Archive of Our Own ^beta

I. The Slums of Yokohama

Akutagawa had no name at first.

He was simply "the boy in rags" to those who passed by, stepping over him as if he were filth on the sidewalk. The slums of Yokohama were indifferent, swallowing children whole and spitting out corpses or killers. When his parents died of consumption, there was no funeral, no mourning—just a child staring at two lifeless bodies in a one-room shack while the rats gnawed at their toes.

He didn’t cry.

He couldn’t afford to.

Tears were a luxury. Food was salvation. And salvation was a lie.

He had Gin, though—his little sister. She was four at the time, too young to understand the pain, but old enough to cling to him when the wind howled through the broken windowpanes. They stole bread, licked grease off discarded wrappers, and begged with sunken eyes.

One day, a man kicked Akutagawa in the ribs for daring to ask for food. Another time, Gin nearly died from spoiled milk. No one cared.

No one ever cared.

II. The Black Suit and the Outstretched Hand

He was sixteen when he first killed a man.

It wasn’t poetic. It wasn’t noble. It was messy—clumsy. The man had tried to drag Gin away while Akutagawa scavenged in an alley. There was a struggle. A broken bottle. Screaming. And then silence.

The blood was warm on his hands. His chest heaved.

And then, someone applauded.

Standing at the mouth of the alley was a man in a tailored black suit, a fur-lined coat draped around his shoulders like a king. He was elegant and terrifying, smiling with all the serenity of a saint.

Dazai Osamu.

“You’ve got potential,”Dazai said, as if he were complimenting a caged animal. “Rashoumon, isn’t it?”

He didn’t know what Rashoumon meant then—not until the darkness unfurled from his body like a living shadow. It was beautiful. Terrifying. A gift wrapped in blood and agony.

Dazai knelt before him, a cruel gleam in his eyes.

“I can make you strong.”

Akutagawa didn’t hesitate. He took the hand.

III. Lessons in Blood

The Port Mafia did not nurture. It sharpened.

Akutagawa learned quickly: weakness was death, obedience was survival. Mori Ougai watched him like a scientist observing a lab rat. Kouyou scorned him, the other mafiosos sneered. He was nothing but Dazai’s stray dog—skinny, unrefined, and angry.

Dazai didn’t coddle him. If anything, he broke him further.

“You’re pathetic,” Dazai would sneer, voice laced with ice. “Rashoumon is only useful if the person wielding it has resolve.”

So Akutagawa trained until his lungs bled. Fought until his bones fractured. Killed until the screaming in his head was silenced by crimson.

And still, Dazai’s eyes never softened.

The more Akutagawa yearned for approval, the colder Dazai became.

He wasn’t training a soldier.

He was crafting a weapon.

IV. When the Monster Looked in the Mirror

The boy in the mirror had changed.

Where once were hollow cheeks and frightened eyes, there was now sharpness—flesh carved by hunger and pain. Rashoumon obeyed his every command. His name was whispered across the city like a warning.

Akutagawa Ryuunosuke. Port Mafia’s Silent Mad Dog.

Authorities feared him. Civilians avoided his gaze. He would return to his room at night, fingers still dripping red, and find Gin sleeping peacefully, oblivious to the monster he had become to protect her.

Yet no matter how many he killed, how many missions he completed, Dazai never said, “I’m proud of you.”

Only, “You’re still not good enough.”

Each word carved deeper than any blade.

V. The Hero and the Villain

Then came the boy with the tiger—Atsushi Nakajima.

Unlike Akutagawa, he had people who loved him. People who believed in him. He hesitated to kill. He cried for others.

Weak, Akutagawa thought.

But Dazai praised him.

Dazai, the man Akutagawa once followed like God, now smiled at someone else. The dog had been replaced.

So Akutagawa sharpened his fangs further—not for the Port Mafia, not even for Gin—but to prove he was worthy.

To prove that villains are not born, but moulded by hands that never loved them.

He fought Atsushi with the desperation of someone begging the world to understand: I am what you made me. You do not get to call me a villain when you fed me to wolves and mocked me for becoming one.

VI. The Final Truth

One night, after a particularly brutal mission, Akutagawa stood atop a building, the wind cold against his neck. Below, the city bustled with life—laughter, lights, lovers.

He didn’t belong there.

He belonged in the dark, in the blood, in the fear.

Gin’s voice cut through the silence. She had come to bring him home.

“Do you ever wonder,” he asked her, voice hollow, “what we could have been if someone saved us sooner?”

Gin hesitated, her eyes glimmering.

“We still have time.”

Akutagawa turned away. Time? No, villains don’t get second chances. Only ghosts of what could’ve been.

He walked back into the shadows.

Because villains are not born.

They are made—

By hunger.

By fear.

By men in suits who dangle salvation like a blade.

And by a world that chose not to see a boy starving in the dark.