Most people assumed he was a drunken hobo—tattered, unwashed, and reeking of strong liquor. Others thought he was a mental patient, with his thousand-yard stare, gritted teeth, and purposeful stumble. Some wondered if he was a fugitive on Hero TV, and just let him pass, assuming the heroes would collect him soon. A few late-night partiers wanted to know where he had been, because damn, that must have been a mad rave. And a young boy, just arriving at his hotel with his parents to see this man arguing with the bellhop, wondered if he was the Wolfman, changed back into a human after a long night of howling at the moon.
Kotetsu himself did not think any of these things. He could barely get a thought in edgewise between Kill Bunny! Kill Bunny! Kill Bunny! Kill Bunny! Pushing back against his Objective in order to display some semblance of normality felt like holding a tidal wave at bay, but he had to hold on.
Hotel. Barnaby was staying at a hotel. Kotetsu had been to dozens of hotels, and a few apartment buildings advertising short-term leases, demanding the front desk to tell him if Barnaby Brooks Jr had checked in. A few poor souls tried to reason with him, saying they couldn't give out the personal information of their residents, and besides, if a famous hero was staying at their hotel, they would probably be mobbed with paparazzi. Kotetsu tried to insist he had to see Barnaby right now, and if he was here, they had to tell him, but that always led to the person at the desk asking about how Kotetsu had injured his hand and torn his clothes. With his head too noisy—Kill Bunny! Kill Bunny!—to craft an appropriate lie, Kotetsu told the story of how his friends tied him up, and he escaped, and then a dog attacked him. This made the hotel representative even less likely to want to let Kotetsu into their premises, and a few short minutes later, he's forced out either by hotel staff or security. Wild Tiger would have had a legitimate claim to see Barnaby, but Kotetsu didn't have his mask with him. He'd compromise his secret identity, and no one had any reason to believe the chewed-up old man wandering the streets was a hero.
Kill Bunny! Kill Bunny! Kill Bunny!
Kill Bunny. Kill Bunny. Kill Bunny.
Every so often, Kotetsu tried calling Barnaby's phone again, but it always went straight to voicemail, just as Barnaby had warned—the battery must have died. Nevertheless, Kotetsu leaves a few words sometimes: "I told you not to leave… until I got there…" "Bunny, where are you? I'm searching all over…" "I can't stop. I have to… can't stop…"
Pain compounded. Everything demanded his attention all at once, got overruled by the Objective, and screamed all the louder just to compete with the absolute command. His vodka-soaked hand stung every time Kotetsu twitched his fingers, his shirt leaking alcohol into the wound and renewing the burn all over again. His stomach clawed at the rest of his insides, blazing with hunger. He hadn't had anything to eat since that box of nutrition-less oatmeal-cream cookie things over twenty-four hours ago, and then a little water since then. Then his feet ached with walking, his skin cried with scrapes and bruises, and deep inside him, exhaustion weighed down on his shoulders like a mountain.
But, priorities. Finish the Objective. Then Kotetsu could sleep and eat and see doctors, or even just keel over dead if he wanted to. But the Objective came first.
Kill Bunny! Kill Bunny! Kill Bunny!
Another hotel kicked Kotetsu out after telling him that they aren't allowed to give out personal information about their residents. Nothing he hasn't heard before. It crossed his mind that none of these hotels were telling him that Barnaby wasn't staying there. He should just force his way in and search the hundreds and hundreds of rooms individually, to be absolutely certain Barnaby wasn't in any of them, but Kotetsu knew he'd get sent to jail that way. It'd be like when his friends tied him up at home, only worse. There won't be a watch-release pin if he's in jail. There'll be surveillance, too, and maybe worst of all, sedatives. They might give him drugs to make him weak, take away his ability to fight, so even using Hundred Power would just put him on the same level as a normal person. And then he'd rot away in a cell unable to think of anything but 'kill Bunny Kill Bunny! kill Bunny' and completely powerless to make any attempt at his Objective and going absolutely insane… Absolutely… Absolutely… Insane…
The next hotel didn't even let Kotetsu get to the front desk. He violated some sort of 'dress code' of theirs, so they forced him out, ignoring his screams for Barnaby, and dumped him on the curb.
Hang on. Barnaby had said on the phone he'd be at work tomorrow. Kotetsu still needed to search for his hotel—because he can't stop, no rest, complete the Objective and then he can rest—but if dawn broke and he failed to find Barnaby, then back to Apollon for the third time, where his ID would let him in and he could find Barnaby's desk and Kill Bunny! Kill Bunny! Kill Bunny!
The world wobbled. Or did Kotetsu roll his ankle? The people walking by looked like fish—yeah, fish—swimming along and darting away whenever Kotetsu approached, heading downstream as Kotetsu fought his way up. And the wiggly lines all over the place, the dark colors at the edge of his vision, that had to be water, right? He was underwater. Swimming against the current. Wait, if he was underwater, why was he able to breathe?
Nope. Now that Kotetsu tried it, he couldn't breathe. Must be the water.
Kill Bunny! Kill Bunny! Kill Bunny! Kill Bunny! Kill Bunny! Kill Bunny! Kill Bunny!
Kill Bunny. Kill Bunny… Kill… kill… him… Bunny…
Gravity introduced Kotetsu's face to the pavement. With some more pain.
Bunny…
Bunny…
The doctors listened to the heroes' warnings, and took precautions. They had a few pairs of sunglasses on hand meant for the blind, large frames with thick black lenses designed to block all light and hide their blank eyeballs. Sighted people wearing the glasses can't see a thing, and even unconscious, Bellisair wears a pair of those glasses as the doctors operate on him, tending to his charred legs and arm stump.
The heroes waited in a sparse salon next to the operating room with a few plastic chairs and a table, and most importantly, a window to the adjacent room so the heroes could monitor the surgery and respond if anything went wrong. Ivan had joined the heroes who responded to the fire that evening, a little better rested despite the bruises, spreading a hospital blanket over the sleepy Pao Lin and fetching coffee from the machine down the hall for Antonio and Karina. They explained what Lunatic told them; eye contact, quantified ends, one Objective per person; along with their plan to use Kaede to issue a new Objective and override Bellisair's.
"Can we test that?" Ivan asked, his voice improved but still raspy. "Once Tiger-chan arrives, she could give an easy, harmless Objective, and we'll see if it cancels."
Antonio shook his head slowly. "Bellisair would have to give the second Objective. Or the first one. The doctors don't know when he's going to wake up, even if we could trust him."
"I see," Ivan looked down at the floor.
"So Kaede copies his power," Karina mused. "And then she can't touch anyone else between when she touches Bellisair and when we find Tiger." She sighed. "And all of us are NEXTs. Just tapping her on the shoulder is going to make her copy our power, and get rid of Bellisair's."
"Do we have any non-NEXTs who could help her?"
"Agnes-san," Ivan said. "But she's done everything she can to keep Barnaby away from Tiger-san. I don't think—"
"Origami, I don't want to be rude, but it sounds really painful when you talk," Karina interrupted. "You should take it easy, for your own good."
"But I have something to say."
"Could you… write it down?"
"On what?"
Karina groaned and jammed the heels of her hands into her eyes. "Forget I said anything! It was a dumb idea!"
"I think I know what you mean, Origami," Antonio continued. "Agnes is Team Three, keep Barnaby away from Tiger. Now we're talking about a Team Four, get Kaede to Tiger. We'd be splitting her attention too much, and she's done so much for us already. I think she can get Barnaby out of the office for one more day, but after that, Apollon is losing too much money, and we'd have to officially declare an emergency, and that means Barnaby finding out his partner's out to kill him. Is that what you were saying?"
Ivan nodded.
"So Team One is done, we found Bellisair," Karina said, trying not to look at the window to the operation room. "Team Two is more like 'find Tiger' now. And then Team Three is still going to be keep Barnaby away from Tiger. And then Team Four, Kaede's team… How are we going to split up this time?"
"Who knows?" Antonio said, taking a swig of the cheap coffee.
The door slid open, revealing Nathan, still dressed in his full Fire Emblem costume, and Kaede. The heroes (barring Pao Lin, lying asleep on the chairs) instantly brightened at her presence.
"Kaede!"
"You got her!"
"Fire Emblem, you drove a ten-hour round trip in four hours?"
Nathan pulled back his cowl and winked at Karina. "My car's not just for show, honey~."
Kaede tried to smile at the heroes, but the window to the operating room immediately caught her attention. She crossed to it and put her hand on the glass, staring at Bellisair. The doctors had finished the bulk of their work; a single nurse cleared away their tools, settling up Bellisair for the long haul.
"That's the man who did this?" she asked quietly.
"Yes," Nathan replied, unfastening his cape as well and folding it neatly on a chair. The three heroes approached him, and he reassured them that Kaede knew everything—he had told her in the car, and she accepted this situation and her role as best she could be expected to. The heroes understood this was the second time in just two years that Kaede has come to Sternbild because her father was in trouble, because someone with power wanted to stomp on people's lives for his own gains.
After a minute, she turned away from the window. "Where's my dad?"
"Well…" Karina began. "He thinks that Barnaby is in a hotel, so he's probably checking those…"
"You don't know where he is," Kaede called Karina out, accustomed to Kotetsu's similar roundabout excuses.
"It was the best we could do!" Karina defended. "We might not know where he is, but he doesn't know where Barnaby is, either. That bought us time to find Bellisair and get you."
"Then where's Barnaby?"
"With Sky High."
Kaede glanced back at Bellisair, hands drifting up to hug her elbows. "This wasn't what I thought you needed me for at all. When you said there was an emergency... I thought it was going to be something cool."
"We're sorry," Antonio said, and Kaede sniffed a little, holding back any number of feelings.
"Do you have a plan?" she asked, and they reviewed the 'Team' structure that had served them thus far, with the necessity to build Team Two, find Kotetsu, Team Three, keep Barnaby away from Kotestu, and Team Four, get Kaede to Kotetsu, which needed Team Two to find Kotetsu first. Bellisair wouldn't be movable for at least a week, but by then, it would be too late, so they had to minimize the chance of Kaede accidentally touching other NEXTs. Even if they kept the other heroes from touching her, but you could never tell who was a NEXT. Kaede might brush up against someone on the street and end up with the ability to talk to plants while losing the crucial command power.
They eventually decided Team Four was grounded. Kaede and Antonio would get a room at the hotel nearby that served the families of current patients, so that once they got the call Kotetsu had been located, Kaede could touch Bellisair and Antonio could shove everyone out of her way. Team Three was Keith for the night and Agnes for the next morning, and Team Two would be everyone else, combing the city for signs of Kotetsu, starting with hotels in Keith's neighborhood.
The heroes, sleep-deprived and generally drained, split up left the room, preparing to tackle this nightmare again in the morning. Antonio patted Kaede on the shoulder and turned to leave, but she reached up and grabbed his hand.
"Wait," Kaede said. "I want to talk to him."
"Who?"
"Bellisair."
"He's unconscious."
"Then… I'll talk at him."
Antonio looked at the backs of the departing heroes, but then fished out his mirrored sunglasses. "You should wear these, just in case," he said, handing them to Kaede. The enormous, adult-man glasses hung loosely her face, but covered her eyes. "Do you want me to be there with you?"
"It's fine. You can stay here."
"All right."
Antonio watched her go, thinking over how little he actually knew about Kotetsu's daughter. He had known about her birth, saw all the baby pictures—because Kotetsu would not shut up about his new daughter—but Antonio was sort of a double taboo in Kaede's life, both by being an adult that Kotetsu usually hung out with while consuming alcohol, and by being a hero. Tomoe and Kotetsu had made the decision together to leave 'Wild Tiger' out Kaede's life, give her a normal childhood before easing her into the danger and risk of Hero TV. Antonio didn't mind not being ultra-involved in this little baby's infancy. He didn't consider himself good with kids, at least not little tiny kids, and Kotetsu told him all about the highs of parenthood without Antonio needing to be there to experience the lows. By the time Kaede got older, Tomoe got sick and passed away, so she lived out in Oriental Town with Kotetsu's mother and brother, and Antonio saw even less of her.
The young Kaburagi appeared on the other side of the window, clutching the mirrored sunglasses to her face as she approached Bellisiar's bed. She pulled up a stool and sat down, and Antonio could see her lips move, talking to the unconscious criminal.
Based on what Antonio could see of her now, Kaede was brave. Definitely afraid, but very, very brave. And if Antonio learned anything from his career as a hero, he knew that you could only be brave when you had a fear to overcome.
"You're the man who wants Barnaby dead. That'd be enough to make me hate you already, trying to hurt Barnaby. I love Barnaby—he saved my life, and he's a great hero. I'll never forgive you for wanting him dead.
"But then… you picked my dad to kill him. I am Wild Tiger's daughter. I know why you picked him. Maybe he doesn't have the most arrests, maybe no one buys his trading cards, maybe he runs like a dork and never does anything cool, but he's the greatest hero in the entire world, because he never gives up. Not even your NEXT power could make him more determined that he already is. You've just changed what he's determined about.
"And… more than that… more than that… There's another reason my dad's the greatest hero ever. Because he cares about people. He cares about everyone in Sternbild, good and bad, he cares about his friends, and he cares about his family, and me. And all of us care about him.
"When you picked on Wild Tiger, you picked on all the heroes. And you picked on me. Our NEXT powers exist to protect the ones we love, and we all love Tiger and Barnaby. None of us are going to stop until our friends are okay. Giving Wild Tiger an Objective… is the last mistake you will ever make.
"…Bastard."