Ascend

He was the homeless man living under a bridge, everything he ever owned stuffed into two or three large shopping bags that he positioned to surround himself like a fortress.

He was the emaciated vagabond on the side of the road, ripping open garbage bags to collect the recyclable bottles (only 1,847 left to go).

He was the shiftless thug arrested for breaking and entering, intent on taking with him whatever he could sell.

Himika could not believe how far Reiji had had fallen.

They sat facing each other in one of her conference rooms. He looked much the same as he always did, but Himika had never been fooled by petty appearances. She could feel the absolute ugliness of his circumstance seeping out of his pores; something about him had changed. As she gazed at him from across the oblong table, a memory struck her. A faint blip in time: Reiji was 7, in his little bubble coat and scarf, collecting snow off the ground and compressing it in the palms of his hands to make a snowball. His large red-rimmed glasses framed his cherubic face as he concentrated on the task at hand, brows furrowed, mouth set in a thin, straight line. At the time, she worried that he might use it as a weapon of mass annoyance against some unfortunate bystanders, but when he finished all he did was walk up and present it to her as a gift. "Look, mother: I made a perfect sphere. I'd like for you to have it."

Himika smiled at the memory. It was perfect—just as he used to be. The Reiji in front of her was worlds away from the Reiji she knew, and while she did summon him from the depths of the inner city with a specific purpose, she had to know… "What happened to you?"

He grinned—subtle, demure, not at all unlike the smiles he would grace her with whenever she completed a successful merger, or came out on top of whatever business venture she'd gotten involved in. But something about it had changed. The mirth now reached his eyes, his posture relaxing some. "Why don't you tell me, mother?"

She did not appreciate that type of flippant response. The old Reiji, her son, would've never so much as dreamed to direct her own question back to her in such a disrespectful manner. "Answer the question, Reiji."

He seemed mildly surprised by the lack of an honorific, and Himika silently begged him to seriously—very seriously—consider the implications of her choice to drop it. I no longer respect you. How could I ever respect a genius who choses to live his life so far outside of society?

It seemed not to register in the way she'd hoped when he finally did answer. "You know very well what happened. I don't regret my decision, nor am I open to hearing you plead your case as to why I should come back."

Himika leaned back in her chair. Such a stubborn child he turned out to be. Certainly, he took after his father in that respect. "I suppose I can't change your mind. The only thing I can hope for is that you realize that you and yours will never win, not against the Leo Corporation." She grinned. Wicked. "Not against me."

His eyebrows shot up. "Why, mother… you were never the type to write off the capabilities of your opponents. Tell me," he blinked, the gesture just a bit too deliberate, "what happened to you?"

She slammed her fist down on the table, the sound of the impact resonating throughout a room equipped with acoustics too high in quality for such a small space. "Don't patronize me! I'm not the one who threw away a position, a life of immense power and reach for the sake of a couple of 14 year olds!"

"They're far more than 'a couple of 14 year olds', mother, and you know it."

"Whatever they are, whatever they claim to be saving… " she eyed him up and down, "they couldn't save you. That much is painfully clear."

"What's wrong with the way I am now?" He leaned back in his swivel chair, rocking back and forth ever so slightly. It took her 16 years to teach him the ways of the world, the proper way to live his life; it amazed her that he managed to unlearn it all in the span of a few months. Was there even a point to bringing him into the world?

"And what do you have now that you didn't have before?" She waited a moment, before raising an eyebrow and sneering, "Happiness?"

He didn't seem deterred. "That's one small part of a much larger picture. But if simplifying it makes it easier for you to understand, then yes: I am happy."

She shook her head. "You are such a child."

"And I am a reflection of you."

"You're nothing like me. I would never give up the cause I dedicated my life to for the sake of 'happiness', or 'friendship', or 'love'."

He smiled again, and in the context of their conversation it inflamed Himika even more. Who was he to look down on her? "You make those things sound frivolous." He paused for a moment, before continuing. "Grandmother once told me that a child is the embodiment of what their parents want the world to become. Mother… is that true?"

She didn't remember her mother ever telling her anything like that. "What do you mean?"

"The person I was, do you really want to see that in the world at large? Dark and lonely? Unable to connect to anyone?" Himika didn't respond; Reiji continued. "I am a reflection of you, mother. Even now, my life is a direct result of your influence. If you aren't pleased with what I've become, don't ask me what happened. I suggest you ask yourself."

She refused to dignify his accusations with a direct response. A far as she was concerned, the only thing she was at fault for was in raising a truly selfish and ungrateful child. But to discuss the manner in which she raised him wasn't why she pulled him from the depths of the inner city; her main objective remained at the forefront of her mind. "I need you to bring Sakaki Yuya to me."

"No."

"I'm not going to hurt him, but I do need to have a discussion with him regarding what is happening, and what is to happen. No matter what, the lines of communication should be kept open." She crossed her arms. "But I know that if I approach him myself, he'd find a way to escape me. Which is why I need you to talk to him."

"Sakaki Yuya would do very well to exhaust any and all means to stay away from you. You said so yourself: I sacrificed a great deal for him. And I see no reason why I should nullify that sacrifice to lure him into what is, without a doubt, a trap."

"Why do you have such little faith in me?"

He narrowed his eyes, and for a brief blip in time she swore he looked like his old self again: calculating, controlling. She loved that look on him, almost as much as it made her heart ache. "Because I've seen your work. And there's no reason why you'd waste time talking to a child if you weren't looking to manipulate them in some way."

"You have every right to believe what you want to believe. Just know that you being the medium between Sakaki Yuya and I was my first and only diplomatic option. Should you refuse to comply with my request, I'll have to resort to using… other methods in order to reach him. You know I can, and I will." She folded her hands upon the table before her, and smiled sweetly. "You have seen my work, after all."

"And you have yet to truly see mine. Do anything underhanded to get to him, and I will shut you down."

Himika was taken aback. The thing in front of her simply could not be her son. "So it seems that the vermin you've been associating with have influenced you in more ways than one. Threatening your own mother in such a vile way… you ought to be ashamed of yourself."

"That isn't a threat, mother. It's a guarantee." His posture relaxed again, his gaze growing soft. "My sincerest hope is that you see the error of your ways before it's too late for you to redeem yourself."

"I could very well say the same. You are making a terrible mistake."

"No, mother. You are."

She still couldn't believe how far her son had fallen.

If someone told her they'd found him sleeping in an abandoned warehouse, or stationed up on the roof of some random apartment building, she wouldn't have difficulty believing them. She knew, of course, that he wasn't actually without a place to stay. She'd kept an eye on him since he defected. He had a support system, hands to hold him back him from truly falling over the edge. As she watched him leave through the back entrance of the LDS, she almost wished that he were living on the streets. Maybe then he'd return to her—as all good children do—and she'd have her perfect son back.

But Himika wasn't blind. She had to admit, there was a light in Reiji's eyes that simply had not been there before. Even as a small child, standing on a that snow-covered ground, arms outstretched towards her and her gift waiting in his hands… there'd been a quite stillness in his gaze that made everything else seem brilliant and bright in comparison. She always interpreted it as wisdom far beyond his years, but now…

'If simplifying it makes it easier for you to understand, then yes: I am happy.'

Happy to be standing against her, happy to be aiding in the destruction of her life's work, happy to use his genius to assist her enemies. It hurt her to know he found joy in her suffering; it hurt her even more to know he'd apparently been sad by her side.

The sight of him ascending up towards the open road hazed out as another memory fell down on her. It possessed the same innate duality as snow, gentle and frigid all at once. She was his age, alone in her room at night, tormented into sleeplessness by the very thought of her worst fear: failure. She'd imagine the moment she so feared was forthcoming, the day she'd take a step back from something she'd given her all to and realize it hadn't been enough. That it'd been corrupted beyond repair, or worse still—outright imperfect from the start.

It was obvious that her worst fear had been realized, that she had failed in one way or another. Though in that failure, she wasn't quite sure what or who had been damaged the most—the Leo Corporation? The world? Perhaps even Reiji himself. Either way, she found herself faced with a herculean task: learning to see the world through a different scope, the terrain before her irreversibly altered by the cold and catastrophic death of her perfect son. In his wake stood someone else, someone who'd apparently always lurked just beneath the most pristine of surfaces. That person, she didn't care to know.

Himika turned on her heel and marched out of the security room, headed towards her own office. There were plans to be made, and she would win this war. And if she had to destroy Reiji to accomplish it… then so be it.

Heavy of heart, so be it.