Since the final installation of the battle in Waiting for Totsuka is not complete yet, I figured I'd post a little something to keep you tied over for another week. (I say a week because 3/4 of the chapter *is* done, so I have every reason to believe it will be finished soon). Anyhow, there might be people here who aren't interested in Waiting for Totsuka, so this story is actually entirely unrelated to it. In fact, it's lightly based on a true story. ;P
Do enjoy Fushimi, in all of his Scepter 4 gloominess. No pairings, just a particularly annoying day.
Small children were friendly. Regardless of their upbringing or environment, no matter if they would later grow up to be shy or gregarious, when they were three, any child would go out of their way to greet you. They would run up, waving, sincerely and innocently happy to meet even strangers. Anna, Fushimi, Mikoto—they all started out as cheerful and amiable as any other. Life experiences at times changed that.
Then there was the occasion, when exposed to an external source of pure innocence, one's own was called to mind. Why else would an old, solitary hermit such as Miwa Ichigen agree to take in and raise the abandoned Black Dog? As strong as the vassal might be now that he served under the Silver King, at the time of his rescue by Ichigen, Kuroh Yatogami had been but a pup. Puppy was the exact word to come to Fushimi's mind as he looked down upon a small child before him. It was a lost puppy.
The boy had been wandering around for quite a while, not seeming particularly attached to any of the other people in the park that day. Fushimi was dressed in blue, his uniform pressed and starched according to standard, then worn recklessly. He never cared for regulation, after all. As a symbol, however, the uniform meant he was on duty and it commanded the respect of civilian bystanders. That he didn't mind so much.
This particular assignment had caught his attention more than normal, maybe even 20% focused. Like always, there was just a strain to catch. While strains' powers were unpredictable and often dangerous, it was typically a simple task for the organized efforts of the Blue Clan to capture one. Of course, there were exceptions. Even more rare were exceptional cases that piqued Fushimi's interest—especially if a certain Red boy Misaki Yata was not involved.
Today the strain they were after was not easy to catch. That alone would have merely irritated the boy in blue, but this one enraged him, got his blood pumping, engaged his senses. The strain "spoke to computers" but not in the way he himself did—through years of tinkering and some study. That guy literally spoke to them; he affected electronics with his mind, and everything with a computer chip listened to his command. It was a power he had been born with.
That was precisely the reason Fushimi was in the park in the dead center of allergy season. It was bad enough already that they were called to duty on a weekend, but to be outdoors this time of year was unbearable. No, he didn't have a runny nose, itchy eyes, or dry throat himself. He was only allergic to cats, and none of those were currently in the vicinity. Other people's allergies bothered him.
It was the man who would sneeze into his hands and then reach for the same doorknob you had to touch five seconds later, never knowing if he was contagious. It was the periodic sniffle behind you on the train that came just infrequently enough to surprise you and interrupt your thoughts each time. It was the fact that warmer temperatures and the weekend meant this park was crammed packed full of snotty, screaming children, high school lovers making out, drug addicts, homeless people, kids who thought they were gangsters, middle aged women jogging in complete obliviousness because they "couldn't hear anything with the headphones in"...
Every one of them had allergies, and he noticed all of them. There were so many of them that evacuating them all off the premises was nearly impossible, but it was essential.
Fushimi's so-called teammates, the Special Duty Corps of the Swordsmen Division of Tokyo Legal Affairs Bureau, Family Register Section, Fourth Annex were trying to detain this strain on the weekend because "justice has no days off," according to their superior officer Lieutenant Seri Awashima. It was their responsibility by law to protect the citizens of Japan at any hour from "persons retaining abilities caused by a unique phenomenon." It was the flowery political jargon for "Scepter 4 works their asses off to catch strains."
They quickly realized they were ill-prepared for the task. Their team relied far too heavily on their electronics. It was their source of information, their method of communicating, their only advantage over their enemies. Without properly functioning equipment, the team crumbled into an aimless mass of chaos.
This strain had immediately taken out their communication. Then, he began to monkey with their tracking system, flagging untriggered sensors to lead the foot soldiers down the wrong path. While the blue clansmen were running into each other, Lieutenant Awashima was fruitlessly trying any means available to contact headquarters from their temporary base, and techs were floundering about why the computers were spouting nonsense to the screens, Fushimi wandered off. Taking a four-core, touchscreen tablet with him, he made his way to the nearest coffee shop.
Even if it wasn't obvious to anyone else, he knew the strain had hacked into their network. He didn't yet know that such was its supernatural power, but he figured taking their plans outside the compromised area would set everyone back on track. Coffee shops always had free Wi-Fi.
Within five minutes, he had functioning internet. He couldn't use any of his work passwords, but that mattered little when he knew all of the city's virtual back doors. Once everything was ready, he called Akiyama. Akiyama was a quiet fellow who took things seriously. He also had his personal cell phone number listed on an online resume site. His proximity to the strain's actual location made him the best choice to call.
Handing Akiyama detailed verbal instructions didn't work for long, though. When the blue clansmen caught sight of the strain, the target in turn saw the phone to Akiyama's ear. That was how he knew they had circumvented his digital roadblock. Tracing the radio signals from the phone back to their source at the coffee shop, he easily found the ip address of the device that was following him. Piggybacking the Wi-Fi network there, he downloaded a virus to Fushimi's tablet that sent it into a constant reboot cycle, which brought a frustrated curse from the lips of the boy in glasses.
In that moment they learned a mountain about this enemy. All of that he had done in a flash, with no devices, simply his mind. His power worked remotely; any place with the slightest access to any network whatsoever was within his reach. He wasn't afraid to face a sword with no weapon other than his mind because his power was fast enough to justify such confidence. He was a high level danger—beta at least—since he had control of his powers, he had bad intent, and he was far from unintelligent. He could probably rob a bank or break out of any prison easily.
That was when Fushimi knew they had, at last, found a case worth his time. The challenge moved his feet faster than his typical disinterested gait. Now armed with nothing but his Orange-brand smartphone, Fushimi quickly made his way to the park. There one could find a single bench that had absolutely no access whatsoever to any computer network. It was a signal blackspot, nearly the only one in all of Shizume City. He could now get to the internet only with the limited over-the-air data granted him by his mobile service provider. Hopefully that would be isolated enough to be safe.
From there, Fushimi began directing the team again. In spite of the headache he was getting because of the number of people in the vicinity, he felt more than just a hint of pleasure. The entire Blue Clan was relying upon him—not their king. Only he had the skill needed to combat this strain, this strain that posed a serious threat to the whole city. Then really, it was all of Shizume City relying on him, and him alone. Wasn't that what he had dreamed about as a child: a crisis that would strike the city and him being the only person in the world with the solution?
That was the first time Fushimi saw the child. "Why are you laughing?" The boy asked, unafraid of him or anything at all. Large, deer-like eyes glistened up at him in wonder as if the boy thought him a celebrity or Power Ranger maybe. At first confused, it didn't take long for Fushimi to recall his uniform was widely recognized. Scepter 4 was thought of as a "police force with cooler responsibilities," so certain children might look up to the them in the same way as a fireman.
As much as Fushimi may have been a child at one time, there was one major difference between him and this rolly-polly little pup. Fushimi had never believed in heroes. Someone who unselfishly helped others without ulterior motives did not exist. There were no heroes.
This conflict in views diffused any real interest he may have had in the child. Face growing immediately dull, he left off both the laughter and the rare smile with a click of the tongue. He wasn't even going to bother answering the boy; he was busy working. It was the excuse he made for himself, but it didn't seem to deter his audience any. Climbing up beside him on the bench, the child looked over his shoulder at the PDA.
"What are you doing? Are you playing a game?" It wondered curiously with the typical slurred voice of a toddler.
Fushimi sent a glare at the boy not even two feet away. Too young to understand personal space. "Don't you know not to talk to strangers?"
The grumbled reminder was chosen deliberately as something that would startle the kid, and it did. The boy still wasn't frightened, though, and It didn't leave until Fushimi ordered It to. Only then could he turn the greater part of his divided attention back to his work.
He had to lead the Scepter 4 Special Duty Corps so that they could catch this technopathic strain. Before simply sending all of them his location, however, Fushimi remembered this guy was far from dumb. He also still had control of all the clan's network. Even if he couldn't reach Fushimi, he was still monitoring anyone Fushimi might try to contact. That meant he would have to think of something sneaky and manipulate a trap.
Contacting only people who were traveling in pairs via their personal phones, Fushimi began to stage an ambush. He would tell the person to give their partner their phone, then send him one direction and their partner another. The strain was obviously using their phones as an indication of their location. Therefore, if two signals went one way, the strain would assume two people had. The other would escape unnoticed.
According to that plan, the movements of the traceable members of the team would cause him to retreat right into the location where all the hidden clansmen laid in wait. It was tricky enough that it just might work; though, those chosen as the decoys were likely to hate him for quite some time. There was one scenario in which the ambush would fail. If the strain caught on to the fact that the Blue Clan was once more being directed by someone with internet access, it was very likely a person such as this strain would also know the only place in the city with no Wi-Fi. He would easily know where Fushimi was acting from and might actually proceed straight to his location. That would not present a danger to the blue clansman, however. He knew how to handle himself in a fight.
Although his concentration was more centrally focused than it typically ever was, Fushimi was well aware of his surroundings. He could tell when a bird flew overhead, easily knowing also the difference between it and the frisbee that strayed too close. He heard the man behind him sneezing repeatedly and instantly remembered a fact that a single sneeze can send 100,000 germs into the air at 100 miles per hour. Some days he wished for a poorer memory, but right then he wished only that the man had kept his spit to himself.
The persistent screaming of children and pounding of feet on pavement could hardly be considered a distraction when one was never more than partially attentive to begin with. Still, the ever present reminder that the place was occupied by other humans kept Fushimi from blatantly disregarding an order. Scepter 4 was instructed to, on no occasion, intentionally bring a super-powered being into a group of civilians. This park was, thus, a place full of, not only distractions, but also variables, potential land mines, so to speak.
To take care of that risk, Fushimi called a teammate named Hidaka. The tall, young man was friendly and lighthearted, making him the kind capable of dealing with people. On the other hand, he was a hard worker, more thorough than the average blue clansman, meaning he wouldn't neglect to clear a whole corner of the park as some might—childish spazzes like Domyouji or dreamers like Enomoto.
As soon as Hidaka answered, Fushimi gave his order, "Immediately turn your phone off. Then make your way to Tatsuya Park, and clear it of civilians." No fluff; just the necessary. Fushimi would never admit it, but phones made him feel somewhat uncomfortable. As much as he avoided talking to anyone face-to-face, he kept away from verbal communication via phone even more so.
Even though he had seen the young boy wander by a couple more times, chasing butterflies like a little fox, their next real encounter came at particularly inconvenient timing. The signal he was using to track the strain had just gone offline. That meant not only did the strain know Fushimi had been able to follow him, but he also would no longer be able to do so unless he quickly thought of a new solution. It was an urgent situation that needed his focus to be resolved.
But the boy came over to interrupt him. He didn't even listen to what It said—there was no time for that—only snapping back, "Go away." The words were harsh, and for a moment the child's eyes showed that. It looked crushed, as if a friend had stabbed its heart. Fushimi did not consider the child to be his friend. He never had.
Seeming to understand this, It climbed down from the park bench and sulked away. Fushimi thought a sigh of relief might be appropriate now that he could turn back to his emergency. Neither happened. At the sight of the child's downtrodden look, a memory floated into mind about his own childhood.
He had been four years old, accompanying his mother to some important business. What her business was, he didn't know at the time and he never would. He knew it was important because it was in one of those fancy, rich skyscrapers downtown. Whatever was the subject of the conversation his mother was having with all the men in business suits, ties, and regularly shined shoes had been of no interest to him beyond counting that there were six of them. Bored of the adult discussion, he began to stray from his mother's side.
Tsukumo Mark 99 should have been his friend. The small Saruhiko had been impressed with the efficient pattern he used during his cleaning routine, the speed with which he identified trash verses something valuable, and his skill at destroying discarded objects. All of these things were a result of years of robotic training, making the various parts work in unison with mathematical precision.
What really caught Saruhiko's attention, however, was the way Tsukumo spoke. The word choice clashed with the perfection of the machine. It was a strange curiosity, drawing the young boy in. Why, he thought. Why would something so efficient ever shout, "You hillbilly samurai"? Was it merely the sense of humor of the creators? Was it some sort of distinguishing feature to set Tsukumo Mark 99 apart from all other varieties of cleaning robots?
Saruhiko couldn't tell. He knew only that he found the anomaly intriguing. Approaching the robot carefully from the side, he introduced himself. He gave a little, customary bow.
"Hello. My name is Saruhiko Fushimi. Nice to meet you," he began, in the way he had been told he ought to meet someone for the first time.
The robot turned his optical scanner toward the boy who was even shorter than himself. It looked him over thoroughly, examining the boy from head to toe, from the excited anticipation of meeting a robot to the insecure, timid body posture. A robot was unable to process such traits like a human, as advanced as its language chip may be. It was programmed only to think in algorithms. When Tsukumo looked at Saruhiko, therefore, he ran the child's appearance through his facial recognition software for processing. Little Saruhiko was not a part of his database, meaning he was not one of the employees at the facility.
"Die!" Tsukumo responded forcefully, having analyzed the young interruption as either garbage or a threat. Raising his arms for destruction, the robot attacked the boy.
Wide-eyed at the rejection, Saruhiko stumbled backwards. Die? Tears welled up in his eyes, and he ran. He ran towards the safety of his mother, Tsukumo hot in pursuit.
Coming back from one of his earliest memories, Fushimi wondered, What the hell was that? Is my conscience likening me to the robot for running that kid off? He scolded himself with a click of his tongue for even considering that. The kid shouldn't have bothered him in the first place. He wasn't going to give it anymore thought than that.
It came back into view screaming but not in fear. The cry was laced with the evilest sound of innocent laughter. Running after the child was Hidaka, desperately unable to catch up. Fushimi raised his eyes without lifting his head, seeing both the fiasco and the otherwise empty park. The expression of his face was clearly that of unimpressed disbelief. His fellow blue clansman had been well capable enough to bar all adults from the area, yet a mere child evaded him with glee.
Less than a minute later, Hidaka came by again, going the opposite direction with the child kicking wildly in his arms. The tall brunette held the boy securely against his chest. Passing by, he noticed Fushimi for the first time. He stopped and cocked his head to the side as he faced his teammate with the little rascal wriggling to free himself.
"Fushimi-san," he gaped. "What are you doing here?"
"What do you think?" The distracted response gave no clarification, but Fushimi was still in the middle of trying to relocate the strain. He had no time for stupid questions.
"Well, it doesn't really look like you're doing anything," the coworker commented, mostly to himself. That brought a giggle from the child. Realizing it had sounded horrible, he continued frantically, "I mean, I'm sure you're doing something, after all. Something important and relevant. I just can't tell what it is."
After halfheartedly allowing his workmate's words to go in one ear and out the other, Fushimi gave him a bored look and said, "Just get rid of that thing in case the strain comes over here."
Quite a bit of the statement was surprising to Hidaka. It was, however, neither the time to remark on Fushimi treating a human being as an inanimate object, nor the time to admit he hadn't even considered the reason why he had been evacuating the park. Therefore, he made no reply, simply taking the last civilian outside the danger zone.
At last the city's only hope for survival could work in peace. With no distraction, he was able to put all his resources to good use, multitasking across multiple programs. He scanned public and privately owned surveillance cameras near the fugitive's last known whereabouts, made unauthorized use of the Yuishiki* system, and had several facial recognition organizations set to send him an alert if they spotted the strain. All of this was simultaneous; although, by that point it might seem like he wasn't doing much. The only thing left to do was wait for a notification.
The obnoxious child affronted him again long before there was any sign of the strain. "Aren't you gonna leave the park, Mister?" It questioned, innocently worried about a stranger at least four times its age who had been nothing but rude.
Internally flabbergasted, the blue clansman responded as distantly as before, "Why did you come back?"
"To get you to leave!" The child announced as if doing Fushimi a favor, "It's dangerous here!"
"How did you get past Hidaka?" The interrogation continued, unmoved by anything except his growing headache.
"He was busy helping people, so I came to get you for him."
The thing had eternal excitement. Sighing, Fushimi asked, "Didn't he, like, put you with your mom, or something?"
With a shrug, the child plopped onto the bench, installing himself. "Nope."
Something about its careless attitude convinced Fushimi that the lack of parental supervision was not Hidaka's fault. That child didn't even sound unnerved that its parents were nowhere to be found. For a split second he sympathized, but then he reminded himself that the task at hand was of a far greater scope than babysitting one child.
"Get out of here," he said unpleasantly to the boy seated on the bench beside him. "It's not safe." That last bit revealed that, though spoken unkindly, Fushimi kind of considered the kid's welfare.
Crossing its arms, the thing replied stubbornly, "I'm not going without you."
Then, two obstinate and immature boys determined to settle the matter according to their nature: a staring contest. Fushimi's glare was intense; the child's was resolute. Neither would change their mind or back down first.
"Uh..." A tall, brunette looked down at the two uncertainly. "What's going on here?"
The voice of his colleague snapped Fushimi out of the infantile behavior. He scoffed, "Can't you keep It away from me?"
Hidaka made a face that was both sad and understanding. It? Me? He truly believed Fushimi was not as heartless as he at times sounded. He called out to the child gently, in a high-pitched voice.
The boy refused. "I'm not going without him," It insisted.
At that, Hidaka fully comprehended the situation and explained in simple terms, "It's okay for him to stay here. He's going to fight the bad guy."
Compliantly, the kid climbed down from the bench and took the blue man's hand, leaving the teen bewildered at how easy it had been. As slow as they walked with those short legs, they actually hadn't made it far when someone approached from the other side of the park. Startled, but not caught off guard, Fushimi stood quickly and readied himself. This was the strain they had been waiting for.
He looked geeky but not like an authentic geek. The appearance was more like one of those hipsters who wore large rimmed glasses and a bow tie to attract girls who had a thing for intelligent men. Wearing an out-of-place suit vest with his designer jeans attested to that. Fushimi only didn't scoff at him and his wavy hair because he knew the "look" wasn't simply a disguise for an empty mind. This guy had been granted a strong brain and attractiveness. On top of that, the Dresden Slate had gifted him with extra uncanny powers that he wouldn't have needed to follow his dream of becoming a con artist.
Fushimi despised him.
As if two outlaws in a duel of the old west, the two faced off for a mere instant, barely taking in the other's appearance while holding at the ready. Having noticed this in his analysis of the enemy's facial expression, Fushimi chose to forgo the ceremonial process of drawing his sword. It took too long. Instead, he reached for one of his hidden, throwing knives.
Sensing the rising tension between them, the strain made his move first. Fushimi felt a jolt flare up through his arm and had just enough time to locate its source as his own PDA. Clearly, the technopath had been able to overload the internal systems and send a surge of current from the battery through the entire device with just his mind.
Fushimi dropped the fried phone to the ground and cussed under his breath. That sure was a surprising twist to an ability that was already annoying, he thought, shaking the tingling pain from his fingers.
Changing his mind, the blue clansman reached for the hilt at his side and rushed through the declaration required to activate the aura, "Fushimi, batou."** The strain dodged the first slash of the blue, glowing saber. That was hardly a surprise, what with the ridiculous obligation that they announce the attack. Fushimi didn't think he would miss the second time, even when the untrained hands of his opponent lamely shoved him backwards.
Colliding with a nearby vending machine, Fushimi shifted the grip of his sword to strike again. This one too was preemptively thwarted when another computer chip got overwritten. The vending machine drew enough current from the grid to send the kind of shock through his body that caused loss of consciousness.
This wasn't the first time Fushimi had woken, back to the concrete, with the disproportionately large eyes of a child beaming down at him. At the beginning, he actually saw not the pudgy little boy from the park that day but brown pig-tails with yellow ribbons. Blinking a few times cleared his perspective, and he saw the current situation as it was. He was laying on the ground outside, stunned, with a toddler hovering over him. Even having put the pieces back together in his mind, the memory remained.
Second year of primary school, he and his cousin Aya were supposed to bike to school together. It was safer for her to not go alone; her parents had said so. Not that it was like tiny Saruhiko could protect Aya from anything. Still, it made her parents feel better.
Kids picked on little Saruhiko, just as much as they picked on preteen Saruhiko and still would now if he spent any considerable amount of time with people his own age. That day some bigger kids had whizzed by, the fourth of them shoving him off his bike, laughing about how slow he rode. He had blacked out that day too, opening his eyes to see tears streaming down his cousin's face. He couldn't breathe.
"Are you okay, Saruhiko?" Aya sobbed.
Squinting out the bright sunlight that amplified the pounding in his head, he tried to regain the air that had been knocked out of him.
Aya continued, "They called you slow. I know you only go slow for me."
This kid hardly seemed different from that at all. When he too asked, "Are you okay, Mister?" Fushimi sat up in a hurry and glared at him.
"What are you doing here again? It's dangerous."
More than happy to explain, the boy chirped, "The other guy saw you get knocked out and went after the bad guy for you. He told me to stay right here and take care of you."
A child taking care of an adult was a preposterous idea. Fushimi didn't even give it enough thought to realize the statement would only have been made that way to trick the kid into staying away from danger. Standing quickly to his feet, the blue clansman glanced around.
"Which way did they go?" He asked, trusting the kid was probably competent enough to know at least that. It had been alert and had probably seen Hidaka run after the strain.
"You can't go," the child refused.
"Why not?" He demanded, looking down condescendingly.
"'Cause they left the park, and I'm supposed to stay with you!"
Not seeing the conflict, Fushimi replied, "So?"
"I have to wait here for my uncle," the boy answered clearly.
It was almost sad how the kid didn't even realize that his situation was less than idea. Left all alone in a park, the kid was just supposed to wait for his uncle? "When is he coming?" Fushimi inquired, actually somewhat curious.
The boy shrugged. "I dunno."
Not surprised by that at all, Fushimi had already prepared his decision and quickly revealed it, "Well I'm not going to sit around waiting for who knows how long." Walking away, he added, "What you do is none of my concern."
While the antisocial teen had hoped that would be a farewell, the child seemed to take it as an invitation to disobey. Less than a minute later it scurried up to walk by Fushimi's side, and he really wasn't that bothered. A voice entered his thoughts, accusing, You are such a bad influence, Saruhiko. Out of habit he reached over to his left collarbone to itch a scar that never managed to heal—probably because he scratched at it every time that person came to mind.
As soon as he noticed what he had been doing absentmindedly, he stopped and tsked at his own behavior, muttering, "It's not like you were any better."
"What?" The kid asked in confusion.
"It's nothing," Fushimi replied.
Accepting that without difficulty, the boy chirped, "They went this way," and headed towards the left.
* In the English dub, this computer program that acquires information from all forms of surveillance and every terminal is known as the "Vijnaptimatrata system" instead.
** In the English dub, he would have said, "Fushimi, ready."
Hope you all liked this. I'm not sure if it's finished or not. Originally, this story was supposed to be all about interactions between Fushimi and the kid. I don't really have any ideas for another installation, but if you all want one, I'll try to arrange something. Thanks!