Chapter 6: Looking Through Mirrors and Through Glass
Everything hurt.
He couldn't move, he couldn't try to, and it felt as if everything was pinned down with some magnetic force that would shock him if he tried to oppose it. The shaking wouldn't stop, and it only made the pain worse, but if he tried to end it himself it felt horrific. His head pounded, and every bone ached, and as he tried to open his eyes and observe the world around him a blinding light capped his vision.
Yuma's eyelids came back slowly, and the first thing he saw was a bright, artificial light hanging from the ceiling above him. He felt like he was atop needles, only pricking him more and more each time he dared move, so he lay completely still as the pain inhabiting every inch of his body ate away at its victim.
It happened again.
"Oh, you're awake?"
He thought he had been alone, and the voice instantly sent fear through his veins. Yuma could hardly turn his head without crying out, but while he strained his eyes he was able to catch sight of the speaker, crouched in the chair placed a few feet away.
He was too familiar.
"Sorry, we only just gave you pain meds so they haven't really set in yet, but we didn't want to do it earlier if it could've messed up test results." He explained himself, balancing his chin in his hand as he looked at Yuma. "You should feel a bit better soon, but you're really the only one who knows how long the recovery takes." Yuma couldn't place a name, but the sense of deja vu he got from this person's brown hair and blue jacket was unnerving.
"...Test results?" Yuma only realized he was breathing heavy after his chest slapped his nerves in protest, and he used the little energy he had to try and cover up the fear. "...What the hell did you do?" He sounded unintentionally angry, but the confident face talking to him had already prepared for the situation.
"You can calm down, we only took a blood sample," the man was talking to him as if they were equals, but something about his tone was unsettling. To anyone listening to him speak from the sidelines he would have sounded as if he was talking normally to a friend, but to the person he was actually directing the speech at, the underlying messages Yuma couldn't quite comprehend were only mocking him.
"Who are you?" Yuma tried to shout at him, but mid-syllable his voice gave out and returned to a raspy quietness. "And where am I?"
"The rebellion, he answered coolly, "or, to specify, Tamakoma, though I doubt you've heard of it. We're trying to help you, so no use in being defensive. But before I explain further, do you remember what happened before you woke up here?"
Yuma narrowed his eyes, shifting through the little memories he had of recent events, but many details weren't clear enough to understand. He was certain, though, that he hadseen this person before, somewhere in between the time in which he'd entered Mikado City and then fell unconscious.
Mikado City, that was it.
The Neighbors.
The paper with Yuma's information.
Steadily becoming more aware, visions of the events that had taken place beforehand slipped through to the point where Yuma began to recall them. Having infiltrated a walled city in search of answers, being discovered and then pursued by Neighbors, meeting a boy who had displayed himself as beyond strange, and finally getting himself 'rescued', if that was the accurate term, by the man that currently sat before him.
Yuichi Jin,he remembered,his name is Jin.
"There's no reason for me to tell you what I was doing," Yuma declared out loud, though to his disappointment Jin didn't seem swayed by his statement.
"Give me a moment to talk," he said, raising an eyebrow, "and perhaps you'll change your mind."
"It's pointless."
"Is it?" Jin laughed, but reverted back to the face he had before. "Now, if you do remember, let's start with you being curious as to how I knew your name back there."
Yuma flinched.
Jin lifted his head, folding his hands in his lap as he addressed Yuma. "As it turns out, I can safely say that I probably know things about you even you don't know yourself, and naturally I'd be more than happy to share them with you, but in exchange I'm - no, we're- looking for your cooperation."
'Cooperation?'
"...Give me a legitimate reason to trust you, and maybe I'll considerlistening."
That was a lie. Yuma was desperate to escape somehow, though in his current state there was no chance of him getting further than the first hallway outside the door. He would pretend to comply with Jin for the time being, until he was strong enough to walk, and then bail the instant he got the chance to. There would be no consideringanything Jin said to him.
"I did save your life, didn't I?"
Yuma gritted his teeth. "You didn't." Without this shitty ability, you would've gotten me killed forever.
"So that's how it is," Jin mused, eyes looking upwards for a moment before meeting Yuma's again. "You think you can't die, then?"
Yuma thought his heart would stop, a shiver traveling through skin and bones as his eyes stared, in shock, at Jin's arrogant expression. "Wait, wha- H-H-How d-do you-?"
"'The ability activates when the host's heartbeat is no longer present'," Jin narrated, "'and in the early stages said host tends to faint after de-activation'." Unbothered by the evident terror in front of him, he never broke eye contact. "In other words, at this point you have no control over activating your ability in the first place, nor stopping it until you pass out."
Yuma felt worse than what he would've felt trapped in the swirling inner works of a ocean wave, his senses and perception of reality twisting with each word coming from Jin's mouth. What he had said first could've easily been pulled from just watching Yuma's experience in Mikado, however when Jin touched on what control Yuma had over his ability, his caution peaked. In addition, up until then Yuma was completely convinced he had been the only one with any clue about whatever was happening to him, and even then he had no logical explanation himself. When he found himself too shocked to muster a reply, Jin kept talking.
"You're not the only one with this kind of ability," Jin informed him, and Yuma simultaneously felt a weight lifted from his chest and thought he would choke on the empty air around him. "It's increasingly rare, though, and people like you are a valuable resource to whichever side they end up on. The Neighbors have probably set their sights on you, as have we, but the treatment you'd have gotten in their hands would be drastically different compared to what we've done thus far."
"H-Hold on," Yuma shook his head when he spoke, heavy with the doubt that Jin was really saying what he was saying. "You said there's more people like me, and how..." he looked down, clenching a fist, "...how do you know all this? You're saying know what's going on with me?"
Since Yuma had woken up for the first time, around two weeks before the present, the same phenomenon that had occurred after being shot in Mikado had already happened to him twice before. Yuma had been able to deduce that these 'powers' of his were only activated if, as Jin had said, he was killed first, and seconds later would return from the dead. Despite having experienced it three times, the excruciating pain that came after passing out was not any less merciless with each event.
"I know a lot more than you let yourself believe I do," Jin claimed, keeping his voice at a steady level, but Yuma could sense a threatening intent beginning to build up behind it. "And of course it would be cruel to keep quiet about it, but at the same time I can't just hand everything to you and let you walk away with it.
Why not?
Yuma didn't say that out loud, but he assumed Jin would pick up the thought from his agitated facial expression. He continued to remain quiet, now more out of his own intention, and tried desperately to look Jin in the eye without losing face.
"What we're offering you is help." Jin looked more sincere. "And a shield of sorts. Excluding the Neighbors, we're not the only group of people who were looking for you, and if those others had found you first I can guarantee you'd be in a lot more pain than what you're in now." Noticing Yuma's brave mask faltering again, Jin seized his opportunity. "To get to the point, we want you to lend us your strength, and in exchange I'll tell you anything you want to know about your history, and teach you a few things about that ability."
Yuma wanted to punch that confident smirk off of Jin's face, the heaviness in his limbs being the only thing that kept him from doing so. How darehe withhold information and force Yuma into helping him if he wanted to get it, especially when said information had breached a highly personal level and how Jin even had it in the first place was a total mystery.
Maybe he was bluffing.
No, Yuma immediately cancelled out the idea, biting his lip. He was way too damn accurate earlier, this guy obviously knows something.
...Alright, I'll play your twisted game.
"Give me proof you can actually do what you say you can," Yuma demanded, not trusting Jin in the slightest but acting like he was coming around. He wasn't. "I'll help you when I'm certain you can help me."
"Proof?" Jin repeated, sounding clueless, and Yuma gritted his teeth at the fake innocence. "I showed you a document describing your physical traits perfectly, that's not proof enough?"
Yuma had tried to erase from his mind how much that had shaken him, but it still wasn't enough to fully convince him. "Something else."
Jin only drew the corners of his mouth upwards, while Yuma's went in the opposite direction. The former stood up, Yuma watching him the entire time to make sure he didn't attempt anything funny, and extended a hand to Yuma as he looked down at him. Any longer of a pause and Yuma would have reiterated Jin's requirement to show him a reason to trust him, but by the time he opened his mouth Jin silenced him without having to say anything nor move a muscle.
Yuma had seen this before, but only on himself. Across the skin of Jin's hand, bright green, almost white lines drew themselves along it, almost soothingly, and stretched up towards his arm - though the majority of them were covered by his sleeve. Jin didn't blink, the bastard had to have plannedthis, and when Yuma found himself able to look at his face, Jin's eyes were nearly identical to what Yuma had seen his own appear like, with the unnaturally light pupils and outer ring over natural eye color. Green markings had already shown up on Jin's face, some minor details being different from what Yuma attained on his own skin, but it was close enough for him to instantly realize the content within the situation.
Jin had an ability almost identical to his.
Not only that, but he could activate it at will.
And he was using it to his advantage.
Jin's hand was still up, being offered to Yuma as if it were a declaration of friendship - his face, however, didn't sync with the gesture. He was still smiling, but had strayed far from the childish expression he had before. His eyes were the most unsettling, and even if they hadn't had the superhuman look they now did, a darkness Yuma was not prepared to face pierced his calm charade like shards of ice.
Yuma wasn't sure if he had taken Jin seriously at first, but if the current aura surrounding the man said one thing, Yuichi Jin was absolutely terrifying when he wanted to be.
"Welcome to Tamakoma, Yuma Kuga."
"...Chika?"
The line separating fiction and reality had become blurred to Osamu, and all he could do was flail around on it until it solidified again and he had an understanding of what was really going on. Until then, he had no idea what was real and what wasn't, and was not entirely sure that he wasn't going to wake up any minute now and realize this entire day had just been a crazy dream.
For one thing, up until minutes ago Osamu hadn't even considered the odds of seeing Chika in this particular location. Then, Konami had surprisingly introduced them to him, although even with her doing so, there was no way the likelihood of his current situation had gone up by much. It was too coincidental, and under normal circumstances Osamu would have been extremely suspicious.
There was no room left for suspicion, it seemed.
Osamu could hear people whispering to each other around him, but none of them dared approach him, so he assumed Konami was staring down anyone who tried to come close. It was more helpful than he appreciated at the time; he probably would have been a mess trying to explain his presence at the base as well as talk to Chika. Hearing Chika herself talk, however, was enough to set him off-balance on its own.
The second girl, whom Osamu was yet to know the name of, turned around and saw him first, responding to Chika's name faster than the latter herself did. Her dark blonde hair was messy but still decent, and though her eye color was nearly black, there was still the light of childish wonder Osamu wasn't certain he would see in Chika.
She looked him up and down, and Osamu was expecting her to begin listing off flaws any second. Instead, she was indeed a bit rude, but kept it to-the-point despite her obvious curiosity that stretched further than a, "Who are you?"
Osamu had no time to answer before Chika turned towards him, though she glanced at her friend first before actually setting eyes upon Osamu. While Konami was surprisingly silent, Osamu forgot to breathe when Chika appeared to recognize him, if huge eyes and a open mouth meant anything. They shared similar expressions, both minds at a standstill in the dialogue department, and the unnamed girl looked back and forth cluelessly as she tried to comprehend their relationship.
"...You-You're alive," Osamu said first, his voice raspy and breaking between words. Seeing her face was strange, not in a bad way, but in the 'you disappeared and everyone gave up looking for you because you were probably captured or dead, yet here we are' way.
Chika looked at him from a sideways angle, disbelief evident in her features. Osamu just shifted awkwardly, waiting for her to respond somehow, not wanting to say two things in a row.
The terrible thought was then introduced to him, what if Chika had abandonedeveryone?
Shit, what if she doesn't evenwant to see me?
That was how things looked to Osamu, through the reality-changing lens of confusion over his eyes. What if Rinji had left for that same reason, too, because he wanted to leave Mikado City behi-
"Osa...mu?"
What if I'm not supposed to be here?
"Wait, you knowthis guy?" Chika's friend still couldn't seem to focus on one of them or the other, but prodded the one she was familiar with instead. "Seriously, I'm totally missing something here, who is this?"
Nobody answered her, which led to an irritated grumble, but Chika began muttering incoherently to herself while the people around them only stared. "How...H-How did y-wh-why are... what... wh-what are you...?" She didn't sound scared or angry, (though Osamu had never heard Chika sound angry, ever) but shoulder-deep in shock.
Today was a shoulder-deep in shock kind of day.
"We - well, Jin - ran into some trouble on the scouting mission, and after getting thrown into the thick of things Osamu ended up helping." Konami's tone was trying to recreate the previous atmosphere in the room, even though the others were only half-listening to her. "He can explain all the details, but the Neighbors would've caught him if he'd stayed there."
'Scouting mission?' Osamu echoed the words in his head, a slice of his attention straying from Chika for a brief moment. Wait, does she mean whatever their goal with Kuga was? Yeah, that's gotta be it, no way was that for scouting...
Why is she lying?
After an awkward delay, Chika looked suddenly startled, as if she had just returned from a short-lived trance. "Oh, I-I'm sorry! Sorry, this, this is just- it's really..." She looked around, desperately in search of the right words. "...I just... couldn't have expected..." Osamu was deathly nervous when she stopped talking, but when she held her head up and he got a good view of her face, he couldn't help a smile when he saw her happy.
He tried to laugh, and although it was somewhat forced the tension around them had lessened somewhat. "Yeah, I, uh, I co-"
"Chikakooo," the other girl chopped the top of Chika's head playfully, but her eyes remained on Osamu. "I'm confused, who's he?"
Not one for sentimental moments, I see, Osamu observed about this stranger, though he found her attitude amusing. She seemed nice enough, and was apparent friends with Chika.
"He, oh, h-he's- he's a friend... from awhile back..." Chika was still staring at Osamu like he was a hologram that would disappear with the press of a button. "Wait, so you're really... Oh my g- you, you're- Osamu?"
"What's...? Wait, so you know this guy and he just shows up at this specific base?" Chika's friend sounded partially in awe and partially suspicious, which felt like pricks to Osamu's skin. "Isn't that odd?"
"Granted," Konami laughed, "our branch only has one major base, so there's not many other places he could go."
"But he could've gone to Border, too, they're much bigger..." She was now eyeing Osamu as if he were some kind of specimen, and while she meant no harm it was easy to tell she wasn't completely trusting of him, either.
"Wait, your 'branch'?" Osamu spoke to Konami, now trying to get minor questions answered as soon as they came up, to avoid the intimidating pile of them growing any larger. "There's branches?"
And what does she mean by 'Border?'
Konami bit the inside of her cheek, trying to come up with a rational way to reply. "Well, I mean, technically we were a branch at first, but now it's... I mean, I guess we've grown pretty separate from the others."
That only opens up a whole new level of questions, but thanks.
"Hold on, I-I... I'll probably want to sit down, there's definitely a lot to talk about... I just, this is... I had no idea you would even..." Chika's voice was quiet, even distant, and though Osamu's body language was less obvious (or, so he thought) their reactions had similarities, but while he did have some understanding of what she was feeling he had no idea how to respond to it.
However, Osamu doubted how similar they actually were when Chika started laughing. Softly, and it was probably classified as a chuckle rather than a laugh, but as he scavenged for a response Chika beat him to it.
"Let me guess," she teased, "you got yourself into this trying to help one of them, didn't you?"
Well, I don't know if Kuga is really classified as 'one of them', but sure.
Hearing Chika talk like that was a great relief - since Konami had informed him of her presence, Osamu had a sinking feeling her personality would have been miles away from her old self, but even if it was with a fuzzy head Chika still seemed to be Chika.
...Wait a minute.
Where the hell is Kuga?
Osamu assumed he would've been taken to whatever the rebellion's version of a hospital was, but was so occupied by other occurrences that it had completely slipped his mind to ask about the person he had watched die.
"Ooh that's almost spot on, is it a tendency of his?" Konami ruthlessly nudged him in the side, possibly an act to snap him back to the present. Osamu tried to push Kuga to back of his mind, but now that he'd remembered there was no blanking again.
Dammit.
"Glad to know you haven't changed much, then, at least in that area." Chika's blatant cheerfulness only lasted a second, but she remained smiling while her friend had not yet given up analyzing every aspect of Osamu's expression.
It didn't take an expert nor a long time to see that the both of them were itching to interrogate the other, on various matters, but before either could dish out the first question, a familiar voice let itself into the room and spared them the energy.
Questions would happen eventually, but there was no harm in not making things darker all of the sudden.
"Hey, Usami said Four-Eyes was somewhere around here, wh- oh, Four-Eyes!"
So much for making a quiet entrance in this place.
Jin bounced over, drawing about every single head in the room when he spoke, just when Osamu had started to forget that he was being stared at from all directions. Jin paused mid-step when he saw Osamu and Chika facing each other, and Osamu wasn't sure if he knew of their knowing each other in the past, (as Konami hadn't seemed to know about it) but he at least connected the dots to tell that he had walked in on something.
"Oh, did I interrupt you guys...?" Jin scratched the back of his head, turning to Konami first for some sort of signal. She just sighed.
"J-Jin, you brought Osamu here?" Chika looked up at him, and when Jin looked back he raised an eyebrow.
"Wait, you know Four-Eyes?" He sounded overjoyed at that, or surprised, but to Osamu it was hard to tell. When Chika began to respond, though, Jin shook his head with a smile, dismissing his own statement. "No, no, actually, sorry to barge in like this but I've gotta borrow him for a bit, so Osamu can explain on the way."
Osamu pushed his glasses up. "We're going somewhere?"
Jin put a hand in one of the pockets along his pants, and even with his lazy appearance it was clear that his face was more serious than before. Still lighthearted, but there was definitely something on his mind. "Yeah, he said it wouldn't take long, so you should be back here relatively quickly." When Osamu still looked confused, Jin clarified his words.
"Kuga wants to see you."
A/N:
it'll be fine, I said, you can totally update during finals week, I said, you won't be on a time crunch, I said
Made it on time, though! ^^; I especially liked the first part of this chapter, with Jin and Yuma. (Yuichi Jin pls that's not how you make friends) The two of them, though a bit tricky, are really fun to write.
Also, since Christmas is coming up, no chapter next week! Happy holidays!
