Chapter Soundtrack: "Monster" by Imagine Dragons
Izaya woke up with another person's tongue in his mouth.
He instinctively bit down on the intrusion, but it slipped back before he was able to catch it. Izaya's eyes snapped open and he jerked up to see a woman slithering backwards along the bed like the snake tattoo she had on her back. She was naked, completely naked, though this did not appeal to him and he was more entranced by the the eyes that bored into his. A mismatched pair of green and yellow, a fair face framed by ebony hair that stuck every which way, and a smile that showed delicate but deadly fangs. She smelled like Celty smelled, like something supernatural, like something not unlike him.
He did not like this woman.
"Who are you?" he asked, simultaneously taking in his surroundings. He was lying in a bed with crimson sheets, in a room paneled in wood-and then he remembered the trek through the snow and the woman with strange eyes and the warmth of the cabin's fire.
"I am Canaan, this is my house, and you are Roppi Hachimen are you not?"
"I am not, I am Izaya Orihara, how did you know that name?"
"I am a witch, there are many things that I know."
"I wonder why I believe you." He gestured to her state of undress, eying the massively thick scar that extended from her hip to her shoulder, "May I ask why you're trying to molest me in my sleep?" Canaan's smile stretched, "I often have sex with my clients before I take my fee, they tend to like it but it seems you are not like most men."
"Clients? So you're a witch and a prostitute?" The woman tossed her head back and laughed loudly, "I am a witch but I am no whore, I merely offer men shelter from the elements and in return they give me their blood as payment." She smiled so that her fangs showed.
"So a vampire too?"
"Not exactly a vampire, no."
Izaya sighed but then bristled when the woman tried to creep closer to him, "Thank you for the offer but I'm not interested in women."
"What a coincidence, neither am I."
Izaya narrowed his eyes and swung himself from the bed, crossing the floor to the door, "Thank you for your hospitality but I am in need of a plane to take me to Japan." Canaan pouted and rolled around on the bed like a cat, "You'll have to take the Bloody Viper to get to any town with an airport."
"The Bloody Viper?"
"Yes, it's the train that delivers supplies to the E.G.H.R.T.F , the Experimental Genetic Human Research Testing Facility."
Izaya held his breath at the name of his former prison and nodded. "Where can I intercept the train?" Canaan smiled, "My home is not stationary, I'll move it to where you wish to intercept the Bloody Viper, but, may I ask you, Red Raven, do you expect to waltz into town looking as you do." Izaya shivered at the nickname, so reminiscent to Hakuro's, and looked down at his clothes. He was indeed covered in drying blood from head to toe.
"May I used your shower and borrow some clothes?"
"Of course, but I expect my fee you know."
Izaya frowned, he was feeling weak because of the open cuts in his thighs which burned now, and he couldn't afford to loose any more blood.
"I'm afraid I can't pay your fee, I can't afford to loose any more blood, but I promise I'll return in a few days to repay you."
Canaan sat up with a curious glint in her eyes, "How do I know you you'll keep your promise?" Izaya shrugged, "How do I know you won't kill me when my back is turned?" She frowned, "I keep to the Code, as all should."
"The Code?"
"My word is concrete, my actions definite, and if I break my promise may I fall into the depths of despair."
Izaya nodded, "Fair enough, where's that shower then?"
When he was showered and dressed in a pair of black long sleeve shirt and pants, and slipping back on his blood stained white shoes, Izaya planned his next three days. I should regenerate in three days, two days at the most, my claws are gone now-my nails are just scar tissue again, board the train, get to Moscow, board a plane to Tokyo, run to Ikebukuro...and then return on the third day to destroy Hakuro's facility once and for all.
Hakuro wasn't dead, he was convinced, and he couldn't have decimated every one of those floors so there were still people there. He had to stop this army, stop S-0983 once and for all. They would be looking for him as soon as they were organized again, so there was no point in trying to run away. He would be back, and he would bring vengeance.
He dressed his wounds on his thighs and bandaged them, all while forcing his mind to be blank so he didn't break down at the memory of why he had them. Canaan lent him a fur coat that smelled odd so he returned it her, having already seen the room with corpses in coffins, drained of blood.
"They shouldn't die from the amount I take." she said, "But apparently the bite produces euphoria that makes them beg me to continue, and I don't like to deny my clients anything."
She showed him a map of Russia and pointed to a random spot in the Siberian tundra, "Here we are", she moved her finger a few inches to the left, "And this is where Hakuro's facility is." She grit her teeth, "Fucking bastard takes all the stranglers he can find, I barely have any clients anymore since he showed up." Izaya wondered how old Canaan actually was, but dismissed the thought because he honestly didn't really care. The facility was near Moscow on the map, not very close but it was the nearest landmark next to Perm.
He left as quickly as he could, not dressed against the cold but not really caring. Canaan told him about the Wild Hounds, genetically modified Huskies that were as big as bears and tracked down wandering souls on the tundra and brought them back to Hakuro for experimentation. Izaya caught sight of the Bloody Viper moving slowly along the horizon, and mustered up his strength to sprint at a speed to fast to see and almost crashed into the moving train. He jumped onto a guardrail and forced open a car door before the guards noticed. He closed himself inside the pitch black train car and used his almost perfect night vision to find a place to sit. The train car was filled with something large and metal that resembled an animal. It looked like a cow, and then suddenly a burning smell reached his nose and he almost vomited when he realized what he was looking.
It was the Brazen Bull in which Kikuro roasted alive.
He walked over to the side and stared at the open panel. He could see smeared lumps of fat and tissue, charcoal burns along the inside of the container and a lump of what looked like teeth to the far right. Why he was looking inside the horrible thing he didn't know. Was it for closure? To make him understand that these charred remains were what his ex-boyfriend used to be?
He felt no closure, no satisfaction or even sorrow. He was just numb, all the way through. His heart was gone, his happiness had fled with his son's last breath. There was something unhinged inside his mind, something dark and twisted and crazy and he knew he had opened the door to insanity. Would he lose his reason soon? His sense of self? He couldn't find it in himself to care at the moment, and padded over to a corner and promptly fell asleep against the cold metal wall.
He had friends in Russia, shady men who knew what he could do to them if they refused-because blackmail was his specialty. When the train ground to a halt he immediately jerked awake and dashed out the door, not bothering to close it. Faster than they could see he passed through the streets of Moscow, weaving in crowds and through alleyways unseen. He knew where he needed to go, who he wanted to see, and skidded to a halt in front of a large gray building with boarded up windows. He used parkour to reach the second floor, and slipped through the window with agility of a cat. There was a man sitting in large blue coat in a red armchair in the big room that resembled the lobby of a fancy hotel. It may look like a dump on the outside but on the inside it was the headquarters of one of the most influential men in the Underground of Moscow.
Izaya knew his hair had grown to his shoulders, that he had been technically missing from the scene for a whole year and was wearing clothes that weren't made for winter. He was thankful, though, for the black leather gloves Canaan had provided him, because the last thing he wanted was for his missing nails to receive attention.
"Millen Farson, I'm pleased to see you're doing well." He realized for the first time that his voice was raspy and hoarse, something bubbled in the back of his throat and he coughed into a gloved hand violently. When he looked down at it he saw a glob of blood, and grimaced and wiped it on the side of his pants. The man turned in his chair to reveal an middle aged man with black hair and stone gray eyes. He squinted, hand reaching for the hand gun in his lap, but then he recognized Izaya despite all his changes and laughed heartily. "And I can see you're not."
He laughed and strode across the room to take a seat in a lounge chair opposite his old acquaintance. "So where you been for so long?" Millen asked, and Izaya shrugged with a smirk, falling back seamlessly into his old facade. "Here and there, mostly Russia. What can you tell me about the shipments that end up on the Bloody Viper?" Millen raised a brow, "Hakuro's train?" Izaya didn't like the first name basis but ignored it. "Well he's receiving a shipment of explosives in four days, though what a Pharmaceutical Company wants with bombs is a mystery to me."
Izaya narrowed his eyes, analyzing the man's body language, "You honestly don't know what that place really is?" Millen's eyes widened, "Do you? No one does, just that it's a Pharmaceutical company that distributes mainly vaccines internationally, but they're a suspicious business, there's something fishy going on there but...I'd rather not go there to be honest, the whole thing gives me the creeps." This man was a former USSR veteran, and the fact that anything gave him the creeps was significant. But then again Hakuro was pretty damn creepy.
He watched the man fish a pack of Russian brand cigarettes from his pocket, and Izaya suddenly felt a pang through his chest at the thought of Shizuo. Didn't Shizuo use them to relieve stress, and he was stressed. "Can I have that pack?" Millen looked at him curiously but then shrugged and tossed him the box, "Sure whatever, I have more. So why are you here anyway." Izaya held the box in clenched fingers, "I need a ticket to Tokyo." Millen deadpanned, "You have money, go buy your own ticket." Izaya shifted in his chair, his thighs starting to itch as they healed, "Actually I'm quite broke at the moment, and I am in dire need of transport." Millen lit his own cigarette and let the smoke leave through his nose like a dragon, "Well I know a man who owns a small jet who could take you, but it would cost a pretty penny that I do not have to spare. Perhaps you can negotiate something with him though." Millen scribbled down an address and handed it to the ex-informant. "Need anything else?"
Izaya nodded, "A coat and some better shoes would be nice." Millen snorted, "Every coat's being used and every shoe is being worn, but if you're lucky you might find a dead man you can pilfer from." The amused glint in his eye said that he was enjoying watching the state of the once so great informant. Izaya narrowed his eyes and took his leave through the window without so much as a thank you, Millen's laugh drifting after him on the smoke of his cancer stick.
Sure enough Izaya managed to find a slumped man on the side of a building, shot in the head. His coat was tattered and worn and his shoes were falling apart but Izaya took them anyway and changed quickly. He made his way towards the address his 'friend' had given him, and in no time he was standing on the steps of a small jet and being yelled at by its pilot in Russian.
"No fucking way am I taking you all the way to Tokyo for free!" the man screamed, spittle flying. Izaya smirked and ducked into the doorway, the man stiffened and standing quickly from the cockpit, ready to fight. Izaya merely towered over him, his height an advantage, and leaned in close so they were face to face. He smirked, and let the Black Dog stir slightly so his eyes flashed a bright red for a moment. A moment was all it took for the man to turn white as a sheet and sit down quickly. "Whatever you want." the man said hastily, and Izaya smelled urine, "Don't hurt me." Izaya nodded with a smirk and headed to the back of the plane, "I won't hurt you if you take me where I wish to go." He answered in flawless Russian.
As the plane started up Izaya fell asleep again to curb the hunger in his stomach.
When he awoke he was starving and the jet had landed on the Tokyo airstrip. He left the plane with a nod and a smile to the frightened pilot, and then started his journey to Ikebukuro on foot. He'd run later, he really just wanted to walk for now. He was making better time than he had thought, he realized as he limped from the airport on damaged legs. He took a deep breath of Tokyo air and felt tears well in his eyes. He fought them, trying to find the numbness again, he didn't want to thin, just walk.
By the time he reached Shinjuku it was sunset, and Izaya didn't feel like checking out his old apartment or seeing Shiki. For the man he thought of as a parent to see how far his child had fallen, whose own child had fallen...Izaya clicked his tongue and made himself run the rest of the way to Ikebukuro's Underground, leaving his thoughts behind him.
Night had finally fallen, the light pollution nullifying the stars, but Izaya found solace in looking at the sky anyway. He had found a nice alleyway, a little ways off from his old apartment where Kikuro and he had met for the first time, and sat down besides a garbage can. The night world was filled with smells but Izaya wasn't paying attention to any of them, not really, he was just content looking up at the sky and thinking about Shizuo. I wonder what he's been doing while I've been gone...enjoying himself no doubt. I wonder if he's found a girlfriend, or a boyfriend, or if he might have moved to stay with his brother for a while. I wonder if Kasuka is still married to that popstar, if Mikado and Kida are finally happy together...I wonder if Tsuki is in heaven right now...
He looked down and brushed away the tears that were beginning to fall with cold leather gloves. It was then that he caught the scent he knew so well, the scent that sent his heart racing and his blood pumping. He looked up to see the fake blonde he loved so much, the man he had sacrificed so much for, walking passed him only a few inches away, as if he was nothing but air.
"Shizuo Heiwajima?"
His voice was broken, almost unrecognizable, but Shizuo turned towards him anyway and said his name in a way that made him want to cry all over again but he couldn't. Seeing Shizuo, the spitting image of his son, made him feel numb again and hurt like someone was trying to strangle his lungs.
"You...look like shit." Shizuo said, and Izaya barked out a laugh that became of cough, and when he looked at the glove he had covered his mouth with there was more blood on it. He wiped it on his pants and smiled up faintly at Shizuo, trying to act like his fake old self but feeling like he failing miserably, "First time we meet in over a year and the first you say is that I look like shit? Wow, you always were a charmer, Shizu-chan." Shizuo lit a cigarette, "Well it's true."
Izaya laughed and coughed some more, this time there was thankfully no blood, "I guess you're right."
"So, where'd you go?"
Izaya shrugged and leaned to the side as he reached into his pocket for the cigarette box and pulled out a stick, "You know, here and there. Hey, can I get a light?" He had never smoked before, never tried, but it couldn't be as bad as the painful nostalgia growing in his chest.
"Didn't know you smoked."
Izaya shrugged again, "Things change."
The blonde sighed and lit the cancer stick with a huff of resignation. Izaya looked up at him quizzically, not used to blonde's sympathies, "Why aren't you attacking me?" Shizuo should be furious to see him, should try to beat him up as usual, but instead he just said, "Because you're obviously in no condition to fight. It wouldn't be a fair match...it wouldn't be a contest."
The raven shrugged and took a long drag, "You're right...no contest at all..." The smoke was acrid in his lungs and stung his eyes. He couldn't see how Shizuo liked the stuff but the pain helped combat the others that he felt. "How are my sisters doing?" he asked when he was able to catch his breath, watching it come out white.
"There...doing fine, I guess. They miss you, you know. They want their big brother back." Izaya stubbed out his cigarette on the sole of his boot and flicked it away into the darkness. He used the garbage can for leverage as he struggled to stand. There was no way they missed him, they hated his guts and wanted him dead. He could still remember those blank faces after he through Kikuro from their house. Those apathetic face that did not belong on children.
"That's good...but I'm afraid they can't have me...I can't stay here." He really couldn't stay, the tears were welling in his eyes at the familiarity of it all and the pain he had been trying to keep at bay was growing stronger. If and when he was going to cry, it would not be here in front of the man he so desperately loved. Shizuo's voice carried to him, the curiosity and sympathy blocking Izaya's airways. "Where are you going?"
He turned down the alleyway and limped away from Shizuo, he hunched his shoulders in an attempt to suppress a sob as he spoke with a smirk in his voice that wasn't present on his face, "Aw, miss me? And here I thought you hated me. Guess I was wrong."
"Not a chance flea! Nothing's changed! Stay out of Ikebukuro!" How wrong Shizuo was, how horribly, horribly, wrong. All the things he had endured, the people he had lost, the things he had done. He wasn't the same man he had been when he'd been abducted from his apartment on his birthday the year before. "On the contrary Shizu-chan...everything's changed." He rounded the corner and then began to sprint, a choked sob freeing itself as he ran but becoming lost in the wind.
He ran and ran, in circles and loops and wherever he was going he wasn't sure but he continued to run and he continued to cry. He skidded to a stop only he found himself inside his old apartment. The dust that had settled was monuments, nearly ten years worth collected on his forgotten furniture, with only the bed missing. Was his newer apartment in similar condition, or had Shiki been maintaining it in the hopes he'd return? He crumpled to the floor where his bed used to be, lying like a rag doll on the floor of his bedroom, and cried until he started screaming. His cries drew unwanted attention, he realized, and some thugs who he decided had been using the flat next to his as a meeting place. Ten and then fourteen men with scarred faces and knives in their hands came crashing through his apartment door. When they saw him they must have mistaken him for a girl, because he knew he looked even more feminine than usual with longer hair and because he saw the lewd looks starting to form. He stood on shaking legs, suddenly on edge. He could take them easily, but his healing was gone so he would have to be careful.
"What's a pretty thing like you doing in a place like this?"
"Why you crying cutie?
"C'mere girl, we'll make it all better."
They started walking towards him and he felt a familiar fear creep into his bones and turn his feet to led. It always happened, without fail, when he was threatened with sex. He just couldn't move, couldn't think, couldn't fight because he had become the catatonic he used to be when he was ten and under the hands of monsters. He didn't realize they had been moving faster than he had thought until they were on him. One of the men grabbed his arms and pinned them above his head, his iron grip easily shattered by Izaya's strength but his movement was gone. Another yanked down his pants and all the men groaned at the same time when they realized his gender.
They threw him to the floor, Izaya only managing to move to pull up his pants to maintenance a semblance of the dignity he didn't have, before a knife flashed and sliced him diagonally on the side of his abdomen. The pain jerked reason into him once more and he scrambled for the windows of his bedroom and crashed through them. He fell three stories and hit the pavement like a ton of bricks. He struggled to stand and felt his ribs were broken and his arms were cuts from the glass. He stumbled away from the apartments, away from that old world, and into an alley way. He managed to make it to a dumpster before he he tripped and fell into a foul puddle. The water made his wounds burn and spots danced in front of his vision.
He began to hallucinate.
'You're such a pathetic little shit.' said young Miles, coming out of the darkness to stand above Izaya's fallen form. The boy was just how he remembered seeing him, with the scar from one side of his mouth to his ear, the dirty blonde hair and the mocking smile. Then Kikiyo joined him, her haunted sea green stare bringing old memories to light. Kanra joined them too, all standing above him like accusing sentries, her mouth quirking as she said, 'What a stupid slut, you waste your life and then die in the gutters? You owe us all your life and all you've ever done was waste it. What lives did you save?'
Miles and Kikiyo faded away but Kanra stayed there to stare him down. He felt so weak, despite surviving the vivisection, and thought perhaps if he could lift his head he could make the visions go away. But now Tsukishima was there, standing next to Kanra and a heartbroken cry left Izaya's mouth. His boy looked so alive, so healthy, so angry at him right there.
'You didn't save me Momma! Parents are supposed to protect their children but you killed me! You let them rape me and then tore me in half!' Izaya curled in on himself, body trembling and breaths coming out in gasps. "You're right." he moaned, burying his face in his hands. "You're all right! All I've ever done was try and fail to save those I care about! I'm always too late! I'm always too weak! What's the point of having all this power if it can't save anyone!"
You know what this power is for. Don't play dumb and try to deny it.
Izaya groaned and rolled over in the water, soaking his clothes through and chilling him. He looked up at the hallucinations, but now it was just Kanra. She pointed to her face, and suddenly it began to rot. Her eye, her right eye, burst and chunky fluid poured from the bloody socket. Then Tsuki replace her and his right eye visibly turned red with blood and then swelled shut. Izaya found himself stroking the right side of his own face, and before he knew it his fingers were tearing the eye from the socket. He didn't scream, didn't cry, it hurt but it felt good to hurt and when his fingers slipped, slick with blood, he dove in to try again. When his vision left him completely on the right side, he let out a bark of laughter than turned into a sudden scream of terror.
The four children stood at his feet, looking at him with rotting facing and blistering eyes. He scrambled away from the scene, abandoning the lump that was once his eye and fled. He could hear their laughter, hear their accusing voices as they taunting his weakness and his follies. His son began to wail and Kanra began to scream and he found himself in front of Shinra's apartment. He looked down the hall wildly, blood pouring from the empty hole in his face. The children dragged themselves across the carpet with broken fingers, staining the beige fibers and smudging the walls with their life's blood.
He scratched at the door with nailess gloved fingers, and kicked it with his failing strength and tried to scream for help but his voice had left him. The door gave way and he flung himself inside and locked the door quickly, and when he spun around there was Shizuo. He let out a shaky laugh, the irony of everything too funny to breath.
"Heh...it's funny...I've never...been one to...lose things...but it seems...I've lost...an eye...Shizuo..."