Chapter Nine – The Falling Domino

Tadashi watched his aunt as she fixed a plate of food for him. He still remembered his parents and he couldn't imagine saying to them what he was about to say to his aunt. He didn't want to disappoint her and he also didn't want to see the lack of respect on her face. He closed his eyes tightly before tapping his fingers on the table.

"I…I need to tell you something," Tadashi said and Hiro frowned and sighed. He wished that he could help Tadashi through this but he didn't know how he could other than supporting his brother. "I think I have to leave."

"Psychologically, you mean?" Hiro asked and Tadashi shifted with his head bowed .

"Do I have to tie you up because I'm not ready to lose you again and at least not until you're ready to leave. We thought you were dead for a full year," Cass said as she placed the food on the table and Tadashi looked at it and sighed. "Whatever you need, I'm sure that the two of us can make it happen. Do you agree with me, Hiro?" she asked with a smile but her eyes were almost begging him to agree.

"Of course. You know that I'm loyal to you before…before everyone else," he said in a whisper. He didn't want to do anything bad or anything that went against his morals but it was true. He loved the friendship he had created with the other members of the team and he didn't' want to do anything wrong but he would sacrifice them over his brother. Maybe that made him worse than Domino was.

"I'm…" Tadashi laughed as he closed his eyes and put his hand over them. "I'm a criminal mastermind when I don't mean to be."

Aunt Cass laughed at that, about to make a joke but she saw how serious the two brothers were being. She grabbed Tadashi's other wrist. "What do you mean? What did you do?"

"I don't even know," Tadashi replied honestly.

"How can you not know?" Aunt Cass asked concerned and she saw Mochi come over and push himself against Tadashi's leg. Tadashi took his hand away from his eyes just enough to stroke the cat. He looked down in horror. "I don't understand. Maybe you could explain it to me slowly?"

"I have a second identity," Tadashi said and his aunt nodded along. "They're an alter, a multiple personality," he added and Cass reached for his hand and squeezed it. "This second identity is more intelligent than I am and in terms of morals and ethics they are an opposite of who I was or who I used to be."

"How do you know about -" Cass asked and Hiro looked down as his body tightened. He didn't want to protect Domino but thinking about how it could be Tadashi facing the punishment for what Domino did both angered and terrified him. He wanted his brother, his closest family member. After he had gone through all this time believing he was dead, to lose him again frightened him.

"I have evidence. He has a secret base with many weapons. He's done some major criminal activity to do with banks and governments online. He does things that I would never have done but I can't stop him. I think I need to yield to him or otherwise I'll never be able to defeat him," Tadashi explained. Aunt Cass took deep breaths as she watched him and then went to Hiro who nodded confirming that all of this was true. There was a heavy tension in the room before Cass stood up and walked behind her older nephew and wrapped her arms around him.

"It's not your fault, Tadashi," she said as she knelt in front of him and saw how painful all of this was for him. He had obviously been through things that nobody would understand. She slowly and carefully placed her hands on his cheeks and looked into his broken and pained eyes to see how ripped apart he was by all of this. "Look at me. You are still my nephew and I still love you. I don't know how to help you but I will support you. Maybe if we keep you locked up here until you know how to deal with it?" she asked and Tadashi stared at her.

"Locked up here?" he asked confused as he stared around. This was a pretty normal looking house, he didn't know where they could put him in terms of locking him up and especially with the abilities that Domino had. He'd burn this place down to ashes just to get a glimpse of sunlight.

"I can find somewhere," Hiro offered as Tadashi turned to him. "I mean, it's better than being put on death row or imprisoned with isolation and no chance of parole. Besides, it's not you doing these things. It's Domino."

Tadashi bowed his head. Whether he was Domino or not didn't matter. Domino was a criminal mastermind and someone the world would be better off without.

9.2

The next morning Tadashi sat in the corner of what appeared to be a metal bank vault except it was empty and nowhere near a bank. Of course his brother was smart and resourceful, he would have ways of finding and securing this location but that didn't keep Tadashi from wondering whether this was such a good idea. "Once I release him there's not telling what might happen," he said and Hiro nodded.

"I'll bring you food and there's a hatch where you can get it and if you need health care then I'll be able to do that and as for anything else." Hiro said and Tadashi bowed his head.

"I'm grateful but I doubt Domino will be in here very long," he said still wrestling with the idea that it would be much better to receive an execution than allowing Domino to continue to play games with those who were around him.

Hiro sighed and nodded. "I know that you might believe that he can get out but I think you can restrain him. I think you've got the self-control to do that. Now there are about five locks to this box so I'm going to leave to set them up and I'll come back in about twelve hours," he tried to explain and saw Tadashi nod silently. Hiro sighed before looking at his brother again and how he was chained to the small bed in the room with a chain long enough so that he could reach to the chair and the table and the fridge as well. He ran into his brother's arms and hugged him before backing out.

He hated to think that his morals could be corrupted so easily but whereas there was a way to repent on misguided morals there would never be a second chance to bring Tadashi back and he had to be grateful for what he did have. After all, he had faith that his brother could beat this.

9.3

Tadashi held his baseball cap in his hands. This had been such a grounding item for him before but now it just felt like some icon of a past him that he could never go back to. If somehow people found out what he had done and asked them then would they protect him. Was he even worthy of protecting? He sighed as he thought about what he had been through but there had to be something more than a hat to keep him attached to reality.

"Hiro," he whispered to himself. As much as he wanted to say it was his friends or his girlfriend, it was Hiro, it had always been his responsibility to Hiro that had kept him motivated. His brother had dealt with so much pain with the loss of their parents and now his own death and return. He wanted his younger brother to have a good life even if that didn't include him in it. He had thought that by being locked away like this, he would have been taken over by…

"Hey," Tadashi heard someone else say as he looked up and saw a man with a heavy leather trench coat and a hood that looked more like a character from a video game than someone in real life. He looked to the door and then to the man again who was his size and build. Had he lost it enough to start hallucinating. Well, he had dissociative identity disorder, so any psychosis of the mind was entirely possible. "You're Domino aren't I?"

"In a way," the man laughed and Tadashi looked away unamused but even if he was talking to himself he was having a discussion with somebody "You've got us both locked in here. You should at least know how to get out, don't you have powers."

"I do," Tadashi whispered "Like the power to remain calm and collected and to reflect on what I've done." He looked away before raising his head. "So, you're a part of my personality."

"You could call it that, I think that most people would call it a disorder, an affliction, a medical emergency, or…a virus," Domino said and Tadashi stared at him. Domino sat on the side of the bed. "You actually think that we're the same person?"

"Aren't we?" he asked before trying to push his back against the wall but felt Domino slap him and laugh bitterly.

"You're only a transportation device for me. I jumped into this body when I needed to escape to the outside world and you just happened to give me what I needed," he said and Tadashi stared at him. He heard a noise outside the room and didn't realize how much time had passed. He needed to control himself or at least figure out what was going on.

Domino walked to the front of the box and then took off the trench coat which revealed a person Tadashi had never seen before. He seemed to be completely dressed in a silver body suit but had black pupils and a cold grin almost like an alien. Along the body were green letters and digits as if there was a computer script running through his body.

Tadashi watched in horror as the man slid through the wall of the room and Tadashi's heart sank lower into his gut before he put his hands on the chains that were binding him and used the fire energy to burn through the metal before focusing his full power on the door of the room until the door became loose enough for him to focus on the seal. Running out he saw Hiro approaching and jumped in front of him.

Hiro stared between the two men but saw Tadashi in front of him. He could see blood running down Tadashi's body and he saw how weak and pale his brother had become. "Tadashi?" he asked but Tadashi still put himself in front of Hiro staring in horror at the humanoid.

"Don't you dare hurt him, I swear that -" he said and the being, 'Domino' looked at them before disappearing. Hiro stared at his brother and saw that there was a new life in Tadashi despite how weak he appeared. "I was never Domino. That was Domino. He just used me to get into this world," he said before fainting and Hiro knelt on the ground to keep his brother from hitting his head.

"I've got you," he whispered as he looked in the space that Domino had just been. "I've got you this time."

End of Chapter Nine

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