Is it an angel or a devil in disguise?

[blackwaterchild]

Miu feels like she's gotten used to her rather strange new life since following Chuuya back to his version of Yokohama. Strange, yes, but at least never usually dull, though no one seemed entirely sure what to do with her at first. But she'd already been accepted in by Mori, and Chuuya even before him, and in the end she's not the first nor the last person to show up in the mafia with seemingly no past.

The mafia makes it easy to forge an identity though, to pretend that there had always been a Miu Hinasaki living in Japan. Not much changed there, except she wasn't a movie star anymore or an idol or a model. She sort of misses the work, but the work she has now makes up for it.

She does her work tracking things down or finding out what happened in the last moments of someone's life--their thoughts, their feelings, what they saw. It helps. It helps a lot, but it's the kind of ability that people want. The fact that the mafia has it now just means their chokehold on Miu's time and person is absolute and guarded like a dragon over its horde.

Miu knows she can use it to her advantage, if she felt inclined to. She could use it to become powerful.

She also knows the mafia won't play her games unless they want to. They indulge only as much as they're willing to--Miu isn't stupid enough to think that just because she holds one trump card that she can lord it over their heads. They can't afford to kill her, true, but they operated just fine without her and they could do so again. She's worth more alive than dead, but there are fates worse than death.

She doesn't harbor any illusions that Chuuya would protect her that much. It's dangerous, sometimes. People hear about her abilities. Other organizations, small groups, try for her. Sometimes they succeed, but Miu doesn't worry, since it never lasts long. There's always a scream of metal and flashing gunfire and the weight of literal, actual gravity crushing those that usually manage to get far enough. She can trust Chuuya to protect ehr that much.

Still, it's not something she tries to think about too much. It's easier, and more fun, to let the days continue on and see where things go. She does her jobs, her missions. Chuuya forces training on her. They fuck. She slips away and pretends she's being sneaky about it, like Mori and Chuuya don't know where she might be slipping away to. As long as she doesn't give away secrets, as long as she doesn't betray them, it's fine.

It's Dazai she's seeing, after all, and sometimes he tells her things to bring back or sometimes it's just nonsense riddles that the mafia can puzzle over for a week or two before realizing they've just been dogs chasing their tails, but by then something else has happened to make them forget that she'd brought back something useless.

The game is fun. She's not bored. That's all she's ever asked for--to not be bored.

So Miu visits Dazai and flirts and some days she goes home with him and lets herself (lets him) indulge. Sometimes there's bruises, sometimes there's blood and teeth. Sometimes she has to pretend the choker she wears home isn't different from the one she wore there to begin with, bigger to hide the marks, bigger because it's definitely not a normal choker and she ignores the side-eyes of people who know what it might mean and are too polite to say so to her face. But she likes how Chuuya gets angry about it sometimes. She shouldn't indulge in the strange rivalry-slash-partnership they have going on either, shouldn't play with fire like that or let herself be caught up in the crossfire as often as she does, but she enjoys it.

It's a good life, more or less.

Until it's not.

Until something goes wrong and weird and some asshole ability-user gets the drop on her when she's with Chuuya on a mission that should've been as routine as the rest of her life. Miu isn't fond of sudden change. She's especially not fond of an ability user with the ability to rewind time losing some kind of control of it and sending her hurtling into the past.

The good news? It shouldn't be permanent.

The bad news? Miu has no idea exactly how long it'll take to send her back to the present. There'd been a couple of experiments with it, nad it seemed like everything went back to the right time shortly after leaving, but who knows how long had actually passed for those items?

One deep breath. Then another.

Panicking won't do anything to help her.

It takes her little time to find out when exactly she is, but it doesn't help that much. A good couple of years into the past, and her clothes just slightly modern enough to get some odd looks and some wrong ideas (her skirt's just a little too short now), and she doesn't know who to really turn to.

For the first time in a long while, she feels truly lost.

The Port Mafia buildings rise like spires and it feels a little strange to think that such an object of abject fear can give her a sense of relief. If she can talk to someone...Mori, preferably, but maybe she can find another executive and get them to get her an audience with him. He was a pragmatic man. She had knowledge on her side, and even then... Her trump card of her ability could be used to at least guarantee her some sort of protection until she could get snapped back home or whatever. Which...would totally happen. She had to believe that.

The trip to the HQ takes far longer than she'd ever have liked it to. Her bank doesn't exist yet so she has no money and no contacts, so her spare pocket change, some flirting, and a lot of walking means that by the time she shows up, she's cranky and tired and not in the mood to try and deal with the front door.

Being close with Dazai and Chuuya meant knowing a lot of backways even into the Port Mafia HQ, and it's... in all, it's a bad idea. In retrospect, she can realize this, but at the moment she's not thinking about that so much when she slips in through a back way and a side door, avoiding the cameras that she knows are there (and avoiding some that aren't even in existence yet).

It isn't until she's meandering down a corridor to what would've been Chuuya's offices that she realizes she's been acting on autopilot and freezes, turning around on heel to go back the way she came.

She couldn't be caught here. Not like this. What had she been thinking? (Well, she ahdn't been, that was the main point, but still.)

"Phew." Miu lets out a rush of a breath and rubs a hand over her eyes before running that hand through her hair. "I'm an idiot," she mutters to herself, shaking her head.