★彡[ᴇᴠᴇʀʏᴏɴᴇ ʟᴏᴠᴇꜱ ᴄʜᴜᴜʏᴀ]彡★

Insufferable Ringing 𝟙/𝟛

Just at the outskirts of Yokohama, there laid a sparse forest-ish sort of area. 

Forest-ish. Because calling it a honest to goodness forest wouldn't be wholly accurate. True, the only illumination came from the full moon overhead. True, the sound of crickets chirping amongst themselves held a greater volume than the muffled car honks and other city sounds in the distance. 

But the foliage was not at all dense. And evidence of the nearby city was all too prevalent. Discarded soda cans and cigarettes were not a rare discovery among the gnarled tree roots and splash of flower beds.

It was the back-alley of the back-alleys. Perfect for meet ups and deals that were meant to be done and forgotten. Chuuya would know, he had been here before. 

Illegal exchanges, tense standoffs, fighting a hideous lump of tentacles that was actually a skill-user that was not actually a skill-user named H.P Lovecraft while trying to stop a 13-year old from destroying Yokohama...

Yep. Chuuya couldn't say he had very fond memories of the area.

Yet here he was, walking among the trees, annoyed beyond belief that he had lost his trail.

"Hey, Chuuya! Look at that!"

Chuuya glanced at Dazai, who was walking beside him. The detective was pointing at something in the distance between the trees.

Chuuya squinted. Whatever it was must have been swallowed by the darkness because...

"I don't see anything."

"Really?"

Chuuya frowned, "Yes really. There's nothing there."

"Not even if you tilt your head? Like this?" Dazai said, making a miming motion.

"No Dazai, not even if I tilt my head."

Dazai became more animated as he walked briskly ahead of Chuuya and made a grand gesture, "Exactly. That's my point exactly. There's nothing here."

He put his hands on his hips and whirled around, "You have no idea where you're going, do you?"

Chuuya came to a halt, face reddening.

Dazai smiled wryly.

"S-shut up." he muttered, stepping past Dazai and pointedly marching forward. 

Up until now, Chuuya had been operating on a gut feeling. 

In a blind rush of adrenaline, he had been following that lingering aura of destruction Atsushi Nakajima had mentioned. He should have known better.  Lingering auras were only an abstract concept and probably not the most reliable feature to track. 

But he had been on fire -- ready for action and desperate to find it. Pieces were falling into place. It wasn't the whole picture, but it was something pretty damn close to it. Something that told him who had to be punched and where.

 He could fix this. He could fix everything. He just had to-

Dazai grabbed the back of his coat.

"Hey, hey. Deep breaths." he said, "Lets slow down for a hot second, m'kay?"

"We can't." Chuuya said, prying his wrist off, careful to make sure their skin didn't connect so he didn't fall face first into the dirt, "We don't have much time to-"

"-walk around aimlessly then demolish the entire place when you inevitably find nothing?"

"That - that's not true! I wouldn't do that! I-I respect nature!"