to the edge of the forest. One of them must have misjudged the height because the next thing that I knew I was falling from one of the branches right at the feet of three teens and a hellhound.

"You okay man?" The palest of the three asked while reaching out a hand to me. There was a skull ring on the boy's hand and an avatar jacket on his body telling me just who the boy was.

"Yeah," I said, taking the hand and letting the boy pull me up. Though I think I did more of the pulling since the other boy had very little arm strength in him. "Thanks, Nico."

I turned to look at the other two teens. One of the boys was shorter than the other with red hair that reminded me of flames. Looking at him, I almost thought that it was Rachel, a mortal that Annabeth had happened across when she came out of the wrong exit of the labyrinth, but even though the hair color was the same, everything else about them was different.

The boy before me had pale skin and typical Asian features. His eyes were a startling blue that looked like a shade of the sea as he used them to study me, analyzing me as if looking for any weak points to exploit. His hands were shoved deep into the pockets of his street clothes in a stance much too casual for the level of power that I felt radiating off of the teen. He felt like someone blessed by a god. Someone with too much power to just be some demigod that another satyr found and brought to camp.

The other boy was taller than the first teen. He had dark black hair and sea green eyes that felt like ice as he too analyzed me, as if the results that he found were less than satisfactory. He was dressed in normal street clothes, with his hands crossed over his chest in an impatient manner, but there were bandages lining his neck. A sliver of more could be seen from where the sleeves were riding up on his arms. Everything about the boy seemed cold and calculating.

He didn't feel as strong as the first teen, the presence of power not as overly abrasive to those of us sensitive to it, but there was still more than enough power there to easily make him one of the most powerful demigods of this generation.

"Percy?" I asked, taking a hesitant step towards the two teens. They both felt so unapproachable that I almost wanted to go back into the trees, because at least there maybe I would be safe. "Is that you?"

When I reached out to the empathy link, I knew that the tall teen before me was the owner of its other half. I knew it even as every instinct in my body told me to run, but when the boy looked at me, it was like he felt nothing for me at all.

I watched as the shorter of the two elbowed the other in the side before looking at him with a hard glare that possibly could have just been a permanent scowl on the teen's face. "Are you going to say anything Mackerel?" The boy asked, his voice slightly accented in a way that suggested English was not his first language.

The taller boy turned to look at the other, a mocking smile on his lips, and... wow.

A sudden burst of emotion ran through my body, emotions not belonging to me but the one on the other side of the empathy link. It reminded me of the dull feelings that I would get when Percy and Annabeth were together, the emotions that the other boy didn't seem to notice or understand at the time, but this... this was much stronger than that had ever had the chance of becoming back then. It felt like the other boy was alive when he had only been dreaming before.

I forced my body to not stumble back, digging my hooves into the ground to keep still. I don't know how well the other let himself feel these emotions, but gods it was almost overwhelming enough that I almost couldn't hear the bickering that the pair were doing, fighting like cats and dogs, the same way that Percy and Annabeth had argued when they first met.

So I guess he has a type then.

"Hello, Grover," the bandaged boy said, a kind smile on his face that I might have believed if it wasn't for the empty feeling that had found its way to the link once more.

"Don't," I whispered sharply. The boy's brows twitched with genuine confusion as he looked at me, the false smile staying on his face. "Don't look at me like that when we both know you don't mean it."

The boy hummed as a slight burst of interest could be felt before fading back into nothing. "You know, I always wondered just how strong this little link was on your end," the teen remarked before letting his face fall into something so completely devoid of emotion that I would've thought that he didn't have any at all if it wasn't for the wave of emotion earlier.

"Grover," Nico said from behind me, stepping forward to join our little impromptu circle, "where have you been the past two months?"

...what?

"The last two-" I started, focusing my full attention on the son of Hades. "The last two months? What are you talking about?"

"You've been missing for two months," Percy explained, standing impossibly close to the mystery boy without somehow actually touching him.

And you've been missing for two years.

That's not the point Grover, come on, think!

"I-" I started, a fractured memory coming to my mind. "I was walking in the woods up by Harlem Meer. I felt this tremor in the ground like something powerful was near."

There was a similar tremor right now with the red head so close.

Nico looked like he wanted to ask something, but the other pair only motioned for me to continue and get my explanation over with. I decided that it would be better to do what the god-like creature said. "I saw this man in a long black coat. He was walking through the park, but he didn't cast a single shadow despite it being an almost cloudless sunny day," I explained, recalling the strangeness of the sight. "When he moved, it was almost like he shimmered."

"Like a mirage?" The redhead asked, speaking to me for the first time. I felt a shiver run down my spine, the fear spiking in my mind. But I had just enough mind left to manage a nodd.

"Whenever he passed humans-"

"The humans would pass out," Nico said, cutting me off. Normally I would have been a little miffed at the action, but given the situation I didn't care. "Curl up and go to sleep."

"That's right!" I said, all but jumping at the boy's words, hoping that he would know what was going on. "Then after he was gone, they'd get back up and just go about their business as if nothing had ever happened."

Percy whispered something that earned himself a strange glance from the shorter boy at his side, but neither said anything loud enough for me and Nico to properly hear them. They had a way of silently speaking with one another that reminded me of how the original three of us used to be. The silent glances and whispered plans that we barely got out of alive, but these two somehow seemed to be closer than we had been back then. I knew that by looking at them and feeling what Percy felt that they could share an entire plan with nothing more than a glance.

"What happened next?" The son of Hades asked, drawing my attention back to the task at hand.

I told them that I followed the strange man. That he kept looking at the buildings as if he was studying them or something. How a jogger ran by the man and curled up on the ground and the man reached down and touched her head as if he was checking her temperature before he just kept walking.

"I knew that he had to be a monster or something of the like, so I rolled him to this grove. I was in the middle of getting the nature spirits in the park to help me capture him when he suddenly turned to look at me," I recalled. My mind shut off a little, not wanting to have to remember what came next. "...His face... I couldn't tell what he looked like because it kept changing, shifting like Aphrodite's does. Only, just looking at him made me sleepy."

I took a deep breath, trying to calm my heart as I recounted everything, swallowing thickly. "I asked him what he was doing, but he said that he was 'just taking a look around. You should always scout a battlefield before the battle."

"Smart advice," Percy commented, taking me a bit by surprise. "Good way to avoid being overcome or tricked by guriella ware fare tactics being used."

I stared at the green eyed boy, startled by the way that he spoke. He sounded like an actual strategist, a lot like Annabeth. Though when she spoke in a warm, excited manner of a child finally getting to show off their talents, he spoke in the cold and cruel of someone long used to living off of information like this.

"He said that I was lucky that he was saving his energy for the main event, whatever that meant. And then he put me to sleep."

The son of Hades sighed as everything seemed to click in his mind. "Grover, you met Morpheus, the god of dreams. You're lucky that you ever even woke up."

"Bandage waste," the redheaded boy started, as the son of Poseidon turned to look at him. "God of dreams?"

The boy nodded, seeming to follow the track of the conversation even as I didn't. "Yes, he's the one behind that line of the prophecy," the teen said as if confirming something."

"No wonder he would want to save his energy for something so large scale," the shorter of the two said thoughtfully.

"Well, not everyone is an endless ball of anger like you, slug," Percy said, making a lazy motion with his hand.

"Why you!" The other screamed, aiming a graceful kick for Percy's face.

I was sure that the son of Poseidon was about to be tasting grass, something that I myself wouldn't mind having some of right now, but he dogged the kick in just as smooth of a motion as it was given, a small, true, smirk lining the teen's face.

"See, proving my point here, Chibi," Percy said, a small laugh on his lips. For only a moment I saw the boy that I remembered, the crinkle at the corner of his eyes where he used to smile brightly while selling candy illegally at our school, while laughing with Annabeth and I.

He was still there, just not available to me or anyone else from before anymore.

—-

Dazai POV

"Grover, you have your pipes, right?" I asked, dodging the teen's last attack as he stopped when he realized that we were getting back into the conversation.

"I mean, yeah, but..." the satyr trailed off, his eyes falling on the son of Hades before moving to the Hellhound and the rocks that the beast was curled up against. "No! Not the Underworld again."

"I'm not asking you to come," I assured the satyr. Honestly, it might be worse if he did come. "Just for some music to get us in."

"But Percy, it's dangerous," the satyr said, pulling nervously as the hem of his shirt, most likely to keep from stress eating it.

"I know," I deadpanned, leaving no room for any more questions about whether or not I knew the risk, "which is why you're not going." I turned to Chuuya, watching the boy's eyes widening slightly in disbelief as he already seemed to know what I'm about to say. "And why you're not going either."

"What the hell?!" The other ability user screamed, not caring that we were suspiciously loitering in a park at night and that there were probably cops nearby.

"They can sense what you are," I told the other, switching to Japanese, something that I saw surprised both the other demigod and the satyr.

The teen reached up to the choker on his throat and tapped it twice, disabling the magical item. "So could the fire happy goddess and that went fine," the boy protested, shoving his hands deeper into his pockets as if to keep himself in control.

"My uncle is nothing like her," I told him, not backing down at the other's reasoning. "He will not take kindly to the vessel of a foreign god entering his territory."

The other gifted looked at me like he couldn't understand why I was fighting him on this when he was easily stronger than me even with my demigod abilities. "You said that we were sticking together. I don't want to be left here waiting on you again like last time."

"He'll kill you," I told the boy bluntly, my voice betraying a hint of the emotion that was suffocating me. "With a wave of his hand he can lock you in an airless cell with no doors and walls too thick for even you to bust out of. He will kill you if you go down there."

Satyr, goddess, centaur. They all were able to sense Chuuya's, sense Arahabaki's presence the moment that they saw him. He won't make it two steps out of the stairs before we're ambushed and the slug is taken off somewhere where he will never be seen again.

"...Okay," he finally said after being quiet for a long moment. "But if you treat this as some misguided suicide attempt and get yourself stuck down there, I will go down into the Underworld and drag your ass out. Consequences be damned."

The scary thing is that I knew that he probably would, even if only to make sure that he didn't fail the mission from the boss.

"Yeah, yeah. Just make sure not to look back if you do," I told him, brushing the proclamation of his off.

"As if I would be that stupid," the boy scoffed before tapping the collar on his throat once more, calling an end to the conversation.

"You ready?" Grover asked, the satyr already having pulled out his reed pipes while the other mafioso and I were talking.

I nodded before motioning to the other two to cover their ears as Grover brought the pipes to his lips. It wasn't long before a shrill sound filled the air, something so horrid that I thought that my skull would split before the rock ever did, but then the boulder trembled before cracking open, revealing a triangular crevice.

I peered down into the hole that the satyr had created, watching as the steps soon disappeared into the darkness, giving no indication of just how long the staircase truly was. I nodded at the hoofed boy in lieu of a verbal thank you, not sure how sincere the words would actually sound coming off of my lips.

"I'm going to go see if I can rally the nature spirits, maybe find this Morpheus," the satyr announced, seemingly unsettled by the idea of being left alone with the hatrack. I waved Grover off, letting him go before he ate his reed pipes in anxiousness.

Nico stepped up to my side, his face contorted with an anxious look that he'd been trying to keep from being visible since the slug and I first talked to him at the edge of the camp woods today.

Looking back at Chuuya, the other teen and I nodded at each other, the same silent promise that we always make passing between us before Nico and I descended down the stairs into the land of the god of the dead, the hellhound following behind us like the lost puppy that I knew she was.

Time for a shit show.

—-

Nico POV

As we walked down the stairs, I was expecting the nervous energy that ran through my body, welcomed it even, but I wasn't expecting the doubt or the guilt that came with it.

Mrs. O'Leary had long run past the pair of us, overly eager to get back to the land that she had come from. Every happy bark and loud thump of her paws on the steps that the hellhound made sounded like a gunshot going off in my head.

Percy walked in front of me, taking up the middle of our little group. He was walking carefully so as to not fall down the steep, slippery steps, but he moved with a practiced speed that made me distantly winds just what kind of training the teen had done while out roaming the world.

The teen turned to look back at me, his face barely visible in the golden light that his sword was emitting in the small tunnel. His expression looked soft, much softer than it had been since I met him. "You okay?" He asked, his voice as kind as the look on his face.

Just looking at the older boy, a part of me wanted to cave in and tell him what I'd done, what I was really leading him to, but I didn't. I couldn't. I was doing this for a reason that went above the trust of a strange boy that I'd only met a few days before, even if he was destined to save or destroy the world.

"Fine," I said, my voice much harsher than I had intended for it to be. "Just keep moving."

I was surprised when the other teen just easily accepted what I'd said, going as far as to let a small shrug form on his shoulders as we walked. But then I remembered just who I was speaking with.

Percy is someone who knew exactly who I was, down to my time at the Lotus Hotel. He was cunning and observant. Someone that wouldn't let himself be so easily tricked unless he was doing just that, letting himself seem compliant. I remembered the way that he had looked at me when we first met, like a hunter stalking his prey. That sharp gaze... it reminded me that the genuineness in his voice and movements wasn't truly genuine at all.

We walked for another hour down the steps before we emerged from the steps at the base of a cliff. The River Styx gushed angrily to the right of us, as if it was judging me just as much as I was judging myself right now. To the left we could see Hades's palace off in the far distance, its black walls rising high around it.

We went to the left.

Percy followed me easily, not even bothering to question the change in what he'd must have thought that the original plan was to be. Most would have thought that he was dumb for doing so, but I knew better. I knew that he was letting me do this, that he wanted something where we were going.

We crossed through the black gates, walking straight past all of the souls going through the security checkpoint that was checking for any living souls stashed away among the dead, and into the fields of Asphodel with no trouble.

We walked through the short black grass lining the fields and past the greenish black trees dotting the grounds. I tried not thinking about the war that was coming. About just how many of the people that I knew would end up here as the battle raged on one way or another. That I might end up here. It wasn't a very comforting image.

Suddenly Mrs. O'Leary growled, pulling me out from my thoughts. A dark shadow appeared overhead, swooping down to the ground, bringing a coldness and the stench of death with it. The creature sat herself upon one of the trees in front of us, a cold, dead gleam in her eyes.

"Ah, Mrs. Dodds," Percy said from my side, "I see you're still as ugly as ever."

The other two Furies, her sisters, swooped down and settled on either side of the Furie, each of them snarling as if they had something against the other demigod as they glued their eyes to him.

"You know Alecto?" I asked, a slight bit of surprise coloring my voice since the other demigod had left the world of demigods two years ago.

"Sadly," the other teen commented. "She posed as my math teacher. I'm still a little pissed about that."

I nodded, not really knowing what else to do in a situation like this, before looking at the sisters. "I've done what my father asked. Take us to the palace."

Despite knowing that he wouldn't be, I almost wished that the other teen was surprised by my double cross, that a part of him had believed in me, believed that I was good, because I didn't feel like the good guy right now. I felt like the monster that people warn their children about in stores about hurting others.

Percy simply stalked up to me, his expression as cold as it had been the day that I met him. "I hope that whatever price it is that you've asked of this factor is a sufficient one," the other demigod said, getting close to me as he leaned down. "Though since it's a deal with a god I'm guessing that it won't be."

With that, the Furies swooped down and two of them grabbed the older teen, pulling him into the air as the third one came to grab me. Guilt twisted in my stomach as I watched the flying figure of the boy in front of me and remembered the way that he had pulled me out of Ms. Castellan's grip before pushing me behind himself, effectively using his body as a shield almost as if on instinct more than anything else.

I really hope that this is worth it too.

—-

Dazai POV

The Furie, Alecto, dropped me unceremoniously in the middle of Hades's palace garden, a place that I knew Prespherone had to have had a large hand in.

Trees as white as skeletons grew from marble basins all around, creating the boundaries of the garden, as flower beds with slivers of concrete between them were filled with golden plants not unlike that of the sun. Gemstones dotted the earth, refracting the ghostly light that came into the garden in an almost holy way. Looking around, I knew that if the Port Mafia were to have a garden created that it would have to look something like this.

There were two thrones on top of a small balcony overlooking the garden and the fields of Asphodel. One looked to be made of bone, carved and connected in what would have been a grotesque way if it hadn't been made by a god. The other had been made by delicate silver that seemed to almost glow under the evening light.

Being here, among the dark, after being drowned in color for so many days, it almost felt a little like coming home in a way. Even the cries of tortured souls in the distance was an all too familiar melody that I could comfortably fall into.

Skeletal warriors guarded the only exit of the building, not that it really mattered, I could kill them before they ever had the chance to raise the MI6s in their skeletal hands.

The last Furie dropped the son of Hades next to me with a noticeably much gentler touch than how they had cared for me. The other demigod was twisting the ring on his finger in an anxious motion. I reached over to the boy and tapped his hand lightly, startling the younger boy enough to stop.

"Percy-" he started, the guilt more evident in his tone than it had been since the start of today's outing.

"It's fine, Nico," I assured the boy. "I knew that this would happen from the start."

It always does.

The other teen looked like he was about to say something, but then the air started to shimmer darkly. Three figures appeared in front of the thrones, each emmeting an aura of power that I could practically feel down in my bones. Hades and Persephone appeared in their thrones as an older woman, Demeter I assume, stood between the pair. The three of them seemed to be in the middle of arguing with one another, something that they seemed very adept at.

"-told you that he was nothing more than a bum," the older goddess cried, looking at the goddess of spring.

"Mother!" The younger goddess cried in a clearly tired voice exhausted by years of reliving the same arguments.

"We have visitors!" The god of the dead cried out over the other two. "Please!"

The being turned to look at me, a clearly satisfied expression carved onto his face, but it fell as soon as it came. The being blinked harshly, closing and opening his eyes as if the sight would be different once he did. The man's lips curled downwards into a deep frown as if he was looking at a sight that he didn't like as much as he thought that he would now that it's before him.

The older woman made a displeased sound as she looked at the son of Hades and I. "Demigods, just what we need."

Nico knelt at my side as if the sight would please the gods before us. "Father," he said, drawing the deity's attention, "I have done as you asked."

"I see that," the god said. Something told me that he might have responded in a more gruff manner, but his eyes were still glued to me with that same strange gaze, not unlike the way that the doctor would look at me when he didn't think that I was looking. When he thought that I couldn't see the fear sparking behind his ugly gaze.

The demigod lowered his head in a sad manner, that had I been a better person, been human at all, I might have felt sorry for the boy.

"Nico," the god said, his voice as cold as the corpses in the earth, "leave us."

The other three people in the room turned to look at the god, each of them surprised and confused by the sudden command that he had given, but they didn't seem to have heard what I did. They didn't seem to notice the undertone of concern there, the slight wordiness that was hidden beneath his words.

He's scared for the boy, scared of what I might do to him since he believes that Nico tricked me.

Nico jolted to his feet, clearly missing the signs in his father's tone as everyone else in the room also seemed to. "You said that you would tell me about my past, about my mother if I brought him to you," the boy protested, dropping the respect he'd previously been showing.

Ah, so that's what the deal was then.

How interesting.

The queen of the underworld sighed in a rather dramatic tone that had to have been forced in some way. "Can we please not talk about that woman in my presence?"

"I'm sorry, my dove," Hades said, still keeping his eyes trained on me even as he spoke to the goddess. "I had to promise the boy something." His eyes flitted to the other demigod, the concern still there. "Nico, you have done what I asked, now it is time for you to go."

"Father-"

"Come on," I said, cutting in and speaking to the gods for the first time since they appeared. "Tell the boy what he wants to know."

The deity of the dead looked at me with a suspicious gaze, but much to the surprise of everyone else in the room, he gave in. "Her name was Maria di Angelo, she was a wonderful woman-" the god glanced at his wife in a nervous manner, "er, for a mortal," he added quickly. "She was from Viennese, but her father was a diplomat in D.C. where I met her. You and Bianca were young and it was a bad time for the children of Hades with the Second World War on the horizon. That's all I will say."

Most of the story was true, but I could taste the half truths on my tongue as if I was the one speaking them instead of the god before us.

"Now you will go to your room," the god announced, waving his hand in a precise manner full of intention. The boy vanished into the air just as the gods had appeared earlier.

"Should have made you swear on the River Styx," I muttered just loud enough for the three gods to hear.

"Ah, this one's smart," the queen of the Underworld noted, earning an annoyed groan from her mother.

"He's a killer," Hades announced, catching the goddesses by surprise as they looked at me with startled gazes, "he has to be."

"I was wondering if you would be able to sense that, being the god of the dead and all," I said, studying the three as they studied me.

"He's just a small boy," Demeter said, turning her nose up at the god's accusation and my words. "One that really should eat more for how thin he is. What could he possibly have done?"

Hades looked at the older goddess with an annoyed glare. "This boy has enough blood on his hands to paint a portrait out of it," the god announced to the other two.

I felt a cruel smile form on my face, something horrible and inhuman that a better person would have forced down for the sake of those that had to see it. A better person would not have been able to wear it at all. But I let it rest there, deeping it even as the two goddesses looked at me in dull shock. "Only one?"

"I should kill you where you stand," the god threatened, anger replacing the fear that he had felt for his son.

"But you won't," I told him. "You're going to let me walk out of here and bathe in the River Styx."

And then you will grow angry and send your soldiers after me to have me killed, but that's to be expected of a god.

"And why should I?" Hades asked, his voice thick with malice.

"Because no proper father that would hide his children away from their own safety after the Great Prophecy was given would want to see one of them, to force the only one left, to become a killer."

The god looked as if he had been slapped, as if my words were something violent reminding him of a thing that he had forgotten long ago. "My children have always been outcasted by the other demigods," the god persisted. "Why should I give up the chance to bring them honor for a killer?"

"Don't pretend that your hands are any cleaner than mine," I reminded the god. "And you'll do it because the war is coming in the next few days and I will make it out of here regardless of what you do, but if you help me, I will bring honor to that boy that you erased the memories of and locked away."

"What is it that you want, boy?" Prespehone asked, speaking up as her husband sat there quietly. Her gaze and tone were much colder than it had been the last time that she spoke.

"My mother," I answered simply, watching the deja vu flash across Hades's face. "I need to speak with her and receive her blessing before I go down to the river."

The goddesses looked at Hades in an expectant manner, seeming to agree on something for the first time since they came here. The god waved his hand in a lazy manner towards me, a flash of light following the action. "Always your mother," the god commented, something that I pointedly ignored.

A woman with dark brown hair and a kind gaze appeared in front of me, and though her form was a little hazy, I could still tell exactly who she was.

"Percy?" The spirit asked. The ghost put her hand up to my cheek, but it only passed harmlessly through, leaving a cold feeling running through my body from where the touché would have been.

"Mom," I whispered, feeling a genuine pull in my chest at the sight, at her voice as she spoke, no matter how far away it seemed.

"Do I want to know what trouble you've caused while I've been gone?" She asked, a serious look on her face that contradicted the laughter in her voice.

"No," I told her firmly, knowing that it was the truth, "you would hate me if you did."

"No, no I wouldn't, but I'll let you keep your secrets," the spirit decided, holding her hand up to my hair as if to run a hand though it, but stopping just short of attempting to do so. "Now, I know you didn't come all the way down here just to see me. What is it that you need?"

"Your blessing," I said. I told her what I was planning on doing, the risk of doing so and what would happen if it didn't. She only smiled and listened patiently as the gods started arguing amounts themselves behind us.

"Okay," she whispered after a long moment of thinking it through. I thought that she might fight me on this, but it seems that following her soul down here proved that my mind wouldn't be changed. "I give you my blessing."

"Thank you," I told her, meaning the words for the first time in years.

"Percy," my mother said, her form growing fainter by the moment now that the reason that she had been called here had passed. Her gaze was kind and understanding in a way that only a mother's could be, "remember that it's allowed to have a heart, to love someone."

As her spirit disappeared, going back to where Hades had pulled it from, I wondered if she was truly as clueless about what I have done up until now as she had pretended to be. My heart twinged painfully as I watched her go, her spirit drifting off like ashes in the wind.

The deities continued to argue as I slipped out of the door, the guards letting me through after being there for everything that had happened before. I only walked four steps before I ran into a much too thin boy and a large hellhound pacing nervously outside the door.

"Come," I ordered the son of Hades, "we have a river to go sightsee."

Chapter Text

Dazai POV

The hellhound, the son of Hades and I appeared at the banks of the River Styx as the shadows peeled away from our skin. The two Underworld affiliated creatures had shadow traveled us from Hades's palace to the river, the three of us wanting to get out of the palace before the gods inside had time to grow angry by our presence and send their skeletal soldiers after us earlier than needed.

The child of the Underworld slid off of the beast and crumpled to the black sand beneath him before his thin legs had time to catch him. I knelt before the younger boy and pulled out a square of ambrosia that I had gotten from the Stoll brothers the day after the Princess Andromeda mission. I don't know why they gave it to me, their smiles were much too innocent and devoid of their normal mischievous light for it to be anything related to their normal pranks, but with the way that things were going, I went ahead and took it.

"Your powers drain you too much," I noted, handing the healing substance over to the other demigod, watching as he nibbled on it sleepily but eventually got around to eating it all.

"With great power... comes a great need to take a nap," the boy said sleepily, shifting lazily as if to get more comfortable against the shifting ground. "Wake me up later."

I reached out and pinched the boy's wrist before the other demigod had time to pass out once more, watching with a hint of satisfaction as the other teen jolted and shot me an annoyed glare without any heat behind it. "We're at the river, zombie prince," I informed the boy, watching the annoyed pinch to his eyebrows at the name. "You need to tell me what to do."

I had a decent idea of my own on how this was supposed to go, but I didn't want to assume and die an extremely painful death that, while it would be deserved, would cause more problems than solve them.

Feeding the other demigod the last of my ambrosia with enough care to make the more rational part of my brain question why I was treating the child so nicely, I watched as some color bleed back into the teen's skin. Not enough to make him look anything close to healthy, but enough that he didn't look quite as much like a corpse anymore.

The boy gave his head a violent shake as he struggled to his feet. I stood beside him, ready to catch the other demigod if it looked like he was about to kneel over into the sand again.

"We should hurry," the younger teen decided, moving closer to the edge of the river, close enough that we could see down into it.

I glanced down at the water, angling my body so that I could still see the younger demigod out of the corner of my eye so I could step in if it looked like he was about to fall into the river himself. In the waters of the River Styx we're slowly breaking down objects, all of them frayed, burned and torn in some way or another, broken toys, ripped college diplomas that looked like they were never signed, even a wilted homecoming corsage or two. I knew what they all were without having to be told: the dreams that people had thrown away as they died.

Looking down at the black waters, I couldn't help but wonder if there was picture in there of an older me and my mother, one of a world where we both lived to see the day it was taken, where the scars had faded from our skin and our smiles were more genuine than they had ever been when she was alive. It seemed like something that she would have dreamed of. It was nothing more than a pipe dream even before the fire.

"What do I need to do?" I asked the smaller boy, turning to him as he watched the black currants, seeming to like the idea of being close to it as much as I did. The boy's eyes scanned over the last of the objects once more before looking up at me with a disappointed gaze that told me that he didn't find what he was looking for.

"You have to prepare yourself," the younger boy said at last, "or the same power that you're trying to get from the water will destroy you, burning away your body and soul." I thought about making a suicide joke or a remark about him not having to worry due to my own inhumanity, but decided that it would be better to bite my tounge instead. "There is only one way to stay anchored to your mortal life. You have to-"

I watched as surprise cut off the other boy's own words as his eyes widened with something like shock. Turning around, I found myself before a startling beautiful Greek warrior.

The man had a beautiful face turned cruel from the reality of a war long ago left behind to the rest of the world. His hair was long, a golden color that would have shined like the sun if there was any light to let it. His eyes were the most human thing about him, a liquidy green that reminded me of a shallow sea. He wore a white tunic and had Greek battle armor adoring his body, there was a lethal gracefulness to his movements when he moved even as an arrow dug its way into his heel.

I didn't have to ask who he was. This hero is one of the few that most people in the modern world would know even if they had no interest in Greek myths. What I did wonder though was just how much modern beliefs influenced the appearance of the heroes of old stories.

In the Iliad, the hero before me hadn't been as invincible as he was believed to be now. Back then, he had only been remarkably skilled and had died in battle getting revenge against the enemy soldier that had killed Patroclus. In the earlier stories, an arrow blessed by Apollo had killed the hero's companion since Patroclus had gotten too close to defying fate. I don't know if they were really just companions as most stories say, or if they were something more, but looking at the warrior now was like looking at a half a soul that desperately wanted to become whole once more.

"Achilles," I said, watching as the ghostly figure drew closer.

The ghost only nodded, a solemn look softening the cruel look carved into what once should have been a kind face. "I told the other one not to follow in the path that I created, now I'm warning you."

I hummed, taking in the information that the deceased was giving me. It was the confirmation that I needed to know that we were on the right path.

"Do not do this," the ghost pressed on, not seeming to realize that just how useless his words were right now, not to something as suicidal and desperate as I currently was. "It will make you powerful, but it will also make you weak."

"It was your own arrogance that made you weak," I told the spirit. "You believed yourself to be invincible and forgot about those around you. Don't act like we're the same."

I knew that I wasn't invincible, I all but reveled in the fact. If I was invincible, it would be much harder to die as I wished to. I would actually have to live to see my own death. This was as close to invincible as I was willing to go, only because I knew that at the heart of it wasn't quite so.

"I have to do this," I told the Greek hero, something alien slipping into my tone.

It's the only way that we both make it through.

I don't know if the hero was just too used to the heated defiance that all those that came here before seemed to have, or if he'd given up on trying because the spirit only sighed, something cold and ghostly before he spoke, "Let the gods witness that I tried.

"You must concentrate on a mortal point, your mortal point. You have to pick a spot on your body that will remain vulnerable even as everything else becomes the exact opposite. This point is where your soul will anchor your body to the mortal world. It will keep you human. It will become your greatest weakness but also your only hope," the spirit explained.

As he spoke, I wondered just how likely it truly was that I would live through what was to come. I was never someone that many would truly call human even before I made my way to Japan. But I knew that I had to do this, I knew it as well as I knew the familiar clench in my heart that came from doing something that I didn't want to. For the first time in years, I was staring down at an almost inevitable death, and I didn't want to see it come. I still wanted to die, but I didn't want to die like this.

The spirit disappeared as I walked closer to the river. I heard Nico let out a sound of protest, most likely second guessing his decision to bring me here, but I ignored the other demigod and walked into the current.

The water rose up around my body as I focused on the small of my back, it was a small spot that I knew would be covered by the Greek battle armor that I would have to wear when everything went to hell. It was a well protected spot that enemies would have to try to hit in a fight, it was also a spot that I knew that Chibi would cover. We've always had each other's backs. We always protect each other.

The water burned at my skin in a way that I hadn't felt since the beginning of the doctor's test when the boss and I had first met and he took an interest in me. Some of them burned so bad back then that it almost felt like my skin was burning off. The only difference now was that I knew that it was. It made the pain from back then almost pale in comparison.

As the water consumed me I knew that I wouldn't be able to breathe beneath it even if I were to try, but the thought didn't scare me as much as it might have if I had grown up and stayed at camp longer. Back in Yokohama, I could drown just as there as I could right now. Every nerve in my body seemed to burn, alight with some fire that I hadn't felt before.

I knew that I was losing the fight. The pain wasn't the problem, it had long ago become a constant in my life that I almost didn't mind it as much as I knew that I should have. But I could feel my soul seeping out of my body, the only proof that I had that I had one at all anymore. But knowing that I had it wasn't enough for me to be able to keep it.

Come on Mackerel, a familiar voice goaded me, are you really going to die like this?

There was a violent tug at the base of my back as I recognized the voice.

Suddenly the current wasn't what was moving my hair, but an early morning summer breeze that tickled at my neck. The sun was shining down on my skin, warming it in a way that only the light could. When I opened my eyes, there was an annoyed looking teen staring down at me as he sat down at my side, our knees pressed together over the enrage of the roof. The city skyline was laid out before us, but beyond it was the sea. The water was the same shade as Chuuya's eyes when the other boy looked at me.

The older boy was wearing normal clothes, something close to how he would have dressed when he was with the Sheep, but unlike then, he looked free somehow, unweighted with the responsibilities of his own life. When I looked down at my own body, I was dressed similarly to how I would have before I ran away to Japan. The thing that I noticed the most was that my skin was bare.

The sun was beating down on my body as skin unmarked by the life that I have lived soaked it in. There was a healthy tan there where bandages normally would have been. The other boy kicked my foot lightly, drawing my attention away from my arms and back up to him as he moved closer to where I was. The small smile gracing both our lips seemed genuine enough for my heart to stutter.

"You are such an idiot sometimes for someone so smart, you shitty mackerel," the other boy said, but his voice was soft as he reached out and waited for a beat to see if I would pull away. When I didn't, the other teen put a hand on my back, lightly tracing the spot there as if he knew exactly what it meant. He circled it lightly, not seeming to notice how his touch felt like fire on my skin. How I wanted to burn. "You've got to go back," he whispered, leaning in close enough that I could see every shade of blue in the other's eyes.

My eyes fluttered closed as memories cascaded across my vision: late nights on the roof, endless hours of doing paperwork just a hair's breadth away from one another, a beautiful disaster destroying every enemy in the way, of the morning in the hotel, time spent at the base of a hill.

My body sprung from the water as I threw myself onto the black sand, startling the son of Hades enough that he jumped back from the bank of the river despite the poor condition that he was inevitably still in.

"Are you okay?" The boy asked, scrambling closer to where I was trying to pull myself up from the ground.

I looked down at my hands and found that the skin there was an angry red and imagined that what was visible of my neck and face was probably no better. My body burned in the same way that it had when the explosion had gone off in Suribachi City the day that I met Chuuya. But the longer that I stared, the paler the color became until it returned to the normal sickly pale color that I've grown accustomed to seeing.

"I'm fine," I answered, tasting the small lie on my lips. Physically I was fine, but I could still vividly remember the images that I saw only moments before, the things that I wanted in that moment. I couldn't help but think that it would be a little while before I was truly okay with that.

"Do you feel any stronger?" Nico asked, his eyes doing a quick once over as if to see if there were any physical changes that could be seen.

Before I could decide how to voice what it was that I was feeling, there was a sudden voice booming through the area. "THERE!"

Springing up from the ground, I whipped my body around fast enough for my vision to speckle from the motion. There was an army of the dead in front of us. Roman skeletal soldiers burnished in torn armor and damaged shields and spears. Behind them was an equal number of British redcoats with bayonets already pointed at my general direction. There was no one leading the charge, but I knew who's orders they were all there on.

I glanced back at the exhausted demigod behind me that had managed to pull himself up off of the ground and was leaving against the hellhound that everyone else seemed to be so fond of. The way that the soldiers were aiming and running towards us, there was no telling if they would hit me or the other demigod instead of me in their presute to see me a permanent resident of the Underworld.

My fist clenched at my side as the River Styx exploded, a violent wave rushing towards the legionaries. Weapons clattered to the ground as the older zombies began to be torn apart by the waters, giving a violent image of what I would have looked like if I'd stayed in the river any longer.

Pulling out Riptide from my pocket, I rushed at the redcoats as they lowered their bayonets. I knew that this was by far one of the most suicidal things that I have done since jumping off of the bridge a year and a half ago, but I did it anyways.

Bullets poured down on me in the way that I had seen my men do to others during missions. Though it seemed like somehow all of the red coats and what was left of the Roman spearman missed in their endless pursuit to see me dead, I knew that at point blank range almost every shot must have hit its mark, but I didn't feel a thing.

My body moved through the enemy ranks as if I was some kind of wild beast. Every move brought my sword down in a deadly arc as I moved in ways that I hadn't since living at camp. When Chuuya and I had trained together over the past few days, we had always practiced how to move in tandem with each other, not apart, but I was still a devastating force to be seen.

Slashing, jabbing, and rolling fast enough that I didn't feel the pain from any of my actions, I massacred everyone around me, listening as the weapons and bones clattered to the beach like a distant symphony.

Sucking in a breadth, I looked around, training my eyes on everything around me that could be seen as a potential threat, but was slightly jarred to find that there wasn't one. As the world slowed down around me, and the adrenaline started to loosen from my system, a bone deep tiredness settled into my body as my muscles ached with even the smallest movements. I looked down at my clothes and found slash marks and bullet holes littering what once had been a decent shirt.

A silent wave of relief rolled through my body when I saw that none of the bandages had been damaged enough to reveal anything that I wouldn't want to be seen. They would still need to be replaced when I got back to camp, but my shirt and my general fighting style had saved me from having anymore of my skin exposed.

"You just..." the son of Hades started, his voice trailing off into a mute shock at the level of damage that I had just created. Honestly I might have been too if I hadn't known about the myths behind Achilles.

"Well, that worked I suppose," I commented lightly, putting my sword back into pen form and away into my pocket with a voice much too monotone for what had just happened.

"My gods," the younger demigod said, his voice all but dripping with sarcasm. "You think?"

I only shrugged at the younger boy and walked away from the battle field as the hellhound was bounding over to it to sniff what the reanimated corpses had left behind.

"Nico," I called out, pulling the other demigod's attention away from what was left of the skeletal warriors. The boy looked at me with a haunted gaze that seemed to be dreading the next words out of my mouth. "I need you to go back to your father and find out what surprise Kronos is planning, since I'm sure he knows."

The younger boy's ears turned red at the tips as he looked at me and shook his head slowly. "Percy..." he started, saying my name like a cornered animal, "I... I'm sorry, please let me come with you. I want to fight." There was more than a hint of desperation in the son of Hades's voice as he spoke, his eyes darting wildly between me and the direction of his father's palace.

Gods this boy is a mess.

"Nico," I started once more, forcibly softing my voice from the cold tone that I normally held with others. "This is not a punishment or anything of the like," I reassured the smaller teen, stopping close enough to the other that I could almost smell the fear coming from him. I placed a hand on the boy's shoulder in what I hoped came across as a reassuring manner. "You'll simply be of more use here for the time being. You're the only person that could hope to win him over in time, and once you do, Chuuya and I will be more than happy to fight alongside you."

"Well that's a depressing thought to say the least," the other boy commented dejectedly, rubbing the back of his neck violently enough that I was tempted to grab his arm and yank it down. "Fine," he decided, nodding and putting his hands in front of him so that he could twist the ring there, "I'll try."

"Good luck," I wished, silently surprised that I almost meant it. "I have somewhere to go."

"Where," the younger demigod asked, his tone holding much less of the fear that he had only moments ago.

I looked over at the cave entrance not far away from where we were standing now and thought about the long climb that was to come to me. "To get this war started," I said, flashing the younger teen a cruel smile that reminded me too much of the person that it was molded after for me let myself wear it for more than a moment or two, "what else?"

Chapter Text

Chuuya POV

Time passed slowly as the sun started to rise from where it had been hidden in the night. Passively I couldn't help but wonder if the star really was being pulled by a golden chariot as the myths suggested, but I brushed the thought aside. There were enough things to worry about without having to think about occurrences as inconsequential as this.

It wasn't much longer before a thin figure and a much larger one emerged from the cracks in the stone that had been created when the trio had first descended into the Earth. The only notable difference was that only two were emerging whereas three had gone in.

Dazai looked at me with a tired gaze as he stepped aside quickly to let Mrs. O'Leary out from behind him, seeming to want to get away from the hellhound as fast as he possibly could despite how tame she appeared to be. When he did, I was finally able to get a good look at the younger teen in the early morning light. There were bullet holes littering his clothes and slashes from blades everywhere else. I met the taller teen half way between us and gave the younger boy a careful once over, looking for any sign of injury that I could think of, but all I found was a tired look on the demigod's face.

"It worked then?" I asked, forcing my mind to shut down and focus on the task at hand.

All I could see everytime that I closed my eyes was a bloodied corpse laying alone in the dark. It's all I could see most times that I thought of what the other teen was doing when he went off on his own, but this time it seemed to affect me more somehow as I could see the evidence of what could've been right before my eyes.

I lifted my hand to the younger teen, hooking my fingers through the holes that the bullets had created with a sickening tug. I pulled away when I felt the way that the other boy went still beneath my touch as he tried to cover it up with a nod of his head.

"It worked," he confirmed, angling his body to where we were side by side as we always were. "Now all that's left is to kill a titan."

We hopped on the back of the hellhound as we had done to get here, but the bandage waste had us make the large dog run half of the distance before making the smaller jump to camp as to not put as much of a strain on Mrs. O'Leary. I didn't commit on the Mackerel's strange choice, knowing that the other teen would immediately shut down, so I settled for something safer instead.

"Where's Nico?" I asked, turning my head to look back at the boy lightly holding onto my waist from behind me.

The teen was looking out at the blurry scene around us with a faraway gaze of a child on their first rollercoaster ride, as the wind swept his hair and his eyes took in everything around us. A small pang went through my chest at the sight that I never thought that I would see, of how young the boy looked as he finally truly appeared his age for the first time since I've met him. There was a slight reddish tint to the bandage waste's ears from the wind that also seemed to dust his cheeks, but I pushed the observations aside and waited the younger teen out.

"I told him to stay with his father," the other teen answered. I knew that I was imagining the soft dissatisfaction in the younger boy's voice as he spoke, but I held onto it anyways as if I wasn't.

"You think he can get Hades to help." It wasn't a question but an observation, but the boy still treated it as such.

He sighed lightly, the action sending a small thorium through my chest from where he'd leaned closer so that both of us could be heard over the wind that the running hellhound was creating. "Hades hid that boy and his sister away to keep them safe from the other gods that would have seen them dead before they could even come close to being sixteen," the demigod explained. "If he can't bring the god around then I don't know who can."

I nodded and hummed in agreement, unsure if the other boy was looking at me as I had been looking at him before. We didn't say anything else and let the darkness sweep over us and consume us.

—-

Dazai POV

Camp came into view with startling clarity as the darkness faded and Chuuya and I appeared just in front of the forest that we had left from only hours before. The centaur was already up and moving about the camp, a strained look on the creature's face as he did. Though the expression eased once he laid his eyes on the Hatrack and I.

"Percy, Nakahara, there the pair of you are!" The centaur called as he moved to meet us, jumping into a full interrogation once he got within an arm's length of us. "Where have you two been? Grover got back hours ago saying that you would be right behind him."

Chibi and I closed ranks together at the inquisition from the older man, a habit that we had formed over the past few months working alongside one another. "Underworld time works differently, Chiron. I'm sure you are aware of this," I reminded the centaur, looking up at him with my normal emotionless gaze. The creature bristled at my tone but didn't comment on it.

"I thought that Grover had misunderstood your intentions," the instructor explained. "I didn't think that you were actually foolish enough to go down there at a time like this."

I shrugged at the older man, a wolffish smile on my face that he seemed to misinterpret as one of embarrassment. "Well," I started, forcing the condescension from my voice, "no one ever said that I was smart."

I could only imagine that look on the older ability user's face at my statement, something that must have seemed preposterous to him as he was someone that had only heard the opposite since we met, but it wasn't a lie.

Percy Jackson had never had been someone that anyone would have falsified as smart. Back then, my brain had moved just as fast as it did now, but ADHD always derailed any productive thought that I might have had at the time. Between that and the dislexia, I'd been happy enough before to just pass the grade and survive the summer at home. It wasn't until I threw my old name away and came to Yokohama that I was finally able to pull my thoughts together.

The centaur cleared his throat awkwardly, his tail giving a violent swish. "Yes, well-"

"Chiron," I started, cutting off what I was sure would have been another wonderful lecture about my habit of sudden disappearances, "go tell Argus to get the vans ready and everyone grab all of the weapons and gear they believe that they will need for the upcoming days. We're going to Olympus after lunch."

The centaur stiffened at my sudden order. "Why-?" He started, but the slug and I had already started walking off down to the dining pavilion where the tail end of breakfast was still going on, neither of us had eaten since lunch the day before and while I wasn't hungry, I knew that the Hatrack would be starved by now.

—-

Clarisse POV

The campers milled around like ants at a picnic, going to and from every part of the camp as if all of the buildings were on fire. The only people that remained stagnant in the face of all of the chaos were my own.

All of the Ares campers roamed about at the edge of the camp, keeping to themselves as all of the other campers shot my siblings open looks of disdain. I knew that no one else, not even my own canon mates, understood the decision that I was making, but I also knew that it was something that had to be done. In all of the years that I've been at camp, the level of respect that me and my siblings have seen has gone down to the point that the other demigods openly mock me behind my back.

This was something that needed to be done.

...So why does it leave such a bitter taste in my mouth?

Sitting on top of Half-Blood Hill, I watched everything with a mute gaze as all of the campers slowly finished the last of their preparations and made their way to the finding pavilion for what would be some of the campers' last meals. It would have been a soldering thought if my mood wasn't already sour.

"...Idiots," the word slipped from my mouth like a foul growl from a rabid dog.

All they have to do is give us the chariot and more of them will live. That's all they have to do, so why...?

"Why are they making things so damn difficult on themselves?"

My head shot up at the words, not because they had been spoken, but because they had been voiced by someone other than me.

The son of Posiedon strode up Half-Blood Hill with his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his skeleton jacket. Anyone looking at the boy that didn't already know him would think that the teen was the son of Hades from the way that he has been dressing lately, but the little twerp was claimed by the sea.

Are all children of the big three normally this goth?

Nico, the son of Hades, looked like he just stepped out of the Underworld itself. Thalia, the daughter of Zues, was punk when she strolled through camp, old band pins dotting her leather jacket. And now Percy came back and looked like a blend of the two, though he seemed to be leaning more towards the son of Hades on the spectrum as they both seemed to share a similar much to pale complexion and underweightness.

"Where's your shadow?" I asked, pushing past the creepiness of his previous comment. The fact that the other teen could predict what I was thinking... it was fucking weird.

The other demigod shrugged and stopped in front of me, blocking my view of the camp and subsequently blocking the sun from my eyes and leaving me no choice but to look up at him. The younger boy only shrugged and glanced back in the direction of his cabin.

"Told Chuuya to get some sleep, he was up all night waiting for me to finish my business in the Underworld and didn't get enough rest for the battle to come," the boy explained as if it was the most natural thing for him to have done.

I guess he's not as cold as he's seemed lately.

Ever since coming back to camp, the other demigod has seemed like someone else entirely from the few times that I've been around him. Everything about him has been colder and more calculated than the idiot that I remembered stumbling into camp after somehow killing the minotaur at twelve and living through it. Between the hollowness in his gaze and the coldness in his tone, I couldn't help but wonder just how serious the other demigod had been when he told me the reason behind the bandages on his body.

"What do you want, kelp for brains?" I asked, skipping past whatever formalities he may have been about to dive into. I didn't feel like playing mind games with whatever mutated version of the son of Poseidon it was that is standing in front of me right now. Especially not one with such a hooded gaze.

The boy smiled in a way that most would believe to be sweet if they hadn't had known the person that originally wore the bastard's face and knew just how fake of a smile that this was. "The weapons shed," he explained, "I need to make a stop there before the vans roll out."

My eyebrow shot up at the strange request. "You already have your Daddy's fancy little sword, what more do you need?"

Percy sighed as if the conversation was more tiring to him than it had a right to be. "Chuuya needs a knife," the boy explained. I thought that he was going to stop there, but he continued on, "and a sword isn't exactly my weapon of choice as of late."

I felt my brow raise almost impossibly higher at the surprising information that the other so willingly gave. "And what is?" I asked despite myself.

"A gun."

I felt my body flinch back just the smallest bit at the other's blunt response. As a daughter of the war god, I didn't really care what kind of weapon someone chose to use as long as it could properly inflict damage I couldn't care less. But the only problem with this was that Jackson had apparently been in Japan for the last two years, a place too far outside of the god's influence for there to be a need for the teen to know how to use a gun, unless it wasn't monsters that he was using them on.

The other teen's smile curved into something slightly more sinister than I thought that the boy had been capable of before this conversation. "The weapons shed," he repeated, looking down at me expectantly. I jerked my thumb in the direction and watched with a held breath as he started to walk away, only to stop a few steps from being out of ear shot. "As I'm sure you've figured out by now," the teen started, not bothering to look back at me, "I know quite a few things about death, more than someone like you ever could." The other demigod turned to look at me out of the corner of his eyes, but he did it wasn't the demigod that I knew that was looking at me, but someone colder. Someone dangerous. "Their deaths will be on your hands," he stated cruelly. "Decide now just how many you want that to be as you sit here and watch everyone leave."

A sharp pain went through my chest at the other teen's words, at the truth of them as I'd already thought as much earlier before he even walked up to me.

I guess the sea bastard grew up.

—-

Dazai POV

As lunch ended, the campers slowly gathered at the base of Half-Blood Hill in front of the two vans that the camp owns. The words Delphi Strawberry Service were written on the side of each of the vans, which was the cover story for the camp and provided the necessary funding for the camp and its campers.

Glancing around, I did a quick head count of everyone here. There were around forty demigods gathered around us, forty-two if I were to count the Hatrack and myself into the mix. It wasn't nearly enough for what was to come, but it would have to last us since I knew that this was all we were going to get until the Ares Cabin got off of their asses and Nico annoyed his father into joining us.

"Percy," a blonde demigod said, stepping forwards until she was at the front of the crowd, "what is all of this about?"

I turned to Chase, noticing that the girl had a laptop bag slung over her shoulder for some reason that not even I could explain. "I thought that it would be obvious," I told the girl, shrugging my shoulders lightly at the venomous look that she sent me in return. "We're going to Olympus of course."

Worry flashed in everyone's eyes as the other ability user only looked at me with a mild annoyance already used to me making seemingly random proclamations like this.

"Wait, wait, wait," the daughter of Athena started, holding her hands up and waving them in front of her face as if she could ward off the words that I had just spoken. "You want us to leave camp virtually undefended to go to Olympus?"

I sighed and resisted rubbing my eyes until I was blind in both of them. "Yes."

"Why-?"

"Camp is not going to matter if you idiots lose and there's no one to attend it," Chuuya said, cutting the blonde hair girl off before she could start questioning the entirety of my decision. "Shit is going to go down soon, but it won't be here," the older boy continued, looking just as annoyed at having to explain my methods to them as I was. "It will be out there," the teen made a vague gesture towards the direction of the city.

The other demigods looked around at each other after the short ability user spoke, seeming to understand the truth in the ginger's words even if they couldn't understand how we came to the conclusion that we did.

"So," I started, drawing the mass's attention back to me, "any more questions, comments, concerns?" I didn't give them more than a beat to answer. "No? Good. Everyone load up, let's go."

The demigods looked reluctant to move, but with a nod from the centaur they all crammed themselves into the two vans. Chuuya and I filled in first, taking the back of one of the vans for ourselves. The vehicle started to move once all of the demigods were seated and their weapons loaded into the vans. As they did, I motioned to the choker on Chibi's neck and waited until he tapped it twice to speak.

"What?" The older teen asked, the annoyance evident in the other's posture and tone.

Honestly he probably thought that I was planning on annoying him for the rest of the long ride back into the city, but that wasn't my intention at all for once. The use of a foreign language drew some curious looks from the campers sitting around us, but they all knew better by now than to do anything more than glance our way and look back.

Instead of answering the other teen immediately, I reached into my pocket and pulled out a blade that I had picked out earlier after my conversation with Clarisse. The golden dagger was made from celestial bronze as most demigod weapons tended to be, since mortal metals were all but useless on monsters. It has a few slight nicks on its sides that looked like a sword had tried to get a bite out of the blade, but otherwise it was in good condition.

I had something else for the teen as well but I didn't want to give it to him in such an inclosed space where he could bully me with it even without the use of his ability.

The older boy only shot me a curious gaze as he looked between the blade and my face. "I don't need it," he said at length and shoved the blade away from himself, careful enough that the action didn't lead to any unforeseen damages to myself or the car and people around us.

I shoved the blade back towards him, the handle facing the older boy. "Just take it," I insisted. "In case gravity fails you."

The other boy only sighed tiredly, but took the blade between us and slipped it into the sheath at his side. The belt that the other ability user was wearing right now is the same one that he wears for mafia business back in Yokohama. Back in Japan, the other teen always had a knife with him for similar reasons as this, so he had a belt with a built in sheath made with one of his first paychecks.

"I don't really see the point in this," the other teen grumbled as he adjusted the sheath to fit the slightly smaller blade.

"You and I both know that even abilities such as yours have limits to them," I explained, watching a defensive light take shape in the older boy's eyes. "As of right now, you wouldn't be able to handle some of the larger monsters that exist in my world. Just have it on you, even if you never end up needing it."  [1]

I just shrugged his annoyance off and shifted away from the look in the boy's eyes. Even as Chuuya's lips twisted into an annoyed scowl at the idea that there might be something out there that even he couldn't handle at the moment, the teen's gaze had softened into a foreign expression that I had never seen on him before.

—-

It was late afternoon by the time that we made it back into the city. At some point during the drive, Chuuya had nodded back off and was curled up against the van window at what had to be an uncomfortable angle. Although I had gotten less sleep than anyone else in the van, I chose to stay awake through the ride, staring out the window and rubbing through all of the possibilities of what is to come.

I nudged the other boy's side as the vans came to a stop in front of the Empire State Building, shoving the other teen just shy of harshly as the demigods towards the front of the van quickly filled out. The other boy shot me an annoyed glare but obediently moved to a more appropriate sitting position and stretched as he muttered countless insults in Japanese before tapping the choker lining his throat twice.

Once the other forty demigods, along with Chiron, had grouped together outside of the vans, they all turned to me with apprehensive stares.

"Percy," the centaur started, "you called them here, so lead them now that they are in place."

Move the chess pieces now that you have them.

The words echoed in my mind before I had the chance to ward them off, the voice speaking them just as callous as they had been the first time that they had been spoken. The boss had tried to take on the role of a proper teacher since I officially joined the mafia only a few months ago, that was one of the lessons that he had made sure to implement into me during that time.

I gave the campers a beat or two to voice any objections that they might have to the centaur's deceleration, but although each of them looked slightly disgruntled, none of them spoke out against it.

"Okay, we know that a trap is coming, but we don't know just what it will be. Pleading to the gods to come and help save our asses will be just as useful as expecting them to help all of the other times that we have needed it and never got it." The words were harsher than they needed to be, but it kept the others from arguing.

"So we're just going up there for answers?" One of the Stoll brothers asked, raising their hand like a small child in the crowd.

A cruel smile curved over my lips and I didn't bother trying to wipe it away. "And to have a bird's eye view of when the chaos goes down."

Some of the demigods around me looked at me as if I was growing a second head, but the smarter of the bunch knew just how valuable what I was suggesting could be.

Seemingly tired of my relentless antics, the blue eyed boy at my side sighed heavily and made a move towards the door of the Empire State Building. "Let's go," he ordered, more to the others than to me.

A security guard was sitting at the lobby desk with his feet propped up on the counter like a typical teen would while reading a book, though I knew that the man had to be well over a thousand years old. The man glanced up at us as we slowly filled the room, our weapons and atomic visible for all to see as everyone but the slug was wearing some.

"School group?" The security guard asked cheekily, his eyes falling back down to his book as he searched for the sentence that he had left at on. "We're about to close up, sorry"

Unfortunately for him, I wasn't in the mood for bullshit today.

"Aw, that's too bad," I told the man, dropping my voice into one that almost resembles actual disappointment. "Maybe we should just wait then. You know forty demigods does draw an awful lot of attention, maybe you wouldn't mind letting us in."

The man looked up to meet my cold glare, a look much too close to the doctor's for my own comfort gracing the security guard's vision as he seemed to swallow thickly. "Yes well, make it quick," he decided, pressing the buzzer and letting the security gates open.

I sent the man a dismissive wave as Chuuya and I neatly walked past the metal doctors and to the elevators on the right, pressing the button while we waited for the others to join us. We took the elevator up in two shifts, the slug and I taking the first with about eighteen other demigods crammed in beside us. Chuuya grabbed my wrist and ran a bare thumb over my knuckles as everyone else filled in and pressed up against one another shoulder to shoulder. The action was enough to draw my attention away from the bodies filling in and taking up the space around me that they shouldn't be.

The elevator doors dinged open about six hundred floors and close to thirty complaints from a certain small teen later. The other campers slowly walked out of the elevator and onto the path of floating white stones that led through the clouds up to Mount Olympus.

Chuuya went first, leaving me to be the last one to leave the elevator. I don't know if he did it just because he wanted to get out of the contraption as fast as he could, or if it was to give me a minute to draw myself back together. I didn't really care which way it was as my nerves still felt like they were on fire from all of the people that had been pressed up against me.

My skin still felt like it was crawling when I stepped onto the first white stone but I was distracted enough from the sensation when the Hatrack turned around and shot me a pointed glare from a few steps away that I could already guess the intentions of. I glanced down into the clouds and down at the earth six thousand feet below. My mind came up with a satisfying picture of what would happen if I were to just slightly misstep as we made our way to Olympus. I knew that the other teen had a similar image in his head, but the emotions behind it most likely weren't as positive as my own. I held up my hands in a silent defeat and shifted close to the center of the steps so that the other boy would turn around before he was the one falling six thousand feet.

I couldn't help but study the other boy as we walked into Olympus, to look for the moment that the sight took the other's breath away as a small smile of wonder curved over his lips. The blue eyes glittered like the sea on a cloudless day as he took in the mountains and gardens and the city around us. Our group made our way across the bridge into the streets of Olympus and Chuuya took the new sight in as he had taken in the last. He looked like someone that had just been shown one of the most beautiful sights in the world. I couldn't take my eyes away from the sight, not until the elevator did get once more and the rest of the demigods joined us.

The forty of us made our way towards the palace, passing by all of the empty streets and shops as everyone else with even an ounce of offensive power seemed to be out trying to help with the war effort, or just hiding in general like the cowards that they all tended to be despite being immortal. But everyone ground to a halt as we took in the sight on the horizon.

Blue beams of light were streaking across the slowly darkening sky like small comets moving in the night. They were coming from all over the city like missiles launched towards a central point, but as they got close to the mountain they only fizzled out as if they had never been there to begin with. None of them seemed to leave any damage on the mountain as they weren't even able to get close.

The others seemed content to stand around and watch the next few rounds, but Chuuya and I pushed through the crowd to the front. There really was no point in watching something happen and expecting a different result than the last few, unless you just wanted to become the textbook definition of insane that is.

Our actions forced the rest of the group to follow us, though I heard one of them, Michael Yew maybe, muttering something about infrared scopes. How people that have to avoid technology since it alerts monsters to their position even know about I don't know and don't truly care enough to ask.

"Why don't you all go and do a quick sweep of the city and see who is left in Olympus while we're here," I suggested to the forty or so other demigods tailing behind the other ability user and I.

They looked reluctant to do so but Chase muttered something about it being a good idea and the Stoll brothers taking charge, that seemed to be enough for them to finally disperse. I raised an eyebrow at the daughter of Athena in a pointed look, but she didn't follow the others. In the end I just let her stay, much to the other boy's dismay, remembering just how stubborn the other demigod could be when she really chose to dig her heels in. I could've had her leave, but it would just be easier to save my energy for whatever self serving god it was that I would have to contend with.

Chuuya, Chase and I walked into the hall of the gods, finding the golden and silver doors wide open as they had never truly been before. The hall was empty as the three of us walked into it; the only other noise was a faint animal noise that was quickly followed by the screeching of feet coming to a halt.

Glancing over at the Hatrack, I followed Chibi's gaze to the source of the sound. In the corner of the throne room, there was a sphere of water hovering in the air that I knew that Poseidon must have created. Inside of it was a hybrid creature with the front half of a cow and the back half of a serpent.

"What the actual hell is that?" Chibi cursed, a small look of confused disgust twisting onto the other teen's face as he spoke.

"Ophiotaurus," I answered, catching the daughter of Athena by surprise as she seemed like she had been about to answer. "The infamous Bane of Olympus, if I'm correct. Though I must admit that is a clever way to contain it. I suppose that the gods didn't want a child of the big three killing the creature for power and then turning on Olympus, right?" I turned towards the blonde demigod at the end and only got a small nod in response.

Before the girl could ask any of the pressing questions that seemed to be running rampant in her mind at the moment, another voice broke into the conversation, making themselves known.

"Hello there, Percy Jackson. You and your friends are welcome here."

There was a woman dressed in a simple brown dress by the small hearth in the throne room. Her hair was a fiery orange duller than that of the ability user's at my side. Though she looked much older than she had the last time that I saw her, I recognized the flames in her gaze immediately.

"Lady Hestia," I greeted, dipping my head in a light bow. It was more than I ever give anyone else in a position of demanding one. The goddess either seemed to notice this or just didn't care either way as she only smiled warmly as the other two with me did the same, though they bowed significantly lower.

The goddess studied me as the ability user and the other demigod righted themselves. The diety's eyes were burning as she gazed down at me. "I see that you went through with that plan of yours and now bear the curse of Achilles," the woman noted with something almost close to indifference.

Chase gasped lightly at my side as the slug just sifted at my side, having already known the choice that I had made. "Percy," she started, her voice soft with something close to worry, "don't tell me you were really stupid enough to-"

"I did," I confirmed, ignoring the demigod and turning my full attention to the goddess before me.

"You must be careful," the goddess of the home and the hearth warned. "You gained much during your journey, but still remain blinded to one of the most important truths."

I looked into the goddess's eyes, suddenly confused as to what truth it was that she believed that I had missed. But when I looked into the diety's eyes I didn't see her normal eternal flames, but images, memories from long ago not belonging to me.

A dark alley loomed around me, encasing me between two red bricked warehouses. Two teens, two half-bloods if I were to guess, were crouching in the shadows created by the buildings. One was a boy about fourteen while the other was a young girl no older than twelve. I realized with a small start that I knew exactly who each of them were.

The boy was a younger version of Luke, the son of Hermes, a few years after he had run away from his deranged mother. While the other looked like a slightly younger version of the girl that I had met the day that she emerged from the pine tree, her pine tree, at the crest of Half-Blood Hill. Thalia, daughter of Zues.

Context clues told me that this had to have been when the pair of demigods were on the run after both of them left their families, just before they met the daughter of Athena and were found by Grover.

The son of Hermes had a small, familiar, bronze knife brandished in his hand as if ready to attack or be attacked at any moment, while the daughter of Zues had a large shield and a spear. Both of them looked like rabid beasts that had the trust issues of a stray alley cat.

The pair made their way down the alley in what I'm sure must have passed as stealthily for children of their ages as they crept forward. Old crates were stacked almost hazardously at the end of the alley on a loading dock. The two demigods made their way to one of the old crates, standing on either side of it as the blond reached for the lid and grabbed it securely before silently counting down while the other demigod got ready to attack should whatever is inside be some kind of threat.

The older demigod ripped the lid away once he reached a silent zero and sprang to the side as a small body lept from the crate with a beaten hammer in their hand. The younger Luke made a quiet noise of surprise that seemed much too human for the beings that we had become since the vessel and I met. He reached his hand out and ensnared the arm of the person holding the hammer in an ironclad grip before they got a chance to brain the demigod with the hammer.

The owner of the hammer turned out to be a small blonde girl no older than seven. The appliance skidded across the alley as the girl jerked violently, more concerned with getting away than holding onto the weapon in her hand. The child screamed something about monsters as she fought and kicked the older demigod with a viciousness that only a child could have.

The boy said something to the daughter of Zues that made her put away the shield that she was holding. It turned into an almost delicate looking silver bracelet that looped itself around her wrist.

Thalia held her hands up in a placating manner as she tried to calm the young girl. "We're not going to hurt you," she assured in what I assume was supposed to have been a calming voice but just came out as startled and slightly abrasive, not that either of the other demigods seemed to notice. The daughter of Zues introduced herself and her companion, but the small girl wasn't having it.

"Monsters!" She screamed, the girl's kicking got faster and harder as she still tried desperately to get away from the older pair of demigods, gray eyes flashing with enough fear that I was sure it must have reeked off of her.

"No," the son of Hermes insisted, making sure to keep his voice firm so as to be heard over her screaming, but not harsh so as to not scare the girl away. "But we know all about monsters. We fight them too."

The young Annabeth looked up at the two demigods with a suspicious glint in her intelligent eyes, but as the conversation went on, her gaze seemed to soften. It even took on an almost exited gleam as the boy invited her to join the two of them and handed her the small dagger that she I knew that she still had. The young girl gripped the hilt of the blade with a look that must have betrayed how unsure that she felt.

"Knives are only for the bravest and the quickest of fighters," the son of Hermes decided. He explained how they didn't have the power or reach that swords did, but were stealthier and easier to conceal from others. The way that he described the blades, it almost seemed like he was talking about a snake rather than metal, though I suppose the comparison is just. "It takes a clever warrior to use a knife. I have a feeling that you are one of the cleverest."

The youngest demigod beamed at the eldest words. Even the daughter of Zues seemed to have been affected as she grinned at the interaction between the two before trying to cover it up by telling the other two that they needed to move.

"You're not going to take me back to my family, right?" The daughter of Athena asked, holding herself in a more scared posture than I'd ever seen the girl have in the time that I knew her before leaving. "Promise?"

The son of Hermes put a warm hand on the smaller girl's shoulder and a kind smile on his face that I was actually inclined to believe. "You're part of our family now," the boy declared. "And I promise that I won't let anything hurt you. I'm not going to fail you like our families did us. Deal?"

The girl beamed up at him before looking at the other demigod as well with the same bright look in her eyes as she agreed.

Family... What a sick joke.

Growing up, the only family that I had was my mother, but even that was almost nothing more than a relationship built on the suffering that neither one of us could really escape and the lies that both of us were all too willing to tell. We didn't act like a proper family until my step father was nothing more than stone, and even that was short lived.

The scene shifted suddenly and the three demigods were running through the woods. I don't know how much later this scene was after the last one, but I knew by their age that I couldn't have been more than two months at most.

The three ran until the woods cleared out and they were on top of an all too familiar ridge with a worn white colonial house at the base of it. Thalia said something, asking if Luke was fine with being here, but the elder only snapped at her, saying that they needed the food and the medicine.

His foul mood didn't lessen as he snapped at the young Annabeth as well. Apologizing to the girl after she shrunk away from him and his anger, hiding herself behind the daughter of Zues.

The boy turned to leave so that he could sneak down to the house, but a brilliant flash of golden light held him in place as it illuminated the woods around them. Each of the demigods winced and shrunk away like bullied children as a loud voice screamed out at the three of them though the words were only for one.

"You should not have come home."

—-

Chuuya POV

I knew that the goddess was speaking bullshit. I was expecting that much after all, but I wasn't expecting the dull look that flashed over the bandage waste's face before he almost crumpled to the ground. The blonde demigod reached out almost instinctively to grab onto the younger teen, but I got to the boy first and pulled him to my side out of the other's reach. The girl sent me an annoyed look, but I warded it off with a dark look of my own.

Dazai flinched lightly in the way that someone trying to hide their actions would, but relaxed once he realized that I was the one holding onto him. I couldn't stop the strange feeling that came to my chest at the sight as the boy righted himself, the sharp pain in my chest that felt almost as painful as a knife, but I ignored the feeling, shoving it away as far as I could as the other ability user started to speak.

"Stay out of my head," the boy growled, his voice laced with more venom than I thought that the other was capable of possessing. The look in the other's eyes wasn't much better as he looked at the hearth goddess as if he could put out her flames with the ice in his gaze alone.

The goddess looked almost hurt and the other demigod looked mildly scared of what the goddess might do if the suicidal boy's words crossed a line with her. I didn't care about either as anyone that managed to set off someone as unfeeling as the mackerel deserved whatever wrath it was that he chose to bring down on them.

The goddess only smiled anxiously at us instead of replying to Dazai's tone. "I will leave you now," the woman decided, bowing lightly as she dispersed into tendrils of smoke. I thought that the goddess's actions were cowardly until someone else came into view, someone that I had not met before.

A god shimmered into existence in the place that the goddess had just disappeared from, and he did not look pleased. The man looked to be somewhere around twenty-five though I knew better than anyone than to trust that assumption.

The god was wearing a military grade pilot's uniform with little wings on his helmet and black combat boots. Poised in the diety's hand was a long golden staff with two serpents intertwined at the top of it. The god had a bitter look on his face as his brows furrowed into an unfavorable expression.

"Hello, Percy," the god greeted, though his tone was anything but warm. The diety's eyes swept over Chase and I, though I noticed that they lingered on me for a moment longer than they did the daughter of Athena before returning to the bandage squander.

Dazai nodded his head only slightly, showing as little respect as he could while still feigning to show any at all, though I knew that it was still more than the bandage waste would ever show Mori in this lifetime or the next. "Lord Hermes," the other ability user greeted, his voice back to its normal monotone.

So this is Hermes then. The father of the man that became the vessel for the titan.

The other boy sighed lightly as he looked at the staff. "Hello, George. Martha."

I thought that maybe the mackerel had finally lost it, but when I followed the teen's gaze, I saw that he was looking at the two serpents. The two moving serpents.

Shit.

I forced myself not to make a face that the other three mythological creatures in the room could see as I watched the serpents sway back and forth, each of them hissing lightly at the son of Poseidon as if Dazai could actually understand them. For all I knew he could.

"Hermes," the younger teen started, stepping forward as if to draw the attention back to him, which I admit was a nessasary move as the two snakes were now snipping at each other in what was actually a decently entertaining scene, but I didn't miss the way that the taller angled his body as if to hide me from the god's view. "I know that it's useless to try and ask for the gods to come back and help even though most of you must already know that Typhon is nothing more than a distraction to keep the lot of you away, so I'll skip past those formalities and ask if there were any messages left for us. Preferably by Athena."

I watched as the god bristled at the demigod's tone, finding it amusing that the bandaged teen's personality could even annoy a god that's had hundreds of years to become immune to mortal ways. "I'll ask you just this once to watch your words, boy," the deity warned, his voice as cold as the look in the bandaged teen's eyes.

The mummy only looked up at the god with an equally cold gaze as his lips curled into a smile much too close to that of Mori's for my own liking. I knew that the two were similar, but I didn't like seeing it with my own eyes. "No can do, you know as well as anyone that I have a bit of an attitude problem."

I couldn't help but wonder if annoying gods was the shitty bastard's latest attempt at suicide because he seemed to be doing a very good job these past few days if it was.

"My mother," the daughter of Athena broke in, likely trying to save the other demigod from being smited by the messenger god, "did she leave a message for us?"

The deity muttered something about how people said that being the messenger god was going to be some glamorous job as he turned to look at the girl. "She said to warn you that you guys are on your own and must hold Manhattan by yourselves."

I could see Dazai rolling his eyes at my side, likely having been hoping for something a little more substantial than what we had just been given.

"Anything else?" I asked, growing impatient with the way that everyone seemed to be tip toeing around and wasting time.

The god only glanced at me for a moment this time, but when he did I could practically feel the disgust radiating off of the deity in waves, as if he thought that my existence was something to be revolted by. Though I guess that it probably was in a way.

He looked over at the daughter of Athena with a considering gaze that seemed to be crumbling under the effects of pleading, gray, doe eyes that the girl was giving him. The god sighed as if wondering how his life got to this point, a question that I have shared with him over these past few days.

"She said to try plan twenty-three, whatever that means," the god said at last. I watched the way that the girl's face paled drastically at the god's words and decided to get the bandage waste to ask about it once we were done with all of this, knowing that he would have better chances than I would with actually getting an answer. "Last thing, she said to tell Percy: 'Remember the rivers'."

Remember the rivers...? Just what the actual fuck is going through these idiots heads? They're starting to make the mindless Arahabaki look like a nice alternative.

"Thank you, Hermes," the daughter of Athena said, continuing on as if the god had not just spoken complete and utter bullshit since he materialized here. "And I... I wanted to say..." the girl kept trailing off as if the words that she wanted to say died on her tongue just before she said them. I noticed the way that Dazai's hand dipped into his coat pockets as she spoke, but I didn't pay it much mind. "I'm sorry about Luke."

The god's expression hardened into something colder than ice as the daughter of Athena took a nervous step back towards the bandage waste and I. "You should've left that subject alone."

"Sorry?" The girl questioned, her voice small enough that I almost didn't hear it, but I knew that the messenger god did.

"Sorry! Sorry, doesn't cut it!" The man screamed as his staff changed into something that resembled a high voltage cattle prod.

The god started ranting about how Chase should have saved his son when she had the chance to do so, something that I'm sure the mackerel was making a mental note about just as I was, but I stopped listening as the boy in question held a small bag out to me.

It was a small drawstring bag only a little bigger than the other teen's fist. My eyebrow arched up in question on its own, but I grabbed it without giving the action any thought, I didn't have to after all, I trusted the other boy enough for that. When I pulled the bag open, I found about thirty pebbles inside of it and immediately understood what the other wanted me to do.

Grabbing one of the pebbles, I watched as it took on a faint red glow and floated above my palm. With the rough sweep of a hand, I increased the gravity that was on the small rock and sent the pebble flying at the angered god, watching as the rock hit the other square in the head. The messenger god stuttered to a stop and the action and turned to the other mafioso and I slowly.

Tapping a handful more of the pebbles, I let them float around me, carefully keeping a small distance from the other ability user as the god's harshly glowing eyes trained in on the two of us.

"She's a child, he is a full grown adult," Dazai said, his voice cold and stern enough to seemingly anger the god even more as he spoke. "Let him be responsible for the choices that he has made."

A small proud smile curved itself onto my lips as the younger boy spoke. It wasn't often that I got to see this side of the teen, the side that chose to blatantly protect someone else instead of manipulating the situation into keeping them safe. It made me wonder once more what the other boy would have been like had his blood not become mafia black.

The messenger god however, did not seem to share my sentiments.

The man grew in height until he was an easy ten feet tall with the cattle prod pointed directly at the pair of us. The tip of the weapon glowed brightly, but before the god could strike, the two snakes slithered up the cattle prod and whispered something into the god's ear.

The messenger god sighed heavily and lowered his weapon, turning it back into the staff that it had been before, but he didn't shrink back down. "Percy Jackson, because you have taken upon the curse of Achilles, I must spare you. Your path is now in the hands of the fates. But you will never speak to me this way about, and you will get your little godling under control if you want to be allowed to keep the monstrosity."

The messenger god sent a pointed look my way before disappearing the same way that he had come here.

"You know," I started, waiting until the ability user was looking at me to speak, "I think he liked us."

The bandage waste's lips quirked into a smile so small that you almost wouldn't know that it was there if you didn't know to look for it. It was for that very reason that I knew that this was one of his real smiles and not one of the ones that he plasters on for whatever task at hand it is that requires the bright, fake smile. However, the annoyed scoff from the other demigod killed any warmth that might have been gathering in my chest at the time. That and the demigods running right for us.

"You need to see this," one of the Stoll brothers, Connor maybe, said as the other one stood beside him. "Now."

—-

Dazai POV

The strange blue lights from earlier had stopped, but with it, it had brought a whole nother problem to take its place. This one much more effective than the last.

The Stoll brothers took us to a small park area at the edge of the mountain that all of the other demigods had convened at. There was a railing set up at the edge of the mountain cliff, with the typical tourist binoculars stationed around it. The demigods were taking up each and everyone of them.

"It's so..." the other ability user started from my side, seeming to trail off as he spoke. Neither one of us were used to the sounds that we were hearing right now, not after living in cities for the entirety of the lives that we have known.

"Quiet," I finished for him, watching as he nodded slightly at my side.

As it was, there barely seemed to be a soul down there despite it being what was supposed to have been rush hour on a normal day.

My mind sparked with an idea of what could be going on, but I knew that I would need to see the scene below if I were to decide either way.

I pushed one of the demigods at the binoculars away and looked down at the scene below, finally seeing what was going on since I couldn't hear a thing. In the streets down below, there was no traffic as it seemed that most cars had come to a slow stop. Pedestrians could be seen laying on the ground, curled up there as if they all fell asleep.

So I was right.

"Are they dead?" Silena asked. Her voice was thick with worry though it had a hint of astonishment to it as well. I knew that the older must have already been halfway to a pain in attack at this point, as guilt was threatening to consume her for her part in all of this.

"Not dead, but asleep." Chuuya glanced at me, having already figured out what was going on after seeing it as I did. "Morpheus has put the entire island to sleep. The invasion has begun."

I forced the smile off of my face as I said the words to the others, but I knew that some of it must have still shown from the dirty look that the other mafioso was throwing my way, but for once I didn't care. 

The orchestra that would decide our fates has started and I finally get to kill the conductor.

Chapter Text

Chuuya POV

We went back down the elevator to the city below. I could almost feel the apprehension in the air as we did, as all of the demigods around the bandage waste and I feared what was to come. I didn't mind the pressing threat of war at all, finding it to be more comforting than the idea of just waiting for it to come. While I was sure Dazai shared my sentiments on the battle ahead, his frame was stiff the entire ride.

The younger boy's hands came together as he absentmindedly scratched and scraping at the skin beneath his bandages. It was something that the other teen seemed to do when faced with a situation like this that he has thrown himself into and has no way of automatically getting out of. I did as I had done on the ride up here when his hands had started to shake, and guided the two hands apart from each other while continuing to hold the one closest to me, rubbing small circles over the other teen's knuckles.

Some of the campers noticed the motion out of the corner of their eyes and nudged their friends to point it out. I thought about just dropping the other boy's hand, but didn't when I noticed that he was out of it enough to not notice the other demigods' actions. The other teen's shoulders were tense and his skin a silky pale that the bandage waste hadn't yet naturally achieved. I knew that being pressed in like this was bringing up something in the other boy that he didn't want to remember. The same something that I saw when the other wakes up from nightmares that he can never seem to escape.

In the few moments after the other boy has woken up, I know better than to touch the mafioso. At that point even the slightest shift can be seen as some type of lethal threat by the other boy and is met with the violence to match it. Dazai seems to come back to himself after a minute or two and then his gaze seeks me out and we lay back down with a small space between us and our connected hands, but I know that that kind of reaction doesn't just come from nowhere. So I let the little demigods whisper and stare as much as they like, so long as they keep their attention focused on our intertwined hands and not the boy slowly falling apart as I try to hold him together.

The tension slowly seeped away as we left the elevator and went back into the street where the vans were still parked as if waiting for us. I dropped the other's hand as we stepped through the doors and took in the new scene:

Two creatures, harpies, were still inside of one of the vans as the third driver stood outside of his with a look of quite impatience painted across his face. Though it could have just been his normal look as it was covered in eyes.

I stuck to Dazai's side as he walked over to the man covered with eyes that had driven us and half of the other demigods here. I've never heard the man speak, and I figured that this was it going to change even as the suicidal manic told the creature to go back to camp and attempt to gaurd it. I was right of course as all he did was look at the blonde demigod and drew a circle on his wrist with his finger.

"Yes," Chase agreed. "I think it's time."

"For what?" I asked, but didn't get an answer as the many eyed creature just rummaged through the back of the van and the daughter of Athena pretended that I hadn't spoken at all.

My answer came in the form of a large bronze shield that the many passed to the daughter of Athena as he closed the van back. The girl held it as if considering just what she wanted to do with it, but in the end she just sat it down on the ground.

Glancing down at the shield, I wasn't really expecting to see much, but when I looked at the shield's reflection, I didn't see the Empire State Building or even any of the demigods that had gathered around to watch the scene unfold as Dazai and I had, but the Statue of Liberty.

"A video shield," the bandaged boy mused, looking almost impressed with the invention that the other demigods had either found or managed to create.

"One of Daedalus's ideas," the blonde demigod explained, a sense of pride seeping into tone. "I had Beckendorf make it before-" the girl glanced at the head consular of the Aphrodite cabin, looking as if the words that she was going to speak had died in throat as she did. I glanced over at the daughter of the love goddess as well, thinking that I might feel some kind of sympathy for the poor girl, but all I could do was wonder why she would let herself fall into such idiocy. Everyone knows that it's foolish to fall in love during a war. I couldn't understand why anyone would want to subject themselves to that.

The daughter of Athena cleared her throat awkwardly before continuing. "Anyways, the shield bends natural light to create a reflection. So long as either sunlight or moonlight is touching it, it can show you a target anywhere under the sun or moon."

As if to prove her point, the blonde girl waved her hand over the shield, different images appearing with each swipe of her hand. It wasn't long before one of the sons of Hermes, Conner apparently, had the girl back up to one of the previous images and zoom in on a mortal run candy shop. Only to be chastised by one of the Demeter children.

The daughter of Athena thanked the driver, Argus, for the shield before he and the two harpies that drove in the other van peeled away from the curd and headed back to camp.

One of the demigods, a boy that looked like he drank too much kool aid before coming here, crouched down next to a sleeping policeman that was curled up on the ground as all of the other mortals were. "I don't get it," the boy decided while standing back up. "Why were only the mortals affected and not any of us?"

The daughter of Aphrodite shook her head lightly and crossed her arms as if the other boy was being intentionally obtuse to the situation. "This is a huge spell," she explained, waving an arm out lightly as if to indicate the entirety of the island. "The bigger the spell, the easier it is for stronger beings to resist. In order to put millions of mortals to sleep, a very thin layer of magic must have been used. It would have had to have been much stronger to affect demigods too, but then the radius of the spell would have had to have been smaller."

All of the demigods around me stared at the girl in something like mute shock as she spoke. All except for Dazai who just looked on with the bored gaze of someone that already knew something that the others around us had yet to realize. It was a very familiar gaze.

"When did you learn so much about magic?" Travis asked, looking mildly impressed as he did.

The daughter of Aphrodite blushed lightly as if in embarrassment, a very high school move that no one had the time for. "I don't spend all of my time on fashion, you know."

I thought that it was strange that the daughter of Aphrodite would know about magic the way that she did as well, but Dazai wasn't currently making any moves to kill the girl so I figured that I could let it rest for now.

"Percy," the daughter of Athena called from where she was still crouched down in front of the shield, "you're going to want to see this."

The blonde girl didn't include me in her statement, but I leaned over the shelf with him anyway. Whatever information the suicidal manic was getting, I would get it too so that he couldn't go run off on another suicide mission alone agian.

In the bronze image, we could see a whole fleet of at least a dozen speed boats rushing in fast towards Manhattan. Each boat was filled with beings too human looking to be any type of monster that I've learned about over the past few days at camp which made me guess that they were demigods. Thay and 5e strangled noises of horror coming from almost everyone around me but the bandage waste.

"Scan the perimeter of the island," the son of Poseidon ordered. We waited a beat, but apparently that was a moment too long as the little bastard felt the need to add on, "Quickly."

The daughter of Athena didn't seem to mind that attitude as much as I personally would have had I been in her position, as she wordlessly changed the scenes being shown on the disk. Every new location that the blonde girl showed had another new source of enemies on the rise coming towards us with all that they had. Needless to say, none of it was a pretty sight.

"What about everyone outside of the city?" I questioned, wanting to know just how far the little magical spell's reach went so that we had a good idea of the boundaries of the war ahead of us.

The bandaged teen sent me a small look that almost looked as if he was proud of me, but I chose to ignore it. I could tolerate the occasional look of pride that the other seemed to slip up and let show after the two of us, mostly me with his plans, devastated whatever battlefield it was that we had been thrown on at that time. But the thought of him giving me that small glance because of my intellect... It wasn't a horrible feeling but something just too strange to decipher right now.

"From the images that we're getting it looks like a good fifty mile radius of time dilation has been created for us around the island, but everything outside of it seems almost normal," the boy explained. "My best guess is Kronos is messing with time, while Hecate has increased the Mist around the radius to keep new cars from trying to approach the island."

I looked down at the images and watched as the cars far enough away from the time barrier that had most likely been created by the titan turned away from the Manhattan exits, while those too close to do so were slowed down to a stop.

"Like flies in amber," one of the campers muttered to themselves. Whoever it was, I was close enough to hear them and I couldn't help but agree as I looked down to watch the scene. We have someone back in the Port Mafia with a time related ability, but they could never have pulled off something to this scale

The daughter of Athena nodded glumly, obviously not liking that the other demigod was right at the moment. "We shouldn't expect any reinforcements from outside of the island coming in anytime soon," the girl decided, stating the obvious for those less strategical inclined as Dazai and I.

The mackerel turned at my side to look at the other demigods around us with a tactical gaze much too callous for someone our age, but I found the sight comforting as he studied those around us. It was the same gaze that he got before one of our larger scale attacks. It was a sight that told me that he was taking in the state of those around us and would use everyone the most efficient way that he could without creating any liabilities. It was a cold gaze, but a reliable one that always seemed to create a plan that, even if much more painful than some of the alternatives might have been, got the most of us out alive. Got me out alive.

"So," I started, watching as the wary gazes turned towards me, "we hold the city."

This was going to be one hell of a ride.

—-

Dazai POV

"So we hold the city."

I felt something cruel carve itself onto my face at the other boy's easy declaration. I knew that this wasn't going to be an easy fight by any means once so ever, but I was sure how it was going to end. Never has that little shit made such a brazen remark of his or our abilities and it not be right.

However, from the words of disbelief coming from some of the other demigods, I could tell that this wasn't a sentiment so easily shared by everyone else in our little huddle.

"He's right," I cut in over all of the other teen demigods' frantic sounds of disbelief. "We are going to hold the city, we have to. And besides, the gods of the four winds should be taking care of the air and I already have a plan for the sea invasion coming our way. All we have to worry about is the ground invasion."

"How?" Michale Yew asked, a frown cutting its way onto the other's face.

I just waved the boy off with a careless gesture. "A gift from my father," I said as if that explained everything, but living in a mythological world such as this, it almost did.

Letting my brain wander, I thought of everything that we needed to cover with the few amount of forces that I currently have at my disposal. There were the birdcages and tunnels, and the possibility of a midtown or downtown assault, though uptown was very unlikely since the other two were the more direct routes to the Empire State Building.

"Michael Yew," I started, drawing all of the other demigods' divided attention back to me as I spoke, "Apollo cabin, cover Williamsburg Bridge," I ordered, watching the slightly disgruntled look at being bossed around by someone that hasn't been here for the past two years wash over his face, but the other boy got his expression under control.

"Gardner, you and your cabin got to Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel. Do what you're best at and grow shit where it's not supposed to be, just keep them from getting through. Conner, take half of Hermes and cover Manhattan Bridge. Travis, Brooklyn Bridge. Your canon knows how to duck shot up the most, so make them regret coming here. No wasting time looting or pillaging either, though if there happen to be some wandering hands, a pack of cigarettes and a lighter would be nice."

Some of the Hermes cabin made sounds of disappointment while others made quiet sounds of interest as they considered the terms that I layed out for them. The look that Chuuya sent me was something between mute astonishment at my idiocy and quiet acknowledgment of the positive effects that might occur should any of them actually follow through.

"Silena, Aphrodite cabin, Midtown Tunnel," I ordered, looking at the quietly determined twist on the girl's face.

This should work well enough.

The Aphrodite cabin members made quiet sounds of excitement as they realized that they were going to be on Fifth Avenue. A fact that I had forgotten existed during my time away given my distaste for fashion then and now.

"Monsters, like, totally hate the smell of Givenchy," one of the girls remarked.

"No unnecessary delays," I insisted, "but do the perfume thing if it will actually work." I glanced at Silena, a silent command to keep her siblings in line.

I thought that the demigod's words were probably just some bullshit excuse to go shopping in some of the most expensive stores on the island without having to pay the outrageous prices that most of them probably couldn't afford, but given monsters last reactions to a demigod's scent, I thought that it was worth a shot at the most, entertainment at the least.

"Hephaestus cabin, Holland Tunnel," I continued, running through the list of access points that I had seen the enemy forces coming through. "Use Greek fire and whatever traps and such you've got. Go ahead and give a bottle of the Greek fire to each of the Stolls now while we're here, they should each be able to do some damage with it on their own."

The new head counselor for the Hephaestus cabin grinned in a way that told me that he would probably get along with the Port Mafia's demolition experts well enough that we would have to move them off base to keep the whole place from going up in flames within the day. I was almost excited to see what he was going to come up with.

"Gladly," the teen decided, "We've got a score to settle after all."

"59th Street Bridge, Athena cabin go and take care of it, Hold the position," I continued.

"Malcom," Chase piped in, drawing her sibling's attention towards her, "you take them and I'll go with Percy, activate plan twenty-three on the way like I showed you."

The boy looked ready to agree, but I cut in before the other demigod could speak. "No," I said, cutting the boy off and drawing a startled look from the daughter of Athena. "Chase, go with your siblings and take care of the plan. You won't be needed for what I'm about to do."

The girl didn't look happy about this, but I wasn't giving her any choice in the matter. We used to be attached at the hip when we were younger, but I already had a partner to go down to the river with me. It may be harsh, but I don't need her anymore. And besides, whatever plan twenty-three is is important enough to warrant the whole Athena cabin's involvement, she'd just be wasted rolling Chuuya and I to the river.

I also didn't want her there in case the water sports were just as adept at identifying what the small ginger really is and have the gall to say it outloud instead of just staring at the boy. Even if they didn't say something, the constant attention from deities and the like towards the ability user was sure to garner the attention of the daughter of the goddess of wisdom before long.

There were some not so subtle looks thrown between the daughter of Athena and I, but I didn't pay them any mind, though I didn't think that I was imaging the small, almost relieved glance from the Hatrack.

"All right," I decided, getting everyone back on track. "Keep in touch and give status reports with cell phones."

"We don't all have phones," the traitor daughter of Aphrodite protested fairly.

I reached down in one smooth movement and swiped a Black Berry out of the loose grip of some obviously sleeping mortal's hands and tossed it to the girl. "Now you do, I'll make sure to send my congratulations accordingly," I remarked, watching the dull shock ripple over everyone's faces. "Use it and drop it back where you found it. Everyone should know Chase's phone number or have someone in their group that does."

All of the demigods grinned as if they like that idea, reminding me that each of them, no matter how mild mannered by my screwed standards, were all seen as delinquents at their schools because of the trouble that tended to follow demigods like moths to a violent flame.

One of the Stoll brothers, Travis I think, cleared his throat before opening his mouth to speak. "No you can't keep it," I said before the idiot could ask. The teen cursed lightly but didn't seem too saddened by the order.

I ran through the mental list of the bridges and tunnels that I had made earlier. It seemed that the new head of the Hephaestus cabin came to the same conclusion that I did when doing his own little run through. "Hold it, you forgot the Lincoln Tunnel," the boy interjected, managing to not sound rude as he did.

I felt a small stringer of curses roll off of my lips at the realization, but wasn't sure what language they were even in, though I suppose it most likely wasn't English or Ancient Greek by the confused glances aimed at me from the other demigods.

I thought about just sending Chuuya there, knowing that he could handle himself better than anyone here could ever hope to, but a selfish part of me didn't want to let the other mafioso leave my side.

Just as I was about to concede and send the other teen off, an unfamiliar girl's voice called out to us from across the street. "Why don't you leave that to us?"

Feeling my eyebrow quirk up at the sight of thirty or so adolescent girls crossing Fifth Avenue to us, I forced it down and back into a more neutral expression. Each of them wore white shirts, silvery pants, and combat boots, with swords strapped to their sides and full quivers at their backs, bows readily primed in their hands. A pack of purely white wolves that almost looked reminiscent of moonlight milled about their feet like loyal companions as many of the girls had hunting falcons on their shoulders.

Staring at the incoming mass, I noticed the intelligence in the eyes of the seemingly young girls, an intelligence that children their age shouldn't have, not unless they had lived as I did, or were much older than they seemed. I was banking on the latter, especially after I saw the owner of the voice approach us.

Out of all of the girls, she was the only one wearing a black leather jacket and a band t-shirt that made the demigod stick out like a sore thumb among her peers. Other than that, she was the only one with a silver crown nestled in her spiky black hair. I thought that the skull earrings were a nice touch that really added to the goth children of the big three theory that I could only guess Clasrisse had from the way that she had studied my attire on the hill.

"Thalia!" The daughter of Athena cried happily, a much too bright noise for the situation that we were all in, not that that had ever stopped Chibi and I from arguing before in times like this.

"Hunters of Artemis," the daughter of Zeus said, a smile much too artificial to be believable gracing her lips, "at your service."

...Great.

—-

There was a tension in each of the hunters' shoulders as they drew closer to us, stopping a good distance away from all of the other demigods, showing the obvious division between the two groups. It was a petty move on their part that no one had any time for at the moment. They could all duke it out and try to kill each other on their own time once Chibi and I were on the plane back to Japan. Assuming that we lived that long.

The daughter of Zues turned towards me as if considering me before she chose her next words. "You must be Jackson," the girl concluded, a disapproving glint in the other demigod's eyes, "finally come back have you?"

I felt my body straighten out into a posture that was eerily similar to some way that I'm sure Chuuya would stand in a situation like this, something that didn't go unnoticed by the boy in question as he sent a quick appraising look. "Yeah, limited showing, only for the next few days," I told her cheekily. The daughter of Zues shot me a glare that said that she did not appreciate my attitude, something that I found mildly entertaining since I was emulating her. I held up my hands in a meak surrender. "What? I was just living out my life. I mean it's not like I had a chance to settle the prophecy years ago but chose to become immortal instead."

"Percy," Chase warned, stepping closer as if she could do a thing to stop us if a fight broke out.

The black haired girl growled lightly

"Thalia," she tried again, attempting to keep between the pair of us.

I was about to open my mouth again, whether to provoke the blue eyed girl or something else I didn't know for once, but a light kick to the shins made me stop to shoot the perpetrator a dirty look, flipping them off as I did.

"Hey princess," the other ability user cut in, his voice just as annoyed as it always tended to be when he spoke to me, but this time it held more than a hint of real anger in it, "why don't you take your little ladies in waiting and go to the tunnel?"

Thalia looked ready to fight with both Chuuya and I, something that I knew that she wouldn't survive if she were to act a hand on either of us, but a small look of encouragement from the daughter of Athena and a desperate plea from her followers to not be around the campers anymore made the girl agree and set off with her mydrid followers.

"That takes care of that,"I noted before turning back to the campers that were all staring at me as if I'd grown a second head, though none of them-other than Chase-looked particularly angered at the scene that just played out. If anything, some of them even looked happy about it. "Move out!" I ordered.

The forty campers surrounding Chuuya and I screamed out in a way that I was sure was supposed to sound brave, and for a moment, it did. Their voices rang through the sleeping city like gunshots fired into the quiet of the night. In that moment as their voices rang off of building walls it sounded like a war cry. It sounded like a desperate prayer.

—-

Chibi and I jogged through the streets towards the rivers, not moving nearly as fast as I would have liked at the moment, but all of the cars that we could have picked the lock to and steal from the sleeping owners were stuck in bumper to bumper traffic and if they weren't then they wouldn't have been able to make it far on the street anyways with how clogged it had become.

I was about to give up hope of finding a mode of transportation that would work for this when I heard an excited gasp at my side. When I turned to look, the slug was running off towards someone that was sleeping propped up against a store wall, but that wasn't what he was excited about.

"You are not buying one of these when we get back," I groaned in annoyance, watching the hyper way that the other teen pulled the mail carrier off of the Vespa, laying him savagely on the ground with about as much care as I give anyone other than the hatrack.

"Of course not," the other ability user agreed, turning the red Vespa around so that it was facing the needed way and climbing onto it, "it wouldn't be nearly fast enough. I'll get an actual motorcycle."

Sighing deeply and whispering a quick prayer to whatever god is listening that we don't crash and break something in the middle of an invasion, I climbed on behind the other teen. Wrapping my arms around the other ability user's waist as I'd done with the hellhound but pressed considerably closer as there was less space on the Vespa than on the beast.

The scooter went slow enough that I could still hear the other teen's voice over the rising wind around us, so I didn't miss a word as he told me about his friend back in Yokohama that had a bike of his own already and could teach him how to drive one, and maybe even set him up with one so that the other boy wouldn't have to steal it.

I couldn't stop the twinge of bitterness that went down my spine at the other boy's words. Chuuya will always be someone that has other people no matter where he was, it's just how he is. I was nothing more than a passing ship in the other boy's life, though I guess that's fine. It just means that whenever I finally leave for, when I finally get to die, I won't break many pieces of the other teen. And the ones that I do, all of his friends will be there to piece them back together again until I'm nothing more than a bitter, faded memory.

We zigzagged through the streets and sidewalks, making our way to the edge of the barrier as fast as we could. Though our progress was slower than I would have liked, I knew that we would have lagged behind much more had one of the other demigods come with us. The problems of transportation aside, they would have insisted that we stop and move every stray pedestrian from dangerous spots in the road and put out every fire that had sprung since the sleeping spell was cast. While we could have done that, neither Chuuya nor I saw the point in it. The pedestrians would be fine as none of the cars were going to start up on their own, and putting out the small fires was really just a waste of time as more would spring the longer this war drug out. We only stopped once to grab an aimlessly rolling baby carriage, however all that was in there was a poodle of all things, reminding me of the insanity of the states.

The older ability user parked the Vespa outside Battery Park, letting me off of the scooter at the lower tip of Manhattan.

"Why here?" The other teen asked, following me off of the scooter and propping it up against one of the dozens of light posts around the pair of us.

I pointed at the waters that you could come here to sit and look at just over the protective railing around the park. "This is where the Hudson and East Rivers converge and empty into the bay," I explained, knowing that the other boy didn't really want an absurd amount of details, just enough to understand. "Wait here," I ordered, climbing up onto and over the railing like it was something that I was meant to be doing.

"Hey asshole, you said no more leaving me behind," the shorter teen argued. I could almost see the boy crossing his arms angrily in front of him.

I glanced back at the other teen, a false smirk on my lips that felt about as real as the name that I bore. "Unless you've learned how to breathe underwater in the past two minutes while I wasn't looking, I'll be doing this alone."

The other boy scoffed at my answer as if he couldn't quite believe what I'd just said. "So you can control water and breathe beneath it? I guess drowning is off your little list of suicide methods then?" I could hear the anger in the other boy's voice as if it was a living, tangible, thing, something that you could hold in your palms.

"Drowning was never on the list," I told the other teen, hating the default coldness of my voice for the first in a long while, "but not because of the powers that I've inherited from my father." I watched as a thin eyebrow raised in disbelief at my words, but continued on. "Those powers don't work in Japan, it's too far out of the western sphere of influence, out of the gods' realm of control, for them to work," I explained.

I watched as Chuuya's arms slowly fell limply to his sides in a dull shock and maybe even relief. He looked like someone that had just been told that something that they wanted to believe was true actually was. I knew that the glint in the other's eyes was from realizing that, while I lied about who I was, I'd given him all of the truth that I could while still remaining every inch the lie that I had chosen to become.

"Drowning is just supposed to be one of the most painful ways to die," I told him, shrugging lightly while loosening out my shoulders, "that and burning to death."

I saw the older boy roll his eyes and knew that we were okay. Leaning forwards, I let gravity pull me over the edge as my body twisted fully towards the gravity manipulator. I brought my hand up in a two fingered salute that I was sure would annoy the smaller boy.

Letting the water cascade over my body, I forced the currents to take me to the spit where the two rivers merged tighter, pointedly ignoring the unsanitary conditions of the water and the immediate and immense need to bathe.

I felt my mouth quirk up at the side at the knowledge of what I was about to do. Really, when it came to annoying others for the sake of getting what I want, I could make it into an Olympic sport.

"Hey!" I called out as best as I could from beneath the water. "I heard that the Thames is cleaner than the two of you, or maybe that was La Seine." A coldness swept over my body, a foreign chill that didn't harm me in the slightest, but was still noticeable. "I mean it's not like it really matters, the gods only know that you can barely tell the difference between the two of you and a toxic landfill in Japan."

The water shimmered violently as two presences made themselves known before me. There was a violent anger to the two of them that reminded me of my sleazeball of a step father and the overly obnoxious war god that helped Luke set all of this in motion when I was twelve, but I knew that they would hurt me. Not yet. They may be river gods, but they were two river gods of New York, and New Yorkers are bastards that would rather get in your face than kill you cowardly where they can't be seen.

Two giant forms made themselves known before me, slowly materializing from the silt and water around me.

The god on the left looked too much like one of the sea demons that I saw on the Princess Andromeda for my own comfort. He had a wolfish face and a seal-like body that glowed a toxic green.

The other god on the right had more human-like features than his counterpart on the left. The deity was dressed in an unhealthy mix of seaweed and rags with chainmail made of metal trash covering his body. His eyes burned blue with anger as the other god's tail swished in the same fashion.

The seal, the god of the East River, gazed down at me as if I was the king of idiots. "Are you trying to get yourself killed, kid?" The god asked. I thought that there might be more to the statement, but my casual shrug at his question drew him short. "Kid..." his voice was a bit softer this time, but still just as annoyed.

"Not at the moment," I told the pair, "but after the war, yeah."

The Hudson didn't look nearly as sympathetic as his rival did as he raised his hand with a wicked look on his face. "We could help you speed that along."

All of the trash that had gathered at the bottom of the Hudson River served at me with all of the wrath of an angry god: broken glass just barley dulled by the current, rocks both big and small, cans filled water, and tires that I could only guess how they got so far from their cars.

I let it all come at me, creating only a loss shield of water that still allowed some of the more threatening trash to get through. Two sets of eyes went wide as they took in the scene of the trash falling away harmlessly one way or another.

"Son of Poseidon?" The East asked.

I nodded, a rueful smile being displayed as I did.

"Took a little swim in the Styx?" The Hudson asked.

I nodded once more.

"Now that you see that you can't kill me," I started, reaching into my pants pocket a gift that my father had given me when I went to see him, holding it up clearly between my pointer and middle fingers where they both could see, "would you like to try that temper tantrum once more, or listen to the deal that I have for you?"

The gods each looked at me with hungry gazes that I took as permission to continue before one or both of them got impatient and tried to take it from me. "You each get half, all you have to do is keep Kronos's forces coming by sea away from Manhattan."

The pair looked at each other as if considering how serious of a deal it could be, so I broke the sand dollar in half before their eyes, letting the gods see the ripples of clean water explode from it.

"Deal," they decided, speaking simultaneously.

I handed them each one half of the underwater currency. The East promptly took it and flicked his hand in an almost dismissive wave. The Hudson followed his example and took his half before snapping his fingers like a showman.

Swimming away from the pair of gods, I hear them complaining about Poseidon before saying some shit about the Curse of Achilles. I didn't pay it any mind and just focused on getting back to the surface.

—-

Chuuya POV

The bandaged teen emerged from the river sometime later with a disgruntled expression on his face, though from the lack of plotting there I could tell that it went well enough. The other teen was dry despite just being in a river, but I jocked that up to being the son of a sea god.

"You know," the boy started, walking towards me and coming to my side as we made our way back to the Vespa, "I'm getting really tired of people relentlessly trying to kill me the one time that I can't let them," he grumbled.

The teen swooped down and grabbed the cell phone off of one of the sleeping pedestrians at the park. It belonged to some suit, so neither of us were too worried about just taking it and getting back on the Vespa.

"It worked," the boy said from behind me as I drove us out of the park. I knew that he wasn't talking to me, but I still glanced back at the boy anyways. His face fell into an expression that was less annoyance and more cold anger as he listened to the words of the demigod on the other side of the phone.

"Williamsburg Bridge," the demigod said coldly, snapping the phone closed. "I have something I have to kill again."

Chapter Text

Dazai POV

"Again?" The other boy asked as we cut through the streets.

The way that the older teen handled the scooter furthered my idea that he should never be let anywhere near an actual motorcycle, at least not with me on it as well. The boy somehow managed to drive like some kind of deranged speed demon despite this only being a Vespa, at least if I wasn't riding with him, he'd be able to use his ability to make his antics seem less life threatening to the teen that actually seemed to care about the whole living thing.

"Monsters don't stay dead in the mythological world," I explained, leaning closer to the other teen so that I could be heard easier without having to speak as loudly, "not really anyways. They die for a while and then revive sometime later."

The older boy nodded, his hair brushing against my skin as he did. "So why do you want him dead so badly then if he's only going to revive again?" The teen asked, a reasonable enough question that only reminded me of how little the other knows of who I was before.

"He tried killing my mother when I was twelve," I said carefully, keeping my voice it's normal emotionless calm. "She was all that I had growing up."

Between the teachers, the other students, and my god damn lousy excuse of a step father, she was the only person that I had back then that protected me when everyone sought to cut me down at the knees. It was a self sacrificing kind of love on both of our ends, something real built only on lies. But it was the only thing that kept me alive back then.

The other ability user only gave a quiet, "Oh," the was almost swallowed up by the night as we got closer to the battle.

The bridge was ablaze like the night sky on the Fourth of July as we came closer to it. Cars burned in such a way that only paled in comparison to that of what was left of the green flames sparking from the tips of arrows on both sides of the battle. There was a quiet rage to each of the flames, as they fought the night winds, desperately clinging to life just as their creators did.

Explosions violently shook the ground as we rode closer. They were the only thing that was able to cover up the sounds of the mortal screams echoing through the night. Monsters charged forward and roared as they turned to dust as arrows sunk into their hearts, but only laughed wickedly as they were harmlessly blocked by the creatures' armor.

Hellhounds ran rampant across the bridge, teeth bared in an open declaration of war. Most were killed with the endless volley of arrows being gifted to the enemy ranks, but some managed to slip past and feasted upon whoever the beast could reach.

Everything about the scene before us was that of an endless symphony of death and yet I felt at home. War didn't ask for its composers to be kind, nor did it look down upon them as monsters when they were cruel. War lets you lay your soul bare to it and take with you what was left with of it at the end. It takes all of the lies that you were created by and turns them into every inch the truth that you always pretend them to be. War will forever be something gruesome that poets ripped apart and turned into something much more beautiful than it ever had the right to be.

War was what I was created for.

We abandoned the Vespa as close as we could to the battle without immediately being drawn into it. Chuuya and I faced one another and I couldn't help but think that if this was a book, this would be the part where the characters say something beautiful to one another in case this happened to be a final goodbye. But neither of us have ever been much for beauty, not when we were shaped by everything but. So we didn't speak aloud, but studied one another for a moment as if carving the memory of one another in our minds forever, turning the other into something that could never be forgotten.

The older teen brushed his fingers across my back, sending a jolt of lightning up my spine as he put himself in his spot on my blind side.

I knew that we would both make it through this. We had to.

Either both of us make it, or neither of us does. I won't live in a world where I'm the only one.

—-

Chuuya POV

We ran towards the battle with all of the reckless abandon of the teenagers that we are. But we were careful to keep a careful distance from one another, holding one another at arm's length so that our abilities would not interact and interfere with one another. It wasn't the first time that we had done this, but it was by far the hardest time for me to do so.

Even as I watched the younger boy tearing the stray enemies that had managed to make it this far into the Apollo cabin's ranks, handling them with a sword art that I knew that Ane-san would be proud of if she were here to see, I couldn't stop myself from seeing the boy that only orchestrated the battles that everyone else fought, only stepping in to handle the ability users that most other couldn't. Here, the bandaged teen's only true defense back home was useless. I just had to remind myself that none of the weapons would ever leave a mark on the other boy, not after the idiotic stunt that he pulled in the Underworld, and focused on my own task.

The mackerel and I ran through the ranks of those on our side, pushing towards the front of the conflict where the two tides met and tried to tear one another apart, blatantly ignoring the way that the demigods called out to us and tried to tell us to stop.

Stomping on the ground, I let my ability run rampant through my body, watching as the world turned into a shade of red and that was all but invincible against everything but a certain shade of blue. A hole formed beneath my feet as the broken bits of the bridge rose up into the air around me, each one as sharp as the arrows that the campers behind me were firing, but a hundred times more deadly in nature.

Hands in pockets, I rose up into the air, crouching on a large chunk of concrete just as I had done all of those months ago outside of Rando's mansion. Everyone and everything looked small as I towered over them all. I thought about the situation at hand and looked at it as I thought that Mori and Dazai would have me do, using the advantage that I had to strike while not restarting to an overwhelming amount of violence that could get myself hurt as well.

Using the rock shards still floating around me, I fired projectiles down at the enemy ranks like a sniper operating beneath the guise of night, aiming for those that were getting too close to the archers for my own liking. I watched with glee as some of the smaller, less armored monsters turned to dust as the rocks pierced their hearts or ran straight through their brains like a bullet.

But I could only hold back like this for so long.

Down below I could see the other ability user making his way through the demigods and monsters that were bent on killing the boy before he even had the chance to see the age of sixteen. He cut them down unsparingly and without bias of whether they were monsters or demigods, though he did pretend to at least keep the pretense of handicapping the children of the gods whenever the move allowed him to do so rather than right out kill them. I didn't pretend that this was out of some misguided belief of saving them, knowing that he couldn't care less whether or not they lived or died by his blade. He only spared some of their lives so that those watching from our side wouldn't be suspicious of either of us.

It wasn't until the boy reached the heart of the enemy forces that I properly rejoined the battle, because I knew that with what he was about to do, he'd be too preoccupied to handle the monsters slipping right past him.

Dazai had found the Minatour, and was holding him at the tip of his blade.

—-

Dazai POV

My world went dark as it narrowed down to the monster before me, the tiredness of the fight slipping away as I got the horrid beast within my sights. Last time the beast of the Labyrinth had been dressed in nothing more than rags, but today the Greek monster was adorned with armor as if he thought that it would save him from his fate.

Among the armor that was strapped to his body from the waist down, protecting the half of him that resembled a mortal, there was a double bladed axe strapped to the monster's back. A heavy weapon that looked like it could take my head off before the swing was even complete. I knew that the Curse of Achilles should make my body invincible, but I thought that it was best to avoid testing just how well that rule worked against attempted decapitation.

The monster sniffed the air like one of the drug dogs that the boss had brought to mafia headquarters one day last year to test if any of the lower ranking members were smuggling supplies in again instead of selling it as they were supposed to.

When the beast's eyes locked onto mine, there was a violent fury rampaging in them, a barely contained, relentless anger that seemed to be the only thing keeping the monster alive. I couldn't help but wonder if the Minatour would have fought on the side of the gods if I had joined Kronos's forces just so that he would have been able to have the chance to kill me, something told me that he probably would've.

There were still some monsters between the two of us, but I stay where I am and none of them dare touch me after I caught one of the javelins that a dracanae was foolish enough to throw at me and sent it right back at her, piercing her heart before she ever had the chance to react. The less intelligent monsters, such as the hellhounds, moved forwards anyways, lunging towards me with every intent of testing my theory on decapitation, but I either sidestepped the beast or slashed at them in a lethal arc, turning the monsters to dust.

More of the monsters surged forwards, some were smart enough to avoid me like the plague, while the more foolish ones were stopped by a loud roar from behind them, something that was powerful enough to them all scatter and clamor over each other to get out of the way of the incoming Minatour. Maybe they were just scared of the beast as I knew that I should have been since he towered over us all, or maybe they all just knew that even if they were on the same side right now, the monster would not hesitate to kill his own allies to get what he wants.

Raising my sword to the beast, I saw a bright red flash out of the corner of my eye and I knew that the other ability user was done holding back and hiding in the skies. A cruel grin split across my face, a look that no one would ever mistake for something belonging to a hero.

That means that I can let loose as well.

The half bull unstrapped his axe from its spit on his back and twisted it in his hands as if he had been waiting to use it until he could use it on me. The consideration almost made it sweet, except I wasn't actually allowed to die at the moment, not until we got back to Yokohama.

The beast swung the twin blades at me in a powerful and lethal arc that was filled with harsh beauty. Each of the blades held the shape of an omega, the last letter of the Greek alphabet, allowing for the blades to be as large as they were and not hold as much weight that would slow the holder down. The shaft that the blades were attached to was easily as tall as the Minotaur himself, almost making the weapon look more like a staff than an axe, if not for the blades at the top. Tied at the base of each of the twin blades were beaded necklaces with leather chords holding them together. I didn't have to be close to the monster to know exactly what they were. The unfamiliar spike of anger in my chest was enough to get me moving.

The monsters gathered around us cheered as the Minotaur surged forwards and swung his blade at me with every intention of killing me, but I dodged the swing just as I had seen Chuuya do countless times before, twisting my body with nimble movements and careful precision. A graceful slash with all of the percisiness of someone cutting a flower petal into two as it falls to the earth cuts the monster's axe in half between the handholds.

A confused look split onto the monster's face that only deepened the horrific smile that was already carved onto my lips. I charged forward as the monster was still stunned and lept up from the ground, slashing at the beast, taking off both of the Minatour's horns in the same move. The monster tried to grab me from the air, but he wasn't expecting for me to purposefully land on the thick arm reaching for me and use his upwards swing to flip off of the beast and land away from him with a shadow of the graceful movement that the other ability user was known for.

Putting Riptide away as the monster stumbled back in mute shock at what I had just done, I grabbed a discarded half of the Minotaur's axe, holding the hefty object in my hands with less strength than I would have liked. But strength wasn't really what was important right now, not for my end at least.

I watched as the Minatour ran forwards as fast as he could, his body curving down as he tried not to trip over his own feet, just as I thought that he would. With a small upwards swing, I used the forwards momentum that the monster was gathering all on his own and let the beast run right into his own blade, embedding the half of the axe that I had been holding into the Minatour's head, splitting the beast in half from the chin up.

"Thanks for playing," I told the beast, moving away from the body as it turned to dust on the bridge.

I turned to what was left of the army and drew my sword out once more before charging right at the mass, working my way through the crowd towards the natural distaste in mortal form.

—-

Third Person POV

The strange pair of boys that had come to camp only a few days before moved through the crowd of monsters as if the creatures before them were nothing more than helpless lambs to the slaughter.

The dark haired boy tore through the monsters with a ruthless gratefulness that made him seem almost as bad as those that he was slaughtering. The younger boy slashed at the monsters, rolling and dodging, getting under each of their guards as he killed each of them in a gruesome onslaught, leaving piles of dust in his wake.

The other boy wasn't much better as he moved like a wild animal, taking the heads of the monsters around him off with nothing more than a swing of his leg. The smaller teen crushed them beneath the weight of his gravity, dusting some of the weaker monsters immediately while others found themselves losing limbs and vital organs to the rock shards endowed with more gravity than they should have had, tearing holes through their bodies as well as any mythological blade could.

Though they didn't know it, the two boys circled one another, killing off any enemy that would stand to attack the other from behind. They were monsters as much as the ones that they were killing so easily were, the pair long before having abandoned any ideas of humanity as they stepped onto the battlefield. They became beasts in their own rights, natural disasters wearing human skin.

The demigods that stood on the other side of the bridge as the pair's allies were silently thankful that they were, knowing that none of them would have stood a chance had they been on the other side of the bridge facing off against the two teens. When the pair had come to camp, everyone had looked at the cold duo with a sense of detachment, silently envious that they got to just come to the camp and declare that they would fight after shying away from the war for so long, but now... the demigods knew that they wouldn't have survived much longer without the duo.

The pair met as only about ten of the original two hundred or so monsters were left. The smaller teen spread whatever flames it was that encased his body to the monsters, forcing them to their knees as the taller boy slashed through them, turning what was left of the army to dust. There were tired smiles on both of their faces, not that anyone in the Apollo cabin could see that from where they were on the remains of the battlefield. They only knew that the pair was the most devastating duo that any of them could ever imagine.

—-

Dazai POV

Chuuya and I met as the last turned to dust before our eyes. The older boy had a tired smile on his face that replaced the normally gloomy expression that he would have after a mission like this. Chibi, ever since I met him, has never enjoyed the taking of life. He's always enjoyed the adrenaline rush of beating others. He liked being able to protect the people that he was loyal to. The guilt that he feels afterwards is just a side effect that he's willing to live with to keep those that he cares for alive. Even when shrouded in the darkness of the mafia, he still loves as if he's in the light. It's what makes him the most human person that I know.

But this was the tired smile of someone who's fought a battle and won and felt no guilt for it.

It was beautiful.

"Let's go before the adrenaline high wears off," Chuuya suggested, his body glowing lightly from his ability as if he intended to bounce all of the way back to where the Apollo cabin was camped out behind an overturned school bus.

I felt my body go still as distant sound could be heard from not so far away, getting louder as it drew closer to us. Spinning towards the direction that the enemy forces had originally come from, my eyes locked onto what was supposed to have been renimformemts for the original invasion force, but was now just reduced to nothing more than a second coming as there wasn't anything to reinforce.

"Dazai," The other teen hissed.

"I know."

The reinforcements were about thirty or fourty demigods, each of them dressed in full Greek battle armor and mounted upon a skeletal horse. At the head of the demigods I could see a man taking off his helm as if putting on a type of show. It was too dark of a night and the man was too far away for me to be able to realistically tell just who the other is, that is if it wasn't for the glowing golden eyes shining like candle lights for all to see.

"Chuuya," I called out, pulling the other boy's attention away from the incoming onslaught and back towards me even as I kept my eyes trained where they were, "go, fast. Tell the Apollo cabin to retreat and then come back."

I didn't look to see if the other had done as I said, I didn't have the time. No sooner were the words out of my mouth than the invasion was on me, swords drawn and shields brought up to protect themselves. The calvary circled around me as they slashed at my body and yelled geers that I didn't bother to listen to. I only had eyes and ears for the titan that was leisurely making his way towards me through the crowd of his crazed followers.

I aimed for his men, slashing and cutting at the mounts as well as their riders. I knew that if I could hurt the skeletal mounts then the riders would have to dismount their mounts, or risk being hurt as they disintegrated from beneath them. I swung out at each of them, slashing the demigods's throats and any other parts of the body not shrouded by armor. I knew that I wasn't killing monsters, that I should feel some sense of guilt for killing my own, for killing the very same people that might have once been my friends before we each left camp, but I didn't. I've killed more than my share of ability users and they were as much of my kind as these demigods were, as the mortal that I've brought down. I didn't care about my movements, not until I did.

A bright flash of blue light with symbols dancing in the rings emanated from my body as a once rose colored boy fell from the sky. The demigods surrounding us that remained all jumped back in surprise, watching as the blue bands made up of a runic language disappeared. The older teen put some distance between the two of us, just enough that we wouldn't touch, before turning towards me.

"They're all out," he confirmed, pulling out the dagger that I had given him on the ride here and holding it with as much ease as he would the one that we had to leave in Japan.

I nodded at the older teen and turned my back towards the other boy and looked out at the crowd circling the pair of us. I wasn't surprised when what was left of the skeletal mounts suddenly took on a red hue and crumpled to the ground, turning to dust beneath the weight of the gravity placed upon them, though I knew that the demigods that hadn't seen the fight from before were.

"Interesting," the titan remarked, still sitting upon his skeletal horse as he attempted to tower over the pair of us.

I didn't have to look at the other mafioso to know that he was smirking as he took away the gravity of some of the rubble around us and spun his body in a tall kick, his hands stuffed into his pockets as the gravel shot like bullets towards the possessed demigod. If I were to have been looking I'm sure I would have seen the other teen's signature smirk falter into something much less self assured than before. The gravel slowed down until it looked like it wasn't moving at all anymore though you could still see the red outline encasing it.

"Mackerel?" The smaller teen questioned, the unsettling sound of unsuraity drenching the other boy's tone, making him sound a way that the teen that I knew never should.

"That's Kronos," I explained, keeping my voice low enough so that he and I could hear, "the titan lord of time."

"I must say Percy Jackson," Kronos started, dismounting the skeletal horse before letting the suspended gravel rip it apart, "bringing the vessel of a god here really was a bold move on your part, though I am still a titan and could destroy him easily if I wished." The demigod vessel stepped forwards as if examining the pair of us. "Maybe I should kill you both and tear you apart to study as Olympus burns."

Reaching behind my back and pulled out the gun that I had stuffed into my waistband, raising it and pointing the firearm at the titan before he had the chance to react. "Don't you fucking touch us," I snarled.

The lord of time grinned with a smile much to close to the one that the doctor always wore before testing a new series of drugs on me. "Now isn't this an Interesting sight?" The titan asked. "But such a useless move on your part though."

I felt myself smile in a way that I was sure mirrored the titan's to a T. "You’re right," I conceded, "it would just be nothing more than a waste of a good bullet against you. Him however," I moved my arm, pointing the gun at the demigod that had made it through the bombing of the Princess Andromeda, the one eyed demigod, Nakamura. "I know that you don't give a damn about any of the members of your ranks, but I also know from experience just how frustrating it would be to find a new right hand so late into the game."

"The gods won't take you back if it turns out that you have the guts to do that," the titan remarked, looking much too sure of himself.

I moved my arm to the right, pulling the trigger with an unflinching gaze, never taking my eyes off of the lord of time. A shot rang out through the air, causing Nakamura to jolt as the demigod next to him crumpled to the ground in a heap of flesh, the back half of his skull splattered across the bridge and those around the demigod. I trained the gun back on the one eyed demigod with a practiced ease. "I don't care if the gods won't take me back."

The titan's smile turned into something crazed as his golden eyes bored into mine. "Now this is such a sight," he started. "The prophesied hero of Olympus isn't even a hero at all." The deity laughed as if this was the best thing that he had heard all night. "Between this and whatever abnormality it is that you and the little godling share, I almost regret sending you away all of those years ago. You would have made a much better vessel after all."

"Sending me away?" I asked, my brain running through the information that I had of that time as fast as I could before the details became a muddled mess, tainted by emotion, that could no longer be processed.

Back then I knew that Luke was the reason that Thalia was healed to the extent that she was, the reason that she was alive and walking around today. But even with all of the intelligence that I had obtained since leaving New York, I had no idea just what the other was referring to.

The titan laughed in a way that I knew that Luke never would have. "You didn't know?" He asked in turn before answering his own question. "Of course you didn't," he decided. "You know it was so easy, all I had to do was say the word and then an apartment building was up in flames," the titan explained. I felt my fist clenching at my side as my fingers tightened around the trigger of the gun still aimed at the one eyed teen. "I thought that with your history you would just be arrested, but then you went and ran off to somewhere that not even the gods could follow, effectively erasing yourself as a player from the board." There was an unnecessary amount of glee in the titan's voice, as if he truly found all of this to be amusing. I was decidedly against being on this side of the manipulation.

Fast as lightning, the water below us surged up and grabbed hungrily at the demigods still standing on the bridge, ripping those that weren't fast enough to get away up from the ground and pulling them ceaselessly down into the water waiting below. I felt the bodies hit the water and willed the stream to drag them down deep below as the rest of the water slashed forwards violently reaching for those that had managed to escape.

"Dazai," Chuuya whispered not unkindly, drawing me back to him, "what are the chances that we kill this bastard?"

"Zero at the moment," I told the older teen, putting my gun away as I switched Riptide over to my dominant hand.

"So let's smack him from behind then," the other ability user suggested, "and kill the bastard another day."

A different kind of smile curved across my lips at the other's words, an unlawful glee taking over my body at the way that the other knew me and understood what I needed in that moment, and at the chance to hurt the titan, even if we don't kill him just yet.

"Let's," I agreed.

We surged forwards as a unit, the titan meeting us halfway as we knew that he would, the same crazed smile glued to his lips. The lord of time swung his significant scythe around, aiming for the pair of us, but the slug only jumped up into the air before twisting and gliding gracefully down behind the deity. I chose to meet the titan's strike head on with Riptide, connecting with the dual edged blade. The titan's smile wavered as the impact shook what was left of the bridge after Chibi had been slowly eating away at it during the previous battle, and I held my ground.

The older teen aimed a well placed kick at the titan lord's head while I swept the deity's legs out from under him, causing his blade to skitter across the pavement out of the titan's easy reach. I stabbed downwards with Riptide as the other boy aimed for the titan's neck, but the deity just rolled out of the way of our attacks and regained his footing away from the pair of us, his scythe flying back into his hands as if it couldn't bare to be away from its wielder.

"You even had the courage to visit the Styx since you came back," the deity observed. "It took me months to convince Luke to do so and you just... if only you had become my vessel all that time ago." The titan shook his head violently as if to shake the useless thoughts away. "No matter," he decided, "I'll just kill you now and not have to deal with those messy little regrets."

The titan slammed his scythe down onto the ground, creating a shockwave with the force behind it that kicked both Chuuya and I back to the middle of the bridge where the Apollo cabin had been camped out earlier. The slug recovered first as he pulled a move similar to what he had done the day that we met and flipped from the force, using his gravity manipulation to land on his feet while I stumbled from the force, rolling over several times after my intal landing before pulling myself up to my feet.

The force from the minture shockwave had caused irreparable damage to what was left of the bridge as the suspension cords whipped around uselessly and small chunks of concrete fell down into the water below.

"Chuuya," I called out, turning to look at the teen in question.

The boy flashed me a cocky smile that reminded me of the one that he had been wearing the day that we met. "Already on it, you shitty bastard!" the boy exclaimed before running forwards in the direction that we had come from.

The ability user moved closer to the weakest point in the bridge before stomping on the ground with all of the force of a god, endowing the bridge with all of the gravity that he could stand to muster. I watched in a stunned silence as the older boy lit up a fiery red that spread like a poison around him, sending what was left of the bridge into the East River a hundred and thirty feet below. It was beautiful destruction.

The older teen was quick to leave the edge of the fifty foot casam that he had created, retiring to my side. I knew that he didn't feel safe either, even with the distance that he had created. Enough of the suspension cords were still attached and mostly intact that if one was desperate enough they could climb across that way if they wished, not that I really thought that Kronos would have his men do that.

The titan lord studied the pair of us once more, but he didn't look as angered by the development as I had thought that he would've.

"Until this evening, boys," the titan said before smiling across the chasm at us and turning back the way that he had originally come.

"That bastard..." I whispered, cursing harshly beneath my breath.

He's too much like me, like him.

—-

Chuuya POV

We sneaked slowly into the woods that Dazai and I had left the scooter in before joining the fight, heading to the area that I'd brought the Apollo cabin to rest and dress their wounds as best as they could while the demigods advanced on the bandage waste. My mouth filled with a bitter taste at the memory of abandoning the younger teen, even if it had been at his own orders.

What was left of the Apollo cabin was bunched together in small groups around where I had left them. None of the ones that had lived through the fight were seriously injured enough to need anymore than whatever drug it was that all of the demigods seemed to carry around in little ziplock bags on their person.

"So what now?" I asked, bending down to swipe one of the many rolls of bandages scattered across the ground from where the Apollo cabin had set up a temporary camp. I knew that the other mafioso was as likely to get hurt as I was these days, but unlike me whose clothes were included in that deal, his bandages were not and were sure to be a little torn in some areas.

One of the blond heads popped up to look at me at my question before pushing himself to his feet. "The other demigods have set up camp at the Plaza Hotel," he explained. "We were waiting on the pair of you to finish at the bridge before heading over there in case one of you was hurt."

The mackerel nodded at the other boy's logic. "So," he started, a tired look that showed that the other boy might actually sleep for once when we got to the hotel rather than staying up as he tended to, "I guess we walk then."

There were multiple groans from the various demigods gathered around us, but no outright complaints as they all knew as well as we did that there was no real other way to get where we needed to be.

There was a dark look on the bandaged boy's face as we walked to the hotel, something that was alien compared to the teen's normal hooded gaze that he tended to have during missions and during meetings when dealing with Mori. This was a gaze that had actual emotions hidden behind it.

I knew that we were going to have to talk about what the titan had said on the bridge, even if it's only to make sure that the other ability user continued to be the voice of reason between the pair of us- or at least that was the lie that I was telling myself- but I knew that it would have to wait until after we both got some resemblance of rest.

Maybe the sun will bring us a chance to see the end of this drawn out family affair.

Chapter Text

Chuuya POV

We walked for a solid twenty minutes to what I assumed was supposed to be the Plaza Hotel. Gazing up at the tall building, I couldn't help but wonder what idiot chose this place as our headquarters of operations for the war. The hotel wasn't the tallest building in the city by any means, meaning that we could use the height as too much of an advantage while looking over the other buildings, and it wasn't the most centrally located between all of the invasion spots or the Empire State Building either. I knew that there had to have been some kind of demigod relegated reason for picking such a spot as this, but I was too tired to draw up the energy to care about something that will only affect me for the day or so.

As we walked closer to the hotel, I saw one of the Apollo cabin demigods in front of Dazai and I veered violently to the right as something crashed to the ground right where the demigod had been standing. Those that could move easily fell into sloppy fighting stances, their reflexes were dulled by exhaustion and pain, but the efforts weren't necessary.

"It's alive," I whispered, not bothering to move from my place in the crowd even as the demigods took cover from what they thought was a larger threat.

There was a life sized bronze statue standing in the middle of a granite basin in front of the hotel. A bronze sheet was wrapped loosely around the statue's body, dipping much lower than it had any right to and still be a public display, while a basket of metal fruits was hanging from the statue's arm, one being tossed up and down in her hand, metal clanging with each movement.

"Sure, just walk past me as if I'm not here," the statue complained, her voice shrill and metallic in nature.

I looked at Dazai and found an analytical expression on the younger boy's face, telling me that talking statues was not a normal occurrence for even the mythological world that I had stepped into. "This must be plan twenty-three," he reasoned, gesturing mutely at the moving statue.

I thought back to the walk here, to how we had occasionally passed what had looked like empty pedestals. I hadn't thought much of it at the time, jacking the entire thing up to strange monuments as all of the pedestals still had places attached to them that were too far away to read.

But now...

"Do you think that all of the statues in the city are going to come alive like that?" I asked, nodding my head at the screaming metal goddess that was still throwing fruit at the nimbly evading demigods after one of them had asked if she was Demeter (she was not).

The other teen picked lightly as the bandages lining his neck unconsciously as he thought, something that made me reach up and pull his arm down, momentarily forgetting that the other couldn't actually do any damage to himself at the moment. The younger boy shot me a dirty look, but obediently shoved his hands down into his pockets.

"Not all," he decided, "but a good enough number to actually do some damage, hopefully."

We walked past the horde of demigods running around like rats towards the hotel doors, not caring if either of us got hit with the metal fruit as it would be about as effective as hitting us with a marshmallow would have been at the moment. I thought about kicking one of the fruits back at the goddess, but she was largely ignoring the pair of us at the moment so I figured I would let it slide.

Stepping inside of the Plaza Hotel I didn't know what I was expecting after the sights of the past few days, but I knew that my sense of what is impressive was dulled after my time with the Port Mafia and the earlier visit to Olympus. I knew that sight before me would have been something of a luxury to most people, with the crystal chandeliers and walls lined with more expensive paintings than most people would probably ever see in their lives, but none of it really registered to me. Honestly the more alluring sight than all of that was the copious amount of rich people all passed out like perfect marks that you didn't even have to scam.

The heavy sigh from my side told me that the bandaged teen understood the temptation just as I did and was purposefully guiding us away from the occupants of the hotel towards the elevators that the Hunters were pointing us to. Neither one of us needed the money that anyone in the lobby had on them, but just because you set someone up with a nice life it doesn't mean that it erases all of the ways that we had learned to survive before. Both of us were street kids before the mafia, even though Dazai spent a lot less time there than I did, those instincts were hard to erase, and something told me that he had them long before he ever made the library roof his home.

We rode up to the penthouses, as the demigods had taken over the top floors of the hotel. The whole place was a mess by the time that we got there: silk curtains were ripped to shreds and used as impromptu bandages, wolves were drinking out of toilet bowls while the hawks flew around the high ceilings. Demigods and Hunters were passed out all over the floors, crashing on the first sofa or bed that they could find as the others pillenged the minibars in each of the rooms. It reminded me of the mess that the Sheep had been in before I forced them into acting more civilized when we got older. Add in some stolen beer and it would have been an exact replica.

We'd barely stepped off of the elevator before one of the demigods came running to us with a desperate look in the boy's eyes. "Percy," the demigod started, his chest heaving slightly from coming to us, all of his energy drained by the day, "Mrs. O'Leary just brought Grover here, you should listen to what he has to say." The boy looked to me as if considering his next words, glancing back at the bandaged teen before speaking once more. "You too if you're going to be around Percy as much as you have been," he decided.

The younger boy and I looked at each other before nodding slightly in silent agreement and following the distressed camper to where the satyr currently was.

—-

Dazai POV

Jake Mason led Chuuya and I to the living room, a lavish room decorated with Louis the Sixteen Furniture that would sell for a small fortune depending on the markets that you introduced them to, which made the sight before me even more appalling.

The satyr was dressed for the war ahead of us in about as much as someone that wouldn't be facing some of the more powerful forces would need to be. The man was wearing a shirt made from what appeared to be a crude combination of tree bark and twist ties, with his horrible reed pipes hanging from his belt.

Maybe we should just have him play a song for the titan, that's sure to kill anyone if given enough exposure.

"Grover, don't eat the furniture," I chided coldly as the three of us stride into the room, "you're not a child."

The satyr in question slowly lowered the armrest that he had been gnawing on with a guilty look painted across his face, that and what remained of the poor chair's stuffing. "Sorry," he replied a little sullenly before moving into an excuse how he always eats furniture when stressed, something that I'm sure the Apollo cabin would like to hear from and talk to him about medically at another date from the curious looks that they all sent him.

"What's the deal here?" The slug asked, effectively cutting off the satyr, not that I blamed him for doing so.

The man looked between the pair of us before seemingly remembering something that he had previously forgotten and sighing to himself. "Right," he started, carefully placing the armrest away from himself so that he wasn't tempted to chew on it once more. "I was able to mobilize most of the nature spirits that are left in the city," the half goat reported before rubbing his head lightly and complaining about having Acorns thrown at him by those that hadn't wanted to listen to him as easily as others.

He had placed most of the spirits uptown where we didn't have the demigod forces to successfully cover the area, a good move on his part. Most of the forces seemed to be stuck on the defensive side as none of them really had the training or powers necessary to combat the hellhounds that had been pillaging their ranks, or the baby dragon that had slaughtered a dozen wood nymphs before finally being killed.

As the satyr talked, the daughter of Zues, toe of her lieutenants and the daughter of Athena walked into the room, each of them veering to the food that the Demeter cabin had made before settling down and listening to what remained of Grover's report.

"Kronos's forces are still gathering at each of the bridges and tunnels," Thalia broke in as Grover's report came to a close. "And he isn't the only titan present either, there's a golden titan that has been spotted gathering up forces at the Jersey shore."

I nodded decisively, knowing that it was probably the same titan that Nico had shown me in the vision that I'd had after the Princess Andromeda mission. That bastard had been a cocky piece of shit that I wouldn't mind trying to kill during my stay here.

"Great," Chuuya said, curses falling from his lips in such a way that even the most dense of people could figure out with ease that he hadn't meant it that way.

"Any good news?" Chase asked, popping a grape into her mouth from her spot at Thaila's side on the couch that they had settled on. None of the chairs were really usable anymore.

"The subway tunnels going into and out of the city have been effectively sealed off by my best trappers," the immortal girl reported in what I was sure was supposed to be a reassuring voice.

"And," I started, cutting into the conversation, "we're good on attacks until tonight since Kronos will most likely need time to recuperate after each battle, and most of his forces are more powerful at night anyways."

The girls in the room shot me an almost identical quizzical look, the Hunters most likely questioning my gall for speaking over their leader and Chase for me actually saying something intelligent, something that she probably hadn't really thought that I was too capable of before.

"Yes," the daughter of Zues agreed, lightly clearing her throat as she did. "The last that we heard of Typhon, he was decimating the Ohio River Valley and should be reaching the Appalachian Mountains by midday today."

I only nodde, having already guessed the timetable for the incoming natural disaster on my own. It wasn't all that hard when you had a predestined prophecy saying that everything would reach its climax on your birthday.

Jake Mason cleared his throat loudly as if to remind us that he was still inside the room. A reminder that the others among Chuuya and I had apparently needed as they each startled in varying amounts.

"Something else," the boy started, a slightly distraught ecorsson tacked onto his face, "the way that Kronos showed up today, it's like he knew where you were going to be before you had even decided to go there and help," the boy explained. "He barely even touched the areas where we were strongest, gouging right for our weak spots as if he knew what they were."

"The spy," I confirmed with a nonchalance that the others in the room didn't seem to appreciate all that much. "I know. That was part of the reason that I kept Chibi here with me since he's a small army on his own."

"You... knew?" The other demigod questioned, looking slightly hurt by my actions.

A useless smack was placed on the back of my head by the other ability user in the room, an annoyed expression taking over and turning his blue eyes into a perfect storm. "You can just say shit like that, ya damn waste of good bandages," the mafioso grumbled, though his word held no real heat, just pure annoyance. "Not everyone here is used to your manipulation."

I fought the urge to rub my head and pretend that the slap had hurt, but before I could decide whether or not the other boy was in the mood to be lenient with my faux playful personality, the daughter of Zues spoke up.

"What spy?" The girl demanded.

Sighing, I looked at the blonde girl all but glued to her friend's side and flicked my hand in a gesture that clearly put the responsibility of explaining on her. The demigod looked peeved, but that didn't stop her from turning to the lighting user and telling her about the communication device that the titan had shown us.

"Di immortalis," she cursed. "This is bad."

"It could be anyone," Jack worried, clearly slipping into some kind of paranoia that wouldn't do anyone in the room any good. "Everyone was there when Percy gave out the orders."

"Well, what do you want to do then?" Chuuya asked, leaning forward so that his arms were resting in his lap as he hunched forwards. "You can't just frisk everyone until you find the shitty little charm."

The other eyes in the room all turned to me as if waiting to see what I had to say on the matter. I didn't really understand why I was the one leading any of this when I hadn't been around for the past two years, but my studies into human behavior told me that most naturally avoided taking responsibility for things when they could do so, the fact the I was the child of the prophecy just seemed to reinforce this idea in them.

"Chuuyas right," I decided, watching as most of the demigods around me began to descend into some kind of defensive argument as I took the other boy's side, "we don't have the time to search everyone that's made it this far, nor could we promise that we would even find the true mole if we did," I pressed on. "Any smart thief knows to get rid of any evidence that could pin the crimes on them. All that we would get from this endeavor is a renewed wave of suspicion and a possibly framed spy."

That, and I already knew just who the spy was.

"So what do you suggest we do then?" The daughter of Zeus asked, clearly not liking that we wouldn't be taking any action.

"Carry on as we have been," I answered her. "Clean our wounds and get some rest before the whatever mess it is that the titan bastard has planned comes to bite us in the ass."

The demigods reluctantly nodded in agreement before dispersing into smaller groups, each of them going their separate ways for the rest of the day.

The other ability user stood, holding out a bare hand to me that I gladly let pull me to my feet since I wasn't sure if I had the willpower to do it myself at that moment.

"We should go and get some rest too," the older teen suggested, something that brought a curious glance from the satyr that had quietly resumed chewing on the furniture as everyone slowly drifted off to do their own things.

I thought about how tempering a bed sounded at the moment as my body slowly began to feel the full side effect of the curse of Achilles, slowly drawing away all of the energy that I was pretending to have. "We have two things that we need to do first," I told the other, quickly thieving up my hands at the venomous stare from the smaller boy, "neither of which should take much time, then we can sleep till night comes."

The older boy nodded, stifling a small yawn. "So what scheme are you planning now then?" He asked, pulling his hands over his head while stretching out the kinks in his back.

"Nothing much," I told the other honestly. "Just a little chat or two."

There were some demigods that we needed to speak with.

—-

Glancing around the room, I saw a wisp of blonde hair displeasing down the small hall that we had come down earlier. Not wasting any time, I set off after the girl, not bothering to look back to see if Chuuya was following me as I knew already that he would be.

We caught the demigod just as she was about to claim one of the sofas as her own. I stopped in front of the daughter of Athena and waited for her to look up at me. When she did I saw a level of annoyance in her eyes that I hadn't seen there since we were twelve. I jerked my head to the side indicating one of the nearest bedrooms that were on the floor before walking off towards it without saying a word to either of the people that I left behind. I knew that the other mafioso stuck behind for a moment to make sure that the older demigod got the message before he followed after me by the lack of footsteps.

Inside of the room, I waited a beat before the smaller teen joined me and came to his place at my side, effectively closing ranks between the pair of us before the daughter of Athena even had the chance to step into the room. When she did, her gray eyes darted nervously between the pair of us, but she has always been one for thinking fast on her feet, as she quickly wiped the unsure expression from her face and switched to the defensive.

"What do you want?" The girl asked, crossing her arms over her stomach as if to create a barrier between herself and the pair of us. I thought that the motion was a little unnecessary as she had already left the door open, forcing the three of us to speak quietly if we didn't want to be heard by passing demigod's, but in negotiations you don't poke at the opposition unless that's exactly how you wish to get what you want.

"Hermes," I started, watching as the girl jerked lightly at the sound of the god's name, "what was he talking about earlier when we met with him and he almost tried to kill the lot of us, well to kill you and then us when we stepped in?"

The daughter of Athena unconsciously took a step backwards as if putting more solace between herself and the pair of us would protect her from the questions that I had. "That's none of your business," she snarled defensively.

I smiled at her in a way that only the devil could, something that I knew wouldn't put the girl at ease. "Well, let's make it my business, shall we?" I decided. "Because I have gods poking around in my head and showing me visions about him, Thalia, and you, so I feel like it just might be my business."

The other boy glanced at me as if warning me to tone it back down, but the gesture was wasted as I didn't intend to speak anymore. 

Sometimes silence is a better poison than words could ever hope to be.

A moment or two passed endlessly around us before the older demigod started shifting restlessly on her feet. Another moment passed before the girl finally gave in, the silence between the three of us being too much for her to stand. When we were younger, there was almost never a time that there was silence between us, even less when Grover was thrown into the mix.

"Last... last year, Luke came to see me in San Francisco," the demigod admitted, looking off to the side as if she didn't want to see our reactions.

"I take it that this was before he let himself be fully possessed by Kronos," I stated.

It wasn't a question, but the other demigod nodded anyways. "He came to me under a flag of truce," the girl continued. "He said that he only wanted to talk. He looked so scared back then, Percy," the girl admitted, looking at me with what seemed to be a ghost of the fear that the older teen had worn back then. "He told me that Kronos was planning on using him, his body, to take over the world, and that he wanted to run away, just like before."

"He wanted you to go with him, didn't he?" Chuuya asked, a sympathetic look falling onto the other boy's face as he listened to what the other demigod had to say.

The girl nodded with a guilt ridden expression. "I didn't trust him," she admitted, "but now... he said back then that Kronos was planning on using him as nothing more than a stepping stone to his true form. He told me that I might as well fight him then since that would be the last chance that I would ever get."

"You don't have the makings of a killer, Chase," I told her, watching as angered fire lit in her eyes. "Even if you had fought him, we would still be right here speaking as we are now except some of the information would just be a little different."

The other demigod shook her head violently, shutting her eyes against the world as if she didn't want to believe my words, though I'm sure that they were something that she already knew well enough herself given the high IQ that the girl has.

"If I had just gone with him back then, I could've changed his mind and we wouldn't be here right now," the girl insisted. "The war is my fault," she whispered.

Chibi looked at me as if asking for me to help the girl since I had put her in the state that she was currently in. I resisted the urge to sigh at the other boy, not really seeing how this was my responsibility, but I prepared myself to speak anyways.

"Annabeth," I called out, pulling the girl's attention back to me with a speed that I didn't think was possible, "I'm only going to say this once, so listen.

"He was a grown man, you were a child. You weren't responsible for his mistakes, he made those all on his own, and it's hubris to believe that all of this is your fault. I know that when we were younger you thought that you could change him, but we both know that you wouldn't have been able to." I could see the girl about to protest, but I counted speaking anyways. "Bastards like him, they don't change. Things would never have been able to go back to the way that they had been before. He would still have been just as angry at the gods and you would still have been just as loyal."

"What do you know?" The daughter of Athena broke in, seemingly unable to stay silent any longer than she had been before. "You haven't been here for the last two years, how do you know that he wouldn't have changed?" The girl exclaimed bitterly.

I felt my hand ghost up to my throat, to the bandages lining it, not picking at them but just laying in the spots where all of the track marks were. Back then, he always said that this would be the last time, that whatever he was doing to me he wouldn't do again.

It was always a lie.

I'm sure that the movement caught Chuuya's attention, but I knew that he probably wouldn't ask. He'd already seen the damage there, he knew that I hadn't done it all to myself, but I think a part of him is too scared to ask, to find out just who had done everything else.

"Because I know men like him," I told her, forcing my hand down to my side, "they don't settle. And even if he had changed, even if you two had run, then it would be some other demigod in his place right now and you both would be six feet under for knowing too much.

"It's a prophecy, Chase. You know as well as I do that there's no use in fighting them. This would have happened in some way no matter what you did back then."

I watched as tears streamed down the girl's face, tears that I have never been able to cry, and walked out of the room with Chuuya at my side.

"Were you trying to make her cry?" The older boy asked as we walked back to the living room. He didn't really sound angry, just peeved at what I had done.

I shrugged, not really caring what he thought either way about how I had approached the conversation before. "It needed to be done," I told him. "We needed the information and she needed to get her head in this war and not what could have been before she got herself and others killed."

Chuuya just sighed from his spot at my side and that's how I knew that he thought that I was right. Besides, we're mafiosos, and both of us are on track for becoming the next executive, us and the small group that seems to have taken the gravity manipulator into their ranks. Not that they don't have ulterior motives for doing so. The pair of us are killers, making girls cry isn't exactly high on our list of sins.

Now it's time for a more fun conversation.

—-

Chuuya POV

The bandage waste led us out onto the balcony where one of the demigods, a daughter of Aphrodite maybe, was standing at the railing while looking out over the city, down at all of the destruction below. Plumes of black smoke billowed up into the air as distant car alarms made themselves heard through the quiet morning. We were watching the city's slow destruction from the war like a scene from a movie, something that I'm sure will be covered up and explained away by the incoming titan.

Dazai walked forwards and put himself on the demigod's right, not bothering to look at the girl but at the city below us. I followed the bandaged teen's leans and broke ranks, putting myself at the girl's left, effectively closing her in between the pair of us. The demigod didn't seem to mind the invasion, almost seeming like she had anticipated it coming.

Strange...

The girl turned her gaze down to her hands, moving them around nervously as if the conversation that we were bound to have was paining her even before any of us had spoken.

"Are you mad at me?" She asked, refusing to look at either of us.

Dazai hummed loud enough that I could still hear it from the other side of the demigod between us. "Why would I be?" He asked. I could see the other boy shrugging out of the corner of my eye with a forced nonchalance that he sometimes showed when forced to talk to our marks during missions. "You had the reinforcements sent to our weakest point where you knew that Chuuya and I would be sent. It was a solid move, but could have gone drastically wrong had your assumptions been wrong."

Of course he knew exactly who the spy was.

The girl's mouth trembled as the bandage waste spoke, a key marker that she too would be crying before the end of this conversation.

Great.

"This is all my fault," the girl insisted, a fragile look taking over the daughter of Aphrodite's face that made it look like she might break at any moment, something that if I'm right she has done to herself.

"It's not your fault," I told her, watching as the girl shook her head as if to assure that it was. "It's the bastard that thought that eating his kids was a good way to escape a prophecy." I watched as Dazai turned to look at me with the barest hint of surprise in his sea green eyes. "What?" I asked, a small smirk forming on my lips at the look from the other boy. "I did some research before we started all of this mess."

One of the other ability user's brows quirked up at my words. "Chase," he guessed, a mirthful gaze gracing his face as he seemed to be remembering something that the rest of us couldn't.

"Chase," I agreed. "So what are we going to do now?"

Dazai sighed heavily, leaning backwards and laying his head on his folded arms that were hanging from the balcony railing. He waited a beat before propping his head up in a way that he could gaze out at the city, but not otherwise moving from the position before finally answering.

"Silena will go back to camp," he decided before drawing himself back up to a more proper standing position. "She'll work on Clarisse and convince her and her cabin to join us." The younger boy angled his body towards the daughter of Aphrodite and I, but his eyes were focused on the other demigod. "It shouldn't be too hard as the framework is already set, but if she proves to be more stubborn or shows signs of becoming violent, you are to get yourself out of there," he ordered.

"Wouldn't me leaving at the first sign of trouble just be a waste of time?" The girl asked, airing the question that I myself had thought before remembering just who it was aimed at.

"Just let him finish," I told her, already too used to the other boy's antics to stop him at a time like this.

"It would be pointless," he continued, "if you were to leave alone. We'll have you pull a Patroclus and Achilles," he decided, the plans already forming in his mind of how the event could go down. "Except this time, we'll get you both out alive."

I didn't know how the bastard thought that he could pull it off, but something told me that I wasn't going to like whatever involvement was forced on me when the time comes.

"You want me to steal her armor?" The daughter of Aphrodite questioned, the disbelief evident in the girl's voice.

The other demigod shrugged, seemingly mentally done with the conversation that we were having. "Only if it comes to that," Dazai said, away towards that door and leaving the pair of us out on the balcony.

The girl laughed dirly. "Anyone ever told him that he's harsh?" The demigod asked, twisting and leaning her back against the railing while turning her gaze to me.

I sighed and looked at the girl with all of the pity that I could find in myself to muster. It wasn't much but it was there. "He acts that way because he needs to," I admitted, neatly avoiding the girl's sarcastic remark, "and you have to admit that he's right."

The demigod let out a long breath. "He used to be sweet, you know," she remarked. "More sassy than any middle schooler had a right to be and as many survival instincts as a jellyfish, but sweet nonetheless. What happened to all of that?"

"I wish I knew."

God I wished I knew.

—-

Dazai POV

Walking over to the spread that the Demeter cabin had made, I forced myself to down whatever I could reach first and swallow it before my body told me that food was a bad idea as it tended to anytime that I tried to eat anything. Most days the only food that I could stomach was the canned crab and saltines that I kept in my shipping container.

Chuuya joined me at my side not much later, grabbing what food that he wanted before nodding at me to tell me that he was ready to leave. I led us towards one of the vacant bedrooms that we had passed earlier while dealing with the daughter of Athena. We weren't two steps into the room before the other boy threw something at me that I almost didn't catch in time.

"Eat," the older teen instructed before walking over to the bed and claiming one side as his own. The boy held up his hand, warding off the complaint that I had on my lips. "I know you," Chuuya insisted. "I know that you probably just ate the first thing that you could find and called it good enough even though we both know that it's not."

I sighed and looked down at the apple in my hand, knowing that fighting with the red headed teen wouldn't get me very far. "Half," I offered in compromise, knowing that I wouldn't be able to stomach the entire thing for long, having the opposite effect of what I'm sure the older teen was looking for.

"Fine."

For all of his tries at forcing better eating habits onto me, the other mafioso only ate a little over half of the food that he had grabbed from the table, still recovering from the malnutrition that he had grown accustomed to while with the Sheep.

I got up from the bed and closed the blinds, blocking out the early morning light as Chuuya pulled back the sheets and climbed under them. I followed the boy in turning the lamp on my side of the bed off as the older teen settled down.

I curled up on my side, settling down with a small space between the smaller teen and myself. I knew that in the morning we would wake up as nothing more than a tangle of limbs. A part of me wanted to reach out and close the distance between us, but I didn't. In the mornings we could ignore what happened and pull apart as if we had never shared the same breath, and pretend that everything was just because of the nightmares. I could ignore the way that it hurt being so close to someone and knowing that they'd never accept any attempt to reach out.

When I closed my eyes, I pretended that it didn't hurt being so close to the other half of my soul and choosing to stay apart.

—-

When the darkness subsided into something more dreamlike, I saw an image of the son of Hades sitting in the Queen of the Underworld's flower bed with a deep hole before him and a goblet of wine resting in the younger boy's hand.

The boy poured the wine into the hole that he had created, a scene that I'm sure that the goddess that it all belongs to would love to see. He chanted as the wine soaked into the dirt. "Maria di Angelo, show yourself!" He ordered with all of the false authority that a fourteen year old could possess.

Plums of white smoke gathered in the air around the boy, shifting into shifting into the image of a mortal girl with features much too similar to the son of Hades to not be someone related to him, though I knew that it wasn't his mother before the confused expression had settled onto the boy's face. The girl was dressed in the silvery clothes of Hunter.

"Bianca," Nico breathed, the name lodging in the boy's throat as he choked it out.

'Don't do this,' the spirit warned. 'Don't summon our mother, she is the one ghost that you cannot see.'

Desperation, more than had been there ever before contorted on the boy's face as he demanded to know why. "What is our father hiding?"

The summoned spirit looked down at her brother with a tired expression of someone all too used to the fight that they were having. To the ideas behind it. 'Pain. Hatred,' she answered honestly, a floating voice among the flowers. 'A curse dating back to the Great Prophecy itself.'

I groaned internally, not caring in the least about the decision that the god of the dead had made when his children under the age of sixteen were most likely sentenced to be killed at the time, not when I'd already figured out most of it on my own.

I'm starting to remember why I left the influence of the gods.

The siblings spoke to each other once more, but whatever they had to say went unheard as I'd tuned out until the younger boy violently swiped his hand through the smoke, the image of the summoned spirit disappearing as if it had never existed to begin with.

"Maria di Angelo," the boy said once more, ignoring the results that he had gotten the time before. "Speak to me!" He screamed out with all of the anger of a child left alone in a world much too unkind.

The mist formed again as it had before, but instead of showing the spirit of the young girl once more, an image formed. A memory played out as if by a ghostly theater.

In the image, there were two little children playing in the lobby of an elegant hotel not unlike the one that I was currently sleeping in. They chased each other around the room with all of the bliss of those peacefully unaware of the cruel twist of fate soon coming to claim them as its own.

There was a beautiful woman sitting nearby with all of the grade and beauty of someone that would attract the attention of the god of death. She had a bright smile that was twisted into something almost ugly and pretty eyes tainted by the harshness of the world. Her smile could be found in the Bianca that I had just seen, while her eyes belonged solely to the boy trying so desperately to speak with her.

Sitting in a chair near the woman was the makings of a desperate man. The man was leaning towards the woman, speaking with his hands as if the topic left too much energy in his body to be confined to words alone.

Maria di Angelo and Hades.

I watched everything play out as the sIlent observer that I was meant to be. In the image created by the mist, I watched as the pair argued back and forth as the god tried to convince the mortal to bring herself and the children to the Underworld where he could keep them all safe from the threats closing in on the small family. But the mortal wanted nothing of it. She didn't want to listen as the god explained that Zues wished for all of the children of the big three to be brought to camp and she didn't believe that the ruler of the gods would slowly kill off all of the children that he gazed upon as threats. She thought that the king was an idiot and went as far as to say it aloud.

The god told the mortal that the deadline that he had been given had already passed, but she remained firm in the belief that the god would be able to protect the family while they remained in the mortal realm. It was the same foolish belief that empires that believed themselves to be eternal had right before they fell.

And fall she did.

The couple continued to fight with the calm desperation and vigilance that they both had managed to retain. It wasn't until the mortal rose to her feet and ventured upstairs that a force so violent that it made the mist disperse for a moment and the children tense up in a way that showed that even they knew that it was coming made itself known.

I knew that only a few moments of time was lost as when the image came back into focus the god of the dead was kneeling on the ground, cradling the broken body of the mortal in his arms. Lighting made itself known across the sky, sparking dangerously as if threatening to strike once more.

The god shook with rage at the actions of his brother, his body glowing in a barely contained way that suggested that he would've shown his true form had the children not been there to see him do so. The god of the dead instructed the Fury that had appeared behind him to take the children and have them bathed in the river Lethe before placing them at the Lotus Hotel, a place that he believed that the other deities wouldn't touch.

The children were taken away and with them went the body of the once beautiful mortal, but in their place came a new child no older than twelve. A young girl standing among the remains of the sofa with eyes much too sad for a girl her age.

Hades threatened the child, seemingly angered by her presence, but she warned him that he couldn't take any action, that there were powers protecting her. It didn't take much thought to understand that the young girl was none other than the last Oracle of Delphi.

The god looked upon the child with rage, blaming her for the death of the mortal simply because she had been the one to speak the prophecy, but the oracle didn't so much as flinch in the face of his loud anger. The oracle told the god that the explosion had been ordered because the god had defied the king's will, claiming that he should've hidden the children earlier as she had warned.

For all of the logic and reason that the oracle spoke during their conversation, the god only replied back with a senseless anger, feeling the need to blame the young girl for the problems that had befallen upon himself despite her claims that she could only see the future, not shape it.

The god's anger rose as he gazed upon the girl and her cool defiance. He knew that he couldn't hurt the girl, so he resorted to cursing the child, damning her soul to the body that she was born to until the day that his children were no longer seen as outcast, even if that time went beyond her death.

The scene was destroyed, blasted into nothingness as the screams of the oracle echoed through the garden and the angered gaze of the gods of the dead stared down at his son.

—-

Thalia POV

Annoyance boiled in the pit of my stomach as I was sent to retrieve the son of Poseidon from his precious beauty sleep. One of the demigods from the camo had pointed me to the room that they'd seen him go into earlier, mummering something about probably wanting to knock first before just barging inside. I didn't understand why until I opened the door and found two bodies within the room.

On the bed I could see a tangled mess of limbs as Jackson and the boy that seemed to be almost attached to his hip were sleeping peacefully while wrapped up in one another's arms. The smaller boy was holding Jackson, unconsciously cradling the teen's head as if to protect him, while their legs were tangled together. Jackson had his arm possessively thrown across the other boy's stomach as he laid his head in the crook of the teen's neck.

Most people would look at the sight and feel a sense of remorse at waking the pair, but I was absolved from such stupid things.

I shook the shoulder of the smaller boy harshly, wanting to wake him up first so that he could be the one to deal with the other sleeping demigod, but instead of a sleepy grumble, I was rewarded with a brushing grip on my arm that effectively stopped it as I tried to pull away.

"Fuck!" I cursed, yanking my arm away from the boy and the venomous glare that he held.

My scream was loud enough to wake the sleeping demigod as well. A blade was pressed to my throat before I even had the time to feel embarrassed by my sudden scream. There was no recognition in the son of Poseidon's eyes as he looked at me, only an animalistic instinct to protect himself from those that might sneak into his room, or his bed, as he tied to sleep that I saw in some of the more extreme cases that we'd taken into the Hunt.

It felt like an eternity before the smaller boy reached up and tapped Jackson's wrist lightly, his fingers only touching the bandages and not the bare skin there. I'd seen the bandages when he and I had first met since he came back to camp, but I hadn't thought to question them, too pissed at the fact that he had been the one to leave Annabeth, even though I had too. But now I couldn't stop seeing them.

The other child of the big three lowered the blade and tapped a pen cap to it. The three of us watched in silence as the sword shrunk down into the shape of a ballpoint pen, something that he quickly returned to where he'd kept it.

"What do you want?" The smaller boy asked as the teens pulled themselves apart from one another.

"We've got visitors," I told them, sticking to a quick explanation so that I could get out of this room before something else happened, or I realized another piece of information that I had no right, nor want, to know.

"Visitors?" Jackson asked, his brow shooting up in a questioning way.

I nodded my head grimly, not caring that I was having to repeat myself. "A titan has come to see you under a flag of truce, he has a message from Kronos," I looked down at the ginger boy and added, "you’re to come too."

I turned to walk away as fast as I could without making it too obvious, but I could have sworn that I saw an excited smile spread across the son of Poseidon's face, as if he enjoyed whatever chaos that was about to come.

Chapter Text

Dazai POV

My body buzzed with a renewed sense of energy as we sat down at one of the picnic tables in the Heckscher Playground. Smoke floated into the air as I tiled my head back and slowly let it out before passing the cigarette off to Chuuya, who was sitting atop the picnic table and gave the small flame life once more.

A disgusted sound could be heard from behind the pair of us as hooves struck the earth while moving farther away from the gravity manipulator and I. "Do you have to do that while I'm here?" Grover asked, the complaint barely out of his mouth before a disgruntled bay followed it.

"Trust me," the other ability user said, not bothering to look down at me as he responded for the pair of us, "this is a better alternative than him running around causing chaos." I beamed up at the older teen with a look that we both knew was as real as my current hair color. "Especially since he actually got some sleep for once and has the energy to add action to his normal verbal chaos," the boy reported in an all too knowing voice.

"And what is there to be so excited about?" The leader of the Hunters questioned.

My back was to her, but I didn't need to see her face to know that it wasn't a pleasant expression there. Sure enough, when I twisted my body to look at the people behind me, the daughter of Zues had her arms crossed over her chest and was playing with the silver bracelet on her wrist as if considering attempting to scare me with the shield.

"Exactly!" I exclaimed, my voice dripping with false cheer. "It's a meeting with our adversaries, that means that I can act however I see fit and the worse that comes comes out of it is that we have to kill them," I explained, watching with a strange satisfaction as horror spread over the faces of the other demigod and the satyr.

Chuuya passed the cigarette back to me, seemingly done with his turn, but no sooner was the piece in my hand before smoke was blown into my face. "You can't just say shit like that," the other boy complained, seemingly unimpressed with my bored look.

"At least I didn't plant explosives under the picnic table like I'd thought about doing," I said in my own defense, finishing off the last of the cigarette, knocking off the dying cherry and pocketing the bud to throw away once we left.

During the year that I'd first spent with the underground doctor, the man had 'saved' me, as he liked to call it, from a number of suicide attempts. One of them had been disarming a bomb, though I didn't quite remember if it had truly been a particularly desperate suicide attempt on my part, or an very unoriginal assassination attempt made by a supporter of the old boss. Either way, the boss had been forced to diffuse the bomb himself, lest lose someone that he viewed as an important, and dangerous, asset.

"Not helping!" The other ability user exclaimed, though I knew that beneath the anger, he probably wasn't really all that against the idea.

The other two looked like they had finally recovered from my previous two statements when I saw them clam up once more almost simultaneously. Turning my head to the direction that they were looking, I saw an obnoxiously large white flag being waved by a giant easily thirty feet tall with bright blue skin that I wouldn't doubt would freeze me if I were to touch it.

A Hyperborean, a giant from the northern region of the continent that largely tended to be peaceful unless thoughtlessly provoked by demigods with an unintentional death with.

"We have company," I remarked, well aware that everyone else already knew of this fact.

"Finally!" The other mafioso exclaimed, pushing himself off of the table and sitting down at the picnic table on my blind side.

I knew that despite the way that he chastised me, the other boy was just as excited as I was to do what we did best in meetings:

Piss off everyone in our vicinity.

—-

Thalia POV

My mind raced for a moment as I looked down at the pair, just earlier this morning they had seemed like a serious sort, now though it almost seemed like they were little kids running around trying to cause a mess. Between this and all of the information that the pair had let slip only moments before, the only reason that either of them were still here is because the parlay asked for them.

They are going to get us all killed if they keep acting like this.

As the white flag and the normally peaceful giant holding it drew closer, I could finally see three humanoid creatures coming towards us. These were the beings that we had come to see. One of them was an empousa hanging onto the arm of a tall man wearing a tuxedo despite the weather, and the last was a demigod in full armor.

"Well someone is just waiting for this whole shit show to go south," Jackson commented, leaning his head against his fist.

The other boy flicked him in the side under the table where the beings coming towards us wouldn't be able to see, something that I was silently thankful for. No one had to ask who the son of Poseidon meant though, it was glaringly obvious and everyone else seemed to agree with the boy.

"You can make observations on their appearances later, kelp head," I told him, knowing that it was going to happen either way, but that this wasn't the time nor place for it. "You know, when they can't hear us."

The other teen turned towards me with a smile on his face that sent a jolt down my spine, telling me to run . "Now where's the fun in that?"

I opened my mouth to answer, but the red headed boy held a hand to the side of Jackson's face, digging a finger into his cheek and forcing his head back the way it had been before.

The triage reached us during the exchange and the man, the titan, in the tux stepped forwards as if to make an introduction, but he never got the chance to.

Jackson lifted his right arm and propped it against the table, snapping and making a finger gun at the one eyed demigod that had come with the monsters and the titan. "You're that guy that I wanted to shoot," the son of Posedion's voice held too much cheer for it all to be real, not that our visitors knew that.

Wanted to... what?!

The titan looked aghast at being passed up for being greeted first, but he let the conversation continue, probably just as curious as the rest of us as to how it would play out. He just sent the demon away and turned to watch the show.

"And you're the bastard that killed my friends," the boy shot back, glaring down at the son of Posiedon. If looks could kill, then Jackson would already be seven feet under.

"I can't take all of the blame for that," Jackson decided, his hand vaguely gesturing at the mess that the demigod's face was in. "The thing about tyrants is that they don't care who they kill in order to get power, even their own men, and you know as well as I do that he knocked just as many demigods into that river as I had."

The demigod's grip on the hilt of his sword went white at the words that Jackson had voiced, something that the titan took immediate note of and stepped closer to the table, holding out his hand to Jackson to cut the conversation off before it came to blows.

"To business," he decided. "I am Prometheus."

Jackson didn't meet his hand, only tilted his head to the side and hummed in what appeared to be consideration. "You're the titan that stole fire from the gods and gave it to us not to be nice but to annoy the gods after the first titan war," the son of Poseidon said, his voice filled with a sense of humor as if he found the whole thing to be funny. "Then you were chained to a rock and cursed to have your liver eaten by a vulture everyday." The demigod looked to the boy at his side, that sadistic smile still on his face. "You know Chibi, with the way his body regenerates organs everyday, he could have made a killing on the modern Black Market," the teen said in all seriousness.

A revolted feeling rose up inside of me, sending a wave of nausea through my body. I waited to see the same horror reflected on the smaller teen's face, but all I found was a chaotic smile that said that he liked the idea. "Shit man, he could've gotten rich overnight."

The titan's face fell throughout the little exchange, morphing into something more genuine than the false pleasantries that he had tried to stick to. "So this is what Kronos meant when he did that the pair of you weren't heroes," the deity said, almost to himself, but loud enough for everyone else present to hear.

The red headed boy laughed at the titan's statement, something that I was actually led to believe was more genuine than not. "Him?" He asked, pointing an accusatory hand at the demigod next to him. "A hero?"

I was waiting for the son of Poseidon to refute his friend's accusation, but instead the smile on his face shifted into something less unsettling and more genuine. "Don't act like you have the spine of the righteous, my dear partner."

"Right you’re a corrupt bastard that could take that from anyone if he wanted to, you mackerel," the boy shot back.

If I hadn't walked in on the pair of them the way that they had been this morning, I would have thought that they hated each other with the way that they were sniping at one another right now. Apparently the titan and the demigod shared the same thoughts as they glanced at one another.

I looked back at Grover to see how he was handling this, as he has an empathy link with one of the arguing boys, but he looked the same as ever, like he had a piece that everyone else here was missing.

"Can we just parley now," the satyr asked, raising his hand in question like he was in class.

The titan coughed lightly, clearing his throat in a pointed gesture to the arguing teens for them to stop. "Yes," he agreed, "let's."

The titan sat down in front of the pair and leaned forwards, lacing his fingers together with what I supposed was supposed to be a kind expression, but after seeing all of the looks that Jackson had worn today, it didn't sit as well as he probably thought it did.

"Percy, your position is weak," the titan started, "this is not news to you. You know that you can't stop another assault."

"Maybe," the demigod said, shrugging his shoulders in a way that said that he couldn't be bothered. "But hey! Who doesn't want to die a hero, right?"

I thought that he was joking until his little partner in crime kicked him under the table and said something that sounded a lot like, "Suicidal maniac."

A pained expression forms on the titan's face and for a moment I almost consider feeling bad for him. Almost.

"Percy, I am the titan of forethought. I know what's going to happen," he said as if placating a child.

A chilly laugh rang through the late afternoon air, freezing all those who heard it as if it held power. "No you don't," the son of Poseidon said in the most imprudent voice that I've heard in a while. "You see multiple futures and manipulate events and people as you see fit to have the one that you like the most come about."

The titan's eyes went wide at the acusantion and that was all I needed to know that what the demigod said was true. He looked ready to refute the statement, or at least try to put it into a different light, but didn't get the chance to as more surprising information was shared instead.

"Oh great," the smaller teen decided, throwing his hands up into the air, "there's two of you now. One intelligent bastard was enough and now there's a titan too."

"Kinda hard to play mind games when your opponent is already well versed in the rules, isn't it?" The other demigod asked, completely ignoring his partner's outbursts.

"The last time this war happened, I told Kronos that he didn't have the strength to win and that he would lose, that is what happened then," the titan explained, his expression souring from the boys' antics. "This time I am supporting Kronos. It's the wisest choice that I could make." He waited a moment to see if anyone would respond and continued when no one did. "Our forces are growing daily, Percy. Tonight Kronos will attack and you will be overwhelmed by his forces. You'll be forced to retreat back to Olympus and will be destroyed. It will happen."

A sickening sensation of fear took over my body at the way the titan spoke and what he had to say. He spoke with such certainty that it was almost like there was no other choice, that he had created no other choice.

"Cute," the troublesome demigod said, calling it the exact thing that it wasn't before leaning forwards and smiling in a way that I'm sure if I could see it better would haunt my nightmares for weeks. "I'm sure we will be overrun and pushed back to the Empire State Building, but whether we win or lose from there is still up in the air, isn't it." The demigod leaned forwards, a dangerous tone taking over his voice. "You wouldn't be here right now if it wasn't."

The titan's eyes lit with an angered fire that went against the calm, understanding composure it was that he had been trying to maintain through all of this. For a moment I thought that the parley would fall through from the other demigod's stupidity, but the titan seemed to stifle his anger just before it did. "Understand, boy. You are fighting the Trojan War once more here. Patterns like these reappear in history, just as monsters always do. A great siege. Two armies. The only difference is that this time you are Troy. And you know what happened to Troy, don't you?"

"I do, actually!" The boy said cheerfully, banging his fist onto the table as if to add power to the point. "You see the thing is I've actually studied that war much more than I have ever wanted to in the last year or so. And I remember that Patroclus was so close to defying fate that Apollo himself had to bless an arrow to kill the man so that Troy wouldn't fall before it was meant to."

Everyone at the parley looked at the demigod in surprise. Everyone except for the boy at his side that only fiddled with a couple rocks as if this was normal while seemingly zoned out of the conversation.

"Patroclus's death is what sparked Achilles to rejoin the war that he had been sitting out of while all of his companions were slaughtered. And even then, though they gained considerable ground with Achilles fighting once more to avenge his partner's death, he soon died too and it was his son that actually brought an end to the war with the help of Odessyeus.

"'The only difference is,'" the boy continued, throwing the titan's words back at him, "while we may be Troy, you don't have a Patroclus or an Achilles, we do. And as far as I can see, there isn't an Odessyeus in sight on this playing board."

We have an Achilles and Patroclus, who? Does he think that it's himself and the boy next to him? I mean he does bear the curse, but the comparison doesn't fit just right.

I couldn't tell all that well, but it sounded like the boy at Jackson's side said something like, "Damn show off."

The spark of anger retired to the titan's eyes and I couldn't help but wonder if the boy was trying to die by pressing the buttons of the titan. It would be a quick death, sure, but there are much more painless ways to die than this.

"Think what you will," Promethus said, obviously not believing the other demigod. "Kronos will win," the titan insisted, "and when he does he will destroy Olympus. The gods will become weak and be easily defeated, just as the titans had been before. The day after tomorrow, Typhon will arrive and everything will be lost for you."

I lunged forwards between the two boys and slammed my hands onto the table, positioning myself to where I was in the titan's face. "I serve Artemis. The Hunters and I will fight to our last breath, you slime ball." I looked down at the son of Poseidon and found a seemingly pleased smile on his face. "Percy, you're not listening to this bullshit, are you?"

The other teen only waved me away as if the answer was obvious from the start. "Only your bullshit, dear cousin." I didn't know whether or not to be insulted by the response and settled for just going back to standing.

Prometheus smiled in a way that only made his already ouncable face all the more so. "Your courage does you credit," he complimented, "Thalia Grace."

I felt my body turn to lead at the name that the titan used, enough that almost every memory they I have always tried to forget flashed in my mind, begging to be released. A picture of a park, a flash of blond hair and a stapler, a crazed voice that made me hate the world. "That's my mother's surname, I don't use it," I snarled.

"As you wish," the titan said as if he hadn't had been trying to get under my skin only moments ago. "We just wish to offer peace before things go too far and mistakes can't be reversed."

Jackson raised an accusatory hand and lifted a slender finger towards the demigod of the opposing party. "He doesn't look like he wants peace."

The boy in question turned his nose up at the accusation, his eyes faring. "All I want is respect. The gods have never given me that, nor have they given it to any of the other children of the minor gods. All the gods do is have them crammed into the Hermes cabin as if they're not even important enough to be recognized."

My eyes shook at the words that the boy was speaking, he sounded just like Luke had when we were younger, before we made it to camp, before he and Annabeth did anyways.

It didn't sit right with me.

The son of Poseidon hummed as if considering the other demigod's point, the way that he looked, I could help but fear that he would break and go along with the titan's plan.

I was very wrong.

"Bullshit."

—-

Dazai POV

"Bullshit," I cursed after listening to the demigod's reasons. "If you aren't given respect then you earn it. And if that's not possible then you protest, you scream and shout and do anything you need to to get it, but you don't replace one bastard with another."

I couldn't understand the stupidity of teens, of all of those that had sided with Kronos in this. Their reasons for wanting a change were understandable, but the methods that they used to achieve them... those were more deplorable than what the doctor and I had done to the old boss. Even though the actions were similar to what they were trying to do right now, the effects that followed them were going to be very different.

My mood had been souring ever since the titan opened his mouth and started trying to manipulate the situation that we were in, treating us like idiots that couldn't understand the moves that were being made around us. It was the same condescension that I always got from new, older, members when they saw someone half their age and thought that this gave them the right to just walk all over me. Or try to at least. All of those men ended up in the infirmary, whether by my doing or by someone else that I had put there and decided to take pity on the brats and save them some pain.

The other demigod grabbed the hilt of his sword, resorting to violence when words didn't work the way that he had wanted them to. Sometimes violence was needed to make a point, but it is like any other weapon on your arosonal, you need to know how to wield it correctly and when to do so or else you're just floundering the opportunity.

"Now, now," the titan said, placating the boy. "We are on a diplomatic mission here."

"So physical violence is a no, but mental manipulation is allowed?" Chuuya asked, seeming to like the titan just as much as I did at this moment.

"I don't know what you mean," the deity lied.

I leaned forwards, my eyes growing darker by the second. "You mean that you didn't call Thalia by her last name just to get a rise out of the girl? You didn't bring a giant here because you thought that it would remind me of my brother and I would let my guard down? And you didn't bring Ethan here just so that I would be angered by him in the hopes of making me make rash decisions?"

The god's eyes went wider and wider, his mask of pleasantries dropping with each word that I spoke to him, each mistake that I pointed out.

"I told you not to play this game with someone that already has the rule book memorized," I reminded the titan.

The titan looked as if he himself was about to break the parley, but he quickly pulled himself together before he did something that would go against the rules that had been set. "Maybe if I just showed you the rest of the story that Hestia left out, you would understand..." he said, his desperation putting him in a trance.

Prometheus reached his hand out towards me, but I quickly jerked backwards out of his reach. "What the fuck is with all of you deities poking around and trying to put memories into my head as if you have any right to be there?!" I screamed, the noise loud and sudden enough to take the titan out of the trance that he had been in.

Chuuya reached out to me as if to try and calm me down, but I couldn't stop the way that my body flinched away from his, or the hurt look that flashed across his face at the response. I knew that it wasn't his fault, but I really couldn't handle being touched right now, not while my skin was crawling as it had been the weeks after the boss did what he had done. And especially not by the vessel of a god.

"You just need to understand the rest of the story," the titan protested. "If you did then you would know that this isn't a war worth fighting, not for them."

I laughed, something that sounded bitter even to my own ears. "Understand... let me guess, you were about to show me that Hermes had known the entire time what was going to happen to his son and had done nothing to change it, only tried to make him some kind of hero before he became the villain?" I guessed, watching the surprised expression come back to the titan's face, telling me that I was right. "Of course he knew. But oracles, even incomplete ones like Mrs. Calastan, can only tell the future, not change it or shape it. There was nothing that could have been done to stop Luke from going down this path.

"It's called fate for a reason."

"So you do understand and yet you're still fighting for them?" The titan asked, disbelief coloring his words.

I scoffed. "I'm not fighting for them," I protested. "I couldn't care less what happened to the Olympians."

"Then why-?"

"I'm doing this for my own reasons, one of them being that I've seen places controlled by tyrants, I've helped take them from power as you're trying to do now. The only difference between you and I is that I'm not stupid enough, nor am I in the business of taking one tyrant and replacing them with one much worse than the bastards already in place."

The old boss and the current one are almost the same when you compare their motives and aspirations, and while the doctor might be a shitty excuse for a person that I would gladly slit the throat of if given the opportunity if it didn't mean that I would most likely have to become boss, he's a good leader. He's someone that Chuuya, who doesn't know all of the things that he has done, aspires to be like. He's a tyrant sure and would be better suited in a body bag than the posh office that he has, but he doesn't act the way that the old boss did at the end, he isn't so out of control that someone had to come along and kill him to keep him from destroying the city that he was supposed to rule.

But in myths, Kronos was exactly like that. He ate his own children out of fear of a prophecy that said that his throne would be taken by one of his children and terrorized the land that he ruled over. Someone, something like that wouldn't be content with just destroying Olympus. He would raze the whole world if he got the chance and Chuuya would burn with it.

The titan looked at me as if considering the words that I had just said, but even if he saw the truth in them, he wasn't here to change sides and neither was I.

"...It seems that we are at an impasse then," he remarked, finally understanding the situation that he was in. "Very well then, I have a gift for you, for if you change your mind."

I noticed the way that he said if and not when, the silent concession there.

A Greek vase appeared on top of the picnic table. It was easily three feet high and close to a foot wide with intricate details carved into it in black and white. I knew what it was as I laid eyes upon it, as did the others around me it seemed. A foreign sense of fear settled itself into my chest with enough force that it felt like a physical ailment.

I knew that it didn't belong to me, that everyone looking at the piece-even the titan himself-felt it, but it sunk into my skin in a way that fear hadn't been able to do in months. It felt like acid burning away at the last of the numbness that I have been clinging to since I found my home in flames.

And suddenly my mother's death felt like something tangible, the spark of anger that I had felt when Kronos revealed that he had ocrastred it was a flame burning too bright. It felt like the morning in the hotel when I had fallen apart, except the numbness was slipping farther away the longer that I looked at the vase.

A hand wave in front of my face, a bare hand that I had already memorized the palm lines of. I looked at the older ability user and found a haunted gaze staring into my own, and somehow that was enough for me to calm down. The numbness creeped in the longer that I looked away from the vase and I clung to it, only letting it crack in small places for the other. I nodded to the other boy that I was okay and focused back in on the parlay.

"This used to belong to my sister-in-law," the titan explained, "Pandora."

"As in Pandora's box?" Grover asked, stepping his hooves nervously.

The titan sighed and shook his head in a way that made me want to chop it off. "I don't know where the idea that it is a box came from, the vase was never a box, but I suppose that it does have a better ring than Pandora's Pithos... Never mind that. When she opened this jar, she let out most of the demons that now haunt your world today."

"Only one spirit remained after Pandora opened the Pithos," I said, training my eyes on the titan and away from the damned jar. "Hope."

The titan looked pleased, whether from the way that I refused to even glance at the jar, or that I knew the story, I could only guess and know that which theory I landed on would probably be tainted by the other. "Very good. Elpis, the spirit of Hope, refused to abandon humanity. Hope will not leave unless given permission by a child of man."

The titan slid the jar across the table towards me, but I still refused to look at it.

"You know what the gods are like, you don't need a reminder of that," Prometheus started, the speech sounding a little forced, as if he'd had a different one prepared and was now having to adjust it to the new developments. "When you decide that you've seen enough death and destruction, open the jar. Let Elpis go and give up Hope. When you do, I will know that you are surrendering. Kronos will be lenient then and will spare the survivors."

"I take it that I can't give back this 'gift' even if I were to try to," I guessed, knowing that it wouldn't be so easy to get rid of something that could just be called upon at will. The titan nodded. "Well then if it's just going to follow me around then there's no point in carrying it," I decided.

"You don't care at all about the gift that you have been given?" The titan asked, seeming to find the idea mildly entertaining in an absurd way.

"You can't tempt someone with hope when they gave up on it long ago. That person has already learned that it's a dangerous and deceitful thing and that the pain that they get from losing it isn't worth having it at all."

I got up from the table and started walking back towards the way that we had come. "Parlay over."

The others slowly got the cue and followed as the titan ordered the clumsy giant to pick up the giant white flag that he had planted before. No one said anything as we walked away, everyone likely too distraught from whatever effect the jar had on them to want to.

"Is it really okay to just leave that there?" Grover asked after a little while, chewing nervously on something that looked suspiciously like a piece of the furniture from the hotel.

"Like I said before," I started, "it will just follow me if given enough time. Better to leave it there then risk someone else deciding to open it on an idiotic whim."

Hope really is a cruel thing.

Chapter Text

Dazai POV

Chuuya was purposely keeping a greater distance between the two of us as we walked back from the park to the hotel with the others. A distance that lasted all of the way through the elevator ride and the walk back to the room that we had shared only an hour or so before. What grated against my nerves the most wasn't the distance itself, but that I didn't know if he was doing it out of anger and spite or a misguided need to give me space after my reaction from earlier.

I didn't like it either way.

The door closed behind us, isolating the pair of us from everyone else in the hotel and locking us in together. The other teen had moved towards the middle of the room, looking between the couch and the bed as if he was torn between the two.

"Chuuya-" I started, but the boy held up his hand, silently cutting me off before I could say anything more than his name.

"Look Dazai," he started, walking over to the bed and sitting down on the edge of it. "I don't pry into what your problems are, but I'm your partner, so I try to help with the aftermath. When you have nightmares I'm there to help you go back to sleep, and when you can't stand other people's touch, I'm there to keep them away from you. But I can't do anything when new problems are arising and I can actually do something, but you're leaving me guessing at what they are."

I stared at the boy in mute shock before taking a small step towards the other teen. "You mean," I started, still not trusting that I was understanding everything right, "you're angry because I didn't come to you for help?"

The teen looked at me as if I had just grown a second head. "Yes, you fucking dense bastard," he answered, all loud anger with no real heat. "You've had two separate freak outs, both because of things that these shitty gods have done. Add this to the meltdown that you had at the hotel before coming to camp, and that makes three times that you've temporarily lost it." He pointed an accusatory finger at me. "I need to know what's triggering it, not why it's doing so, just what. That way if we're in a fight and it happens, I know when to step it."

I stepped closer to the other boy, slowly crossing the room and sitting down next to him on the bed. "Hestia," I started, glancing at the boy to make sure that he recognized the boy, "she put a memory into my head. Whenever I sleep, if it's not nightmares then it's visions. Whenever Prometheus reached out to touch me, he was going to force another memory into my mind. Keep the gods from messing with my mind, forcing themselves inside of it, and we'll be fine."

I looked at the older ability user and watched as his chest fell from the sigh that escaped his lips. He had a look on his face that made it seem like he wanted to ask why, but knew that he couldn't. He'd already said that he wouldn't, and even though we were both walking lies in our own right, we tried to make ourselves into truths, at least around one another.

"Okay," was all that he said.

I looked out at the slowly setting sun and did the calculations in my mind. "We can probably get a little bit of sleep before the second wave of the invasion," I suggested. Kronos is likely going to wait until it's completely dark outside to start trying to kill us once more, since some of his allies are strongest in the dark.

"What? Not worried about visions?" The other teen asked, his voice was teasing, but I could see the concern darkening the blue of his eyes.

I shrugged as if it didn't matter. "Demigods don't have a choice with visions," I explained. "Either they come or they don't."

"You are an inscrutable idiot sometimes," the teen said, kicking off his shoes to crawl into the bed.

"That's a big word for you, Chibi. Did it hurt?" I asked, letting my voice fall into false cheer.

"Hah?!" He yelled as I crawled into the bed after him. "You asshole, I was trying to be nice before!"

A small, earnest smile curved on my lips as we fell back into our old banter.

—-

Chuuya POV

The light turned down as the sound of the sheets shifting started once more, but instead of them stopping as the other boy all but flopped down to sleep, the bed dipped closer to my body as the younger teen placed his head on my chest. I knew that the weight there was too light for him to be relaxed, that he was giving me time to pull away and say that I didn't want this, but all I did was to raise my hand to his hair with the same light touch. The weight on my chest increased as Dazai settled down, accepting that I wasn't about to pull away, and I let my hand rest fully.

I wasn't stupid, I knew that this wasn't some type of spontaneous recovery. I knew that he was still messed up in ways that I couldn't understand and that this small concession was his way of apologizing for pulling away before. I knew that if we ever slept in the same bed again after going back to Japan, that I shouldn't expect him to do this again, but it was a show of trust that I was willing to accept.

—-

Annabeth POV

Thalia came back from the parlay close to around two hours after she was sent to go retrieve the son of Poseidon for it. I was expecting to feel lighting dancing in the air when she came back to the hotel, but instead of an angry storm, she was in an almost somber mood.

"How'd it go?" I asked when she sat down on the couch next to me.

There was a small smile on her face, a proud one that didn't fit the war that we were in, but was comforting. It was the same smile that she wore when we were growing up on the street and either Luke or I did something that she actually managed to find impressive.

"Percy kicked ass out there," she commented. I noticed that she used his first name instead of second, it meant as I thought, he had done something to earn her respect. "He made that asshole of a titan look like an idiot at every turn. That partner of his wasn't too bad either."

Thalia told me the story, from black market idea to the way that he defended her when the titan tried to use her last name to get to her. And everything he did seemed familiar, if not a little darker than I was used to.

I thought about the boy that I used to know, the one whose loyalty was his fatal flaw. Ever since he came traipsing back to camp, it had been like a stranger was wearing his skin. But maybe that wasn't it, maybe that was never it. Maybe we just grew up and grew apart into people that neither of us could recognize, but at our cores, were the same as we ever were. He's still the same idiot that would disrespect a deity just because they were acting in a way that he didn't like. And he was still just as loyal.

"Yeah," I agreed, "I guess they're both pretty good."

—-

Dazai POV

A banging sounded at the door sometime later. It was loud and persistent enough that I could see Chuuya reach behind his head and grab the alarm clock on the bedside table, throwing it at the door with all of the strength that he could use without his ability... the clock smashed into little pieces as a spiderweb crater was created in the door and plaster.

I dug my head deeper into the other boy's chest, savoring the warmth while it lasted for a few moments longer. The older teen shoved my head lightly.

"You've gotta get off of me, Mackerel," the boy grumbled, though all he did to change the situation that we were in was shove my head lightly.

"Whatever, Slug," I said, almost regretfully. I pulled myself off of the other teen and slid out of the bed, carefully stepping around all of the little pieces of what was once an alarm clock. "I guess it's time to finish this war."

—-

The leader of the Hunters and all of the head consolers of the Apollo cabin were waiting for the pair of us at the Reservoir. The street lights were slowly turning on throughout the city now that it had gotten darker once more. Chase looked at us with a considering gaze, but for the first time since coming back to camp it didn't seem to hold any heat to it.

The Hunter raised one of her silver arrows that seemed to appear at will whenever she chose for it to.

The wonders of magic I suppose.

"They're coming," the immortal girl confirmed, the arrow in her hand pointing north. "Their numbers... It's not good. The army is huge. We won't be able to hold them back."

I shrugged, something that earned me a few considering gazes from the other head counselors, but Thalia didn't seem fazed by it, having been at the parlay.

"Just as I said before, we'll hold them at the park and whittle down the numbers, using as much guerrilla warfare tactics as we can until we are pushed back," I explained. "If we get rid of some of the bulk of the numbers then the nastier monsters among them can be dealt with easier."

Chase shook her head violently. "It will never be enough."

The other head counselors looked at me as if waiting for me to say that she was wrong. I shrugged my shoulders nonchalantly. "You’re right," I agreed, "it wouldn't be, except I'm expecting about four sets of reinforcements to be coming in anytime now."

"Four?" Micheal Yew questioned. "How the Hades do you figure that?"

I held up a finger. "Chiron hasn't been seen since the war started, so he has to have been doing something all of this time, because it's not in his interest to let us all die." Two. "The Ares cabin will only be able to stay out of this for so long. And the last two are both things that I have set the layout for and should see it coming to fruition pretty soon."

I thought that the daughter of Athena might fight me on this, but all she did was nod. "Grover," she said, turning to the satyr in question, "you and the nature spirits can help hold them at the park right?"

"If we can hold them anywhere, that would be the best place. We can do this," the satyr said, nodding.

"Yes we will!" A new voice forced themselves into the conversation. The owner of the voice was a very fat satyr who was pushing through the crowd of demigods to get to those of us that were strategizing.

I turned to Chuuya who had a look of disgust on his normally very pretty face. "Have you ever just seen someone and automatically wanted to slit their throat with a knife?" I asked the boy, speaking lowly in Japanese.

The foreign language brought a few odd looks, but apparently the obnoxious satyr was more interesting than anything that we had to say.

"You too?" Chibi asked, his words automatically being translated to English by the choker.

By the time that the pair of us had focused back in on the conversation going on around us, the old satyr had already pledged to help with the war effort, something that no one else in the circle seemed to be impressed by and I wasn't too inclined to be either.

"Right," I said, puking the conversation back on track. "The Athena cabin will stay in the park with the Hunter-if Thalia will allow it," I looked up at the representative of the Hunters.

"We're always ready to kick some ass," the girl confirmed, nodding at the request.

"-and Chuuya and I." I glanced at the other consulars, doing a mental calculation of how many demigods we had left after everything that went down. "Everyone else, go back to the bridges and tunnels that you were guarding yesterday and deal with any other smaller invasion forces that will be coming through."

The head counselors each nodded that they understood.

"Then let's get this done, shall we?"

—-

Chuuya POV

The sounds of war were familiar in a distorted way as demigod teens ran forwards, leaving the woods as giants and monsters powered out like a wave behind them. The demigods around me broke apart and settled into the decided formation at the sight of the enemy forces coming towards us. The Athena cabin, Hunter of Artemis, and the nature spirits working in tandem to do long range attacks meant to force the enemy to go around the reservoir to get to all of us, limiting the space that they could occupy and slowing down the invasion.

At first everything seemed to be working. The Hunters shot their arrows and sent out their hunting birds to blind the monsters coming towards them. The satyr and the other nature related creatures cast spells at the monsters, roots growing up from the earth and lacing around the creatures' feet, causing them to fall-and the bigger ones-to crush their own allies beneath them.

It wasn't long before a presence made itself Known on the battlefield, one that made my ability flare up on its own. Dazai looked at me with something resembling concern as he must have noticed the signature red hue in his peripheral vision. The pair of us were hanging back out of the way of the demigods laying traps around the park, there was no reason for either of us to be using any form of powers or abilities.

I pointed a slender finger at the man that it felt like the presence of power was coming from. "The shinny bastard over there that looks like a walking flashlight."

I watched as Dazai looked to the man that I had shown him, the way that his eyes went wide with surprise and recognition and his mouth twisted into an ugly frown. He cursed lightly under his breath in a language that I didn't know, but could guess the meaning of all the same.

"Who is he?"

Who is the being powerful enough to cause the mindless god inside of me to react even though it shouldn't be able to?

"Hyperion, lord of light," the other boy responded. "After Atlas, the titan holding up the sky, he is said to be the greatest warrior that the titans have. He controlled the East, the most powerful corner of the world at the time and was the father of Helios, the sun god that came before Apollo."

We watched as the titan moved forward towards us as if he had all of the time in the world, an attitude that I might expect from the titan lord of time, but not a walking light beam.

"Shit," I cursed, my brian running wild with what could, what would happen.

"Yeah," the other boy agreed, "shit." 

The teen pulled the pen out of his pocket that I had seen him playing with at meetings and had recently learned could transform into a sword when the cap is taken off, making me feel much less bitter about all of the times that I had asked to borrow it when I couldn't find one of my own and he said no. "You know what we're going to have to do now, right?"

I sighed. "Yeah. Yeah."

"Let's go then."

The other teen moved forwards, jumping into the reservoir and running across the water as if it was the most natural thing that he could think to do. Then again, I activated my ability once more and pushed off of the ground like a bullet with enough gravity that it broke into pieces, that wasn't exactly normal either.

The titan raised his sword at us as we came closer, with a rabid look on his face that I could see from a little less than twenty feet away.

The titan and the demigod crashed into one another with their swords, but not before the younger teen reached behind his back and threw the gun that he had been carrying in my direction. I caught it quickly and removed the bullets from the gun.

The pair moved around one another as Dazai created a tidal wave and sent it at the roaring titan, knocking the being over with the weight of the water. As the titan struggled back to his feet, I moved forwards, I took my chance and spread the gravity to his body, making him crumble once more.

It was like trying to hold back a dam with just my bare hands. The titan fought and cursed under the weight of my gravity even as it increased and the mackerel continuously drowned the deity with as much water as he could control without soaking me as well and risking breaking my hold. I could feel him fighting against the gravity, against my ability, and for the second time in as many days I understood the stark contrast between the power that a god could wield and that of a titan's.

We knew that we had no true of stopping something that couldn't be killed, only holding them back from the others until one of us could think of a way to trap the bastard, but we didn't have the time to do either of those. Despite the increasing gravity still pressing down on him, the lord of light was still able to scream.

The titan yelled out and when he did, a force just like the one that Kronos had used on the bridge came out of him, knocking the bandage waste and I backwards and away from one another until we each smashed into the ground. I was able to flip out of it, using my ability to land on my feet and only slid backwards, coming out relatively unscathed.

Dazai wasn't so lucky. The younger was smashed into the ground in a way that I was sure would have broken almost every bone in his too thin body had he not made himself take a dip in that Underworld river, the River Sticks or something, before the start of all of this.

My blood boiled as the knowledge sunk in that in that one move I could have lost my partner, that he would have died as he had always wanted to and there was nothing that I could have done to stop it. Not even the demigods' magic healing candy would have been able to save the boy.

I ran at the titan, only able to see red as my body moved without care for the abuse that I would surely end up taking from the being. Swinging a powerful kick at the deity, I loved the way that he finally looked at me as if I was a threat and not just an annoying bug trying to tie him down. I kicked and slashed at the titan with the knife that the suicidal manic had given me, taking just about as much damage as I managed to give.

One twist of my body told me that Dazai was still slowly pulling himself to his feet, the titan's blow having been more directed at him than it was at me. Golden eyes stared back at me in glee as he saw what I did and I wanted to maul the creature's face until it was unrecognizable.

So I did.

The bullets slipped into my hands from my pockets as I landed a well placed kick to the being's face. I let my body be batted away by the angered titan, using the distance to sling the pieces of metal at the flash light's ugly mug, watching with satisfaction as two of them land themselves in the bastard's eyes, golden blood running down the titan's face like a stream as I crashed to the earth once more, this time much more violently and painful than the last.

I looked to where Dazai had watched my descent in horror, seeming to find no comfort in the bloody smile that I gave the other teen. A storm started to rage around the boy, something violent and volatile that seemed more suited for me than him. But even as I thought that, I remembered the name that the younger teen had been given in the mafia, the title that they all called him by, and I thought it fit very well with the scene before me.

As Dazai fought the golden titan, the wind picked up around him, water coursing through it and spraying the bladed titan. Clouds of water vapor tore through the air around my partner as winds so strong that they flattened the grass for at least twenty yards took over. Lighting flickered around the younger teen, the clouds darkening into an angry storm as Dazai became his own natural disaster.

"Amazing," the word slipped out before I could stop it, but it was true.

The other mafioso was every storm and every strong wind that I had ever seen. He was the ocean fighting the father of the sun. I wondered for a moment if this was how he felt every time that he watched me tear across the battlefield, because maybe if it was I could ask him what the fluttering feeling in my chest was and why the word beautiful came to mind when it should be the last word that should be tainting my thoughts.

Activating my ability once more, I pushed to my feet and ran against the winds like they didn't exist at all. The satyr, Grover, was signaling for the other boy to bring the titan towards himself and I wanted to be there for when he did. I knew better than Dazai did that he couldn't keep that much power up for long, not if he still wanted to be able to be useful in some way later. Displays of power like this take energy and from the stunned looks on the satyr that used to be his best friend's face, I knew that he had never done something like this before.

The younger boy managed to send the titan crashing to the earth with one final push as he had done to the pair of us. The second that he made contact with the ground, I held the blind titan under my gravity, holding the monster in place. I didn't know what the half goat was planning on doing with him, but I knew that he should do it fast.

Music rang out almost as if on cue. Around the grove that the titan had been forced to land in, it seemed that every satyr that had made it this far had a set of reed pipes in their hands as an eerie melody, that I'm sure Elise would've loved to hear, took form. The ground rumbled as if awakened by their song, era putting around the titan's feet as gnarled roots shot up and wrapped themselves around the deity.

The roots thickened as they moved up the titan's body, restraining him even as he pitifully fought to free himself from him. The titan screamed and ragged as the roots grew faster and faster, encasing his body in bark as his own forces slowly backed away from the scene in fear while the titan's golden armor melted into wood.

The titan stretched out his arm, most likely a desperate last plea for help from the allies that he could no longer see, but the song continued and his arms were encased in bark like branches.

The tree divided its attention, still slowly covering the titan even as other parts of the tree shot up around him, growing taller than the being had already been. With one last desperate cry, the titan's golden stained face was covered in tree bark and I finally let go of my ability's hold and the music ceased.

For the first time since coming here, I was happy that I lived in an area with much less nature and parks than Manhattan seemed to have. I don't know if I'll ever be able to look at a tree the same way again.

Several of the satyrs in the grove passed out as the enemy forces ran away, fearing for their lives after seeing what they just had. I couldn't blame them, nature and all of the disasters within it are powerful things.

A triumphant cry came from the Athena cabin, as Dazai jogged towards me, scanning my body as if cataloging any damage that had been done to me.

"You're bleeding," he noted softly before waving his hand in a way that I almost would have thought was dismissive if not for the water that washed over the cut, supposedly cleaning the blood away.

I wanted to say something, but the scene was cut short... by my own words:

"What the actual fuck?"

—-

Dazai POV

A squeal loud and horrid enough to cause all those that heard it, demigod and monsters alike to freeze in what I could only assume to be terror. Grover freaked out worse than those around us, telling me that he already knew and was well acquainted with whatever monster that this was.

"A sow!" Chase screamed out, identifying the creature just as Grover had, but looking considerably less like someone that knew the monster personally. "Take cover!"

Only moments later a large creature that looked like pink tinted pig with bright pink wings strong enough to support it sprouting from the monster's back, dived down towards the reservoir, barely missing any demigods as they all dived out of the way in time.

Chuuya and I crouched down as well, knowing that just because we were two of the closest things to invincible on the battlefield, we shouldn't unnecessarily take a hit for no reason.

Shooting the other a small, sly smile, I pointed up at the pig soaring above us. "I guess we can't say 'when pigs fly' anymore, can we?" I whispered.

The older teen shot me a dirty look, the ill timed joke earning me a light slap on the back of the head, but I could tell that he had been thinking something similar. I had just been the one to voice it.

Glancing around, I spotted something useful and snatched the item from one of the children of Athena. Not wasting any time, I tossed the rolled up grappling hook at the Hatrack and pointed to the sow as it took another dive at us all. The older teen unwound the weapon and stood up, the red hue to his body showed that he understood just what I meant as he threw the hook up into the air.

Chuuya didn't bother trying to aim the thing in a way that it would wind around the monster's body like a lasso. Instead he threw it with enough force that it sunk into the monster's skin. The cocky smile of his that I have grown to love as much as it annoyed me showed itself once more as the slug's ability spread like wildfire up the grappling hook and to the sow, encasing everything that the older boy touched. Within moments the sow was inside a crater that had formed from the force of the fall as it screeched in pain from effectively crushed to death. The squealing was cut off suddenly as a creature that not even Heracles had been able to kill, burst to dust before our eyes.

"Keep doing stuff like that and these idiots might decide to call you a hero," I joked lightly, taking my place at the smaller teen's side.

The teen shot me a dark look. "As if you're one to talk."

"We need to join the forces back in the city!" I yelled out, standing to get the attention of the demigods and satyrs. "Let's move out!"

Chapter Text

Dazai POV

From what I could tell, we arrived in Midtown in just enough time to keep our forces from being overrun ahead of schedule.

As we ran through the war zone, the remainder of the Athena cabin, the Hunters of Artemis, and the nature spirits that could leave, slowly divided themselves up amongst the little skirmishes that had broken out all over the area. Though Chuuya and I both knew that we could easily deal with any of the small fights on our own, we both also knew that this was the time to stop distracting you with small play and pull out the better cards.

The pair of us weaved through the crowds of demigods and monsters, pushing as close as we could get to the Empire State Building, to where our defenses needed us the most. For the next hour we fought like the world was ending, watching one another's backs while keeping the careful distance between us that would keep each of us alive.

The moon had been high in the sky for a long while by the time that we were pushed back to only a block between us and the Empire State Building at any given direction. I knew that had it just been me and the rest of camp, we would have been pushed back to this point a long time before this. The other demigods weren't as used to fighting so late in the night as Chuuya and I were, nor for so long. They were growing tired and that was making them reckless. The number of injured demigods lying on the ground or missing in general were enough proof of that.

Off in the distance I could see a golden shine that might have been mistaken for the early morning sun if it wasn't for the straying lights circling around it. Kronos was riding towards us on a golden chariot as an easy dozen Laistrygonian giants carried bright torches around the titan. He was moving at an easy pace, leszurly even. Something that I noticed that he tended to do when he was feeling overly confident, not because he was as cocky as he appeared to be, but because he was saving his energy and letting the enemy wear themselves out first. Smart tactic, but extremely annoying to be on the other side of.

The enemy had managed to back us up ten more feet before worry started to seep into my movements. It was far too early for us to be taking this fight up the Olympus just yet, we needed to hold out for longer, but the allies around Chuuya and I were dropping fast. But just as those thoughts started, they were stopped by a sudden and blaring noise tearing across the battlefield.

A hunting horn.

It wasn't just one either. After the initial noise, a whole symphony of the instruments sang out from all around us, creating their own haunting concert echoing through Manhattan.

At some point in the battle Thalia had made her way over to Chuuya and I as all of the forces, enemy and allied alike, were scrunched together. I glanced at the girl and found her frowning at the noise.

"This isn't you guys," the Hatrack guessed from her expression as I had, "is it?"

The forever younger girl shook her head at the question. "No, all of the Hunters are already here," she confirmed. "This isn't us."

The haunting melody grew louder and louder as the source of it drew closer, the echo throwing off my sense of just which direction it was that they were coming from and how many there were, but I knew that they were coming fast.

I looked down at Chibi, but found him already looking up at me, the dagger that I had given him glinting dangerously in his hand as his one in Yokohama would be when we're in situations like this when he could afford to take reckless shots at the enemy and hit an alley.

"Enemies?" He questioned, the dagger glowing dangerously in his hand as if it would burst into flames at any given moment, just like the original explosion that had created Suribachi City.

Tearing my eyes away from the older teen, I glanced around the field and took in the information that I could gleam from it.

"No," I decided, taking a hint of pleasure from the confused look on the other mafioso's face. I pointed at the clump of lights that had gotten much to close for comfort. "Look."

The shorter teen followed my gaze and saw the field as I did, watched their body language as Kronos's honor guard sent unseat looks between one another, unsurarity apparent in their every move.

"They don't know what to make of the new guys either," the slug realized, a small smirk forming on his face. "Which means-"

"That they're ours," I finished.

Thalia was looking at us like we had finally lost it and she was mildly surprised that we hadn't before. But we knew that we were just as sane as we had always been.

Only a moment later something close to a hundred monsters cried out in pain and surprise from our left as they were overrun by fast moving creatures. The horn blared a final time and an entire calvary showed up before us. Volleys of arrows rained down faster than any mortal could have ever hoped to shoot them. It was an army of mythological creatures that I hadn't seen since I was thirteen, but was pleased to see nonetheless.

"Welcome the first round of reinforcements," I said to no one in particular, though that didn't stop me from having multiple pairs of eyes glaring at me in a way that said that they didn't find my boasting as entertaining as I did at the moment.

The self proclaimed, Party Ponies, ran rampant through the streets of Manhattan, hundreds of centaurs dressed in an outlandish array of colors filled the entire block. They ran at the enemy forces, tearing across them and running over the smaller monsters while shooting down the stronger ones. I knew that this wasn't a fix, but it bought us some time as dawn drew closer.

Thalia and Chase understood the situation just as I did as when I went to wave them down to help with corralling the demigods towards the Empire State Building, they were already doing just that. The Party Ponies enthusiastic and overzealous screams tore through the air louder and more obnoxious than any demigod, other than maybe the Hermes cabin on a good day, could hope to be, so it was a slight surprise when the other demigods actually heard us screaming for them to fall back.

"We're drawing back?" Chuuya asked as he ran at my side to the building.

I nodded. "Only partially," I confirmed.

We haven't given up access to Olympus, not just yet.

—-

Chuuya POV

With the time given to us by the centaur invasion, Dazai, Chase, and Thalia were able to work together to set up a two block perimeter as the sun rose, keeping the enemy forces at bay. A temporary command tent was also made, which was where Chiron gave us the numbers on just how many centaurs he had brought with him. The answer was roughly close to five hundred, the largest amount of reinforcements that I had ever seen in my life, but from Dazai's calculated expression, I knew that it wasn't close to being enough.

"That was more fun than the last convention in Vegas!" One of the centaurs exclaimed once things had calmed down and the titan's forces had retreated for the time being.

"Yeah!" Another one shot back excitedly, neither caring to keep their voices down. "We totally wasted them."

I watched with a look of interest as Chiron tried to corral his relatives before ultimately all but giving up and sending them away to a diner within the perimeter that apparently had root beer, something which the other centaurs were very excited about. Seeing them like this made me never want to give any of them even a sip of actual beer.

I tugged the mackerel's sleeve, having him lean down so I wouldn't have to speak loud to be heard. "They're like the American frat boys that you see in the terrible college seasons on t.v. shows," I whispered from my place at his said.

The younger teen let out a light chuckle that I actually believed was true. A lightning strike of surprise went through my body at the other boy's action, but he didn't seem to have even noticed what he had just done as he just continued on.

"Yeah," the other teen agreed, whispering just as I had. "Chiron is kinda the gray sheep of the family."

My eyebrow arched at the other's words. "Gray sheep?" I questioned, wondering just what bullshit Dazai had decided to spew this time.

The taller teen shrugged lightly before answering. "Doesn't fit in with the rest of the family, but isn't exiled like the black sheep of the family would normally be."

Ah, so the bullshit that makes sense on some level, but is still complete and utter bullshit. Got it.

"Of course, 'cause that's a real thing."

Instead of answering my obvious call on his making up of his own terms, the demigod turned his attention to the only centaur that still remained after sending all of the rest away. "What's the status on Typhon?" He asked, crossing his arms in a way that I knew meant he just wanted a simple answer but was preparing for a long one that he didn't want to hear.

Chiron's face visibly darkened at the younger teen's question, something that told both of us all that we needed to know about what was going on beyond the titan's and goddess's barrier.

The centaur told us of how drained the gods were becoming from the continuous fighting. He said that Dionysus had been taken out from the sky and that no one had heard from the god since. The instructor told us that the god would heal, but not in enough time to actually be of any use to us anymore. He told us that the gods had managed to slow down the titan's approach, but that he would arrive in New York by day break tomorrow.

The Hunter sighed heavily before forcing herself to her feet. "I'll see about setting up new traps around the perimeter," she declared, though it sounded more like she was trying to convince herself to do it by telling others that she would be. Anyone that took one look at the eternal teenager could tell that she was beyond tired.

"I will go help her," Chiron reported tiredly. "I need to keep an eye on my brethren so that they don't go too overboard in the city."

The centaur left, leaving the mackerel and I alone in the command tent. The other teen looked exhausted as he pulled himself to his feet, but I knew that he would be okay, the pair of us ran on little sleep back home. The most stinking difference between Japan and here wasn't even all of the fighting, but just how much of a mess the other boy has become. We've both become.

Dazai had enough tears in his clothing that all of it would need to be thrown away as soon as this was all over. Though I doubt he or any of the others have even realized it just yet, the bandages lining his arms were frayed and falling apart from all of the abuse that they have taken during the fight with the titan and everything that happened after. They had even started unraveling at the top of his arms. It was honestly nothing short of a miracle that they were still on at all.

I was only in better shape than the invisible teen because I could use my ability to repel all of the snags and tearing that would have happened without it. Back in Yokohama, it was a cold day in hell when the other boy had more than a slightly messy outfit because he didn't get into this level of combat. The last time that I saw him anything close to like this was when we were fighting Randou and his ability had taken over the old boss's corpse, attacking Dazai with his scythe of all things.

Thinking back to that day, I guess I shouldn't have been surprised as I was that things turned out something like this. The bastard was much too adept at fighting the ability back then for a normal fourteen year old. In a way that fight had just been a precursor of sorts for what happened on the bridge and what will happen later when the time bastard and the mackerel meet once more.

"I swiped some bandages from the Apollo cabin back on the bridge," I told the other teen, pulling the rolls from out of my pockets. "Why don't we replace those?"

The younger boy nodded stiffly, something that I noticed he did a lot when it came to his bandages. Dazai could be a very vocal person when he wanted to be, but when it came to the white linings on his body, to the damage permanently tattooed on his skin, he always went quiet. The reason behind all of the scarring there was a mystery to everyone but all of those that put them there, and though I know that I all but promised not to pry, sometimes I really just wanted to know.

We moved to a spot in the open tent where those passing by wouldn't be able to see without having to actively look for one of us before the younger teen sat down once more and let me get to work. Unrolling the bandages, I could feel the other boy's eyes on me like a weight as he focused on me and not on his own skin. You didn't have to be a genius to guess why, there was an inglorious history written there, something that even the owner might not want to see.

—-

Dazai POV

My eyes stayed glued on the smaller boy as his fingers ran over the raised skin there. Fighting back a shiver, I thought about anything but how truly vulnerable I always seemed to become around the older teen, with or without the Curse of Achilles. And yet it wasn't an unwelcome sense. But the almost pleasant feeling didn't last long because suddenly my mind wasn't there, it was someplace foreign that I had never been before.

The next thing I knew I was standing in the middle of a rundown bar with neon signs that the owner seemed to believe made up for the horrible stature of the place, as a small mob of obnoxiously drunk adults partied like they were the ones going to war. Country music blared loud enough from the speakers to make my ears hurt as my brain struggled to comprehend the words being sung through the accents. Men with more muscle and some with more fat on their bodies than either group could ever need crowded and bunched up at the bar, as waitresses carried around tray after tray of drinks while yelling at one another over the music. Even just being here in a non corporal form that I inhabited was enough to tell me that if I lived long enough to actually sit down and drink at a bar, it would have to be somewhere quiet. The exact opposite of this.

"Good, you're here," a man at an arcade machine that I didn't recognize said without bothering to look at me.

The man had pudgy features and was drowning in mismatched bright colors and prints that would have made Chibi have an aneurysm had he been here to see it. With how bad it was, it made me miss the mafia black color scheme far more than I had already been after being surrounded by orange for days on end. He had a punchable face with a bandage wrapped sloppily around his head in a fashion that made me want to cut it off and force him to put it on again properly. Everything about the man set me on edge, but that was mostly because he's always reminded me of a mortal long turned to stone.

"Dionysus," I greeted, my voice a little more formal than it strictly needed to be.

The god sighed, not taking his eyes off of the small yellow dot and the colorful ghost-like creatures chasing after it as it tried to eat the gray dots all over the screen. "It's been a while, though I'm not sure what name I should call you by."

I scoffed, forcibly shaking off my discomfort and moving closer so that I could watch and see the game better. We didn't have this one at the arcade back in Yokohama, and I never had any friends to go with to arcades when I still lived in the states. Even if I had, I was either at boarding schools or just didn't have the money to spare.

"You've never had any problems calling me by whatever you liked in the past," I remarked, watching as the little yellow creature ate a pink ghost, sending it away to a little ghost jail to respawn. The whole thing reminded me of a demigod killing monsters only for them to come back from Tartarus like brand new.

"That was before you ran away from camp and took on a fake name or two," the god said hurriedly, running away from the angry ghost as whatever fruit he had eaten had worn off, meaning that the ghost could kill him once more for some reason.

Shrugging, I chose not to answer and let the god come up with whatever sorry excuse for a name he decided on this time. I could have answered the deity, but I didn't want to hear the first name that I had chosen for myself coming from his mouth, didn't want to ever hear it spoken aloud at all.

"So why am I here?" I asked, turning my back to the god and watching the idiot mortals stumble drunkenly over one another. "I know that it wasn't just to chat."

"I brought you into my little impromptu party time to give you a warning: We are in danger."

A humorless laugh echoed through the air and after a moment I realized that it belonged to me. "Well no fucking shit," I cursed. "I figured that out all on my own, thanks."

"Don't sass me, Jorgensen. I'm already in a bad mood from Blinkey here," the deity warned, sparing the time that it takes to point an angry finger in my general direction. "I'm smite you before you even have time to celebrate being sixteen."

"Go ahead," I mummered.

I thought I saw the god falter, but I figured that he must have just made a bad decision with the arcade game and brushed the reaction aside as meaningless. "Listen, the situation is much more dire than you can imagine. If Olympus falls, not only will the gods fade to nothing, but so will everything connected to us as well. The very fabric of your little society will unravel."

"Thank you so much for telling me more things that I already know," I scoffed. "That's the entire reason that I even bothered with coming back," I explained, "because I didn't know what would happen if I didn't and they lost." The god grumbled and angirly moved the little yellow ball around as I spoke, but was too focused on his game to threaten me or try to physically hurt me like I thought he might. "Look, can you tell me something that I don't already know?"

The god huffed loudly, but wasn't as put out by the attitude as he should have been because he'd just advanced to the next level. Two hundred fifty-four to be exact. I didn't even want to know just how many levels there were to this game, or just how long the deity has been playing it since being swatted from the sky.

"Within a day at most, dear old dad will burn away the mortal body that he has now and will take on the true form of a titan," the god informed.

I nodded solemnly. We had already figured that Luke's body was only a temporary body for the titan lord of time, but this gave us a better time frame than just sometime soon. With this, the decision that will save or destroy Olympus will probably take place very soon before the deadline comes, the fates always seemed to cut it close like that.

"Kronos will be ten times more powerful than the gods in their true form once he comes into his," the god of wine continued. "His presence alone would be enough to turn you to less than dust."

"Thanks for the tip," I told him, some small, miniscule, part of me actually meaning it. "Can I go now?"

"You demigods are so ungrateful these days," Dinoysous remarked, something that made me actually chuckle since the gods have never given us anything to actually be thankful for. "I just have one question first. My son, Pollux, is he alive?"

My body jerked lightly in surprise. Sometimes I couldn't help but forget that the gods, even if only for fleeting moments at a time like this, actually cared for their children. The deities used us all as pawns in their little power schemes enough that it was an easy thing to forget as you got older and saw all of the flaws in the beings that were supposed to be without them.

"...The last that I saw him he was," I told the god at last.

"Okay then," Dionysus said calmly, almost as if reassured, before switching back to his annoyingly obnoxious tone. "Go now. You have some nasty surprises to deal with, and I have a screen demon to vanquish."

I made a noise or disapproval, wanting to ask what the bastard had meant but the god only waved his hand in a dismissive manner as the bar dissolved just as fast as it had come.

—-

I blinked and I was back in the command tent with fingers brushing against my bare skin and the world pressing in. I jerked back violently enough to cause the owner of the hands to freeze and lose their grip on my arms and whatever it was that had been in their hands only a moment before. My instincts clashed against one another as part of me was already mentally halfway across the street while the other half of me reassured me that it was okay to stay. That it was safe.

"Dazai," a soft voice called out as a hand waved in front of my face just as how they had done only hours before. "Come on, mackerel."

Mackerel...

"I'm here, slug."

I looked up and I was met with a pair of blue eyes that I knew better than my own. Chibi's eyebrows were scrunched together with a look of concern that didn't fit his features and I didn't like that I was the one that put it there.

"The gods again?" He asked, slowly picking the fallen bandages back up and reaching for my arm once more in a slow fashion that gave me all the time in the world to pull away. When I didn't he went back to work covering up the rest of my arm.

I nodded. "Apparently they are all incapable of giving any information that I don't already know, but can give vague, unhelpful, references to things that I don't like there's no tomorrow," I grumbled, hearing how childish I sounded but not caring in the slightest. "I mean who tells you that there's going to be a 'nasty surprise' and not even what it is?"

I saw a small smile curve on Chuuya's lips as he listened to my ramblings, but he only shrugged and finished off the last of the bandages when I tried to ask.

Looking down at my arms, I saw that the older teen had done a good job at the bandages this time, a right side better than the other boy's first try back at the hotel. Though I suppose some of that could have been attributed to the events that had come before. I was about to say as much when something that sounded like a mechanical drum sounded through the sleeping city.

Chuuya and I glanced at one another, uncertainty coloring both of our faces as we sprung to our feet with weapons in hand and ran out of the tent into the street.

The sight above did not disappoint.

—-

Annabeth POV

A chopping noise filled the air, something that anyone who had spent any given time in New York would have grown used to and tuned out with the other noises of the busy city, but this morning it blared through Manhattan like an alarm. I ran out into the street just as a few of the other demigods that could move easily on their own had done to get a better look at the source of the noise. Even the monsters seemed to find it interesting as we could hear their jeering from a few blocks over.

The source of the noise was a civilian model helicopter with the initials 'DE' painted in a bright green to contrast nicely with the dark green of the machine. I knew what it stood for without even having to be close enough to read the fine lettering below the initials.

"Rachel," I whispered.

Grover had run across the mortal girl on the quest to save me from Atlas the winter after Percy had left. He had said that she was a mortal girl born with the sight. I hadn't really thought anything of it until that summer when we found the Labyrinth and Rachel had somehow managed to become our golden string, showing us the way out of the ever changing maze. The pair of us had kept in contact since then. We had plans to meet up after the war if the world didn't go to Hades before that, but I had been having visions with the girl in them for days now.

I hadn't expected that she would be brazen enough to come here, or that she would be about to crash in the process of doing something as foolish as flying into an active war zone with a mortal pilot, seemingly without knowing how to fly the aircraft on her own.

I watched in mute horror as the helicopter careened to the side, falling towards a row of office buildings that would make for a violent and deadly landing if it wasn't stopped first.

Without a second thought, I brought my fingers to my lips and whistled as loudly as I could. In the almost silent city, the noise echoed against the buildings, but was quickly covered up by the sound of flapping as the pegasus, Guido swooped down in a hurried arc that told me he understood just what was at stake.

Swiftly, I threw myself onto the back of the Pegasus, the creature taking to the sky as soon as it was sure that I wouldn't fall off once it started to move once more. I was going into this with a half cocked idea and no flying experience to speak of other than what we do at camp with the pegasi, but that was demigod luck for you and I stopped questioning it years ago.

Just hang in there, Dare.

Chapter Text

Dazai POV

I watched in a sense of mute fascination as the daughter of Athena mounted the pegasus that had come when she called it and took to the sky without so much as a second thought and only a barely put together plan. Watching her climbing higher and higher into the early morning sky, I was once reminded of just how other humans have always appeared to me. She was acting on emotion alone right now, something that I had stopped doing almost the moment that I met the blonde ability at the bridge.

I don't think I'll ever understand what it truly means to be human.

Though the mortal pilot seemed to be asleep, we could still hear the screams of whoever the passenger inside of the helicopter was as they spiraled to the ground. I thought that Chuuya might say something about trying to help the demigod, something that we both know is well within his realm of abilities, but time seemed to have turned the other teen callous as well to the sight. So all we did was standing in the street, gazing up at the sky as the daughter of Athena flew the Pegasus as close to the helicopter as she could force it as she grabbed at the door and flung it open, slender arms pulling the girl the rest of the way in as the pegasus flew back to the ground.

The aircraft continued to plummet to the ground, showing no true signs of stopping in time even after Chase had taken over the situation. Something akin to boredom had settled in my chest as we watched the helicopter continue to careen straight for one of the taller buildings of the city, but it was quickly replaced but a small jolt of surprise as the helicopter groaned and righted itself only a mere moment before disaster struck, replacing the dangerous decent with a slow pace back to the ground.

When the helicopter landed and the side door opened to reveal the inhabitants inside of it, it wasn't the fact that Chase was at the wheel that surprised me, that I had figured out on my own, but the pale redhead that emerged, pulling a sleeping pilot from the aircraft.

The mystery girl was dressed as if for a beach vacation in a T-shirt and sandals. Nothing suited for her being of any physical help to the war unless we were planning on using the mortal as bait, but that seemed a little too barbaric for what Chiron would allow, though the boss was a different story.

Chuuya looked at me with a curious gaze, but I only shrugged my shoulders. "She must have shown up after I left," I whispered, leaning down so that only the other teen would hear me as there were still a few others around.

Turning my head, I glanced at the medical area that the Apollo chin had set up while the other mobile demigods were creating the perimeter and wondered if they would even let me do anything if I were to go over there and offer to help, or if I should just skip straight to trying to sleep some more before the first 'nasty surprise'.

However a third choice was created for me as the blonde demigod waved Chuuya and I over to her and the red haired girl at her side. Chibi and I glanced at one another but we both knew that we didn't have a good excuse not to go other than just basic blatant disregard, so we walked over slowly and they met the pair of us close to half way. When we were walking I could see Chiron coming over to the four of us as well, a look of interest on his face that made me bleating wonder just who the mortal was, especially since she hadn't fallen asleep like the pilot that'd come with her.

"I've been seeing things," the girl was saying to Chase as we walked over. She sounded confused and if not a little distressed, like someone that believed that they were going crazy. "And I've been drawing pictures and writing lines in-"

"In Ancient Greek," Chase finished as if she had already known all of this. Maybe she did, with the way that visions occur in this world, it's likely that she could have been dreaming about the mortal all week.

The girl was looking at the daughter of Athena with a pleading gaze, green eyes trained on the other girl enough that she hardly even noticed our arrival. Not that Chuuya nor I seemed to mind, it wasn't everyday that you found a mortal with a touch of prophetic abilities. The last had been May Castellan after all, and I could remember just how that turned out.

Chase nodded as if trying to give the other girl some sense of comfort before turning to the pair of us and pointing at each of us. "This is Percy and Chuuya," she introduced. She looked like she was about to tell us the other girl's name but didn't get the chance.

"The boys with two names," the girl with hair the color of blood muttered while looking at us with a faraway gaze that made me wonder if she was even seeing us at all.

I felt my body go stock still with shock as Chuuya sucked in a breath from at my side. Neither of us had been expecting that and obviously there was something that the other ability was trying to forget in his past just as I had been. It was cruel to call attention to both of our bloodied lives.

After a moment's hesitation, I shifted and pressed myself up against the other boy's side. Just the lightest of touches, a small reminder that he was here and wherever his mind seemed so driven to carry him off to.

I turned back to the girl and levied a hateful gaze at the other teen, as if daring her to speak on the subject farther than she already had thus far. Wisely, the daughter of Athena chose this moment to break the silence and stop whatever bloodshed would have occurred had it continued.

"This is Rachel Dare," Chase said, gesturing to the smaller girl at her side. She turned to her once the introductions had been finished, a look of curiosity and concern painted across her features. "You're here to give a message right?" She asked.

The girl nodded stiffly before settling her eyes on mine once more. "Perseus," she said, her voice taking on a different tone that was somehow unnerving in nature, "you are not the hero."

Chase had a look of confusion on her face as her skin paled with shock, but I barely reacted at all.

"I know."

Chase levied her confused gaze on me, but I only had eyes for the snickering boy at my side. His blue eyes were sparkling in the morning sun as he took in the situation that we had walked into. Gone was the scared boy that had been wearing the gravity manipulator's skin only moments before, in his place was the angry, chaotic, natural disaster that I knew like that back of my hand and knows me better than anyone else.

"'Hero's soul cursed blade shall reap'," I cited, throwing the words that the daughter of Athena and Chiron had hidden from me back into her face.

"The hero is the one that dies at the end of this," Chuuya said, speaking for the first time since we walked over here and following my train of thought perfectly. "And in case you haven't noticed, this bastard sucks at dying," the other teen jerked his thumb in my direction, only to have it slapped away.

Apparently that was the cue to the centaur that we were finished speaking as he cantered over only a moment later. "Ah, this must be Miss Dare," he said warmly, though it felt like having ice water thrown onto me.

Chiron had a hungry look in his eyes that was unsettling even for me. He looked something like a child who had already been told not to do something and knew the consequences of what would happen if he did, and yet he still wanted to try again once more just to see if the results would be different than before. It was the same gaze that the doctor had shown me during the first year that I was with him.

Or maybe all adults just unnerved me more than they should.

"Miss Dare..." the centaur started as if unsure of whether or not he truly wanted to continue, "perhaps we should talk," he suggested.

The girl looked hesitant, but nodded and after a quick goodbye to the daughter of Athena, left. When I looked at the blonde girl, I saw the same concerns that I held in my mind reflected in her eyes as she kept them trained on the retreating figures.

"Chase," I called out, bringing her attention to me. The girl fixed me with a tired gaze that seemed to suggest that she thought that I would question her about what had just happened between the mortal girl and the centaur, and maybe in another life I would've, but that wasn't what I wished to ask. "You'll keep an eye on him, right? Make sure that he doesn't go too far."

I didn't spell it outright for her, but I knew that I didn't have to. Since day one of me coming to camp, she has been someone that already knew everything that no child at our age should, even when it in no direct way pertained to her. I remembered that when we went to retrieve the prophecy, she had seemed like she knew exactly what had happened to make the oracle the way that it currently was at camp. I knew she would understand this too.

Surprise flashed across the older girl's face, but she reigned it in and nodded, confirming what I already knew. "You should go get some sleep," she said softly before turning to follow behind the pair. She looked over her shoulder with a quick glance. "Both of you," she added, almost as an afterthought before walking away.

I glanced down at the smaller teen and found that while he had mostly recovered from whatever shock it was that the mortal's words had thrown at him, it had still seemed to have taken quite an effect on the older teen. Tugging on the sleeve of his jacket with force just shy of harsh, I pulled his attention from whatever dark place it was trying to wonder to now that all of the distractions were gone, and gestured for him to follow me.

We walked inside of the Empire State Building and the Hatrack immediately threw himself down on the first empty bunk that he could find, waiting for me to come and fit myself in next to him before he closed his eyes. I didn't like the tense silence that hung between us, but my eyes closed before I could do anything about it as sleep took over once more.

—-

Visions invaded where my dreams should have been as images of the son of Hades following his father relentlessly around the garden that I had seen the pair in last time filited across my vision. The god had his hands like headphones while the small teen trailed after him, his arms waving in an exaggerated manner so that even if the god couldn't hear him, he would still know that the boy was there.

Demeter and Persephone were sitting at what I assumed to be the breakfast table as they stared down at the scene with almost identical tired expressions of those long bored of the show before them. I didn't blame the goddesses for holding this stance, it had been days since I told the boy to start trying to convince his father to help the lot of us, I would be tired of having to listen to it too.

Though they didn't know that I was there, or if they did notice my presence like some deities tended to they didn't remark on it, the three of us watched at the father and son duo argued back and forth around the room while the goddess of spring abesentmidely turned whatever was closest into different types of flowers.

"You are just as much of an outcast as I am!" the unhealthy slender boy screamed out. "Stop being angry and bitter about it and do something for once. That's the only way that your siblings will ever respect you!"

I thought that the advice was sound, but that the delivery was off. When negotiating with those that hold all of the power and know that they posses it, you will have to give those hard pushes like the son of Hades just did, but you have to know when to push, or else-

The lord of the dead's hands filled with flames darker than any night could ever hope to be, but Nico didn't look afraid, only defiant.

"Do it," he taunted, as if begging a shooter to pull the trigger on a loaded gun. I wanted to curse the boy out but I knew that he wouldn't hear me. "Blast me. Prove the other gods right once and for all."

The deity looked like he was considering taking his son up on his proposal and raised his arm to do just that. The fire reigned down with all of the rage of an angry god. I thought for a moment that I would see the charred remains of a boy that I barely knew, but instead the silver tree behind the teen took the burden and melted, the metal pooling near the boy's feet.

Nico's expression didn't change at all.

The scene shifted into something new.

In only a moment the scenes of the Underworld had faded and been replaced by the picture of a defiled UN Nations building with helmets and armor pieces from slain demigods, some still with blood on them. It was only about a mile from the Empire State Building and monsters were already sharpening their weapons for the next battle.

The titan lord of time was at the top of the plaza with a monstrous look plastered across Luke's face as he swung his scythe in dangerous arcs to keep his allies a comfortable distance away from himself. He was looking at the building with disgust written clearly across his face, apparently he believed just about as much as I did that mankind could ever truly untie as the name suggested.

The titan fumed and cut one of the flag poles in half, sending the top half of the pole into the army below that couldn't get away in enough time and crushing a dracaena into dust.

"It's time to unleash the drakon," the titan roared. The man looked like someone that hadn't slept in days and was making decisions that he shouldn't be, the bags under his eyes more prominent than the ones under mine were sure to have been if I were to look. "Nakamura," he decided, "you will do this."

The demigod looked startled at being called on as he was and stumbled his way through a yes. "At sunset?" He asked, subconsciously shrinking back as if to make himself seem smaller and less of a target to the easily angered titan.

"No," the titan said definitely, leaving no room for questioning his decision. "Immediately. The heroes of Olympus are sorely wounded," he explained. "They will not be expecting, nor will they be prepared for such a quick attack. Besides, we know for a fact that this drakon cannot be beat."

Prometheus tried to talk some sense into the other titan, but whatever he was saying, Kronos was listening to it just about as much as I was. My mind was filing through all of the possibilities of what the titan could mean.

Drakon weren't the most horrible creatures in Greek mythology to try and kill, the younger ones could even be slain by a group of nature spirits with minor casualties, so it hadn't made much sense when the titan had ordered for one to be released. I knew that if it was a full grown one it would be a pain in ass, but could still be dealt with easier than fighting the titan lord of light had been. But the last phrase was what had gotten me:

'This drakon cannot be beat'

It wasn't the cocky self assured attitude that one would expect from a former king, but a man stating something that he knew to be fact.

There's some type of special requirement to this one, something that the bastard is sure that we don't have.

A theory came to mind and I wondered at the validity of it until I was relaxed from the vision and back into the waking world.

—-

Chuuya POV

The inky darkness was stripped away with a surprising suddens as a weight on my chest was removed in a similar manner to how Ane-San would wake me up some mornings by ripping the covers away and leaving me cold where I used to be warm.

When I opened my eyes, I was met with the sight of a boy my age with messy black hair and piercing green eyes. There was a calculated look on the other teen's face, one that I knew the twist and dents of better than even the boy wearing it. Even after almost a week of Dazai looking the way that he did... his true appearance, sometimes I still forgot that the stranger before me was him.

The other teen was sitting up where he had been laying down only moments before, but I didn't think that he exactly noticed the position that we were in because of that. The other boy was all but straddling me with his leg strewn over my torso and the other pressed up against my side. Normally he would notice the contact, but I could tell that the younger teen's mind wasn't here right now. He had a faraway gaze even as his eyes were trained on mine.

"They're coming," the other ability user said, his voice barely above a whisper. "Now."

—-

Dazai POV

Everyone gathered and I took a metal stock of everything that we had left for the last stretch of the war. We had seventeen campers, fifteen Hunter of Artemis, half a dozen satyrs, and one ability user left in what can be considered fighting shape by demigod standards, which were only a little skewed from the standards that I had grown used to over the past year and a half with the Port Mafia. I couldn't get an accurate count of what was left of the Party Pomors as they were prone to acting even more ADHD than those of us that actually had it, as they were constantly moving about, head butting one another, and relentlessly arguing as if they were trying to put Chuuya and I to shame.

The Hephaestus cabin was fresh out of Greek fire, having used the last of it to lay traps around the perimeter that we had set up and some outside of it. The Hunter and the Apollo cabin were scrounging and skimping on arrows. And almost all of the demigods have taken in so much ambrosia and nectar that no one would dare use anymore for fear of what would happen to them if they did.

Chiron walked up to the mass of forces that had been assembled with a peculiar addition to his armor. The mortal that Chase had saved was sitting on the centaur's back, something that I vaguely remember him saying he hated letting others do. He dropped the girl off next to the daughter of Athena and pulled in closer to the rest of us.

"Kronos is sending a drakon," I told the centaur,as he came closer to Chuuya and I.

The other ability user looked at me with a gaze that said that he had a decently good idea as to what a drakon was and that he knew just how detrimental it could be. There was a look of surprise in the other boy's eyes, but the centaur only nodded, telling me that this wasn't new information for him.

"A Lydian drakon, to be precise," he said, pulling at one of the tears in his shirt. "The eldest and most dangerous kind there is."

I nodded, having expected something along the lines of that if the titan bastard himself was banking on it working as well as he thought it ought to. "But there's something special about this one," I added on, watching the surprise flicker across the older creature's face as I made an inference that he wouldn't have expected of me, "isn't there?"

The centaur nodded slowly as if shaking himself out of a haze that he hadn't had expected to find himself in. "Rachel has told us that this one has a fate of its own," he explained, a solemn, if not annoyed look flashing across his face.

"It can only be killed by a child of Ares," the girl with almost crayon red hair, that paled in comparison to the more natural look that Chuuya held, said. There was a blush heating her face as if she wasn't used to all of the attention being on her as it was right now.

I looked upon the girl with a skeptical gaze, but kept the criticism to myself as no one else seemed to be questioning it due to the centaur's endorsement.

"Well shit," the Hatrack cursed, running a hand through his slightly longer hair. It wouldn't be long now before he would have to pull it back into a ponytail or something of the like for missions that require battles similar to these so that it doesn't get in his eyes. Not that I could really speak on the matter as I had let my bangs grow out over my poor eye, though it wasn't exactly impairing my eyesight in any way.

"Is that a bad thing?" The mortal asked, confusion lacing her voice as I watched her eyes scan over what was left of the demigods and Hunters before her. I could tell that she was doubtful that there wasn't at least one child of the war god among the lot of us, but she didn't know about just how prideful they could be.

Chase opened her mouth to say something, but I beat her to the punch. "They should be here soon," I told her, ignoring the looks that I got from the doubtful demigods that didn't know as I did and the annoyed glare from my partner because he knew just as I did. "We're going to have to hold our ground on our own till then."

"And how do you know that?" Chase asked, her arms crossing in front of her chest as her eyebrow shot up as high as it could go. The stance held none of the true hostility that had been plaguing the interaction between her and I since I came back, feeling more like how it had when we were young and still testing the water around one another.

I only smiled, something wicked and cunning in a way that made my insides twist as I fought the urge to force it off of my lips. She looked as if she was ready to insist and press for answers that I wasn't willing to give, but then the ground rumbled and she only had eyes for the girl at her side.

"Rachel," she said quickly, "get inside of the building."

The teen shook her head, a refusal on her lips that I couldn't hear but could understand as clearly as those that could, but then a shadow black out the sun, temporarily turning our world dark. Across the street we could all see the drakon slithering down one of the taller skyscrapers of the city. When it roared, a thousand windows shattered and everyone's ears rung for the force.

The last sight that I had of the mortal was her scurrying inside of the building and away from the damage that was about to occur.

Smart girl.

The drakon before us was an easy two hundred feet long with teeth like stalactites baring from its mouth. Its scales glinted dangerously in the sunlight, reminding me that they were said to be harder than titan metal. Its eyes flashed down at us with a hungry gaze that could rival the sun's heat.

Below it, I could see the enemy army approaching as they advanced down Fifth Avenue. The Party Ponies' tales were swishing with a nervous force as they looked like stray cats on the verge of running from the new sound. The demigods, Hunters, and nature sports didn't look much better as they all shifted nervously around one another. It was the last stretch of the war and we all knew it as well as we knew just how severely outnumbered we were.

"We'll take the drakon!" I yelled out, knowing that if anyone was going to get battered around by the beast and survive, it would be Chuuya and I. "Everyone else hold the line!"

Chuuya looked up at me and smirked in a way that only he could at a time like this. It was brilliant and breathtaking, making me want to mirror the action, but I knew just how tatitned my own smile was, how poisonous, so I didn't. Instead I drew my sword and we charged towards the monster together.

—-

Chuuya POV

Using For the Tainted Sorrow to keep me from being slung off, I ran along the drakon's back as it coiled around the building, arching down and swallowing all those that got too close to the monster for its own comfort.

The scales on the beast were just as thick and impenetrable as they had seemed from the ground, even me running across them with my gravity increased enough to create craters in most buildings didn't leave so much as dent upon the monster. I ran up the drakon as Dazai drove his blade into the chinks of the beast's armor, buying me time.

The monster roared in anger as it coiled tighter, the action shaking the other ability user off and back down onto the ground below, but it gave me enough time to reach the drakon's head and drive the knife that the other teen had given me into one of the monster's eyes.

"Suicidal bastard," I cursed, watching for the second time in as many days as the mackerel pulled himself up from the ground after taking a fall that very well should have killed anyone else.

The drakon roared in pain as it thrashed its head back and forth violently, knocking me into one of the nearby buildings. Pain bloomed through my body at the sudden action, enough that I lost hold of my ability in the scramble to find some resemblance of purchase.

My body crumpled to the ground where the drakon had thrown it, but before I tried to get back up, there was a rumbling coming from the south part of the city. It wasn't the kind of sound that you heard, nor was it one that I recognized, but I could tell that Dazai did.

The other teen slunk over to me, avoiding the distracted drakon, as a girl's voice yelled out something that I couldn't understand over the ringing in my ears. He crouched down in front of me with a sly smirk on his face that he tended to wear when he was proven right. It was irritating as something about it made me want to punch the other boy and wipe it away. I didn't like the thoughts that it was bringing to mind.

"The children of Ares are here," he reported, the sly look only deepening with time. I was glad when it went away and he returned to his normal passive blankness.

The younger teen reached out with a tentative gaze as he touched the back of my head where I'd hit it on the way down and pulled back with a satisfied nod as he found no signs of blood. Once he pulled away I was finally able to identify what the source of the sound had been.

A dozen war chariots, each stocked fully with their own bout of demigods and flying the blood red banners of the war god, were pulled down the street by skeletal horses with manes of fire. There had to be an easy thirty demigods joining the battle, each with their own weapons ready and eyes gleaming with hatred and restlessness.

Leading the charge was a girl in red armor and a spear in her hands that crackled with electricity every so often. She looked every bit the leader that she was meant to be, but something didn't sit right with me as Dazai and I pulled one another to our feet and studied them.

"That's not the Ares brat that's supposed to be there, is it?" I asked, pointing at the girl in the chariot as she led half of the forces straight for the drakon.

The girl leading the charge was much too slender for one that was supposed to be wearing the armor, and held the sphere as if unused to having one in her hands. It could be nervousness, but that didn't sit right either.

I am spending way too much time around the bandage waste.

"No," the other teen confirmed, "it isn't." There was an interested note to his voice that he tends to get when he has a hand in whatever was going on and he was waiting to see if all of the actors would play the part that he had designed for them.

"Why?" I asked, my voice a complicated tone as I wasn't really sure how to feel, I never was when he did things like this.

"Clarisse is too prideful," he explained. "I knew that even after trying to guilt trip the demigod into coming earlier that she wouldn't unless something that she cared about was on the line."

"The Aphrodite girl," I put together quickly, now knowing why the girl had seemed familiar.

Dazai nodded, his gaze was serious as he held mine. "This is a trick that normally ends in death," he stated in a way that most would deem as callous, but I knew it was just him stating a fact. "Let's see that it doesn't."

The smile on my lips was wide and vicious. I loved it.

—-

Dazai POV

We watched as the chariots circled the angry drakon with what would have been stupidity had we not been at war so I suppose the others would call it bravery. Lances broke into the drakon's skin with much more ease than Chuuya and I'd had. The chariots were overturned by a vicious swipe of the moster's tale, but the riders simply just sprung to their feet with gazes all too eager for a violent resolution to this story.

Silena was right there in the thick of it all, standing at the front of the Ares campers and stabbing her stolen spear at the monster's other eyes with all of the rage of a foolish girl forced into a life that she never wanted by a man that never gave her a choice.

Things started going wrong as I inevitably knew that they would. The monster lunged forward and ate one of the Ares campers as it had done to the centaurs from earlier. Another was knocked down by the beast and didn't seem to be standing back up as a third was sprayed with a poison strong enough to melt the child of Ares's armor.

At my side, Chuuya looked itching for a fight as he watched the others move around in the ways that they had been trained to do for years. I knew that he wanted to be in the midst of it as well.

"Go," I told him simply, my voice barely above a whisper, but he still heard it. Out of the corner of my bad eye, I could see a blurry red glow begin to move, but I grabbed the boy's worst before he could get far, a light blue light pooling from my skin at the contact. "Don't fight it," I ordered without looking at the older teen. "Get Silena and get out of there." The other ability was gone the moment that I released him, his body moving as if it was made of flames.

The drakon was growing restless, spewing poison with every harsh swing of its head at the small campers swarming the beast. The javelins thrown at it only seemed to make it more angry as it did so. I watched as a brilliant shock of red moved swiftly and pulled the daughter of the love goddess from the fight, kicking off into the air with what I could imagine was a defiant gaze as he showed just how little the laws of gravity applied to him.

Like a comet, beautiful and bright.

Acid poured down in the same place that the daughter of Aphrodite had been standing only a moment before, enough that the girl would surely have died had she not been moved. Instead the pair was jogging to where I was standing, one pair of blue eyes gleamed excitedly with a hint of annoyance as he got to move in the fight for a moment or two, while the others shinned with fear as the realization that she should've been dead right now dawned on her.

"I-" Silena started, but her words seemed to have left her. "... I know that this isn't enough to make up for what I have done..." she whispered, looking lost as she gazed out at the carnage around us.

"It's a start," Chuuya decided. The girl nodded at this.

Movement out of the corner of my good eye caught my attention as it came barreling closer to the three of us. A false smile plastered on my face, I waved at the angry figure running right for us, but the true daughter of Ares only had eyes for the girl beside me.

My gesture caught the attention of the daughter of Aphrodite. She twisted her body to follow my gaze, flinching backwards once the sight before her registered in her mind.

"You stupid daughter of Aphrodite!" Clarisse screamed out, a string of colorful curses following the outburst. Behind her I could see the figure of the boy that had been with the two girls at the campfire the last time that I had seen the trio together, a look of exhaustion was on his voice as if he had already had to listen to every variation of each curse that the girl was spewing. He probably had. "Why!" She demanded. "What in Hades were you thinking?"

I sighed and stepped between the two, earning grateful looks from both the boy and Silena. "Yell at her later," I broke in, letting the girl's anger turn on me, "deal with that now." I pointed at the drakon behind us that was still reading havoc on the other children of Ares.

"I- you- Jackson!" The girl fumed, beyond angry with what I have done, that she knows about.

I waved her off, finding her anger unimpressive. "Complete sentences later, fight now."

Ripping the spear from Silena's hands, I thrusted it into the daughter of Ares before making a shoo motion, something that I might have paid for once but couldn't while I was still cursed as I was. Clarisse looked ready to throw the spear away or break it as I once had when we were young, but a scream tore through the air, pained and violent, and that was enough to make the girl come to her senses.

With no armor or shield to be heard of, Clarisse turned and charged at the drakon that was slaughtering her siblings. The girl moved like a wild beast as she dodged the poison being spewed at her and jumped onto the creature's head, standing similarly as Chuuya had earlier. As the monster jerked its head up to sling the girl off, Clarisse drove the spear into the beast's good eye, electricity coursing through it as all of the spear's magic was released at once.

We watched in silence as the drakon's body shuddered and thrashed while the daughter of Ares jumped down from its head, rolling safely away. Smoke billowed from the monster's eye and mouth as the drakon's flesh dissolved, leaving only scales behind.

The daughter of Ares didn't seem to care about the feat that she had just accomplished as she turned back to the group of us with a stormy gaze that reminded me of the one that I had seen her father wear when he had tried to kill me on the beach.

This wasn't going to end well

Chapter Text

Chuuya POV

I watched in silence as the angered demigod stalked over to the four of us with a stormy gaze that seemed to be asking for bloodshed, something that she could get limitless amounts of if she were to walk the other direction to the clashing armies.

"What in Hades were you thinking?" The daughter of Ares asked her friend as the girl shrank away from her, a guilty look on her face that I hoped she knew to erase before someone else identified just what the emotion was and why she was truly wearing it.

"You were being stubborn," the girl said, pulling herself up to her full height as she did so. "The Ares cabin would only listen to you, so-"

"So you stole my armor," Clarisse finished, her voice drenched in disbelief as she did, but maybe even a little bit of pride as well. "You... you waited until Chris and I were on patrol and then stole my armor so that you could pretend to be me." During the course of the conversation, the other children of Ares had drawn closer to commotion and were now standing only a few feet in front of us all. "None of you noticed?!" She screamed, looking at each of what was left of her siblings. All of their faces were defiant, but held a sliver of the same spine that she was showing.

"Oh, lay off them all, La Rue," a new voice interrupted, one that I sometimes thought that I knew better than my own. Dazai was still standing at my side, but at some point in the confrontation he had thrown his hands into his jacket pockets, the stance making him look a glimmer of the delinquent that he was. He definitely looked like someone that you would not want to meet in a back alley, even without the status that the Port Mafia held being attached to the younger boy. Seeing him like this sent a small thrill through my chest that I chose to ignore as I do with most things that have to do with the other teen. "It was my plan anyways," though they were words that should have been spoken in a mean tone, his only held a note of mischief.

"How?" Two voices rang out in a small chorus, neither the daughter of Ares nor the daughter of Aphrodite understanding just how he managed to pull something like this off.

Not their fault that they're not used to this level of bullshit that he tends to have.

"He sent Silena back to camp knowing that she would never be able to convince you, but could get the others to come if she tricked them," I explained, watching as the bandage waste started to smirk as I spoke. "Hell, he even gave her the idea on how to trick them."

The daughter of the war goddess looked between Dazai and I with the gaze of someone that was waiting for one or both of us to say that I had just been lying moments before. She cursed when she realized that everything that I had just said had been true.

"Gods," Clarisse spat. "Here I thought that you were insufferable before."

The daughter of Ares looked ready to pound the pair of us into the ground, though she would only end up hurting herself in the end by doing so, but turned towards her siblings instead and ordered them to go and help the centaurs before picking up a sword of her own and following them.

The mackerel glanced at the fighting demigods before turning to me with something of a boyish expression on his face. Ever since we came to the States, I couldn't help but notice that the other teen had been acting more and more... alive in nature than I had ever seen him before. I didn't understand what the change was, I couldn't since I don't know all of the information, but I couldn't help but wonder if he was meant to stay. If I was being selfish in wanting him to come back with me, in making him do so.

"Fancy a bit of exercise?" The younger boy asked, twirling his sword as if to become reacquainted with its weight once more.

I shrugged and fought down the feelings that bottled up inside me at seeing him acting so human even as he would swear that he wasn't. "Why not? We're already here."

A quick flash of smoke that was here and gone fast enough to make me question if it had existed at all appeared on the younger boy's face before he started running into the thick of it all with me right at his side as I always would be.

—-

Dazai POV

As we joined the fight once more, Clarisse faught like a demon out of Hell, tearing through everything that crossed the path of the girl's chariot, the corpse of the drakon trailing behind her like some kind of flag. A fiery red light flickered around the girl's body as she crushed all those that she could, screaming at the enemy and daring them to cross her path.

"The blessing of Ares," one of the demigods whispered as they took in the sight as I did.

For the moment, the daughter of Ares was as invincible as Chuuya and I both were, with those flames flickering around her body. Some were staring at the sight in awe, the boy that Clarisse had brought with her was among those as he looked at the sight as if he had never seen anything better even as the girl screamed every insult that she knew. It was an extremely rare occurrence to receive a blessing like this, I knew that, and yet the flickering red light felt cheap compared to that of the boy's moving in tandem with me.

Chuuya fought beautifully, all strong kicks as he sent arrows flying back at those who were foolish enough to shoot him with them. At one point he rose up into the air, fallen weapons and rocks surrounding his body that he hit back down to earth with all of the grace of a sniper taking out their marks. Moments like this made it impossible to remember the being living inside of the boy's body and made me realize just how foolish I was, just another idiot falling for a god, even if only for the vessel of one.

Soon enough Clarisse, feeling as invincible as she was, managed to drive back the bulk of the forces as she rode around as recklessly as she knew how. We had lost the perimeter that we'd managed to set up before and had been pressed all of the way to the Empire State Building, though I wasn't as saddened by this as most of the others were. This was always the inevitable conclusion.

Though I knew that I probably should, I didn't bother asking who was left back at camp to defend it. The answer was glaringly obvious even if you didn't think as I did. All of the Ares campers had come when Silena led them here, only the nature spirits and Argus would be left there. Though defending camp would be a useless endeavor for them if we were to all die here.

The doorman that had barred our path last time that we walked into the Empire State Building was absent from the building, giving the demigods free reign to act as they wished. Normally, this would be cause for concern for most adults, but there wasn't a rambunctious party occurring, only wounded demigods and satyrs filled the lobby as the Apollo cabin moved about and did their best to help them without killing them in the process.

Chuuya and I walked past all of the wounded, either of us were very adept with taking care of others and while I knew how to bandage and address wounds better than some of the younger Apollo cabin members obviously did, some of the wounds that the demigods had weren't the kind that you could fix with a little bit of stitching and some scratchy white cloth.

The Stoll brothers were standing at the elevators when we finally made our way there. I wasn't surprised at all to see Chase waiting alongside them, though she clearly seemed to have expected me to be as she looked like she had an explanation on her lips that I didn't have the energy to hear.