Huge Thank-you to Kara Angitia and Lothlorien1 for their suggestions and help ♥
The music:
Ben Harper : Amen Omen
Theatre of Tragedy : Angelique
Gensomaden Saiyuki : For Real (Piano Version)
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Against the Wind
Chapter Five
-
The faces blurred before his eyes. The voices melted into a mind-shattering scream. Then, there was only blue.
That endless depth, redrawn in tender lines in his memory so many times before; it swallowed him whole, filled him, sucked him in. He couldn't see well. It didn't matter. That sapphire sky was his sky, and it was oceans too, and air, and it took him.
It made him sick.
Between a rock and a hard place, Watari no longer knew which way to run. But run he did, and blindly so; out of the room, stumbling and nearly falling over whatever stood in his way. He heard them call out his name. The sound was so painfully familiar; he craved it, he longed to hear it, to let it soothe him, but all it did was make him sick again. The chaos whirled and reigned inside him. Enough, something in him screamed, over and over again.
He didn't stop until he stormed into his lab, finding his way by the sheer force of habit. Dry heaves sent him down to the floor, to his knees, where he wrapped his arms around himself in a feeble attempt to keep his slender frame from shaking. He screwed his eyes shut. No.
Half-aware of being elsewhere, now, he still only saw one face in his mind's eye; he tried to cling to it with all willpower he could spare. But it kept shifting into that endless black and pale skin; those cold, cold hands were touching him again, claiming him, staining him in a way he hadn't known before. Branding him, with a mark that would not come off no matter how he tried to force himself out of its grasp.
You are mine.
He looked up, squinting to see around him. There was a dead weight upon his chest as he frantically tried to concentrate on what had happened, plowing through the wild whirlwind of his thoughts. Impossible, a weak inner voice of logic told him, but he knew better. It could not have been anything else. It couldn't have.
He fought to clear his mind, but his head was pounding. It left him nauseated and limp, supporting his weight against the wall as he slowly stood up; breath hitching, eyes burning. Half-conscious of what must have been tears dripping down on his hand, Watari wiped his face with his sleeve. It hurts, he heard his own voice amidst the chaos in his mind. Hurts.
The claws of pain ripped into him, tore him apart, and it was so hard to think, to wrap his mind around any of this. He slammed his fist into the wall, frustration taking over and only a faint voice of reason left to tell him not to lose control.
He made his way to a cabinet nearby, fumbling with the lock with awfully shaking hands. If the loss of his glasses hadn't done the trick, the pain blurred his vision all the more. He felt around the shelf for a bottle of pain relievers. It seemed like forever until he shook a handful onto his palm and forced them down his throat. Wait it out.
Slumping down, he bent himself in half and pressed both hands to his temples. Once, twice, applying pressure with as much precision as his trembling arms allowed.
Someone was pounding on the door, he realized when the cacophony of assaulting noise dispersed. Then, as suddenly as it had begun, it stopped. He wondered if the voices he heard were really there, but it could have been his own thoughts. Then footsteps, far away, and silence again. Stretching long and brittle between the pulsating assaults of the ache in his head.
Minutes later, his next lucid thought was a blessing of auto-engaging locks.
-
Watari counted seconds to help his mind get back on track. He counted his breaths, each next one slower, deeper, forcing his body to calm down. As always when such an excruciating pain threatened to overpower his senses, he pictured how the medicine he'd taken dissolved and traveled through him. How it found the sources of pain and extinguished them as it swept around the fibers of his flesh, the nerves, the cells. It helped. A distraction was as good a method as any, and one he'd relied on more often than he cared to admit.
003 was quiet on his shoulder, as if sensing her human's discomfort surpassed anything she could soothe. When the pain subsided a little, Watari leaned back, his eyes closed. His hand wandered up to stroke the owl's feathers; a touch of something familiar was a welcome change.
"An illusion," he whispered.
Hisoka had said that, he remembered now. The boy must have tried to read him. Watari hoped he hadn't hurt him.
"But how?" He shook his head and winced, immediately regretting it. He held still.
And at once he was back in the sharp claws of fear as he realized the consequences that carried. Every level of what that meant. Hisoka had got a clearer visual of Enma than he would have liked, he could bet on that. The kid had said as much, his still hazy memory supplied. By now, everyone knew. They had unwittingly entered the game, he thought, taming the panic that began to eat its way through him again.
Tatsumi, he would have been discreet. So long as it didn't affect his performance at work, he would have kept to himself what he had found out the night before. But now Bon, and Tsuzuki, and he suspected chief Konoe as well, they all knew.
Watari groaned, sweeping his palms over his face. He should remember, he mused, to update his personal definition of failure after all of this.
Then there was the illusion. Balancing on a thin edge between awe and disbelief, Watari thought back to the past twenty four hours. He recalled every detail, every moment, every word that had lodged itself in his mind. And even though he couldn't understand how, he had little doubt left. It couldn't have been anything but that.
"But I destroyed it," he murmured absently in a soft voice, rubbing a still sore temple.
003 flew down from his shoulder and hopped onto his lap. She hooted worriedly.
"I'd bet my head on it, girl," he said. He laughed bitterly. Unfortunate choice of words, that. "I destroyed it. Twenty five years ago."
A by-product of the process of creation of Mother's security system, the semi-intelligent virtual reality had become his favorite side project, back then. Drawing data from his own memory, it continuously adjusted itself to emulate reality as closely as the system allowed. Back then, it had been far from perfect; the computer had choked on the real-time updates too often to his liking, causing glitches in the program that somewhat spoiled the game.
And on that fateful day, quarter of a century ago, when Watari had left the Five Generals to their own devices, that program had been among the casualties of his farewell message. The sweeper virus that corrupted Mother's data relevant to that part of his work. He'd left nothing behind.
He had been sure of it.
Until today, anyway. Today, Watari was hardly sure of anything sans his own name; and even that could have been questioned, come to think of it.
He shivered; whether from the cold, or dread that swarmed his thoughts, he didn't care to guess. Rubbing his arms, he shifted his weight until he was on his knees again. Slowly he stood up, keeping his eyes closed until his head ceased to spin.
Back on his feet, he shrugged as he looked around. Several hours ago, the lab had looked the same. But it had not been real; just an illusionary imitation compiled from his memories of it. Just like the Castle of Candles. Like the office. Like Tatsumi.
Tatsumi.
He tried to decide whether he, too, could have been only a creation of his own mind. If he was correct – but how? he couldn't stop himself from asking – the simulation had gathered facts, but it interpreted his conclusions as well. Emotions, even, if only to an extent. The morning, when he and Tatsumi fought; he would have expected that. Tatsumi's concern; he craved it. He'd never thought to admit it, but it felt so good to know that Tatsumi cared. But the final trick – he felt as though it had only ended a few minutes before – it had been aimed straight at his heart, where it hurt the most. And Watari deemed himself far from masochistic, even if the constant lack of sleep and lab incidents argued otherwise. He wouldn't have brought that upon himself. He knew that beyond any doubt.
The other illusions had solidified his most personal sentiments towards those people, he realized, now that he took a moment to analyze it with a clearer mind. Akane... His former assistant's demise hadn't been his fault. She had stolen the access codes to help him on her own whim. It had been her choice. Logically, Watari knew he couldn't have stopped her. But some part of his heart never failed to point out that if he had only spoken to her, just once, before he left, he could have told her to stay out of it. That he didn't need help. That she should have stayed put, then everything would have been all right.
But he hadn't, and that was only one thing on a long list of what he should have done. He had been relentless in his pursuits for those five years, and he had driven those people to extremes along with him. Back then, only that had mattered. Too much had he cared about Mother, too little about the people involved. Too little. And he saw it far too late.
Tatsumi; Watari carried no guilt in regards to him. None at all, he could admit, and it bore no traces of a lie. Some kind of affection, perhaps something deeper, but no guilt was there. Real or not, the all too recent memories burned painfully fresh in his mind. In the end, a good part of the past hours had been just how Tatsumi figured in Watari's mind. The illusion had given him back the ripe fruit of the years he'd been watching that man.
But in the Castle, the fine line between reality and dream had blurred and disappeared, erasing all remaining tangible barriers between them. Tatsumi and Enma. Some combination, that; one a perfect antithesis of the other. But he had never seen Enma DaiOh in such way as he'd appeared in there. He'd never thought of him that way. He couldn't begin to guess how, but the god had been anything but illusionary.
"I guess they haven't been wasting time," he said with a sharp edge to each word. "But I destroyed it." For what had to be the tenth time at least, he went over it and back to the beginning. His mind refused to wrap itself around the idea that he could have made such a grievous mistake. It was impossible.
"Impossible," he repeated. And his blood went cold as he realized the only plausible explanation of that. No, he thought. Please, no.
"Watari."
He jumped at the voice behind him and whirled, holding his breath. At the sight of the man in doorway he fell motionless, amber eyes narrowed in a close study of the slightly blurred, older face. A familiar face. He let out a deep sigh.
Konoe shook his head. "I don't think you can keep running away anymore."
Watari went rigid. Who else was behind this? he thought frantically. He pushed a trembling hand through his hair, never letting his eyes leave the chief's face. Who else couldn't be trusted? Even here...
That momentary unease bordering on panic must have shown, because Konoe reached out his hand, an open palm up like an invitation and a plea for trust. "Relax," he said in a quiet, calming voice. "I'm not your enemy."
Try as he might, Watari couldn't bring himself to believe it that easily. Trust was somewhat overrated; the conclusion he had drawn from experience over two decades ago had never really changed. And the past several hours had proved him right in a number of ways.
"How did you get in?" he asked suspiciously.
Konoe seemed to ponder something; he took a moment to look at him, closely now. He stayed in place by the door, calm in his waiting to be invited inside. There was something in his face Watari caught out of the corner of his eye as he glanced past him, considering his chances to escape; something that told him he shouldn't fight just yet.
"You're not losing your mind," the chief said at last.
Watari raised an eyebrow.
"The door was locked."
I sure hope it was, he thought. Then again, for all he knew, Konoe could have just tossed him an easy lie with a straight face, and he had every right to suspect that, right now, he could not have differentiated it from the truth if his existence depended on it. Which it might have, all things considered.
"Then how?" he asked.
"You tell me," Konoe said. He reached into the inside pocket of his suit jacket. Watari almost jumped; he took a small half-step back and watched the chief pull out a folded piece of paper, unfazed by the response that caused.
"May I?" he asked, and Watari at first didn't see what Konoe had in mind. But as he inclined his head and then looked up again, locking his eyes on Watari's in a look that held no challenge at all, he understood.
He nodded, one hand sliding behind him to grasp the edge of a cabinet. He leaned back, watching.
Konoe moved slowly as he closed the distance between then. He stopped three steps away and reached out the hand that held the paper.
You know what you're doing, Watari mused. Careful not to corner him or otherwise threaten with too much proximity, the chief waited until Watari took the sheet from his hand.
Realizing he'd have a nightmare reading the small print without his glasses, Watari wiped the slight flush of embarrassment from his face. Somehow, at such a time in particular, showing a weak side of his already uprooted image was a bit too much for any measure of comfort. But he swallowed it down, and frowned.
He had not really known what to expect, but what he was looking at through squinted eyes took him by surprise. An e-mail?
"It was in my mailbox this morning," Konoe explained. He folded his arms across his chest. "I thought it was a mistake, or perhaps a joke, until Tatsumi came in to tell me about your--"
"There's no sender," Watari cut in, all but heedless of Konoe's last words as he murmured under his breath. Alerted to a new puzzle, his mind was already racing along any possible explanations he could think of. "Do you know who sent it?"
The chief shrugged. "I was hoping you would tell me."
"I could..." Watari paused, hesitating. He didn't take long to make up his mind. If Konoe knew more than he let in on, it was no use to play coy, anyway. "I could trace back its route, check where it came from," he said. He met Konoe's eyes, cursing the lack of his glasses all over again. "I'll have to stop by my place first, though." He gave him a half-smile.
The chief returned it. "Will you be fine on your own?" he asked.
It was Watari's turn to shrug. "Of course."
"All right, then," Konoe agreed with a nod. "I'll be in my office."
When he left, Watari stared at the door for a longer while, gathering his thoughts. Then he glanced at the printout again.
There was his name in the header, and a code which he suspected hadn't told Konoe anything meaningful. It had nothing to do with this department; the twenty four alphanumerical figures that identified him as the person he had ceased to be twenty five years before.
The generic access code to his lab followed in the next line, and was described as such. Watari frowned. That code was scheduled for automatic change every fortnight; something he'd grown used to doing years ago and never bothered to let the habit die. He had always believed that there was no such thing as too much security, anyway. And so, he was the only one who knew it. By all agreements, the lab was exclusively his, as long as he remained employed. Save by his invitation and approval, nobody had any business here.
He couldn't remember any such occurrence in the past weeks. Whoever had sent the message, had far higher clearance than anyone in the Shokan Division had the right to hold.
That left Enma, who needed no clearance to access anything that Mother controlled, much to Watari's grief. But that made no sense; he couldn't muster any sort of reason the god, of all people, could have had to send a message such as this. If only because of the last line, where one word was spelled out in bold uppercase.
Emergency.
Watari rubbed the back of his head, displeased at the confusion that settled in his mind. The tone of the message was... nonexistent, really, he decided at he looked at it one more time. Whoever had sent it seemed to have been in a hurry. It read almost like one of those automatically generated messages that any mailer script could--
"No way," he muttered under his breath.
Impatient to confirm his newest suspicion, Watari grumbled as he realized that it would have to wait. Konoe was expecting him, and he resolved not to make the situation even worse by not keeping the promise he had given and disappearing altogether. Yet dire as the circumstances had become, he had begun to feel the tingling of agitation just underneath his skin. The pieces of the grand puzzle had moved. If they fell into place the way he thought they might, Watari knew he would be lost between regret and something very much like excitement again.
He had always thought that when it came to that, he would hesitate much more than this. But his instincts had never forgotten the thrill of the chase; the passion and the excitement of moving the pieces across the board until victory came within reach. That drive for accomplishment had been his doom, once.
It had not tamed him much.
"Am I making the same mistake again?" he asked the silence around him with a small, wistful smile.
The one to answer him was the owl. 003 flapped her wings, hooting indignantly as she circled around his head.
"Yes, it could be a catch," he said, searching around for a spare change of clothes. "It probably is, though at this point, it could be either way. The conclusion?" he grinned. "All I can do is find out." He tugged a warm pullover over his head, on top of the shirt he was already wearing. "Right?"
-
The sense of being back on something resembling the right track, of getting somewhere at last, numbed the fear down to a bearable point. He was glad; his mind refused to let go of the multiplying questions he could not possibly answer just yet, but his body had picked up on the anticipation and his blood was running faster again. It gave him strength, and a good drive was what he needed to go through it with his head high enough.
A part of his mind committed to analyzing the probability of his theory regarding Konoe's mysterious e-mail, Watari forced the remaining issues into the farthest corner of his thoughts. It didn't take long for him to return to his apartment. But his keys had gotten lost somewhere in the chaos of the past day, so Watari shifted to his spirit form even before he made his way inside the apartment building.
Something at the edge of his consciousness raised his suspicions; yet not nearly soon enough. The instant he materialized in his living room, he froze.
Suit jacket gone, the sleeves of his blue dress shirt rolled up, Tatsumi was kneeling down with a piece of cloth in his hand.
Scrubbing dark, bloody stains off the floor.
Watari's heart sank. "Tatsumi?"
The Shadow Master looked up, pausing his work only for a moment. "Watari-san," he said gently, "I hope you'll forgive my intrusion, but I did not suppose allowing you to come back to this mayhem was a good idea."
Watari resisted the urge to rub his eyes; he could hardly believe the sight in font of him. Tatsumi Seiichirou. Cleaning up his mess.
"Please, don't," he said. He caught his lower lip between his teeth and watched that man, his partner on an occasion or two, ignore him as he continued his monotonous task. "Tatsumi, you don't have to do this." This is embarrassing, he thought. You've seen and done enough already. "I appreciate your help, but you--"
"I want to help," Tatsumi interrupted, not looking up; his eyes followed his hands along the up-and-down path upon the floor. He was scrubbing harder now, and the resolve in his words sounded strangely desperate in Watari's ears.
"Tatsumi," he said again. He crossed the room and stood by the Shadow Master's side. It felt so strange, looking down at that man. "Please, stop it," he repeated, a sharper edge around his voice. "I can do this myself."
"I'm sure you do," Tatsumi spoke through gritted teeth now and Watari knew that desperation was real, for his voice was breaking, the words ragged around the edges. "But I insist. There's nothing else I can do, so let me at least--"
"Tatsumi!"
The Shadow Master's hand froze in midair. He looked up.
Through blurry eyes, Watari could not decipher the expression on his face. But something sparkled around the dark depth of his aura that felt so frighteningly uncharacteristic, so unlike the man he'd used to see. The seconds stretched and Watari only stared.
There was silence, long and brittle, and then Tatsumi broke it with a deep, shuddering sigh.
Watari's throat felt dry as he tried to decide what to do. In the end, he placed a gentle hand on Tatsumi's shoulder. He knelt down next to him, leaning in close until the Shadow Master's pale face came into focus. Now he could see that tired, almost haunted look in his eyes. He smiled.
"Long day?"
Tatsumi cleared his throat. He looked away. "I found your glasses." He rose to his feet. "They're slightly out of shape, but--"
He broke off as Watari caught his hand.
"--they're not broken," he finished, his voice whisper soft.
Tatsumi was looking past him, Watari realized, avoiding his gaze. He was staring into those eyes, the blue depth dim and shallow, dark circles hanging around the shadow of his lashes brushing as far as his cheekbones. A sign of distress, he knew. He had seen it before. He squeezed Tatsumi's hand, lightly, just enough to draw his attention back to himself.
The leaden silence weighed on his mind. When Tatsumi met his eyes, it was a reluctant glance, one that held an unspoken question painted with a glistening mist over his irises.
And Watari all but heard that question; he understood the hesitancy dancing at the edges of his silence. He pulled himself up, never letting go of Tatsumi's hand.
"Tatsumi," he started as they stood face to face. "Did Bon tell you what he'd seen?"
The Shadow Master nodded, once more averting his gaze. He made a half-hearted attempt at freeing his hand from Watari's grasp, but the scientist held it tight.
He sighed. "It had absolutely nothing to do with you," he said firmly. Not completely true, but close enough.
Tatsumi cast him a dark, dubious look. He kept his silence; it hung heavily between them, thickening the already stuffy air. The new light bulb in the lamp above them flickered.
"It was not real," Watari stressed the words to reinforce his point; convincing himself as well as Tatsumi, it seemed. Funny, he thought, how the man could know yet fail to accept that fact. "You were not there. It was not your fault. Hear me?"
He felt Tatsumi shiver and had to suppress a shrug of his own.
"Loud and clear," Tatsumi said at last, his voice back to its usual matter-of-fact tone. "But that explains little. Watari, what is this all about? Why is Enma DaiOh after you?"
His stomach flipped backwards and a cold shiver ran down his back, but Watari held up the Shadow Master's gaze. He had seen that coming; he had been expecting that very question to come anytime for the past day. But when it came – and it still echoed in his mind – neither diversion from the subject he had made up before seemed suitable enough.
"It's a long story," he said.
The look on Tatsumi's face was stern. But not angry, Watari noticed with a hint of relief. He remembered the past day all too well; he could almost see the illusionary scene from the morning in his mind's eye. He couldn't let the situation slip out of his hands that way, not this time that he had another chance, and he could do it right. The memory of the consequences of brushing Tatsumi off burned him still; the anger, and that rough desperation that had all but shaken them both out of control.
"That's fine," Tatsumi said. "I have the whole night."
"But I don't," Watari said carefully. He let go of Tatsumi's hand. "Chief Konoe is waiting for me in the office now as we speak. I'm sorry, Tatsumi, but that comes first."
"Right now?" Disbelief laced the question and Tatsumi's gaze mirrored it with a glint of a warning in his sapphire eyes. "Watari, it's the middle of the night."
Can't blame you, Watari thought sadly to himself. He knew he would have a hard time believing himself, too. "I know," he said levelly. "But this is important. I might actually find out what is really going on here." He cast a glance around the room; a blurry disarray in the harsh light spilling from the ceiling. He looked at Tatsumi again, seriousness etched onto his features.
"If I'm right, everything will make more sense than it does right now, and I'll explain it to you in the morning," he said. "Okay? Tatsumi?"
The Shadow Master bowed his head. He let his eyes slide shut with a deep sigh. Then he pushed his glasses up his nose with two fingertips and, without a word, he walked up to the low table by the couch. He reached down, picking up a small item and turned to face Watari again.
"I hope you know what you're doing," he said slowly.
Tough call, Watari thought to himself. He joined the other man as Tatsumi reached out his hand, holding Watari's glasses on his open palm.
"Just tell me one thing." He didn't release his hold on the spectacles as the scientist tried to retrieve them.
Watari's heart skipped a beat.
His eyes sweeping a quick look around the room, Tatsumi gestured around himself with his other hand. "Was this Enma's doing?"
Watari bit his lip. He pulled his eyes off his partner and looked away, all but giving in to the urge to turn from him altogether. At the brink of another choice that made him flinch, he thought back to the god's words; the sting of accusation in the way Enma had reminded him he'd been living a grand lie. He remembered. It still hurt.
He gave a small nod. "Yes."
The shadows that covered the length of the room twitched; they curled uneasily around their master's hand, shifting slowly, awaiting commands. Tatsumi curled his fingers into fists.
Watari swallowed thickly. "No, Tatsumi," he said slowly. He reached out a hesitant hand and rested it lightly on his partner's shoulder. "It's all right. Please, stay out of this." I've heard this before, he thought bitterly, ignoring the sudden tightness in his chest. That hollow sound of the door shutting behind the Shadow Master was still present and fresh in his mind; illusion or otherwise.
"He had no right." Tatsumi's eyes flashed a dangerous look from beneath the cover of his lashes. The shadows swirled in their silent impatience.
"Actually, he did," Watari said pointedly. He regretted it in the same instant. The shocked, quizzical look it earned him made him bite his tongue. "I do owe you an explanation," he admitted, his mind made up.
If Enma had succeeded at anything at all, it was at showing him he had gone on long enough veiled in a cloak of deceit and too many unspoken words that should long since have been said.
"Let me confirm a few suspicions I have; I've got some mess to take care of first. Then we'll talk." He met Tatsumi's eyes. "I promise."
He turned around and started towards the door. It warmed him up, the way Tatsumi cared. It was not just an illusion, he mused. It was there. Even if that man's concern disguised as many things, it showed nonetheless.
He put on his glasses, blinking a few times as his surroundings finally came into full focus. He heard Tatsumi behind him; the Shadow Master sighed, and then he was moving, and Watari froze as something feather-light brushed against his cheek.
A shadow.
He smiled, briefly closing his eyes.
"Be careful," he heard behind him.
"You bet."
--
At two in the morning, even his breath seemed to echo softly in the empty halls of the Ministry building. Watari took his time on his way to the place where he had been working for the past twenty five years, with nothing but the sound of his footsteps to keep him company. He remembered that night when he had walked like that – only back then, he had been heading out, and there had been anything but silence surrounding him as he had wrapped up five years worth of his afterlife.
He had been full of regret, then; and the bitter afterthoughts had stayed with him all throughout the years. Even though he had not dwelt on them, he had never forgotten. And just a few hours ago, he had been reminded that nothing in the universe could simply disappear; the history had written itself on the pages of his memory with a permanent ink that would never come off.
He had been at the new beginning's door, that day; it seemed so long ago. Next time he had returned, he had dropped the title of the Head Researcher of the Five Generals, had left that old self of his behind. He had walked in as a Shinigami, and he had sworn to himself never to let his ambition push him past the point of no return again.
But now, the more he thought about it, the more pieces of the puzzle fell into place, and he had begun to realize that he had likely never escaped those intricately woven nets. Every sign around him, every detail that had ever seemed out of place slowly started to make sense. He had been tricked, then. He hadn't escaped at all.
He hadn't even done what he'd always thought he had. The game set into motion thirty years before, on the day he had accepted Enma DaiOh's deal, had never come to an end. It had merely slowed down until he felt safe enough to believe it had been over. Now it was picking up its pace again.
He had decided he would give away only as much information as he deemed necessary. But he would not lie. Not this time.
Konoe's face bore a solemn look; he seemed weary, his back slightly hunched. He sat at his desk, watching Watari with strangely soft eyes as the scientist slipped quietly around the door frame, into his office, and greetings had been exchanged.
"I almost didn't make it," he said lightly with a small grin. He felt tired himself, but the room had seemed gloomy enough. "I don't think Tatsumi believed me when I said I'm going back here again."
"I told him to leave," Konoe said, moving away to let Watari sit in his desk chair so he could do his work.
Watari nodded. "Tsuzuki and Bon?"
"Home, I hope." Konoe's lips curled up in a small smile. "I have to wonder if anyone will make it to the office on time tomorrow... today," he corrected, glancing at his watch.
Watari licked his lips, idly tapping his fingers against the side of the keyboard. "I apologize. I made quite a mess."
Konoe drew a deep breath "It was bound to happen," he said.
Surprised, Watari looked up. His eyes narrowed; his palms went slightly damp. He hadn't been seeing things, after all, he thought. "You knew?"
The chief inclined his head. "So I did."
"I'm not even going to ask since when and from whom," Watari said, shrugging. Another puzzle solved. A bitter satisfaction, that.
"He still finds you more than valuable. And he will stop at nothing to get what he wants."
Watari pursed his lips. He nodded thoughtfully. "I know."
All of a sudden he knew he had been right. The message was real, though Konoe probably didn't need him to figure it out. He should have guessed. But it had been invitation enough to make sure he would come now, when they could talk with no curious ears and eyes around.
"Watari," the chief leaned heavily against the desk, directly in front of him, and released a deep, heavy breath. "If he requests your transfer, I won't be able to stop him."
"I wouldn't ask you to do that even if you could," he answered at length. Tapping at the keys, he skimmed the data on the monitor with a small, enigmatic smile tugging at the corners of his lips.
"Out of curiosity," Konoe said, tilting his head half an inch. "Why not?"
"Because that's what he's expecting me to do. To drag everyone here down along with me. To bring him the royal flush between my teeth and go down with a bang so that he can prove his power."
Konoe winced. "That sounds familiar."
"He can hope," Watari said, stretching his arms above his head.
"You can't stop him." The chief leaned forward a little more and frowned.
"Probably not." Rising from the chair, Watari looked up to meet Konoe's eyes in a long stare. "But I can try."
He walked around the desk, passing by the older man who stood there, silent, slowly shaking his head.
"By the way," he said, turning in doorway before he stepped past the threshold. "The e-mail? It traces back to Mother."
The chief's eyebrows climbed into his hairline. "To Mother?"
"Yes." Watari grinned. He whirled on his way out the door, sweeping his hair over his shoulder. He glanced back and gave Konoe a curt nod. "Thank you, chief."
He left Konoe and closed the door behind him in somewhat higher spirits. But it left him in wonderment; had he let his guard down so much that he had missed something obvious, something important about his chief? Or had Konoe really been discreet enough never to have given any sort of indication that he knew so much about who Watari had once been. True, he had suspected the man could have been told who it was that he had hired to work in his department, but it had not been something he liked going back to, and he refused to ponder it further at that time. And later on, he had done all he could to just be who he wanted to be; and it had worked. He had been happy. Relatively, anyway.
In his mind something resembling a plan had slowly begun to take shape. He still pushed away the idea of giving Enma what he had been asked to give, as far into the shadowy recess of his thoughts as he could. But now that he had found his position on the chessboard, it no longer made him sick with dread. He could find a way; he had to believe it. He had no other choice.
He thought back to all those years he had spent here, to all the people he had been working with. He had watched them come and go; some never had enough, some had moved on. Some were still missed; many nameless others had left a ghostly trace of their souls between the walls of this place. He wondered briefly who would come after him, if it came to that.
"You've turned sneaking out at night into a fine art."
A low, female voice rang somewhere ahead of him, the sound afloat on the dusty darkness of the hall around the corner. Watari jumped, instinctively reaching out for something to grasp. That voice; it could not be – hearing it now, in this place, after so many years; he felt like something had just hit him hard upside the head.
He looked around, trying to see through the dark but there seemed to have been no one there. He shivered.
"I can't believe you've forgotten."
I haven't, he thought frantically. His heart pounded furiously in his chest; he moved alongside the wall towards the corner's edge, curiosity mingled with dread spinning in his head.
He slipped around the corner, carefully, scanning the twilight around him with wide open eyes.
"And do you have the nerve to look me in the eye?"
She was there, right before him, just like he remembered her. Hands in the pockets of her lab coat, she regarded him with a contemptuous stare.
"Tategami?" he whispered, shaking his head, heavy under a wave of disbelief. Impossible. She was dead. Gone. Gone, for a long time now.
"And whose fault it was?" she asked, as if reading the thoughts that rushed through his mind. "You were so sure it would work," she went on, slow steps taking her inches away from him. "We would reach our final goal. It was brilliant, you said. Our lives would be complete."
Watari screwed his eyes shut. He had to force himself to look at her again. Gone. Twenty five years, and counting. She couldn't be real. Impossible, he was telling himself in his thoughts over and over again. And the illusion... it was gone, too. Or was it? Stop it, he scorned himself. Snap out of it, now
"Yes," she said in a singsong voice, a sickly sweet veil of flavor beneath a lash of venom washing over her words. "There it is, that question. It keeps surfacing, doesn't it?"
Watari held his breath, edging away as he felt her hand land squarely upon his chest, his own heart beating against her palm. He shuddered.
"How do you know," she whispered, "if any of this is real?"