Outside the sky waits
Beckoning, beckoning
Just beyond the bars
How can you remain
Staring at the rain
Maddened by the stars?
How is it you sing anything?
How is it you sing?
- Stephen Sondheim, Green Finch and Linnet Bird
///
7 / 6 / 2016
He's in bed, looking a little sickly but he's otherwise alright. He gives me a weak smile, despite everything that's happened, despite being hooked to machines. The doctors say he'll be ready to head home in a day, and just to be safe they advise him to be bedridden for another week or two. Gave him medicine to account for blood loss, advised an assortment of foods rich in iron.
"How have you been?" he asks me, and his voice is a little scratchy.
What the fuck have I done to this man. "I'm alright. Exams coming up, so. I'll be studying."
"When?"
"Thirteenth to sixteenth. Made some headway into it, already."
He blinks once, twice, three times. "And the Palace? How's that been?"
"Haven't returned to the Palace since last time."
"When do you intend to?"
Jesus. "I don't. Akechi told us we'd be better off abandoning this bullshit."
He smiles lightly, "Don't think you can lie to me now, Kazuya."
Oh, fuck it. "We aren't planning on changing his heart. Things are too fucked up right now, as far as Kaneshiro's people are concerned. We will, however, return to the Palace sometime soon. Right after exams."
"Why?" he asks, too tired to really push beyond that.
"It's mostly for Niijima's sake. I had hoped to obtain some information surrounding Shijima, but... I doubt I'll be able to, now. Akechi's had us strongarmed into leaving this Shijima bullshit behind."
"You'll do this to help Niijima-san? What do you mean?"
"Tsukioka's Shadow insinuated that Niijima's father was involved in Kaneshiro's drug trafficking ring, and Akechi confirmed it. Said the guy was responsible for getting Kaneshiro out on the streets in the first place. Niijima was devastated."
"I can imagine. Poor girl. And you...want to help her?"
"For one thing, she and you saved my life. I felt I owed her. And... I understood what she must have felt. To have believed in someone, only to find out everything you thought about them was a lie. That...and yeah, I wanted to find out more about Shijima, if I could."
He gives an exhausted sort of chuckle, "If you could."
"But I...can't."
"You can't?" I don't answer, not immediately. "Kazuya, what do you mean by that?"
I think to lie. I think to make myself certain, give off an air of complete and unabashed confidence, or at least determination - such that I'd never have to emotionally drain this man's nerves yet again. He's already had to put up with my bullshit for months, not again, not now, as he's recovering from something I pulled him into. But as my left hand shakes I hear whispers from behind me, to my sides, in my own mind - I don't see them but I hear them and they laugh like children.
"Kazuya?"
"I was so sure. Even after we spoke I was so sure of what I wanted. I was so sure no force on heaven or earth could keep me from finding out who they are. I didn't think things would end up this way."
"What way?"
"Maruki," I look him in the eyes and it takes me everything not to just burst into tears on the spot, "I don't know what to do."
"Kazuya, what...?"
"My father might be involved in all this. The drug-running, the fucking criminal shit, he's probably neck-deep in it. Or worse, I don't, I don't fucking know."
"Your father? What are you talking about? How can you say that?"
"When we escaped Tsukioka's Palace, Akechi called out my surname and Tsukioka freaked out. Demanded we all fucking leave. He screamed and turned into a monster and may very well have killed us then."
"That...," Maruki blinks, shakes his head, "that doesn't necessarily mean-"
And then I show him my phone. I show him the name of my father, in the Nav. He looks at it blankly, starkly, then turns to me and on his face bears all the pain I'm not willing to let myself show. "Oh, my God."
"Even if he isn't a part of this. He has a Kingdom, and I don't know what the hell that means. I wanted nothing more than to end all their fucking lives, but-" I grit my teeth and look at him, "I don't fucking know anymore, Maruki. I don't know. I don't know what the fuck I want anymore."
Maruki is stunned, stares at my phone after grabbing it right out of my hands, and all at once he loses most of what he thought he'd say. All that comes out, all he's found in himself worth asking, "Are you going to go after your father?"
"I don't know."
"This doesn't mean a thing yet," Maruki growls, "it's, it's circumstantial, is what it is. Just because your father has a Kingdom, just because Tsukioka may have gotten furious over hearing your surname-"
"The circumstances tie together far too neatly for their own good, Maruki."
"He's CTD of an electronics company, makes cellphones and laptops and cameras. What could someone like him know about the cognitive world? Kazuya."
"I don't know for sure but I know he's involved, somehow, someway, and I'm terrified the worst-case scenario's come true and he's running the fucking show from some goddamn throne room somewhere like Sauron or some shit. I don't know the location of his distortion, I don't even know the distortion, all I fucking know is my dad has a Kingdom. My dad has a Kingdom and he's probably had it the whole fucking time I knew him, and if worst comes to worst he knows about Shijima, and if he knows about Shijima he may have known about fucking Masako and let it happen and-"
"Kazuya."
"He has a distorted desire. He has a desire he'll kill and torture and maim people to get, because that's what I'd do to get what I want, and if I'm willing to do what I've done thus fucking far I can't even imagine what he's willing to do, I don't know how many people he's killed or is willing to kill or will kill if he isn't stopped, I don't even know what he's done but I'm afraid if I find out I'll hate him so much I want him dead. I don't want to kill him, Maruki. Dear God, he's disinherited me and he's a fucking asshole but I don't wanna kill him. I don't want to have to, I don't, I..."
"You won't have to, Kazuya," he grabs the sides of my face, forces me to look directly at him, "Kazuya. You won't have to. I promise."
"But what if he is involved? What if he's a fucking drug-running murdering psycho piece of shit who sells people on the street and uses fucking blood money to fund his business? What if, what if he's some megalomaniac fuck who's killed dozens or hundreds or thousands and he'll kill more unless we stop him, unless I stop him? Maruki, I don't know what to do. I don't want to kill my father, Maruki. Oh my God, I don't want to kill my fucking dad. Please, don't tell me I have to, God in Heaven please."
"No. No, you don't. He has a Kingdom but that doesn't mean he's involved in this."
"He is, he obviously is. There's no way a man like my father wouldn't be."
"But perhaps his distortion is not so overwhelming that he would stoop to committing crimes to obtain his desires."
"But it is. It has to be, a Kingdom would not be a Kingdom otherwise. He would pursue a distorted desire no matter what stood in his way. Like I do. Murder, torture, blackmail, extortion, he would do all these things and more if it brought him a step closer."
"What would your father even want? What could he possibly desire to trigger the creation of a Kingdom within his heart?"
"Does it matter?"
"Of course it does. If you know what he wants you may very well be able to change-"
"No. Impossible. My father's heart can't change, it's never been any different since the day I could recognize him as my father. He's been this way for decades of his life, what could I possibly do to make him any different?"
"You're his son."
"And has being his son given him reason to treat me any kinder than he would anyone else? If so he would not have disowned me. Disinherited me. If so his eyes wouldn't look at me as if I were a worm, small enough and shrivelled enough to be crushed under his heel."
"He is your father."
"And does being my father excuse him from all the horrors he's committed?"
"You don't even know what horrors he's committed! If he's even committed any!
I chuckle, on the verge of sobbing uncontrollably. "That's the thing, Maruki. I don't think I knew anything of my father to begin with."
"I'm sorry, Kazuya," he shakes his head. "I'm so sorry you have to face this."
They keep laughing at me as Maruki pulls me in for an embrace from the bed and despite everything I've done to him he continues to be a pillar of support, as a droning noise enters my ears and I pull myself up to the ceiling, looking down upon the both of us. All throughout the night, I hear the laughter of a child and her mother, laughter that descends into sobs and screams the longer I dwell upon them.
.
.
.
7 / 9 / 2016
Studying in the classroom during lunch and I've barely managed to focus in upon my notes.
Something I'd mastered as a child has become unbearable, something that feels so miserably insignificant; I'm wasting my time, trying to read through notes I've not even cared to complete, combing through books I honestly couldn't give much of a shit about anymore. I recall in my boyhood, feeling annoyed whenever I didn't have a book to read or an assignment to complete. Uncontrollably bored unless I had something my brain wanted to do - now, I literally could not care less what x equals, or what the fuck happened in 1945, or literally any-fucking-thing else. Certainly doesn't help I haven't bought new fucking glasses since Kaneshiro broke my shit. Will need to do that before the end of the day.
I suppose that the worst part of it all is not necessarily the knowing; it's more, the feeling of how the obvious had stared me blankly in the eye, and how none of it registered until now.
Many things about my father that I'd come to just accept are simultaneously given an extensive amount of context while at the same time being stripped of it altogether. No wonder he was an asshole that one time. No wonder he always frowns, no wonder he looks like he hates everything in the world literally all the time. But what could have triggered this distortion within him in the first place? My mother's death? Had that affected him so profoundly? Even as I cried and wept inelegantly at her funeral my father didn't even shed a tear. Had he been molested in his youth, like Kaneshiro? Is he driven by glory, like Kamoshida? By reputation, like Kobayakawa?
Or has he been this way all along?
He is distorted enough to bear a Kingdom, distorted enough to know of his distortion and accept it as his own. The location and the nature of his fucked up heart remain blank in my phone, because of reasons I can't quite pin down. Niijima was devastated when she learned of her father's hidden depravities; disturbed describes how I feel, more than anything else but - I honestly, really should have seen it coming. I've lived with him all my life, cursed at him silently all my life, found him impregnably grim and impossible to talk to even over dinner - yet not once did I think him insane, or vile, or distorted. I just thought he was an asshole.
I wish he were just that.
This must be how Niijima must have felt; confused and horrified, not knowing how much of her father was truth and how much was a lie.
For now all I can do is read notes, write, and write again, filling up questions that mean nothing, on a paper that I need to pass, in order to succeed in a life I have no real intention of living.
"I'll help you."
I look up to the seat in front of me; Takamaki's eyes are sharp, they're certain. I blink at her, "You'll, what?"
"Thought about it for days. You want another go at the Palace?"
"On the seventeenth. I'm intending to help Niijima," I shake my head. "Find out information about her father. Not planning on going after Tsukioka's Treasure just yet. Depending on what happens, we probably won't even steal the Treasure at all."
"You're doing this for Niijima, in particular?"
"I guess so. Part of me wants to know more about these Shijima fuckers, but yeah. Primarily for Niijima."
"You owe her."
"Yeah."
"Then I'll come with you."
"You don't have to, if you don't want to."
"I do."
I'd protest more, but fuck it. Had this conversation too many fucking times. "On your own head be it, then."
"If you get yourself in trouble like you had with Kaneshiro, I won't hang back. I'm coming with you. And besides, I...," she sways her shoulders, rocking them back and forth a little, "I feel bad for Niijima."
"Since when?"
"Since she found out her dad was a drug dealer," she sighs. "She must feel terrible..."
"She does. But," I shake my head. "She's a lot stronger than either of us gave her credit for."
"Is that right?"
"Yeah, it is."
"How's Maruki-san?"
"He's not coming with. He's awake. He's just not coming with. Sleeps frequently still. Doctors say he'll be that way for a while, even after he leaves the hospital. Not fit for combat in the slightest."
"Great."
"Akechi's found routes inside the Palace we'll be able to use to sneak in, hopefully. So I think that'll compensate."
"He'll help us? That Akechi guy? He told us to forget about it."
"We convinced him. Won't steal the Treasure. But will help Niijima find out about her dad."
"You're that concerned for her, huh?"
"I owe her. Have you spoken to Sakamoto?"
"No," she shakes her head. "He just...obviously doesn't want anything to do with us. Neither does Yoshizawa."
Something in my head snaps right there. "Yoshizawa?"
"I found her eating alone in the courtyard and felt she needed someone to talk to. After, y'know. Everything with Kaneshiro. She asked what was bugging me and I just...told her everything Akechi had told us. Everything about the Palace. After I told her, she just smiled and wished us luck."
"When was this?"
"Yesterday."
Oh my God. "I told her I wouldn't involve myself in Palaces, that I'd forget all about it."
"Why would you do that?"
"I-" goddammit, "I saw her, on the way to the fucking cleanup thing, and she was having an anxiety attack right on the spot. She, she was terrified at the idea of me going back to Palaces so I told her I'd never do that again. She was freaking out."
"She...didn't have that kinda reaction when I told her about the Palace..."
"Where is she, did she even come to school today?"
"Y-yeah, I saw her earlier this morning-" I immediately grab my bag and my notes and rush out the door, Takamaki calling out, "Hikawa?"
There isn't much room in my heart for sentimentality. I'll take few things with me when I die; the memory of Kana and Masako being one of them. Kasumi Yoshizawa's screams as her thigh got torn open by Kaneshiro, being another.
No, it's not because I'm a sadist, even though you can argue I am. No, it's not because I felt bad for her, even though I did and still do.
It's because there's something profoundly familiar in her big eyes and youthful smile. There's something so undeniably plastic about it, something insincere that even she likely isn't aware of. When she wept that day, when she cried her eyes out and practically begged me not to return to Palaces - that was the most sincere I'd ever seen her. She isn't dishonest, at least not intentionally - there is a burgeoning agony she hasn't let herself feel. Something I tried to soothe, if only for a little, even if I had to start acting insincere as well.
In her big round eyes and small smile I remembered a girl with green eyes, black hair, and a red scarf. For as different as they were their smiles were equally, blitheringly, obviously insincere. And always, always I realize it far too late for it to matter. Call it what you will - lingering trauma, bubbling and broiling to the surface. My own failures and memories coloring my perception of a girl who had nothing to do with Kana at all.
But, hell. I'd rather she hate me until the end, than experience another anxiety attack, like she had way back when.
"H-Hikawa-san?"
Seeing her in the middle of the hall, having just left her classroom, is something of a surreal experience. The students pass us by, giving me frightened glances and dashing away from us both; and I realize as I stand here before here that I haven't put a lot of thought into this at all. I've probably fucked her reputation by even being remotely near her.
It's now my turn to be utterly speechless, because I've gotten myself all the way over here and it was obviously a huge mistake, but she's the one who takes the initiative by grabbing my hand. "We should head out, senpai."
As we head out I hear people, in passing; their whispers loud enough to strike me as odd. They say things about me, the horrifying criminal delinquent who is now hogging all the girls, but what perplexes me the most out of everything I heard?
Course crazy wants to fuck crazy.
Those words stay with me, they stay with me as Yoshizawa drags me out the halls and back into the outdoors. We get ourselves behind a wall, near a tree, about a few yards away from the gym. She pulls herself away from me, facing the bright orange skies. I struggle with what to say but before I can come out with anything she speaks first.
"Honestly... I wasn't that surprised when Takamaki-senpai told me." She looks up, hands gripping a nearby railing. "I think that part of me always knew you'd go back to them. Sooner, or later. But you told me you weren't, so you could calm my nerves, right?"
"I'm... sorry."
"Don't be," she smiles at me. "I'm afraid I won't be able to help you."
"I, I wasn't...," I shake my head. "I understand completely. Considering what Kaneshiro had done, I can't blame you."
"What he did didn't help, but...I have other reasons," she says, approaching me now. So close I'd push her away were she anyone else. "I don't think I'm meant for Palaces, honestly. I don't think I'd be able to do the things you can do, I don't think I'd be able to take it."
"No one could begrudge you."
"I want to put all my focus on my gymnastics. Fulfill my and my sister's dream. That's all. I want to do what I can, with what I have now. With the life I almost lost." She looks up at me, her mouth a hard line. "I wish I had even a fraction of your courage."
"What?"
"I don't approve of you or your methods. But if I could be as courageous as you, even for a day, I'd be the happiest girl in the world."
"Yoshizawa, I don't-"
Suddenly she wraps her arms around my shoulders, pulls me in close for a hug. Nothing much more than that. Given her lithe frame you wouldn't think someone like her could have as tight a grip as she does; you'll feel suffocated if she embraces you for more than five seconds. Just as suddenly as she pulled me in, she pushes me away. She's on the verge of crying, but she wipes her eyes fast enough. "Take care of yourself, senpai."
"Yoshizawa...?"
"Senpai, I...," she exhales. "I'm sorry, but...would it be okay if we didn't speak to each other for a while?"
There's so much about this girl that reminds me of Kana. The size of her eyes. That perky way she would speak when she's happy. Her height, her frame; all too similar. But the way she steps back, that cold and distant gaze she gives, the way her lips quiver when she faces me - it takes me back to one unbelievably specific moment. When Kana had told me I'd die if I stayed with her.
How could I be so foolish to have caught on so late, how terrified she is of me? "Yeah, sure."
"It's not you, in particular," she says waveringly, her eyes suddenly turning hollow. "It's just...if I...if I see you, any of you, I remember. And it's...I can't..."
"I understand." It must have taken her everything to hug me. "Yoshizawa, I-"
"Promise me you'll keep yourself safe, at least," she says, looking me dead in the eyes. "I want to know you'll never ever let yourself die at their hands."
"Yoshizawa."
"You said that all you've ever wanted was for the world to forget you ever existed," she cries. "Even after everything you've done, I don't want to hear one day that you're, you're dead in a ditch somewhere, or that you've been shot, or that you disappeared without a trace. I want to know you'll do everything in your power to stay alive, no matter how many people you go after or Palaces you run around in or, or whatever. So that you'll be there, when I can talk to you again. And don't lie to me, this time. Don't, don't lie and promise me it if you don't mean it. I want you to promise me and I want you to mean it and I don't want this to be your, to be your way out."
My left hand shakes, but nothing else on me moves. My face is empty, carved right out of stone. I know exactly what I must do, and it takes me so much to do it, but I do it anyway. "I can't promise you that, Yoshizawa."
"Why...," she shakes her head, almost shouts, she sounds actually pissed at me, "why not?"
"I don't want to make you a false promise."
"Does it have to be false? Why does it have to be false?"
"Yoshizawa."
"Tell me why you would do this to yourself," she growls, through gritted teeth and tearful, wretched eyes. "When you know you're just going to-"
"Because I'm a coward." She lets the tears fall then. She shuts the hell up for a few seconds but tries, tries her damndest to say something back, but I don't let her. "I need someone to blame for all my failures and I see them, all of them, running around the country like they own it and it infuriates me. I'm a coward because everything I have done to Palace rulers, everything I did to Kamoshida, Kobayakawa, Kaneshiro, I deserve a thousand times over but there's more of them out there and one of me, and I want to do the same to them, too. So don't say I'm courageous or make me make you promises, because I'm not courageous and I won't keep those promises. I don't want you to think I'm doing this for any good reason, or because I care about their victims, or even because I cared about you when Kaneshiro ripped you open. I did it for me. All of it for me. Not a single thing I've ever done, my entire life, has been for anyone but myself. That's why I'm a coward."
She just stares at me blankly, as if I've punched her heart right out her chest. Tears lightly stream down her eyes, and I haven't it in me to face her directly.
"And that's why... you should forget you've ever even met me."
I march past her and let her stand there, crying to herself, under the tree near the gym. And just like Kana, there's not a thing I can do for her except let her weep by herself. And even if there is...
I'll just end up killing her again.
.
.
.
7 / 16 / 2016
Once exams are over I pack my things and mull over the grades I must have gotten. Seventies in the sciences. Eighties in grammar, English, writing. At least eighties in history, bordering on nineties, but I won't push it. Likely garbage in mathematics and social studies. Pretty sure my average will drop significantly, but it won't be anything too bad. Would have liked good grades, but fuck. Get them when I'm able to put in the mental energy, I suppose.
On the way out the classroom, I let my mind wander, and when I let my mind wander, something I kept buried for the whole past week creeps up from behind me and grips my brain in a vise. Whatever happens tomorrow, it's the beginning of the end. So I take some time to think at the courtyard again, the closest place I have to a safe haven in this shitty fucking school, and I read through my incomplete notes with an absent mind.
Niijima.
There is so much of Makoto Niijima I'd already come to expect; so much I've been proven false on that, I've to consider that perhaps I'm an awful judge of character. Even worse than I know I am. Multiple times I believed she'd leave all this shit behind like she should, but she's chosen not to. Multiple times I believed she'd fold from all the violence, the blood, the gore and monstrous corpses - she hasn't. Multiple times I believed she was no one, no one worth even a glance; a bitch, bred to do tricks and feed off whatever treats were handed to her - and I was wrong on every count.
She felt crushed and broken and utterly defeated when she learned of the miseries her father had committed in the name of profit, yet still she's determined to know more, so much so she's willing to fight and suffer to do it. And despite feeling the hole in her soul that I do now, she still reached out to me, looked me right in the eye and tried to ease my burdens. Despite everything I'd done to her, everything I'd done in general, everything I can and am willing to do.
"Hikawa-san?"
As if she sensed my distress from wherever she'd been, Makoto Niijima comes through the door. That haggard, fucked look she'd had the day she learned of her father? Gone. She looks better. Her hair's not a mess, her shoulders aren't drooping down all sad-like, her eyes have gotten so much sleep since then and she doesn't sound like the very act of talking wrenches her guts. She looks...good.
Or maybe I just feel that much shittier by comparison.
"What are you doing here?" she asks.
"What are you doing here?"
"I-" She pauses, shuffles a hand behind her ear, and purses her lips in trying to figure out what the hell to say next. "I wanted to... speak with you."
"Why?"
I try to say that in a roughshod manner, but it sounds more deflated than anything else. She isn't deterred. "I wanted to see how you were doing? I felt I owed you that much. I wanted to give you space, since that day. I didn't want to obstruct your studies."
Goddammit. "I'm fine, Niijima."
"Are you sure? After what happened earlier this week, I...wanted to make sure you were okay."
Goddamn you, Kazuya, you stupid fucking ignorant asshole bastard cunt fucking shit-for-brains little bitch. The fuck do you think you're doing now, huh? What, are you gonna cry when you stub your fucking toe on the trains now? You need fucking Niijima to hold your hand as you go to goddamned school?
She should not be anywhere near this. I've let my guard down around her for far too long. Bawled out my fucking eyes, she'd see me and she'd pity me and she'd make such sad fucking faces, like she was looking at a fucking puppy on roadside. Shameful. Embarrassing. If I could I'd have strangled myself right then and there. I never wanted her to know of Kana or Masako and thanks to fucking Akechi as well as my fucking sentimentality she now knows of both, and she'll just keep fucking looking at me like I need a goddamn shoulder to lean on every five fucking seconds. She pities me so much that even with the knowledge that her father had become a fucking toady for drug lords she still tries to pick me up whenever I fall before her eyes.
All at once I'm unabashedly overwhelmed with a sensation to laugh at her, insult her, berate her and say an assortment of unbelievably terrible things that would get her to stop looking at me with that sense of pity in her eyes, because how fucking dare she traipse on up to me and try to make me chill the fuck out in the midst of all this bullshit she doesn't even know-
And I see the way her bangs shift over her forehead, the way the wind makes her short hairs sway. I see her bright brown eyes, now red in the light of the afternoon sun. She does not bear that look of pity I always thought she had in her head; she is plain, she is honest, she is concerned, not pitying.
She does not pity me in the slightest and I feel fucking awful that it's taken me so long to understand that. "I appreciate it, really I do. Honestly... I should apologize to you again."
She furrows her brows, "For what?"
"I unloaded all of that upon you when we have a mission on the horizon. I lost control. I'm sorry. We've so much to focus on and so little time."
"If that's true, then I should apologize," she says calmly. "You approached me on the roof, after I learned about my father, remember? I was only returning the favor."
I take in a deep breath. "You still pushing to find out about your dad?"
She actually approaches me, takes a seat next to me, "Of course I am."
"And you still gonna hang around me and Akechi after you've gotten what you wanted?"
"Absolutely."
"Why?"
"Because...I promised?" she shrugs. "You're doing this much for me, I ought to do at least as much for you. I don't trust Akechi. He's too suspicious on too many things."
"Ditto. That said. Your father," I turn to her. "When I spoke with you about him last, you were...devastated, to put it mildly. Now we've come up with a schedule, now that we're heading back in to find out more about him. I just want to know how you're taking it. That night you spoke with me, you said that what your father taught you still matters, despite everything. I've a hard time wrapping my head around that."
"What about that?"
"He lied to you. Most of what he must have taught you," I shake my head, "was a lie. Worst-case scenario, it was all a lie."
She turns away, nods and figures the right words, "It doesn't negate the value of what he taught me. It doesn't change anything, really."
"I'd say knowing what he really is, knowing what he did, changes a whole lot."
"I still don't actually know who my father really was. I had this image in my head that he'd presented and cultivated my entire childhood, and it was torn away in a day. I can't know who my father is, and I doubt I really will know even if we find exactly what I'm looking for. But I won't abandon what he taught me."
My God. "His memory remains that valuable to you?"
She shuffles a bit of hair behind her head, "My father's committed crimes I can't even imagine most career criminals would even attempt. I'm furious. So many years of my life, believing in the values he espoused and thinking him a good man. So many years emulating what I loved and admired about him. I've only scratched the surface of what he's done, and already every now and then I want to tear my hair out. If I could be painfully blunt with you," she grits her teeth. "I felt as though my spine had been ripped out through my back, and with it everything else I had inside me."
"And yet...?"
"And yet, I am what I am now because of him."
She's somber, acrimonious in tone.
But honest, measured, so assured of herself that not even a thousand arrows would be able to pierce her skin.
There is no God.
There are no souls.
There is no such thing as destiny, or fate.
All these things I have been certain of since I was a child. And now, seeing her look at me with those fascinating bright brown-red eyes, I've ascertained one more undeniable truth.
I tell her, "I wish I had even a fraction of your integrity."
She scoffs, "Your sarcasm is refreshing, honestly."
"It wasn't sarcasm." She turns to me, more than a little stunned. "I mean every word."
Then, I return to my notes, and from the corner of my eye I see her hands curling up, gripping the hem of her skirt. "How were your exams?"
"I've a feeling I'm alright, honestly," I lie, closing my notes.
"Are you sure? Next time, I can run you through what I remember from my past exams. Still got my notes from last year." I blink at her, eyeing her curiously. "Hikawa-san?"
"We're not friends, Niijima. Why are you doing this?"
She exhales, raising her brow at me. "You're going to return to the Palace, right? You're fully committed to returning and helping me discover the truth behind my father. Now, I know that you have your own reasons for wanting to return. And I may completely disagree with those reasons, but... the fact is that you've been a very valuable help to me thus far. In spite of our differences. I know I've kept you from your studies repeatedly, and I know you can't afford bad grades or else the school will have you expelled for poor conduct. So...if there's anything I can do to help you on that front at least, please let me know."
She doesn't deserve this. She doesn't deserve my bullshit at all.
"I'm grateful for the offer, but I'll be fine, Niijima. You should focus on mulling over strategies for when we re-enter the Palace. Also, you should know Maruki's awake."
"He's awake?" she nigh-exclaims.
"Yeah. Few days ago. He's still in hospital care, though. Doctors have determined he'll stay for a few more days before heading home."
"That's good. That's great, actually," she smiles, then turns away awkwardly, as she gets herself off the bench. "He won't be coming with us, then."
"No. So... we'll have to hope whatever route Akechi's found for us will do us good."
"Alright, then. I should go."
"Wait," I say before she can leave. She turns to face me. "You listened to me again."
"What?"
"You listened to my bullshit and tried to help me through it. Again. I brushed you off that night, but... I was, I," I nod lightly, deciding to undo that train of thought and come out with it. "Thank you. It meant a lot."
She looks surprised. "No need to thank me. You've done the same, multiple times over."
Then, without even waiting for my response, she turns back and finishes her walk to the door.
Once all this shit is over she needs to forget that fucking proposal she'd made in the Bikkuri Boy and leave me to my fucking devices. She doesn't owe me shit. Whatever she's done for me doesn't fucking matter. If she remains whatever she is to me, if she keeps on looking after me like the mom I never fucking needed or wanted, she'll get herself killed or raped or worse and it'll be my fault again.
You will say nothing to her of your father.
You will help her find out the truth behind hers, and then it'll be over. You'll forget she ever existed, she'll forget you ever existed, and you can go right back to either hating each other or having nothing to do with each other and you can just stay down and die like you've always wanted - but you don't want that, do you?
You never wanted that at all.
All you've ever wanted since Kana, all you've ever deserved, is to live the rest of your fucking life hunting and killing and raping the minds of assholes like Kamoshida, Kobayakawa, Kaneshiro, Tsukioka. You want to become a monster she'll fear and loathe and flee from, if you continue this you'll become a great roaring flaming monstrosity she'll have to put down like a dog in the street and she'll scream and hide away and never want to be seen again forever-
Or she'll prove you wrong again, and hound you 'til the day you die.
There is no God.
There are no souls.
There is no such thing as destiny, no such thing as fate.
Of these things I have been certain, since I was a child.
But everything about my father. Niijima's father. Everything that Shijima has thrust upon me. All these uncertainties have made me consider so many more things, and in my introspection I've come across one singular truth. Something I've come to realize, must come to fruition. Not because I would want it to happen, or because she'd want it to happen, but because our very natures will not allow otherwise.
No matter what happens next, I will wage war upon my father and his people and if it takes me all over the fucking country, so be it. I will go to the ends of the earth, and even beyond if the Vortex World will take me there. I will murder a thousand, a hundred thousand, if their bodies build me a bridge to where I need to go.
And the instant I make that choice, Makoto Niijima and Kazuya Hikawa will become enemies.
She will stand before me with her fists raised and her Persona unshackled. Ready to grind me into the soil until I am nothing but red paste. I do not know why the thought of Niijima standing in my way terrifies me so. And I do not know why it terrifies me even more, that I can't even imagine what I would do to her if she does stand in my way.
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When I do find it in myself to return to Maruki in the hospital it's to say something of a goodbye. Just in case.
"So...you're going, tomorrow?" Maruki asks me.
"Yeah. I am. I'm pretty sure, whether I want to or not... I'll find out more truths about my father, as well."
"I can't help you," he exhales. "I'm sorry."
"We won't kill him. We won't steal his Treasure. We're just...taking a look at what he knows."
He sucks in a breath, hissing out, "How long before you'll want to kill him over what he knows? Over what he's done?"
"We'll have to see about that."
"Will you go after your father?" Maruki asks me. "Will you, Kazuya?"
"I don't know. Cat says a Kingdom Ruler's at the apex of his power in his Kingdom. So it may very well be futile. I don't really know what I'll do next, Maruki. I'm sorry."
"Don't go overboard, Kazuya. Don't run yourself into the ground. Come back alive."
He hasn't even spoken to Yoshizawa since that day. "I'll do my best. I'm thankful for all our sessions together. Couldn't have asked for a better therapist."
I then leave the room, before he can respond to any of that, and a droning noise rips at my eardrums.
"You'd better come back, Kazuya!" I hear him shout through the door. "Do you hear me!? Stay alive! You come back here alive!"
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NoRoleModelz: Okay okay I PROMISE the next chapter we immediately get to the action. Like, immediately. From the fucking word go.