He's dead.
Yeah, he has to be. God, what was he thinking. Evidently not enough, if he believed he could've killed a world-destroyer.
That's right. The alien. That's what happened.
Joe opens his eyes. A familiar ceiling. "This isn't heaven," he mutters. So much for shuffling off the mortal coil.
"You should sleep," someone says matter-of-factly. "That'll help you get better faster!"
He wants to laugh. Typical. "Can't," he replies. The words slur in his mouth. He curls his fingers, grasping at empty air. His joints crack in protest. "I feel dead."
"Well, you're not," Hajime replies, and draws the curtains shut. Easy for you to say, he wants to say. When you weren't the one bleeding out on a sidewalk. Not that he'd ever wish that on anyone. What's he going to do with his life now, anyway. Maybe he'll take over from O.D., he'll sit and watch from the sidelines while O.D. goes to take on that Berg-Katse thing. What does O.D. even stand for, anyway.
At least he'll have front-row seats, when the world ends in its big, red blaze.
I wanted to die, he thinks. Strange, how almost getting his wishes granted puts things into perspective. He doesn't want to die, not any more. Maybe that's what J.J.'s been hinting at; maybe that's why his bird is red and trails flames in its wake.
Hajime pats his hand. Her fingers are fine, slender - an artisan's, composed of birdbone and china. "Night-night, talk to you later, okay!"
He grunts at her and squeezes his eyes shut again. She's always had a nice smile. He doesn't think he can meet her eyes - at least, not for a while. She's probably never thought about lying down and giving up.
If the world goes out in its fabled blaze, she'll probably weather it through and laugh in Berg-Katse's face.
.
He dreams.
There is blood on his hands, on his face, slick in his hair. It's crusted on his skin, gummy and congealed under his fingernails, damp on his clothes. His NOTE isn't in his pocket. Well, figures.
He presses the heel of his hand to his face and rubs, a slow, vertical swipe. Something smears and smudges across his cheekbones and along his jaw; he blinks blood from his eyes.
"You were always good at putting on a show," someone with his voice says. When he tries to turn, he finds he can't move. So, he thinks. If you're beaten to within an inch of your life in reality, you'll be in the same condition in your dreams, too.
There's someone else, wearing his face and using his voice. Joe snarls, "fuck off," and the other him smiles. What big teeth you have, he wants to say as sarcastically as he can. It's just a dream. This is just a dream.
His mouth feels dry. He licks his teeth and tastes it, a coppery, salty tang; he runs his tongue over his bicuspids, his front teeth - and feels a preternatural sharpness. A monster's smiling maw. What the hell. His eyes flick to his reflection and it sneers at him. He knows that expression; he's seen it every night for the last ten years out of the corner of his eye, reflecting off of shotglasses and beer bottles. He thinks he's worn it better.
"What next, now that you've become such a liability? Do you think your puppy-boy apprentice will still keep tripping after you after he's seen how weak you reaaaally are?"
Joe scowls. He most certainly doesn't draw his syllables out like that. When he blinks, his doppelganger's image wavers. Hajime. She grins, a wide, wolfish smile that doesn't fit right on her features. Too much smile, too many teeth. She rocks back and forth on the balls of her feet; a monster's diamond-segmented tail quirks quizzically over her back - the warning arch of a scorpion's stinger.
"But nothing's impossible, right!" she singsongs. It's more of a warble, a giddy falsetto. "But, I suppose a deadbeat like you wouldn't have a clue about that. You're right, you know, when you're going nowhere like you, of course there's nothing you can do! It's only natural, after all."
She weaves between crackling, static-blue creatures, their skin a pixellated hum, and vaults over them. One grasps at her ankle; it gives a low hum, the hissing rumble of an exhausted machine. Joe watches, mesmerised, as her tail sways like a pendulum, then buries itself on the creature's head. Its plasma-screen features flicker and dim; she hops from its back and smiles guilelessly up at him.
"Trying to look sooo cool and trying to look sooo aloof," she says, framing her face with splayed fingers. Hajime-not-Hajime's wrists bend and twist at unnatural angles; she giggles between her fingers, peeking coyly through them. "Just sit back down and give up, do nothing like you always do! What difference does it make if you die or not, huh, when you'll do nothing either way!"
He knows full well it isn't her. God, does he know. He still can't bring himself to look at her, to shut her - it, whatever - up like he should.
Her voice grows distant, murky; good, Joe thinks sourly, perhaps he'll get some sleep now.
.
Over and over, they repeat; an infernal cycle.
His doppelganger cocks its head to the side, a surprisingly birdlike motion and its features shift and warp again. Sugane smiles, a malicious demon's grin - a shark that's sensed blood in the water. "I'm so disappointed," he says. "To think I saw you as someone worth admiring. What a misconception. Are you worthy of calling yourself a hero, when all you do is run away?"
Sugane shakes his head and sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger; a theatrical gesture that is at odds with the facade Katse wears. "Nothing but inaction and inertia. I've never seen anything so useless or pathetic. You're really no good, you know."
He can't move. He still can't move. Sugane folds his hands atop the handle of his katana. "Keeping things to yourself, hiding everything away ... there's no strength in that."
Sugane shifts into Utsutsu, momentarily. Her fingers lace and unlace. She wears vibrant bows, an insulting homage to his earlier visions.
"I'll save more people than you ever will," she says. Her voice is quiet, whispery; it's laced with bitter malice.
.
He doesn't know how long he's been asleep.
It wears his face this time; the one he presents to the daytime world, sleek and polished. It wears a diamond-patterned tie; it catches his gaze, and pushes its glasses up its nose.
Joe can see himself, reflected twofold in those lenses. He looks as dead as he feels. One for one. Full marks.
It cups his chin in its hands and kisses him - and changes. It smiles and there is blood in its teeth. Its glasses are cracked; blood rimes the surface, filling in the gaps between lens and frame. The white dress-shirt is stained pink and red up to the collar; its lost its cufflinks, the tie-pin.
"At least you'll always have yourself, right, once you're done shutting everyone out?" it asks as it hooks its arms loosely around his neck. It burns where it touches him; he's burning, he's on fire - his skin flakes and peels. He's ash and embers, smouldering on the self-contained pyre of his own body. He burns like paper, like the pages of his NOTE.
He can feel the other's breath - a pale imitation at mimicking life, he figures - against his jaw as it draws closer. He can't move his hands, his body, anything. It slides its palm down his chest; bloods trails from its fingers, a streaked, garish handprint against his shirt.
It stares at him with mad, red eyes and licks a slow, wet stripe down his cheek. "That's what I'm here for," it purrs against his neck. "Blood and destruction and destruction and blood! More, more, there isn't enough of it!" For a moment, its voice slips into a higher register, into Berg-Katse's trill. "And you, you're chock-full of it. You make such a good plaything, it'd be a shame if you died, wouldn't it?"
He flinches as it bites into the side of his throat; a monster with his own face grins up at him, blood dribbling down its chin, and strokes at his hair. "Poor, poor deluded bird, it must be so boring head of yours. There's nowhere for you to go after this, nothing for you to rise again from. Sad, isn't it?" Its voice sharpens, lowering to his own. "Well, you've nobody to blame but yourself."
It releases him and laughs, euphoric and uproarious, as he burns.
.
His thoughts come together slowly, like scattered fragments.
This time, he's not so sure if he's awake. The room's dark, curtains drawn over the windows. No light seeps through the fabric. He wonders how long it's been since he was last awake.
There are get-well cards lining his bedside table - they're decorated with bright, cheery collages and patterned tape, off-centred origami and glittery paint. Must have been a while, he figures, if Hajime had time to get everybody to make cards in the meantime.
His neck bones grate against one another as he tries to turn his head. Sugane sprawls on a chair nearby, arms crossed, head drooping onto his chest. Must be late, he figures; Sugane's one to keep regular hours and strict schedules.
The door creaks open; light spills through the gap, casting a jagged streak of brightness across the floor and his bedspread. Hajime peeks through the gap, and waves a little; her eyes flick to Sugane and she winks, placing a finger over her lips. Utsutsu peers at him from under Hajime's arm and smiles, shy and hesitant. She looks paler than he last remembers, wan and tired with bruised-orchid shadows rimming her eyes.
Joe wonders how much it took, for her to heal him this much.
Talk later! Sleep now! Hajime mouths, making talky-talky motions with her hands. He's had it with sleeping, but nods for her benefit anyway. The door clicks quietly shut and when he glances sidelong at Sugane, he realises he's been awake for a while.
"I'm sorry," Sugane says after a long silence. "I'm sorry I couldn't help more."
"Shut it," Joe croaks back. His voice rasps at the back of his throat. "Don't go saying things like that."
They're quiet for a while longer. "What're you going to do now?" Sugane asks at last.
Joe thinks about it. "Re-evaluate some things, maybe," he replies. "Get back into ... the whole life thing. Live a little more, you know, that sort of thing. Try harder, push the boundaries. Treat this as a do-over. I'm not going to waste the chance Utsutsu's given me."
"I-I see," Sugane says. He falls silent for a long time, staring down at his hands. "But ... but if you go try to take on Berg-Katse again, you-"
"I'll tell you," Joe says. "I'll tell all of you and we'll go, yeah? As a whole team."
"Yeah," Sugane agrees. "Yes, you'd better."