Fukuda knew what he had to do.
There was nothing here for him anymore. Sho was all he had left and there was no way he was letting him grow up in this place. There was no Touichirou keeping him here, nobody going to hunt him down if he left, and no…no Masami to wait for. He was a man with nothing…nothing to show for the last forty seven years of his life. The love of his life was…was a complete stranger, he hated the organization he'd built, and his son wasn't even his son. This place….there was nothing here for him.
Nothing for Sho, either.
Sho who he knew for a fact would be heartbroken the next time he saw him. Masami was completely devoid of anything that he had loved about her, any of the things that made her Masami. Her warmth, her loyalty, the love that she used to absolutely radiate…it was gone. It was like someone had pulled her face off and it had been a mask, one of those rubber masks from that movie he used to watch all the time as a kid, and there was a completely different woman under there or…or an alien or something. Not Masami. Not his Masami. Not the love of his life and not Sho's…not his son's mother, either.
He clicked his suitcase shut.
Money. Some clothes. His laptop full of everything he would need should he have ever been in a point that he had to bargain for his and Sho's freedom. Now all he needed was Sho, some train tickets, and then they could start a new life together. As for documents he'd had some fabricated awhile ago and Hatori could tear through government records like rice paper. Fukuda checked his phone…still no reply…but that was where Hatori came in.
He was still, technically, a part of Claw…for the last few moments he'd spend in this building.
He pulled his suitcase behind him and walked out of the front door for the last time. He was never going to miss this place. Row after row of identical apartments in windowless, sterile, white hallways. Not Touichirou's best work. The outside screamed 'evil lair' but the inside screamed 'every hospital ever'…which sort of fit, really, considering what they did here…what Fukuda had overseen…
That part was over now.
Shigeko's aura washed over him and he closed the door. He walked, quickly, towards Hatori and Touichirou's…towards Hatori's apartment. He didn't know why he had expected to see Touichirou. He was gone now, gone forever, and for the first time in forever Fukuda could finally just…just breath. Exist without the shadow of Touichirou's presence hanging over him. That terrible dread he'd feel as Suzuki got closer, the relief he'd feel once his aura was gone…when he was out of the country…maybe that was what this was. Maybe his mind was just telling him that Touichirou was just out conquering the world again, on some place in some foreign country, and not getting vivisected or executed in some secret government prison lab…getting what he deserved.
Misplaced melancholy.
He pushed it away as he pushed his way through Shigeko's aura. Another aura was there, a yellow one, one that he didn't recognize…more like gold…whatever. Shigeko wasn't his responsibility. She hadn't been his responsibility for years, not since he'd…not since he'd fucked up so badly that she became what she was now, and…and he kept going. He didn't even bother collecting Sho's things. He wasn't picky about his clothes, he wouldn't mind something picked up at some random store along the way, and he could always redraw whatever sketches he wanted to take with him, and he was too old for toys but if by some twist of fate he wanted some there were always store. Plenty of stores between them and Sendai…not that he wanted to go back to Sendai…but Shigeko avoided the old house. She wasn't using it for anything either. They could stay there until he figured out what they were going to do next. They could…he didn't fully know what he was going to do next…
But he and Sho could figure that out together.
He didn't bother knocking on Hatori's door. He just let himself in like he owned the place…which part of him pretty much did. This was the first base that he and Touichirou had designed. This was where the seat of power was supposed to be, because it was right by their houses, because they had been thirteen and neither of them had known that they'd be moving to Tokyo after high school. He was the one who had deisnged….it didn't matter which parts were his and which parts were Touichirou's. This whole place was Shigeko's now.
Good for her.
Music was blasting, it sounded like something from a videogame or maybe an anime…something designed to burrow into your brain and never let you go. Good. Maybe it would finally dethrone that gum commercial that had been in his head for the past forty years…or maybe it would just drive him as crazy as Hatori. He certainly looked out of his mind. He was laying on the living room floor surrounded by screens singing and kicking his legs…Fukuda spied a pillow on the floor. It would have been a mercy at this point…
He had never been very bloodthirsty. That had always been Touichirou's department.
"Hey, get up." said Fukuda as he poked Hatori in the side of the head with his foot. Hatori screeched like a frightened owl and jumped to his feet. Several screens turned blue. The music, thankfully, stopped.
"What the fuck are you doing here?! You're supposed to be gone! You were supposed to run away with that woman and-and-and you are NOT going to ruin this for me!" shouted Hatori
"I have no idea what I'm ruining and I don't care. I need you to find Sho now. I came back for him and he…never you mind what happened to him. I just need you to find him. Now." said Fukuda. Hatori crossed his arms and shook his head.
"Fuck you. I said I'd do one last thing for you and I did, now leave me the hell alone. Unlike you I'm not running away-" said Hatori
"Is the bathroom door locked?" asked Fukuda
"-I'm trying to find an actual solution to our problem." Said Hatori. Fukuda rolled his eyes.
"I don't think that there are enough hours in the day to figure out a solution to everything that's wrong with you." said Fukuda. Now it was Hatori's turn to roll his eyes.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Unlike you I'm going to figure out how to save Toui-how to save Suzuki and then…well he's going to be pissed off but he's never been able to stay mad at Mob for very long. He'll probably just kill everyone who sided with her and then we'll have to spend a few more years finding more espers but we can try again. I just have to figure out how we're going to get him out." Said Hatori. Fukuda needed a moment to figure out what Hatori had just said. He was still on this….? He was still…he was a moron.
"You have fun with that. Just find Sho and this time I promise I'll leave you alone for the rest of your life…not that I'm sure how long that'll be." Said Fukuda. Hatori was worse than the Awakened. The Awakening process did something to their minds, torture probably did a number on the esper psyche just like the human psyche, but Hatori…there was no reason for this. He'd spent fifteen years, over half of his life, in the normal world with his normal family…a family that he knew that Suzuki had killed! There was no reason…this was not Fukuda's problem. If he wanted to get himself killed breaking into esper prison then that was up to him.
"I could say the same for you. I don't think Touichirou's going to take it well, you betraying him….all the ways you betrayed him. I mean finding out that the guy you've been in love with for most of your life not only betrayed you but fucked your wi-" said Hatori. That was all he managed to get out before Fukuda pinned him to the wall. It hadn't been much of a struggle. For someone who seemed to live off of junk food and energy drinks he was surprisingly light. Fukuda hadn't had to put much effort in it all…which was good. He had never been much of a fighter.
No, that had been Suzuki too.
"I can heal. You can't. Now find Sho." said Fukuda, holding up his phone. Hatori glared at him before turning his phone onto the map app. A pin appeared and dropped. He let go of Hatori. Amazingly enough he didn't drop to the ground.
"There. Now go away before I get Mob." Said Hatori as he rubbed his neck.
"Get her and tell her, too, how you're working against her. I doubt Shigeko would be happy to know that you're not only trying to break her father out of jail but you're helping her brother escape, too." Said Fukuda. Hatori adjusted his glasses and scoffed.
"I'm only telling you where Sho is because I know he's not going to go with you. He's not going to leave Mob, or his boyfriend, or Mukai, or Shimazaki or anyone else. So if you want to go then go. Even if I went and told Mob where you were going, and don't think it'll be hard for me to find you, she wouldn't care. She'd probably just send a plane to get out further away from her." said Hatori. Fukuda decided to be the bigger man and leave.
He wasn't going to argue with a child.
"Do whatever you want." Said Fukuda as he turned and left. There was a rush of air as the door opened. Someone had gotten into the climate controls….and the liquor? He pulled his shirt up over his nose as the door blew shut behind him…right, that had been him. A reminder that drowning his sorrows wasn't ever going to work. It hadn't worked when he'd been a kid and it wasn't working now.
You couldn't run from your problems.
You just had to move forward. So that was what he did. He moved forward down the stairs, no point in tempting Hatori to do something childish like trap him in an elevator, and out the door. He managed to get to a car with a competent driver. No point in spending the hours upon hours walking back into the city. He wasn't a kid anymore, he wasn't going to torture himself, he was going to get Sho and he was going to get him out of here.
He was also going to get dropped off somewhere reasonably far from where Sho found himself.
Which was good thinking, really, since he had no way to justify why he'd been dropped off at a children's park. For a moment he had thought that Hatori had decided to screw him over one last time. Thankfully he'd seen the shock of red poking out of the spaceship's window. There was no mistaking that for anyone other than Sho.
This park, after all, hadn't been nearly this cool when he and Touichirou had been kids.
He felt Sho's aura as he got closer. Sho must have noticed him too. He just didn't do anything. He was just there…his aura was pulled in close. He must have made it to Masami's….well of course he had. He was thirteen years old, much too old to be playing on playgrounds. Fukuda was thankful that he didn't look or feel his age as he ascended the ladder into the mouth of the spaceship…though why this thing was so high was beyond him…if Sho fell out then he could have gotten hurt.
And he'd been hurt enough today as it was.
"Sho. There you are." Said Fukuda as he crawled into the spaceship. He couldn't stand, he could barely even sit up, this place had not been designed for someone his size. Not for someone Sho's size, either, if the way he was scrunching his legs to his chest gave any indication. He lifted his head from his knees and glanced at Fukuda.
"What do you want?" asked Sho. Fukuda sighed.
"I know that you're not going to like what I'm about to say-" said Fukuda
"So maybe just shut your mouth, then, if you know you're going to piss me off." said Sho
-but I think that it's something that you need to hear." Said Fukuda. Sho shrugged.
"You're going to tell me that my mom loves me and that I need to go back to her and be a family…or that I need to go back to Big Sis and be a family with her…actually, no, not that last part. You don't like her…but whatever. I'm going back to her, I know I need to, and I will. It's just…it's a long walk." Said Sho. Fukuda sighed and crawled over beside Sho. Sho didn't scoot away or go down the slide, he just have Fukuda a long and tired look that someone his age shouldn't have been able to give.
"I would never tell you to do either of those things." Said Fukuda quietly.
"But aren't you, like, in love with my mom or some other sick thing?" asked Sho. He wasn't acting like he was going to throw up so that was progress…not that he could see what was so sick about him and Masami. It wasn't as though Masami and Suzuki had built a happy home for themselves and Sho knew it…but that wasn't the point, here.
"I wouldn't exactly call it sick, Sho, but…but I know that it must be strange for you. Knowing that your mother…knowing that she isn't who you thought she was." Said Fukuda
"Yeah, no shit. I went to see her, you know, and she's just…she's a bitch! She…she has this whole other family and…and it's like…it's like she got sick of us and tried to have another family like…like a do-over or something…." said Sho. He wasn't going to argue with his assessment of his mother. He wasn't even going to argue with the fact that she a do-over family. He wasn't going to make excuses for her like…like something about her thinking that all was lost. Something about her moving on with her life or…or anything like that.
He wasn't going to lie to Sho again.
"Your mother and I…what we had is over now. She's…she's different now. Different with time, I guess, or maybe I never truly knew her or….it doesn't. You're what matters most to me right now…you're always what mattered the most." Said Fukuda. Sho glared at him and turned away.
"I know, you already said that. Now you're going to tell me that I need to run away with you and some other stupid shit I don't give a fuck about." Said Sho. Fukuda took a deep breath. He wasn't going to address the language, with Sho as with his father it was best to pick your battles, and right now he had the deciding battle of the war to win.
"I'm not going to tell you what you need to do because I know you're not a child. I'm just going to tell you that…that getting out of here would be wise. Sho…you could leave this place and…and live a normal life. The kind of life I wish I could have given you." said Fukuda. Sho rolled his eyes. Fukuda reached out and tried to pat his back, hold his shoulder, anything to show him that he was there even if it didn't seem like something Sho wanted…but Sho just shrugged his hand away.
"You said that part already, too, before. I don't get why you want me to have a normal life and shit like that. Ritsu had a normal life and his parents still turned out to be assholes and he still wound up in Claw. You had a normal life, too, and you helped Dad start Claw." Said Sho. Fukuda sighed. Sho thought that he was stuck. He thought that just because he had these powers he belonged in Claw. He thought that just because his parents weren't up to the task that meant that he belonged in Claw with all the other misfits…well he didn't.
He deserved so much better.
"You don't belong there. You have so much more to offer the world and the world has so much more to offer you. You could have friends your own age, Sho, and…and you could go to school and just…you could live without worrying about all the problems that come with Claw. The fighting, the endless attempts to take it over or bring it down, the target that being in Claw places on your back…you could live without all of that. You've been through so much and…and this isn't the life that I wanted for you. This is the life that your father wanted for you and we both know how you feel about him so…so stop living the life that he wants for you and start living the life that would be best for you." said Fukuda. He wondered if he should have added a 'please' at the end of that or if there was enough room to get down on his hands and knees and beg. Sho…this would have been so much easier if he'd been younger. If things had gone according to plan. If Masami hadn't decided to completely betray him and all the promises that she'd made and the love that they'd shared…he focused on Sho and not the pain running him through like the sword he should have thrown himself down upon. Anything to get Sho to see things his way.
But then again he'd always been a stubborn boy.
He raised and eyebrow and shook his head. Fukuda felt his heart sink. There was nothing he could do if Sho said no, no way to drag him out, no way to force him to do what was best. He wasn't a little boy anymore. He was…he was different. Fukuda almost didn't recognize him. He couldn't see the sweet little boy he used to be, the little boy who would throw himself into Fukuda's arms and demand they play together, the little boy who woke him up in the middle of the night to watch Zootopia, the little boy who used to say so painfully and earnestly that he wished that Fukuda had been his father. No, that boy was gone, lost to the passage of time and the erosion of Fukuda's own mistakes. Now there was this person before him, this stubborn person, this person who couldn't see anything he didn't want to see…
He looked a little like Touichirou.
"I know what's best for me and what's best for me is going back, alright? Can you get it through your stupid head? I don't want to come with you. I'm not going to run away when Big Sis needs me, I'm not going to be like Mom and leave my family and the guy who loves me, and I'm not going to be like Dad and act like…like I'm the only person in the whole world who matters and everyone else needs to…to fuck off or whatever. I'm not leaving…and not with someone who's been lying to me for my whole life." said Sho
"I only lied because-" said Fukuda
"You lied because you're in love with my mom, and that's not a good reason. For my whole life you were only nice to me because you wanted to bang her." said Sho. He was…he was smirking...how could he have been smirking after he'd said something so-so-so-so crass and vile and-and-and-
"It wasn't about that, Sho, it was never about sex. I loved her and she loved me and that's something that you're too young to understand so I won't try and explain it to you." said Fukuda with a wave of his hand. He may not have been talking to the child he knew but he was still talking to a child…a teenager. Someone who thought he knew everything. Someone who wouldn't know what was good for him if it walked up and bit him on the ankle. Someone who…who based on the retching sounds he was making wasn't comfortable talking about this with any modicum of maturity.
"Don't talk about how much you wanted to bang my mom! That's sick! That's worse than-than-than anyone else I know banging anyone else!" said Sho. Fukuda sighed and tried to keep his face as impassive as possible…not an easy feat when Sho was acting like that.
"I'm not talking about sex, Sho, I'm talking about love…something that you're very young. Something that I don't think you can understand at your age. Something that you and your boyfriend might think you have but…but some boy you barely even know isn't worth throwing your whole life away. You're thirteen. You can start again. You can be anything you want to be, Sho, you don't have to live the life your father wants or your sister wants. You can…you can leave with me and we can start again. Far away from Claw and…and far away from your mother, too." Said Fukuda. Mentioning Masami should have been the thing that did it. Touichirou had always been a sore subject with Sho and Masami…she wasn't much better. He knew Sho. That should have been the thing to get him out of this play structure and on his way to the train station…it should have been the thing….
Not the thing that got Sho in his face.
"Shut up about my mom! I don't want to you talk about her and-and shut up about Ritsu, too! You don't know him, you don't know how I feel, and just because I don't want to bang him that doesn't mean that I don't love him! And I do want to bang him but…but it's like I'm freaked out or…or something…something that's none of your fucking business! Now leave me alone! If you want to go then get on a fucking plane and go, Fukuda! Just…just get out of my life!" shouted Sho as he let go of Fukuda's shirt and pushed him back. The back of his head hit a metal support…he saw stars. His stomach churned. Sho had pushed him with enough force to…to give him a concussion he was, thankfully, healing from. It wasn't like Sho to do actual damage…
But this wasn't the Sho he knew.
Fukuda sat up straight and looked Sho in the eye. Sho stared right back. His eyes, his clue eyes, seemed so cold there. Like he was…like he was looking right through him. Like he was looking at nothing at all. Fukuda…he had always known that Sho had gotten his father's eyes…and his hair…and his freckles…and his powers.
He had always known that Sho was his father's son.
"Understood…Suzuki," said Fukuda before he climbed down the ladder…the very tall ladder. Each step took him farther and farther from Sho, farther and farther from his life, just like…just like Sho wanted. Just like he'd commanded….and that was…that was just the way that it had to be. If that was what Sho wanted then that was what he was going to get. If Sho wanted him gone then…then he was finally going to leave. If Sho wanted to stay in Claw, to stay mired in the mess that Touichirou had made, the mess that Shigeko had inherited, then that was fine too.
Fukuda was done chasing Suzuki's around.
He was done wasting his life following Suzuki's around from one end of the earth to the other. From saving Suzuki's from the consequences of their own actions. From building something he hated, from living a life he despised, from being surrounded by people who…who he couldn't stand. People who couldn't stand him. He was…he was doing something that he should have done years ago. Something that he never should waited this long to do…he never should have waited for Masami or…or Sho. He should have just done what was best.
From now on the only waiting he was going to do was for a train.
The bus lines were back up. It hadn't changed, either. It still went right to the train station, the big one, the one that went to Tokyo. From Tokyo he'd go to Sendai. From Sendai he'd plan his next move. The world, the world that he'd spent so long traveling, suddenly opened up…suddenly looked so big…so vast. He had no idea how the world could have possibly seemed so vast. Maybe because he was finally free to see it…he was free…finally free. He just had to wait another twenty three minutes and he would be done with everything forever…
Nothing could ever go right for him, could it?
He felt Shimazaki before he saw him, as was usual, and as usual there was nothing he could do. One moment he was sitting on a bench waiting for a train to take him away to his new life and the next there was a hand wrapped around his wrist and the world was falling apart under his feet. The cold, crisp, air of the train station was replaced with the smell of stale air and floor cleaner. The world was shrunk down to one room, one white room, one white room with a purple dot in the middle…a purple dot that looked entirely too pleased with themselves.
Of course.
"Good. Now go find Shibata and the others." Said Minegishi as they longed in what looked like an office chair covered in vines. Legs over one side, book in their hand, what seemed like a sharp rod of vines in the other.
"Give me a minute, I'm still not at a hundred percent…I think the fight the other day took it out of me more than I thought." Panted Shimazaki. He may have looked tired but his grip was still strong as iron. Still…Fukuda debated breaking his own arm. He could heal but the pain…the pain would be an inconvenience…
"The cocaine, drinking, and Xanax directly afterwards probably didn't help." Sighed Minegishi. Shimazaki looked up and smiled at them.
"Yeah, you're right. You're always right, that's what I lo-" said Shimazaki
"You. Fix him and then go to the cafeteria and fix the Awakened. Then start on the injured from the fight." Said Minegishi, pointing out the door. Fukuda glared at them. They didn't give him orders. Suzuki did, and Shigeko because she was terrifying, but them…they had very little power of their own. This room…the only plants in the room were the ones that they were sitting on…and anyway Fukuda could heal. He didn't have to listen to them. He didn't have to spend any more time with them than…than…he never had to see them again.
He never had to see any of these people again.
"No. I won't." said Fukuda as he wretched his arm free. Shimazaki even looked surprised…there was a sort of thrill that came with that, one that Fukuda was going to savor while he could.
"I don't have to listen to either of you. Claw is done and even if it wasn't…I'm not going to pull rank on anyone. I'm done with you people, I'm done with Shigeko, and I'm done with Claw. So beat me up, maim me, try and kill me….it won't work. I've lived through two of Shigeko's explosions and more of Suzuki's than I can count. You're nothing compared to them." said Fukuda. He rode it for a moment, the high that came with that power, the power to say no. The power to live his own life. The power to be his own man. The power to live his own life…power that he had never had at any point in his life.
It had been a nice moment.
A moment that had ended with pain. Searing pain in his stomach…he looked down. A vine, thick and thorny, ran him through. He could see blood pooling underneath him…he could see his aura, too. His powers…the skin around the wound was healing. He felt his organs reform and move around the intruder. The pain ebbed for a second, or maybe a fraction of a second, before Minegishi closed their fist and a mess of thorns began to poke right out of his torso.
He spat blood.
"Damn, I didn't ever see that coming. Toshi, have I ever told you that you're fucking amazing? And amazing at fucking? Because you're both and for some reason this is making me want-" said Shimazaki
"Ryou, you know that's not going to happen any time soon, if ever again, and you know why." Said Minegishi as they stood up from what could only be described as their throne. They….they didn't scare him. This wasn't enough to kill him. He didn't know what could kill him but if Suzuki and Shigeko couldn't then Minegishi and Shimazaki couldn't, not even if they worked together. He tried to stand up straight, he tried to look them in the eye as defiantly as he could, but the pain sent him doubled back over.
Pain that he didn't need to be feeling right now.
"Wh-why?" gasped Fukuda, a mouth full of coppery blood spewing down the front of his shirt. There was no reason for them to torture him aside from the pure sadism of it…and he knew them. They were too lazy to be sadistic. They should have been in bed right now reading or smoking or sleeping or doing whatever else that it was that they did. They had no reason to care if he came or went…Shigeko certainly didn't.
She didn't like him, maybe even hated him, and she wasn't sadistic either.
"I don't know. Maybe because I'm so up there in terms of power seeing someone else who's powerful just turns me on like some kind of evolutionary thing? Or maybe I'm just naturally submissive. I mean I like getting fucked and I like eating-" said Shimazaki
"Ryou. Come on." Said Minegishi
"What? He asked and you know me, I'm an open book. Honestly I've been trying really hard to understand myself, too. Maybe I'm hitting the autumn years or something." said Shimazaki. Minegishi just rolled their eyes in that chagrined way that they always did. It sickened him, really, how they could have gone back to him after everything that he had done. It sickened him more than anything else that had ever transpired in the history of Claw…and he was done with them.
"Why…them…this….." gasped out Fukuda. Minegishi shook their head and the thorns retracted. He let out a gasp, deep and grateful, so grateful that he could breath again. The pain subsided as his body knitted it's self back together. The vine in his stomach…he could live with that…
He wasn't going to die, not here, and not by their hand…vine.
"Because nobody leaves. Not you, not me, not anyone." Said Minegishi
"So what? Because you're miserable we all have to be?" spat Fukuda. Minegishi stuck out a single finger and pushed at the vine in his stomach. He felt it begin to turn. His organs, which had moved to make way for the intruder, began to turn with it. Whatever it was that anchored them in place began to strain…he hissed.
But he didn't scream. He didn't give them the satisfaction.
"Not everyone is as self centered as you. Sorry. I don't care about you as a person but I do care about what you can do. Whether I like it or not healing is rare, incredibly rare, and you're the only healer in the world at your level…so you're going to stay here, at my disposal." Said Minegishi as they pulled their hand back. The pain…the pain was still there even though the turning stopped.
"You can leave…we can all leave. Suzuki is gone….Hatori is never going to get him out…" huffed Fukuda as his vision began to swim. He wasn't going to give in. He could get used to this. Suzuki…when they were kids Suzuki had him drink drain cleaner and eat batteries. He used to make Fukuda step in front of trucks and jump off the roof. He used to make Fukuda stick his finger in the electrical sockets and touch live power lines….he could do this.
He just had to get used to the pain.
"This isn't about Suzuki, this is about Mob, and me not letting her down. Someone has to keep this place together until she comes to her senses and that someone is me. So you're not going anywhere." Said Minegishi as they held out their hand. He couldn't help it, he flinched, and they noticed. Shimazaki began to laugh like it was the funniest thing in the entire fucking world….of course he'd think so. Everything was funny to him, nothing mattered, and…and this was where he belonged. Minegishi, too, and all the other misfits in Claw.
But not him.
"You're going to stay here and you're going to put everyone back together who needs it and if you have to be your usual pleasant self then so be it. I don't care, I just want things done. Mob obviously doesn't need this place falling apart and, really, neither of us do either. So how about we all act in each other's best interests and you go and put the Awakened back together like a good healer?" asked Minegishi. Fukuda straightened out and glared at them. He looked them right in the eye. He could see himself reflected back in the brown black of their eyes. He looked…he didn't look weak because he wasn't weak. He was healing, he was strong, and he was done.
Completely done.
"Fuck….you…" gasped Fukuda before he turned and left. He heard Minegishi tell Shimazaki that he wouldn't go far…well the joke was on them, with every step he took he could feel himself healing. He was getting the hell out of here. He was done. He was free. He was….
Over.
He may have founded this place, he may have been dragged practicality kicking and screaming into this insanity, but now he was leaving. He didn't care where he went or what he did, he was leaving. He was out. He was done. His wounds were healed and there it was, a door. It was thrown opened. A cavalcade of Awakened walked through carrying what looked like a giant log…he didn't care. They could do whatever they wanted. He was out. He was gone.
He was through the door.
Shade. The first thing he noticed was the shade. It shouldn't have been so shady…but then he looked up. A wall of plants lined with spiky thorns and ominously colorful flowers. It was topped with carnivorous Venus fly traps and bell plants…it was high….it was so high but he was going to make it. Scale it. He could and he would…
He tried.
The vines were slimy with some kind of sap. It itched and burned when he touched it…but he tried. He tried and…and he failed….so he tried again. He tried again and again and again until he ultimately got nowhere…but that was the story of his life, wasn't it? Going and going but winding up nowhere…stuck. Trapped. Nowhere to go…nothing to do…he looked back at the base. He was trapped….he wasn't going to accept that. He was getting out. Even if it was just with the clothes on his back, even if it was with no plan, even if it was without Sho he was leaving. Because he was done.
He was done and he knew what he had to do.
