Fanfic notes - This is the final chapter of Space Invaders. As some of you may have assumed already, this chapter will be significantly darker and more merciless than the rest. I hope you have all enjoyed reading my fic and I thank you for waiting patiently for me to update.
Chapter 5: The Shredder Strikes
I felt queasy. My brother never returned that night. He never returned home at all. My parents assumed he was just out late with his friends, or was still with Tang Shen. I didn't tell them the conversation that had passed between Nagi and I, as I wasn't sure if the two events were connected, and if they were, then I didn't want to upset my parents about the truth of Tang Shen. So instead I just convinced myself that everything was fine and I went to bed with that false hope. Yet I couldn't sleep. I just lay there like a shell of boy, neither awake or in a state of slumber. My mind was too busy to rest.
Suddenly I could hear someone murmuring. It took a while for me to realize what was going on because I was disoriented from being half-asleep, but I eventually figured out that there was someone at the door speaking to my parents. In shock, I opened my eyes and looked at the time, wondering who would visit my house at such a late hour. I hesitated getting out of bed for a moment, and a minute later, I heard the guest leave. All that remained was the sound of my parents' whispers.
I pulled down my covers and crawled out of bed, my skin tightening upon feeling the chill of the night. Even though it had been a reasonably warm day, my house was still cold. Slowly I tiptoed to my bedroom door and slid it open just a little bit. My parents were just down the hall. I poked just a part of my face around the doorframe so that I could spy on them, and to my surprise I found my mother weeping. My father had his arm outstretched, touching the wall, as though he needed balance himself. "Should we tell Saki?" my mother managed to whisper. My father didn't move. His head hung low, eyes focused on our wooden floorboards. Eventually he shook his head.
"Not until morning," he replied in a voice that seemed stricken with grief.
What had happened? What weren't they telling me? Hearing their brief conversation only caused a sense of panic to rise up within me. Now I definitely wouldn't be able to sleep. Something had happened to Nagi, I just knew it.
Bravely I slid my door open all the way and stepped out into the gloomy hallway. My parents seemed startled by my appearance. There was a sense of fear etched onto their sorrowful faces. It frightened me to see them both like that, especially my father. "What has happened? Who was at the door?" I weakly asked as I felt my gut tighten. My mother looked to my father for an answer as she was still clearly at a loss for words.
"Your brother, Nagi, he… he won't be returning home," my father sadly whispered. My heart pumped fearfully, almost painfully, as I realized that my instinctual fear might actually be real.
"He's, he's dead?" I managed to utter. Tears formed in my eyes and this time I didn't care about hiding them in front of my father.
"Yes." I could hear my father's answer while he let out a deep breath of sorrow. "It's suspected he was murdered by Hamato Yoshi. He and Tang Shen have fled already." Now I could hear the anger and resentment in my father's voice. In all of this I just stood there at my doorway, dumbfounded by the news. In that moment, I felt completely alone.
I was now an only child.
I stayed there for what felt like hours. I was so tired, but there was no way I would have been able to sleep. What happened from then on, in that agonizing bleakness of reality, is a blur to me now. All I can remember is the sheer emptiness.
Meals around the dinner table were never the same again. For a while all I could sense were my parents' feelings of loss and hopelessness. I could feel my father's sorrow as he gazed despairingly at me, for I was now his only son and therefore the one to carry on the family name. And yet he saw me as a failure; a boy merely a shadow of my brother's greatness.
It was like that for days. No speaking during meals, just devastating glances. It was only when I could grab a hold of my grief was I able to stand up in front of my father. Being the heir of the household, now was the time to accept my responsibility. "I want to join the Foot," I told my father one night. He genuinely looked surprised at my announcement.
"No one is expecting you to do that, Saki," my father spoke quietly. His comment was neither right nor wrong. True, he wasn't expecting me to join the great ninjitsu clan, but at the same time he was ashamed that he couldn't be more proud of me.
"But I want to. I want to bring honor to this household…" I paused for a moment before I added, "I want to bring honor to my brother."
I watched as my father screwed up his face in agony as he heard me mention Nagi. Repressing his emotions, he haphazardly stabbed at his food with his chopsticks. "You want to bring honor to this household?" It was more of a rhetorical question, but it certainly gained my interest. Unbeknownst to me, his next few words shaped my life forever. "Then avenge your brother and bring justice!"
I knew that my father was simply emotional with irrational thoughts, but that idea never left my mind. We knew more of the facts about Nagi's death now, except the actual events that had led up to his demise would forever remain a mystery. It had been confirmed that Hamato Yoshi had murdered my brother and that straight after, he and Tang Shen had fled the country to America for refuge from prosecution. Yet we all knew that if it wasn't the law which got to them first, then it would be The Foot clan, who was also in mourning for losing one of their great ninjitsu instructors. So that's why my father's suggestion had a resounding effect on me, because his view coincided with the plan of revenge The Foot held.
Later on that night I found myself in Nagi's old room. Kneeling on one of his training mats, I found myself staring at the walls filled with his prized and ornate collection of weapons. This was Nagi's life and out of respect for him, I wanted to adopt it and complete it for him. It was there I vowed to uphold my promise to my father and that I would never stop working towards that goal. There was no doubt in my mind that Nagi would be avenged.
Once the majority of my grief had subsided, only for my heart to be filled with the enlightening determination for vengeance, I applied for a position within the prestigious Foot clan. Yet it wasn't as easy as it had seemed. Clinging onto what my beloved brother had taught me before his imminent death, I showed the teachers those moves, and if it weren't for those brief little punches and kicks, or for the clan's overwhelming sympathy for me, I highly doubt that I would have been accepted. But I was determined to improve. Fulfilling my time with the clan's wisdom and teachings, I embraced Nagi's old lifestyle. I worked hard, spending hours after school every day on perfecting everything that I had learned. I even tried harder at my studies, especially in the areas of mathematics, history, science and technology, and later on, English. I was fighting for what I believed in.
As I gradually trained my body into the physique of a ninja, I noticed that my confidence and self-esteem grew too. I was no longer bullied at school and my peers respected me, a perk that Nagi no doubt experienced as well. Yet none of that could replace the emptiness I felt because I had lost my brother. I'm not sure how much everything meant to me. Sometimes I was just an empty shell of a boy, robbed of his childhood, training in his deceased brother's room. I practiced so much that parts of the floorboards were faded and worn where I had repeatedly moved, switching between stances and performing katas.
My father only confused me. He was glad that I had turned into a more responsible person, yet he knew what drove me to succeed. It was an issue he eventually sat on the fence about, not committing to either side. He wanted justice over Nagi's death, yet a part of him just wanted to move on from it all. But how could a person just move on? Act like nothing had happened? I had lost my brother and my life had been irreparably damaged. How could I do anything apart from despising the person who was responsible for the collapse of my family?
As years passed, I could see all of my hard work starting to pay off. At the age of fifteen, I had already sparred using numerous weapons including sai, katana, bo and nunchucks. Now was the time where I had to pick a weapon to focus my ninjitsu studies on. Sitting in Nagi's old bedroom, I meditated for an answer. I knew that I always loved the simplicity of the blade. Although all weapons were technically lethal, the sword was the one that represented that danger the most. I would have picked Nagi's traditional oriental katana, since that was the weapon of his that I admired the most during his lifetime, but a small, distant memory made me choose differently. I remembered the night when Nagi first taught me a few ninjitsu moves. He told me that a weapon wasn't necessary, as my body was one. I held his advice close to me and decided to put his wisdom into practice. That night, after searching through some of the old family chests, I found the old samurai-like weapon that I desired.
I remember my armor feeling rather heavy the first time I wore it. Yet at the same time it was freeing as my bladed gauntlets, and therefore my weapon, truly was an extension of myself. It commanded a sense of awe and power whenever I wore it in front of the other Foot ninjas at the dojo. Most importantly, it intimidated them. Sometimes they even hesitated to spar with me, and so I had to use punching bags instead, where I soon unintentionally developed a habit of shredding into them. The nickname, Shredder, never left my life from that point onwards.
Without fail, I would always wear the armor to the Foot's tournaments that were held internally. I always took the contests sincerely. After training so much, it was now natural to take my fighting seriously altogether. I didn't train everyday only to fail. So I battered my opponents to make sure there was no doubt about my skill and level of competence. I was the one who kept everyone on their toes, and I made sure that I weeded out the weak from the clan. Why should they get away with only having a half-hearted effort in training?
It didn't take long till my superior skills and hard work were noticed by the clan's numerous sempai. After winning a batch of regional tournaments, at the age of eighteen I was invited to fight against the Foot's current leader. He was a worthy opponent, but one that I had lost to in an extremely close match. "You fought well, Oroku Saki," he told me after our bout as I patched up my wounds. "Better than your brother did at your age," he boldly informed me. I wasn't sure if I should be proud of myself, or angered at the fact that Nagi's life was cut off so short. It was a particularly difficult time for me, because if I were Nagi, then I would have been dead by then. Calculating it only a few days prior, I discovered that I had currently reached one month further in life than my brother.
"Too bad we'll never truly know who was more skilled," I responded with a hint of contempt.
"And that's true too," the ninjitsu master said. I watched as he started to pace around the dojo while deep in thought. "As you might know, the Foot clan's popularity has diminished over the years. People think that we've become rather archaic with our ways and customs."
"People have put their faith in the Americans and have developed a liking for their lifestyle," I commented, feeling as though I was merely regurgitating some of the words and ideals that my father had once angrily spat out over the dinner table.
"I agree. The public believe that ninjas are in the past," the master heaved a sigh. "Which is why we're going to start expanding the Foot. We're going to open up a branch in New York City to see if we can get new recruits, or to allow ourselves to evolve with the rest of the world."
"I didn't know that," I admitted. "Who is going to lead over there?" I asked, trying to act innocent even though I knew where the conversation was heading.
"I was hoping you would. You are, after all, the best student here."
"And why do you believe that I'll accept this offer?" I was curious. I could just tell that there was something more.
"Because Hamato Yoshi lives in New York."
That was all that I needed to hear. I had given up all of my free time training in the hopes that I would one day face the man that had killed my brother. Leaving my family and friends behind was only a small sacrifice to make in the grand scheme of things. Once I packed my bags and left Japan, I never saw half of those people again, including the current leader of the Foot. Last I heard, he passed away and was replaced by a woman named Karai.
Manhattan was a busy, confusing and yet an adventuresome city. The fool, Hamato Yoshi, had made no effort in keeping his whereabouts concealed. All I had to do was look him up in a phone book. I didn't even bother to set aside a few days to spy on him first. I knew I would win. I just couldn't lose now. So much rage had built up inside of me from all of the sacrifices I had made over the years and I found it almost pleasurable that I would finally have the opportunity to unleash it. The wait was over.
Learning that Hamato Yoshi was located on the fifth floor of an apartment complex, I scaled up the fire escape to where I calculated my enemy lived. Peering in through the kitchen window, I couldn't see any figures within the immediate room. With a little effort, I jimmied the old and insecure window open before silently slipping inside. I paused as I heard some movement originating from within the next room. "Does it feel cold to you, Splinter? Maybe I left a window open." It was a woman's voice and while she seemed to be addressing someone else, it sounded like she was only talking to herself for comfort.
I pressed my back against the wall, standing beside the kitchen doorway. She entered the room with puzzlement, only seeing the window I had left open with her pitiful tunnel vision. It was definitely Tang Shen. Even after all the years that had passed, I could still remember her face - the face I wanted to shred to pieces for the way she mislead my brother to his demise. She was a two-faced simpleton who didn't even realize that her death was standing right behind her.
I didn't bother to allow her the time to turn around. I just killed her there and then. It was so simple, almost too easy. I rammed the blade on my gauntlet into her back, slicing in-between the ribs and managing to pierce her heart. If my spike was only a little longer, I feel that I might have ran her straight through, giving her an exit wound on her chest. Tang Shen floundered and flailed in surprise and pain, gaping like she was some big, elusive fish that had just been reeled in to its death. She disgusted me, so I quickly slit her throat with my spare hand to stop the horrible noise she was making. After a quick yank off my imbedded blade, she lifelessly fell face down to the kitchen floor.
I sneered at the red residue she had left on my gauntlets and I calmly washed it off in the nearby sink. I froze suddenly as I remembered something. Remaining quiet, I carefully moved into the next room. It contained their dining set, television, couches and some memorabilia from their homeland as though they had the nerve to continue calling my town their home. It was there that I heard some rustling noises. I quickly spun around and almost threw a shuriken, but I halted when I saw that it was only a caged rat. I recalled what I heard Tang Shen say before she died. So that was the other person. That must have been Splinter – a repulsive, beady-eyed rat. I stared at the creature while it simply stared back. I scoffed in disbelief that I almost wasted a good shuriken on that rodent.
Hamato Yoshi was nowhere to be found in the apartment and so I found myself with a few hours to spare and a couple of small jobs to do. I shifted the woman's corpse a foot or two, just so her body wasn't visible from entrance. My next kill wasn't going to be so easy. Hamato Yoshi was a highly trained fighter, one whose skill had possibly equaled Nagi's back in the day. I didn't know if he had continued to keep his body fit, or if maybe he had passed his prime. But I knew that if I had left Tang Shen's lifeless feet visible from the doorway, then the man might immediately enter into a defensive stance, or he could simply run away like a coward in fear. I didn't want either of those two options, as I preferred to have the element of surprise.
The couple seemed to live in a simple and cheap apartment, probably because the rent was so high in New York. All of the rooms were linked to the main living room, the place where their pet rodent was kept. I figured that the bathroom would be the best place to await Hamato Yoshi's return. My choice seemed to be a good one.
It was late in the afternoon when Hamato Yoshi returned home from his workplace. "Shen?" He called out as he slipped off his coat and draped it across the back of one of the couches. He called for his wife once again, only to get the same nonexistent response. Peering out from behind the bathroom door, I could see my enemy's body tense. Before he saw anything, he smelt the stench of the blood. As the fool slowly made his way into the kitchen, I slipped out from my hiding spot and stealthily followed him through the living room. It was all so surreal. In just a few seconds, I was going to be experiencing the moment I had worked towards for the past eight years. Could this really be it? Could it really be the end of everything?
He was just staring in shock at the gruesome sight I had left him. I was going to slice my blades against his back, but he was quick to regain his senses. Spinning around, he launched a kick at me, one that pushed me a fair way back into the living room. "Who are you!" He demanded. Recovering from his blow, I decided on impulse to remove my helmet and mask, throwing them beside me on the floor. Hamato Yoshi gasped. "It, it can't be!" he stuttered in disbelief. "Oroku Nagi?" the name slipped between his lips, obviously noticing the family resemblance.
"No," I said, my voice coming out strong. "I'm Oroku Saki! You killed my brother, remember?" I snarled. Hamato Yoshi's face turned from being fearful, to being completely serious. He knew what my business was. He knew that I was after revenge. Suddenly his face expressed a sign of disgust.
"To think that I saved your life once," he detested. I could see that the death of Tang Shen was starting to infiltrate his adrenaline-rushed mind.
"That was before you destroyed it!" With that, I could no longer take control over my desire to obliterate him. I rushed forwards, wanting to land a kick, but he shoved my leg aside, letting it merely skim against his thigh. It seemed that he did continue training after he had left Japan. But he was a slow middle-aged man who really stood no chance against me; a person who had slaved away for hours a day in preparation for this very battle. Off-balance from my kick, the imbecile connected a few palm strikes to my abdomen, but my armor absorbed most of the impact.
I rammed my knee into his stomach, doubling him over for a second. I was about to whack the top of his head with the tip of my elbow when he suddenly shot his leg out and made a sweep for my legs. I fell to the floor, but I quickly recovered by somersaulting backwards and climbing to my feet. But by the time I stood up, he was there in front of me, giving my armored body a large, violent shove backwards. A metallic crash was heard as I bumped into an object, and before I knew it, something was ripping into my unprotected face. I hissed and snarled in reaction to the pain. I could feel my own blood being scratched out.
Disorientated, I grabbed the object from my face and violently threw it to the floor. Without thinking I immediately brought my arm down to slice it. I halted when the image of the pet rat finally registered in my mind. I tried to pull off my attack as it was a waste of my time, but I still had too much momentum and I ended up cutting off a piece of the rodent's ear with the acute sharpness of my blades. The rodent was startled for a moment before it finally came out of shock and scampered underneath the couch.
The rat had cost me some valuable seconds. Hamato Yoshi sent a roundhouse kick to my unprotected head, sending me sprawling across the ground. The taste of blood dribbled into my mouth. I rolled away from my opponent as best I could, ending up at the base of the dinner table. I used a nearby dining chair for balance and before I knew it, I was using the piece of furniture as a blockade between myself and Nagi's murderer. Hamato Yoshi managed to withstand a few of hits from the chair legs by taking the blows on his forearms and shoulders. Infuriated, I pushed the chair forward, sending him back and giving myself a bit more ground to work with.
That was when I gained my confidence back. I was the one wearing the blades and armor. I had the advantage compared to Hamato's pathetic defense due to his lack of weapons. I sneered at the throbbing pain that hadn't left my head from the previous hits I had endured, and I entered a fit of fury as a consequence. Throwing the chair aside and scooting forward, using the movements I had trained on for years in Nagi's old bedroom, I slashed like a maniac with no mercy. They were fast, rapid attacks to which there was nothing one could do but dodge. Such a furious assault could only be kept up for a short period of time before a break would have to occur, but I tried my best to maintain my stamina.
Hamato Yoshi simply wasn't as fast as he used to be. Backing into a corner, he instinctively tried to block one of my swings with his forearm, only to succeed into getting his limb severely lacerated. His blood splattered onto the floorboards. He was running purely on instinct now. Hamato Yoshi made a last second dive out of the corner, keeping his injured arm now close to his body. I could tell he was frantically heading towards the kitchen, obviously thinking about equipping himself with a knife. He never got there.
Glancing upwards, I quickly gained the extra few feet needed to bring him down, by relentlessly jumping up and using the light fitting that hung from the ceiling as a makeshift swing. I kicked his back with both feet. The momentum was enough to make him fall to the floor. I was beside him in an instant. I slit my sharpened blades across his back, as though I was slicing into a fresh piece of fruit. He hollered in pain and scrambled to get back up, but I placed my foot squarely in-between his two scapulas and pinned him down. I menacingly bent over, rifled my fingers through his hair and brought his head up. With my other free hand, I slit his throat. It was in that instant that I realized that he had died staring at the feet of Tang Shen's corpse. I thought it was fitting.
An eerie sense of calmness enveloped the room. The only noise I could hear was my own breathing and the rapid thumps of my heart. I couldn't believe it. I had succeeded. Eight years of training had finally amounted to this. I had truly fought for what I had believed in, just like Nagi had advised so many years ago. Could it really be over?
It was all too much for me to handle and I found myself stumbling towards the couch, as I needed to sit down. The adrenaline from the battle still rushed through my veins, causing my hands to tremble uncontrollably. It was an odd moment. As I sat there, I had a flashback to my childhood, where in my palms were the joystick and buttons for the Space Invaders arcade game. I don't know what made me think of it, especially in such a drastically different situation. Maybe it was simply because I hadn't felt the same sensation until that day. My eyebrows furrowed as I realized that I had completely forgotten about that game; my innocent goals and pointless ambitions. What happened to the boy that I used to be?
It saddened me when I tried to remember who I used to be, as I feared that I had now come too far to turn back. I had accomplished my life-long ambition to avenge my brother, but now what? I was only eighteen. Could I just return to being normal? Suddenly the emptiness that had remained in my body since Nagi's death arose and smothered my senses. I realized that no matter what I did, I was still alone and without my brother.
Soon a question plagued my mind, to which to this date I still have no answer for. So who was I? Was I still that little boy who just seemed to love the simple things in life, such as getting the top score in an arcade game? Or was I more like the bullies at my old school? The rapist who attacked the innocent? Lex Luthor – a villain who was sinister yet bold? I shuddered at my next thought. Was I really any better than Hamato Yoshi? I immediately denied it. Of course my actions were justified! I was upholding justice – maintaining my brother's honor! I was only fighting for what I loved… wasn't I?
I was in somber mood when I finally moved to leave the apartment. I thought I would be ecstatic about succeeding, but instead I feared that maybe I had only wasted my time and youth. I was remorseful, not because of the fact that I had murdered two people who deserved it, but because I knew that I had lost myself in the whole process.
Exiting the way I came, I paused as I noticed my enemy's pet rat sitting by the kitchen windowsill. The creature merely stared at me. I loathed its constant gaze shooed it away outside. How I laugh in irony at that moment now. If only I knew the trouble that beast would one day cause me. If I could relive things over, I definitely would have thrown a shuriken at it instead. But at the time, of course I didn't think that it would one day mutate, learn ninjitsu, teach a bunch of turtles, and come after me out of revenge. No one in their wildest dreams would have predicted that outcome. It was just a rat!
The burden of avenging my brother had been lifted and yet I didn't feel like a free man when I left the apartment. My life had no plan. I wasn't even sure if I was living my life or just mimicking Nagi's example. I decided to phone my father, hoping that for once he would encourage me. I was wrong.
"Father?" I started, tapping my fingers anxiously against the top of the pay phone. "I have avenged Nagi. It is done!" I was surprised at the amount of excitement that had flooded onto my voice. I waited for a response, but my father was keeping silent. "Father?" I had to prompt him.
"Why didn't you just move on?" I could hear him let out a heavy sigh. "You were so obsessed with all of this… I never knew you, Saki. Now I have two sons that are dead to me."
I hung up on him. I couldn't bear to hear any more. As much as I hated to admit it, I knew what he meant. Over the years, I was so obsessed with training and getting my revenge that I never bothered to seek a life outside of it. While I was a teenager, I wasn't interested in girls, popular culture or a lot of the social scene. I didn't even allow myself the time to have a break and develop a relationship with my family. I figured that's why my father said those words to me over the phone. By avenging Nagi for most of my life, my motivations only reminded my father of his tragic death. I was merely living in my brother's shadow, never developing my own individual personality. Yet what angered me was that my father was one of the reasons why I did it! I only wanted to please him; to gain his acknowledgment and praise. I tried so hard and yet my actions were still worthless in his eyes. How could he not see just how glorious that day was? I was old enough to see his many flaws for what they were. He was an old fool who had a great, honorable son to carry on the family name, and yet he saw nothing.
My father's words once again inadvertently motivated me, but this time I wanted to prove him wrong, as though I needed to convince myself that my actions against Hamato Yoshi were indeed justified. A few weeks later when I had a small army of Foot ninjas finally in my command, I set out into the large world of New York City with the hope of bringing justice when the police or courts could not – an ideal similar to how I had appropriately dealt with Hamato Yoshi. Effectively, the New York faction of the Foot started out as mercenaries for hire. Assassins or hit men as ignorant people would describe us. The sense of accomplishment was good and the money we gained was even greater. As word got around that a clan of ninjas were in town, soon we were hired to carry out robberies against greedy, undeserving people and companies. Sometimes we even stole from Government agencies, as after all, if the law had been upheld properly in the first place, then there would be no need for us to take the initiative in setting things straight. Without the Foot keeping everything in its rightful place, the entire judicial system would be hopelessly incompetent!
The clan's enrollment numbers grew and one day I decided to obliterate the middleman (literally) in order to conduct all of our business internally. We didn't need to be ordered around anymore by people with a lot of money, especially when I could find prospective targets on my own. Under my excellent leadership, the Foot had become more powerful than one could have ever imagined.
Hamato Yoshi had almost been forgotten when one day my past came back to haunt me once again. The rat returned, this time with his pathetically trained mutant turtles in tow. They spouted cruel words, accusing me of being dishonorable and condemned me for murdering Hamato Yoshi and his whore. They spoke to me about mourning as though I had never experienced it. How dare they! The fools were only continuing on the never-ending circle of revenge, seeking justice for a person who was rightly killed in the first place. How could those little beasts ever hope to comprehend it all?
I loathed them with a passion. Not because the turtles continued to destroy my plans or get in my way. Rather I envied them. I wasn't jealous of their skills, looks, possessions or lifestyle. I envied them because they had nothing valuable in their life except for their family and that was all the motivation they needed to fuel their egotistical, relentless attacks on my clan. The turtles each have had the opportunity to fight alongside their brother and it irritated me as to how ungrateful they could be to each other sometimes. I desperately just wanted to kill all of the rat's ill-begotten pets so that he may actually have a chance in comprehending the pain I have experienced.
In comparison to their lives, I now have all the riches I could ever want and yet none of it can afford a family. After that phone call on the day of Hamato Yoshi's death, I never spoke to my father again. He died a few years later from a medical illness. I called my mother every so often, but I eventually lost touch. She developed Alzheimer's disease and was recently placed in a nursing home. It just got too difficult to continue communicating with her, especially when she kept on painfully mistaking me for Nagi.
I suppose my brother's presence will never leave me, one way or another. Some days I want to forget, but it's never long till I realize once again how important it is to remember him. When I'm feeling lonely or sentimental in my private quarters, I always find myself opening up one of the drawers of my desk. Inside is the yen Nagi gave me – the money I never got to spend on the day of his death. I don't think I could ever part with it as it means too much to me now. It symbolizes everything that he gave me and that in the end, nothing in the world can be exchanged for a brother's love.