"Do you want ice cream? it's a creamy, creamy treat. It's so creamy soft; it's so creamy sweet!"
-Griffin McElroy
The last time Nathan had come home from a business trip, he had been pleasantly surprised by the state of Claire's mental health. She had handled the deaths of Meredith and Flint quite well; Nathan was proud of his daughter for getting over it so quickly. She was a Petrelli through and through, that one; carrying on with what had to be done without getting hung up on setbacks.
This time, Nathan came home to find Claire huddled up in her room, staring listlessly at Elle's publicity poster. She refused to speak to him, and when he asked of Elle's whereabouts, she slammed the door in his face.
It wasn't until later that day when he was reading the newspaper that he learned of the reason for his daughter's mood. Once again, he was sorry to learn that Elle had died, but it had been exactly what he had expected to happen. One could never count on too long a career in the ring. What did come as a surprise to him were the circumstances of her defeat. He'd had no idea that Ando was Elle's opponent-and the news about Hiro, even to someone who had never been too fond of the childish time-traveller, was somewhat disturbing to read. The fact that the match had been allowed to continue after this shocking act of interference made Nathan wonder why stadiums even pretended to have a set list of rules anymore. Apparently just about anything was on the table now.
What made the news story truly strange, however, was a concurrent story from Tokyo. Apparently, a body had been discovered outside an office building, presumably having fallen to his death. The body had been identified as belonging to Ando Masahashi. Unfortunate, but it wouldn't have been too odd if not for the fact that the body had been found two days before Ando's fight at the New York stadium, during which he had been very much alive. Speculation ran rampant as to the truth behind these seemingly impossible events; the leading theory was that there was a shapeshifter in their midst. Nathan wasn't sure whether to buy into that, but either way, Claire's mental wellbeing came first. He decided it would be best for her to avoid attending any matches for the time being. Besides, with Peter's whereabouts still unknown, she didn't have much of anybody left to cheer for.
In hopes of lifting his daughter's spirits, Nathan took Claire out for ice cream over the weekend. He tried to make some conversation with her, but she remained extremely unresponsive, giving mostly one-word answers.
"So, how are your friends?"
"Fine."
"Are you doing well in college?"
"Yeah."
"Would you like to talk to me about anything? About Elle? About your mother?"
"...No."
Sighing, Nathan put down his spoon and pushed his bowl of ice cream aside. He didn't care much for sweet foods anyway; he knew the kind of damage they did to his teeth. So many sugary things were really just rot waiting to happen.
"Claire, I know you're in a bad place right now," he said. "Feel free to tell me about what's bothering you."
Claire said nothing, staring down at her bowl as she scraped her spoon around the edges. Her ice cream still went mostly untouched; it was beginning to melt. As she pushed her spoon around, she blinked, and a tear rolled down her cheek and landed in the bowl.
"I'm fine," she insisted in a quiet voice that told Nathan she was definitely not fine. "Look, just leave me alone, okay?"
Nathan was reluctant to comply, but he could tell that it was no use trying to get her to open up to him. He could never connect with his daughter, no matter how hard he tried, because he didn't know how to relate to her. Her problems couldn't be hand-waved with an empowering speech and a confident smile, the way he dealt with things in his career. He couldn't just lie through his teeth and say that everything was going to turn out fine. Claire would see through him in an instant.
It was a shame that Nathan was such a politician by nature. He wished he had learned how to reassure people without lying to them.
A tense silence filled the room as Linderman whisked pancake batter together in a metal bowl. His kitchen was truly extravagant; it was clear that cooking was his passion. Dried herbs hung up here and there, and various cans and jars covered the shelves despite there being a plethora of cupboards. Next to the frying pan on the stovetop there was a pot sizzling away; whatever was cooking in it smelled delightful. Clearly a lot went on in this kitchen. Somehow, though, the kitchen remained perfectly pristine, as did Linderman's suit. He wasn't even wearing an apron, so Hiro was pretty impressed by how he managed to avoid spilling even a single drop of batter on himself.
That was about where Hiro's admiration for Linderman ended.
"I suppose you must be wondering why you aren't dead," Linderman said as he doled some of the batter out into a frying pan. "Don't worry; I'll explain it all in time."
Hiro squirmed in his seat, staring down at his glass of water. He was sitting at a long table which had two places set. He assumed the other was meant for Linderman, which he was none too thrilled about. The prospect of such a corrupt man sitting down to eat breakfast with him made Hiro's skin crawl. Even just being in the same room as him made Hiro exceedingly uncomfortable. Things may have been different in this universe, but from what he'd seen, everybody's personalities stayed mainly the same. In a case of "nature vs. nurture", the timeline had diverged to form this reality at a point when it wouldn't have made any difference in how Linderman's personality had developed. As such, he was still just as bad a person as he had been in Hiro's universe. So why was he being so friendly?
"Here you go," Linderman said, sliding a freshly cooked pancake onto Hiro's plate. "I'll have more ready for you in a minute."
"Thanks," Hiro mumbled. Even if Linderman was a villain, it didn't hurt to have good manners. In fact, he was kind of afraid that Linderman might do something to hurt him if he was rude.
Admittedly, the pancakes were pretty good-as Hiro had suspected, Linderman was a great chef. They're not as good as the ones at the Burnt Toast Diner, he thought, but even he had to admit that was just his personal bias speaking. When Linderman sat down across from him, Hiro flinched. Even though they were separated by the table, from the way Linderman was looking at him, it felt like he could have snapped his fingers and instantly gotten rid of Hiro if he wanted. Swallowing back his apprehension, Hiro tried to enjoy the pancakes and pretend that a mob leader wasn't sitting at the same table.
This effort was made difficult when Linderman kept trying to talk to him.
"You strike me as the type of man who already knows this, Mr. Nakamura," he said as Hiro avoided his gaze, "But you're quite special."
It was indeed something Hiro knew quite well about himself. He'd known all his life that he was meant for something big, and in the fall of 2006, his destiny had finally been realized. However, he got the feeling that Linderman was referring to something other than Hiro's power. Superhuman abilities, particularly in this world, were so well-known that they could hardly be considered all that special. He didn't think Linderman meant it in the nice-way-of-saying-"weird" way, either.
"I happened to catch a live broadcast of a fight of yours from about a month ago," Linderman went on. "Not only did you die; your body was too badly damaged for me to help you. And I did want to help you, I truly did."
He stopped to take a sip of water. Squirming under his inquisitive gaze, Hiro silently cursed his alternate self for having been so well-known. He doubted the story he'd told Claire would work on Linderman, especially not if he'd actually seen the fight in question, which Hiro himself still had not. He'd already watched himself die on a couple of occasions, and had been in no hurry to witness it again. Maybe if he had actually sat down and watched a recording of the match, he would have been able to come up with an explanation for still being alive, but he doubted it.
"I was certain it was the last anyone would hear of you," Linderman said. There was genuine regret in his voice, and it was tempting to think that the mobster actually possessed some sort of personal attachment to Hiro. "But then, two days ago, I hear about this."
He grabbed a newspaper off the kitchen counter and showed it to Hiro. The headline read "ELECTRO-SHOWDOWN BROUGHT TO SHOCKING CONCLUSION!" Next to the article was a blurry photo of Hiro getting zapped with lightning, which Hiro cringed at the sight of. Even in such poor resolution, knowing that he was looking at a picture of his own dead body didn't sit well with him. What made it even worse was that this wasn't a future or alternate version of himself, it was just him. That wasn't something most people got a chance to see, and after looking at the photo, Hiro was pretty sure that was a good thing.
"You miraculously return from the dead only to die again," Linderman said with a bewildered shake of his head. "Bizarre. I couldn't figure it out myself at first, but now I think I see."
Hiro stiffened. Had Linderman figured out that he was from another reality?
"You're from the past, aren't you?"
"I am?" Hiro blinked, pleasantly surprised that the mob leader hadn't guessed the truth after all. "I mean, yes, I am! How, er, how did you know?"
Linderman smiled coldly. "It's simple logic, my friend," he said. "I brought you back so that you can go back to your own time and die in the ring again, this time for good."
That didn't sound very appealing, but since Linderman was wrong about that, hearing this came as a huge relief to Hiro. This was a man who had been willing to let New York explode because his colleague had seen it in a vision, so clearly he wasn't one to mess with the space-time continuum. If he thought that Hiro was supposed to go back in time and die, he would want to let that happen, so he'd let Hiro go, right?
"However," Linderman went on with a devious glint in his eye, "I happen to have a lot of clients who would pay very kindly to see you back in the ring for one last fight. What do you say to one more match before you go?"
"What's stopping me from teleporting away from here right now?" Hiro challenged, finally working up the nerve to return Linderman's gaze with a glare.
"Oh, you can try," Linderman chuckled. "Before bringing you back I gave you an injection to block your powers for a little while. It should wear off in…" He checked his watch, stroking his chin thoughtfully. "Oh, about a week or so."
Hiro internally groaned. So that was why nothing had happened when he'd tried to teleport away earlier-another injection. And just when the first one had finally been wearing off, too!
"Why would you suppress my powers?" he asked. "Don't I need them to fight in one of your matches to begin with?"
Finishing up his last bites of pancake, Linderman pushed his plate aside. He sat back in his chair, curling his hands under his chin with a smirk.
"People will pay to see you, Mr. Nakamura, powers or not," he said. "All you really need to impress the crowds is your charming personality. And, of course, a sword wouldn't hurt."
It was a strange feeling to walk inside your apartment but not have it really be your apartment. At first glance it looked almost the same, with all the furniture in the same position and the same anime posters hung up on his walls (while Hiro and Ando had both always been avid anime fans, their taste in series had been very different, with Hiro preferring stuff like Neon Genesis Evangelion whereas Ando was content to watch whatever harem show was on the air). However, a closer look revealed a few odd differences. On the doorknob on the door to his apartment, Ando, at Hiro's request, had hung up a sign reading "home of ½ of Dial-a-Hero". In this world, the sign instead read "home of ½ of Team Bladecharger". Ando had no idea what "Team Bladecharger" was supposed to mean, but he guessed that it must have been what he and Hiro had called themselves in the ring when they had fought as a team.
Speaking of Hiro, another startling difference in this version of Ando's apartment was something that it took him a while to pick up on. Since the two were constantly visiting each other, Hiro and Ando were both prepared for each other to drop by at basically any time. Apparently that was not the case in this world. There was one less cushion on the couch and only one chair at his kitchen table. Eventually Ando found an extra cushion stuffed in the trash and learned from someone else in his apartment complex that he had given away a chair a few days ago. All the DVDs of the movies Hiro liked to watch when he came over to Ando's place were shoved away out of sight. Ando had a feeling he knew why his alternate self had gotten rid of any reminders of Hiro's frequent presence in his apartment. After all, Hiro wouldn't be dropping by any more, would he?
Finally, the most obvious difference was that there was a thin layer of dust over everything in the apartment when Ando got there. Clearly nobody had been by in a few days. He wondered what had happened to his alternate self.
Actually, he wondered a lot of things.
Ando wondered if he would have to live out the rest of his life in that apartment which wasn't really his. He wondered what the point of such a life would be. He still had Kimiko, he supposed-if she was alive in this universe. Since she didn't have a power, she was probably safe, but in this messed-up reality, who knew? Besides, even if he managed to track her down, it wouldn't be his Kimiko. In this reality, maybe Hiro had never even gone back in time to get them together. Did Ando even care? He was less surprised than he would have liked to be that he really didn't.
Without Hiro, what was even the point? He had always provided so much of the joy and brightness in Ando's life. Hiro was… everything to him. A friend, a partner, a colleague. They were two halves of a whole. Just like Hiro had been so different in the bad future where Ando was dead, Ando would never be the same without Hiro. They needed each other.
How was he even going to make a living in this world? He had no idea if his alternate self had still worked at Yamagato, or if he'd just fought in the ring full-time. He decided to find out by going to the Tokyo Stadium and check if they needed any fighters for an upcoming match. At the very least, it would put more action in his life than working at an office. Without his best friend there to keep him company, he wasn't sure if office life was something he'd be able to stand.
The stadium, which had once seemed so intimidating, now seemed tame compared to the one in New York. No matter what kinds of gruesome battles took place there, it could never be as bad as the place where Hiro had… god, he still couldn't even bring himself to think about it. It was tempting to pretend that Hiro had simply gone away somewhere for a little while and would eventually come back. There wasn't anything happening in the stadium at the moment, but there was a poster outside which read: "Fighters wanted-the stronger your powers, the better." Listed below were some details about how to go about applying.
While Ando was reading the information on the poster, he heard a startled murmur from behind him. He turned around to see the Osakan man he and Hiro had previously had a run-in with. The Osakan examined Ando curiously for a moment, then pulled him aside into the lobby of the empty stadium.
"If yer looking to get back in the ring, ya can't just wander back into an official stadium," he said, brow crinkling. He sounded almost exasperated, like Ando was supposed to know this already. "Didn't Linderman tell ya? The general public can't know about-"
"Hold on… Linderman?" Ando said, eyes widening. Yet another dead villain who was still alive in this universe-but why would Linderman be involved in this operation? "What was he supposed to tell me?"
"So he really didn't tell ya, eh?" the Osakan muttered. "Listen, kid, yer supposed to be dead. Ya can't show yer face around the public or else people will find out about what Linderman's been doing!"
But what has Linderman been doing? Ando wanted to ask. He didn't know much about the mob leader aside from the fact that he'd been rich, corrupt, and in possession of a samurai sword which Hiro had then stolen. And since when was Ando supposed to be dead?
"Nah, ya gotta head down to the underground, kid," the Osakan went on, grabbing Ando by the wrist. "Here, c'mon, I'll show ya to yer new ring."
"Hold on," Ando protested. "There must be some misunderstanding here. I never died!"
The Osakan's bushy eyebrows knit together. "Whaddaya mean?" he asked. "They found yer body just the other day."
Suddenly Ando recalled the layer of dust in his alternate self's apartment. Could his alternate self have recently met his end? The thought brought him a twinge of discomfort. Still, what did that have to do with Linderman? And what was that about an underground ring?
"Well, if ya insist…" the Osakan mumbled, looking confused. "But yer still gonna have to come with me, okay? Ya were awful sloppy in the ring during yer latest match, kid-ya gotta get some training in."
He led Ando inside the stadium and took him down a narrow hallway to a door marked "training". Through the door was a room with gym mats on the floor, full of training equipment, as well as punching bags and a few training dummies like the one Elle had practiced on at the Petrelli residence. Most of the punching bags and dummies were in pretty bad shape, with stuffing spilling out of nearly all of them in at least a couple places, and burn marks covering a couple of the punching bags hanging in the corner. The Osakan sat down on a bench and waved Ando over toward one of the training dummies.
"Here, kid," he said. "Knock yerself out."
Claire was lying on her bed listening to music turned up way too high when Nathan came into her room. She didn't have to worry about wrecking her ears, but even if she didn't have her powers, it would be worth it if the cacophony booming in her ears managed to ignite some kind of emotion in her. Her music strategy wasn't working, though. She still felt numb no matter what she did. Her eyes were closed and she couldn't hear her father enter over her music, so she was alerted to his presence only when he reached over and yanked her earbuds out. Indignant, Claire sat up to glare at her Nathan. He was standing with his arms crossed at the foot of her bed, staring her down accusingly.
"What?" she snapped. She was in no mood for any kind of father-daughter bonding today, but luckily she got the feeling that that wasn't what Nathan currently had in mind either. He looked mad.
There were a couple of different things he could have found out that would have elicited that kind of reaction. Maybe he had finally pieced together that Claire's "spring break" should have ended a long time ago, and she should have been back at college. She hadn't told him that she had stopped going to college four months ago in some idiotic act of teenage rebellion. It had been Elle's idea-Claire staying home from school let them spend more time together. At this point, even if she went back, she would be too far behind to catch up. So, yeah, maybe he had found out about that. Or maybe-
"I found something in the laundry hamper this morning," he said. "Something very… interesting."
Before he said another word, Claire instantly knew what he was referring to. Tensing up, she scrambled for an explanation.
"Uh, it's just-I was…" she stammered. "You know how I used to be a cheerleader?"
"Of course I know," Nathan said. "But I don't seem to remember your uniform having fake blood splatter on it. I also don't remember there being a pocket," he continued, voice raising into a shout, "where you kept a dagger!"
Claire flinched. "It was just one match," she blurted. "I'll never do it again, Dad, I swear!"
"Good," Nathan said through clenched teeth. With that, he turned around and stormed out of the room, slamming Claire's door shut behind him.
Upon her father leaving, Claire shuddered. She hadn't just been trying to get him off her back; she genuinely did not want to get back in the ring ever again. Hell, after what happened at Elle's match, she wasn't sure if she could ever stand to set foot in a stadium again. She supposed it would be smart of her to get rid of the uniform, in that case. She would never need it again.
The dagger, though, maybe she could keep. You never knew when a dagger might come in handy.
