When Dazai regained consciousness, it took him a few minutes to take in his surroundings and the peculiar situation he was stuck in. Akutagawa was beside him in his human form, with the magic carpet draped over his shoulder. The carpet emitted the aura of someone who had just saved millions of lives, even though he had saved only two people. Dazai muttered a small but genuine "thank you" to the carpet. He looked around the cave and realised that they were trapped. Anger overtook his senses as he yelled,
"That two-faced filthy son of a bitch! He tricked us! I should've known. With that shady backstory and creepy appearance, I don't know why I trusted him."
He then sat back down and sighed with resignation,
"Too bad he's gone... And he got the magic teapot too..."
Akutagwa coughed and called Dazai. Dazai turned to him and saw Akutagwa pulling out the magic teapot from his coat. Dazai's eyes widened as Akutagawa handed the teapot to him.
"You sneaky thief!" Dazai exclaimed before adopting a proud expression as he airily said to himself,
"I trained you well."
Akutagawa almost glowed under the praise and the carpet made a gesture similar to rolling its eyes. Dazai ignored the carpet and turned his attention to the teapot. He observed the teapot and was disappointed that it wasn't made of precious metal as he'd initially suspected.
"This doesn't look very valuable... Hold on, there's something written here but it isn't very clear..." Dazai commented as he rubbed the fabric of his coat on the teapot. Almost immediately, sparks began to fly from the teapot's snout. Dazai dropped it in shock, but the teapot just floated in the air, as a foggy figure came out of it. At first it seemed like a tiger, but then the silhoutte changed into a man's. The only bizarre thing was that the man seemed to have...cat ears? And a tail too. The fog around the man cleared and both Dazai and Akutagawa got a good glimpse of the man.
He looked almost the same age as Akutagawa. He had short white hair with a single black stripe. His hair was cut in an odd asymmetrical way. His eyes were of two hues: pinksh purple and lemon yellow. He had the ears and tail of a white tiger, both of which flicked in different directions. The man stretched his hands and craked the joints in his neck as he sighed happily.
"Finally! I was getting depressed sitting in that teapot all alone."
His focus shifted to the carpet. The man's eyes widened with recognition as he exclaimed,
"Ranpo-san! haven't seen you in a few millenia. Give me some!"
The carpet, now known as Ranpo, flew towards the man and gave him a high-five. Dazai and Akutagawa stared at the exchange in confusion. The unknown man turned to Dazai. His eyes turned scrutenizing as they roved over Dazai's lean figure. He then concluded,
"You're taller than most of my previous masters."
Dazai snapped out of his shock and asked,
"Wait, I'm your master?"
"So you can talk! I thought you are dumb or something. Glad to know you wouldn't wish for that."
"Wish? I can wish for stuff?" Dazai asked increduously.
"Don't tell me you've never heard of the weretiger teapot." The man sighed. Seeing the confused looks on both Dazai's and Akutagawa's faces, the man introduced himself with exhasperation.
"I'm Nakajima Atsushi, the genie of the weretiger teapot. And you both are..."
"I'm Dazai Osamu and this is my friend Akutagawa Ryuunosuke."
