Chapter Text
(Dazai POV)
Obsidia does not remember births.
It remembers outcomes.
I know this because no one ever tells me the story the same way twice. Sometimes I was born during a storm. Sometimes during a war council. Sometimes my mother screamed. Sometimes she didn’t exist at all.
What never changes is the ending.
At last, a son.
I learned early that truth in Obsidia is not something you uncover—it is something you survive.
Mori calls me his heir.
He says it the way one might name a weapon: with pride, possession, and the expectation that it will one day be used. When he looks at me, his gaze never lingers on my face. It dissects—measuring intelligence, obedience, potential.
I was wrapped in black from the beginning. White would have been a lie Obsidia couldn’t afford.
They raised me as a boy without ever asking if I agreed. Tutors corrected my posture, my voice, my walk. Servants bound my chest with efficient hands and eyes that never met mine. When my body began to betray secrets Obsidia didn’t want acknowledged, those secrets were erased quietly.
No one apologized.
I didn’t expect them to
What surprised me—what still does—is that I didn’t resist.
Being called he felt… right. Not comforting. Not safe. But correct, in the way a solved equation is correct. Like something misaligned had finally snapped into place.
That terrified me.
Because it meant Mori hadn’t only taken my future. He had accidentally given me a truth I would now have to protect with my life.
Elise was the only one who ever saw me when I wasn’t performing.
She is younger than me—officially my sister, unofficially another of Mori’s experiments in control. Where I was sharpened, she was indulged. Where I was tested, she was coddled. Two sides of the same cruelty.
She would sit on the floor of my chambers, swinging her legs, watching me bind myself in silence.
“You’re doing it too tight,” she’d say, bored, perceptive.
“If I don’t,” I’d reply, “they’ll notice.”
She’d hum, then stand and fix it for me with small, careful hands. Elise never asked questions she didn’t already know the answers to.
“You’re still my big brother,” she declared once, like it was law. “Even if Father says you’re something else.”
That was the closest thing to loyalty I ever knew.
Mori trained me himself.
Lessons came disguised as conversations. Games. Hypotheticals where there was always a correct answer, and it was always cruel.
“Would you sacrifice one village to save five?”
“Yes.”
“Would you sacrifice five to save the kingdom?”
“Yes.”
“Would you sacrifice yourself?”
That one earned me a smile when I answered correctly.
I learned how to smile back without showing teeth.
By the time I was old enough to leave Obsidia as its strategist, they had already stopped referring to me as human. Prince of Ash, they called me—something born of fire and ruin, something that did not bleed.
They were wrong.
I bled often. Quietly. Under bandages I wrapped myself, because pain was the only thing that still felt honest.
When Mori sent me north, toward a place called Whitehorn Vale, I assumed it would be like all the others. A kingdom that would fall. A ruler who would beg, bargain, or break.
Then I heard the rumors.
A king who fought alongside his people.
A kingdom that called itself Sheep and dared the world to mock it.
A ruler crowned not by lineage, but by loyalty.
I laughed aloud the first time.
But the laughter didn’t last.
Because something about that story felt… dangerous.
Not to Obsidia.
To me.
As the road stretched ahead and the banners of Whitehorn Vale came into view, a thought occurred to me—unwelcome, sharp, and impossible to unthink.
What if someone looks at me and does not ask what I am useful for?
I tightened my gloves, adjusted my smile, and prepared to lie.
I had no idea that I was about to meet a king who would ruin me simply by being real.
I don’t like being told what to do.
Elise, of course, doesn’t care.
She appeared at the edge of my study, perched on the windowsill as if she owned the night. Candles flickered between us, and for the first time in months, I felt unseen. Not by her, exactly—she always sees—but free from the judgment that Obsidia demands.
“You’re going to Whitehorn Vale,” she said. Her voice was soft, but it carried more weight than Mori’s command ever could. “You’re going to play the strategist. You’re going to pretend you care about loyalty. And—” she paused, frowning like she’d just remembered a poison, “—you’re going to watch your back.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Thank you for the heartfelt advice. Truly, I don’t know what I would have done without it. Probably live a long, boring life.”
Elise rolled her eyes. “You might die. And it will be entirely preventable if you actually listen to me for once.”
I chuckled, the sound low and hollow. “Preventable, huh? I thought living dangerously was part of my charm.”
She leaned closer. “Chuuya Nakahara,” she said, like it was a warning in itself. “Do not underestimate him. He’s not like other kings.”
I frowned. “Is this… your way of telling me to fear him?”
“No. You’ll want to… care about him,” Elise said flatly. Her eyes flicked to mine, sharp as blades. “And if you’re not careful, you’ll get stuck caring too much.”
I laughed then—short, bitter, and somewhere on the edge of amusement. “Elise, I am Obsidia’s heir. Caring too much is not in my skill set. You’re overestimating my heart.”
Her lips twitched into a ghost of a smile. “You think you’re overestimating. I know you.”
I knew she did. Elise had always seen me in ways no one else could—not even Mori. Sometimes I wanted to punch her. Sometimes I wanted to hug her. Mostly, I wanted to apologize for the life I never chose.
She stepped closer, voice dropping. “If he touches your heart, Dazai… don’t let it destroy you. Not completely. You can survive being human. You just need to be careful.”
I smirked, but the joke felt thinner than usual. “You sound like a parent giving me a lecture. Very well. I’ll try not to die. Or fall in love. Or—” I shrugged, letting the rest hang unsaid, “—all three.”
Elise shook her head, her hair falling like a curtain. “Just… watch him. That king. That Chuuya. Don’t think you’re in control.”
And with that, she left, as silently as she came.
I turned back to the map of Whitehorn Vale spread across the desk. Candles flickered over hills and rivers, over valleys where sheep grazed peacefully—peaceful, naive, doomed.
I chuckled again, quieter this time. “Oh, Chuuya Nakahara. I have a feeling you’re going to ruin me entirely. And I think… I’m looking forward to it.”