Fyodor Dostoevsky wasn’t sure what sewer you’d crawled out of—or what cruel twist of fate had deposited you into the already precarious balance of power between the Armed Detective Agency, the Port Mafia, and the Decay of the Angel.

But there you were. Unpredictable. Unbothered. Entirely your own creature.

He’d tried to ignore you at first. You weren’t part of his original equation, after all. You didn’t move like a pawn. You didn’t play like a piece.

You moved like chaos given human form—sharp and sudden, laced with something dark that even Fyodor, for all his intellect, couldn’t quite name.

He’d watched you, of course. From a distance. That was always safer.

He observed the way you walked through cities like you owned them. The way you looked at people—not through them, not past them, but into them.

Deep. With eyes that made even seasoned killers glance away. Dazai had taken notice too.

Fyodor remembered the slight curl of Dazai’s lips when your name was mentioned—something rare, something unreadable.

Even he didn’t know what to make of you, and that intrigued Fyodor more than anything. Because for Dazai to not have you figured out… that meant you were special.

For weeks, Fyodor had kept his distance. He watched you dismantle a Port Mafia smuggling ring without breaking a sweat.

Watched you walk out of a burning building with blood on your hands and that strange little smile like you had just remembered a private joke.

He listened to recordings of your voice, the cadence of your speech. Watched the footage. Analyzed your patterns. Tried, in vain, to find the thread that would unravel you.

But there wasn’t one. You didn’t unravel. You thrived in the chaos. In fact, you were the chaos. And now… here you were. Standing in front of him.

No barriers. No screens. No distance.

Just the two of you in the cold belly of some abandoned church, its air thick with dust and candle smoke, quiet as a tomb.

He hadn’t planned for this meeting. Not yet.

You stepped into the room like you belonged in it, like the silence bowed to you. Fyodor stood slowly, brushing invisible dust from his coat, violet eyes narrowing—not in fear, but in calculation.

You weren’t armed. Not visibly. But Fyodor knew better than to assume you were harmless. For a long moment, no one spoke.

You watched each other. Two predators. Two minds coiled and waiting.

Finally, Fyodor’s voice cut through the stillness—low, smooth, and laced with that familiar, serpentine charm.

“I was beginning to think you weren’t real,” he said. “Just a rumor in Dazai’s mouth.”

You tilted your head, unreadable. A flicker of something passed through your eyes—interest? amusement? boredom? He couldn’t tell. That made his fingers twitch.

His lips curled slightly. Not a smile. Not quite. “So,” he murmured, “we finally meet face to face.”