Author Note:
This chapter might be a lot to take in, so read slowly. Trigger warning for child abuse and human experimentation. Other than that, please read and review^^
Chapter 7
Meltdown
He lolled his head to the side, the pain has ebbed away hours ago and Makoto willed his throat to swallow, not liking the aftertaste of iron and gunpowder around his teeth. It was too much like the ever-present existence of the dark want that he has tried to keep at bay.
It belonged to Thanatos, not him.
"Yes, Suou-san. I'm forgetful, you see. I forgot call you earlier, but my appointment was rather time-sensitive."
A beat of silence and Makoto imagined that his ears were ringing. He wanted to cover his ears, but the heavy bulge strapped around his arms were bothering him. No thick blanket to cover him up from head to toe, no screech of those black blobs, no soothing hum of power that makes his stomach churn with impossible glee.
"...I'm sorry to hear that. But children with Makoto's history are notoriously hard to be placed. I've seen a lot like that during my interactions with the orphaned children here. I understand your concern."
Time went a lot more slowly. But eventually, the agonizing cramp has lessened and disappeared altogether, so Makoto didn't have the pain to distract him anymore. But Makoto was good at waiting patiently, at doing nothing and holding his breath as he does so, else the blobs would notice him and tear through the room in desperate fix of pure hunger.
"I should've directed him to Dr. Sonomura's home after I spoke with him. But my duty called, officer. I trusted that Makoto would return to the clinic."
As the hours drag on, he began to notice the lackluster of sundown's light they allowed in this small space, the bareness of the room. The only sound that followed the muted conversations around him –four people? Three people- was a clinical, monotone beep of something he has no name of. It was only there, a mere piece of plastic and electricity connected to him with a thin, transparent tube. Ah, he remembered now. They called it EEG-reading.
He heard a weary sigh. "Makoto must've ran away, then. It's not surprising, orphans ran away all the time. I have the exactly same problem in my facility. Will you mobilize a search squad from your side? Yes? Then, we would like to extend our help."
Makoto shivered, one that ran from the small of his back to his scalp. It alerted the machine, but not enough to give it more than a quick upward stroke, compared to the chart spikes hours ago. Those chart was the cause of why long shackles were replaced by a heavier strap, bright white room replaced by a room more oppressive than any sort of prison cell. They had called the result 'too dangerous to be placed with the other samples'. He wondered what does that meant.
Makoto let out a childish chuckle.
He learned that he was capable of feeling lonely, so as to not the sudden onslaught of seclusion affect him, he rocked his body back and forth, the chains that bound his feet jangling merrily. And if he closed his eyes, he could imagine for a brief flicker of time that it was the cold chains that bound the clear black and white of his guardian to him. Glistening armor enveloped it like a sturdy, well-worn coat that covered his ears from the sheer thrill of madness that was never there. A foreign, almost-alien blood that coursed through him, as natural as his own blood, enclosing him and warding him from anything, everything and nothing while only the green shaft of moonlight burned his skin alive. The chain protected him –from?
"Suou-san, it wouldn't help our case as the defendant side if he went missing suddenly no matter how desperate we are, surely you can understand the logic. ...Yes, we will also mobilize our resources to aid you."
But the flicker of his guardian was weak. Makoto tasted it in his veins, the parasitic bond latched on any semblance of power as it grew, grew and grew until the next time he could sought it out, coax it out from himself.
"After all-"
There were bolts applied to the metal door, along with a scanner that allowed people he didn't know in and out. Suddenly, his meager strength seeped away and left him scrambling for any sense of consciousness. He was too tired to fight the abrupt weakness but his enforced position kept him seated, so he only leaned his head forward, neck dangerously close to his knees.
"-Two in harmony surpasses one in perfection. Good day, officer."
And those bolts were drawn back, one at a time. A key turning counter-clockwise in the lock. A set of buttons were pushed. Someone unlocked the cell and pushed it open, the hinge groaned aloud from the lack of use.
Footsteps walked inside calmly and the lone fluorescent tube brightened the whole room, making him moan in temporarily blinding pain. A small laugh accompanied the pain and Makoto looked up slowly through the uncertain quality of hazy eyes. Ikutsuki stood in the doorway.
"Well, look who's up so early. Do you have any trouble sleeping?"
Resisting the urge to laugh, laugh and laugh with unrestrained delight at finally having someone to plunge with into this claustrophobic cell, Makoto only allowed a small fraction of his grin to show. Ikutsuki kept his hands on his pockets as he circled around one of the only two chairs within the room, stroking the boy's head before he put pressures into the fragile shoulder. He felt the bones, the framework that incorporated calcium and collagen beneath those flesh, binding together under his fingers.
Ikutsuki still couldn't believe that this body was a vessel of one of the twelve Shadows that slipped through the grasp of the Kirijo Group.
He didn't anticipate such luck, and the thrill of this discovery has yet to escape his system. He was just there to eliminate the only living eye-witness, to kill the boy under his current guardians' noses. It was easy. It was as natural as breathing. People belittled him because he looked so harmless. Just a passing scientist from the Kirijo Group with an interest to preserve those orphans' freedom. What they didn't know was that he was as casual as lying as he would when he flicked surgery blade.
"Your guardians are scouring the city, looking for you. But I can't exactly tell him that you're my guest for now, right?"
The boy put up quite a fight back then, though. Not that it was unexpected. When he shoved the gun to Makoto's forehead, the real purpose of that motion was to induce the inflated Evoked Potential to come to life. To make him respond to the sight of a gun, the sound of full-barreled magazine, and the touch of cold metal of the gun.
He found out that the children affected by the explosion has the tendency of higher Evoked Potential chart, thus they had easier probability to develop a Persona in this early stage of childhood, as unstable as it was. Many had died even before he began the process of coaxing the Persona to the presence of reality. But those that survived has lower life expectancy before the Kirijo Group could use them.
Imagine Ikutsuki's surprise when he was faced with the tingling, exhilarating presence of a Shadow. A high-functioning Shadow, one that thrived from the boy's desperation to stay alive. One that tried to actively protects its vessel and kill him on sight rather than the animalistic need to tear the fragile body from inside, rendering the child insane. It was something that never happened before and he was fortunate to be able to subdue the berserk Shadow without any injury, an ability cultivated from monitoring many of the useless samples.
And he didn't have any intention to let this precious boy go.
It was amazing that such unassuming, fragile body held so much questions and answers. A breakthrough, even, if they could pry open the Pandora's Box without more mishaps. More samples became vegetative just yesterday, leaving them with only a quarter of the original subjects to work with. Some of them were not even in any condition to be useful. This, Ikutsuki thought, will be different.
"And this time, it won't be another failure." He whispered, idly clenching and unclenching his fingers to test the elastic material of the safety gloves.
Humming merrily to himself, Ikutsuki set to work and put on the sterile white lab coat that was hung behind the door. His mood has improved considerably this week despite the setbacks on the sample quality. To find the original Shadow that escaped back then on one of the orphans they combed through was pure luck! He could count on top of his head that the probability was almost close to zero. With this, not only that he could prove his hypotheses but he could also apply the more turbulent process of assimilating the subject module to the Shadow, the part where he was stuck on because the former subjects always failed to deliver a satisfying result.
Reaching for the top drawer of the worktops, made of composite phenolic panel constructed by layering natural kraft paper saturated with phenolic resin that held up well and was resistant to stress impact, he pulled away a slim container and tucked it into his pocket before he returned to his valuable sample.
Ikutsuki frowned when he saw that the boy has his eyes closed, his features slack and unmarred. The scientist stopped in front of the boy and lifted his chin. When he was met with a slow, steady breath, he found out that the boy was unconscious again, with the rising heat of a fever. Aided with the tell-tale shiver that went though the sample's body and no sign of abrupt change in the sample, Ikutsuki concluded that he has weakened enough to fight. The boy was fortunate that he was too weak to be controlled by the Shadow.
Else, it would've hot-wired the boy.
The fascinating, vivid details came to the forefront of Ikutsuki's mind. Of witnessing something as unknown as a mass of negative emotions rampaged, wrestling the rein over a child's body as the sample convulsed and writhed in vain accompanied with involuntary muscle contractions. It was useless. By the time that the sample's eyes turned otherworldly golden, he knew that the Shadow has brain-fucked its new home. The first shrill, hysterical laugh would notify him that the Shadow has digged in and brute-force extraction was impossible. It has clawed its way into the command center of the sample, locking itself immovable from its spot. From that moment on, the sample was not a human child anymore.
It happened often enough with the newest batch of cohorts that Ikutsuki kept his Glock within easy reach of his hands.