(no subject)
Title: Signal to Noise - Boy with a Coin (15/?)
Author: twigcollins
Rating: R. Swearing. Ridiculously gratuitous violence.
Warnings: Spoilers through end of game plus secret reports.
Summary: Hey, what’s the worst that can happen?
Author’s Notes: Cross-posted to thewewyfanfic
Archive of StN links available here: http://delicious.com/Flidget/Signal2Noise
“Strawberry ice cream. It’s like the only thing I really miss.” Saika drops her hand, tilts her head to the opposite side, never moving her gaze from Uzuki’s eyes. “How are you doing, Uzu-chan? You look tired.”
Static, where the UG should be, where the feel of that other plane should be, and the only reason Uzuki notices it at all is because it’s completely gone. Saika always had her own gravity, and this is just more of the same, drawing all the light in, a bend in the world. Uzuki nearly shivers, half-expects to see her breath on the exhale, and the train car shouldn’t be this empty, not at this time of day. Maybe they can feel it, even in the RG, even if they can’t see what she can.
“You’re always so pretty when you’re upset, and you take everything so seriously.” Saika clucks her tongue, bites down for a moment on her bottom lip. It’s like Uzuki’s the only person in the world. It’s thrilling, it always is, when someone as beautiful as Saika singles her out for attention, and even if she’s being used Saika still has to be there there to do it. “You should have been a martyr. Like Joan of Arc.”
“I don’t… I…” Uzuki swallows, not that it steadies a damn thing. Her hands fist against her skirt. She can’t even feel the sway of the car, or the clack of the rails.
“Hey, hey. Remember that time that guy tried to feel you up?”
On a train not much different than this, going home one day, a middle-aged man with a briefcase and damp hands, and she’d been too shocked, too embarrassed to do anything but go red and stand where she was, looking for help from the people seated in front of her - but they’d looked away. Cowards. Uzuki smiles, despite herself.
“You broke his hand.” It was the first time they’d met, with her watching over Uzuki’s shoulder as the man went stark white, cradling his arm against his body, lurching and staggering off the train. No chance to see her gaze then, but Uzuki had gotten many opportunities afterward, Saika’s cool, bored triumph. The one who had saved her when no one else cared.
“You thought I was amazing.”
“I thought you were in a gang.” What a surprise, to be introduced to the new student the next day, the wide-eyed innocent lie. Saika with the perfect grades, Saika with the perfect life. A gang. As if she needed one. Uzuki’s heart feels as if it’s curling in on itself, folding up into some new shape. She can’t move. Can barely breathe.
Saika stretches out one long leg, playfully nudging at Uzuki’s boot with her toe. “You don’t have to be scared, idiot. It’s just me, here. Come on. Talk to me. It’s been a while.”
“Why-” It’s very nearly a sob. Uzuki shuts her eyes, trying to collect herself. The train passes under a bridge, or the sun goes behind a cloud, or the world ends, the darkness rushing up pure and absolute behind closed eyes, and she opens them with a gasp. Saika hasn’t moved, still watching.
“You knew. You knew about the Game, you knew that night that we- back when we were-”
“Alive? Of course. I could see it. I always saw it, my whole life. You really think I would have been like that, if I thought this stupid waste of time was the whole world?” Saika laughs, amused and deadly serious, all at once. “I love that you give me so much credit.”
“You didn’t… you didn’t play.”
A slight frown, just a flicker in her eyes, but that is a new kind of frightening. Saika does not like disappointment, does not like to stop smiling. Tends to scorch the earth. The young teacher who took a nasty fall down the back stairs, and broke her leg. Sows the ground with salt. The accident in science class, two boys very nearly blinded.
“Most of the time, I forgot that girl was even alive. Except that she kept messing with your hair.”
“Mayu?” She never should have gone today. Never should have led Saika right to her.
“You were never supposed to play, Uzu-chan. You were supposed to be with me. She wasn’t supposed to be there, and it shouldn’t have mattered anyway.” Saika sighs, and makes a slight gesture with one hand. “Her one moment of mild significance, not that it matters now. I found my way back to you.”
Mayu had pulled her into the Game. The only one of them who hadn’t followed Saika completely, who hadn’t been so ready to die. It would have been nice, wouldn’t it, if their friendship had been Uzuki’s fee? What a wonderful story, that she’d sacrificed some great feeling for such a noble and selfless friend, that Uzuki was actually worthy of such adoration, such salvation. But her fee was a jacket, and here’s Saika. Mayu just bought her a little time. It really doesn’t matter now.
“I don’t understand.”
“I’m keeping a low profile.” Saika says, tucking a few strands of hair behind one ear, and this is the way she’s always watched Uzuki, as if waiting for her to get the joke, waiting while she struggles and fights and tries to catch up. It’s like fighting through ocean waves, pummeling her numb and stupid and Uzuki will drown before she ever gets through the breakers. “It’s more fun this way.”
“You can’t be here. You didn’t play the Game.”
Saika tips her head back, magnanimous and pitying. “The Game doesn’t matter, Uzu-chan. It’s all the same bullshit, no different than graduating or kissing the boss’s ass or letting the guy get his hands in your panties because he treated you to omakase at the sushi bar.”
Always playing by the rules. Two years in the Game and still just a Harrier and always jumping to attention when Konishi walked by and never making the Conductor upset on the rare occasions she’d even seen him. As if she could have bothered him, as if he knew she /existed/. Now Uzuki’s dealing with some punkass little boy who’s just walked in and made himself at home, and it was never her chance, and it will never be her chance - and at least for a moment, the shame replaces the fear, and she doesn’t even give a damn that Saika’s leaning closer. Saika, who never played by anyone’s rules and always won everything anyway, and Uzuki loved watching her, even when she hurt people, even when it made her cringe and shiver and look away, satisfying even when she was scared.
“What do you want, Uzuki? What’s your dream? You want to be the Conductor? You want to overthrow the Composer? What do you think happens then? You get to be free? Finally?” A soft laugh. “They don’t tell you who the Composer answers to, do they? You don’t even know why this sad, little Game exists, but they’ve still got you all here, to play it for them, for the rest of eternity.”
“I don’t… what do you mean?”
“You’d never be allowed to be Composer, Uzuki. No matter how hard you fought, no matter how much you deserved it. You know how it works, it’s all planned out in advance, who gets to sit on that throne. This world is no different than any other.”
“That’s not true.”
Except Uzuki’s voice is shaking and it isn’t really that much of a surprise, and she feels stupid for never asking, never even thinking about it before. The dumbass Conductor kid should have tipped her off, if nothing else, no way he scored the job all on his own…
It’s always the reason she played along - obeyed, there’s no denying it, following Saika’s lead. It’s what brought her into this and kept her, and everyone else, so devoted. Saika doesn’t lie, and she always calls out bullshit, knows every lie every parent and teacher could ever tell, to keep them all in their place. Uzuki thought that once she was older, she’d be able to see it too, be able to live a life that actually belonged to her.
Right.
“So what, the Composer just… he just does what he’s told?”
“At least you get your choice of sushi. And the color of the panties.”
The Game she thought was nothing like the RG, wild and free and ruthless - but it really is just another procession, and even if she’s… what does ‘strong enough’ even mean, if this is all there is? The chance at Composer was a pipe dream, she’d barely even let herself imagine it - but it’s all just another grind. Another chance to follow instructions and all the rules and do as she’s bid. Despair presses against her, the old, familiar feeling - and what, it’s not like she can kill herself /more/.
“I want to show you, Uzuki.” Saika leans forward on the seat, her eyes glittering, pyrite and quartz dust, the fire at the center of the world. “I want you to know what I know. This isn’t what you want - playing in the margins of someone else’s world and calling it a life. I want you to see what it’s like, where there are no rules.”
Before Uzuki can think to answer, Saika has crossed the aisle, her lips on Uzuki’s, the long-fingered hand over hers on the train pole, icy and leaden. She gasps, and feels Saika take control - always - and slip inside, a dark current sliding down her throat, like water, like drowning, pulling her down even as she is filled, the chill surging through her. Uzuki knows this, a brief moment of some distant memory, what it was to feel another’s thoughts replace her own, but before she can remember where or when - a red pin? - she slips beneath the waves, and disappears.
---------------------------
The light is different, brighter in the RG. More substance, it all has more definition and… weight. Saika blinks, wiping away a tear from the corner of her eye, and breathes in and out, slowly. Uzuki wears her hair way too short, pink tips bouncing distractingly against her cheek as the train gently sways, and Saika looks up, inspecting the bare ghost of her new reflection in the window.
Alive again, back in the RG after all this time. She laughs to herself, can’t help it. It’s not, perhaps, the most useful place to be, unless she wishes to go back and kill Mayu. She’s got a gun, after all.
A whimper, very quiet, from Uzuki, deep inside, and Saika gently pets the space over her heart, looks down at Uzuki’s nails, a bit of the polish starting to strip away. No, no reason to go after Mayu, and so dull to have to go back the way she’d come, and boring to have to wait for the train afterward and - oh yes, living. She forgot how just how tedious it was, how quickly it turned into a chore.
The world suddenly swims, buckling at the edges, and Saika puts a hand out for the bar, steadying herself, the heart beneath her hand thudding hard, a melody badly out of sync. It’s a lot to ask of Uzuki’s vibe, a heavy burden that keeps wanting to pull them both down, especially here with it so quiet, only a few people at the other end of the car. So tempting, the gun is so tempting but that will certainly end her game of hide-and-seek, and she reaches for Uzuki’s phone instead, the list of contacts sadly small. Uzuki’s trying to be quiet anyway, trying not to let the echo of a thought ripple out about who these people are or how she knows them. The way she does let a thought slip free, when the doors open, and three Reapers pile on, one of them the one Uzuki met on the trip out, and Saika feels the echo of that tension and calculation, self-loathing and fear - and smiles.
“I told you, you’ll never be afraid again.” she murmurs, as the three boys approach, and she’d guess the one in front is actually the Game Master of this UG for the power shining through him from that other world. All slouch and swagger, smiling malevolently at her as he takes the seat she’d been sitting in. The Reaper Uzuki had spoken to looks very pleased of himself, hanging most of his weight against the overhead bar. He has blond streaks in his hair, haphazard, like he’s let them grow out when he ought to have redyed. Uzuki whimpers again, twisting away - which is a lie, she’s as bloodthirsty as anyone Saika’s ever known. They’re the same, like sisters - Uzuki just needs a bit of encouragement.
“You’ll learn. It’s not like it matters. I mean, look at them. You can’t possibly care what happens to them.” It isn’t loud enough, or addressed to anyone in particular, and the Game Master frowns in confusion, not quite sure if it’s an insult. He’s got a very square head, and his skin seems so likely go pockmarked with age that it might as well be there now. He leans forward a little, as do the Reapers, this is obviously a familiar intimidation scheme.
“So, one of my Harriers tells me he caught you passing through. It’s not very smart, a little girl out here all by herself. What district are you from?”
“You have three stops.”
“Hm?” A second moment of confusion. A smarter man would start to have questions, at this point. “Ah. Your connection home? No, I don’t think this will take that long.”
It had been fun, when Saika had first started, to lead them on. Let them talk, just to see how long it would take for them to run out of script, to get annoyed or frustrated and just come at her. It stopped being interesting a while ago, but she hopes Uzuki’s enjoying the moment - this is for her, after all.
“You threatened my friend.” Saika says, and the Reaper looks confused. The Game Master glances up at him.
“There were two of them?”
“No. No way, just this one.”
A smarter man would consider his options, when his prey started acting oddly, a little foamy-at-the-mouth. He might second-guess the need for the kill.
“We don’t much appreciate other Reapers sneaking around our UG. Whatever the reason.”
Saika blinks, and drops her vibe to the UG, what they were going to force her to do eventually, where they want her to be. It’s dangerous, a Reaper will rarely go willingly into another Game’s UG, without the home advantage. The train slows. The Game Master is clearly unsettled, now attempting to hide it with a scowl.
“Two stops.”
A few people get on, now that all of them are in the UG, with Saika contained for now in Uzuki’s skin.
“Well, that wasn’t very smart, now was it?” The Game Master says, still feigning an irritated nonchalance, but the Reapers flanking him are tense, like dogs on the leash, waiting for him to snap his fingers and tear into her. “Just what do you think that was supposed to accomplish?”
“Nothing, really.” Saika says, and feels a sharp heat, a pain against her cheek, as if she’d been slashed. The Game Master flips something back into his palm, a pin, and the tiny bird he summoned, the one that has just attacked her, vanishes in midair.
Well, this is as good as any time.
“Do you know what happens on the levels beneath the UG?” She asks, but like most of anything she ever says these days, it’s rhetorical. No, of course they don’t, because they don’t know what happens anywhere. Uzuki didn’t, simply traded one known element for another, and never considered that she really knew nothing about either world.
“It’s a rather inhospitable place, beneath the Underground. A lot of people find that they feel very slow, or numb.” Uzuki is crying now, Saika can feel it, that little pulse of life quivering in time with her heartbeat. The building anticipation is even better with a body to feel it. She should have tried this ages ago.
“Dude, let’s just off her and go.” One of the Reapers mutters, a little nervously. Finally the smarter man, though it’s far too late.
“A lot of times, people find that their pins stop working, or stop following orders.” Saika leans back in her chair, and crosses her arms. “So a Game Master who, say, tends to turn his enemies into summon pins, might suddenly find himself in a rather uncomfortable place.”
It’s right about then that three of the Game Master’s fingers hit the floor, a soft patter, gnawed clean through by one of the aforementioned summons, the rather impressive winged rat quickly turning his attention to the rest of the arm.
No blood, never any blood in the UG, though the look on the Reaper’s face almost makes up for it.
Saika lowered his vibe well past where he thought he was, from the moment he’d crossed over. He hasn’t felt a thing, all this time. Not until she raises it again, and he stops staring down at his own mangled hand in dumb confusion, and starts screaming, flailing, more movement beneath his clothes as the rest of the now-freed pins quickly follow suit, even the Noise intelligent enough to exact revenge when they can.
The other two Reapers are frozen where they stand, watching the Game Master claw at himself with his remaining hand, trying to throw the pins away, sliding off the seat and onto his knees in the aisle - and just about then, they remember to attack.
“Kill her! Fucking shit, fuck her up!”
Saika is up from her seat before either of them move, and steps back, gracefully avoiding the knife that comes up for her throat. It would be funny to see if she could get the Reapers to Erase each other in such narrow quarters, but the other Reaper is too busy trying to pull himself out of the grip of the pale hands that have emerged from the floor, the walls, the windows. It’s really only courteous, to give the girls a taste of the action, and his shouting has replaced the screams of the Game Master, who is now no more than a pile of clothes and a scattering of pins across the train floor.
The Reaper continues to slice at her, the silver edge of his knife passing through commuters reading papers or playing games on their phones or just staring off into space, until he’s got Saika pushed against the far end of the train. She sees his triumphant smile, bringing the blade back for the final strike, only to jerk forward, caught by the dark and dripping shadows she’s been leaving in her wake all this time, a web that entangles him further as he lurches back, trying to cut himself free.
“You bitch! You fucking bitch!”
Saika steps forward, close enough to smell his sweat, to watch the pulse swimming in him, the Music that is his and his alone, to hear him breathe in and then she draws her hand into a fist and pulls on the shadows, listens to the scream as his arm snaps backwards, shattering as it drives the knife deep between his shoulder blades. He hangs for a moment, his Music disassembling itself, plinking down in random notes around her, much more satisfying than blood, and he blurs and fades. The woman on Saika’s right shivers suddenly, pulls out a sweater from her bag, and it would be so satisfying to switch to the RG, so, so satisfying to give them all a taste -
The train slows. What’s happened isn’t enough to drive anyone out, but the people standing at the doors hesitate, and more than a few of them, the ones who aren’t completely deaf to the world, choose other cars. No one sits where the Reaper is still standing, caught like a fox in a trap, and he’d likely chew off a leg to escape but he can’t move, struggling feebly against the hands that clutch at him, flickering a little - the girls are always so hungry - and his eyes roll back in terror, straining away from her every centimeter that he can as Saika crosses her way back to him, the darkness melting back into her, disappearing like water burned away by the sun.
“Fuck. Please. I’m sorry. I’m fucking /sorry/. Please.”
He’s a little boy now, confused and terrified, everything yielding. So many of them end like this, even though she never asks. Saika reaches up, brushes her fingertips against his lips, more for Uzuki’s benefit than her own, so that she can know what it is to feel him tremble, to understand how complete the victory always is. Giving her a taste of it, flicking a piece of blond hair away from his face, and even with idiots like this, it’s fairly satisfying.
“Do you see?” She murmurs, knows Uzuki’s watching because she can’t really stop watching, can she? “How is this not better than what you have?”
“Please, don’t. Please. Don’t. Please.” He whimpers, the words a litany now, and it wouldn’t be bad, to keep this one with her. A shame that she can’t, not without losing Uzuki, too much of a strain - and so she reaches out instead, the hands withdrawing, frightened echoes only Saika can hear replaced by the Reaper’s scream as she puts her own hand against his chest, and pushes inside.
Uzuki’s arm is black to the elbow as the darkness spikes through him, spreading over his body, and Saika twists and drops and plunges the poor bastard down, through the levels beneath the Underground, places not meant for such weak and powerless creatures. It’s rather amazing he survives as long as he does, dissolving from both ends - but the dividing line of his UG is just before the changeover, the train still going full speed when they hit, and he’s in a bad place to smack up against that boundary, not at all able to handle the transition, and what’s left of him explodes into a thousand screaming pieces.
Saika sighs, blows pink bangs out of her eyes, and amuses herself with picking up the Game Master’s pins, crushing them to ash one by one between her fingers, as the train slows, and stops, and she walks away.
-------------------------
It takes three large bowls of ice cream - good ones, with chunks of frozen strawberry she has to bite through - before Saika feels at all sated, and this is totally and completely worth not killing everybody. Uzuki’s not going to thank her for the calorie overload, but no doubt she’s burning this off pretty steadily, given the extra strain - she’s quiet now, when Saika looks for her, whimpers and tucks herself further away when she realizes she’s the center of attention. Easy enough to take her now, forever - but that’s not what she wants, not why she’s here. Why is she here? The ice cream. Curiosity.
It’s been a while since she walked the streets of Shibuya, and other than an unimpressive new ramen shop down in Dogenzaka, it’s really kind of pathetic how little she’s missed by being dead. Same old stores, same old statues, same old trends, just like the new ones. Saika has never been much for fashion, nothing like Uzuki, happy to let the store clerks offer suggestions - and oh she was hated for it, for always looking so good. Over half the girls she’s devoured take a certain, special satisfaction when Saika takes down a beautiful opponent, their bitter, vicious jealousy washing over her in a wave, and they’ll tear the poor girl apart if she lets them. Which she does, sometimes.
Uzuki’s not exactly heavy in the wallet, and this is a little bit Saika’s fault, forcing her to take shelter in a crappy hotel when all other avenues were blocked. Still, there’s plenty of things she can do without spending money - like try and find that little Conductor that annoys Uzuki so. No fashion sense at all, the little brat - Uzuki’s main and most damaging opinion - and Saika chuckles to herself.
The boy, the boy who’d skipped across the surface of her world, and left ripples in his wake. It wasn’t supposed to work like that, and she skims through Uzuki’s memories, or what’s left of them, what the Angels have allowed to remain of this so-called ‘Long Game’. Rather sad of them, to pretend the failure never happened if no one can remember it. Everyone always tries to dodge responsibility, or feeling stupid, or ashamed, and that’s usually all Saika ever needs, the crack in the wall. This UG, still shaking off a near-cataclysm, and the Conductor so new in his powers…
It’s difficult to be patient, especially with her appetite piqued by the train ride, but Saika forces herself to walk the streets, window-shopping of a kind - maybe he’ll come, a moment of chance, divine intervention. Maybe she’ll end this all tonight.
A familiar face does appear, but it’s not the Conductor. A few thoughts, mostly hostile, dismissive, rise up as Saika moves closer, follows him down an alley - his name is Minamimoto, formerly a Game Master and eternally a freak, but Saika likes freaks. At least she can depend on them to be entertaining, if only for a few minutes, and there’s shadows on his skin, remnants of power that match up to nothing Uzuki knows. It’s rather clear what he was, what he’s forgotten, and she watches the flickering haze of it - they call it Taboo, because the Angels like to impress themselves by making little rules and little punishments.
“What are you doing here?” Minamimoto nearly falls over from where he’s crouching, standing up quick. It’s getting dark, and they’re mostly hidden from view, but he still looks around, as if afraid of being caught. The can of spray paint in his hand might have something to do with that, although he shifts uncomfortably where he stands when she looks down on the blob against the wall, the paint-stained stencil in his hand.
“The hell do you want? I ain't seen your factor in my set, semiprime. Dunno where he is."
“Math.” Saika giggles, and crouches. “Very cute. So what is it?”
He’s staring at her, trying to tell if she’s making fun of him, but Saika holds his gaze, keeps her own eyes wide and honest. It’s so easy to make people obey, to follow - just pretend to care, just give them a few moments of importance, and the hook is set.
“Mandelbrot set. But the stupid can’s no good.” He says, staring down at it. A total lie, his failed technique the likely culprit, but again, all she has to do is ignore it.
“You should try a Fibonacci sequence.”
“I didn’t…” Saika can see the moment he realizes she’s down on her knees, and she watches him shift, suddenly uncomfortable, and she wonders what the equation is, to describe the space between them now. “I didn’t think you were into numbers.”
“I’m into a lot of things.” Saika says, laughing at herself for such a line. Apologizing to Uzuki for using her lips to say it - but he doesn’t move, and she rises up in one slow motion, and steps closer. It’s the echo of the Taboo Noise on him, like the pull of gravity, and she’s going to have to take this one too, she can’t stop herself, wanting to pull him to pieces even if it means spoiling the surprise.
“Uh…” Minamimoto’s Adam’s apple bobs in a way that lets her know just how much luck he’s had with girls. Sadly, Uzuki doesn’t take advantage of what she’s got - never believed that yes, she’s cute enough to play around with whoever she wants. Saika bores way too easily to do anything less. “I…”
“Don’t move.” He doesn’t. It’s almost embarrassing, how easy…
“Hey, Uzuki.”
Footsteps behind her, moving briskly, and Saika checks herself, pulls back the shadows that had just begun to bleed. A little irritated, until she turns to face the intruder and feels Uzuki leap up from inside, a blinding, fluttering panic, the images coming fast and intense - and Kariya slouches in that familiar way Saika now knows so well.
“If you’re done shaking him down, you still owe me dinner.”
It feels as if Uzuki is beating against the inside of her chest - this Harrier is important - her Partner, she trusts him, when the number of people Uzuki trusts could always be counted on one hand with fingers left over. Saika smiles, one of Uzuki’s smiles, the one that’s meant for him.
“You’re going to have to wait until the next Game. I’m on break.”
He shakes his head, a small smile on his face. Saika’s trying to see it, but he’s really not that attractive and there’s nothing in his lazy appearance - or maybe that’s it. Opposites attract - and she can have her pick of conversations, memories of Uzuki fussing while this Reaper is content to stand by silently, like a deaf-mute, like a - like a solid place to anchor, no matter what might happen. A very detailed memory pushes through, that this Kariya can handle himself in a fight. Uzuki quails instantly, the false bravado crumbling - Saika didn’t come here to do this silently, wants very much to make it a melee.
“Technically it’s still a Game day, whether we play or not.” Kariya yawns widely. “So unless you want to wait ‘til midnight…”
It’s not like she can’t eat, try some of her play-acting with the closest thing Uzuki has to a friend. Kariya leans against the wall, waiting for her to pass - he does slump rather well, maybe there is something to that. She doesn’t turn back, to see if Minimimoto is still staring after her - most likely, but she’ll have him soon enough, let him doodle in the corners until then.
Uzuki knows a back route to their favorite shop - sad, Uzu-chan, when swapping ramen with this boy is something to look forward to - but then all is forgiven, all accounted for and given new value, when she feels the slightest prick of a blade against her back, and Kariya’s voice no longer as it was in memory, now low and very, very angry.
“What are you… and where the hell is Uzuki?”
=============
1. chapter title - Placebo - “Protect Me From What I Want”
Author: twigcollins
Rating: R. Swearing. Ridiculously gratuitous violence.
Warnings: Spoilers through end of game plus secret reports.
Summary: Hey, what’s the worst that can happen?
Author’s Notes: Cross-posted to thewewyfanfic
Archive of StN links available here: http://delicious.com/Flidget/Signal2Noise
“Strawberry ice cream. It’s like the only thing I really miss.” Saika drops her hand, tilts her head to the opposite side, never moving her gaze from Uzuki’s eyes. “How are you doing, Uzu-chan? You look tired.”
Static, where the UG should be, where the feel of that other plane should be, and the only reason Uzuki notices it at all is because it’s completely gone. Saika always had her own gravity, and this is just more of the same, drawing all the light in, a bend in the world. Uzuki nearly shivers, half-expects to see her breath on the exhale, and the train car shouldn’t be this empty, not at this time of day. Maybe they can feel it, even in the RG, even if they can’t see what she can.
“You’re always so pretty when you’re upset, and you take everything so seriously.” Saika clucks her tongue, bites down for a moment on her bottom lip. It’s like Uzuki’s the only person in the world. It’s thrilling, it always is, when someone as beautiful as Saika singles her out for attention, and even if she’s being used Saika still has to be there there to do it. “You should have been a martyr. Like Joan of Arc.”
“I don’t… I…” Uzuki swallows, not that it steadies a damn thing. Her hands fist against her skirt. She can’t even feel the sway of the car, or the clack of the rails.
“Hey, hey. Remember that time that guy tried to feel you up?”
On a train not much different than this, going home one day, a middle-aged man with a briefcase and damp hands, and she’d been too shocked, too embarrassed to do anything but go red and stand where she was, looking for help from the people seated in front of her - but they’d looked away. Cowards. Uzuki smiles, despite herself.
“You broke his hand.” It was the first time they’d met, with her watching over Uzuki’s shoulder as the man went stark white, cradling his arm against his body, lurching and staggering off the train. No chance to see her gaze then, but Uzuki had gotten many opportunities afterward, Saika’s cool, bored triumph. The one who had saved her when no one else cared.
“You thought I was amazing.”
“I thought you were in a gang.” What a surprise, to be introduced to the new student the next day, the wide-eyed innocent lie. Saika with the perfect grades, Saika with the perfect life. A gang. As if she needed one. Uzuki’s heart feels as if it’s curling in on itself, folding up into some new shape. She can’t move. Can barely breathe.
Saika stretches out one long leg, playfully nudging at Uzuki’s boot with her toe. “You don’t have to be scared, idiot. It’s just me, here. Come on. Talk to me. It’s been a while.”
“Why-” It’s very nearly a sob. Uzuki shuts her eyes, trying to collect herself. The train passes under a bridge, or the sun goes behind a cloud, or the world ends, the darkness rushing up pure and absolute behind closed eyes, and she opens them with a gasp. Saika hasn’t moved, still watching.
“You knew. You knew about the Game, you knew that night that we- back when we were-”
“Alive? Of course. I could see it. I always saw it, my whole life. You really think I would have been like that, if I thought this stupid waste of time was the whole world?” Saika laughs, amused and deadly serious, all at once. “I love that you give me so much credit.”
“You didn’t… you didn’t play.”
A slight frown, just a flicker in her eyes, but that is a new kind of frightening. Saika does not like disappointment, does not like to stop smiling. Tends to scorch the earth. The young teacher who took a nasty fall down the back stairs, and broke her leg. Sows the ground with salt. The accident in science class, two boys very nearly blinded.
“Most of the time, I forgot that girl was even alive. Except that she kept messing with your hair.”
“Mayu?” She never should have gone today. Never should have led Saika right to her.
“You were never supposed to play, Uzu-chan. You were supposed to be with me. She wasn’t supposed to be there, and it shouldn’t have mattered anyway.” Saika sighs, and makes a slight gesture with one hand. “Her one moment of mild significance, not that it matters now. I found my way back to you.”
Mayu had pulled her into the Game. The only one of them who hadn’t followed Saika completely, who hadn’t been so ready to die. It would have been nice, wouldn’t it, if their friendship had been Uzuki’s fee? What a wonderful story, that she’d sacrificed some great feeling for such a noble and selfless friend, that Uzuki was actually worthy of such adoration, such salvation. But her fee was a jacket, and here’s Saika. Mayu just bought her a little time. It really doesn’t matter now.
“I don’t understand.”
“I’m keeping a low profile.” Saika says, tucking a few strands of hair behind one ear, and this is the way she’s always watched Uzuki, as if waiting for her to get the joke, waiting while she struggles and fights and tries to catch up. It’s like fighting through ocean waves, pummeling her numb and stupid and Uzuki will drown before she ever gets through the breakers. “It’s more fun this way.”
“You can’t be here. You didn’t play the Game.”
Saika tips her head back, magnanimous and pitying. “The Game doesn’t matter, Uzu-chan. It’s all the same bullshit, no different than graduating or kissing the boss’s ass or letting the guy get his hands in your panties because he treated you to omakase at the sushi bar.”
Always playing by the rules. Two years in the Game and still just a Harrier and always jumping to attention when Konishi walked by and never making the Conductor upset on the rare occasions she’d even seen him. As if she could have bothered him, as if he knew she /existed/. Now Uzuki’s dealing with some punkass little boy who’s just walked in and made himself at home, and it was never her chance, and it will never be her chance - and at least for a moment, the shame replaces the fear, and she doesn’t even give a damn that Saika’s leaning closer. Saika, who never played by anyone’s rules and always won everything anyway, and Uzuki loved watching her, even when she hurt people, even when it made her cringe and shiver and look away, satisfying even when she was scared.
“What do you want, Uzuki? What’s your dream? You want to be the Conductor? You want to overthrow the Composer? What do you think happens then? You get to be free? Finally?” A soft laugh. “They don’t tell you who the Composer answers to, do they? You don’t even know why this sad, little Game exists, but they’ve still got you all here, to play it for them, for the rest of eternity.”
“I don’t… what do you mean?”
“You’d never be allowed to be Composer, Uzuki. No matter how hard you fought, no matter how much you deserved it. You know how it works, it’s all planned out in advance, who gets to sit on that throne. This world is no different than any other.”
“That’s not true.”
Except Uzuki’s voice is shaking and it isn’t really that much of a surprise, and she feels stupid for never asking, never even thinking about it before. The dumbass Conductor kid should have tipped her off, if nothing else, no way he scored the job all on his own…
It’s always the reason she played along - obeyed, there’s no denying it, following Saika’s lead. It’s what brought her into this and kept her, and everyone else, so devoted. Saika doesn’t lie, and she always calls out bullshit, knows every lie every parent and teacher could ever tell, to keep them all in their place. Uzuki thought that once she was older, she’d be able to see it too, be able to live a life that actually belonged to her.
Right.
“So what, the Composer just… he just does what he’s told?”
“At least you get your choice of sushi. And the color of the panties.”
The Game she thought was nothing like the RG, wild and free and ruthless - but it really is just another procession, and even if she’s… what does ‘strong enough’ even mean, if this is all there is? The chance at Composer was a pipe dream, she’d barely even let herself imagine it - but it’s all just another grind. Another chance to follow instructions and all the rules and do as she’s bid. Despair presses against her, the old, familiar feeling - and what, it’s not like she can kill herself /more/.
“I want to show you, Uzuki.” Saika leans forward on the seat, her eyes glittering, pyrite and quartz dust, the fire at the center of the world. “I want you to know what I know. This isn’t what you want - playing in the margins of someone else’s world and calling it a life. I want you to see what it’s like, where there are no rules.”
Before Uzuki can think to answer, Saika has crossed the aisle, her lips on Uzuki’s, the long-fingered hand over hers on the train pole, icy and leaden. She gasps, and feels Saika take control - always - and slip inside, a dark current sliding down her throat, like water, like drowning, pulling her down even as she is filled, the chill surging through her. Uzuki knows this, a brief moment of some distant memory, what it was to feel another’s thoughts replace her own, but before she can remember where or when - a red pin? - she slips beneath the waves, and disappears.
---------------------------
The light is different, brighter in the RG. More substance, it all has more definition and… weight. Saika blinks, wiping away a tear from the corner of her eye, and breathes in and out, slowly. Uzuki wears her hair way too short, pink tips bouncing distractingly against her cheek as the train gently sways, and Saika looks up, inspecting the bare ghost of her new reflection in the window.
Alive again, back in the RG after all this time. She laughs to herself, can’t help it. It’s not, perhaps, the most useful place to be, unless she wishes to go back and kill Mayu. She’s got a gun, after all.
A whimper, very quiet, from Uzuki, deep inside, and Saika gently pets the space over her heart, looks down at Uzuki’s nails, a bit of the polish starting to strip away. No, no reason to go after Mayu, and so dull to have to go back the way she’d come, and boring to have to wait for the train afterward and - oh yes, living. She forgot how just how tedious it was, how quickly it turned into a chore.
The world suddenly swims, buckling at the edges, and Saika puts a hand out for the bar, steadying herself, the heart beneath her hand thudding hard, a melody badly out of sync. It’s a lot to ask of Uzuki’s vibe, a heavy burden that keeps wanting to pull them both down, especially here with it so quiet, only a few people at the other end of the car. So tempting, the gun is so tempting but that will certainly end her game of hide-and-seek, and she reaches for Uzuki’s phone instead, the list of contacts sadly small. Uzuki’s trying to be quiet anyway, trying not to let the echo of a thought ripple out about who these people are or how she knows them. The way she does let a thought slip free, when the doors open, and three Reapers pile on, one of them the one Uzuki met on the trip out, and Saika feels the echo of that tension and calculation, self-loathing and fear - and smiles.
“I told you, you’ll never be afraid again.” she murmurs, as the three boys approach, and she’d guess the one in front is actually the Game Master of this UG for the power shining through him from that other world. All slouch and swagger, smiling malevolently at her as he takes the seat she’d been sitting in. The Reaper Uzuki had spoken to looks very pleased of himself, hanging most of his weight against the overhead bar. He has blond streaks in his hair, haphazard, like he’s let them grow out when he ought to have redyed. Uzuki whimpers again, twisting away - which is a lie, she’s as bloodthirsty as anyone Saika’s ever known. They’re the same, like sisters - Uzuki just needs a bit of encouragement.
“You’ll learn. It’s not like it matters. I mean, look at them. You can’t possibly care what happens to them.” It isn’t loud enough, or addressed to anyone in particular, and the Game Master frowns in confusion, not quite sure if it’s an insult. He’s got a very square head, and his skin seems so likely go pockmarked with age that it might as well be there now. He leans forward a little, as do the Reapers, this is obviously a familiar intimidation scheme.
“So, one of my Harriers tells me he caught you passing through. It’s not very smart, a little girl out here all by herself. What district are you from?”
“You have three stops.”
“Hm?” A second moment of confusion. A smarter man would start to have questions, at this point. “Ah. Your connection home? No, I don’t think this will take that long.”
It had been fun, when Saika had first started, to lead them on. Let them talk, just to see how long it would take for them to run out of script, to get annoyed or frustrated and just come at her. It stopped being interesting a while ago, but she hopes Uzuki’s enjoying the moment - this is for her, after all.
“You threatened my friend.” Saika says, and the Reaper looks confused. The Game Master glances up at him.
“There were two of them?”
“No. No way, just this one.”
A smarter man would consider his options, when his prey started acting oddly, a little foamy-at-the-mouth. He might second-guess the need for the kill.
“We don’t much appreciate other Reapers sneaking around our UG. Whatever the reason.”
Saika blinks, and drops her vibe to the UG, what they were going to force her to do eventually, where they want her to be. It’s dangerous, a Reaper will rarely go willingly into another Game’s UG, without the home advantage. The train slows. The Game Master is clearly unsettled, now attempting to hide it with a scowl.
“Two stops.”
A few people get on, now that all of them are in the UG, with Saika contained for now in Uzuki’s skin.
“Well, that wasn’t very smart, now was it?” The Game Master says, still feigning an irritated nonchalance, but the Reapers flanking him are tense, like dogs on the leash, waiting for him to snap his fingers and tear into her. “Just what do you think that was supposed to accomplish?”
“Nothing, really.” Saika says, and feels a sharp heat, a pain against her cheek, as if she’d been slashed. The Game Master flips something back into his palm, a pin, and the tiny bird he summoned, the one that has just attacked her, vanishes in midair.
Well, this is as good as any time.
“Do you know what happens on the levels beneath the UG?” She asks, but like most of anything she ever says these days, it’s rhetorical. No, of course they don’t, because they don’t know what happens anywhere. Uzuki didn’t, simply traded one known element for another, and never considered that she really knew nothing about either world.
“It’s a rather inhospitable place, beneath the Underground. A lot of people find that they feel very slow, or numb.” Uzuki is crying now, Saika can feel it, that little pulse of life quivering in time with her heartbeat. The building anticipation is even better with a body to feel it. She should have tried this ages ago.
“Dude, let’s just off her and go.” One of the Reapers mutters, a little nervously. Finally the smarter man, though it’s far too late.
“A lot of times, people find that their pins stop working, or stop following orders.” Saika leans back in her chair, and crosses her arms. “So a Game Master who, say, tends to turn his enemies into summon pins, might suddenly find himself in a rather uncomfortable place.”
It’s right about then that three of the Game Master’s fingers hit the floor, a soft patter, gnawed clean through by one of the aforementioned summons, the rather impressive winged rat quickly turning his attention to the rest of the arm.
No blood, never any blood in the UG, though the look on the Reaper’s face almost makes up for it.
Saika lowered his vibe well past where he thought he was, from the moment he’d crossed over. He hasn’t felt a thing, all this time. Not until she raises it again, and he stops staring down at his own mangled hand in dumb confusion, and starts screaming, flailing, more movement beneath his clothes as the rest of the now-freed pins quickly follow suit, even the Noise intelligent enough to exact revenge when they can.
The other two Reapers are frozen where they stand, watching the Game Master claw at himself with his remaining hand, trying to throw the pins away, sliding off the seat and onto his knees in the aisle - and just about then, they remember to attack.
“Kill her! Fucking shit, fuck her up!”
Saika is up from her seat before either of them move, and steps back, gracefully avoiding the knife that comes up for her throat. It would be funny to see if she could get the Reapers to Erase each other in such narrow quarters, but the other Reaper is too busy trying to pull himself out of the grip of the pale hands that have emerged from the floor, the walls, the windows. It’s really only courteous, to give the girls a taste of the action, and his shouting has replaced the screams of the Game Master, who is now no more than a pile of clothes and a scattering of pins across the train floor.
The Reaper continues to slice at her, the silver edge of his knife passing through commuters reading papers or playing games on their phones or just staring off into space, until he’s got Saika pushed against the far end of the train. She sees his triumphant smile, bringing the blade back for the final strike, only to jerk forward, caught by the dark and dripping shadows she’s been leaving in her wake all this time, a web that entangles him further as he lurches back, trying to cut himself free.
“You bitch! You fucking bitch!”
Saika steps forward, close enough to smell his sweat, to watch the pulse swimming in him, the Music that is his and his alone, to hear him breathe in and then she draws her hand into a fist and pulls on the shadows, listens to the scream as his arm snaps backwards, shattering as it drives the knife deep between his shoulder blades. He hangs for a moment, his Music disassembling itself, plinking down in random notes around her, much more satisfying than blood, and he blurs and fades. The woman on Saika’s right shivers suddenly, pulls out a sweater from her bag, and it would be so satisfying to switch to the RG, so, so satisfying to give them all a taste -
The train slows. What’s happened isn’t enough to drive anyone out, but the people standing at the doors hesitate, and more than a few of them, the ones who aren’t completely deaf to the world, choose other cars. No one sits where the Reaper is still standing, caught like a fox in a trap, and he’d likely chew off a leg to escape but he can’t move, struggling feebly against the hands that clutch at him, flickering a little - the girls are always so hungry - and his eyes roll back in terror, straining away from her every centimeter that he can as Saika crosses her way back to him, the darkness melting back into her, disappearing like water burned away by the sun.
“Fuck. Please. I’m sorry. I’m fucking /sorry/. Please.”
He’s a little boy now, confused and terrified, everything yielding. So many of them end like this, even though she never asks. Saika reaches up, brushes her fingertips against his lips, more for Uzuki’s benefit than her own, so that she can know what it is to feel him tremble, to understand how complete the victory always is. Giving her a taste of it, flicking a piece of blond hair away from his face, and even with idiots like this, it’s fairly satisfying.
“Do you see?” She murmurs, knows Uzuki’s watching because she can’t really stop watching, can she? “How is this not better than what you have?”
“Please, don’t. Please. Don’t. Please.” He whimpers, the words a litany now, and it wouldn’t be bad, to keep this one with her. A shame that she can’t, not without losing Uzuki, too much of a strain - and so she reaches out instead, the hands withdrawing, frightened echoes only Saika can hear replaced by the Reaper’s scream as she puts her own hand against his chest, and pushes inside.
Uzuki’s arm is black to the elbow as the darkness spikes through him, spreading over his body, and Saika twists and drops and plunges the poor bastard down, through the levels beneath the Underground, places not meant for such weak and powerless creatures. It’s rather amazing he survives as long as he does, dissolving from both ends - but the dividing line of his UG is just before the changeover, the train still going full speed when they hit, and he’s in a bad place to smack up against that boundary, not at all able to handle the transition, and what’s left of him explodes into a thousand screaming pieces.
Saika sighs, blows pink bangs out of her eyes, and amuses herself with picking up the Game Master’s pins, crushing them to ash one by one between her fingers, as the train slows, and stops, and she walks away.
-------------------------
It takes three large bowls of ice cream - good ones, with chunks of frozen strawberry she has to bite through - before Saika feels at all sated, and this is totally and completely worth not killing everybody. Uzuki’s not going to thank her for the calorie overload, but no doubt she’s burning this off pretty steadily, given the extra strain - she’s quiet now, when Saika looks for her, whimpers and tucks herself further away when she realizes she’s the center of attention. Easy enough to take her now, forever - but that’s not what she wants, not why she’s here. Why is she here? The ice cream. Curiosity.
It’s been a while since she walked the streets of Shibuya, and other than an unimpressive new ramen shop down in Dogenzaka, it’s really kind of pathetic how little she’s missed by being dead. Same old stores, same old statues, same old trends, just like the new ones. Saika has never been much for fashion, nothing like Uzuki, happy to let the store clerks offer suggestions - and oh she was hated for it, for always looking so good. Over half the girls she’s devoured take a certain, special satisfaction when Saika takes down a beautiful opponent, their bitter, vicious jealousy washing over her in a wave, and they’ll tear the poor girl apart if she lets them. Which she does, sometimes.
Uzuki’s not exactly heavy in the wallet, and this is a little bit Saika’s fault, forcing her to take shelter in a crappy hotel when all other avenues were blocked. Still, there’s plenty of things she can do without spending money - like try and find that little Conductor that annoys Uzuki so. No fashion sense at all, the little brat - Uzuki’s main and most damaging opinion - and Saika chuckles to herself.
The boy, the boy who’d skipped across the surface of her world, and left ripples in his wake. It wasn’t supposed to work like that, and she skims through Uzuki’s memories, or what’s left of them, what the Angels have allowed to remain of this so-called ‘Long Game’. Rather sad of them, to pretend the failure never happened if no one can remember it. Everyone always tries to dodge responsibility, or feeling stupid, or ashamed, and that’s usually all Saika ever needs, the crack in the wall. This UG, still shaking off a near-cataclysm, and the Conductor so new in his powers…
It’s difficult to be patient, especially with her appetite piqued by the train ride, but Saika forces herself to walk the streets, window-shopping of a kind - maybe he’ll come, a moment of chance, divine intervention. Maybe she’ll end this all tonight.
A familiar face does appear, but it’s not the Conductor. A few thoughts, mostly hostile, dismissive, rise up as Saika moves closer, follows him down an alley - his name is Minamimoto, formerly a Game Master and eternally a freak, but Saika likes freaks. At least she can depend on them to be entertaining, if only for a few minutes, and there’s shadows on his skin, remnants of power that match up to nothing Uzuki knows. It’s rather clear what he was, what he’s forgotten, and she watches the flickering haze of it - they call it Taboo, because the Angels like to impress themselves by making little rules and little punishments.
“What are you doing here?” Minamimoto nearly falls over from where he’s crouching, standing up quick. It’s getting dark, and they’re mostly hidden from view, but he still looks around, as if afraid of being caught. The can of spray paint in his hand might have something to do with that, although he shifts uncomfortably where he stands when she looks down on the blob against the wall, the paint-stained stencil in his hand.
“The hell do you want? I ain't seen your factor in my set, semiprime. Dunno where he is."
“Math.” Saika giggles, and crouches. “Very cute. So what is it?”
He’s staring at her, trying to tell if she’s making fun of him, but Saika holds his gaze, keeps her own eyes wide and honest. It’s so easy to make people obey, to follow - just pretend to care, just give them a few moments of importance, and the hook is set.
“Mandelbrot set. But the stupid can’s no good.” He says, staring down at it. A total lie, his failed technique the likely culprit, but again, all she has to do is ignore it.
“You should try a Fibonacci sequence.”
“I didn’t…” Saika can see the moment he realizes she’s down on her knees, and she watches him shift, suddenly uncomfortable, and she wonders what the equation is, to describe the space between them now. “I didn’t think you were into numbers.”
“I’m into a lot of things.” Saika says, laughing at herself for such a line. Apologizing to Uzuki for using her lips to say it - but he doesn’t move, and she rises up in one slow motion, and steps closer. It’s the echo of the Taboo Noise on him, like the pull of gravity, and she’s going to have to take this one too, she can’t stop herself, wanting to pull him to pieces even if it means spoiling the surprise.
“Uh…” Minamimoto’s Adam’s apple bobs in a way that lets her know just how much luck he’s had with girls. Sadly, Uzuki doesn’t take advantage of what she’s got - never believed that yes, she’s cute enough to play around with whoever she wants. Saika bores way too easily to do anything less. “I…”
“Don’t move.” He doesn’t. It’s almost embarrassing, how easy…
“Hey, Uzuki.”
Footsteps behind her, moving briskly, and Saika checks herself, pulls back the shadows that had just begun to bleed. A little irritated, until she turns to face the intruder and feels Uzuki leap up from inside, a blinding, fluttering panic, the images coming fast and intense - and Kariya slouches in that familiar way Saika now knows so well.
“If you’re done shaking him down, you still owe me dinner.”
It feels as if Uzuki is beating against the inside of her chest - this Harrier is important - her Partner, she trusts him, when the number of people Uzuki trusts could always be counted on one hand with fingers left over. Saika smiles, one of Uzuki’s smiles, the one that’s meant for him.
“You’re going to have to wait until the next Game. I’m on break.”
He shakes his head, a small smile on his face. Saika’s trying to see it, but he’s really not that attractive and there’s nothing in his lazy appearance - or maybe that’s it. Opposites attract - and she can have her pick of conversations, memories of Uzuki fussing while this Reaper is content to stand by silently, like a deaf-mute, like a - like a solid place to anchor, no matter what might happen. A very detailed memory pushes through, that this Kariya can handle himself in a fight. Uzuki quails instantly, the false bravado crumbling - Saika didn’t come here to do this silently, wants very much to make it a melee.
“Technically it’s still a Game day, whether we play or not.” Kariya yawns widely. “So unless you want to wait ‘til midnight…”
It’s not like she can’t eat, try some of her play-acting with the closest thing Uzuki has to a friend. Kariya leans against the wall, waiting for her to pass - he does slump rather well, maybe there is something to that. She doesn’t turn back, to see if Minimimoto is still staring after her - most likely, but she’ll have him soon enough, let him doodle in the corners until then.
Uzuki knows a back route to their favorite shop - sad, Uzu-chan, when swapping ramen with this boy is something to look forward to - but then all is forgiven, all accounted for and given new value, when she feels the slightest prick of a blade against her back, and Kariya’s voice no longer as it was in memory, now low and very, very angry.
“What are you… and where the hell is Uzuki?”
=============
1. chapter title - Placebo - “Protect Me From What I Want”