Quickly after reaching his apartment, someone locked it from the outside. Berwald knew that he could break the lock if he tried, but he wanted to follow the rules after many days of breaking them. He knew he had to pay a price for what seemed like betrayal to most. He was an example to those who sought to control battles, to gain victory through rebellion. If anyone tried to manipulate or alter this game, he or she would end up trapped in his or her own house, declared a threat and a traitor.
That was why Berwald did it.
Tino paced the small area, walking in circles. Guilt showered the larger of the two. What did Tino do to deserve this? He had a future ahead of him, a social life! Now, he'd decided to throw it all away, just so he could be locked up forever, considered an enemy by those who he'd befriended. Tino needed to leave; he didn't want him to, but this confinement was supposed to be a punishment for just one of them.
"Don't have to do this," he sighed, staring at the now boarded-up window. It darkened the room and made the white walls appear gloomy. Soft feet padded across the room out of rhythm and joined Berwald. "Deserve to be free."
"I believe you're innocent, Ber! I know you are; all they see in you is a difference! Your mind doesn't work the way the rest of them do, so they've called you a virus and locked you up in here. You'll never be chosen to fight again, so you obviously didn't do this for your own good. They could've blamed Toris for this, yet they chose you, because you're not like the others! Why would I want to live out there, listening to them spread hate and lies about you?" Berwald sighed as soft hands massaged his shoulders. The one person he needed in his life stood by his side. The one person he needed to love him risked his career, his other friends, and his life as a free man so he could stand next to him, massaging his shoulders. His face warmed as Tino's soft lips nicked his ear. Berwald smiled, tension leaving his body.
"Love you," he whispered, warmth rising in his chest. He was at ease in a troubled world. He was with Tino.
"Love you too." To hear those words beside him brought light back into the dismal room. To feel his touch brought peace; Berwald thought he needed peace most of all, after this mess. He did what he could to save this world from danger, but now, the fate of this game was in the hands of the other players.
Though the small apartment had quickly grown as hot and stuffy as a personal hell, showing up to work was even worse. When Berwald and Tino entered the Selection Stage, all conversation ceased; scornful looks watched as they took their places silently.
"I'm surprised he still plays," Arthur admitted one day, referring to the boy who mastered the controller and the universe. "He's a bloody idiot, if you ask me. Well, we should all be thankful that Oxenstierna hadn't doomed us all."
The fact that Berwald had no hopes for being chosen to fight didn't affect him at all. In a world of it, fighting became the last thing on his mind. What did bother him was the clear indication that his daring sacrifice had been in vain.
"Clearly we were wrong in asking for your help," Raivis, the teenaged Latvian fighter insisted. "You betrayed us, and we don't appreciate that. Being as you are imprisoned, you are free from our requests." He didn't sound disappointed. Nothing in his young face suggested that Berwald had destroyed his hope.
"Not giving up, are you?" Raivis shrugged.
"Why would we give up—"
"Don't say more than you have to!" Elizaveta's hushed whisper made it all too obvious. Anxiously, she dragged the teenager away, not daring to look at Berwald. His chest deflated. He wanted to say that he had reason for breaking the hearts of those who never fought. He wanted to say that he put the entire population in danger by his staged fight. He wanted to say that Tino had lost his reputation, his friends, and his freedom for the solution to this bottomless crisis. It was a cold feeling, to know that the world hated him because he tried to stop it from becoming a mess. He squeezed Tino's hand, hoping that the ache inside him would disappear. He didn't think it ever would.
The fights had been relatively normal. Berwald and Tino saw no signs of manipulation; every battle was just Alfred fighting the most muscular guys. If anything, it was a relief—but he was still on edge. The underdogs would never stop trying to win, and for them to win, they would have to undermine the system.
"Tino," he asked one long, boring, stuffy day. "Know we're arrested, but can't we have air conditioning?" His precious Tino, the only thing that brightened the gray room, laughed briefly.
"If it gets any hotter, it'll be a sauna in here! I like those, but we'd never be able to wear clothes, but I suppose it won't be that bad . . ." Tino's cheeks turned pinker. "Forget what I just said, I'm just rambling—" a thunderous knock interrupted the two. Confused, they turned to each other.
"You hear that?" Another knock. Tino nodded.
"Maybe someone's made a decision to release you?" it was an overly optimistic approach, but nothing else would make sense.
"Maybe they've come to laugh at us." The shorter shrugged.
"Maybe someone's decided to bring us air conditioning." The sound of a third knock covered Berwald's laughter. "Should we open it?" Berwald walked straight to the door, not knowing what to expect. What could you expect, when the world wanted nothing to do with you—
He was met with two faces. Both had been present at the meeting in the abandoned shop; one was a man with chin-length blonde hair, glasses, and a plain, forgettable face. Berwald only knew him by name: Matthew Williams, Alfred's Canadian brother. The other, Berwald did not know the name of. Her round face was framed by chin-length blonde hair. She appeared to be the victim of male developers, as her breasts were quite large. She waved shyly at him, slightly intimidated. All Berwald could do was stare at the two, utterly confused.
"Can we talk?" Matthew asked, his voice calm and quiet. "Something is terribly wrong, and we think that—we think you can help us." Wordlessly, Berwald ushered them inside. They had taken a huge risk in coming to him. If anyone caught them with him, they would be doomed to the same fate, the same hatred. He didn't want to think of what was wrong; whatever it meant, it had led to two perfectly good people coming to a convicted traitor.
"Don't let anyone catch you here," Tino warned, voicing Berwald's concerns. "What's wrong?"
"The Union of the Silver Blade," Matthew replied. Berwald had never heard that title in his life. He offered the guests seats at his kitchen table. "It's a secret organization of the bottom fighters. You met us, in the abandoned shop?" Berwald gave an affirmative nod. So the lower-ranked players continued to work towards messing with the game, just as he thought, just as Raivis confirmed. Tino, on the other hand, knew nothing. He sat quietly, trying to be polite but still very curious. "You should be familiar with their aims. Needless to say, your fight with Toris disappointed them. They feel that either you didn't understand the task fully or you just wanted to stab us in the back."
"Tried to prove a point," Berwald protested. "I won't mess with the game, not for me, not for anyone. Now that I've broken the rules a couple of times, I'll be viewed as a permanent glitch. Supposed to learn from my example." The blonde woman's eyes widened.
"So that's what you did?" Matthew asked. "It all makes sense now; why else would you deliberately loose a fight?" It really had all been useless. His perfect plan had been filled with holes, and he had ignored them. He'd ruined Tino's life, for no reason at all; suddenly, he was devastated.
"Didn't know what else I was supposed to do." He couldn't satisfy the demands of the others without causing suspicion. He should have done nothing at all—but he couldn't stop himself. It was agony, knowing he caused a problem and it was spiraling out of his control. Control. It was what he was desperate for; without it, he stood around his house, panicking silently. Regret would do no good. He had to forget about it and figure out the magnitude of Matthew and his friend's problem.
"So it's true that you didn't plan on helping us," Matthew realized, his tone a little bitter. "Eduard—the guy leading the meeting—told us that you were acting selfish. He's convinced that the Union must take matters into its own hands—"
"It's terrible!" the woman wailed, surprising both Berwald and Tino. "He's suggest that we find the game's code—which could be anywhere, so it'll be a slow process, but if they do find it, they're going to—" she couldn't finish her sentence. An onslaught of tears struck her. For a moment, the only sound in the room was the sound of her loud, uncontainable sobs. To calm her, Matthew began to stroke her back.
"Katyusha, it'll be okay . . . they're not going to figure it out." She continued to cry, making Berwald feel uneasy. He had to know how her sentence ended. Additionally, he had no clue what to do when a woman starts to cry a river in the middle of his kitchen. "There's been talk of deleting top players; it's why she's so upset—"
"Can't do that," Berwald insisted aggressively. Tino's eyes seemed huge.
"That'll upset the balance of the game!" Tino cried. "They're insane! The outsider would notice if Alfred just disappeared, are they even thinking?"
"Wasn't thinking when I fought Toris," Berwald admitted. "Didn't make a difference, and I thought it would . . ."
"Everyone is desperate. None of you know what it's like to be ignored, and yes, I want change so badly it hurts. But I will not destroy my older brother, let alone the whole world, just to be one of the only characters left to play as." The Union's plan sounded so ridiculously impossible, yet it terrified Berwald to no end.
"The plan is to delete Alfred, and then, if no changes are made, they'll move down from there," Katyusha explained, wiping her pretty blue eyes. "I can't do it. I don't have the cruelty to destroy lives, just to improve mine! Not to mention, my brother is ranked second; Natalia wants to quit, but she can't, because they'll suspect she's run off with Matthew and me! They think we're weak-willed, not worthy of the cause . . ." she still cried, but her sobs were quieter, less prominent. "If it takes killing and jealousy to be 'worthy', I'd rather be dirt." There was something empowering about Katyusha's tear-ridden speech. People like Raivis and Eduard had shown him that everyone would give anything, even the good of the world, just for the sake of violence. She proved to him that there were values in this world some people found more important. And didn't Tino do the same, by staying by his side? Tino fought for enjoyment, not glory. And Matthew sat in his apartment, despite the risks, to deliver news to Berwald, to announce together with Katyusha that fighting was not worth destruction. For the first time in what seemed like ages, Berwald felt hope rise within him. Maybe others would realize what had been so clear to him. Maybe, everything could turn out right, without Berwald in control of the universe.
"We've come here to make a request," Matthew spoke, calmly and quietly. "We want to stop the Union. I know there's not much you can do locked in here, but . . . maybe this can serve as a meeting place, and maybe we can even find a way to get you out . . . the reason we came to you is because we think that you can find the code before they do. After all, breaking the rules is something you appear to be inexplicably good at." If he found the code, could he temper the fierce personalities that yearned for annihilation? He could restore the world to the way it was, before any of this mess, before he realized he could bend the rules . . . before he realized that there was a beautiful Finnish fighter who he loved more than anything. He wasn't going to make the mistake of jumping to optimistic conclusions. If he found the code first, and returned everything to factory settings, he would never remember Tino, who closed his gorgeous purple eyes when he laughed, or brushed his hand against his that electrified him, whose lips kissed his with such intensity . . .
He never thought that he would have to choose between the world and Tino.