Chapter Text
“You two will be sent out to do a mission in America.” Mori said blankly because of course they were. Boss was always sending them random places, but America seemed a bit far even for him. From what Chuuya knew, they didn’t have any enemy’s in America right now.
“This is because of the new partners of us then? I still don’t get why we had to partner up with them, is it just because Mori makes silly decisions?” of course that idiot knew more than he did, because he always did! Even though they were equal rank, kind of, Boss still trusted the maceral more then him! how much more loyalty did he have to show before Mori realised, he was more suitable as a right hand?
“What partners?” He asked, he was allowed to ask questions even if he didn’t always get an answer.
“Apologies I figured Dazai told you, we recently made a dea-“ the maceral threw himself into Chuuya’s line of view and made Boss stop talking.
“Stupid dog!” How Chuuya wished he’d stop calling him that, he vocalised it too.
“Don’t call me that damn mackerel!” He shouted, swinging a kick in his direction, which the fish promptly dodged. Chuuya knew he would, he’s always been fast like that. Like he knew what chuuya would do.
“Anyways, I did tell you but I suppose your head doesn’t have that much room to hold information like that. Saying it had to be in proportion to your small size.” Chuuya will not deny he threw another kick that actually did manage to hit him this time.
“Shut up,” He mumbled to Dazai, who clutched his stomach and wheezed. Throwing an elbow at Chuuya’s stomach, Ha. He hit worse than Chuuya did when he was like… 8. “I… whatever the reason, what’s the mission Boss?” Better to ask him then that mackerel, who would give him vague cryptic answers and throw him headfirst into danger without any prior notice.
“Our partnership is with an organisation called the leagues of assassins.” Dumb name but hey, what could he expect from a group of assassins? No creativity. “Your job is to capture a boy, Damian Wayne, safely. And return him to them.” A kid? That would be easy. Too easy. He’d beat up Dazai later until he told him why they were chosen for such a simple task. He wouldn’t question Boss though.
“That’s it?” Dazai tilted his head through wheezes; Huh? Did he not know about it? Guess that was… fine. It just meant Dazai didn’t have a plan ready. They’d done things on shorter notice though.
“Easy enough for you boys right?” Boss asked, putting his hand on Dazai’s shoulder. Chuuya swears he saw a flinch before he yelled out dramatically.
“Slimy Mori touched me! chibi save me like a good dog!” Dazai scampered away from the older man and flung himself onto Chuuya, wrapping all 4 limbs onto him. Ew, who knows where those bandaged hands had been? Chuuya KNOWS he doesn’t change them out every day.
“Get off of me,” He pushed him onto the floor, Dazai promptly went to rolling around on the ground like an idiot. About 5 times before Chuuya kicked his side. “Get up.”
“Owchiee! Slug is so mean.” Childish prick, embarrassing him in front of the boss like that.
***
Chuuya sat on Dazai’s singular set of drawers as he picked out a shirt for the bags they were bringing. They didn’t expect to be there long so they each were bringing a backpack. Dazai’s was currently… less full than his.
Ergo, why he was currently forcing him to find more clothes in his shipping container. It was cold, a singular light on the ceiling that was broken so he used his nightlight, a sleeping mat, a cupboard that held some canned food and some bottles of alcohol, and a drawer with about a weeks set of clothes, a ‘eco-friendly’ sink and toilet, and a microwave.
A perfect little settlement as the Mackerel liked to say.
“Still can’t believe you live here,” Chuuya said as he held out a shirt, debating whether it was wearable.
Dazai stood facing opposite him and didn’t say anything, should he not have said that?
“Mori’s just keeping things cheap, plus I bet it’s better than anything you have? I have alllll the necessity’s in here.” Right. Dazai, so full of mysteries. His dark and mysterious act wouldn’t work on him luckily, he doesn’t think it really works on anyone who talks to him for more than 2 minutes.
“What do you think of this pretty piece?” Dazai flung a dress and him, it was all white and frilly. Like one of those things the boss put the blond freak, Elise, in. Why did Dazai have one? As if he could read his mind he spoke up. “Mori used to buy me them, he stopped last year.” His voice was kind of serious. But that would be blatantly wrong, Dazai didn’t know how to be serious. “Kidddinggg! I stole them from Elise because he was being a weirdo again!” there it was, of course that was it. He was just overthinking again, why did he always overthink for someone so stupid?
“So, this Damian kid, I guess you did research?” he could expect that to be the case, It was one of Dazai’s only nice qualities.
“Since I have to do everything for you, he’s 13, his fathers that rich guy… um Bruce Wayne! And he goes to Gotham academy, he must have some connection to the Assassins since they want him unharmed,” Chuuya could of guessed that dipshit, “according to Gotham academy he’s smart, well rounded.”
“Nothing special then?” he finally found a half decent shirt to put into his bag.
“Do they have crab in America? Should I bri-“
“You shouldn’t bring your own, we can find some there.” It was one of the only cooked things he’d eat if it wasn’t Chuuya cooking. It wasn’t good, but it was better than nothing.
“Isn’t it a bit suspicious Boss is sending us?” He could ask Dazai, he might not get an answer but there wouldn’t be any repercussions.
“Mori’s funny like that. He’s stupid, you can’t predict him. Don’t worry your little head about it, and I’ll tell you if I think of anything.” Because why would he need to know before the mission? Dumbass.
***
America was… strange to say the least, or at least just Gotham was.
The academy had some weird uniforms that were too preppy to their liking. The Assassins had given them replicas.
“These look so stupid.” Chuuya stated as he pulled at the restricting vest jumper.
“It’s too warm Chu! How do they wear this every day?!” Dazai stood awkwardly while scratching at his blazer like he was melting in it, flailing like an idiot.
Could he be any louder? They were supposed to get in and out, grab the kid and leave. The uniforms shouldn’t even be necessary if everything goes the plan and they aren’t seen. But of course, Dazai was a loud mouth who didn’t know the word ‘quiet’ for as much as he tried to be edgy and all elusive.
“Are you trying to get us caught?” Chuuya snapped toward him, the halls echoing it slightly. It was a huge school, not like the ones in Yokohama. Damn rich people.
“Sounds like you are, never keeping your voice down.” Dazai’s hand flapped in his face, Chuuya swatted him away like the pest he was. Blaming him always. Idiot. Asshole. All the above.
The bandages sat on the man’s Left eye, that had to cause some issues with half-blindness, right? How did he even aim his gun right without any hand-eye coordination Right? Dazai tugged at his shirt collar which earned him an elbow in his left side.
“Whatever,” Chuuya scoffed opened his phone, it was still lesson time, they had about 2 hours to find him before these halls were filled head to two with kids. And frankly, Chuuya didn’t feel like taking out a bunch of school kids, he knew the other boy wouldn’t have any care about it though. “fuckin’ waste of bandages.” He didn’t even need to be here! Chuuya could do this completely by himself without that mackerel. But who would ever trust Chuuya to handle something on his own?
“How much money do you think they pay to get into this school” it was better to make small talk then go in silence Chuuya decided. It was also better than letting Dazai decide the topic of conversation, he’d choose something dumb about hurting himself. it always made Chuuya feel uncomfortable when he did that and ended up in silence again.
Dazai thought for a moment, Chuuya could practically see the gears turning in his head.
“A lot, with all the facilities we’ve seen while walking,” so far, they’d seen a pool, a gym building, a library, sport courts and other useless things. “I’d say $15-27K.” it was fun to see Dazai try figure out simple things. The shorter wouldn’t admit out loud but he liked seeing the boy’s face contort in confusion and frustration- Because he looked dumb! And stupid and it’s funny! Obviously. No other reason you weirdo.
“So, everyone here is filthy rich? Surprised there wasn’t any more security.” It was weird, there was only security guards at the gate, which had been easy to sneak past. But everyone here had to be the kids of famous people. Surely the parents would want more then 2 normal people protecting their kids. Whatever, made it easier to get in anyways.
“Yeah, but hey, why question good things?” yeah. No point going over it.
“Mhm.” Chuuya stopped, “what actually is the plan?” because Dazai never explains anything and expects him to figure it out while being punched.
“Grab the kid and get out, I thought that was obvious?” He tilted his head at Chuuya, obviously he knew that.
“If you haven’t noticed we’re in a school, I doubt he’s going to be alone at any time.” Dazai shrugged.
“I’ll figure it out Slug.” Great. Perfect. What else would he want then ‘ill figure it out’ thank you for nothing.
Chuuya comes to the conclusion Dazai is a good for nothing self-absorbed pretentious prick. Who thinks Chuuya is there to be a thing to make fun of, not his partner. It’s going to be his fucking funeral when Chuuya can’t figure out what he wants him to do and he’s killed. Then what will Chuuya do? Be alone again. No. Dazai brought him into this mess, he wouldn’t let him leave him alone-
“Um, do you two have a hall pass?” A voice said from the top of a staircase, damn it. What the hell was a hall pass- Chuuya’s never gone to fucking school before, he doesn’t know about this. He looks to Dazai, whose wide eyed before he coughs and regains his composer.
“Where’s yours?”
“Here,” The boy holds up a piece of paper that neither of them can make out from the distance. That’s fine. Two can play that game.
Chuuya grabs a crumpled-up receipt from his pocket and holds it up.
“Here’s ours.” Dazai smiled at Chuuya’s quick thinking. If they couldn’t read his, he couldn’t read theirs. The dark-haired boy’s light blue eyes squinted to try look at the paper, but rolled his eyes when he realised he couldn’t. however he must have just assumed they weren’t lying.
Why was a (what? Like 17-16ish year old, his age was hard to make out let’s go 17) 17-year-old being so accusative of two 16 year olds anyway? What was his problem? Could he just smell criminal vibrating off them, or could he just tell they weren’t able to blow 27k on a school each year. Not to mention he had the ugliest hair ever, a bowl cut in 2024? Jesus, his hairdresser hated him.
“Fine.” The boy rolled his eyes. “Why are you out of class?” oh. He was a nerd, that was why.
Chuuya was about to speak when Dazai butted in.
“We’re friends with the Waynes, and Bruce just got in a terrible accident. The office wants us to grab Damian before we leave to go see his father in hospital, do you know which classroom he’s in?” first smart thing Dazai had said since they got there, and to be honest, much better and more useful than what Chuuya was going to say.
The boy stared at them dumbfounded for a moment, did he not believe them? Come on Chuuya really didn’t want to have out knock out this kid.
“Bruce Wayne got in an accident?” The boy looked between amused and suspicious
“A horrible one!”
“Wouldn’t everyone know that such a big celebrity got in an accident?” He tilted his head and had a small smile.
“Nope, he wants us to keep it on the downlow.” Dazai gave an innocent smile. Dumbass.
“Do his kids know?” Jesus this guy asks a lot of questions. Could he not just take, ‘emergency’ and take them to the kid?
“Yeah, all of them apart from Damian got called earlier,” The boy chuckled at Dazai’s sentence. His eyes scanned the two of them.
“… Okay, Damian should be in the science block right now.” He walked off after saying that with his phone out, texting someone.
Great, that was good? And simple. Why did bowlcut know everyone’s schedule? Chuuya had been expecting him to get out a timetable or something. Not to know it off the top his head,
Never the matter, that kid could be a stalker all he wanted. Not their problem.
***
It took around 7 minutes to walk all the way to the science block, but when they did they saw him in the hallway.
It was like he was waiting for them.
Damian was filling up his water bottle and faced away from them. He had black spiky hair and tan skin. His blazer was off, which didn’t seem normal giving how prestigious he was meant to be.
Chuuya was about to go over to him, chloroform-soaked cloth in hand.
It would take a few minutes but it also meant the kid would be quiet while it happened. Then once he was unconscious, they could just grab him and leave.
Dazai grabbed his wrist. Shaking his head. What the fuck?
“This is wrong.” Dazai whispered, what did he finally grow a heart?
Then Chuuya realised he meant wrong as in the setup was not right. Well, nothing wrong with hope. But also, he didn’t know what the hell the Mackerel meant by ‘wrong’ everything was perfect to him. The kid was alone and unsuspecting.
That was until someone punched him from behind and sent him flying into a wall. Dazai’s head snapped towards, Chuuya’s offender as he pushed himself up. He looked back at the sizable dent in the wall, hm, they were rich. They could afford to fix it.
Chuuya looked up (or down?) at the person who punched him, a kid. About 14, the same as Damian. With shaggy black hair and blue eyes and a superman jumper? Geek.
No kid should be able to kit that hard, Chuuya watched out the corner of his eye as Dazai came to run over and fight him. Another blur dashed past and kicked Dazai onto the ground, Damian?
No normal kid. They should have known it wouldn’t be easy.
Chuuya gripped his side, did he was a broken rib? That superboy kid hit hard. He grit his teeth and watched Dazai getting up. He was about to run back into action when a katana flew past him and missed by an inch.
“Who are you two.” Damian hissed, his foot on top of Dazai.
“How’d you know we were coming?” Dazai asked, his breath was laboured. Damn it. These kids were strong and they weren’t prepared for a fight.
“I was informed you were coming.” It was bowlcut, most likely. Unless one of the Assassins ratted them out. “Now. I asked a question.”
Dazai threw a look that told him ‘open your mouth and I’ll get your pay halved.’ So Chuuya shut his mouth. Trying to ignore the throbbing pain in his side.
“I’m confused how you didn’t recognise Drake, if you are part of the league as I suspect.” Great, information the League could share and didn’t. “They’ve lowered their standards if they’re sending kids after me.” Chuuya looked back at Dazai, trying to figure out what he wanted him to do. Listen to this kid? Or just break out now.
“Apologies, we weren’t warned you were… trained.” Dazai spoke, a sick grin on his face as the words left his side. The superboy’s attention was turned to him too, both eyes weren’t on the ginger. Good. “Next time we meet we’ll be sure to be more… prepared.” With that Chuuya slammed his hand against a lose piece of concrete from the broken wall and threw it at Superboy, he seemed the more powerful.
It didn’t seem to hurt him but it did render his attention for a split second, as it did with Damian’s. Leaving Dazai just enough time to flip his way back onto his feet and start running towards the exit.
Chuuya jumped onto the ceiling to avoid Damian’s attack, this took him off guard too as he jumped across the walls to catch up with Dazai, once he was toe to toe with him.
“Damn it Bandages! This is why we need a plan!” Chuuya yelled at him as he grabbed his wrist as he ran, sure it took away his gravity by touching him but he liked knowing that Dazai was still behind him.
“Sorry Chu! I didn’t think he was going to be such a problem!” Dazai giggled from behind him, Chuuya rolled his eyes but at least it meant the other wasn’t hurt too badly.
***
Dazai collapsed on the hotel bed, throwing off his blazer as Chuuya followed behind him; throwing his onto the armchair.
Chuuya watched Dazai roll about on the bed, distressed, it was a dumb thing he did when he was frustrated.
“You mad we couldn’t get him?” Chuuya asked as he took off his jumper and poked his side, groaning as he felt a shock of pain course through his body.
“Mad? Mad! I’m pitiful! Woeful! My pride is destroyed!” Overdoing it much? Shakespeare talking ass dude. “A child has overthrown us! If the best duo soukoku can’t defeat 2 children then what are we but children ourselves?!” okay. Chuuya huffed, they just had a bad fight. They were allowed to have bad fights. He was even trying not to go to rough because he didn’t want to hurt kids.
“Mhm. Yep. Totally get that. Do you have any bandages?” he said as he poked at his side more. Yep. Definitely broken.
“Our honour is destroyed! Doesn’t Chuuya car- oh? Bandages, some in my bag.” Dazai changed his tone quicky, overreacting drama queen he was. “Are you hurt?”
“Just a busted rib. I’m fine.”
“Okay, good. Tell me if it’s really bad.”
“I will.” Chuuya stated as he grabbed one of the many rolls of bandages out of the boy’s bag, he watched as Dazai went back to sprouting senseless things. He unbuttoned his bloodied shirt and looked down at the bruise. It was already purple.
Chuuya rolled out some gauze and wrapped it around his chest, he was already used to it being compressed there but he had learnt already how to bandage correctly.
After it was covered, he pulled on a shirt and changed trousers.
“move over,” Chuuya pushed Dazai to one side of the covers and sat on the double bed with Dazai. The PM liked to cut costs when it came to them, it was fine. Don’t make it weird. “You done being an idiot?”
“Mean Chuuya.” Dazai stuck out his tongue and let Chuuya scroll through the TV, clicking on YouTube and setting it to Japanese.
“Idiot Dazai.” He retorted back and stuck out his tongue too. “What do you want to watch?” If Chuuya ended up putting on something Dazai didn't like, he wouldn't say he didn't like it. He would just sit sadly like a depressed kitten until the video finished.
“Don’t care, Chibi can choose.” Chuuya shoved on a Zelda play through, video games were one of their only hobbies apart from criminal activity.
They didn't get to just hangout alot. Mori was always sending them on missions or needed Dazai for some super secret meetings. Then the mackerel would come out and be all sad and mopey for the rest of the day and they wouldn't get to do anything other than talk and comfort each other. comfort as in Chuuya provides his support by making him food and forcing him to each it obviously.
some bit into the video Dazai decided he should speak,
“Link is like Chuuya.” Dazai said simply as he stared at the screen, his eyes not tearing away from the screen.
Chuuya scoffed. He did not act like Link. That was dumb. Link was a hero, he was undoubtly not.
“I don’t.”
“Chuuya is loyal like Link, and kind- In some people’s eyes! Not mine. Also Chuuya wears stupid clothes like Link.” Rude.
Dazai’s compliments always came with a negative for some unknown reason.
The lights were switched off as Chuuya thought about his words.
“Go to sleep.” Chuuya muttered, the next bit was barely audible as he closed his eyes, “Thanks for that..." he wasn't sure if the boy heard him or if he was already asleep.