philophobia | soukoku

sunflower

hey darlings!!  so the plot is going to finally start switching up a little bit during this chapter into the au (also have you caught onto the reasoning of my chapter titles yet??)

that's all!! happy reading :)

"so cold..."

dazai and chuuya approached a shivering randou, who was throwing anything flammable into the fire he sat in front. "the wind is coming through, and it's three times as cold." he trembled to himself, hugging himself. 

dazai walked up to him. "must have been rough, huh? randou-san." he said. he was past his psychotic episode from earlier, yet still wasn't exactly "present" yet. he was getting there.

"that was brutal. why me?" 

"it's easy to guess why we were attacked." the fifteen year old responded. "the rumor is spreading." he hated to admit it, but he knew it was true. "if a mori supporter like you were to die in a black explosion, people would take the anger of the former boss more seriously. one of the gss soldiers he tore up on the way here had these instructions for faking a black explosion." the brunette had referred to chuuya, lifting a folded piece of paper he was holding.

randou turned to him. "what's a 'black explosion'?" he asked. 

dazai flipped the folded paper open to read it. "apparently, you can get a black-ish flame using a sodium lamp flame reaction." he crumpled the paper in his hands. "whatever the case, it's just a cheap trick." he tossed the paper over his shoulder.

randou let out a shiver, throwing a book into the fire. 

"so let me get this straight..." chuuya piped in. "the gss people attacked this guy, pretending to be arahabaki, in order to get the port mafia to turn on itself?"

"the current gss president is a cold-hearted man." dazai replied nonchalantly. "rumor has it that he has close ties to the guild, a north american secret organization." the boy turned his attention to randou. "tell me about arahabaki as you saw it in suribachi city. that's the only lead we have on the resurrection of the former president."

"i remember it clearly." randou replied coldly. "how could i ever forget? i was the only survivor. my subordinates all burned to ash. they were engulfed by that black flame. it was no doubt that god of fire."

a smirk formed across dazai's face. "this is getting interesting." he purred. "tell us more." 

"it happened close to the center of suribachi city." randou continued, keeping his gaze on the fire. "we, the port mafia, were on our way to battle the sheep boys. there, out of the blue, we were all blown away by a black explosion. a sudden blastwave. all i could do was protect myself with my ability. black flames. crumbling earth. it was hell itself. and in the middle, there it was. it wasn't the former boss. no...it wasn't even human. a beast. a beast of black flames. even its eyes were like the flames of purgatory."

dazai was just eating this up.

"everything in sight was shimmering in the extreme heat, except the yokohama sea. just the sea, in the distance. basking gently in the moonlight. that alone is vivid in my memory."

gotcha.

dazai didn't need to hear anything else from there.

yet randou went on. "that moment, i heard the voice of the beast. it was a voice utterly devoid of emotion. it terrified me." randou suddenly stood up. "i apologize. you two wanted to prove that the former boss wasn't resurrected by arahabaki, and it was a hoax put together by enemy gifted, didn't you?"

"no." dazai responded, satisfied. "that was interesting indeed. thanks to you, the mystery is solved." everything was pieced together. he may not look like it, but dazai sure was witty.