Chapter 7: Delinquent and Shut-In
Mankind is driven to grow by envy or repulsion.
Their envy is born by ambition—by a yearning toward their betters.
Their repulsion is born by disgust—by a fear of being like those they despise.
And for better or worse, the majority of those who truly grow are driven by the latter.
—Excerpt from the Reverse Crux Record
“Wh-What happened to you two?!”
Umeko and I had gotten off the bus and were walking home, sharing an umbrella as the rain came and went in an inconsistent cycle, when two boys whom I happened to know showed up right in front of us. We’d run into Toki Shuugo and Akutagawa Yanagi.
Toki was walking down the same street in the opposite direction we were, and he was covered from head to foot with burns and cuts. His clothes had a few holes burned through them, and they were singed all over. He was in a pretty terrible state, all around—he looked like he’d stumbled across a house fire and charged in headfirst to haul the building’s residents to safety.
Akutagawa, meanwhile, stumbled out of an alleyway just ahead of us. He didn’t look as overtly injured as Toki, but just a glance at his face told me that he was in terrible condition as well. He was deathly pale, and while he wasn’t exactly a bright and sunny kid on even the best of days, right now he looked so positively dismal he might as well have been a walking corpse. All together, the two of them looked completely and utterly exhausted.
“S-Seriously, what’s going on...? Did some of Hearts’s people jump you?” I asked. Both of them had battled with Players from an enemy organization a few days beforehand, and I hadn’t heard from either of them since. They weren’t the sort to keep me constantly updated to begin with, so I’d taken the stance that no news was good news, but it seemed that might have been too optimistic of me.
Toki clicked his tongue. “Of all the pain-in-the-ass people to run into,” he spat with an irritated scowl.
Akutagawa put on much the same expression for just a moment, but then he clasped his head and leaned against a nearby utility pole. It seemed he had a pretty nasty headache. “Shut up... Just shut up... Now? Really...? How could I ask her now, of all times?” he barely audibly muttered, his eyes unfocused. I got the feeling he was talking to himself, but at the same time, it was almost like he was arguing with someone.
“Toki, Akutagawa... Just what happened to you two?” I asked again.
“None of your damn business,” Toki snapped, his attitude as sharp and biting as a knife’s edge.
“Leave me alone,” grumbled Akutagawa, his attitude as dull and lifeless as a slab of dead meat. They could hardly have been less alike, but at the same time, both of them were making it clear that they had no intention of letting anyone else meddle in their affairs.
“None of my business...? You can’t be serious! Did the two of you team up to...no, of course you didn’t. That’d be ridiculous,” I said, rethinking my guess midsentence. I knew very well just how poorly those two got along. Delinquents and shut-ins were like oil and water. There was a slight chance that they’d cooperate out of pure necessity if a powerful enough enemy came along, but their injuries were too distinct from each other for that explanation to hold up. As best as I could tell, they’d each battled with different opponents, and they’d each either barely pulled off a hard-won victory or possibly even lost. “Well, umm... A-Anyway, we need to get you patched up! We should head to the hideout... Or, actually, my place is closer to here, I gue—”
Before I even finished, Toki and Akutagawa both stepped past me and Umeko, ignoring me entirely. Their faces looked as strained as could be, and the aura of hostility and murderous rage they exuded was powerful enough to make me swallow my words. And yet...strangely enough, in spite of their dreadful bearings, they looked incredibly small to me as they walked away. They were tottering along, covered in wounds and barely able to keep upright, like a pair of dogs that had been abandoned by their owners. There was something sad about the sight of them. It was like they’d lost their faith in humanity, lost the people they could call friends, and had been left to wander aimlessly for lack of anywhere clear to go...and that, perhaps, is why I found myself shouting before I knew it.
“Umeko!”
“Understood.”
Barely an instant later—practically the same moment her name left my mouth—Umeko shot forward at an astonishing speed and, in an impressive series of leg sweeps and joint locks, apprehended both of the boys with ease. Before I knew it, she’d dragged them over to me, twisted their arms behind their backs, and pinned them to the ground by my feet. It had probably only taken around two seconds for them to go from walking away to lying prone on the wet pavement.
I was...well, flabbergasted. H-Hoooly crap, Umeko’s tough! I mean, really, really tough! I’d had no clue it would be over that quickly when I gave her the order. The fact that both of her victims were exhausted had probably played a big factor in how easy she’d made it look, of course, but it had still been an incredibly impressive display. It seemed they didn’t call her the ultimate Player for nothing.
“Ugh... The hell?!”
“O-Ow...”
Toki and Akutagawa moaned with pain and humiliation, glaring up at me from the ground.
“My apologies, Shuugo, Yanagi,” Umeko said, not loosening the arm locks she held them in for an instant. “I would have preferred not to resort to violence, but it was necessary. I am bound to obey Hitomi’s word, whatever she may ask of me.”
“Now wait just a second—I didn’t say anything about going that hard on them!” I yelped. I would’ve been perfectly happy if you’d just grabbed them by the hand, for the record! I didn’t want you to take them down like a cop capturing a pair of fleeing fugitives!
“Be that as it may,” Umeko continued, “Shuugo, Yanagi. Your efforts to resist me were woefully lacking. I know not what extenuating circumstances you may be facing, but regardless, it should have been far more difficult to subdue you. It is plain to see that you have pushed yourselves beyond your limits. Do you understand now that this is precisely what Hitomi sought to teach you? She would not stoop to such a flagrant use of force, nor to using me to dispense said force, were it not such an important truth to impart. Can you even begin to understand the internal turmoil—the anguish—she must have felt when, by necessity, she was required to exercise coercion?”
“No, seriously, you have it all wrong! I didn’t think it through that deeply at all!” It was just a whim, honestly! A totally thoughtless call! Stop acting like I’m some sort of tough-love manager who only abuses her subordinates because of how much she cares for them!
“Now then—raise your heads and listen well, Shuugo, Yanagi. Hear what Hitomi has to say to you, and know that it is a message of such grave import, she would sully my hands to see it delivered. She has long since grasped the totality of your situations, I assure you. Heed her words, and you will come to understand what it is that you still lack.”
Oh god, Umeko, could you possibly raise the bar for me any higher?!
“O lost and wounded whelps, cast to the wayside and drenched by the rain—harken to the proclamations of Hitomi, proxy of the divine! Her words shall be as the light of genesis, guiding you down the proper path with all the wit of a master tactician and all the mercy of the Holy Mother!”
In what universe is it okay to talk someone up this much?! And when the heck did I become the proxy of the gods?! I desperately wanted to start screaming about how over the top all of this was getting, but Umeko just looked so darn serious about all of it that I couldn’t quite figure out how I should actually react. Hajime’s definitely been influencing her, hasn’t he? The way she talked was pretty archaic from the very beginning, but now she’s started throwing the sort of flowery metaphors and silly vocabulary he loves into the mix as well!
Meanwhile, Toki and Akutagawa still lay at my feet, gazing up at me in silence. Wait, no, don’t look at me like that! Keep your expectations low, please! You know I can’t actually bless you with the light of genesis, right?
I cleared my throat a time or two, did my best to calm down, then spoke to them in as normal of a tone as I could manage. “Toki, Akutagawa...what happened? Please, just talk to me,” I asked, but...nothing. Silence. Their mouths remained firmly closed and they appeared unflaggingly irate, their fists clenched with frustration and irritation in the puddles they lay in.
“You really don’t want to tell me anything, do you?” I sighed. “What am I supposed to do now?”
“Still you choose silence? Very well, then—you leave me no choice...”
“Gah! Umeko, no, none of that! This isn’t an interrogation, okay?!” I shouted, intervening before she could actually dislocate their shoulders. “A-And actually, you should really let them go already! We can’t keep them lying on the ground in the rain forever... I’d feel bad, for one thing, and I’m a little worried that people might be staring at us too.”
“Hmm. You are ever merciful, Hitomi...or perhaps the correct term is ‘lenient,’” said Umeko. Honestly, though, I just didn’t want to draw the wrong sort of attention to us. In any case, Umeko released Toki and Akutagawa immediately, then she returned to my side, gave me an expressionless stare, and added, “Someday...that lenience will be your undoing.”
I...didn’t know what to say to that. Ooof—now there’s a line that sounds like it could’ve been plucked right out of a manga! One of those things that an enemy or one of the main character’s friends tells them when they just can’t bring themself to be merciless enough. She probably didn’t even mean it either—she just said it because she could! Hajime really is becoming a huge influence on her, and a really, really bad one! This is exactly why I’ve been trying to keep him from talking to her as much as possible!
Toki and Akutagawa climbed to their feet, and I turned to face them once more. “So, umm...if you don’t want to talk about it, then I understand. I won’t ask you what happened, even though I’m really, really curious,” I said. “But, will you at least tell me what you’re planning on doing from now on? I won’t ask you how you got hurt, but can you please tell me what you were trying to accomplish when it happened?” I asked as I took another look at the battered and beaten state they were in, then I stepped closer to shield them from the rain with my umbrella. “We’re all friends, aren’t we? We’re a team, right? So please, just try and rely on us a little more!”
No sooner had the words left my mouth than I felt a slap on my hand and my umbrella flew from my grip. It danced through the air, still open, and fell to the ground without a sound. The rain grew a little stronger, dampening my head and shoulders.
“Shut it,” said Akutagawa, his hand still raised from swatting mine away. It was hard to imagine him looking any less pleased than he already did. “Friends...? Really? I’m not buying that garbage. I’ve never thought of any of you people as my friends. You’re useful, so I decided to stick with you to kill time. That’s literally it...”
“Akutagawa...”
“Not to mention that a team with that dipshit in charge is a team that ain’t worth shit,” Toki added indifferently. “He put this group together ’cause he felt like it, and he only bothers with it when he wants to mess around. This team’s trash, if it even counts as a team to start with. I know you fight like hell to keep us together, Hitomi, but you get that none of us ever had any team spirit to begin with, right? Our boss just does whatever the hell he wants to, and we return the favor. That’s all we are.”
I looked away, then Toki added, “And anyway, I don’t wanna hear any of this crap from you in the first place. Remind me who it was that stabbed our supposed boss in the back just a little while ago?”
I’d certainly earned that callout, and I found myself at a loss for a response. A few months beforehand, during our conflict with F, I had betrayed Hajime. I’d staged an attempted coup, leading the rest of our team in an effort to dethrone our boss. I hadn’t thought of it as me betraying the team on the whole at the time, but it wasn’t hard to imagine how, from a certain perspective, I’d stabbed the whole group in the back, Hajime included.
A direct mutiny against the boss was, in terms of an organization’s long-term survival, the stupidest move you could possibly make. That’s not even considering the fact that I was the organization’s second-in-command and Hajime’s personal aide—by all rights, I should’ve looked up to him and supported him more than anyone. No matter how foolish a king might be, you still have to treat them as the king they are; if the person closest to the king winds up plotting treason, it forever sullies their majesty and prestige. I had betrayed Hajime and thrown the organization into chaos, so what right did I have to go talking about friendship and teamwork, really?
“This is my fight... Stay out of it,” Akutagawa all but groaned, one hand still pressed to his head. He sounded like he was having an awful time, but there was a certain spark in his eyes—a gloomy but very present flame of rage and resentment. Compared to the cold, judgmental stare he usually gave just about everyone, it almost felt like he was a totally different person. I’d certainly never seen him express that much open emotion before. “I’ll make him pay, I swear... I swear... I’ll get him, no matter what it takes... I’ll grind his face into the ground... I’ll crush his nose, gouge his eyes, smash his ears, then cut his gut wide open... I’ll watch him beg for his life, then stomp on his stupid head...”
Akutagawa was like a man possessed. His eyes were still unfocused, and his murderous, vengeful muttering made it extremely clear to me that the kid wasn’t in his right mind. I could hardly even bear to look at him in that abnormal state...and when I shifted my gaze, it happened to meet Toki’s. He was glaring at me, and the heat of his contempt was almost intense enough to singe me.
“I’m not taking any orders from you, Hitomi,” said Toki. “I’m not a mercenary, and I’m no damn puppet either. I do what I want, and that’s final.”
His refusal couldn’t have possibly been clearer. He had no interest in taking orders, or even suggestions. He was rejecting any goodwill or helpful intentions I had to offer. He was excessively, even unnaturally, opposed to the idea of following anyone’s lead.
“I’ll kill all those motherfuckers that looked down on me. Every goddamn one...” said Toki, a palpable aura of murderous rage exuding from his lanky form.
“To hell with this... Dammit, god dammit!” muttered Akutagawa, his curse-laden rambling carrying just as intense a fury as Toki’s in spite of his much smaller stature.
Both of their hateful glares felt like they pierced right through me. Their wounds would have put just about anyone down for the count, but they were being driven to move forward anyway by the uncontrollable surges of emotions within them, from what I could tell. It was really obvious that they were enraged, and just as clear that they weren’t thinking straight, but that just made them all the more overwhelming. The glints in their eyes were razor-sharp, and the terrible, merciless fury within each of them seemed as deep as the pits of hell. Their emotions were burning so brightly, it felt like they could evaporate the rain pouring down on them in an instant, and in the face of all that, I just couldn’t bring myself to try to stop them.
I hesitated for a moment, closing my eyes. “All right,” I finally said, then stooped over to pick up my umbrella. “I won’t ask any more questions, and I won’t give any more advice. You were right... This really is none of my business. Whatever you two decide to do, it doesn’t matter to me at all.”
Nothing I could say to the two of them would convince them to change paths, and even if I could get them to alter course, I didn’t have the right to. My teammates were, by all appearances, about to throw themselves into a darkness so deep and vast there was no telling what lay within, and I didn’t have what it took to stop them by force. And yet...before I knew it, I was smiling. It wasn’t a disdainful smile, toward them or myself. It was a smile of pure exasperation. They were just so, so profoundly childish, I couldn’t help myself.
“Toki, Akutagawa,” I said, lifting my umbrella back overhead and turning to look at them once more. “Go ahead. Go out and give them hell.”
I wasn’t capable of stopping them...but I could urge them forward. I had no idea what I was pushing them toward, so it might’ve been awfully irresponsible of me to go through with it, but I knew that this was just something that boys like them went through sometimes. The childish, tactless drive they were displaying was important to them. Toki Shuugo was nineteen, and Akutagawa Yanagi fourteen. For someone like me, teens like them really were still just children at heart.
“You want to settle the score without relying on your allies, is that it? Yeah, I get it. Good for you. That’s exactly how guys like you are supposed to act, isn’t it? Look at you—you’re so darn cool, huh?”
That’s just how guys—how boys—were. Stubborn to the bitter end. Vain and pretentious as could be. Prideful about the stupidest things. And—of course—prone to showing off whenever they possibly could.
“I don’t know who put you two through the wringer, but get out there and do it right back to them! A pathetic crybaby of a man who can’t give as good as he gets doesn’t deserve to be a wing of Fallen Black!” I said with an exaggerated grin.
Maybe it was a stupid decision. Maybe it was an outright mistake. One way or another, however, it was their choice. They were going to make their own decisions and fight their own battles, so I just had to sit back and see them off. Clearly these were men, fighting men’s battles and living in a man’s world, so a woman like me had no right to butt in. I understood that very well, thanks to a certain self-proclaimed fallen angel who shall not be named.
“All right! Let’s get going, Umeko,” I said. Toki and Akutagawa were staring at me in wide-eyed astonishment, but I had nothing left to say to either of them and just walked away, sharing my umbrella with Umeko. Well...nothing but one last comment, which I muttered to myself as I passed by them.
“You’re both egotistical, you never let anyone in on what you’re thinking, you never listen to anything anyone tells you, you never pay attention to other people, you don’t bother telling your allies what you’re going to do next, you’re completely irresponsible, you have no interest in seeing the world from any perspective except your own, you’re vain and self-obsessed, and you fight exclusively by rules that literally nobody ever asked you to follow, picking pointless battles in the tiny little reality that you refuse to share with anyone,” I muttered in a quiet little singsong voice, just loudly enough for them to hear, then flashed my brightest smile yet. “You know, when all’s said and done, you two and Hajime have a lot in common!”
In my own sort of way, those words were both a distinct compliment and the best way to cheer them on that I could offer.
☆
Saitou Hitomi and Tanaka Umeko went on their way, leaving Shuugo and Yanagi on their own. For a moment, they simply stood there, unmoving and silent as the rain pounded down on the pavement around them. Eventually, though...
“Hey, shut-in.”
“What, delinquent?”
“I’m in deep shit. Lend me a hand.”
“What a coincidence... I was about to ask you for help as well.”
It was easy—shockingly so, even. Just like that, two young men who had displayed an almost pathological unwillingness to rely on their friends went to each other in search of help. In a flash, the seething rage that had burned within their gazes had vanished. And not just that—the atmosphere around them, which had felt so tense that it had been like a length of piano wire stretched to its absolute limit, had eased, and the intense, murderous hostility they’d each been directing at anyone who crossed their paths was gone without a trace as well. To an almost comical, almost laughable degree, Shuugo and Yanagi had cooled off and regained their composure.
“Those burns look nasty... Did you take on someone with a fire-based power?”
“Yeah. Well, more explosions than fire, really. Looks like I’m not a good match for that sorta thing, so how ’bout you deal with her instead?”
“Fine with me... Taking on that sort of Player is child’s play for me. But... I’m in a bad way, as well. I hate to admit it, but I walked right into a trap, and they put something in my mind...”
Shuugo and Yanagi, who had fought like cats and dogs for as long as they’d known each other, were now freely exchanging information and working out a plan like it was only natural. They made no attempt to hide their weaknesses and failures, each striving instead to compensate for what the other lacked. It was almost like they were friends. Almost like they were brothers-in-arms.
“In your mind, huh...? I figure Fantasia’d be able to do something about that.”
“Yeah... I’ll get in touch with her.”
“Then I’ll go ahead and give Natsu a call. Probably a good idea to take a step back and analyze what we’re up against.”
“You’re good with meeting at the hideout, right...? We should both probably get our injuries looked at. Plus...I don’t think I’ll be doing much of anything until I try to sleep for a bit...”
They talked. They collaborated. And what was more surprising than anything was that that was all it took for them to click together, suddenly working in perfect harmony.
“Of course, if System...if Umeko would join in the fight, that would be far and away the most efficient way of dealing with it,” Yanagi noted.
“Yeah, that ain’t happening. She won’t do anything unless Hitomi tells her to.”
“And Hitomi only does whatever Kiryuu tells her to...”
“No point calling in Lost Regalia either, huh? Hinoemata wouldn’t bother showing up, and even if he did, he wouldn’t be worth a damn here.”
“Okay... We could call Kiry—”
“Fuck that guy.”
“...I couldn’t agree more.”
Before they knew it, the two of them had set off together. They lived in different worlds, and they were aiming for different destinations. The motives that drove them to step onto the battlefield were dissimilar, and their lifestyles could hardly have been more different. The gap between shut-ins and delinquents was so marked and so vast that you’d think they would never see eye to eye, yet they’d managed to bridge it through one single powerful sentiment: a mutual loathing of a third party. More powerful than their pride, their obstinance, their self-importance, their desire to get even, and their hostility toward their enemies, the truly deep-seated hatred that filled their hearts left no room for anything else.
“No way we can take this lying down...right?”
“Damn straight we can’t. This goes beyond humiliating...and y’know, nothing else seems to matter anymore.”
“There really couldn’t be anything more humiliating, when you put it that way...”
And then they spoke in unison, their voices and minds uniting in one single powerful expression of distaste:
“I’d rather die than let anyone say I’m like that dumbass!”
And so, Saitou Hitomi’s earnest attempt to cheer her teammates on had had its desired effect—albeit in a totally different manner than she had anticipated. Kiryuu Hajime, aka Kiryuu Heldkaiser Luci-First, was unpopular and had no innate leadership skills. He was broke, unemployed, homeless, and completely incapable of living independently. He had no common sense and no charisma. He did have self-importance and chuuni power in spades, for whatever that was worth, but nothing else.
A person as unique as him could never hope to serve as a half-decent leader, even of an organization that he’d founded himself, and as a natural result, his allies had virtually no faith in him. He didn’t have what it took to serve as a boss in any capacity whatsoever...except in one way. There was just one single aspect of a leader’s role at which he excelled.
When it came to serving as an example of how not to behave, Kiryuu Hajime surpassed all others.
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