FUN FACTS!
Ch. 16: Zenshi's father, Linter, has a name based off of my dad's Caller ID appearance. Less Chinese-sounding, I know, but it's because when my dad immigrated, the character that should be (in modern pinyin) "De" turned into "Ter", idk how or why. Like, what even. So caller ID just makes it even funnier. AND SO THERE.
Random: I found my early designs of Zenshi, and he's this weird punk rock kid with an axe. (lol)
Disclaimer: Gorilla is king.
Notes: You get a special chappy this time! Only one time period (ohhhh!) and you get to see Zenshi go insane (?!1111).
Eyes of Wolves
- 17 -
.: FOUR YEARS AGO :.
"That wasn't an 'aye, aye' I heard," Kamui entreats, looking for the always pleasant agreement to his orders.
"That's because, Danchou, I didn't understand your orders."
"And why is that?"
"I do not believe I heard correctly, sir. Will you please repeat them?"
Kamui twirls his braid in one finger, twisting himself around in the swivel chair. Abuto types furiously onto a digital keypad, wrinkling his nose when the nearest control center bounces his message back with a rejected mainframe connection displaying in angry red on the screen.
"As I said before," Kamui relents, tossing his red hair over his shoulder, "I'd like for you to follow up on Zen's negotiations. You'll take Delong and Jinlin with you."
"I'm sorry, Captain, but did you just ask me to talk to people?"
"I'm sorry, Petty Officer Mei, but did I not just clarify for you?" Kamui crosses his arms. "Delong and Jinlin are on standby."
She twitches, just slightly, in the eye.
"Permission to inquire further, sir?"
"Shoot."
"Where is the Lieutenant, anyway?"
The doors to the bridge slide open with their elevated hiss and exhale, revealing a triumphant but harried Lieutenant Zenshi at the threshold.
"Right here," he declares tiredly, his voice partially muffled by his cloak, the hood of which he'd drawn up around his neck like a scarf.
"So I don't have to go talk to people, yes?" Mei interprets excitedly.
"No," the order clamps down in unison. Mei winces, deciding to bite her tongue and hold her words for the moment. Any more excitement, and she'll become too animated.
Zenshi appears as if he has just killed three hundred men — "I wiped out the entire crew, save a few," he says without celebration when asked if he'd just gone on a killing spree — and is less than amused by her snarky remarks. Though, in all actuality, Mei had yet to make one.
Kamui, on the other hand, claps his hands.
"All right, Petty Officer, your friends are tired of being on standby." He points to his left, where Delong, muscular and lean and in his early forties, is waiting by the windows. Standing next to him is a Yato woman of about thirty or so, with lofty black hair that floats in wispy tresses down her back. She is pretty, but age has claimed her early, and the dark circles beneath her eyes tell far more of a story than she could. The thin line of her mouth denotes a no-nonsense demeanor, and Mei finds herself discouraged by her two almost constricting new partners.
"Take it or leave it, Mei." Zenshi emanates murderous intent almost uncontrollably, but holds it in check with a haggard reservation. Kamui, clearly, can also feel it undeniably, because he bursts into laughter and smiles with a delighted shiver. In fact, the moment Zenshi crosses deeper into the main control center of the bridge, most of the techs and commands officers turn around.
He turns sharply on the bridge's announcer boy; the poor thing cringes and retreats to his little desk, where he's busying himself with documenting transactions.
"I'll leave it, sir," she quips. Yes, she thinks quietly, triumphing in a mini bout of sarcasm. She realizes, then, that it is a mistake to do so. Zenshi's dark mood is uncharacteristic, and rather unstable. Though she has felt the blood of Yato coursing through everyone — for Zenshi, the levels are comparable to that of most of the crew, nothing unusual — it is the lack of his usually precise control that scares her.
"Are you sure?" he slowly draws out, staring at her with blinding patience. His hands hang slackly at his sides, and she sees blood of many different colors painted on his fingers. "Would you like to negotiate, or is that simply a denial?"
Abuto has turned, now, his attention drawn from the stubborn red square that continuously pops up on his monitor. His eyes flicker from Zenshi to Mei, and then quickly back.
"It was a choice prompted by your demand, sir," she attempts one last time. She hopes on the bet that he'll recognize her wry sense of humor — mostly dry and strained this time around — and simply let her go. He knows she will obey.
"So it seems."
He is deadly quiet, and she is terrified now. The aura of complete blood lust has never come from him so strong. In fact, she is tempted to believe that it is simply Kamui, exercising his ability to frighten people on presence alone.
"Yo, Zen," calls the young captain, "Abuto here seems to need help accessing the main access board. Sit."
Zenshi glances over.
"Maybe it's because you're sitting on it, Kamui."
"That wasn't an 'aye, aye' I heard," Kamui replies, almost cheerfully. He is, indeed, perched upon the backs of a few system monitors, but he could hardly care.
"Danchou," says the pale Jinlin, who is fair even beyond Yato standards, "the Onsha Law's main ship is departing from their current coordinates."
She slinks up behind them almost invisibly, appearing out of nowhere and startling Mei. The younger woman sidles away from the woman, who is tall and toned.
"Zen, didn't you say you killed their whole crew?" laughs Kamui, waving the officer away. Abuto leans over and thanks her, ordering departure for Harusame's central space station.
"I said most," Zenshi contends. His face is so expressionless that the striking severity of his gaze is disconcerting.
Mei shivers now, because the most patient man in the universe is currently losing his grip on his temper. She never thought it possible.
She doesn't want to see her Lieutenant snap.
"Lieutenant, if you would please instruct me on the follow-up procedures," she quickly interrupted, inserting herself between Kamui's taunts and Zenshi's ensuing lack of composure. He turns.
The fact that, though the dark-haired Yato never once raised his voice and never let his face slip into any expression except that short of boredom, Mei can tell just how put off Zenshi was only goes to show how much aggressiveness emanates from his being.
Kamui whistles and hops down from his post, trotting a circle around the working officers to observe their work before wishing them a fine afternoon and promptly exiting. Though the captain is no longer present to grate on his nerves, Zenshi still looks agitated. And by agitated, it simply meant that his lack of any real visage to show his emotions was scaring the living daylights out of every single crew member.
"Sir?" repeats Mei, in a smaller voice. Zenshi doesn't look at her, only flexes his fingers. Peculiarly, his arms are still limp at his sides, as if he wishes to force them into relaxation. With sudden apprehension, Mei wonders just how much he is in control.
On the outside, he still displays the strict management of his expressions and his body language, but the dangerous aura he emits runs rampant across the room.
Zenshi takes a long, shuddering breath. The suddenness of his sharp inhale startles Mei, along with several others. From the corner of her eye, she spots Delong tensed along the windows and Jinlin frozen in a crouch, back to the glass. No one dares approach, interrupt, or even say a word.
He dips his chin, just slightly.
Abuto leaps to his feet and abruptly crosses in front of Zenshi. He's about to clamp a hand down on the other man's shoulder, but recoils, thinking it unwise. Instead, he gingerly touches Zenshi's forearm, which is also crusted with strange, blackened blood.
"Don't think about it," he says. "I know."
Zenshi almost jerks backward when he realizes Abuto's hand is on his own.
"Give your orders, first," commands Abuto, gesturing in Mei's direction.
Zenshi simply stares.
"Hey, bud, ya listening?" Abuto raises his hand then, hand hovering over the other Yato's shoulder. "I'm gonna place my hand on your shoulder, okay?"
Mei is completely and utterly confused. Abuto regards Zenshi like a spooked horse, like a creature that will take flight or bolt.
He probably will, she figures out. He might snap.
But Zenshi doesn't just snap.
He unravels, slowly, specifically, apprehensively.
She swallows and steps back.
When Abuto places his hand down on Zenshi's shoulder, the dark-haired lieutenant reacts with the violence of a thunderbolt, but the vice-captain is ready to counter. Abuto catches all four attempts to kill with the ease of a swan drifting across a lake.
"You let the fumes get to your head, you idiot," he chastises quietly. "Only a few know, so I guess I can't blame you."
Zenshi mouths something that Mei can't hear, and Abuto shakes his head.
"He called you that? And what, you let it get to your head? You idiot." Abuto's grip on the boy's shoulder is hard, now. "The stupid blood gives off noxious perfumes that supposedly make you go nuts. Apparently, it turns you into our notoriously dumb Danchou, doesn't it?"
"I'm not him, either," snarls Zenshi. Mei wonders if her friend has gone completely insane. The way his eyes flicker from somewhere to nowhere and then to the ground make him disoriented, deranged.
"Look at me," Abuto orders flatly. "Bud, are ya there?"'
He is not. Mei wants to knock the sense back into the lieutenant's head, but realizes that his hands, now balled into fists, are quivering with unseen effort.
"You're either going to calm down or I'm going to hit you so hard you'll see heaven three times before you wake up."
"That would," starts Zenshi, "be rather nice."
"Bud, I'll count to three. One."
"Mei," Zenshi beckons in a strained tone. "Secondary paperwork. You know which one. Make them sign it."
Mei is about to answer, but Abuto says something quietly and Zenshi snaps back violently.
"I am not."
"So you're gonna send her, and let them think you're a coward?"
The moment seems personal. The crewmembers quietly divert their gazes, devoting their attention to their work. Mei is taken aback — why is Abuto goading him? And why is Zenshi so tense?
Zenshi jerks a thumb at himself.
"And what's that?" prods Abuto.
"Proof," hisses the boy — and that's what he looks like, an indignant boy.
"Of?"
Zenshi raises a hand as if to strike, but it falls short because halfway through his swing, Abuto catches his wrist. Almost instantaneously, Zenshi's arm loses all momentum and hangs, with only Abuto grasping his forearm.
"Bud, I need you to go lie down and let the fumes work their way through your system."
"Is that an order?" sneers Zenshi derisively. "Sir?" he adds, just to mock him. The vice-captain takes no heed of the insubordination and merely sighs.
"No, it's a request, you knucklehead."
"Mei, why did I even need to tell you how to do the follow-up?" Zenshi suddenly inquires, turning to her unsteadily.
"Lieutenant, I don't think you're all right."
"He's basically drugged," Abuto explains. "High on blood. Imagine that."
"I'm fine, just let me—"
"Lights out, bud. Let's go." Abuto seizes Zenshi by the arm and drags him to the door. He turns to Mei and barks, "Do that follow-up. When you come back, check on this fella. If he's still a psychopath, come get me. If he's back to normal... Well, still come get me."
"Yes, sir," murmurs Mei, motioning discreetly to her two stoic partners and reluctantly allowing Abuto to pass with their half-unhinged lieutenant.
"Mei," Zenshi throws over his shoulder. He can hardly hold himself up.
"Yes?"
"Look outside."
She turns and looks out the windows, where the glass of the bridge's main control center stretches from floor to ceiling. The ship is slowly maneuvering in space, headed for the Harusame space station.
And in the midst of it all, there they are—
Passing through an asteroid belt.
So a little bit of Mei's POV, and Zenshi going nuts. Don't ever get him high, omg.
Alcohol makes him quieter, hallucinogens and other smokey smokeys will make him go all Yato on your ass, so watch out bruh.
Uh. This officially has as many chapters as Emeralds (status: long long hiatus) does, but probably not even half the words, lol.
Be grateful that these aren't like 17,000,000 words per chapter (lol).
GOING TO BED BYE.