The decimated city that lay before him was his fault, and he knew it. He knew that each and every life taken here was lost as a result of his failure, and he couldn't even pay back the people that were hurt because of him. One by one, the culprits passed before his eyes, and one by one they left him, until only the final man remained. Piercing eyes looked at him from behind a fabric mask, and he could almost feel the arrogance radiating from the man.
As the man pulled down his mask until the smirk adorning his face was visible, a deathly silence filled the air, only to be disturbed when he spoke. "Well, it was nice knowin' ya." The anonymous felon was slowly pulling his gun out from its holster. "Hope you die slowly and all that, don't you?"
Kuroko could only stare at the barrel of the gun being pointed at him. His face was void of emotion, and while that normally wouldn't be surprising, this was different. It was no longer just a bored or disinterested look, it was as if his soul had been ripped from him, and what it left was hollow and emotionless.
At the look on Kuroko's face the man's grin grew in mirth. "Insolent little brat. Answer people when they talk to you." Just for the heck of it he whipped the gun back before crashing it into Kuroko's face. "Too bad you couldn't save the day like you always do. Oh well." He positioned the gun back in front of the hollow form and his finger pulled the trigger. The gun sounded, but in the same second, another blast roared through the night. Kuroko registered a bullet hitting his shoulder and imbedding itself in his skin, as well as an explosion. The whole floor of the building they were currently in bursting into pieces as flames took over. And then, he was falling. The night sky was clouded with smoke as he plummeted to the ground.
The instant flare of pain in his head signified that he had hit the ground, but his vision was already turning to spots, and he could no longer think. His eyes darted to the side one last time, and the sight that greeted him almost made him wish he was dead. He saw a woman, holding a small girl close to her chest, and however comforting that image would be alone, the pool of blood surrounding them, and the lifeless look on their faces told another story. A tragic and morbid tale that would have no happy ending. This was the last scene he took in as he slipped into unconsciousness.
Kuroko's vision was blurry when he came to. He tried to get a feel for his location, but his head pounded with the effort. He could only distinguish a figure with short, light blue hair, and a white coat in front of him.
"Tetsuya? Tetsuya , how do you feel? What happened in there?"
He groggily processed the words. "I-I'm fine…" Were the words that answered, but in the next moment, everything that had happened before came flooding back into his mind. He choked when he tried to continue speaking, and tried to close his eyes to recollect his thoughts. That turned out to be a big mistake when the only things behind his eyelids were more images. "No… no p-please. Th-that didn't happen. It didn't… It didn't!" No words came to correct him, but he kept chanting that phrase. "It didn't happen... It couldn't have." He was lost in his own world, memories of people's faces, and the pleading look in their eyes as they silently begged him to save them, right before they were shot in the head by the masked culprits.
"Tetsuya, calm down. Just calm down and tell me what happened in there. It wasn't your fault."
At this statement Kuroko looked up, an incredulous look on his face. "Really? It wasn't my fault?!" His voice was rising with every word he said. "How could this not be my fault! I was supposed to go in there and save them, not get them killed faster! It was expected of me, I said I could do it! There is no possible way this isn't my fault!"
The man who was in the room with him backed up at the outburst from his son. He'd never heard him scream like this, and he'd been closely watching everything he did since he had agreed to join the program.
"You can't say it's not my fault, because it is, and everyone here knows it." His voice was quieting down now, transforming from screams to broken sobs. "They died because of me… just leave me alone. Please?" He looked up, begging for the chance to be left in solitude.
His father sighed and exited the room. "We'll bring a meal around later. At least try to eat something, please?" And with that he exited the room.
Kuroko watched the door shut and the retreating form of his father before he silently stood from his bed. Pain seared in his head and shoulder, and the rest of him seemed almost numb. He looked around the room; vision mostly clear now, before shuffling over to the corner away from the view of the door, and right underneath the camera. He sat down on the floor, curling into a ball in the corner.
Everything in his head seemed like a nightmare. He didn't want to believe that what he was seeing in his brain was the truth. He shook his head, trying to escape from the constant stream of dead bodies and the screams of those who had to see them. It didn't work and his head started to pound more. His eyes seemed to close of their own accord, but they didn't take him into the sleep he had hoped for. Instead, the scene played over again, in more vivid detail in his mind.
'That's one.' The man said as he kicked at the still falling body, forcing it to the other side of the room. 'Want to see how many more we can do before he breaks?' The question was answered by various cheers from his captors, each one ignoring the sobs and screams coming from those around them.
When they reached the eighth, the cool mask of indifference was still on Kuroko's face, something that annoyed his captors. To remedy the situation, they dragged out a child, a small boy who had been huddled in the back with two adults. The vision of the boy falling to the ground dead, and the screams of the parents are what started to chip away at his façade.
After that, each death damaged his soul, and by the twelfth he had been pleading with the men to stop, by the twenty-third, he was silently watching each death, and by the thirty-first, he had been broken, turned into a shell of his former self. Outside of his head he was curled in the corner, tears falling silently off his face. "I-I can't… help me." He whimpered.
Kuroko Shiro once again walked silently into the room his son was being kept in, his gaze turning towards the bed first thing. However, his son was not on the bed, and the muffled cry from the corner confirmed that. Shiro's scrutinizing look wavered at the sight of his son, and at the sound of another sob from him it completely vanished.
"…Tetsuya?"
After a moment's hesitation his son lifted his head from his knees. Shiro's heart broke at the picture his son made, cheeks tear stained, bandages visible from the hospital garb he wore, and almost soulless eyes. He fell to his own knees in front of his son, wrapping his arms around the shaking form.
Guilt filled the father at the memory of when he first introduced this idea to his son. It had been a broken attempt at revenge on his part, to get back at the people who murdered his wife, but Tetsuya, he had been completely innocent, accepting because his father asked him to, like there was nothing that could go wrong if it was what his dad wanted. That pure trust in his dad had brought him here, and now, Shiro was witnessing the consequences of his selfish request.
"I'm sorry, Tetsuya. I'm so, so sorry." He spoke the words into his son's hair, his own tears seeping from his eyes. Kuroko, however, didn't even seem to register his father was in the room, only continuing to murmur different phrases of guilt and his own weakness. The words only served to make Shiro weep more. "I'll help you Tetsuya… I'll save you."
He kissed his son's head before he slowly brought his arms away from the body. He stood silently, a grim look on his face as he exited the room. A group of nurses and doctors waited outside the room, mouths poised to question him as soon as the door shut, but at the look on his face, jaws closed and every person looked down. A single thought running through their minds. 'I caused this.'
After a moment of collective silence, Shiro spoke up. "Please inject him with anesthetics and sedate him. Hook him up to the M.A.T. (Memory Altering Technology), and then we'll go from there. I'll see you in the operating room in an hour."
A shocked look appeared on one of the nurses' face, but then she gave a solemn nod before turning around to go to another room to gather what they'd need.
The doctors crowded the operating table and the chair where Shiro sat. "Are you sure about this? We haven't developed enough technology to selectively choose which memory to erase. We have to choose a certain time, and everything preceding it will be erased besides things with not enough emotional connection to register as a 'memory'. That means you-"
Shiro held up one hand to stop the doctor from continuing. "I know that, but I caused this to happen to him, I don't even deserve to be remembered by him anymore. Erase everything from his life, let him start over, and turn it on before I can make another selfish decision, please."
The doctors in the room hesitated, but finally it began. The machine whirred to life, and soon electromagnetic waves were being pulsed into Kuroko's brain at an extremely high intensity. Shiro watched his son's form jerk with each shock, but after only a couple minutes, he stood and walked to the door of the operating room.
"Please get him into Teiko Military Academy. Let him live a life other than this one." And with those words, Kuroko Shiro walked out of the room, leaving his son to fend for himself while trying to convince himself that it was for Kuroko's sake, not him running away from the guilt that was overshadowing him.
A voice echoed in Kuroko's subconscious, rousing him from the depths of his mind as it blared over a speaker. "Rank, 1A. Team, Generation of Miracles. Akashi Seijuro, Murasakibara Atsushi, Aomine Daiki, Midorima Shintarou, and Kise Ryouta, please enter the gate. The simulation will start momentarily."
Kuroko opened his eyes in a daze. He could feel dirt under his fingers, and patches of grass were scattered around his field of vision. His back was on something solid, something that was most likely tree bark digging into it.
A buzzer rang out, almost deafening and his head rang. He took one more cursory glance around his environment, looking for any sign of life near him, before the pain was too great and he slumped back against the tree, senseless for the third time in less than 48 hours.
Author's Note
Well, thanks for reading my story! Any constructive criticism is welcome, along with any other comments. If anything doesn't make sense just let me know and I'll try to make it more clear. Oh, and if you see and grammar or spelling mistakes, please let me know. I don't really have anything more to say, so thanks again for reading my story!