Definition, "Super-Villain:"
A killer who love children
One who is well skilled in destruction as well as building
- MF DOOM (feat. Pebbles the Invisible Girl), Doomsday
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6 / 20 / 2016
When I wake up it's Monday morning and Niijima's nowhere to be seen.
They let me home come afternoon, at about three PM, under Maruki's care.
The only things he'd said up to this point were one-word responses, which got me thinking he was saving the scolding and concerned talk for when I'd get home. The first question he asks is one I half-expected, coming from him, "How're you feeling?"
He doesn't even look at me as he asks it, though; just pulls open the door and hastily gets his shoes off himself.
"I don't feel good, but I suppose I'm alright. All things considered."
"All things considered. And your illness?" he asks me, shedding his coat and throwing it upon the couch. "How's that going for you?"
I place a hand to my neck. "I'm...mostly alright now. At least I don't have a headache anymore."
"Well, isn't that lovely," he turns now, with dejected eyes and folded arms. "Sit down. We're having an impromptu session."
"N-now?"
"If not now, then tomorrow," he moves past me then, "I'll get dinner ready."
I think to argue back but hell, I suppose I don't deserve anything less than this, considering all the shit I've put him through. "Okay?"
After dinner I awkwardly bring myself to the couch as Maruki sits himself upon a stool. Though his eyes are hollow and nigh-lifeless the way he flicks his pen upward keeps me on my toes. He has no right to be as focused as he is, looking as dead as he does.
"Niijima filled me in on the situation," he begins, not even letting me mull over what to say next. "What you did to Kaneshiro. The things you posted in Shibuya."
"I won't apologize for it."
"I don't expect you to."
"I saw his memories. I understood what made him tick. I did what I felt had to be done."
"I understand."
"Do you?"
"Without condoning or condemning. I understand. But I can't imagine what you must have seen."
"He and his siblings were forced into child porn by their parents. His sister became a porn actress and died from an overdose. I used her picture and dredged up his past right there for everyone to see. That's the long and short."
He exhales sadly, "It's no wonder then, why he was what he was."
"His siblings deserved better, he deserved worse."
"I don't know if you can do anything worse than what you'd done."
"Give me a day to think about it and I'll figure something out."
"Kazuya."
"Sorry. Bad joke."
"That was a joke? You nearly got yourself killed. You nearly ended up killing someone else. Again."
"I believed anything less wouldn't have done shit to him. He needed to be at his most psychologically vulnerable. He needed to feel as unsafe as possible."
"It was a terrible situation and there was no clear-cut way out of it but you could have made things easier on yourself by asking literally any of us to help you."
"I'm sorry, Maruki."
He pauses then. Runs a hand through his hair, lowers his head, "You...you just...how could you even...?"
"Maruki."
"I wrote your name in the app," he grits his teeth, glaring at me now. "You didn't have a Palace entry, but you do have a Kingdom. That's what you showed me then, wasn't it? You, you threw me into that, that, that-"
I just nod.
"Oh, God. What even...? What could compel you to even think that...?"
"For as long as I could remember."
"What? As long as you could remember, what do you even...?" He makes a face like he's seen a child's corpse at his feet, "And I can't - I can't just steal whatever Treasure lies inside you out, correct? I can't just go back into your Kingdom and find the source of whatever made you think of everything this way, or else you'll just, you'll just die, is that it? It's so deeply ingrained in you that if I try to take it away I'll end up killing you?"
I shrug, "Probably."
He raises his head, closes his eyes, faces the ceiling, then back to me, "Was this because of your experiences with Kohaku...?"
"Probably," I lie.
"Probably? You don't even - Kazuya, do you understand what you've-? What you've, what you've got brewing inside your own head!?"
"Of course I do. That's why it's a Kingdom and not a Palace."
"Don't act as if you can pass this all off as some-!"
"I'm not passing it off as anything. I've literally bared my heart out to you as honestly as I possibly could. I didn't see any other way to convince you to back off."
"And is there any way I can convince you that your vision of the world isn't what you say it is? That it's just this horribly distorted and miserable picture isn't how things are, and that continuing to believe it will end up killing you?"
"No. The only way I can change is if I choose to. At least that's what the cat says."
"And you don't want to, is that it?"
"It isn't a matter of what I want. It's a matter of what I am."
"Oh, really? Really, you're gonna pull that shit on me!? And what are you, Kazuya? What is it that you think you are?"
"The kind of man that would use a rape victim's trauma against him to get an advantage, I guess."
"Well, that's just perfect, isn't it."
"I don't know if I really can change, Maruki. Whatever it is you think I am, and whatever it is you've seen me do, I'm capable of a lot worse. Hell, a part of me thought to just shove photos of his sister doing bondage and torture scenes all over Shibuya. But I didn't want them taken down too soon."
"And you never felt, even for a second, that you'd done something monstrous?"
"In the moment, I thought I wasn't even monstrous enough. There were so much more of his memories I could've used against him. About the time his father had made him eat shit right on camera, or how every time he wouldn't thrust when he'd rape his sister they'd burn cigarettes into his arms-"
"Alright, stop!"
"In the end all it took was a picture and a few mean words to cause his Treasure to manifest. I expected more out of him."
"That's all it was to you. A picture and a few mean words. What if somebody had done that to you? Brought out all the trauma of your past to the forefront, humiliated you with everything you hold dear, would you be fine with that?"
"I won't pretend I don't deserve that. Kaneshiro was a slave to his desires. And so am I."
"And you'll be this way forever, you think?"
"I really, truly doubt I can be otherwise."
"Kazuya."
I nod, my expression still as I tell him, "I told Niijima about Kana."
"What? How much did you tell her?"
"I told her I loved a girl and killed her in an attempt to rescue her from her depression. I didn't want to talk about her mother or Masako. I can't...," I press my palm into my eye, hunching over as I draw a harsh breath, "I can't find it in me to even think about them for very long."
Maruki's features twist, pausing for a moment before collecting himself again, "Nobody could possibly blame you. That said...may I ask a question?"
"Okay."
"Did it help?"
"It did. But, fuck. I feel like the high's died down. Now I'm just embarrassed. It's awkward to think I just unloaded everything so suddenly."
"Why did you decide to tell her? What about her led you to want to tell her even this much?"
I shrug, "No idea, really."
"Would you take it back, if you could?"
"...I honestly don't know. Part of me can't believe I did it at all. Entrusting her with that kind of shit. Makes no sense."
He puts a hand to his chin, exhaling before coming up with, "It may not make sense from a rational perspective. From an emotional perspective, though, you must have had a harrowing time of it back in his Palace. What were the events that led up to you telling her?"
I run a hand through my hair slowly, lightly, "I apologized to her for being an asshole. She apologized back for getting me into this mess in the first place. I told her I understood that she did what she felt she had to...and I just came out with it. Basically puked it all out on her lap. God, I need to apologize again for being a weepy shit."
"I don't think you do."
"Niijima had better things to do than listen to some whiny fucking moron complain about his mistakes."
"Right, that's my job," Maruki deadpans. "In all seriousness...there's no foolishness in expressing yourself. Especially when it comes to unloading something horrible you've bottled up inside yourself for a long time. It's healthy to let the floodgates open every now and again."
I rub the back of my neck, murmuring, "I think a part of me understands now, how Kana must have felt."
"How so?"
"It's terrifying to put your faith in someone that way. Relaying your experiences of shame and guilt and horror. It's agonizing to speak about them. Even moreso to think about how they might react to you. Whether you'll be judged or pitied."
"Do you think I look at you with pity?"
"I hope not, but I wouldn't be surprised if you do."
"I don't, Kazuya. I don't think she does, either. She doesn't strike me in that manner."
I chuckle, running fingers along my cheek, "She struck me pretty harshly."
His voice goes low now, so low I'm caught off-guard, "She told me about that, too. How she slapped you because you told her she should have left you there to die."
"Perhaps she would have been right to just leave me there. You both would've been.I rushed into it, because I hated that piece of shit so much I believed the only way to put an end to him was to play his game. In the end I nearly made the same mistakes I'd made all those months ago. I don't regret what I did. But I do regret what might have happened due to my recklessness."
"Whenever she could during the week, she'd come to your room, waiting for you to wake up. She'd pull out her notes and study at your bedside, always leaving around fifteen minutes before the end of visiting hours. Last Wednesday and Friday she'd had prior engagements, so she messaged me and asked me to let her know in case you woke up. Whatever you may feel about your actions, she doesn't hold it against you. In fact... I'd say she admires you, to some extent."
I narrow my eyes at him, "Most of our conversations end with one of us at the other's throat."
"She went in the Palace that day you'd barged in, to save your life. The only reason I caught wind of what you were doing was because she called me, texted me frantically. Told me that you'd done something horrible and were going to get yourself killed unless we went in there to save you. And because I was too hung over to answer back on time, she decided to save you herself. You may argue often and you'd rarely see eye to eye, but she values you."
"I don't know about that. Maybe she's just too good a person. Used to think that sort of mindset would've gotten her killed. She has no reason to value me, after all the shit I pulled."
"If the situation were reversed you would have done exactly the same thing. If anything, you already have - in the hospital she even told me about how you barged into Kaneshiro's bar to save her from him. If you could go back in time would you just leave her there? If she'd done what you did and rushed into Kaneshiro's Palace, alone, would you have left her there?"
"...no."
"Then don't say that she has no reason to value you."
I can find nothing with which to argue that point. "I can never repay you enough for everything you've done for me."
"Kazuya. I have no idea what else you could have done to stop a man like Kaneshiro. And I can't imagine how hard you must have pushed yourself to do what you did. But I never want to see anything like that again."
"Okay."
"And you're grounded."
"What?"
"For the next two weeks you're to immediately come home from school. You'll stay home on weekends. We'll learn how to cook, I'll help you manage your studies, and you'll talk to me about the contents of your Kingdom. From this point onward, you'll never go back into Palaces again."
I look at Maruki with a still expression. His eyes don't belong to a kind man, I'd only ever seen them before on my father.
I've never told a bigger, fatter, more blatant lie than "Okay."
.
.
.
6 / 21 / 2016
Maruki's hesitant to let me go, but he does. Had to go back to school sometime, and I no longer feel that sick at all.
Come morning, on the trains, I hear people in the crowds talking regarding a series of signs posted all over Shibuya. Some say they were placed by a man, dressed in all black, taller than most men could ever hope to be. Others say a girl, with long and flowing black hair. A gang, hell-bent on vengeance against Sakahagi for some grievance that the news had decided wasn't worth their time. None of them even suggest that some skinny dumbass in a hoodie might've been responsible.
As lectures go on and on I pull up a book and open my phone while covered up from my teacher and find my fucking stupid pornstar card has made headline news. News about Kaneshiro's takeover of the yakuza resurfaces; information about Kaneshiro spreads like wildfire and everyone's wondering who the fuck the Phantom Thieves of Hearts are. Imageboards, social networks ranting about how despite all this information about this guy the cops haven't done shit for some reason that everyone already knows, and I can't search through anymore because a fat man in glasses throws a stick of chalk at my head and tells me not to distract myself during class hours-
"I'm so sorry," Takamaki tells me suddenly, in the classroom, once lunch begins and there's barely anyone else in the room. The first thing she's said to me all day.
"For what?" I ask her.
She isn't even facing me, just hanging her head low as she stares at her bento, on her desk. "I visited you in the hospital and Niijima told me what happened. What you did. How she called me and messaged me to help get you out of there, and I didn't even arrive. I'm sorry I couldn't get there in time, I, after what'd happened to Yoshizawa, I just, I wanted to just lie in bed all day. I wanted to shut out the rest of the world. I didn't even, I didn't even want to look at my phone, and I...you almost..."
"It's fine, Takamaki."
She exhales, finally turning around in her chair, "I'm just glad you're okay. Last I saw you you were in a hospital bed, sleeping like a rock."
"Shouldn't you be telling me how fucked up it was, what I did?"
"I lost any sympathy for the guy the day Niijima told us about him."
"Same here."
"Are you're sure you're good to come back for the day?"
"I'm not sick. Just...recovering, I guess. I'll be fine."
"That's very good to know."
"I don't hold it against you. I wouldn't have held it against any of you at all."
"She told me you nearly died. You didn't call any of us to help you, why?"
"You wanted out. I figured it wouldn't have mattered either way."
"I wouldn't have let you go out there on your own if I'd known, Hikawa. I wouldn't have let you risk yourself like that."
"I felt it was the only way. I apologize for not telling you."
"You didn't trust that we would have helped you?"
"That wasn't the problem."
"Then what was the problem?"
The problem was you would have helped me, and died just as badly as I would have. Or at least, that's what I thought. "I'm going to speak to Niijima after classes."
"Wait, what? Niijima? Why?"
"Because she's going to try doing something, all by herself, and likely get herself killed at the very least."
"How do you know?"
"It's what I would do."
"What exactly do you think she's going to do...?"
"When we took down Kaneshiro. She decided she was going to go after the man who kept him safe and sound from the eyes of the law. Kaneshiro received backing from the Special Investigations Unit of the Tokyo PD. Knowing her she's going to try and at the very least get to the bottom of whatever fucked up shit he's got brewing behind closed doors."
"She wouldn't do that," Takamaki says, stammering. "It's been a week, she, she hasn't even told me anything-"
"The cat told me you chewed her out."
"He did?"
"After what you said to her why would she tell you anything? Neither would I. If I felt as shitty about myself as she does." Which I do, often. "Doesn't help that I was my own brand of asshole to her, so she's probably looking to not be a burden on anyone anymore. I honestly don't have it in me to blame her any longer than I need to. I'd much rather stop her from doing something she'd regret than let her be."
"You're sure she's gonna do what you say she will?"
"Wouldn't be surprised if she's already gotten a headstart. As reckless as that would be."
She narrows her eyes, mulling over what to say next, before she decides, "I'm coming with you, then."
"Wouldn't blame you if you didn't want to."
She exhales harshly. "I don't want her to die. Shit, it'd be like leaving you in the middle of a goddamn Palace. Now I feel like garbage."
"We'll follow her around after today. See if she is fucking around with things she shouldn't be fucking around with alone."
"Or, you know, you could just ask her."
I look upwards, rubbing a hand at the back of my neck. "You do it."
"Wha - why?"
"It's awkward."
"What the f-" Angrily she grabs my arm, pulling me up outta my seat, "You came up with this idea, you do it!"
Goddammit. "I said a buncha stupid shit to her when I woke up in the hospital, it'll be fucking embarrassing to talk to her again."
"What'd you say? Did you, like, insult her all over again?"
"No, worse. I fucking cried like a baby, is all you've got to know."
"Boo fucking hoo, come on!" she tugs at my arm even harder, drawing attention from the lingering students in the room, and within moments she and I get the hell out of the room.
"It's not like she'll tell us the truth if we do confront her about it-"
"Hikawa-san?"
We see her, coming down a flight of stairs, a pile of papers in one arm, and a slice of bread in the other. She sees both myself and Takamaki and we're all of us too stunned to react soon enough. But she approaches me, and Takamaki unhands me.
"You made it to school...," she says with a light smile, and what the fuck, when was she capable of looking the way she does now. "Are you still feeling sick, though?"
I blink, pushing a flock of hair away from the middle of my face, "Face mask is more a precaution than anything else. I think I'll be at a hundred percent by tomorrow."
"That's good to know," she exhales, gratefully.
"So you've received no new word from Kaneshiro or his men since that day?"
"None. I figure he may have skipped town by now."
"If he knows what's good for him."
So Takamaki hits me lightly on the back, roughly tilting her head in Niijima's direction. Just talk to her is the message I get from her eyes.
I suck in a deep breath and Niijima looks concerned, "Do you...need something?"
And my voice turns cold as I make my eyes distant, "Do you have a minute? I'd like to speak to you about something in private."
Like many times before, she understands immediately. "Let's go to the courtyard."
I turn to Takamaki, "You coming with?"
Her eyes are locked on Niijima's all the while, "Yes."
.
.
.
It's an awkward sort of walk to the courtyard and even when we're there we don't really know what to do with ourselves. I just go to the vending machines and get us all sodas without a word and we're stuck in this embarrassing silence for a little while longer and like idiot kids who don't know how to talk to the opposite gender.
"SO," Takamaki cuts in. "Hikawa. You said you had questions."
How do I say this without sounding like a prick, I wonder. Then I remember who I'm talking to; I'll sound like a prick no matter what I say.
"You and I both know Kaneshiro received backing from the Tokyo PD. You and I both know by this point there are deep levels of corruption going on. Have you gone after the head of the SIU, and if you haven't, are you willing to?"
She knows better than to lie. "You ask this the day you get back to school. It's concerning how you can focus yourself so intently on singular goals."
"So you are...?" Takamaki mutters. "You're planning to hit someone else's Palace now?"
"He's not just someone else. His name is Hideyoshi Tsukioka. The current head of the Special Investigations Unit of the Tokyo PD. The one responsible for granting Kaneshiro as much immunity as he'd had. I've... already narrowed down his name and the location of his Palace. I haven't yet figured out his distortion."
"So you've confirmed, he has a Palace?"
She shows me her phone. Shows me the Palace Log and lo and behold.
Palace Ruler: Hideyoshi Tsukioka
Palace Location: Special Investigations Unit Headquarters
Palace Distortion:
"Would you have done this without us if we hadn't approached you first?" Takamaki asks, to which she gets no answer. "Are you kidding me?"
"I thought you wouldn't have wanted anything to do with me."
"We weren't about to let you go and risk yourself on your own!" Takamaki cries out.
"I wouldn't have done it on my own," she says, suddenly turning and calling out, "Morgana, are you here?"
"Yo." Emerging from a nearby garbage can it scatters litter and tin cans all over the place as it leaps out and down. Does a shaking motion, gets the gunk out its fur, looks at us all with round golden eyes.
"Why were you in a garbage can?" asks Takamaki.
"Because one man's trash is another man's treasure," it says with a coy smile.
"Because I told him to keep a low profile on school grounds and promised to feed him bread every now and again," Niijima sighs. "Here you go."
"Mine!" Once Niijima tosses the bread she'd been carrying around to it, the cat wolfs it down greedily on the spot, eyeing me with bread in its mouth. "Nyshe to shee yuu, Kawsh. How yuu-" gulp "-how you feeling?"
"Less good now, but I'm alright."
"Fair enough. You were badass in that Palace. Good to know you're mostly doin' okay."
"Mostly."
Niijima says, "I've been...busy, as of late. So I haven't gotten much further than the name and the location."
"Busy? Oh, right. The field trip."
"The what?"
"You were absent when it was announced," Niijima tells me. "There will be a field trip on the thirtieth. We'll be heading to Inokashira Park then."
"Why?"
"Principal Sawamura thinks it'll help improve the school's reputation. Freshmen, sophomores, and graduates will all take part. Cleaning up litter and trash scattered all around the park for a day. We'll begin at nine AM and end at five PM. I've been assigned to manage group arrangements and scheduling, so I haven't been able to...devote myself to this very extensively."
"Would you be willing to hold off on figuring out this guy's distortion until the trip's over and done with?"
"You'd actually be willing to help me?" She says, wide-eyed.
"You'd actually be willing to go into some other asshole's fucking Palace without even telling us."
"To tell you the truth? I don't know what to do next," she brings her phone upwards, staring into the screen like it had wronged her. "Whether I should or shouldn't go. Whether it'd actually change anything if I do, or perhaps even make things worse. I've been mulling it over for days now. And I still haven't come up with an answer."
"Why not?"
Takamaki and Niijima are surprised I'd ask it, so directly. I'm not accusatory or judgmental in the slightest. I've a few ideas on why. But I want to hear it from her. I want her to say it. I want to hear, from her own mouth, with her own words, why she is so hesitant to follow this through.
When before, all she's ever been was headstrong to a fault.
I'm stunned when I see that she's sheepish when she lowers her head away from us, tucks her phone away into her skirt pockets.
"I'd rather not talk about this now." Before Takamaki or I can ask any more, she moves past the both of us, marching into the school with the papers in her hands.
It doesn't hit me right away why a pit forms in my stomach, at the sight of her, suddenly acting like the whole world's been wrung out of her.
There are many obvious answers as to why she would be acting this way; the self-hatred catching up. The doubt and insecurity, raging all because of the many fuck-ups she's made thus far. But there's probably more to it than that.
And if I'm to hazard a guess, it likely involves her Palace-ruling older sister.
Takamaki looks frustrated, but she voices nothing. Just grabs at her arm and stares at the ground. "What the hell is she doing, acting all secretive now, of all times...?" Takamaki asks, withered. "I...I don't want to see her this way, but I can't just make myself ready to forgive her over just - everything."
"I couldn't make myself forgive her, either. Honestly part of me's still irritated over what she did. But I owe her. If you want to forgive her, do it when you think you can."
I begin walking away from her, heading back into the school myself.
"If we are going through with this, count me in," she says, catching up to me, grabbing my arm, and looking me right in the eye. "I don't want you to get caught in something like this alone again."
"What?"
"I don't want to lie in bed and cry myself to sleep, while you go out there on your own and nearly get yourself killed," she says this harshly, strongly, like it's something she's kept to herself until now.
"I told you, I don't blame you."
"I blame me!" she shouts suddenly. Once she wipes her eyes, lowers her voice and unhands me. "I haven't changed at all since Shiho. I'm still so stuck on myself that I end up crying about myself and my problems when the people around me get involved in insanely horrible shit I can't even fathom until it's too late."
I put my hands on both her shoulders, softly enough so as to calm her down. She just lets out a large breath of her own, and shakes her head. "Promise me you won't do something like that again. You're one of the few friends I've got here."
When did she ever consider me a friend?
I stay there, grasping at her shoulders for just a little while longer, until her breathing stabilizes. I'm unable to offer any words of comfort or kindness, just this lone and hollow gesture. Then the bell rings. Timing could not be any more perfect.
"We should get back," I tell her.
She just wipes her eyes and nods. Not even looking at me as she makes her way.
.
.
.
Once classes are over I get up out of my seat before Takamaki's even finished putting her things in order.
I don't find her in the courtyard. I don't even find her in the library or the student council office; all I get there's a bunch of wary kids, lookin' at me like I'm a goddamn slime monster. When I do find her, I find her in the subway, standing amidst the crowd, looking down like a lost child.
At the beginning of this all I hated her with every fiber of my being, and wanted nothing more than for her to leave me alone. I was so certain that there would never come a day where I'd ever entrust anyone who wasn't my therapist with what happened to Kana. Least of all Makoto Niijima. Yet here we are.
She lifts her head up like she realizes she's being followed and turns, sees me approaching her from down the subway stairs. For a moment, she thinks to just leave again but she keeps herself planted as I push past the mobs of people who don't even know thing one about us.
"What do you want, Hikawa?" she says tiredly, her eyes lowering away from me again.
What do I want? Why did I even come here?
"I...," stroking the back of my neck, I figure out the words to say, as I say them. "I know we've had our differences. I know that what happened with Kaneshiro was...taxing, on all of us. But I want you to know that I hold nothing against you. That I'm grateful that you listened to me. And... I owe you my life. So. If you are going to go through with this, then..."
"I don't...," she gives a shaky breath, eyes still clenched shut, "you shouldn't, you should just..."
"I should, what?"
"Why would you want to help me, after everything I've done to you and the others? Why would you even want to be anywhere near me? You've done this more times than I could possibly handle. So why would you even think about throwing yourself back in, when you're finally free of all of this? Like you always wanted...?"
"The same reason you're doing the same." I notice people looking over at us suspiciously, from the crowds, and I ask her, "Do you want to take this somewhere else?"
She doesn't answer, but she doesn't pull away. I extend a hand toward her, and wait to see what she does with it, and for a time she does nothing but glare at it as if it were a dirty gesture. Then, she takes it, clasping my fingers softly.
There is no love or warmth in the way our hands grasp at the other, but as we pass through the crowds we clutch our palms tighter and take some comfort in the fact that if only for this moment we can carry what's inside the other's heart.
The diner we end up in is called Bikkuri Boy. Takamaki and I had come here once before, after Niijima had confronted the former and questioned her over the matter of Kamoshida. Cozy, small, kind of run down but that fits the overall aesthetic. Orange lights hovering over us, but they don't cast the harsh contrast of light and shadow that the lights in Kaneshiro's bank had. They give Niijima a warm sort of tone to her skin, one that fits her and turns her brown eyes red. Or maybe that's because she's on the verge of breaking down for reasons she's deigned not to tell me yet.
"What you told me, in the hospital," she says suddenly. "That's... how you came to know about Palaces?"
"Yes. That was my first. I wanted it to be my last. But...well. Thanks to Sakamoto, Kamoshida fell right in my lap. All went downhill from there."
"You were frantic when I blackmailed you into changing Kaneshiro's heart. I didn't even know anything at all, and I'd..."
"It's okay."
"I'm sorry. About you. Your girlfriend. What I did, I-"
"I don't hold it against you. I've told you already. You don't need to keep apologizing."
She eyes me sternly, seriously, "I'm grateful you were willing to share that with me."
I rub the back of my neck, "Don't tell anyone else, please."
"I won't."
"Thank you."
She decides now's the best time to change the subject. "About that Phantom Thieves of Hearts card you posted along Shibuya... you came up with that name?"
"The cat did. I followed its lead. Kaneshiro needed to feel as unsafe as possible. Name suggested multiple people were coming after him, which they were."
"You took my idea...and with it you did something I can't possibly even consider doing," she shakes her head as she gives her tired, worn smile. "Yoshizawa's still in the hospital. Sakamoto's apparently returning to school soon, he's been released from the hospital early. They'll have to adjust from terrible, horrible injuries I caused and I'm - I'm just here, alive and in a diner and wondering what kind of food's on the menu."
"I saw you."
"What?"
"When you fought Kaneshiro, I saw you. I don't know how. I don't know why. I couldn't move my body in the slightest, but I saw you and heard you, and witnessed you nearly die to put that man down. That counts for something. You can't be promised their forgiveness, but you have mine."
She glares at me, furiously, magnificently, "I want to stop this man like nothing on earth. But..."
"Nobody could blame you for being hesitant to go back to this."
"That's not it. Not all of it, anyway, he...," she clasps a hand over her forehead. "He's a family friend."
"What?"
"He knew my father. I don't know how close they were, but they knew each other well enough. After my father died, he's been nothing but a supportive figure for me and my sister. She's working under him now. He's her boss. I haven't had the opportunity to speak to him much. But I've known him, all this time, as a good man and my sister's vouched for him as such as well. I know he's a bit stern, not very easy to talk to, and he drives his subordinates to work obscenely long hours, but... I never thought he could be responsible for so much horror. The fact that the Navigator's confirmed he has a Palace infuriates me."
"You think he might be endangering your sister. Or that she's...involved in something?"
"She wouldn't be. At least, I, I think she wouldn't be. I don't know. She's changed so much from the kind of person she used to be and-" she closes her eyes tight, brings her fingers into a tent and puts her forehead upon her hands, "And now, the only person I can talk to about all this is you, and what the hell does that say?" She exhales, hanging her head low as she covers her face with her hands. "I'm sorry."
"No need."
"I don't know what to think anymore. I don't even know what I'll do once I even enter his Palace. Will I just, just die the second I enter because of some Shadow I didn't see? Will I go and fight him and force him to tell me every single one of his secrets? Hope there're some records of those he's dragged into his web of corruption and weed them all out, too? Just keep on going after people until everyone in the city's been rid of their Palaces and then what?"
"To think you weren't planning on telling me this."
"Like you're one to talk," she growls. "I didn't want to drag you into this because I didn't want you to get your life upended all over again because of me. Because I didn't want to see you with your torso melted to oblivion again. Because I - I don't know what I'd do if I ended up forcing you to do something like the calling card again."
Calling card came out with more than a little bite and bile. "What, you gonna lecture me about that, too?"
She glares at me, exhaling like someone who hasn't slept right in days, "I don't know."
"You don't know?"
"On the one hand what you did disgusts me on a level even I can't even put into words. Right now part of me wants nothing more than to strangle you until your face turns purple, but at the same time Kaneshiro was a monster and he had to be stopped and I literally can't conceive of any other way we could have possibly affected his Treasure enough to make it manifest itself. He was a victim of sexual abuse, and you retraumatized him to the point where his mind collapsed in on itself! And I don't even know if you were wrong to do it! And part of it's my fault because I'm the one who dragged you into this and came up with the calling card idea in the first place!"
"You didn't force me to do the calling card, you know. You can blame yourself for a lot of things, but that was all on me."
"I can't in good conscience even think about doing what you did." She frowns at me, baggy eyes squinting, "I don't think I'll ever be able to do what you've been able to. You can stand up to these monsters, do outrageous things to put them down, and yet come out like nothing's even fazed you. All I've ever done is have people make my decisions for me and now I have no idea what I should or could or even want to do next. Every night since Kaneshiro I've been looking at my phone for hours, wondering if I should do the things I can do...and if I choose to, how far will let myself go?"
She looks so profoundly shattered and it doesn't match who she is now in the slightest. "In all fairness, I nearly got myself killed. Pushed the situation too far. So perhaps a slightly less fucked up approach would strike the right balance. I don't know. Hell, you might have a better chance at this than I do, if anything-"
"You're already adjusting your strategy for a Palace we haven't even entered yet! You just -- with Kamoshida you threw him into his Palace, with Kobayakawa you bashed your fist against glass panes, with Kaneshiro you just unleashed his childhood trauma and-- you did it all as if none of it even meant anything to you, like it's some game of chess and all you need to do is move the pawns in the right places, so how -- how can you just look at this situation and compartmentalize it as just, just, just some game you need to win!?"
"This is a game. Either play by the rules or break them, but don't pretend they don't exist."
"So, so what? I should be like you if I want to win anything?"
"You can do nothing."
"What?" She looks at me, my eyes below freezing.
"You don't have to stop this guy. It's not your responsibility."
She nearly gets up and out the table right then, disturbed and furious, "If I do nothing then...!"
"People die all the time for one reason or another. You're your sister's only relative, too. All the more reason."
She narrows her eyes at me, "If you're trying to pull some reverse psychology thing on me, I know exactly what you're doing-"
"I'm not trying to get you to do anything. Do as you like."
"This isn't a matter of what I like or don't! People's lives are at stake!"
"Everything is a matter of what you like or don't. Nobody does anything selflessly. Not purely, at least."
She scowls at me, "You're such a cynic."
"You're not an errand girl anymore."
"Excuse me?"
"You did whatever the adults told you to, because you were pressured into pursuing a life where your sister wouldn't see you as a burden. You let people come up with reasons for you. But you're more than what either your sister or Kobayakawa had made you out to be. You brought down a crime boss, and drove him into the middle of nowhere, all the while getting enough information out of him to uncover a conspiracy at the heart of the Tokyo PD. You did that yourself. You're free."
She pauses then, looking away from me before gritting her teeth, "Am I really?"
"You're freer than most, at least. If not pride, take some comfort in that."
"I don't think I've put this freedom to good use," she groans. "In case you haven't noticed, I have a record of repeatedly making terrible decisions."
"So do I," I say, my tone soft as it possibly could be. "I killed my girlfriend. I couldn't save Shiho Suzui. I complained at you constantly, put pressure on you you didn't need, which made things worse for all of us. I nearly got myself killed by Kaneshiro's Shadow and the only reason I survived is because you and Maruki were there to bail me out. You may not know what to do right now, and that's fine. Nobody's pressuring you into doing anything, if you don't want to."
She balls her hands up into fists, "I want to make sure I... do the right thing, this time, at least."
"You can't know that presciently. There's only you and what you choose to do. I want to go after this guy. I want to put an end his Palace because he's an asshole. I'm doing it for me."
"You...," she seethes, shoulders deflated as she stares angrily at the table, her hands still balled up. "And you're not afraid of making another terrible mistake that might end up killing you?"
"I'm no fucking saint, in case you didn't notice. I'll probably always make mistakes. I can only hope to make less of them when the time comes. But I know I won't let this guy go," She just says nothing. All she does is look at me, intently, as if she doesn't know what to make of me or what to say to me next. "I won't go after Tsukioka right away. Maruki's grounded me for like, two weeks. Once that's over I'll give it a shot, I guess."
"With or without me?"
"Yes, I suppose."
She snorts, "You're so self-assured."
"For a vindictive borderline-psychotic with a criminal record. Have some faith in yourself, Niijima. Self-hatred doesn't suit you."
She shakes her head, "And what does suit me? Why should I put faith in myself?"
"You were willing to do all manner of crazy shit nobody else would ever be able to understand, just for the sake of helping people who needed it. I only ever do anything when I hate someone enough."
And all at once, she doesn't know what to say next.
I pull up the menu, hit the bell over on our table, and order a salad with some fries.
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Niijima doesn't say a word to me when she and I go our separate ways.
It doesn't suit her, this indecision. It's disturbing. But she'll come around. She'll deliberate and she'll struggle and she'll wrack her brain over what she could possibly do next for maybe another week. But in the end she's just as furious at the idea of Tsukioka facing no karma over the horrors he's profited from. No more than I am, anyway.
On the news they discuss who The Phantom Thieves of Hearts might be. They make note of the fact that Kaneshiro's current location is unknown, of the revelatory confirmation that he'd returned under the name Sakahagi, that he's been responsible for phishing scams that everyone should've spoken more about in the first place, of the humiliating details of the calling card. Memes everywhere, having copypasta-ed the blurb on the picture and using it to make socio-political commentary or just shitty jokes. Police are ridiculed and disgraced because they allowed the yakuza to make criminals out of kids for so long.
That night I research more of this man we're targeting; Hideyoshi Tsukioka is a sixty-year-old wretched fucking miser with a craggly old voice, the jowls of an aged dog, and a thumb-shaped head with tufts of white hair along the sides. He has this sneering tone that crops through even in interviews and press discussions, clearly of a crotchety geezer trying to come across like his time hasn't come yet - the tone of a man lying to himself that he can compete with the new blood that's full of the vigor and life he'd lost ages ago. A man so short he'd be neck deep in the shallowest end of any swimming pool, so frail that were anything at all to happen to his heart he might die of cardiac arrest even before he could kill himself.
A high-ranking government officer responsible for public security is in cahoots with drug lords, gang bangers, human traffickers, and child pornographers. My bones boil at the thought of him getting away with the horrors he's caused and the nightmares he's enabled. But there's really only one reason why I'm even considering this at all.
I killed Kana Kohaku myself. For that, I accept full responsibility. But whoever made Kana's mother kill Masako is still out there.
If Hideyoshi Tsukioka isn't a useless old fossil, he'll point me in the right direction, whether he wants to or not.
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NoRoleModelz Chapter Notes:
TSUKIOKA ARC LETS FUCKING GOOOOOOOO
Gonna spend this chapter and the next mostly settin things up, but we will enter the Palace by the end of chapter 36.