fic for paddyabroad (2/2)
Part 1
III. 死 ~ Death
30th November 1949
The greatest highlight of any given day, in Takeda’s opinion, was the arrival of Maeda and Sanada, their replacements for the night shift.
The officers working in Mouryou Detention Center collectively agreed that night shifts were for lesser officers, those who were capable enough of basic duties but not capable of appearing good in their basic duties. In Maeda and Sanada’s cases, Takeda suspected that it was because they were too boisterous for their own good, even to the extent of being known to be arrogant.
Takeda knew they weren’t really trying to appear disrespectful, just rather brash for young people who had always been a little too enthusiastic in the nation rebuilding crap the government kept spouting about. He wasn’t noble enough to defy the popular stance in dealing with both of them, which was to sneer and joke unsubtly.
He adjusted his coat, getting ready to head back home, and said “we’ll leave now, please be careful” to Maeda and Sanada.
He was marching off towards the administrative office to report as “off-duty” when Maeda stopped him in his tracks.
“Takeda-san, was there a kid stopping by today?” Maeda whispered, almost like he was afraid that Sanada would hear him.
“No,” Takeda answered truthfully. There had been the usual trucks transporting inmates to work on location and a few officers on surveillance duty, but no sign of anyone unfamiliar. Not even Matchy, even though Takeda had learnt that Matchy often showed up when he least expected it.
Maeda moved closer. “Sanada probably wouldn’t want other officers to know,” Maeda confirmed Takeda’s suspicions, “but there was a kid, about 16 years old, who came by yesterday. He wanted to see his brother who’s inside, apparently, name’s Akanishi or something. We told him visitations are strictly forbidden, but then he started shouting things like how his mother is sick and needed his brother back home right that moment. Sanada chased him away, asking him to come back in the morning. We were hoping that you guys could be more helpful in telling him off.”
Takeda knew that Sanada’s ostensible actions were more a necessary evil out of compassion than a deliberate prank to subject the kid to the travesty of the generally more unsympathetic daytime officers. Takeda had seen many civilians like the kid Maeda just described - they were always hopeful, persistent, and willing to do just about anything.
“We didn’t see any kid,” Takeda patted Maeda. “But thank you, I will alert Uesugi and we will keep a lookout for him.”
Maeda nodded knowingly. Takeda ran a little to keep up with Uesugi, who was nearing the door to the office.
He signed off for the day, walked and warmed himself with the lamp Uesugi usually carried when they left the prison, listened to Uesugi chatter about random things.
About a hundred steps from the gate of the Mouryou Detention Center that Takeda usually stood guard for, he saw a tall young man stalking along with a smaller boy a few years younger hunching behind.
He stole a few more glances at the two, wondering about what would they do to be able to see Akanashi, or whoever it was they needed to see.
Takeda thought that name sounded familiar, but at that moment, he couldn’t recall the exact moment when he had heard of it.
__
“Do you sometimes wish you could kill a person just by thinking about it?” Kame started.
It had taken Jin’s agreement to not question Kame and to assume everything Kame said was possible to even make Kame start. Jin thought that he had never met anyone more stubborn.
“Only a lot of times,” Jin replied honestly. “Don’t we all wish we could do that?”
“I suppose,” Kame said. “A few years ago, I learned about this magical little notebook that can grant the owner the power to do exactly that. You only need to know the name and the face of the person. To kill them, all you need to do is to write his name down and the person will die immediately after that, unless I specify their cause of death within 40 seconds.”
Jin might have sworn to believe everything he’d say, but he wasn’t going to really believe the notebook of death, especially something as spurious as this. He chose to go along.
“Someone gave it to you?”
“I found it,” Kame answered. “I found it lying on the side of the riverbank. It was one of the freakiest moments in my life. Do you know what I saw when I first touched the notebook?”
Jin shook his head, then remembered that Kame couldn’t see him. “Uhm, no, tell me.”
Kame might have grinned. “I was afraid that you have fallen asleep.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Jin countered. “You just want an excuse to stop talking.”
Kame sighed. “You’re kind of persistent, you know?”
“And you’re kind of stubborn,” Jin said. “Just continue already.”
“Jin, do you know that death gods exist?”
Jin couldn’t find an appropriate response.
“They float in the air, with huge, protruding eyes, almost bloodshot, only with no blood and almost inhumanly long limbs. They still look human, though, only the features are far from refined; they might even have looked a little like trolls, if they’ll forgive me for saying that. I was told some of them have wings, but the death god I saw didn’t have them. In retrospect, it’s not like they look really horrifying, but they have this way of looking at people, and it’s like looking straight inside a pair of eyes floating in the air.”
Jin tried hard to not use his imagination, especially not when it was a little too dark and quiet, even for a chilly winter night.
“Ah, I think I know how to describe them now. Death gods look a bit like humans who have gone through mutilations, random bandages, skin that look like it barely stick to their bones, and flesh caving in,” Kame continued, evidently having just pieced his thoughts together.
Kame breathed heavily, a sign which Jin took to mean that Kame wasn’t going to elaborate anymore. “Sounds kind of scary, doesn’t it?”
“A little,” Jin responded, like he’d been listening to a bedtime story instead of Kame’s past.
“What would you do in that situation?”
Jin was silent before he absently realized that Kame was asking him a question. “Oh, me? I would probably run in the opposite direction, and hope that the speed would teleport me somehow. And pray that I never see that creature again. Supernatural isn’t my area of expertise,” he replied, half-seriously.
“I’m serious,” Kame said.
“Alright, sorry for not being serious enough. But that wasn’t entirely untrue.”
“Well, I should have ran away, but I didn’t,” Kame admitted. “I took delight in knowing that I had control of humans I’d personally seen and knew the names of. It was a strange feeling - I wasn’t playing God, but people I knew and care for, I had the powers to alter their fate. All with the power that was given to me by that notebook.”
Kame let out a sigh. “Every time I wrote a name in that book, planning out their death as I saw fit, I thought I was exacting the kind of justice that the universe couldn’t provide me with, but I was wrong. So wrong.”
Jin resisted the urge to interrupt him.
“I was just a murderer who tried to morally justify his crimes. The most despicable type of human to ever exist.” Kame ended in a whisper, sounding like his voice was about to break into a million pieces.
Jin trembled in disbelief.
__
Other than the first time he had told Taguchi about someone who apparently was locked in cell next to his, Jin never told anyone about Kame. While Taguchi did come across to Jin as someone who possessed impossible memory for details, he had expected Taguchi to dismiss that incident as Jin being homesick or hallucinating.
He wasn’t really sure about his own unwillingness to share the many things about Kame, though he had a few suspicions. He narrowed it down to two main reasons - one was because it was exactly how Kame had described himself, not knowing where to start or how to begin. The other was because Kame felt like something exclusively his, and he relished in knowing a dark secret of the prison.
He found it hard to believe that for the month or two after he had found Kame, he had been so obsessed with wanting to know if he was real he’d never once thought that Kame having some sort of compelling issues that Jin probably shouldn’t have known.
He thought he had come to terms with Kame’s existence, despite the many reservations he had about him. He thought that he would be content with the imaginary avatar he had conjured up in place of Kame’s face.
But he thought wrong. He didn’t know who or what Kame was, and he felt worse understanding that he should have known better than to want to know him at all.
After all, Taguchi did warn him.
“Anyway, there is a possibility that who-what-ever sang you to sleep could be something not human, and I just want you to be prepared.”
By now he wasn’t certain what he should think about Kame. Fortunately, he had kept all knowledge about another dweller in the locked cell purely his after that.
Unfortunately for him, Taguchi did remember.
“Hey Akanishi,” Taguchi said. “Did you ever get to discover if there was someone or something living in the cell next to yours?”
Jin was so taken aback, he dropped the handles of the trolley he was pushing, throwing himself to the ground.
“N-N-No.”
People around him started to laugh heartily.
“Geez, one might think you saw a ghost or something,” Nakamaru remarked.
Jin was rising up and brushing the dirt off his shoulder when he spotted the old man Higashiyama, who was conspicuously ignoring the mocking laughter. He was abruptly reminded of Nakamaru’s story.
“He made quite a ruckus for around for a week or two. Spouting absurd things like ‘abominable people will be judged by God’, ‘those heartless bastards will be erased, watch out!’ and sometimes going as far as looking people in the eyes and tell them they would be judged by the one and only God and He’d live within us.”
He walked towards Higashiyama and sat beside him.
“Higashiyama-san?” Jin tried.
There was no response from Higashiyama.
Jin leaned closer to him, then spoke softly to Higashiyama’s ears. “God does live within us, doesn’t He?”
Higashiyama froze.
“He will judge them,” Jin continued. “He will erase them.”
Higashiyama turned to Jin. “What do you know?”
Jin thought that he had never seen Higashiyama’s eyes look more alive. And sane.
“Nothing,” he said. “That’s why I need you to tell me what you know.”
Higashiyama shifted a little, scanning his surroundings. “What’s in for me?”
Jin was prepared to risk everything he knew. “I know things about death gods.”
Higashiyama smiled, this time he no longer looked vigilant.
“Finally.”
Jin was puzzled. Higashiyama looked almost relieved.
“I have been hoping for some news about Kazuya-kun.”
__
On the truck, it was a bumpy ride all the way back to the prison, but Jin wouldn’t know.
All of his attention was directed on the dazed face of Higashiyama, whose expressions seem to illustrate his drifting mind, but Jin knew better.
Jin’s mind spun dizzily. Arranging facts and statements about something he didn’t believe in from two different perspectives was harder than anything he had done. For one, he found it very difficult to stop himself from feeling stupid for being so indifferent to so many things that were happening around him.
The world didn’t feel like it had been functioning correctly. After all, spending most of his life convincing himself that fate was never really predetermined and that everything could be overturned if one had enough fervor to do so, Jin was reluctant to see death as something that could be premeditated. As though fate was something to be controlled by a selected figure that didn’t care about morality at all.
Thanks to Higashiyama, Jin not only knew that someone else in the prison knew Kame, he also knew that Kame, before he had been imprisoned, was supposed to be the head of Japan’s biggest medical corporation.
”Kazuya-kun was a remarkable young man,” Higashiyama whispered. “He was the type of young leader who was completely sincere in his operative methods. It was too bad that our nation, along with a large portion of the corporation were corrupted beyond curable means, or else everything would have been much better. The war could have had almost zero effects on our people.
“Kazuya-kun wouldn’t have ended up like this.”
Jin’s brain conjured an image of a conscientiously collected young man, someone he had always aspired to be, but would never be able to.
”Kazuya-kun tried, he really did,” Higashiyama spoke faster, aware that he couldn’t speak much to Jin without having people discover his pretenses.
“Our company had some shady dealings with the government, dealings that I can’t even begin to speak of, and Kazuya-kun was cracking them down. The others were not happy, of course,” he continued, “and there was nothing Kazuya-kun could do to outwit them all, until he became god.”
Jin waited with bated breath.
“He punished them,” were the last few words Higashiyama said before relapsing into his usual make-believe façade of an insane inmate, confusing Jin with the speed in which he could switch from one state of mind to another.
Ueda, who was sitting beside him in the truck, poked him in the arms. “Akanishi,” he spoke. “Is there something wrong?”
Jin tilted his head to lean closer to Ueda.
“Hey, Ueda. Don’t you think something’s a bit weird with the old man Higashiyama?”
Ueda eyed Higashiyama furtively.
“He’s his usual decrepit madcap self,” Ueda remarked. “Did he say something outlandish to you earlier? I noticed that you were getting along with him.” Jin thought that Ueda was always one of the more perceptive people he knew.
“Do you remember that Higashiyama was from this renowned corporation, where he was one of the higher-ranking members?” Jin asked.
Ueda nodded. “Everyone knows that, I suppose. He wasn’t exactly discreet about his past when he was dragged in, kicking and screaming.”
“Was there anyone else with him? Anyone else from the same company?”
Ueda paused.
“Not that I recall of,” he answered. “It’s a very famous corporation, like you said. Nobody would risk their reputation to have their executives arrested for whichever reason. Why?”
“Just thinking.”
“Are you sure you’re not thinking too much?” Ueda eyed Jin suspiciously. “It’s easy, with all the things that happen here.”
Jin shook his head slightly. “No, not thinking too much.”
It was a lie and Jin knew Ueda had seen right through it.
It was when the truck stopped for guard inspection that Jin finally tore his eyes away from Higashiyama, this time darting his eyes towards a person who seemed to be a ragged old man crouching near the prison walls.
When the figure looked kind of familiar, Jin knew that he was definitely thinking too much.
__
Jin returned to his cell with his mind completely blank.
His usual routine included meditating in repentance, then removing the loose brick in the wall that separated Kame and him. Then he would talk to Kame for as long as he could stay awake for and then sleep and wait for the guards to rudely jerk him awake.
Tonight he didn’t want to talk to Kame.
He didn’t know what to talk to Kame about.
He lied on his hard, uncomfortable bed, determined to shut his eyes for the rest of the night and rid his mind off the image of a death god.
It was difficult. A death god wasn’t exactly something he could put an angel’s face on and pretend it was going to protect him.
__
The next few days passed by like a myriad of different colors blending together badly - Jin’s anxious curiosity and apprehension were not the best emotions to harbor if he wanted to maintain his mental composure.
There was nothing else he could dig out. Higashiyama had been avoiding him ever since, probably out of paranoia that his disguise had finally fallen apart, and Jin hadn’t spoken to Kame since then.
It took the collective teasing from Taguchi, Nakamaru, Ueda and Koki for him to realize that he had been acting like an obsessive stalker of Higashiyama, and he finally stopped trying to question him.
He didn’t however, stop not talking to Kame.
He insisted that he wasn’t being an asshole for leaving Kame in the dark after he poured what seemed to be his deepest secrets, things that he had feared talking about to no one but Jin. Try as he might, Jin didn’t know how to defend his avoidance of Kame.
When he thought about their last exchange before Jin started not speaking to him, he imagined Kame with a bleeding chest, blades jutting out from his heart and Jin himself there, doing nothing.
Sometimes he wondered if he had held back because he was afraid of hurting Kame more.
“How is Kazuya-kun now?” Higashiyama’s question took Jin by surprise.
Jin didn’t look up, despite being startled.
“What would you like to hear?”
“Is he well?”
Jin stopped his work. “No, he isn’t.
“He has been gloomy, constantly blaming himself,” Jin answered. “He didn’t say that outright, but I think he must be. He spoke of himself as the worst human to ever exist.”
Higashiyama’s forehead creased with worry. “If you speak to him again, please tell him that it wasn’t his fault.
“That his nephew’s death wasn’t his fault.”
On the way back to the prison, Jin was struck with another bout of sickening guilt as Higashiyama’s words gravitate in his mind.
He felt so guilty, he didn’t even stop to think about why the old, ragged man he saw yet again looked so familiar.
__
Jin was rudely awakened by the buzzing sound of his brother’s voice, calling him desperately.
He panted roughly while trying to ascertain if he was in a dream or reality, but all he could hear was the voice of Kame’s soft singing.
This time, he sounded like despair.
He kicked himself off the bed, and immediately removed the loose brick.
“Kame?” he called, praying that Kame was there, still willing to speak to him.
To his utmost relief, Kame was.
“Jin,” he called softly.
Just hearing Kame’s voice felt to Jin like someone lifted him up and wrapped him in a blanket.
“Kame, I’m sorry.”
“It’s alright.”
“I’m really sor-.”
“Please don’t apologize,” Kame stopped him.
“Kame,” Jin half-whimpered.
“It must have been hard for you,” Kame said. “I understand.”
“You can’t,” Jin replied, a little louder than he had intended. “I was being an asshole, you cannot just say you understand it.”
“But I do.”
Jin didn’t believe him. “If you hate me, you don’t have to restrain yourself. If only this wall didn’t exist, I swear I’ll let you punch me! I swear you can do anything!”
Kame exhaled. “I don’t hate you. Quite opposite, actually.”
“I’m grateful to have you.”
Jin really wished that the wall didn’t exist.
“I’m sorry.”
“Stop apologizing.”
“You should hate me.”
“But I don’t, so stop arguing.”
“I want to see you.”
They both paused immediately.
It was Kame who broke the awkward silence.
“That’s impossible.”
“Bullshit,” Jin retorted. “You will be free one day.”
Kame fell silent for the longest time since they met.
“No, I won’t ever be free.”
“Why?” Jin asked. “Why are you so sure?”
“I don’t want to be free.”
Jin remembered Higashiyama’s words.
“That his nephew’s death wasn’t his fault.”
“It’s not your fault,” Jin said.
“What isn’t?”
“Whatever you did.”
“You don’t know what I did.”
“Yes, I do,” Jin said. “You must have been one hell of a great leader to have such a loyal subordinate in Higashiyama.”
“It’s Higashiyama-san, eh?” Kame chuckled. “He’s the last person I expected to be hauled in here.”
“He praised you quite a lot,” Jin smiled as he recalled everything Higashiyama said to him.
“I thought you were an amazing person. See, I haven’t been wrong about you,” Jin concluded.
“How so?”
“Remember how I said you shouldn’t think of yourself as a bad person because I don’t think you are? At that time, I probably only said that to act smart, but I was proven right. So I am, in a nutshell, smart even when I’m only acting the part.”
Kame burst into laughter. Jin thought his laughter sounded like innocence.
“You are something,” Kame said after the laughter died down. “I’ve never met anyone like you.”
Jin thought the same. “That’s why I need to see you.”
Kame seemed to be thinking about it.
“How?”
“Come to the hole,” Jin instructed as he moved closer to the gap in the wall.
“You here?” Kame asked.
“Yes.” Jin forced his hand through the hole. “Let me touch your face.”
“You must be kidding.”
“Shut up. Just do it.”
Kame moved nearer, and Jin felt an electrifying jolt running through his entire body as he touched Kame for the first time.
He didn’t know if he should be feeling overwhelmed by the realization that the Kame he had been speaking to, the Kame who only existed behind those walls was finally real, or if he should be trying to frantically memorize Kame’s features.
“You’re beautiful,” was the only thing Jin could say.
This time, Jin knew Kame was smiling because he could feel it.
Kame retreated and held Jin’s hand, squeezing it lightly.
“You are, too,” Kame said, “And I don’t have to know what you look like to know that.”
Jin grinned.
“Don’t try to be suave with me.”
They spent the whole night laughing, giggling, and Jin told Kame everything that was weird about Nakamaru’s abnormal facial features.
“One question,” Jin asked.
“What?”
“Can’t you disown the notebook?”
“Hmmmm.”
Jin chuckled. “What, you didn’t know?”
“No,” Kame replied. “I’m about to say something arrogant, are you ready to hear it?”
“Are you kidding?” Jin answered. “I dare you to come up with something crazier than I was a crazy mass murderer and they locked me here because they couldn’t understand how I did what I did, then we’ll talk whether I am ready to hear it.”
“Alright,” Kame said. “Brace yourself.”
“Just say it.”
“Because I believe I’m the only one who can handle it. That’s why I refuse to disown it as long as I live.”
Jin heaved a sigh. “That’s not arrogant.”
“Are you kidding?” Kame asked.
“No, seriously!” Jin insisted. “I, too, happen to think that you’re the only one who can handle it.”
“Why?” Kame asked casually.
“You are living in a cell devoid of every basic need,” Jin answered. “Of course you can handle everything.”
Kame didn’t say anything for a while after that.
“Kame?” Jin nudged, wondered if he had said something wrong.
“Thank you,” Kame answered.
Jin was puzzled. “What did I do?”
“You believe in me.”
Jin smiled widely.
“You know, Kame? When I leave this hell, I will be taking you along.”
“Uhm,” Kame said.
“It’s a promise.”
“Yes,” Kame said.
Jin had a feeling that Kame had yet to change his mind about leaving, and had only answered to humor Jin.
__
The others couldn’t help but notice the significant change in Jin’s mood.
“You remind me of this friend I have when he was buying a hairpin for a girl he liked,” Nakamaru concluded his observations, sending the rest of the railroad crew, except for Higashiyama, into fits of good-natured laughter.
“Oi, Akanishi,” Koki said, pretending to pout. “I didn’t know that there are girls here in the prison. Unless they are disguising as boys and you didn’t tell us? You never struck me as someone who plays dirty.”
“Shut up, Koki,” Jin snapped fondly.
“Nothing is happening,” Jin announced, hoping to dispel all ridiculous rumors.
“It’s just that,” he stumbled, “just that it’s a very good day.”
Taguchi came to Jin’s aid. “Guys, stop it.”
Jin could have felt much relieved, if only Taguchi didn’t utter the next few words.
“He just had a very, uhm, nice dream.”
The crew burst into laughter again.
Jin decided to join them.
Higashiyama too, only he was sneakier.
“Do all these have anything to do with Kazuya-kun?”
“How do you know?” Jin asked.
“I’m not stupid,” Higashiyama said. ”How is he now?”
Jin thought of the smooth outline of Kame’s cheeks, the bump on his nose and his dry, cracked lips.
“He’s better than before,” Jin replied. “He was laughing yesterday.”
Higashiyama’s lips curved in a smile.
“Thank goodness.”
The knowledge that someone else cared for Kame warmed Jin’s core.
“Please take care of him, Akanishi. There are people out there who need him.”
__
His jovial mood, however, didn’t last as long as Jin and all other inmates would have preferred.
During the ride back to the prison, Jin saw the familiar ragged old man again, and he finally remembered why he had been feeling like he had seen him before.
The ragged old man who had been lurking around the prison gates was the person who had offered Jin money in exchange for stealing.
The indirect reason for his imprisonment.
When Jin was jumping out from the truck, he could barely resist running towards the old man and strangling him.
Nakamaru pulled him back, reminding him that the prison guards had rifles.
__
Jin told Kame about Higashiyama.
“For all his fake insanities, he really cares for you, you know?” Jin said in the end.
“I’ve always respected Higashiyama-san,” Kame said. “I still find it hard to believe that he’s in here. Looks like I came in here gambling with more than my life.”
Jin shrugged. “I guess everybody left something that wouldn’t have chosen to leave behind when they were thrown in here.”
“What’s the matter?” Kame asked.
“What is?”
“You, that’s what,” Kame said, “Is there something bothering you?”
‘How do you know?” Jin had been asked this before, and he wondered if it was people being extra perceptive or just him hiding his uncertainties badly.
“You weren’t being as chirpy as usual,” Kame said. “And you didn’t tell me that I was being stupid for thinking horribly about myself.”
“Are you telling me that if I don’t rebuke you for your self-loathing sentiments, there’s something wrong with me?”
“That’s not what I’m saying,” Kame said. “I’m saying that you’re kind enough to appear unnatural when you’re being indifferent.”
Jin traced the grounds with his fingers.
“I saw him today, Kame,” Jin said. “The old man who hired me to steal from the safe.”
“Ah,” Kame responded. “What are you thinking right now?”
Jin gathered his thoughts, then spoke. “I didn’t realize it was him when I saw this random old man on the side of the road, against the prison walls, then when I did realize that it was him, I wanted to strangle him. I felt like shouting at him for everything he had subjected me to.”
“It’s understandable.”
“Then I also realized that,” Jin continued, “if he’s now living as a beggar on the streets, he can’t be better off than me.”
Jin swallowed his saliva.
“I didn’t know that I was still taking the imprisonment badly. The way I basically choked with rage at the sight of him, I think I am looking for a scapegoat to blame for where I ended up now.”
Kame stayed silent for a while.
“Think about it this way,” Kame said. “You aren’t looking for someone to blame. You’re looking for an answer.”
Jin didn’t quite agree, but he had to admit that Kame might have a point. “Maybe.”
“So, what will you do if you see him again?”
“I’ll pretend he doesn’t exist,” Jin answered jokingly.
“Yea, like that will solve anything,” Kame replied sarcastically.
“Seriously, I probably won’t do anything,” Jin said.
They continued talking, until Jin thought he heard his brother calling him again.
This time, he wasn’t sleeping.
“Kame, did you hear that?”
“No,” Kame answered.
Jin shushed him. “Listen.”
They both fell silent; senses heightened. For a while there were only the sounds of the leaves rustling distantly and the wind wheezing. Nothing but the unsettling calmness of the night.
Then, they heard it. It started as a faint, indistinct calls of “Nii-san! Nii-san!”, then it grew a little louder with each passing second, as though whoever was calling him was running towards him.
“Nii-san!”
Jin could hear it now, loud and clear.
“It’s my brother!”
Jin jumped up. “It’s Reio!”
He closed the gap in the wall and said “Sorry, later” hurriedly to Kame, and rushed to the metal door and banged it as loud as he could.
“Let me out! My brother is here!” he cried. “My brother is here! Please!”
There was no one to come to his aid, so Jin hit the door harder.
“My brother is here, please let me see him!” he cried on top of his lungs. “Please let me see him!”
A guard finally appeared. Jin was filled with relief when he heard the jingling sound of the keys being fastened into the metal lock.
The feeling didn’t last long. He was pushed back violently immediately after the door flung open, and two very intimidating-looking wardens entered his cell.
The next thing he knew, his mouth was stuffed with the muzzle end of a rifle.
“Listen here, scum,” the warden with burns on the right side of his face said. “Whatever is happening out there, it’s none of your business.”
The warden pushed the rifle slightly further inside Jin’s mouth.
“This rifle here,” he said as he stroked the weapon, “has been itching to find a target.”
Jin choked on his own saliva.
“To be or not to be my guest, it’s your choice.”
__
Reio had made such a commotion, everybody knew in no time that there was someone out there looking for Jin and the guards weren’t allowing him to do so.
No one spoke to Jin about what they heard last night. No one approached Jin and pointed out to him that the bruises on his neck were the universe’s way of telling him that if he planned to fight the prison authorities he was going to be battling losing war. No one, not even Higashiyama.
No one told him that there were times when they needed to stop fighting fate and only hope for the best.
Jin knew that the reason for their inaction was neither altruistic nor selfish - it was just that Reio’s appearance reminded them of their own baggage that they had been forced to part ways with.
More than ever, Jin knew that the fiery yearn for freedom that had been hibernating within everyone just gotten reignited.
__
As expected, Kame didn’t change his mind about wanting to leave the prison.
“I don’t understand you,” Jin admonished him. “After all this while, being locked alone in that cell, having no one to talk to, constantly in the dark - Kame, don’t you want to be free?”
“It’s not that bad to be in here,” Kame replied. “They serve me food, they give me a separate cell, and most importantly, they took me from everybody else.”
“You know they can’t do that to everyone,” Jin raised his voice. “Stop being ridiculous and insist that you deserve to be here, because you don’t. I know very well that you don’t.”
“No,” Kame said sternly. “Do you even remember why they locked me in here, and never let me out at all? It’s because they don’t know how I did it. How I did everything.”
“Kame,” Jin said, almost exasperatedly.
“I want to be free as much as you do,” Kame said, softly. “Really, I do.
“But there’s no place for me outside this cell.”
Jin pounded the ground with his fist.
“Damn it.”
“I’m sorry,” Kame said. “I broke my promise to you.”
“Don’t be. It was me who insisted you said so.”
“Jin-”
“Stop it.”
“Just listen to me-“
“Kame, I said drop it.”
“I’m sorry, Jin-“
“What do you mean there’s no place for you outside that freaking cell of yours?” Jin shrieked.
Kame didn’t answer.
“I feel like I can never know what you’re thinking. When I talk to you, sometimes I feel like we connected, and the other times I feel like I don’t know you. Like you’re not real.”
Jin looked down.
“I don’t know what to think about you,” Jin rambled on. “But I know that if I feel like running away from here, I want you to come along with me.”
“Jin,” Kame murmured, at long last. “How do you want to start?”
“Start.. what?”
“Escaping.”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you have a plan?” Kame asked. “A solid, foolproof plan that will get you out of here. Alive.”
When Jin didn’t answer, Kame hounded him. “That sounds like you are just acting impulsively. Take a look at yourself - will you be able to do anything like making it out alive from this place if you have no defense against the firearms?”
“You don’t believe in me,” Jin concluded.
Kame sighed. “That’s not the point. I just don’t want you to die an unnecessary death.”
“At this moment,” Jin replied, “I’m as good as dead. What kind of brother does nothing when his little brother risks his illness to cry for help? What kind of son I am, to be thrown in prison when my mother could be suffering from hunger?”
“That’s nothing,” Kame said, “you’re still very much alive. Too much life, even.”
Jin wasn’t comforted.
“You’re only dead when you stop feeling anything.”
Jin was too numb with disappointment to reply to Kame.
“When you consistently hover between dying and living, not knowing where exactly you are, not remembering what you’re supposed to be, not feeling anything but confusion - that’s when you’re no longer human.”
Kame sighed lightly.
“The world needs more people like you, Jin. I’m not about to let you go to waste.”
__
Jin knew he was being unreasonable. His mind felt like a mash of crumpled papers with words written on them but Jin could never sort them out enough to make sense. Between worrying about Reio, hating the judicial system, and getting exasperated at Kame, he had lost all sense of priority.
He had all the right emotions, but he didn’t which should he act on first.
Kame was right; it was presumptuous to talk about escaping the prison when he had no solid plan to begin with.
He began to observe his surroundings.
Apparently, the easiest way to make his run was during short lapse of time between traveling - from the prison gates into the truck which would transport them to the area near the quarry where they were building the railroads, and from inside the truck to outside, vice versa, and finally, from inside the truck back into the prison. He could also take the chance to run when they were working on the railroads, but working near the quarry meant that there were stray explosives materials everywhere and nobody was gutsy enough to attempt walking around unguarded.
Kame was nearly always right. Jin didn’t fancy the way he had come to realize it, but he had learnt to value Kame’s right evaluations.
As he recounted a very rough blueprint of his hypothetical escape plan, the very idea of running away sounded sillier by the minute.
“But it would be stupider to never have tried,” he said firmly to Koki.
“You’re just gambling either way,” Koki reminded him.
Jin didn’t refute him.
“If only the stakes were lower.”
They both sighed.
“Hey, Akanishi,” Koki said.
Jin rubbed the back of his neck with his palms. The weather had gotten far too cold to be humanly possible for labor that could last more than an hour at any given time.
“Do you really think that we can go back out there?”
Jin’s brows furrowed in deep thought.
“I wish that was a question that I can answer to,” Jin answered. “You can just pretend you didn’t hear what I said, all of you. If I am going to die trying it will be me and me alone.”
Ueda patted his back. “Don’t be selfish. If someone’s going to break out, it’s better done in groups.”
“Besides, what makes you think you’re the only one who will die trying?” Taguchi added.
Jin nodded proudly.
__
Koki told Jin something that threw him off in the truck back to the prison.
“I didn’t really hate you, you know,” Koki had said, “but it’s complicated.”
Nakamaru nudged him on the arm. “That’s news to us. Are you saying that just so that people can see the softer side of you?”
Koki punched Nakamaru affectionately. “Of course not.”
“You probably reminded me of someone I would have preferred to be,” Koki said as he turned back to Jin.
“And I helped you out with Goda because I hate his guts. That, you see, was out of real hatred,” Koki added, to the stifled laughter of the whole truck.
Jin smiled. “I should have believed Nakamaru when he told me that you’re a nice person.”
“When?” Koki’s ears perched up in mock excitement.
“Shut up,” Nakamaru said in an attempt to silence Koki.
The teasing went on for a while until one of the officers glared at them, after which they promptly fell into a collective hush.
Jin shoved Ueda, Taguchi and a few others aside to be able to sit closer to the exit of the truck for reasons none other than simply wanting to observe the surroundings. He swept his hair back, allowing the gust of chilly wind to blow against his face.
It had just started to snow a few days ago, albeit a little arbitrarily, and very late by the Japanese seasonal trends. Sometimes Jin would be able to catch a few snowflakes with his hand, but they melt almost immediately. He tried not to think of them as a metaphor for the state of his freedom.
Suddenly, Jin saw something that made his heart stop.
About fifty steps away from the prison gate, he saw Reio.
He finally saw Reio.
Accompanying Reio, rubbing his back, was Yamashita Tomohisa, his longtime friend.
“Yamapi,” Jin murmured, shocked.
The truck stopped for the guard inspection and Jin knew that his chance was coming.
It was now or never.
He jumped out from the high but immobile vehicle.
“Akanishi!” He heard the inmates call in unison.
He fell on his left side, but he forced himself to rise as soon as he fell and ran all the way to his brother.
It was true. His brother was really there. His brother had come to seek for him.
He was sure that there were more voices calling for him, including the guards who had called out his number instead but they sound like a muffled whisper.
There was a distant “bang!” and he fell on one knee to the grounds.
His left leg had been shot.
He tried to drag himself but there was another shot to his shoulder, and his body fell to the grounds that were already lightly covered with snow.
He grabbed some snow and watched the snow melt in his hand, Reio running towards him in the background, panting and crying.
Then everything went pitch black.
__
IV. 終 | 始 ~ End | Beginning
14th December 1949
Takeda Masaru gulped a sip from his bottle of hot tea, packing up to leave for the day.
“That was very kind of you, Takeda,” Uesugi said, in reference to the boy he had shot earlier.
It wasn’t his fault that he had to fire at him twice, he insisted. He was also lucky that Uesugi and other officers decided that two shots were enough as long as they paralyzed him.
His eyes darted to the crudely-made tent that the boy’s little brother had made with an older friend a few hundred steps away. Whoever the boy was, Takeda that he had a very dedicated family.
“The little brother was sick, I heard,” Uesugi continued, “I wonder if he will last the winter waiting for him.”
”Spare my brother!”
The boy clutched his wounded brother to his chest, and another knelt in front of the prison guards.
“Please, sir,” the boy named Yamashita said, “we only want to tell him that his mother might not be able to make it through the winter.”
The younger brother of the inmate sobbed, voice choked from the heavy breathing, probably caused by his weak body and grief, covered with the blood of his brother.
“I beg you, sir. Please don’t kill my brother.”
“Takeda,” Uesugi said, signaling him to lower his rifle, “Let’s take that boy back.”
Uesugi pushed his own rifle back, knelt down besides the crying boy, and retrieved the prisoner from him.
“Listen, boy,” Takeda heard Uesugi whisper, “I’ll pass the message to him when he wakes up later. For now, you two go back to your mother. She needs you more.”
Takeda watched as Uesugi obviously held back tears. “You can’t be-are you crying?”
“No,” Uesugi insisted. “But it’s a very sad story.”
Takeda thought of his own wife, who would be due for labor any moment now, constantly in pain and anxiety. The arrival of a newborn, ironically, would bring nothing but hardship to their family. As expected, they had almost exhausted their supply of rice. And even food privileges from being a government servant would be able to compensate. Their daughter had been consuming nothing but rice water; the girl’s portion of food had been set aside for her expecting mother.
“If I had shot him, it wouldn’t have made any difference,” Takeda remarked, indifferent.
“Come on, Takeda. Everyone knows that you can’t kill a Koukai prisoner.”
Takeda sneered.
Koukai prisoners. One would have thought they were under some sort of privileged prison experience when it was anything but.
“That was another sad story in itself,” Uesugi said. “In less than 3 years they lost a significant number of high-ranking members, their president, and their new president. Seriously, when you think about it, it’s kind of creepy. All the convicted Koukai detainees are to remain alive-but one wonders why.”
“It’s the kind of company that goes around collecting prisoners and making them human-sized guinea pigs, that’s what,” Takeda answered.
“Do you believe that it’s karma?” Uesugi asked.
“Word has it that half the Koukai Medical Group shares belong to the government, that’s why the company gets free reign,” Maeda, who had just arrived, added.
“Try working in night shift, you’ll hear more creepy stories. There are rumors about how the executed company president haunting the prison and how prisoners who were put into the solitary confinement cells go mad within a few days. The last isn’t exactly a rumor, however.”
Takeda would flat out refuse that offer even if it should come with more food supply.
“Probably not,” he answered, recalling various spooky tales about happenings that took place at night.
“We’ll be going, please take care!” Uesugi’s cheery voice sang.
Takeda traveled the night with Uesugi, grateful that the eventful day was finally over.
He glanced up to the night sky and noticed that the moon was nowhere to be seen.
“Uesugi, is it time for a new month yet?”
“No.”
The day before had a golden crescent moon shining from the night sky, like a samurai’s sword.
Takeda chose to ignore the abnormalities.
It didn’t help that he walked past the ad-hoc Koukai Medical Group’s president, pushing a trolley of flammable materials.
“Speak of the devil,” Uesugi said, “Wonder what he’s doing out there.”
Takeda had a feeling he would rather not know.
__
Everything was fuzzy.
There were searing pains on his chest and leg, and he couldn’t move any part of his body.
“Reio,” he mumbled.
His brother, was he well?
“Reio,” he repeated.
Why had he come to him?
“I want to see-“ he panted.
His brother, his sickly little brother. Why?
“Even if we are worn down to the point of being messed up..”
“That bond we had at that time and place will never disappear.”
“Kame.”
He opened his eyes, and saw the silhouette of a long-limbed creature, face disfigured by various means, body clothed in nothing but bandages. He should have been terrified but he was in too much pain to care.
“Who-what are you?”
The creature floated nearer.
Jin wanted to ask it so many questions.
“Do - do you know Kame?”
The creature stared at him blankly.
“Where am I?”
It glided away, and Jin saw nothing else after that.
__
The first thing he felt when he was finally conscious was the strong body of Koki hauling him from the infirmary bed, carrying him away, the alarm bells ringing erratically.
“Quick, the exit over there, Masuda used it just now!”
It was Nakamaru and Ueda who were leading the way, Koki with Jin on his back and Taguchi guarding their backs.
Jin felt like he was on the truck on the way along a very bumpy mountain road, constantly hitting his head against something solid.
“Koki,” Jin moaned.
“We’ll talk later, Akanishi,” Koki answered, hurriedly. “Someone just set the prison on fire, and now everyone’s escaping.”
It made no sense. Wasn’t it just a few hours ago that he’d been lying on a bed?
What about his brother? What about-
“Koki,” Jin whimper weakly, “Put me down.”
“Shut up, we are getting out,” Taguchi said.
“Quick, this way!”
Jin willed himself to push Koki away, and he fell.
“Akanishi!”
“There.. is.. someone.. else.” His chest hurt very badly, and his arm was excruciating to use.
“Come on, Akanishi,” Koki pulled him back on his feet, flinging Jin’s arm over his back.
“I need to rescue…” Jin refused to move, even thought he knew it was a futile act. A little more force and he would have been down again, all the same, despite his resistances.
“Fine, tell me who,” Taguchi asked.
“Ka… me..” Jin murmured.
“Who?”
Jin took a deep breath and said the name with all his strength. “He’s in the cell beside mine, Kamenashi Kazuya.”
Ueda and Nakamaru both exchanged dumbfounded looks.
“Akanishi…”
“Please help him,” Jin pleaded.
“Akanishi, Kamenashi Kazuya was executed two years ago,” Nakamaru said, reluctantly.
“He has been dead for two years.”
Jin slumped to the grounds.
Everything he had come to know, they were all crashing right in front of him like a trainwreck.
He thought about Kame and his youthful voice, laced with constant uncertainty and wariness. He thought about the gaunt outlines of Kame’s face, how he had dreamt of seeing that face for real. He thought all those times Kame spoke to him about his deepest, darkest sins - were they all a mere spiritual projection of a soul who couldn’t depart?
He thought of the moment when he had held Kame’s hand. What was that?
He thought of Higashiyama-where was he?-who was only other person who knew about Kame. Was he told about Kame being executed?
There was a deafening “bang!” and the door behind Taguchi exploded.
“Quick, let’s get out of here. We have no time left.”
Jin let Koki carry him for the rest of the escape journey.
They reached the nearby forest in no time at all.
Ueda opened Jin’s clothes, applying some crushed herbs on the spot on his back where he had been shot, scorching the painful opening of the wound a thousand times more, much to Jin’s mortification. Before he could recover, Ueda applied the same crushed herbs on his legs.
“We need to get him treated.”
Jin looked at the blazing prison, hoping that it would burn all his memories of Kame with it.
“Let’s go,” Jin said.
It all felt like a vivid dream, with only the throbbing wounds to prove that it was real. Everything was real, except Kame.
Jin wondered if Kame, dead or alive, would ever be able to escape the solitude he subjected himself to.
__
25th June 1947
Higashiyama Noriyuki rushed to the president’s office as soon as he heard the news.
The usually elegant office was thrashed, leaving the space haphazard and unkempt. There was a small fire lit up in the ashtray, burning a piece of paper slowly. Some of the smaller cabinets were also overturned, the contents strewn all over the floor. None of the lamps were lit; the room was dark and gloomy, with only the medals hanging on the wall to remind him of the documented glory the room held.
Higashiyama threaded carefully around - there were glass fragments, torn books, burnt papers, and many other things with possibly sharp edges.
Sitting behind the table was Kazuya, the soon-to-be leader of their company and God of the new world.
And the God was now a defeated soul, ripped into pieces of inconsolable entities.
“Kazuya-kun,” Higashiyama said, trying to be as soothing as possible.
The young man was looking solemnly downwards, his head was cradled in his palms, and his elbows were leaning on the desk.
“I’m sorry, Higashiyama-san,” he said chokingly.
“I failed everyone.”
He wanted to tell Kazuya that he been too hard on himself and everything wasn’t what was supposed to be, but he knew Kazuya better than to try and convince him to reconsider his judgments.
“Hiroto-kun,” Higashiyama started, “has been safely taken to his parents. Yuya and his wife will take care of the funeral.”
Higashiyama tried to touch Kazuya.
“Kazuya-kun, you didn’t want it to happen. It was out of your control.”
It was one of the most ironic things to say to him, considering that Kazuya thrived off controlling people. The master of puppets that were the corrupt members of the company.
Control. What a misleading euphemism for balance.
Kazuya had earlier planned the demise of an executive, Kanzaki, who had been behind the secret human experimental operations. Kanzaki had been a troublesome entity to the company, signing murky contracts with the army and offering high prices for the supply of prisoners for human experimentation in exchange for underground trading plus embargo for other corporations. A dangerously flammable link within the chain.
He needed to be eliminated.
It was an intricate, flawless plan.
Only it was a plan that designed his death, not controlling the factors surrounding his death.
A lurking shadow crept up on Higashiyama. It was the death god.
“Kazuya, there was no guarantee that names written in the note would be the only affected parties,” the creature droned. Its voice was deep and hollow, sometimes resembling an echo more than a normal voice.
“You know it.”
Kazuya didn’t raise his head.
“It’s only because someone dear to you was affected that you become this. You’re more pathetic than I thought,” the creature continued.
Higashiyama knew that it meant well. While he had never enjoyed the company or the presence of the creature that claimed to be the death god, he had never seen the creature being anymore than a loyal, conforming existence for Kazuya, supporting and watching him where Higashiyama couldn’t.
“He’s right,” Higashiyama said, “Yuya-kun didn’t blame you.”
He approached the table, gently pulling Kazuya’s hand.
“I can’t do this anymore,” Kazuya finally looked at him.
He looked exhausted and lost; with the most terrified expression Higashiyama had ever seen on his face in the decade that Higashiyama had known him.
“I’m going to turn myself in,” Kazuya said. He absent-mindedly ran past them towards the door and disappeared.
Higashiyama turned to the death god and said, “I’m sorry, I don’t think there’s anything we can say to change his mind. Please look after him for now. I’ll contact you with a plan soon.”
The creature nodded and followed Kazuya.
He took the phone from the table and dialed a number.
“Matchy-san?”
“What are you thinking, calling me at this hour?” the voice on the other end hissed.
“It’s an emergency.”
Higashiyama assumed that Matchy covered the receiver of his phone when he didn’t hear any response for a few minutes.
“Damn, you got me at an inconvenient time,” Matchy said, “I heard what happened. Meet me at the usual place.”
Higashiyama closed the heavy wooden door, then walked to the corner of the room and lifted a cabinet. He dragged the surface of the floor to reveal a secret staircase downwards and slipped into it, covering his tracks.
One hour later, Matchy arrived in the designated meeting place.
“I figured you’d come,” Matchy said.
“Yes, though I suppose your shock at receiving my call was a way to prove what a good double agent you are?’
“You see right through me,” Matchy smirked, “as expected from the great Higashiyama-san.”
“We need a plan.”
“I have the best,” Matchy announced.
“Foolproof,” he also assured.
“Enlighten me.”
“I will convince them to have Kazuya-kun executed-“
Higashiyama protested immediately.
“I thought this was foolproof!”
Matchy raised his hands, gesturing for Higashiyama to calm down.
“Wait, listen. Having Kazuya-kun executed is what we’ll let the public know. But what we will actually do is lock him. I will rope in a few other people to convince the others that what we need from Kazuya is not his death but his secrets. As long as we keep him alive, there’s a way to get his secret godly powers - or at least that is what I’ll be saying.”
“So we get to keep him safe, and they get to sleep well at night knowing that Kazuya-kun won’t be able to do anything for a while.”
“Precisely,” Matchy continued. “It’s a little too dangerous to continue using the Death Note anyway, so I suggest we take a breather and let the enemy have their cheers.”
“How much time are we looking at?”
Matchy took a deep breath. “Two years.”
“Two years?” Higashiyama shouted. “That’s too long!”
“No, it’s just right,” Matchy answered. “We can count on that Wakui bastard to do some cleanups after this year’s massive loss to the company; he will want to appear attractive to the shareholders, after all. Then we convince Kazuya-kun to come back.”
“Let’s just hope he doesn’t get insane after that,” Higashiyama said worryingly.
“Come on, he’s stronger than that. Only there’s one problem.”
“And that is?”
“When I left the party just now, Wakui ordered to seal Kazuya-kun’s room and we cannot risk trying to break in. Not now, at least. And neither you nor me.”
“What does that mean?”
“That means our plan can only be more perfect. When the time comes, I will have some random person break into the sealed room and steal that notebook. One, better to have some random boy arrested than me and two, it will send them into a bizarre panic frenzy.”
“You have convinced me,” Higashiyama smiled.
“Don’t I always?” Matchy concluded.
“Guide me out later, my entrance has been sealed.”
“You know, they say you’ll be next.”
Higashiyama stopped in his tracks. “Really?”
“Better watch your back, just in case.”
__
7th September 1949
“Jin, I don’t think you should do this.”
Yamashita Tomohisa was lying on the riverbank, trying to convince his best friend to drop the offer. A whole lot of money and free medical treatment just to steal a notebook seemed too good to be true.
“Don’t you think there’s something fishy about it?”
Jin took a pebble and tossed it lightly so that it bounced on the water instead of dropping right into it.
“A desperate man does what a desperate man must do, which is to take every desperate chance,” Jin said, smiling.
“Stop smiling like you just found a ray of sunshine, idiot,” Yamashita said.
“It’s not like I have a choice, you see,” Jin said, “Reio’s not getting better, mother’s going to fall sick anytime soon, and father is - you know where he is.”
Jin’s father was a factory worker deployed to the north, and Jin’s family had not been receiving any news for the whole last year.
“He will be alright,” Yamashita said, out of habit rather than belief.
He knew Jin understood his intention.
“Thanks,” Jin answered, “I really hope so.”
Yamashita hadn’t expected it to be their last real conversation before Jin was arrested and put into Mouryou Detention Center without trial.
__
2nd January 1950
While Uesugi was rounding up the remaining prisoners, Takeda went on a patrol inside the more protected areas of the prison, checking if there were anymore prisoners trapped after failing to take advantage of the crossfire to escape. Some injured, some died.
So far, they were at death toll of less than ten, which was a miracle considering how much damage the prison has sustained from the fire.
“Hi there,” Takeda spoke, opening the metal door to the solitary confinement cells.
He repeated this in the rest of the 200 cells, until he reached one that was locked.
He took out the keys and tried to find the right one until someone spoke.
“Hey, sir.”
So there was someone alive.
“Please hold on, I’ll blast this door open.”
“No.” The voice was louder, clearer, and firmer.
Takeda was confused. Which prisoner would refuse to be released from a locked cell?
“Speak your number,” Takeda commanded, more out of formality than functionality. There was no way a prison gate guard could have known each and every inmate in there.
“860223,” the voice answered.
“I’ll be blasting the door open,” Takeda warned. “Get out here so that we can round up the remaining prisoners for a proper report.”
“I was the one who made that fire happen, you know?”
Takeda stopped short.
“What?”
“I have the power to control people. I can make them do things I want them to. I arranged for the bastard who took my place in my father’s company to burn the prison so that some people could escape from this place.”
Takeda thought that whoever this person was, he might have just justified his confinement.
“Some people like who?”
“Like my friend, who was shot by one of the prison guards. Undeservingly.”
Takeda’s heart felt like it had been ripped out.
“Stop spouting crazy shit like that. I’m blasting the door.”
“Do you know who shot him?”
Takeda fired and the door flung open, the light from the corridor illuminating the figure of a boy, probably in his early 20s, leaning against the wall opposite the door.
The boy looked every bit like a deprived human; his cheeks were sunken, his body was frail and thin, and his clothes were a few sizes too big for him. His hands were tied together clumsily and there were multiple scars all over his body, most prominently his fingers, which Takeda inferred were some of the freshest wounds.
Despite all that, his eyes shone with a fiery, commanding glare that sent an electrifying chill into Takeda, causing him to shiver a little.
“Do you know who shot my friend?” he repeated.
Takeda raised his rifle and aimed at that boy. “I did. What are you going to do, burn me?”
The boy stared determinedly at Takeda.
“What is your name?”
“Why?”
“How am I supposed to know that you’re not a spy from the enemy?” The boy looked at him with a knowing smirk, both threatening and sly.
“If you must know,” Takeda showed his badge. “Takeda Masaru.”
To his surprise, the boy bit his wounded finger until it drew blood, and wrote on something on his right.
“Take…da…Masaru.”
“Get up,” Takeda commanded.
The boy rose very slowly, and Takeda could see what he had been writing on.
“Give me that book”
The boy obliged; he crouched to retrieve the book he had written on, then he staggered towards Takeda.
Takeda took the book and read his own name, written in blood. The page before that read:
Wakui Masakazu
Gather the most flammable materials from the laboratory
Burn Mouryou Detention Center
Run into the fire
All of a sudden, Takeda’s heart began pumping wildly, pounding against his chest, and he collapsed to the ground with agonizing pain on his chest. He panted irregularly.
His chest pounded harder and harder, and then he saw it.
There was something sinister floating on top of the boy.
“Oh, I believe you have just seen Melos,” he said, pointing to the creature that hadn’t been there just a few moments before in an unnervingly calm manner. “He’s a death god.”
The boy bent down to pick up his book.
“As for me? My name is Kamenashi Kazuya.”
He walked nearer to the struggling Takeda.
“From this day onwards, I will be justice.”
Those were the last words Takeda Masaru heard before he breathed his last.
__
1 Basically Japanese for rickshaw. Wiki explains it better here.
III. 死 ~ Death
30th November 1949
The greatest highlight of any given day, in Takeda’s opinion, was the arrival of Maeda and Sanada, their replacements for the night shift.
The officers working in Mouryou Detention Center collectively agreed that night shifts were for lesser officers, those who were capable enough of basic duties but not capable of appearing good in their basic duties. In Maeda and Sanada’s cases, Takeda suspected that it was because they were too boisterous for their own good, even to the extent of being known to be arrogant.
Takeda knew they weren’t really trying to appear disrespectful, just rather brash for young people who had always been a little too enthusiastic in the nation rebuilding crap the government kept spouting about. He wasn’t noble enough to defy the popular stance in dealing with both of them, which was to sneer and joke unsubtly.
He adjusted his coat, getting ready to head back home, and said “we’ll leave now, please be careful” to Maeda and Sanada.
He was marching off towards the administrative office to report as “off-duty” when Maeda stopped him in his tracks.
“Takeda-san, was there a kid stopping by today?” Maeda whispered, almost like he was afraid that Sanada would hear him.
“No,” Takeda answered truthfully. There had been the usual trucks transporting inmates to work on location and a few officers on surveillance duty, but no sign of anyone unfamiliar. Not even Matchy, even though Takeda had learnt that Matchy often showed up when he least expected it.
Maeda moved closer. “Sanada probably wouldn’t want other officers to know,” Maeda confirmed Takeda’s suspicions, “but there was a kid, about 16 years old, who came by yesterday. He wanted to see his brother who’s inside, apparently, name’s Akanishi or something. We told him visitations are strictly forbidden, but then he started shouting things like how his mother is sick and needed his brother back home right that moment. Sanada chased him away, asking him to come back in the morning. We were hoping that you guys could be more helpful in telling him off.”
Takeda knew that Sanada’s ostensible actions were more a necessary evil out of compassion than a deliberate prank to subject the kid to the travesty of the generally more unsympathetic daytime officers. Takeda had seen many civilians like the kid Maeda just described - they were always hopeful, persistent, and willing to do just about anything.
“We didn’t see any kid,” Takeda patted Maeda. “But thank you, I will alert Uesugi and we will keep a lookout for him.”
Maeda nodded knowingly. Takeda ran a little to keep up with Uesugi, who was nearing the door to the office.
He signed off for the day, walked and warmed himself with the lamp Uesugi usually carried when they left the prison, listened to Uesugi chatter about random things.
About a hundred steps from the gate of the Mouryou Detention Center that Takeda usually stood guard for, he saw a tall young man stalking along with a smaller boy a few years younger hunching behind.
He stole a few more glances at the two, wondering about what would they do to be able to see Akanashi, or whoever it was they needed to see.
Takeda thought that name sounded familiar, but at that moment, he couldn’t recall the exact moment when he had heard of it.
__
“Do you sometimes wish you could kill a person just by thinking about it?” Kame started.
It had taken Jin’s agreement to not question Kame and to assume everything Kame said was possible to even make Kame start. Jin thought that he had never met anyone more stubborn.
“Only a lot of times,” Jin replied honestly. “Don’t we all wish we could do that?”
“I suppose,” Kame said. “A few years ago, I learned about this magical little notebook that can grant the owner the power to do exactly that. You only need to know the name and the face of the person. To kill them, all you need to do is to write his name down and the person will die immediately after that, unless I specify their cause of death within 40 seconds.”
Jin might have sworn to believe everything he’d say, but he wasn’t going to really believe the notebook of death, especially something as spurious as this. He chose to go along.
“Someone gave it to you?”
“I found it,” Kame answered. “I found it lying on the side of the riverbank. It was one of the freakiest moments in my life. Do you know what I saw when I first touched the notebook?”
Jin shook his head, then remembered that Kame couldn’t see him. “Uhm, no, tell me.”
Kame might have grinned. “I was afraid that you have fallen asleep.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Jin countered. “You just want an excuse to stop talking.”
Kame sighed. “You’re kind of persistent, you know?”
“And you’re kind of stubborn,” Jin said. “Just continue already.”
“Jin, do you know that death gods exist?”
Jin couldn’t find an appropriate response.
“They float in the air, with huge, protruding eyes, almost bloodshot, only with no blood and almost inhumanly long limbs. They still look human, though, only the features are far from refined; they might even have looked a little like trolls, if they’ll forgive me for saying that. I was told some of them have wings, but the death god I saw didn’t have them. In retrospect, it’s not like they look really horrifying, but they have this way of looking at people, and it’s like looking straight inside a pair of eyes floating in the air.”
Jin tried hard to not use his imagination, especially not when it was a little too dark and quiet, even for a chilly winter night.
“Ah, I think I know how to describe them now. Death gods look a bit like humans who have gone through mutilations, random bandages, skin that look like it barely stick to their bones, and flesh caving in,” Kame continued, evidently having just pieced his thoughts together.
Kame breathed heavily, a sign which Jin took to mean that Kame wasn’t going to elaborate anymore. “Sounds kind of scary, doesn’t it?”
“A little,” Jin responded, like he’d been listening to a bedtime story instead of Kame’s past.
“What would you do in that situation?”
Jin was silent before he absently realized that Kame was asking him a question. “Oh, me? I would probably run in the opposite direction, and hope that the speed would teleport me somehow. And pray that I never see that creature again. Supernatural isn’t my area of expertise,” he replied, half-seriously.
“I’m serious,” Kame said.
“Alright, sorry for not being serious enough. But that wasn’t entirely untrue.”
“Well, I should have ran away, but I didn’t,” Kame admitted. “I took delight in knowing that I had control of humans I’d personally seen and knew the names of. It was a strange feeling - I wasn’t playing God, but people I knew and care for, I had the powers to alter their fate. All with the power that was given to me by that notebook.”
Kame let out a sigh. “Every time I wrote a name in that book, planning out their death as I saw fit, I thought I was exacting the kind of justice that the universe couldn’t provide me with, but I was wrong. So wrong.”
Jin resisted the urge to interrupt him.
“I was just a murderer who tried to morally justify his crimes. The most despicable type of human to ever exist.” Kame ended in a whisper, sounding like his voice was about to break into a million pieces.
Jin trembled in disbelief.
__
Other than the first time he had told Taguchi about someone who apparently was locked in cell next to his, Jin never told anyone about Kame. While Taguchi did come across to Jin as someone who possessed impossible memory for details, he had expected Taguchi to dismiss that incident as Jin being homesick or hallucinating.
He wasn’t really sure about his own unwillingness to share the many things about Kame, though he had a few suspicions. He narrowed it down to two main reasons - one was because it was exactly how Kame had described himself, not knowing where to start or how to begin. The other was because Kame felt like something exclusively his, and he relished in knowing a dark secret of the prison.
He found it hard to believe that for the month or two after he had found Kame, he had been so obsessed with wanting to know if he was real he’d never once thought that Kame having some sort of compelling issues that Jin probably shouldn’t have known.
He thought he had come to terms with Kame’s existence, despite the many reservations he had about him. He thought that he would be content with the imaginary avatar he had conjured up in place of Kame’s face.
But he thought wrong. He didn’t know who or what Kame was, and he felt worse understanding that he should have known better than to want to know him at all.
After all, Taguchi did warn him.
“Anyway, there is a possibility that who-what-ever sang you to sleep could be something not human, and I just want you to be prepared.”
By now he wasn’t certain what he should think about Kame. Fortunately, he had kept all knowledge about another dweller in the locked cell purely his after that.
Unfortunately for him, Taguchi did remember.
“Hey Akanishi,” Taguchi said. “Did you ever get to discover if there was someone or something living in the cell next to yours?”
Jin was so taken aback, he dropped the handles of the trolley he was pushing, throwing himself to the ground.
“N-N-No.”
People around him started to laugh heartily.
“Geez, one might think you saw a ghost or something,” Nakamaru remarked.
Jin was rising up and brushing the dirt off his shoulder when he spotted the old man Higashiyama, who was conspicuously ignoring the mocking laughter. He was abruptly reminded of Nakamaru’s story.
“He made quite a ruckus for around for a week or two. Spouting absurd things like ‘abominable people will be judged by God’, ‘those heartless bastards will be erased, watch out!’ and sometimes going as far as looking people in the eyes and tell them they would be judged by the one and only God and He’d live within us.”
He walked towards Higashiyama and sat beside him.
“Higashiyama-san?” Jin tried.
There was no response from Higashiyama.
Jin leaned closer to him, then spoke softly to Higashiyama’s ears. “God does live within us, doesn’t He?”
Higashiyama froze.
“He will judge them,” Jin continued. “He will erase them.”
Higashiyama turned to Jin. “What do you know?”
Jin thought that he had never seen Higashiyama’s eyes look more alive. And sane.
“Nothing,” he said. “That’s why I need you to tell me what you know.”
Higashiyama shifted a little, scanning his surroundings. “What’s in for me?”
Jin was prepared to risk everything he knew. “I know things about death gods.”
Higashiyama smiled, this time he no longer looked vigilant.
“Finally.”
Jin was puzzled. Higashiyama looked almost relieved.
“I have been hoping for some news about Kazuya-kun.”
__
On the truck, it was a bumpy ride all the way back to the prison, but Jin wouldn’t know.
All of his attention was directed on the dazed face of Higashiyama, whose expressions seem to illustrate his drifting mind, but Jin knew better.
Jin’s mind spun dizzily. Arranging facts and statements about something he didn’t believe in from two different perspectives was harder than anything he had done. For one, he found it very difficult to stop himself from feeling stupid for being so indifferent to so many things that were happening around him.
The world didn’t feel like it had been functioning correctly. After all, spending most of his life convincing himself that fate was never really predetermined and that everything could be overturned if one had enough fervor to do so, Jin was reluctant to see death as something that could be premeditated. As though fate was something to be controlled by a selected figure that didn’t care about morality at all.
Thanks to Higashiyama, Jin not only knew that someone else in the prison knew Kame, he also knew that Kame, before he had been imprisoned, was supposed to be the head of Japan’s biggest medical corporation.
”Kazuya-kun was a remarkable young man,” Higashiyama whispered. “He was the type of young leader who was completely sincere in his operative methods. It was too bad that our nation, along with a large portion of the corporation were corrupted beyond curable means, or else everything would have been much better. The war could have had almost zero effects on our people.
“Kazuya-kun wouldn’t have ended up like this.”
Jin’s brain conjured an image of a conscientiously collected young man, someone he had always aspired to be, but would never be able to.
”Kazuya-kun tried, he really did,” Higashiyama spoke faster, aware that he couldn’t speak much to Jin without having people discover his pretenses.
“Our company had some shady dealings with the government, dealings that I can’t even begin to speak of, and Kazuya-kun was cracking them down. The others were not happy, of course,” he continued, “and there was nothing Kazuya-kun could do to outwit them all, until he became god.”
Jin waited with bated breath.
“He punished them,” were the last few words Higashiyama said before relapsing into his usual make-believe façade of an insane inmate, confusing Jin with the speed in which he could switch from one state of mind to another.
Ueda, who was sitting beside him in the truck, poked him in the arms. “Akanishi,” he spoke. “Is there something wrong?”
Jin tilted his head to lean closer to Ueda.
“Hey, Ueda. Don’t you think something’s a bit weird with the old man Higashiyama?”
Ueda eyed Higashiyama furtively.
“He’s his usual decrepit madcap self,” Ueda remarked. “Did he say something outlandish to you earlier? I noticed that you were getting along with him.” Jin thought that Ueda was always one of the more perceptive people he knew.
“Do you remember that Higashiyama was from this renowned corporation, where he was one of the higher-ranking members?” Jin asked.
Ueda nodded. “Everyone knows that, I suppose. He wasn’t exactly discreet about his past when he was dragged in, kicking and screaming.”
“Was there anyone else with him? Anyone else from the same company?”
Ueda paused.
“Not that I recall of,” he answered. “It’s a very famous corporation, like you said. Nobody would risk their reputation to have their executives arrested for whichever reason. Why?”
“Just thinking.”
“Are you sure you’re not thinking too much?” Ueda eyed Jin suspiciously. “It’s easy, with all the things that happen here.”
Jin shook his head slightly. “No, not thinking too much.”
It was a lie and Jin knew Ueda had seen right through it.
It was when the truck stopped for guard inspection that Jin finally tore his eyes away from Higashiyama, this time darting his eyes towards a person who seemed to be a ragged old man crouching near the prison walls.
When the figure looked kind of familiar, Jin knew that he was definitely thinking too much.
__
Jin returned to his cell with his mind completely blank.
His usual routine included meditating in repentance, then removing the loose brick in the wall that separated Kame and him. Then he would talk to Kame for as long as he could stay awake for and then sleep and wait for the guards to rudely jerk him awake.
Tonight he didn’t want to talk to Kame.
He didn’t know what to talk to Kame about.
He lied on his hard, uncomfortable bed, determined to shut his eyes for the rest of the night and rid his mind off the image of a death god.
It was difficult. A death god wasn’t exactly something he could put an angel’s face on and pretend it was going to protect him.
__
The next few days passed by like a myriad of different colors blending together badly - Jin’s anxious curiosity and apprehension were not the best emotions to harbor if he wanted to maintain his mental composure.
There was nothing else he could dig out. Higashiyama had been avoiding him ever since, probably out of paranoia that his disguise had finally fallen apart, and Jin hadn’t spoken to Kame since then.
It took the collective teasing from Taguchi, Nakamaru, Ueda and Koki for him to realize that he had been acting like an obsessive stalker of Higashiyama, and he finally stopped trying to question him.
He didn’t however, stop not talking to Kame.
He insisted that he wasn’t being an asshole for leaving Kame in the dark after he poured what seemed to be his deepest secrets, things that he had feared talking about to no one but Jin. Try as he might, Jin didn’t know how to defend his avoidance of Kame.
When he thought about their last exchange before Jin started not speaking to him, he imagined Kame with a bleeding chest, blades jutting out from his heart and Jin himself there, doing nothing.
Sometimes he wondered if he had held back because he was afraid of hurting Kame more.
“How is Kazuya-kun now?” Higashiyama’s question took Jin by surprise.
Jin didn’t look up, despite being startled.
“What would you like to hear?”
“Is he well?”
Jin stopped his work. “No, he isn’t.
“He has been gloomy, constantly blaming himself,” Jin answered. “He didn’t say that outright, but I think he must be. He spoke of himself as the worst human to ever exist.”
Higashiyama’s forehead creased with worry. “If you speak to him again, please tell him that it wasn’t his fault.
“That his nephew’s death wasn’t his fault.”
On the way back to the prison, Jin was struck with another bout of sickening guilt as Higashiyama’s words gravitate in his mind.
He felt so guilty, he didn’t even stop to think about why the old, ragged man he saw yet again looked so familiar.
__
Jin was rudely awakened by the buzzing sound of his brother’s voice, calling him desperately.
He panted roughly while trying to ascertain if he was in a dream or reality, but all he could hear was the voice of Kame’s soft singing.
This time, he sounded like despair.
He kicked himself off the bed, and immediately removed the loose brick.
“Kame?” he called, praying that Kame was there, still willing to speak to him.
To his utmost relief, Kame was.
“Jin,” he called softly.
Just hearing Kame’s voice felt to Jin like someone lifted him up and wrapped him in a blanket.
“Kame, I’m sorry.”
“It’s alright.”
“I’m really sor-.”
“Please don’t apologize,” Kame stopped him.
“Kame,” Jin half-whimpered.
“It must have been hard for you,” Kame said. “I understand.”
“You can’t,” Jin replied, a little louder than he had intended. “I was being an asshole, you cannot just say you understand it.”
“But I do.”
Jin didn’t believe him. “If you hate me, you don’t have to restrain yourself. If only this wall didn’t exist, I swear I’ll let you punch me! I swear you can do anything!”
Kame exhaled. “I don’t hate you. Quite opposite, actually.”
“I’m grateful to have you.”
Jin really wished that the wall didn’t exist.
“I’m sorry.”
“Stop apologizing.”
“You should hate me.”
“But I don’t, so stop arguing.”
“I want to see you.”
They both paused immediately.
It was Kame who broke the awkward silence.
“That’s impossible.”
“Bullshit,” Jin retorted. “You will be free one day.”
Kame fell silent for the longest time since they met.
“No, I won’t ever be free.”
“Why?” Jin asked. “Why are you so sure?”
“I don’t want to be free.”
Jin remembered Higashiyama’s words.
“That his nephew’s death wasn’t his fault.”
“It’s not your fault,” Jin said.
“What isn’t?”
“Whatever you did.”
“You don’t know what I did.”
“Yes, I do,” Jin said. “You must have been one hell of a great leader to have such a loyal subordinate in Higashiyama.”
“It’s Higashiyama-san, eh?” Kame chuckled. “He’s the last person I expected to be hauled in here.”
“He praised you quite a lot,” Jin smiled as he recalled everything Higashiyama said to him.
“I thought you were an amazing person. See, I haven’t been wrong about you,” Jin concluded.
“How so?”
“Remember how I said you shouldn’t think of yourself as a bad person because I don’t think you are? At that time, I probably only said that to act smart, but I was proven right. So I am, in a nutshell, smart even when I’m only acting the part.”
Kame burst into laughter. Jin thought his laughter sounded like innocence.
“You are something,” Kame said after the laughter died down. “I’ve never met anyone like you.”
Jin thought the same. “That’s why I need to see you.”
Kame seemed to be thinking about it.
“How?”
“Come to the hole,” Jin instructed as he moved closer to the gap in the wall.
“You here?” Kame asked.
“Yes.” Jin forced his hand through the hole. “Let me touch your face.”
“You must be kidding.”
“Shut up. Just do it.”
Kame moved nearer, and Jin felt an electrifying jolt running through his entire body as he touched Kame for the first time.
He didn’t know if he should be feeling overwhelmed by the realization that the Kame he had been speaking to, the Kame who only existed behind those walls was finally real, or if he should be trying to frantically memorize Kame’s features.
“You’re beautiful,” was the only thing Jin could say.
This time, Jin knew Kame was smiling because he could feel it.
Kame retreated and held Jin’s hand, squeezing it lightly.
“You are, too,” Kame said, “And I don’t have to know what you look like to know that.”
Jin grinned.
“Don’t try to be suave with me.”
They spent the whole night laughing, giggling, and Jin told Kame everything that was weird about Nakamaru’s abnormal facial features.
“One question,” Jin asked.
“What?”
“Can’t you disown the notebook?”
“Hmmmm.”
Jin chuckled. “What, you didn’t know?”
“No,” Kame replied. “I’m about to say something arrogant, are you ready to hear it?”
“Are you kidding?” Jin answered. “I dare you to come up with something crazier than I was a crazy mass murderer and they locked me here because they couldn’t understand how I did what I did, then we’ll talk whether I am ready to hear it.”
“Alright,” Kame said. “Brace yourself.”
“Just say it.”
“Because I believe I’m the only one who can handle it. That’s why I refuse to disown it as long as I live.”
Jin heaved a sigh. “That’s not arrogant.”
“Are you kidding?” Kame asked.
“No, seriously!” Jin insisted. “I, too, happen to think that you’re the only one who can handle it.”
“Why?” Kame asked casually.
“You are living in a cell devoid of every basic need,” Jin answered. “Of course you can handle everything.”
Kame didn’t say anything for a while after that.
“Kame?” Jin nudged, wondered if he had said something wrong.
“Thank you,” Kame answered.
Jin was puzzled. “What did I do?”
“You believe in me.”
Jin smiled widely.
“You know, Kame? When I leave this hell, I will be taking you along.”
“Uhm,” Kame said.
“It’s a promise.”
“Yes,” Kame said.
Jin had a feeling that Kame had yet to change his mind about leaving, and had only answered to humor Jin.
__
The others couldn’t help but notice the significant change in Jin’s mood.
“You remind me of this friend I have when he was buying a hairpin for a girl he liked,” Nakamaru concluded his observations, sending the rest of the railroad crew, except for Higashiyama, into fits of good-natured laughter.
“Oi, Akanishi,” Koki said, pretending to pout. “I didn’t know that there are girls here in the prison. Unless they are disguising as boys and you didn’t tell us? You never struck me as someone who plays dirty.”
“Shut up, Koki,” Jin snapped fondly.
“Nothing is happening,” Jin announced, hoping to dispel all ridiculous rumors.
“It’s just that,” he stumbled, “just that it’s a very good day.”
Taguchi came to Jin’s aid. “Guys, stop it.”
Jin could have felt much relieved, if only Taguchi didn’t utter the next few words.
“He just had a very, uhm, nice dream.”
The crew burst into laughter again.
Jin decided to join them.
Higashiyama too, only he was sneakier.
“Do all these have anything to do with Kazuya-kun?”
“How do you know?” Jin asked.
“I’m not stupid,” Higashiyama said. ”How is he now?”
Jin thought of the smooth outline of Kame’s cheeks, the bump on his nose and his dry, cracked lips.
“He’s better than before,” Jin replied. “He was laughing yesterday.”
Higashiyama’s lips curved in a smile.
“Thank goodness.”
The knowledge that someone else cared for Kame warmed Jin’s core.
“Please take care of him, Akanishi. There are people out there who need him.”
__
His jovial mood, however, didn’t last as long as Jin and all other inmates would have preferred.
During the ride back to the prison, Jin saw the familiar ragged old man again, and he finally remembered why he had been feeling like he had seen him before.
The ragged old man who had been lurking around the prison gates was the person who had offered Jin money in exchange for stealing.
The indirect reason for his imprisonment.
When Jin was jumping out from the truck, he could barely resist running towards the old man and strangling him.
Nakamaru pulled him back, reminding him that the prison guards had rifles.
__
Jin told Kame about Higashiyama.
“For all his fake insanities, he really cares for you, you know?” Jin said in the end.
“I’ve always respected Higashiyama-san,” Kame said. “I still find it hard to believe that he’s in here. Looks like I came in here gambling with more than my life.”
Jin shrugged. “I guess everybody left something that wouldn’t have chosen to leave behind when they were thrown in here.”
“What’s the matter?” Kame asked.
“What is?”
“You, that’s what,” Kame said, “Is there something bothering you?”
‘How do you know?” Jin had been asked this before, and he wondered if it was people being extra perceptive or just him hiding his uncertainties badly.
“You weren’t being as chirpy as usual,” Kame said. “And you didn’t tell me that I was being stupid for thinking horribly about myself.”
“Are you telling me that if I don’t rebuke you for your self-loathing sentiments, there’s something wrong with me?”
“That’s not what I’m saying,” Kame said. “I’m saying that you’re kind enough to appear unnatural when you’re being indifferent.”
Jin traced the grounds with his fingers.
“I saw him today, Kame,” Jin said. “The old man who hired me to steal from the safe.”
“Ah,” Kame responded. “What are you thinking right now?”
Jin gathered his thoughts, then spoke. “I didn’t realize it was him when I saw this random old man on the side of the road, against the prison walls, then when I did realize that it was him, I wanted to strangle him. I felt like shouting at him for everything he had subjected me to.”
“It’s understandable.”
“Then I also realized that,” Jin continued, “if he’s now living as a beggar on the streets, he can’t be better off than me.”
Jin swallowed his saliva.
“I didn’t know that I was still taking the imprisonment badly. The way I basically choked with rage at the sight of him, I think I am looking for a scapegoat to blame for where I ended up now.”
Kame stayed silent for a while.
“Think about it this way,” Kame said. “You aren’t looking for someone to blame. You’re looking for an answer.”
Jin didn’t quite agree, but he had to admit that Kame might have a point. “Maybe.”
“So, what will you do if you see him again?”
“I’ll pretend he doesn’t exist,” Jin answered jokingly.
“Yea, like that will solve anything,” Kame replied sarcastically.
“Seriously, I probably won’t do anything,” Jin said.
They continued talking, until Jin thought he heard his brother calling him again.
This time, he wasn’t sleeping.
“Kame, did you hear that?”
“No,” Kame answered.
Jin shushed him. “Listen.”
They both fell silent; senses heightened. For a while there were only the sounds of the leaves rustling distantly and the wind wheezing. Nothing but the unsettling calmness of the night.
Then, they heard it. It started as a faint, indistinct calls of “Nii-san! Nii-san!”, then it grew a little louder with each passing second, as though whoever was calling him was running towards him.
“Nii-san!”
Jin could hear it now, loud and clear.
“It’s my brother!”
Jin jumped up. “It’s Reio!”
He closed the gap in the wall and said “Sorry, later” hurriedly to Kame, and rushed to the metal door and banged it as loud as he could.
“Let me out! My brother is here!” he cried. “My brother is here! Please!”
There was no one to come to his aid, so Jin hit the door harder.
“My brother is here, please let me see him!” he cried on top of his lungs. “Please let me see him!”
A guard finally appeared. Jin was filled with relief when he heard the jingling sound of the keys being fastened into the metal lock.
The feeling didn’t last long. He was pushed back violently immediately after the door flung open, and two very intimidating-looking wardens entered his cell.
The next thing he knew, his mouth was stuffed with the muzzle end of a rifle.
“Listen here, scum,” the warden with burns on the right side of his face said. “Whatever is happening out there, it’s none of your business.”
The warden pushed the rifle slightly further inside Jin’s mouth.
“This rifle here,” he said as he stroked the weapon, “has been itching to find a target.”
Jin choked on his own saliva.
“To be or not to be my guest, it’s your choice.”
__
Reio had made such a commotion, everybody knew in no time that there was someone out there looking for Jin and the guards weren’t allowing him to do so.
No one spoke to Jin about what they heard last night. No one approached Jin and pointed out to him that the bruises on his neck were the universe’s way of telling him that if he planned to fight the prison authorities he was going to be battling losing war. No one, not even Higashiyama.
No one told him that there were times when they needed to stop fighting fate and only hope for the best.
Jin knew that the reason for their inaction was neither altruistic nor selfish - it was just that Reio’s appearance reminded them of their own baggage that they had been forced to part ways with.
More than ever, Jin knew that the fiery yearn for freedom that had been hibernating within everyone just gotten reignited.
__
As expected, Kame didn’t change his mind about wanting to leave the prison.
“I don’t understand you,” Jin admonished him. “After all this while, being locked alone in that cell, having no one to talk to, constantly in the dark - Kame, don’t you want to be free?”
“It’s not that bad to be in here,” Kame replied. “They serve me food, they give me a separate cell, and most importantly, they took me from everybody else.”
“You know they can’t do that to everyone,” Jin raised his voice. “Stop being ridiculous and insist that you deserve to be here, because you don’t. I know very well that you don’t.”
“No,” Kame said sternly. “Do you even remember why they locked me in here, and never let me out at all? It’s because they don’t know how I did it. How I did everything.”
“Kame,” Jin said, almost exasperatedly.
“I want to be free as much as you do,” Kame said, softly. “Really, I do.
“But there’s no place for me outside this cell.”
Jin pounded the ground with his fist.
“Damn it.”
“I’m sorry,” Kame said. “I broke my promise to you.”
“Don’t be. It was me who insisted you said so.”
“Jin-”
“Stop it.”
“Just listen to me-“
“Kame, I said drop it.”
“I’m sorry, Jin-“
“What do you mean there’s no place for you outside that freaking cell of yours?” Jin shrieked.
Kame didn’t answer.
“I feel like I can never know what you’re thinking. When I talk to you, sometimes I feel like we connected, and the other times I feel like I don’t know you. Like you’re not real.”
Jin looked down.
“I don’t know what to think about you,” Jin rambled on. “But I know that if I feel like running away from here, I want you to come along with me.”
“Jin,” Kame murmured, at long last. “How do you want to start?”
“Start.. what?”
“Escaping.”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you have a plan?” Kame asked. “A solid, foolproof plan that will get you out of here. Alive.”
When Jin didn’t answer, Kame hounded him. “That sounds like you are just acting impulsively. Take a look at yourself - will you be able to do anything like making it out alive from this place if you have no defense against the firearms?”
“You don’t believe in me,” Jin concluded.
Kame sighed. “That’s not the point. I just don’t want you to die an unnecessary death.”
“At this moment,” Jin replied, “I’m as good as dead. What kind of brother does nothing when his little brother risks his illness to cry for help? What kind of son I am, to be thrown in prison when my mother could be suffering from hunger?”
“That’s nothing,” Kame said, “you’re still very much alive. Too much life, even.”
Jin wasn’t comforted.
“You’re only dead when you stop feeling anything.”
Jin was too numb with disappointment to reply to Kame.
“When you consistently hover between dying and living, not knowing where exactly you are, not remembering what you’re supposed to be, not feeling anything but confusion - that’s when you’re no longer human.”
Kame sighed lightly.
“The world needs more people like you, Jin. I’m not about to let you go to waste.”
__
Jin knew he was being unreasonable. His mind felt like a mash of crumpled papers with words written on them but Jin could never sort them out enough to make sense. Between worrying about Reio, hating the judicial system, and getting exasperated at Kame, he had lost all sense of priority.
He had all the right emotions, but he didn’t which should he act on first.
Kame was right; it was presumptuous to talk about escaping the prison when he had no solid plan to begin with.
He began to observe his surroundings.
Apparently, the easiest way to make his run was during short lapse of time between traveling - from the prison gates into the truck which would transport them to the area near the quarry where they were building the railroads, and from inside the truck to outside, vice versa, and finally, from inside the truck back into the prison. He could also take the chance to run when they were working on the railroads, but working near the quarry meant that there were stray explosives materials everywhere and nobody was gutsy enough to attempt walking around unguarded.
Kame was nearly always right. Jin didn’t fancy the way he had come to realize it, but he had learnt to value Kame’s right evaluations.
As he recounted a very rough blueprint of his hypothetical escape plan, the very idea of running away sounded sillier by the minute.
“But it would be stupider to never have tried,” he said firmly to Koki.
“You’re just gambling either way,” Koki reminded him.
Jin didn’t refute him.
“If only the stakes were lower.”
They both sighed.
“Hey, Akanishi,” Koki said.
Jin rubbed the back of his neck with his palms. The weather had gotten far too cold to be humanly possible for labor that could last more than an hour at any given time.
“Do you really think that we can go back out there?”
Jin’s brows furrowed in deep thought.
“I wish that was a question that I can answer to,” Jin answered. “You can just pretend you didn’t hear what I said, all of you. If I am going to die trying it will be me and me alone.”
Ueda patted his back. “Don’t be selfish. If someone’s going to break out, it’s better done in groups.”
“Besides, what makes you think you’re the only one who will die trying?” Taguchi added.
Jin nodded proudly.
__
Koki told Jin something that threw him off in the truck back to the prison.
“I didn’t really hate you, you know,” Koki had said, “but it’s complicated.”
Nakamaru nudged him on the arm. “That’s news to us. Are you saying that just so that people can see the softer side of you?”
Koki punched Nakamaru affectionately. “Of course not.”
“You probably reminded me of someone I would have preferred to be,” Koki said as he turned back to Jin.
“And I helped you out with Goda because I hate his guts. That, you see, was out of real hatred,” Koki added, to the stifled laughter of the whole truck.
Jin smiled. “I should have believed Nakamaru when he told me that you’re a nice person.”
“When?” Koki’s ears perched up in mock excitement.
“Shut up,” Nakamaru said in an attempt to silence Koki.
The teasing went on for a while until one of the officers glared at them, after which they promptly fell into a collective hush.
Jin shoved Ueda, Taguchi and a few others aside to be able to sit closer to the exit of the truck for reasons none other than simply wanting to observe the surroundings. He swept his hair back, allowing the gust of chilly wind to blow against his face.
It had just started to snow a few days ago, albeit a little arbitrarily, and very late by the Japanese seasonal trends. Sometimes Jin would be able to catch a few snowflakes with his hand, but they melt almost immediately. He tried not to think of them as a metaphor for the state of his freedom.
Suddenly, Jin saw something that made his heart stop.
About fifty steps away from the prison gate, he saw Reio.
He finally saw Reio.
Accompanying Reio, rubbing his back, was Yamashita Tomohisa, his longtime friend.
“Yamapi,” Jin murmured, shocked.
The truck stopped for the guard inspection and Jin knew that his chance was coming.
It was now or never.
He jumped out from the high but immobile vehicle.
“Akanishi!” He heard the inmates call in unison.
He fell on his left side, but he forced himself to rise as soon as he fell and ran all the way to his brother.
It was true. His brother was really there. His brother had come to seek for him.
He was sure that there were more voices calling for him, including the guards who had called out his number instead but they sound like a muffled whisper.
There was a distant “bang!” and he fell on one knee to the grounds.
His left leg had been shot.
He tried to drag himself but there was another shot to his shoulder, and his body fell to the grounds that were already lightly covered with snow.
He grabbed some snow and watched the snow melt in his hand, Reio running towards him in the background, panting and crying.
Then everything went pitch black.
__
IV. 終 | 始 ~ End | Beginning
14th December 1949
Takeda Masaru gulped a sip from his bottle of hot tea, packing up to leave for the day.
“That was very kind of you, Takeda,” Uesugi said, in reference to the boy he had shot earlier.
It wasn’t his fault that he had to fire at him twice, he insisted. He was also lucky that Uesugi and other officers decided that two shots were enough as long as they paralyzed him.
His eyes darted to the crudely-made tent that the boy’s little brother had made with an older friend a few hundred steps away. Whoever the boy was, Takeda that he had a very dedicated family.
“The little brother was sick, I heard,” Uesugi continued, “I wonder if he will last the winter waiting for him.”
”Spare my brother!”
The boy clutched his wounded brother to his chest, and another knelt in front of the prison guards.
“Please, sir,” the boy named Yamashita said, “we only want to tell him that his mother might not be able to make it through the winter.”
The younger brother of the inmate sobbed, voice choked from the heavy breathing, probably caused by his weak body and grief, covered with the blood of his brother.
“I beg you, sir. Please don’t kill my brother.”
“Takeda,” Uesugi said, signaling him to lower his rifle, “Let’s take that boy back.”
Uesugi pushed his own rifle back, knelt down besides the crying boy, and retrieved the prisoner from him.
“Listen, boy,” Takeda heard Uesugi whisper, “I’ll pass the message to him when he wakes up later. For now, you two go back to your mother. She needs you more.”
Takeda watched as Uesugi obviously held back tears. “You can’t be-are you crying?”
“No,” Uesugi insisted. “But it’s a very sad story.”
Takeda thought of his own wife, who would be due for labor any moment now, constantly in pain and anxiety. The arrival of a newborn, ironically, would bring nothing but hardship to their family. As expected, they had almost exhausted their supply of rice. And even food privileges from being a government servant would be able to compensate. Their daughter had been consuming nothing but rice water; the girl’s portion of food had been set aside for her expecting mother.
“If I had shot him, it wouldn’t have made any difference,” Takeda remarked, indifferent.
“Come on, Takeda. Everyone knows that you can’t kill a Koukai prisoner.”
Takeda sneered.
Koukai prisoners. One would have thought they were under some sort of privileged prison experience when it was anything but.
“That was another sad story in itself,” Uesugi said. “In less than 3 years they lost a significant number of high-ranking members, their president, and their new president. Seriously, when you think about it, it’s kind of creepy. All the convicted Koukai detainees are to remain alive-but one wonders why.”
“It’s the kind of company that goes around collecting prisoners and making them human-sized guinea pigs, that’s what,” Takeda answered.
“Do you believe that it’s karma?” Uesugi asked.
“Word has it that half the Koukai Medical Group shares belong to the government, that’s why the company gets free reign,” Maeda, who had just arrived, added.
“Try working in night shift, you’ll hear more creepy stories. There are rumors about how the executed company president haunting the prison and how prisoners who were put into the solitary confinement cells go mad within a few days. The last isn’t exactly a rumor, however.”
Takeda would flat out refuse that offer even if it should come with more food supply.
“Probably not,” he answered, recalling various spooky tales about happenings that took place at night.
“We’ll be going, please take care!” Uesugi’s cheery voice sang.
Takeda traveled the night with Uesugi, grateful that the eventful day was finally over.
He glanced up to the night sky and noticed that the moon was nowhere to be seen.
“Uesugi, is it time for a new month yet?”
“No.”
The day before had a golden crescent moon shining from the night sky, like a samurai’s sword.
Takeda chose to ignore the abnormalities.
It didn’t help that he walked past the ad-hoc Koukai Medical Group’s president, pushing a trolley of flammable materials.
“Speak of the devil,” Uesugi said, “Wonder what he’s doing out there.”
Takeda had a feeling he would rather not know.
__
Everything was fuzzy.
There were searing pains on his chest and leg, and he couldn’t move any part of his body.
“Reio,” he mumbled.
His brother, was he well?
“Reio,” he repeated.
Why had he come to him?
“I want to see-“ he panted.
His brother, his sickly little brother. Why?
“Even if we are worn down to the point of being messed up..”
“That bond we had at that time and place will never disappear.”
“Kame.”
He opened his eyes, and saw the silhouette of a long-limbed creature, face disfigured by various means, body clothed in nothing but bandages. He should have been terrified but he was in too much pain to care.
“Who-what are you?”
The creature floated nearer.
Jin wanted to ask it so many questions.
“Do - do you know Kame?”
The creature stared at him blankly.
“Where am I?”
It glided away, and Jin saw nothing else after that.
__
The first thing he felt when he was finally conscious was the strong body of Koki hauling him from the infirmary bed, carrying him away, the alarm bells ringing erratically.
“Quick, the exit over there, Masuda used it just now!”
It was Nakamaru and Ueda who were leading the way, Koki with Jin on his back and Taguchi guarding their backs.
Jin felt like he was on the truck on the way along a very bumpy mountain road, constantly hitting his head against something solid.
“Koki,” Jin moaned.
“We’ll talk later, Akanishi,” Koki answered, hurriedly. “Someone just set the prison on fire, and now everyone’s escaping.”
It made no sense. Wasn’t it just a few hours ago that he’d been lying on a bed?
What about his brother? What about-
“Koki,” Jin whimper weakly, “Put me down.”
“Shut up, we are getting out,” Taguchi said.
“Quick, this way!”
Jin willed himself to push Koki away, and he fell.
“Akanishi!”
“There.. is.. someone.. else.” His chest hurt very badly, and his arm was excruciating to use.
“Come on, Akanishi,” Koki pulled him back on his feet, flinging Jin’s arm over his back.
“I need to rescue…” Jin refused to move, even thought he knew it was a futile act. A little more force and he would have been down again, all the same, despite his resistances.
“Fine, tell me who,” Taguchi asked.
“Ka… me..” Jin murmured.
“Who?”
Jin took a deep breath and said the name with all his strength. “He’s in the cell beside mine, Kamenashi Kazuya.”
Ueda and Nakamaru both exchanged dumbfounded looks.
“Akanishi…”
“Please help him,” Jin pleaded.
“Akanishi, Kamenashi Kazuya was executed two years ago,” Nakamaru said, reluctantly.
“He has been dead for two years.”
Jin slumped to the grounds.
Everything he had come to know, they were all crashing right in front of him like a trainwreck.
He thought about Kame and his youthful voice, laced with constant uncertainty and wariness. He thought about the gaunt outlines of Kame’s face, how he had dreamt of seeing that face for real. He thought all those times Kame spoke to him about his deepest, darkest sins - were they all a mere spiritual projection of a soul who couldn’t depart?
He thought of the moment when he had held Kame’s hand. What was that?
He thought of Higashiyama-where was he?-who was only other person who knew about Kame. Was he told about Kame being executed?
There was a deafening “bang!” and the door behind Taguchi exploded.
“Quick, let’s get out of here. We have no time left.”
Jin let Koki carry him for the rest of the escape journey.
They reached the nearby forest in no time at all.
Ueda opened Jin’s clothes, applying some crushed herbs on the spot on his back where he had been shot, scorching the painful opening of the wound a thousand times more, much to Jin’s mortification. Before he could recover, Ueda applied the same crushed herbs on his legs.
“We need to get him treated.”
Jin looked at the blazing prison, hoping that it would burn all his memories of Kame with it.
“Let’s go,” Jin said.
It all felt like a vivid dream, with only the throbbing wounds to prove that it was real. Everything was real, except Kame.
Jin wondered if Kame, dead or alive, would ever be able to escape the solitude he subjected himself to.
__
25th June 1947
Higashiyama Noriyuki rushed to the president’s office as soon as he heard the news.
The usually elegant office was thrashed, leaving the space haphazard and unkempt. There was a small fire lit up in the ashtray, burning a piece of paper slowly. Some of the smaller cabinets were also overturned, the contents strewn all over the floor. None of the lamps were lit; the room was dark and gloomy, with only the medals hanging on the wall to remind him of the documented glory the room held.
Higashiyama threaded carefully around - there were glass fragments, torn books, burnt papers, and many other things with possibly sharp edges.
Sitting behind the table was Kazuya, the soon-to-be leader of their company and God of the new world.
And the God was now a defeated soul, ripped into pieces of inconsolable entities.
“Kazuya-kun,” Higashiyama said, trying to be as soothing as possible.
The young man was looking solemnly downwards, his head was cradled in his palms, and his elbows were leaning on the desk.
“I’m sorry, Higashiyama-san,” he said chokingly.
“I failed everyone.”
He wanted to tell Kazuya that he been too hard on himself and everything wasn’t what was supposed to be, but he knew Kazuya better than to try and convince him to reconsider his judgments.
“Hiroto-kun,” Higashiyama started, “has been safely taken to his parents. Yuya and his wife will take care of the funeral.”
Higashiyama tried to touch Kazuya.
“Kazuya-kun, you didn’t want it to happen. It was out of your control.”
It was one of the most ironic things to say to him, considering that Kazuya thrived off controlling people. The master of puppets that were the corrupt members of the company.
Control. What a misleading euphemism for balance.
Kazuya had earlier planned the demise of an executive, Kanzaki, who had been behind the secret human experimental operations. Kanzaki had been a troublesome entity to the company, signing murky contracts with the army and offering high prices for the supply of prisoners for human experimentation in exchange for underground trading plus embargo for other corporations. A dangerously flammable link within the chain.
He needed to be eliminated.
It was an intricate, flawless plan.
Only it was a plan that designed his death, not controlling the factors surrounding his death.
A lurking shadow crept up on Higashiyama. It was the death god.
“Kazuya, there was no guarantee that names written in the note would be the only affected parties,” the creature droned. Its voice was deep and hollow, sometimes resembling an echo more than a normal voice.
“You know it.”
Kazuya didn’t raise his head.
“It’s only because someone dear to you was affected that you become this. You’re more pathetic than I thought,” the creature continued.
Higashiyama knew that it meant well. While he had never enjoyed the company or the presence of the creature that claimed to be the death god, he had never seen the creature being anymore than a loyal, conforming existence for Kazuya, supporting and watching him where Higashiyama couldn’t.
“He’s right,” Higashiyama said, “Yuya-kun didn’t blame you.”
He approached the table, gently pulling Kazuya’s hand.
“I can’t do this anymore,” Kazuya finally looked at him.
He looked exhausted and lost; with the most terrified expression Higashiyama had ever seen on his face in the decade that Higashiyama had known him.
“I’m going to turn myself in,” Kazuya said. He absent-mindedly ran past them towards the door and disappeared.
Higashiyama turned to the death god and said, “I’m sorry, I don’t think there’s anything we can say to change his mind. Please look after him for now. I’ll contact you with a plan soon.”
The creature nodded and followed Kazuya.
He took the phone from the table and dialed a number.
“Matchy-san?”
“What are you thinking, calling me at this hour?” the voice on the other end hissed.
“It’s an emergency.”
Higashiyama assumed that Matchy covered the receiver of his phone when he didn’t hear any response for a few minutes.
“Damn, you got me at an inconvenient time,” Matchy said, “I heard what happened. Meet me at the usual place.”
Higashiyama closed the heavy wooden door, then walked to the corner of the room and lifted a cabinet. He dragged the surface of the floor to reveal a secret staircase downwards and slipped into it, covering his tracks.
One hour later, Matchy arrived in the designated meeting place.
“I figured you’d come,” Matchy said.
“Yes, though I suppose your shock at receiving my call was a way to prove what a good double agent you are?’
“You see right through me,” Matchy smirked, “as expected from the great Higashiyama-san.”
“We need a plan.”
“I have the best,” Matchy announced.
“Foolproof,” he also assured.
“Enlighten me.”
“I will convince them to have Kazuya-kun executed-“
Higashiyama protested immediately.
“I thought this was foolproof!”
Matchy raised his hands, gesturing for Higashiyama to calm down.
“Wait, listen. Having Kazuya-kun executed is what we’ll let the public know. But what we will actually do is lock him. I will rope in a few other people to convince the others that what we need from Kazuya is not his death but his secrets. As long as we keep him alive, there’s a way to get his secret godly powers - or at least that is what I’ll be saying.”
“So we get to keep him safe, and they get to sleep well at night knowing that Kazuya-kun won’t be able to do anything for a while.”
“Precisely,” Matchy continued. “It’s a little too dangerous to continue using the Death Note anyway, so I suggest we take a breather and let the enemy have their cheers.”
“How much time are we looking at?”
Matchy took a deep breath. “Two years.”
“Two years?” Higashiyama shouted. “That’s too long!”
“No, it’s just right,” Matchy answered. “We can count on that Wakui bastard to do some cleanups after this year’s massive loss to the company; he will want to appear attractive to the shareholders, after all. Then we convince Kazuya-kun to come back.”
“Let’s just hope he doesn’t get insane after that,” Higashiyama said worryingly.
“Come on, he’s stronger than that. Only there’s one problem.”
“And that is?”
“When I left the party just now, Wakui ordered to seal Kazuya-kun’s room and we cannot risk trying to break in. Not now, at least. And neither you nor me.”
“What does that mean?”
“That means our plan can only be more perfect. When the time comes, I will have some random person break into the sealed room and steal that notebook. One, better to have some random boy arrested than me and two, it will send them into a bizarre panic frenzy.”
“You have convinced me,” Higashiyama smiled.
“Don’t I always?” Matchy concluded.
“Guide me out later, my entrance has been sealed.”
“You know, they say you’ll be next.”
Higashiyama stopped in his tracks. “Really?”
“Better watch your back, just in case.”
__
7th September 1949
“Jin, I don’t think you should do this.”
Yamashita Tomohisa was lying on the riverbank, trying to convince his best friend to drop the offer. A whole lot of money and free medical treatment just to steal a notebook seemed too good to be true.
“Don’t you think there’s something fishy about it?”
Jin took a pebble and tossed it lightly so that it bounced on the water instead of dropping right into it.
“A desperate man does what a desperate man must do, which is to take every desperate chance,” Jin said, smiling.
“Stop smiling like you just found a ray of sunshine, idiot,” Yamashita said.
“It’s not like I have a choice, you see,” Jin said, “Reio’s not getting better, mother’s going to fall sick anytime soon, and father is - you know where he is.”
Jin’s father was a factory worker deployed to the north, and Jin’s family had not been receiving any news for the whole last year.
“He will be alright,” Yamashita said, out of habit rather than belief.
He knew Jin understood his intention.
“Thanks,” Jin answered, “I really hope so.”
Yamashita hadn’t expected it to be their last real conversation before Jin was arrested and put into Mouryou Detention Center without trial.
__
2nd January 1950
While Uesugi was rounding up the remaining prisoners, Takeda went on a patrol inside the more protected areas of the prison, checking if there were anymore prisoners trapped after failing to take advantage of the crossfire to escape. Some injured, some died.
So far, they were at death toll of less than ten, which was a miracle considering how much damage the prison has sustained from the fire.
“Hi there,” Takeda spoke, opening the metal door to the solitary confinement cells.
He repeated this in the rest of the 200 cells, until he reached one that was locked.
He took out the keys and tried to find the right one until someone spoke.
“Hey, sir.”
So there was someone alive.
“Please hold on, I’ll blast this door open.”
“No.” The voice was louder, clearer, and firmer.
Takeda was confused. Which prisoner would refuse to be released from a locked cell?
“Speak your number,” Takeda commanded, more out of formality than functionality. There was no way a prison gate guard could have known each and every inmate in there.
“860223,” the voice answered.
“I’ll be blasting the door open,” Takeda warned. “Get out here so that we can round up the remaining prisoners for a proper report.”
“I was the one who made that fire happen, you know?”
Takeda stopped short.
“What?”
“I have the power to control people. I can make them do things I want them to. I arranged for the bastard who took my place in my father’s company to burn the prison so that some people could escape from this place.”
Takeda thought that whoever this person was, he might have just justified his confinement.
“Some people like who?”
“Like my friend, who was shot by one of the prison guards. Undeservingly.”
Takeda’s heart felt like it had been ripped out.
“Stop spouting crazy shit like that. I’m blasting the door.”
“Do you know who shot him?”
Takeda fired and the door flung open, the light from the corridor illuminating the figure of a boy, probably in his early 20s, leaning against the wall opposite the door.
The boy looked every bit like a deprived human; his cheeks were sunken, his body was frail and thin, and his clothes were a few sizes too big for him. His hands were tied together clumsily and there were multiple scars all over his body, most prominently his fingers, which Takeda inferred were some of the freshest wounds.
Despite all that, his eyes shone with a fiery, commanding glare that sent an electrifying chill into Takeda, causing him to shiver a little.
“Do you know who shot my friend?” he repeated.
Takeda raised his rifle and aimed at that boy. “I did. What are you going to do, burn me?”
The boy stared determinedly at Takeda.
“What is your name?”
“Why?”
“How am I supposed to know that you’re not a spy from the enemy?” The boy looked at him with a knowing smirk, both threatening and sly.
“If you must know,” Takeda showed his badge. “Takeda Masaru.”
To his surprise, the boy bit his wounded finger until it drew blood, and wrote on something on his right.
“Take…da…Masaru.”
“Get up,” Takeda commanded.
The boy rose very slowly, and Takeda could see what he had been writing on.
“Give me that book”
The boy obliged; he crouched to retrieve the book he had written on, then he staggered towards Takeda.
Takeda took the book and read his own name, written in blood. The page before that read:
Wakui Masakazu
Gather the most flammable materials from the laboratory
Burn Mouryou Detention Center
Run into the fire
All of a sudden, Takeda’s heart began pumping wildly, pounding against his chest, and he collapsed to the ground with agonizing pain on his chest. He panted irregularly.
His chest pounded harder and harder, and then he saw it.
There was something sinister floating on top of the boy.
“Oh, I believe you have just seen Melos,” he said, pointing to the creature that hadn’t been there just a few moments before in an unnervingly calm manner. “He’s a death god.”
The boy bent down to pick up his book.
“As for me? My name is Kamenashi Kazuya.”
He walked nearer to the struggling Takeda.
“From this day onwards, I will be justice.”
Those were the last words Takeda Masaru heard before he breathed his last.
__
1 Basically Japanese for rickshaw. Wiki explains it better here.