The end had come.
Touichirou let himself be lead away. He didn't have the will to move, to think, to do anything. It was over. It was all over. His life, his entire life, had been for nothing. He'd wasted his life. It was over. The dream was dead. His reason and his life…gone.
So why was he still here.
"Hurry up."
Touichirou wasn't accustomed to taking orders. No, not since childhood. That was what this was, what it felt like, being rudderless. Childhood. Before he'd known what it was that he had been put on this Earth to do…before he'd taken over…before…before anything. He looked up. The sky. The endless blue abyss that used to hold so much promise…yes, that was what he had wanted before the Earth. The sky. The heavens. Everything above him. The whole of existence.
Space.
He could remember a time before time, before he'd been anything other than Touichirou. A child. A small being hiding in an old refrigerator box fantasizing about the day he'd sail through the endless seas of space, before he'd realized that one could not sail through space but fly through it, before he'd even been able to fly. Before anything. Just him, his box, his plastic rocket ship, and his dreams. There had been so many things he'd wanted to do then…to sail through the seas of space.
But not to fly the flag of freedom.
Even before he'd met Tadashi, the traitor, even before he'd realized that he was the supreme being destined to rule the earth, he'd hated the flag of freedom. Perhaps that was always why he'd preferred the Galaxy Express to Captain Harlock. Why would someone have gone through the trouble of flying through space, winning challenge after challenge, just to give his underlings their freedom? When he'd been there in his box he hadn't wanted anything more than his own freedom. Just for himself.
Letting her have her freedom. That had been his first mistake.
The endless expanse of the sky, the blue and the white, disappeared. He was being led underground. The floor beneath his feet sloped, rough concrete dragged against his bare feet. He was led away, a captain without his ship, a king in chains, a man with nothing. No dreams, no goals, no past to speak of, and no future to even entertain.
Powerless.
Curses, carved into the hand and ankle cuffs weighing him down. Possibly the chain, too, that held all of it together. He couldn't sense it. Shigeko's doing, maybe, or maybe his metaphysical self had simply given up. He knew his body was certainly getting to that point. His spine felt as though it were about to shatter under his weight. His joints seemed to be as traitorous as his children. His feet were raw and he'd barely walked…he didn't even know.
He wanted Tadashi.
He hated Fukuda. He had never hated anyone before, it had never been a good use of his time, to dislike someone to the point that he wanted to go out of his way to make their life more difficult. Not end their life, no, he didn't have to hate a man to kill him. He had removed so many people that would have been problems had he let them live…Fukuda may have been a problem but Touichirou wasn't going to do him the mercy of a quick death.
Or any death.
If he could even be killed. They'd tried so many times in the past to find the limits of his healing abilities. 11 already dialed on the touchtone and his finger hovering over the final 9 the entire time of course. So far he knew that Fukuda could live through being stuffed in the oven, drinking every single household cleaner and poison they had been able to find, getting hit by all vehicles from bicycles to semi trucks, strangulation, flagellation, mutilation, and that time they managed to find a way to get the microwave to run with the door open. Not even radiation could kill him. He was, practically speaking, immortal.
But he could feel pain.
Injury. Pain. Suffering. The bitter burning taste of embarrassment at the back of his throat as he came to the realization that his entire life had been nothing more than a pointless task…it would have been better if they had both spent their entire lives pushing boulders up hills. At least that would have been amusing. At least that wouldn't have left this bitter pain lingering at the back of their throats like so much quickly downed drain cleaner….
Pain.
A stinging in the back of his throat. It was matched by a similar pain pricking at the corners of his eyes. The pain of embarrassment, shame, or maybe just his eyes adjusting to the darkness. The natural light was gone now, replaced with blinding but still dim fluorescent light. He much preferred natural light. He'd spent so much time bathed in artificial light. Classrooms, his bedroom, his office…he had spent so little time in the sun. He looked down at his arm, his wrist, the pale white expanse of his flesh. Thick blue veins and brown freckles demanding attention against the parchment white expanse of skin that had spent precious little time in the sun.
He turned around.
"Hey!"
He saw, briefly, the sun. Natural light briefly danced across his face and into his eyes before he was roughly turned, dragged away, back into…he knew and didn't know where he was. He had been taken, moved, and then brought here. He knew of three esper prisons in Japan alone. One which only served to house espers before they were executed, one which served as a laboratory and a source of inspiration for his own research, and one which house the dogs of the government. Much like the man dragging him along…espers used in missions that the government couldn't be seen soiling their precious hands with….so this was his future, wasn't it? Dead, a slave, or a lab rat…
Fucking Fukuda. How he hated him.
Yes. He may have lost everything he had ever hoped for, planned for, dreamed of. He may have lost it all but he could still find the will to hate. He could still hate…he would hate! He would hate Fukuda until the end of time! He tried to open his mouth, to speak, to demand that he no longer be led around like one of the Awakened…but he couldn't. The situation was just too absurd for words. The situation that Tadashi had put him in was simply too much for his mind to bear. Fukuda had betrayed him…his own…his friend. His first and best friend. His unofficial second in command. His right hand man. His healer. His lover. The man who he'd spent his life with…who he'd coupled his life together with. He'd spent more time with Fukuda, he realized, than he had with Masami…or Shiori. The great loves of his life. Masami off to parts unknown and Shiori…
Shiori.
"Shiori." Said Suzuki, finding his voice. She was weak….if she'd been gifted the power of telepathy and not telekinesis she would have saved the government the trouble and murdered him on the spot. She was weaker than him but stronger than most…but she wasn't anywhere near his level. Something was going to happen. He could feel it. He could feel a sense of cold washing over him, a sense of dread, a sense of…of powerlessness….
She was powerless.
And he'd dragged her into this.
"No talking." Said the man dragging him off, pulling him along faster. The chains he was wrapped in connected, somehow, to the cigarette in his hand…fabrication, a form of it, though not anywhere near the level of the master fabricator. He had seen this man before in his ranks, he knew that much, though he wasn't Shigeko. His memory was put to better use than memorizing the names and faces of everyone who worked for him.
He could…he had no idea what it was that he was supposed to do. He was being walked, away, down, around, and far from…far from everything. Everything that he had…everything…the world seemed to narrow, shrink, become nothing more than this dim but also somehow bright expanse. He closed his eyes. He needed to calm down. If he didn't then he'd lose control and…and maybe that would have been advantageous in this situation.
He was captured.
"No…" muttered Touichirou. He had been cognizant of his position, his circumstances, for some time now and yet he'd also been irrationally…he didn't even have the word for it. It was almost as though it had been happening to someone else, like a dream, or a memory from a dream. Now he knew. Everything was over. Fukuda had betrayed him. Shigeko had betrayed him. His own son…well, there was something almost impressive about the fact that Sho had managed to do something with that pathetic life of his even if it had been giving his father up…proud of Sho.
The world, his world, was truly coming to an end.
"You're not the one giving orders anymore, President. Former president. Just Suzuki now, I'd imagine. If the wheels of Claw are turning like I think they are." Said the man
"The what?" asked Touichirou, his tongue sticking to his teeth. He needed water. He needed water but he couldn't get water. He couldn't do anything. He tried to reached out. His hands, his wrists, his arms were all bound…as were his powers. His metaphysical self was…it was there but it wasn't.
A curse. He was cursed.
"With the king dead I'd imagine the kingdom's going to his first born. That is how these things work, isn't it? Of course if you weren't such a valuable asset I'd imagine that Claw would have been decimated by now." said the man
"I doubt the government would go through the trouble of only exterminating a tenth of us." Said Touichirou
"What are you…oh, right, that's what that word means. Well it's nice to see that spark's still burning, Suzuki, and believe me you'll need it in here." Said the man. The terrain below him changed. Concrete turned to tile. A door, large and steel, was in front of him. He was…he could have made short work of that door, torn it apart like paper, ground the steel of it into dust between his fingers. If he'd been…if things had been right.
If everything had gone right.
"Try not to talk to much, they hate that, and whatever you do don't try to escape. We had someone try that once and, well..." said the man as he pointed to a scorch mark on the outside of the door. Touichirou flexed his fingers. He should have been able to make short work of that door but now…nothing. Nothing happened.
Because he was nothing.
"You know, I almost thought you'd make it. Everyone did, actually. You had some very important people pissing their beds every night, you know." said the man as he opened his silver coat and fished out a keycard on a lanyard. His shirt open underneath the coat. A scar. A massive one extending probably the entire length of his torso.
He knew what that scar was.
He had toyed with the idea before, implanting bombs in just about everyone so they couldn't betray him, but traitor holes had been a much more cost effective solution to the problems of betrayal and desertion. He hadn't had that much money back then when he'd started production on the Awakened, and also the thought was macabre, surgery that is, was…the thought of being at someone else's mercy. At being not only laid bare but open as well. Your entire anatomy, your entire self, laying there bare for the world to touch and manipulate and-and-and-
-and he was moving.
He hadn't given the order and yet his feet were attempting to carry him away. He turned to the light, the natural light, the light at the end of the tunnel. How many times had he and Tadashi, no, had he and Fukuda urged each other not to go to the light. To turn away from the light, to get out of the tunnel, to come back to earth and get back to drinking household cleaning products or swallowing batteries or trying to microwave themselves alive. But now things were different. He was here on his own and he needed to…to not be here.
He needed to stop being weak.
One foot, then another, and then another. Elation. An emotion. One which would have sent him over the edge had things been normal. But things were never going to be normal again…and not in the way that things should have been. He should have been ruling on high by now. The world should have been in the palm of his hand. It should have been him and Shiori, him and Shigeko, even him and Tadashi…if he hadn't betrayed him…if Shigeko hadn't betrayed him…he should have had everything that he'd ever wanted. He should have had everything that he had worked for. He should have had everything he deserved. He should have had it all….but now he had nothing.
Not even his freedom.
His feet flew out from under him. Pain. It felt almost as though his ankles and wrists had been about to snap. His arms and legs had been trying to bend unnaturally. He tasted copper. He needed Tadashi. He'd bitten his tongue as he'd stepped…as he'd fallen. As he'd been pulled back. He was being dragged away now. The end of the tunnel becoming nothing more than a pinprick of natural light in a sea of pale white wrongness…both dim and bright at the same time.
He shouldn't have been here.
"They always try to make a run for it." Muttered the man as Touichirou was dragged to his feet. There was a click of a lighter, an inhale, and then suddenly he was surrounded by smoke. The chains around his wrists and ankles became heavier as the smoke settled…and he knew this power. He knew this man.
"Joseph…Shigeko's friend." Said Suzuki. So Shigeko had betrayed him…well, he'd been well aware of that, but there was something better…purer…something that felt more…more acceptable about the situation if this had been something that she had…he didn't even know what to call it. A crime of passion? Her own ambition growing to kaiju level proportions, overwhelming her natural sense, and forcing her hand…if this had been premediated on her part…
She wasn't his daughter. She had never been his daughter. It didn't matter.
"Hey, you remember me. Well whatever, don't get attached or anything. As soon as I deliver you I'm out of here." Said Joseph. Touichirou couldn't help but smirk.
"You can't actually believe that." Said Suzuki, letting himself stand a little taller despite the chains weighing him down and the sudden bursts of pain erupting up and down his back.
"Hey, this isn't Claw. You're not in for life, just until your sentence is up, and with you here they'll knock everything I have left off." said Joseph
"I know the government, I modeled Claw after this particular branch government, and I know for a fact that they never relinquish an asset." Said Touichirou. He so wished that he hadn't been cursed, cut off from his metaphysical self, then maybe he could have identified what it was he saw dancing across Joseph's face. Behind his eyes.
He didn't imagine that it was anything good…but that was what he got for thinking he could lord his power over Suzuki…for thinking that he had any power at all. Suzuki was the one who had power, he would always have power, even if he didn't…he didn't even entertain the thought. He may have been cut off from his powers, he may have lost everything that he had worked for, he may have been betrayed by everyone he had ever trusted but he was still Suzuki Touichirou.
Nobody could take that away from him.
"Shut up." said Joseph
"I will not-" said Suzuki
"If you want to live then you'll shut up! You think-you know what? If I somehow don't end up buying my freedom then I'll probably be your handler-no, wait, I'll ask to be your handler. Then you know what? You'll be right where you are now only with a bomb in your chest that you're going to be able to feel for the rest of your life! God, it never goes away….shut up! Just shut up and come on!" said Joseph. He didn't really give Touichirou any other option. Soon there was smoke in his face, he had always hated that, and if he'd been himself he would have been able to easily dispel it. He could have even punished Joseph for his impertinence. But he couldn't.
He could just allow himself to be muzzled.
And now he couldn't even speak. The cold feel was back, or maybe it had never gone away, or maybe he was just weak and this was his body breaking down under the sheer force of the shame…yes, that was it. That was what this was. Shame. He had failed…so it had been a terrible idea after all. He could hear Father's voice in his mind. Telling him that he wasn't a child anymore, that he needed to be serious about his future, that he was too old to be playing around like this. He heard Father's voice, then mother's, and then he smelled burning. Of course nothing was burning. Of course this was just a memory.
No. This was reality.
And all he could do was let himself be lead away…because it was over, this was the end, and he had failed…been betrayed. It hadn't been his fault…but what he did when this was all over, what he did to Fukuda and Shigeko and anyone else who betrayed him, would be theirs.
It wasn't over yet.
