Disclaimer: GetBackers and its characters are not mine. This fic is not-for-profit, just for wanking off. ;p
Darkness can be found in Mugenjou like nowhere else in Tokyo. There no streetlights exist to protect its inhabitants. There walls and rubble and steel beams overlap to hide its corners from even the brightest moonlight. Yet in MakubeX's room, deep in the belly of Lower Town, it is never truly dark.
He sleeps in the same room his computers reside in, dragging a futon out so he is never far from them. The others, his followers who will become the new Kings, sleep in separate rooms. He has his privacy, and though silently he yearns for human companionship, he is never really alone. Just as his room is never really dark.
With all the lights and monitors off, MakubeX is surrounded by light. The light of stars. The light of hundreds of eyes blinking at him.
Like him, even at night his computers do not rest. The whirring of their fans and the clicking of their hard drives are his lullabies. The steady green power lights watch over him through the night, while the orange lights of activity flicker on and off, on and off. He is never sure if they are winking at him or trying to communicate with him. Speaking to him in a code he hasn't learned.
Tonight he is still awake, staring at the small lights that surround him. He's been lying in bed for hours. Emishi has already taken over Sakura's watch. Sunrise is not far off. He should be asleep, he knows. They'll need him tomorrow, to take the place of Raitei and to try to make Lower Town safe again. MakubeX stares at the computers, dozens of them working away heedless to the new responsibility he has gained. He doesn't know if he can do it. Staring at the CPUs, he'd thought of running back to Gen. There he could lose his hurt, lose himself, in spending hours with his computer, ignoring the plight of Mugenjou as he'd done before he'd ever heard of Amano Ginji. He'd rejected the idea. He wouldn't abandon everyone as the other four had done. Of all the VOLTS, he that understood humans least had vowed to stay behind and protect them.
He stares at his computers, at all the winking eyes. He prays for an answer, for strength, but not to any deity man knows. He prays to his computers, with their processing power and cold logic. With them, perhaps he can find a way to replace Raitei. He will take strength however he can find it, and he knows well intelligence is the greatest strength of all.
MakubeX's eyes flutter shut, and he stares at the back of his eyelids. Still sleep does not come. With a sigh he opens them. In his room there are too many lights to sleep. Some stare at him balefully, while others frantically try to speak to him.
In his insomnia, he begins to understand what they are saying. The green and orange lights change and magnify, streaking into a dreamscape. He sees Mugenjou, the outside world, himself, and ultimate destruction. All these hours, lying awake, his mind had been idle. His computers had never stopped thinking, though, and in sleep--in dreams--they give him the answer they found.
In the flickering brightness of his room, MakubeX finds a way to erase darkness from Mugenjou forever.
