3 Steps to Oblivion
Summary: Like a butterfly pinned to the wall, the Sibyl system exposed his sins to the world, exposed every ugly truth and fear to an audience of fools.
A/N: Back to angst, yay! No, like I seriously tried to write fluff—and it seemed too cheesy. So I'm back with another story about Kagari (I don't know why I can't stop writing about him everything's Kagari and nothing hurts *is shot)
-3 steps to Oblivion-
(grief, acceptance, death)
"A hero is born among a hundred, a wise man is found among a thousand, but an accomplished one might not be found even among a hundred thousand men.
-Plato
Grief
The rain is cold and the day is near its end when Shusei Kagari is lead away from his parents' bodies. A brief flash of pity escapes his caretaker's face as she closes the car door behind him.
"Poor thing. He won't live long in this world, with both parents having borderline psycho-passes."
…
He's labeled a monster before his seventh birthday.
By the age of twelve he is a lost cause none (neither friends, nor therapy, nor God) could save.
By twenty-one he's an Enforcer. Now he's a monster with a name—and a badge. He kills and kills and kills until the blood refuses to wash from his hands. He fears his Dominator will stain a bright red.
…
The times he was allowed in school always ended in heartache. Hushed voices whisper, cruel, painful words to the innocent boy. It feels like a poison-laced dagger is being twisted through his heart, allowing toxins to flow through his bloodstream all screaming 'monster.'
"I heard his parents killed themselves."
"That means he's going to hell too."
"He's so scary. I was sure just being in the same room would raise my psycho-pass."
"He should just disappear. No one would care."
The voices become one large tidal wave, sweeping the boy into a dangerous embrace.
For a while, he almost believes them. He sheds so many tears that eventually they just stop.
…
One day, he overhears a conversation he shouldn't have.
"I heard they're planning to institutionalize the child tomorrow."
"If he resists?"
"They will just shoot him in the face. Not that I care, he's just another snot-nosed brat who's been given too many chances. Honestly, how can the Sibyl system see anything redeemable in him?"
He listens as the teachers (he thought cared about him) discuss his existence, picking him apart like some annoying insect. But Kagari has long since forgotten how to cry.
So he accepts it. He's a monster who doesn't deserve another breath. Maybe, that will make it easier, he thinks, when Sibyl finally comes to collect his soul.
…
Acceptance
He adjusts to life in the MWPSB. He's not content being a hunting dog, but he's never been comfortable (neither in life or his own skin). Scars wrack his arms, legs, back, collecting like dust on a forgotten book.
But he's not unhappy.
…
Eventually, he learns to laugh, to smile, really smile. He enjoys the dynamics of the team, from the father-like figure Masaoka to his friend Kougami. It feels like a family for the first time in a very long time.
Pieces of his heart eventually mend together, sinews wrapping around until they spell out the name of a certain oblivious girl.
…
Death
He is not scared of death. He owed his soul to the devil that went by the name of Sibyl and who was he to deny it? He had almost wiggled free from the needles that pinned him to the wall, (tasted freedom) saw the very hand that threatened to stick another needle into his wing, but unable to move away in time. It wasn't fair, receiving this nugget (this unimaginable gold) of knowledge and being killed right after. But, even as he smiles, accepting the end, a thought gnaws at his heart. Of all the could have beens, what ifs, and what should have beens that float around in his mind, the question that hurts the most is the one involving Akane Tsunemori.
If he had been born at a different time, became a different person, someone of equal standing as the girl, then would something have transpired between the two?
Knowledge blooms beneath his eyes, explodes like fireworks and the room becomes a graveyard, and the gun, (his gun) becomes his coffin.
The blue light takes away everything; his body, his personality, his soul, leaving nothing but hollow sound in its place.
He had never expected the Sibyl system herself (personified in a corporeal body) to take his life away.
She was an angel of death in the guise of a god. And he was a demon, thrown into a pit of blue flames.
'Poor, poor child,' Sibyl thought, holding onto a single shard of the man.
"He was never given a chance."