Title: Unseen Entities
Fandom: Bungou Stray Dogs - Nakahara Chuuya, Arahabaki
Rating: T
Length: ~780
Content notes: spoilers for Fifteen/season 3, angst
Summary: According to Mori’s research, Arahabaki was meant to be some kind of messenger of the gods. Chuuya wasn't so sure.

Author notes: For the fan_flashworks challenge identity, and the bingo square messenger. Thanks to ldybastet for the beta! :)



According to Mori’s research, Arahabaki was meant to be some kind of messenger of the gods. Chuuya wasn’t sure where he’d dug that particular detail up from – it sure didn’t feel like much of a messenger to him. It didn’t feel like much of anything with a purpose really, just a pure destructive force.

It was sentient, Chuuya could tell that much. Otherwise what happened when he was forcibly separated from it… Well, there’d be one less giant crater in Yokohama. Why else would the researchers have felt the need to seal it in a more controllable form? If it was just some lingering power source, or tameable in some other way, they wouldn’t have needed a human vessel. Or would they? Chuuya didn’t claim to be an expert on the reasoning behind the shady shit the government had pulled during the war, just that he was a victim of it.

Sometimes, when he’d been far younger, he’d even tried to see if he could communicate with it. Cleared his mind of anything else, focused on the barely controlled force bubbling beneath his skin and just… waited. For some thoughts to come through. Or feelings. Or memories. Anything that might give him a clue to what the hell the thing was.

The result was always the same – nothing. What the hell kind of messenger didn’t want to talk?

Then he joined he Port Mafia and met Mori and Kouyou and got to see up close just what a sentient, or at least an independently acting, ability was really like. Elise and Golden Demon couldn’t be more different in how they manifested – Golden Demon quiet and only coming when called, Elise doing whatever the hell she wanted unless Mori forced (or bribed) her – but they were both perfectly capable of communicating with their masters. Arahabaki stayed silent.

So what did that mean for him? Arahabaki originally had a physical form, that much was certain, but now that it was merged with him, did that mean it no longer had any thoughts or feelings of its own? Was it simply something to do with how they’d been combined – that his personality was enough to keep it completely submerged unless he gave in and used Corruption? Or did it mean that whoever was in control of this body now actually was Arahabaki and the trauma and memory loss just meant he hadn’t realised it? Rimbaud had said that wasn’t the case and he was supposed to be a seal, sure, but he’d been acting on second-hand information himself…

It was something Chuuya did his best not to think about too hard. Not unless he had something strong to drink nearby.

Annoyingly, some relief actually came in the form of Dazai, or at least his Ability. Sure, when Dazai touched him, his control over gravity vanished, but he didn’t. And on those occasions when he used Corruption, something he’d have never done with the Sheep and not just because of how it was likely to kill him, it was his personality that always came back. As Dazai so often liked to brag, his Ability worked on all others - no exceptions. So if Chuuya’s whole personality – his feelings, his quirks, every little thing that made him who he was – was simply a by-product of Arahabaki, it should simply vanish in a puff of smoke the second Dazai laid a finger on him. That was how it worked, right?

Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was something he’d never get a straight answer to. Maybe it would actually be better if he never did.

One day, maybe soon, he’d get his hands on all the research Rimbaud had collected. The brief glimpse Mori had taunted him with to encourage him to aim for the Executive position had shed no light on how detailed the mysterious documents would be, nor if they would contain any of the answers he really needed. It had occurred to Chuuya more than once that while they might contain the cold, clinical details of what had been done to him, there was little chance of them being able to explain the who or why of what he really was now. He just had to hope that facts would be enough.

Until then though… He’d carry on, shove it all to the back of his mind the way he’d always done until recent events dredged the whole mess back up again. Act as human as he could manage, even when he didn’t feel it. And if Arahabaki suddenly decided it wanted to talk, he’d sure as hell listen.

Chuuya doubted it would ever happen. Why change the habit of a lifetime?