Kotetsu T. Kaburagi blinked and stared at the once critically damaged android. At its face—his own face. No, he screamed inside his mind. This can't be real. But no words came out.
Damn.
Saito—the quiet-natured engineer—brought the android back to live; it took two months of hard work to repair the last of the damaged parts, and then another week to assemble.
Kotetsu could hear the android's vital organ beating—or rather, the faint humming of the engine resembling a human heart.
Black Tiger had been confined in the lab for a year and four months. Those red emotionless eyes still haunted Kotetsu in his nightmares till this very day.
He was glad the android wasn't conscious; seeing those cold eyes again would only serve to fuel his dark fears. Still, his gentle heart swayed, and somewhere along the way, Kotetsu pitied the humanoid.
Saito stripped him down to a black inner suit and attached probes and leads all over his body. In the background Kotetsu could hear machines beeping, recording things his intelligence cannot possibly comprehend, so he doesn't even try.
"Are you sure about this, Saito?" He had his doubts about this little experiment. The spectacled engineer, however, was determined to research the android for data that will prove useful in future projects.
"He's on safety mode, right?"
He was giving Black Tiger a thorough inspection with his eyes. Then, he heard Saito's low murmuring voice. "I removed his weaponry as a precaution, if that makes you feel better," the little man smirked.
Leaning down on the android, he poked his face a little too much. "So he's as harmless as a kitten without claws."
When he pressed his finger to its cheek with casual familiarity, the android's eyelids jerked open. With a horror-filled look on his face, Kotetsu hurriedly took three steps back and held onto his beating heart.
Smoke was seeping out of the machinery as Black Tiger struggled to take in the surrounding area. He clenched a fist, then jabbed it relentlessly into empty space, very much liking how the artificial muscles worked.
Then it turned, and red eyes were focused on Kotetsu, making him feel naked and exposed. As he looked into those defiant cold eyes, he clenched his teeth in anticipation.
Is Black Tiger going to finish what it started? He hoped not. The android's gaze continued to bore into him.
"Shut it down," Kotetsu growled. "Right now, Saito!" His sharp tone could have cut through steel plates.
From where he stood, Kotetsu watched an expression of terror flit across Black Tiger's face. The android was scared, and it most definitely didn't want to wait around for the order to get carried out.
As Kotetsu closed in with a fury of assaults, Black Tiger was living through the storm, blocking, covering up and ducking into safety. "I mean no harm," he said, all the while, with a voice so cold and empty—but still Kotetsu's voice all the same.
"You expect me to believe you?" he growled, momentarily forgetting that the android can easily overpower him. Maybe he was angry at himself for fearing his double, but the anger was directed outward.
"You're an android! You think you belong out there?" He scoffed and spoke in a sarcastic tone of voice: "I can't imagine why you'd want to mingle with us humans. Can't wait to torture innocent people, huh? Yeah, that's it."
The android cringed as the words slammed into his system. "No," he managed to say, even when he knew that being the bad guy was the role he was forced to play. "Trust me," he said, the empty eyes staring into the windows of Kotetsu's soul.
He looked like he wanted to laugh in his face. "Trust you? Why should I? You're a menace to society!"
This was going nowhere.
The challenging look in Kotetsu's eyes tore at the android. He hurled himself upon Black Tiger, delivering an uppercut and a straight punch in his frustration. But Black Tiger blocked the two, ducked a third, stepped to the side to avoid a fourth, and was then driven backward by a hurricane of blows.
The android admired the man's steady persistence, but something must be done to stop this.
When Black Tiger drove his fist at his opponent's face with terrific force and lightning speed—then halting his assault in the nick of time , Kotetsu's hat flew off.
Taking advantage of the man's confusion, Black Tiger made his escape. Kotetsu did the nearing-retirement version of a sprint after him but his double had mingled with the busy crowd of Sternbild.
He was hidden from the human eye and protected from human touch.
One day, these humans would discover just how wrong they were for judging androids by the crimes they were forced to commit, by their own hands no less. Their bodies will die, but Black Tiger will be here eternally.
Eternal, just like Black Tiger's irritation seemed to be.
He didn't want to be among the humans, to be abused yet again. Despite this, the red-eyed android wouldn't ever lower himself to harm people.
His hands curled into fists.
You're an android, they would say. You're a menace to society. To these humans… Black Tiger was considered a puppet, with manipulative hands tugging at the strings. That's just the way things worked.
They battle the desires of the flesh, and he does not.
He doesn't know how it feels to experience lust, envy, greed, rage, pride, hate, despair, happiness. But that does not mean his existence is inferior to the human race. Androids, in actuality, don't differ much from humans as much as they would think.
"Hate," Black Tiger said to no one but himself.
Grinding his teeth, he slipped through the crowd without any difficulty and reached the roof of a five story department building in central Sternbild, peering down at the humans so blithely going about their evening.
Hour after hour passed, but he stood motionless, observing them. Some were shopping, some talking and laughing, and some snacking while they walked.
If they knew the reason of his existence—taking him for a dangerous killing machine—they would drop down on their knees, sobbing and begging him to spare their lives.
Humans knew they were fading. They grew up knowing they'd have to abandon everything and everyone they loved, and that… fascinated him.
If he were to be destroyed, he shouldn't do anything this time around—no, not even beg—to change his fate. Despite the large amount of information stored in his system, humans know things he did not.
Perhaps it would be better if he were disposed of after all.
He gazed down at the gloomy street beneath him, the taunting ground opening its arms as if begging to embrace him. Wind blustered, ruffling his hair in every direction. An android was what he was, what he always would be. And his existence did not matter to them. Not to anyone.
Jump, he beseeched.
He was a dark entity that craved unspeakable evil, wasn't he?
Jump.
He knew he would shatter in pieces on contact. He could wish, anyway. Finally, he splayed his arms. Closed his eyes. Leaned…
"Come down from there," he heard a voice say from behind him. A voice with a whispery quality, as if filled with smoke and dreams, and it settled over Black Tiger like warm honey. And yet, with the soothing came a tensing. Every artificial muscle in his mechanical body knotted up, as if preparing to fight.
Reading his mind as to wondering what she was doing here, she said: "I work here. I saw you on the roof when I left the building."
He blinked.
The woman was out of breath; clearly, she impulsively rushed up here as fast as she possibly could. This confused him. Still, he chose to turn around once more and balanced on the edge of the roof.
"Come down from there, please!"
He halted, but refused to come down.
"My assigned purpose as of this moment is 'coming down', as you put it. Regardless, you interfere with the one purpose you want me to fulfill."
"That's not what I meant. Come on, we can talk this out. Just don't do anything you'll regret, I beg of you."
That wasn't the answer he sought. How could he regret jumping to his doom when jumping was his only salvation?
"You are frail. You cannot begin to comprehend my predicaments in this world."
"No." She certainly didn't want to impose either. "But you have to understand that you can't possibly choose to die, not when there are plenty unfortunate souls living in this city, in this world. You are not dying on me," Where her tone had been alarming before, it was now threaded with hope. "You should live while you still have the chance."
There was a pause.
Turning around, he faced her. Judging by the fragility of her bone structure, she was a tiny thing. Her features were plain, her skin as pale as porcelain, and her eyes as gray as a winter storm.
Her dark hair was cut short-a typical bob cut-with a fringe at the front. There was an air of fatigue surrounding her, and yet, there was a sparkle in those winter eyes. A sparkle he would soon learn more about.
In the blink of an eye, Black Tiger learned her name and anything in-between, the information seeming to download straight into his hard drive.
Born at twenty-seven weeks, she had struggled to survive the heart defect she'd been born with. Multiple surgeries were needed, and she almost died countless times. Throughout the years, her parents had become fond of saying, "You have to keep yourself calm or you'll have another heart attack."
Innocent words meant to aid her. Humans were fascinating indeed.
"I am beginning to comprehend your strong desire to thwart my fall," he said, steadily approaching the girl. "It is because you are one of the 'unfortunate souls' you spoke of, is it not?"
She squinted her eyes, regarding him with suspicion. "Rest assured, in place of my assigned purpose, I shall aid you in your quest to perfect health."
Her temper flared and she had to take deep breaths to calm herself. Had he offended her in some way—when all he wanted was to return the kindness she had offered him?
"You're a strange man."
"I assure you, I am not a member of the species homo sapiens such as yourself, despite sharing the same form of a male human."
"You're missing a couple of screws, aren't you?"
"On the contrary; my screws are heavily secured. Rotwang, my creator, has bestowed upon me the name H-01."
"Is that some kind of street code—"
"I am an android."
An android.
H-01.
Not a man, but an android.
Laughter bubbled from her, such beautiful laughter, with nothing held back. The kind he would never experience for himself.
Having observed her for a moment, it became painfully clear that she didn't believe him. Mentioning his nature would only send other people running. And yet this human stands before me, laughing.
Intriguing. Her kindness alone, though undeniable, wasn't enough to fascinate him. But the kindness and bold nature… that he found compelling.