Headache
Hogwarts, January 1993
His headache was the first thing Dazai noticed while walking through the halls of Hogwarts's dungeon. Lost again. Ugh... Who's casting a spell so high it gives Dazai a headache? Annoying. He merely tried ignoring it. That was, until Blaise, in his annoyingly loyal fashion, brought up Dazai's pain.
"Are you alright, Dazai?"
Dazai simply let out an exasperated groan. Nothing serious, but still, Dazai was a bit annoyed.
"Blaise's got to stop worrying so much. Feels like that's all he thinks about!"
"Well, that's to be expected when I'm with you."
Both boys continued walking down the halls side by side silently, Dazai's headache being an afterthought for him as he was focused on trying not to lose Blaise. He could die, this headache is so annoying! Well, Dazai could die over a lot of things, but that's not the point! Blaise just worried too much. Dazai's fine, always just peachy. As they walked down the hallway Dazai gradually gave up trying to remember any of which they were going. He's a logistics, and this hallway is... Eh... Different. With all these twists and turns, he honestly wonders how his getting lost all the time makes him the odd one out! His memory's near perfect, sure, but this is totally different. I mean, what's so special about a shifting hallway? It's annoying if anything. If Dazai was Hogwarts's headmaster it'd be nothing like this. He'd get rid of those pesky paintings, for starters. Hogwarts is nice, but sometimes the place gets on his nerves.
They reached the dungeons of Slytherin at last, though even deciding to go there was a big mistake. Everyone practically backed themselves into a corner as if they were moths to a flame, all whispering and doing things of such.
"It's the demon student!"
Awful nickname in Dazai's opinion, by the way.
"Why's he here?"
"I thought he was gone for good!"
That's all anyone in there was saying. They were already confused about where he had gone. Well, the students who only ever saw him during curfew when he went back to the dungeons to sleep. Or stay awake lost in thought. It honestly depends on the day.
Blaise frowned at the whispering. He knew Dazai honestly didn't care (or at least presented himself that way), but he still didn't want one of his friends to get "teased" to this extent. It's bullying at this point. Pansy and Dazai's relationship isn't helping, either, as Blaise always has to worry about Pansy doing something like gathering the whole school and ganging up on Dazai when he's alone. I mean, Blaise didn't want to imagine Pansy doing anything like that, but... It's not unreasonable with how she's been acting lately.
He can’t even go back to the dungeons with his friend in peace. I mean, Blaise doesn’t doubt for a second that he’d be getting ruthlessly bullied for being seen with Dazai if it weren’t for Draco and maybe Pansy. The kids at Hogwarts might be doing something more serious to Dazai, but if they were, Blaise wouldn’t know. Dazai doesn’t tell him anything.
“Wow, everyone’s gathered around just for me!”
Dazai kids, a grin plastered across his face.
“Yeah…”
A soft hum escaped Dazai’s lips as he made his way across the dungeon, purposefully strutting all too confidently over to the boy’s dormitory, making the snakes nervous. “Why’s he sleeping there,” you ask. Egg. Egg’s been overly hyperactive and set flame to Dazai’s “bed,” so now he has nowhere to sleep comfortably! He proposed sleeping on the floor, but god knows Hermione would never allow that to happen, so she got Blaise to convince Dazai to at least try sleeping with the other Snakes.
Dazai plopped down onto what he remembered was his bed, letting out an obnoxiously loud sigh. It’s clear he’s just trying to annoy anyone and everyone.
It took around 7 minutes after Dazai fell asleep, or, in his case, for the boys to even consider slowly moving away from the corner of the room they were in. They got into bed after cautiously checking to see if he was asleep and finally felt safe enough to fall asleep much later. Well, the majority of them. Blaise wasn’t afraid of Dazai despite being the only person who had a proper reason to be scared. A reason that wasn’t heavily swayed by the media.
“I can’t sleep,” is what Dazai determined after carefully getting out of bed, careful not to make a sound. He had been just lying in bed for over an hour, and his headache was slowly getting worse. It felt like his skull was being split down the middle.
Dazai wanted to investigate. Why his head’s in this much excruciating pain, that is. So he set off. It took him around twenty minutes to even leave the proximity of Slytherin’s Dungeon. He’s not bad at directions unless it’s at Hogwarts. Then again, he’s never really gotten the chance to see how good his sense of direction is.
After an hour of aimlessly walking through the halls of Hogwarts, occasionally doing some threatening against ghosts who were too loud or obnoxious. That’s when he heard it. And felt it.
“Dazai…”
A windy voice said, all up close to Dazai’s ear.
Bam!
It felt as if someone just rammed a knife into the middle of his skull, trying to carve it apart. He heard it again.
“Dazai…”
Bam!
It seemed every time this thing spoke Dazai was met with a rather painful headache. Not even a headache at this point. It hurt as bad as a hammer to the forehead would. Dazai stumbled over, clutching his forehead tight and gritting his teeth, careful not to make any sounds. Especially that of pain.
“Dazai…”
“Dazai…”
“Dazai…”
The damn thing wouldn’t shut up!
Dazai stood there for what felt like an hour. It probably was an hour. The misty voice just wouldn’t shut up! Then, after constant pestering, it said something else.
“Follow me…”
Well, getting out of bed was, in hindsight, a horrible idea.
Dazai had no other option but to do what the voice said, which he found out after not jumping up to do what the voice said. He crunched over, now clutching and tugging at his shirt as he felt something sharp ram through his heart… Only it didn’t. It just felt like something had. He mumbled something, taking a few minutes to let his heart slow down before slowly trudging through the halls, attempting to follow whatever or whoever was talking to him.
It brought him to the library, and suddenly, his legs gave out.
He fell backward, slumping against the side of a bookcase. His eyes darted around, scanning the room before a shadowy, almost wind-like figure appeared before him. That’s when he felt it. Something like a saw was digging into his wrists. Dark red blood spilled out, covering his white uniform shirt and pants, coating it in a layer of the warm substance. Dazai didn’t scream. A cut wrist isn’t something to scream about. However, he did start breathing harder and faster when the blade cut down to his bone. He couldn’t even look at the wound to see how bad it was, his head was being held straight by something as strong as metal. Dazai felt dizzy. Extremely fucking dizzy. He opened his mouth, breathing hard before his vision started to black out and in. He started officially slipping from consciousness when the rigid blade slammed down onto his wrist, cutting through the bone.
Before passing out, he heard this:
“Congratulations, contestant #66601! You have been selected to compete in Hell’s Annual Brawl! If you have any objections, please di— We’ll see y— Champion— Calvaria Broyeuse— Luck!”
Dazai barely got any of what the voice said. It’s kind of hard to pay attention to that kind of thing when your wrist is being cut through, bone and all, eventually unattached his right arm with his body.
I mean, Dazai wanted to die, but not like this. He wanted it to be on his own time in his own free will! Dazai wanted to stay awake longer, too. To figure out who had done this to him and what his chances of survival were. But, I guess his body’s response was only human.