His blurred world was filled with pain. Surroundings warped in smudged tunnel vision, meagre lighting blinding against sensitive pupils blown wide. Whatever it was beneath him was rising and falling with the faintest of movements, barely noticeable were it not for the stabbing pain that came with every tiny shift in his position.

Head pounding and feeling like he'd been run over by a tank he moved, knowing he couldn't stay here. Gritting his teeth he rolled to his left, strangled groan escaping his lips as he flopped onto his front, his right arm slapping into a puddle that seeped through his clothes and stained his buzzing skin. Through squinted eyes he peered around, gleaning little information from his fuzzy vision aside from the light colouring of a person's jacket next to him, vaguely familiar shapes of the little street visible to him and red on his dark skin. Red was never good.

He lifted his hand out of the puddle and dropped it back on dry concrete and something else. His fingers twitched and scrabbled for the object, body knowing what it was but mind not quite caught up. Light shone directly on his eyes from the small object, painful but he couldn't look away.

It was already unlocked suggesting the one who owned it had been using the small rectangular object. Phone. His mind eventually supplied, not his phone, no his phone was newer than this old black berry. His fingers fumbled, leaving bloody smudges on the screen, as his hand shook with the effort of holding it up and navigating the system. Blood was soaking his hair, clothes and ragged wheezes pushed him forward with one goal.

Get a doctor.

The contacts list was, thankfully, easy to locate. It being the option in the middle of the screen, the solid blue sticking out amongst a black back drop and colourful game applications. The screen was one small glowing white blur but it didn't matter as the list was short, containing only eleven options. He scrolled to the last name, hoped the contacts were sorted as they used to be (Last name first), tapped the green blur on the screen and let it ring.

"I'm not helping if you're calling after a failed suicide attempt." Came her irate voice through the phone. He barely understood what was said, words melding together and twisting into a ball of tinny noise.

"Help." He said. Black spots blacked out half his vision, he brought the phone closer to his ear and dropped it on the ground, letting his head drop next to it on the asphalt.

"What? Dazai?"

He tried to speak, tried to move his lips and work his voice but all that escaped was barely a whisper.

"Hello?"

She would hang up if he didn't answer. Desperation bloomed in his chest but he couldn't work up the strength to speak. She was beginning to sound concerned though. Hopefully, hopefully, she would hold on a little longer.

"Dazai, are you there?"

He grunted as sharp pain lanced through his head and hip. Nausea swirling in his gut. His limbs felt like lead, weighing him down like his power couldn't.

"Help." He gasped, feeling a chunky blob make its way up his throat.

"Who is this? Where are you? Where's Dazai?" The voice demanded on deaf ears, the voice sounded further away by the second. His body wracked with a violent coughing fit, disturbing every fire lit nerve in his broken body as blood splattered across the phone and the pavement beneath.

"No.. time." He rasped. "Too much.. blood…"

"Blood? What do you mean blood? Where's Dazai? Hey Kunikida, trace Dazai's phone!"

"Nah.. Alley, Anasaki, fuck."

"Anasaki? The bar? Tell me what's wrong, stay with me!" She sounded impatient, worried, alarmed even, but he couldn't make out the words anymore. His eyes slid closed as a soft sigh slipped passed his lips, lids too heavy to hold open any longer.

"Hurry." He choked out, slipping from consciousness a second later.

#

"Hey! Hey! Hello? Are you there?… shit." He was gone. Whomever had Dazai's phone had slipped away, dead or unconscious she didn't want to think about. If the person had been comfortable enough to use Dazai's phone and Dazai wasn't there...

Or he was.

"Kunikida!" Yosano yelled, spinning towards him on the edge of her heel. The call was still active, the person on the other side… was not. Kunikida's computer screen zoomed in on a small red dot on a map of the city. It was a two minute walk from the bar the person had gasped out with what seemed like their dying breath. She could only hope, as she bolted from the office, that Dazai and whomever had called would still be alive when she got to them.

The bar, thankfully, wasn't far from the office. A five minute drive, twenty minute walk, ten minute run taking the same roads. Using every short cut she knew got her there in record time. Her sense of urgency, of imminent danger, driving her on faster than she felt she'd ever been before.

She slipped around the corner of the alley and stopped. Unable to not take in the gruesome scene and guess what had happened. There was blood everywhere. Not in a manner suggesting a fight, no splatters or individual drops. This was the slow bleeding of a wound untreated for hours. Dazai and the stranger lay pressed together in this pool of blood. Dazai's position suggesting he had hit the ground full force, protecting the small one from harm.

Not a suicide attempt. She shook herself out of her stupor and rushed over to examine them. Taking extreme care when turning the small one after she had made sure both of them were alive, barely. She could hardly be sure what blood belonged to whom or if there were an injury hiding under the copious amounts smeared over both of them. Some of it dried enough to stubbornly stay attached to them when she tried to wipe it away.

She had no time for this, she couldn't see their injuries under their clothes. Under the blood disguising any openings in the small one's flesh. Dazai was easier. He had landed flat on his back and hadn't moved since. The only blood marring his front having been smeared there by the other.

She separated them, cut off their clothes to get at their flesh and got to work.