AN: I'm not sure whether to be proud or saddened that there's no category for Black Jack on the site. I mean, is this a first, and is that a good thing? Anyway, I wrote this halfway through watching The Two Doctors Of Darkness, and I think I was probably quite fair in my assessment of Kiriko, given hindsight. Beta credits to the lovely TastesLikeMiso. Enjoy!
A Humanity That Defies Logic
A Black Jack Fanfiction
The first doctor stirred the sugar into his tea slowly, his long, slender fingers caressing the silver spoon like an old lover. He laid the spoon upon the fine china saucer with an audible clink, and sipping serenely, he gazed over the rim of the cup towards his younger counterpart.
"So, what do you intend to do?"
The second took no sugar in his coffee. He slammed the cup onto the table with a crash that made the china sing.
"The only thing I can do, God damn you."
"There is always another way, Doctor Black Jack. Why must you always see me as your enemy?"
"You take life. How else can I see you?"
"It is the living that take life. I merely help to make the separation less painful." Kiriko set down his cup and continued to gaze across the table.
The young woman in question had lain in a coma for four months. Her family had scraped together every last yen to petition the infamous Doctor Black Jack.
Black Jack gritted his teeth. "Why can you find no beauty in life?"
"I find beauty in every breath I take. But it is not the only thing. When you have seen what I have seen, can you be sure that you will not question yourself? You are young yet, Doctor Black Jack."
"I have known pain."
"Haven't we all?"
The two doctors fell silent once more, and Black Jack found himself listening to random snatches of conversation from the happy tourists that filled the cafe. It was not until Doctor Kiriko began to provoke him again that he found his voice.
"When every breath burns like hot coals, and blinking makes you sick with pain, how then will you find your beauty?"
"There is always another day."
"And for those who have none?" Kiriko sipped his tea. "Doctor Black Jack, do you really think you can do anything for that woman?"
"Her family isn't paying me to think. They're paying me to do my best."
"How very convenient for you."
Black Jack clenched his fists under the table. This wasn't going right at all.
"Don't you think that I should do all I can to save her?"
"Black Jack, let's be straight with each other. We are both doctors, after all. The girl doesn't stand a chance, and we both know it. You will allow her family to pay you, knowing that?"
"It's an investigative procedure."
"Which we are both aware will yield nothing."
"You would take their money."
"And at the end of it, they would have nothing left to worry them. Your way brings false hope. Why can you not bring yourself to tell them she will never wake up?"
"To not try would be evil."
"Ah, that old word. Since I am no fool, I know that you are implicating me when you use that word. But can you not see that I too do my best for my patients? She would feel no pain- not that she can feel anymore, poor girl, ahaha- and at the end of it, her family would thank me. They always do, you know. I take the pain away, and you only prolong the agony."
"How can you know that until you've tried? Living is worth the effort! Your own father-"
Black Jack stopped abruptly, looked down, and took a gulp of his rapidly cooling coffee. Kiriko began to trace the grain of the table with his index finger. They both knew that he had overstepped an invisible line.
"How can you believe that it is up to you, Doctor Black Jack, to decide who lives, and who dies?" asked Kiriko quietly. "You think that is my chief fault, but you too play at God. I just want to help lost souls back into His hands when their time has come..."
"And when..." Black Jack paused, trying to be delicate. "And when you are wrong?"
Kiriko looked grim for a moment. "I suppose that none of us is perfect. Can you tell me that none of your patients have died who should have lived?"
"I cannot. And you-"
"I accept fully the consequences of my actions. I know that God shall judge my soul at the end, for better or worse. I will know that I have done the best I can for his children in pain."
"Mask it how you like. You are still a murderer."
"Death holds no secrets. You will bring false hope yet again. How can you bear to hurt people like that?"
"Death is final! There's no going back. What if your patients were to change their minds?"
"I am merely providing a service."
"How very convenient for you."
The doctors grimaced into their respective beverages. Black Jack began to gnaw at his thumbnail in agitation, as he gazed at a flock of seabirds flying past the window. Kiriko despondently twirled a lock of fine grey hair about his finger.
"How can you wake up in the morning, and think 'Today, I'm going to kill people'?" snapped Black Jack.
"How can you continue to see everything in shades of black and white? The world is not so easy, Doctor Black Jack."
"Don't act so world-weary. It doesn't suit you."
"You don't believe it possible to be tired of life?"
"I don't believe it rational."
"And that is where you differ from my patients."
Outside the cafe, a little girl was walking with her mother, the string of a balloon clenched tightly in her chubby fist. The two doctors watched her pass.
"There is a beauty too in death, Doctor Black Jack. When you see the muscles of the face finally relax, freed from their pain, how can you say that is ugly?"
"Would there be a beauty in my fist as it rearranged your face for saying such things, Doctor Shinigami?"
"An 'Angel of Death'? How very fitting." Kiriko smiled indulgently as he sipped his tea.
The shrill tone of a mobile phone rang out from beneath the table. Black Jack answered, with an expressionless face.
"Yes. I'll be there right away. Please inform the parents- it will cost ten thousand yen." He flicked the phone shut with a beep and rose, throwing his cloak about his shoulders as he kicked the chair back under the table.
"Where are you going, Doctor Black Jack? Off to prolong the inevitable?" asked Doctor Kiriko, with a knowing look upon his hawkish features.
"Of course. It's the only thing I know how to do," responded Black Jack serenely.
"Well, I wish you luck."
"How much was the coffee?"
"My treat, Kuro-kun."
"Then I'll be sure to look after you next time, sensei."