Chapter 8 – Waterfall / Fire Rising
While driving back, Yuri found his thoughts settling on the gray clouds above. When they went in the store it had been sunny. Just as a lot had transpired outside while they were grocery shopping, even more had transpired inside, transformations lurking around in mysterious forms. He could not place where this perception was coming from, yet he it came all the same: their trip to Yum Yums was a precursor of sorts, either an axis point upon which their lives were about to spin, or the surface above which they were destined to spin.
Olivia Walkins was going to save them. This he knew. There was no sensible context or logic behind it, but he felt as though something made her trustworthy. Certain people, he reflected while stopping at a red light, had such great souls (or perhaps just such thin skin) that their character was transparent and visible right on the surface of their faces or in the tone of their voices. This was not to say he had Ms. Olivia figured out, not by any means, but that something deeper than the surface level questions and ambiguities had been derived from their simple encounter. He did not realize this right away, but like the moisture in the air, this sense was thick in him.
Yuri recalled, in particular, the young woman he had been dating during his later university years, the one who belonged to the family of vintners, with whom he had shared his first glass of wine. She was such a human, whose mind and heart were easily found. The mysteries that continued to surround her, largely the intricacies, were what fueled his desire to spend more time with her. He wanted to know her: The good girl who was always serious, who trusted her personal entertainment only with a few—the girl who spent her time helping out others instead of letting herself be helped. She was everywhere for everyone but herself, and for herself she had the awkward yet elegant Yuri Petrov.
They met when the young woman had the misfortune of misplacing her keys. He found her under the rain. She had been searching her purse along the sidewalk.
"Thanks," she said, quickly, after he let her move under his umbrella. She found the key rather quickly inside her purse. "Mr.—?"
"Yuri Petrov," he answered.
She nodded and smiled at him, and he had no real expression.
"I'm Vidalia." She was still smiling, and she offered her hand.
He took it. "Like the onion?" He smirked.
"Yeah, like the onion. Haha." She looked down at her feet.
"Are you going to make me carry all the groceries in, or…?"
Yuri was brought back by Yomotsu's voice and cut the engine. He rose from the vehicle, went to the backseat, and grabbed a few bags by their plastic loops. He looked over at Yomotsu, who was taking from the passenger side dedicatedly. He did not seem to be quite like Vidalia. The jury was still up on whether he too was like an onion. An onion, it is true, has many layers, but each layer is of the same essence. Its outside is easily peeled away, and what is true on the out, is true on the in. Such was Vidalia, whose intimacies were of the same character of her business relationships. It was all just a matter of degree.
Yomotsu, however, was still a curiosity. He could not shake the feeling that there was more to this man than what appeared immediately, that within him, there was more than just some delusional unemployed man in his thirties who ran around in tights and claimed to be a hero of righteousness. Yuri wondered whether he was just overestimating Yomotsu and that perhaps all there really was to him was clear on the surface, but sometimes, when he wondered that, he would begin to start judging not Yomotsu's character but his own.
Regardless, the put away groceries. That is a safe thing to do, even when the person you are unloading groceries with could be your worst enemy or future destroyer. There was no serious attachment in that. Yuri was glad Yomotsu was blind, even if just for a moment; this way, he would never know how much he found himself looking at the man and studying him and scrutinizing him and questioning him in his thoughts.
The reports had come to Yuri's attention just a few months prior. Consistent reports of a vigilante crime fighter who called himself a "hero of justice" in the small town of Graceville. For so long, Sternbild had been the hub of heroes, and now from somewhere else on the globe a hero was surfacing, a hero with no connection to those with NEXT powers. This hero was acting not on corporate sponsorship but on a self-described dedication to "true justice."
His investigation could only go so far in Sternbild, and so he set off to Graceville. He never intended to find such an intriguing listing for a roommate, something so perfectly congruent with the reports of the 12th's code of justice. What he found in Yomotsu, however, was something far from his expectations. Instead of hero that might impress him, he found someone even more pathetic than the worst of the heroes back home. The only difference he saw, aside from a deficit in competency, was that Yomotsu was jeered at instead of celebrated. The newspaper article that surfaced about the 12th's capturing of Wi-Fi Man referred to him as "public nuisance #2," second only to the troublemakers he took down. He was no hero, Yuri now realized—he was merely a fool for justice, an adherent to an inferior and weak code.
"That was very successful!" Yomotsu rubbed his hands together and looked toward Yuri. "But I don't think I can wait any longer—I must show you your new downstairs area!"
It took a few seconds for Yuri to figure out what he was referring to. "Oh." He smiled a little. "Sure. I'm excited, too."
Yomotsu lifted his hands in the air and let out a squeal. "At last!" He then rushed past Yuri, darted out of the kitchen and through the living room. A door in the hallway, which had been kept shut up until now, was a short distance between the bathroom and the spare bedroom, on the wall opposite the bathroom. Yomotsu opened the door and, with a slight bow, gestured for Yuri to go first.
The latter did so, to be polite, and found that there was no need for a light while descending the stairs. A soft blue glow was coming from somewhere below, illuminating the way. "Of course, you don't have to keep it this way," Yomotsu parenthetically added as he crept from behind. "And if it's a hassle, I'll just redo it again… it'll just take another week or so, but it can be done!"
Yuri pushed a chuckle out. "I'm sure it'll be fine…" He reached the bottom of the stairs.
A grand master bed sat in the leftmost corner of the room, fitted with a silk bedspread that was black on the outside and light green on the other. Similarly, the pillows were reversible with the same colors present on the outside and inside. Next to the bed was a coat rack, which had a long white robe suspending from it, previously not part of Yuri's belongings. The initial "Y" was present on one side, with the initial "P" present on the other, both in light green lettering.
A round, glass table sat a short distance from the bed, towards the center of the room. Extension cords allowed for this to be a hub for various electronic devices. On the table was a glass of wine under a Power Rangers coaster. Within direct view from the table, on the same back wall on which the backboard of the bed was resting, there was a large screen suspended across from the stairs. A remote sat on the table, next to the wine glass.
The source of the blue light was now apparent: the perimeter of the ceiling featured little lights that resembled Christmas lights, yet they bore no holiday seasonality and gave off a soft and calming blue hue. Against the walls, around the floor, there were more of the same lights, which right now were off. Yuri noticed another remote on the glass table. It was simpler in design and featured two dials, which could adjust the brightness of the lights on the ceiling and the lights on the floor independently, depending on the desired mood.
A giant glass case took up the rightmost wall, inside which flowed from the top down a waterfall of sorts. A scenic, forest background, with an ever-flowing artificial waterfall coming out from an inside rock structure. The waterfall was in the center of the glass, wherein the water silently spiraled into a drain, to be sucked up and reused in the waterfall. It was something Yuri had never before seen, which his eyes rested on for a long time.
From that middle glass table, there was an elegant bed already furnished for him to the left; a large screen opposite the stairs; an artificial waterfall to his right; and blue lights that could be turned on or off to suit the mood. Three chairs were around the glass chair, and aside from this, there was also a dresser on the same wall the door opened into, a short distance to the left, almost opposite the foot of the bed. On the other side of the door, there was a tall wardrobe.
"Yomotsu…" Yuri half-whispered. "This is incredible…"
Yomotsu tilted his head slightly and scratched behind his ear. "Again, if there's anything you want me to change, I can…"
"It's perfect." Yuri hushed him. He went to the table and ran his fingers along its surface, as he made his way around. "You did not have to do this… What if I do not decide to stay here long? What if I suddenly decide to leave, after you did all this?"
Yomotsu stepped further into the room, and his body was lit by the blue. "If you're going to be here for any length at all, I want you to enjoy the time," he answered. "If you stay only for a short while, you are still my guest. And it is the right thing to ensure that one's guest enjoys his time. That's hospitality. And if you stay longer than a short while, then you'll return whatever I invest in you, and none of it will have been for naught."
Yuri looked into the glass. "Yeah." He looked towards Yomotsu. "If you don't mind, I'd like some time alone…"
Yomotsu froze for a moment and then, loosening a bit, responded with a dull, "Oh." He slouched forward a little and let his arms hang down. He turned around. "I'll be upstairs, if you need anything."
Yomotsu could be heard going up the stairs when, halfway, Yuri said, "Thank you."
There was no response. Yuri did not know it then, but he would find out later that there had been a smile hidden from view.
At some point in the night, Yuri had resurfaced to grab his belongings from the spare bedroom and some food. Yomotsu had heard the noise from outside of his room, through his closed door.
Yomotsu did not have any stirrings of hunger until hours later, after he finished what he had been working on: a continued investigation into the life of Yuri Petrov, completely sifting through all of the records he could access and safely crack into. The search led him to the he same old leads about his father, but no new useful information was gleaned.
Apparently he had dated a girl named Vidalia, like the onion, who committed suicide within a year of when they began dating. Evidence allowed him to approximate the start of their relationship, but there was little else to glean. The most useful thing he could find was this picture that surfaced when digging through Yuri Petrov's university years, of him and Vidalia raising a glass together and earning the title of "cutest couple" for a certain week of the college's newspaper publication. Every other mention of Petrov was purely academic. While Vidalia appeared often in photos, nothing could be gleaned from the pictures other than that she was incredibly photogenic.
Ironically, after this research, Yomotsu would unthinkingly snack on some sweet onion and brown rice Triscuits while his pasta reached al dente on the stove. He hoped the pasta would override the remnants of the Green Dream still swimming in his system. Since getting home, the ill feelings had resurged. At first, he thought staying still in his room might allow his system to adjust, but then he figured food might be just what he needed.
It was not. He had to put most of the pasta back in the fridge for leftovers tomorrow. Even spaghetti could not cure him. If eating did not work, he figured there was another option: exercise. He grabbed a light jacket, because the wind was a bit chilly and there was a chance for rain, and headed out the door.
The grey sky from earlier in the day had darkened and soured as the night progressed, yet still no rain had fallen. It was through an uncomfortable state of suspension that Yomotsu walked. The streetlights seemed brighter than usual on a night like this, but it could have been less about the weather and more about how much more appreciated they were after their temporary absence. He could not see the bright lights, but he could feel their warmth. Wi-Fi Man was not able to plunge the city into darkness, and that gave Yomotsu some satisfaction.
"And Yuri really seemed to enjoy his new living situation," Yomotsu told himself. "Even if…"
Yomotsu thought he heard something behind him, and he brought himself to a complete stop. Several cars passed by him, and then he continued uninterrupted.
"Even if he doesn't know that I'll be watching him through the screen…"
There was another sound, and this time Yomotsu turned around. Had he the ability to see, he would have witnessed a shadow dart quickly past his view, before settling behind a streetlight.
"Is someone there?" Yomotsu asked aloud. Then, shortly after he asked this question, he found himself bending forward, his face contorted by the pain shooting through him—a pain not caused by any figure in the night, but by the malady inside his body. "Ughhh… Green Dream…"
He was suddenly lifted back up by a gloved hand at the back of his neck.
"Yuri Petrov… Can we believe in him?"
Yomotsu, trying to hold himself back from vomiting, asked weakly after a moment, "Wh-whaat?"
"There is a fire rising!"
The figure slammed Yomotsu forward, driving his face straight into the concrete. He felt a knee press into his back, holding him in place. The voice continued, "The darkest night has found you, Yomotsu Hirasaka. I have been following you, investigating you, and tracking down your exploits as the 12th. I admit, you're good."
He paused. "But you're not good enough. You're the hero that Graceville could use, but you're not the one it's going to get. It is time for you to leave this place."
Yomotsu, reeling from his disorientation and then from being thrown violently to the ground, muttered confusedly, "Wh-who are you, again...?"
The figure sighed and pressed his knee deeper into Yomotsu's back. "I'm Batman!"
Yomotsu closed his eyes and, a little frustrated, responded, "No. I'm actually serious. Who are you?"
The figure growled back, "I'm Batman! And you are too serious! I am here to offer Graceville back to its citizens!"
He would have shaken his head if "Batman" had not decided to press his face into the concrete with his hand. Still, Yomotsu was able to respond in a dismissive tone, "You're not even quoting the movies right, and if you're really Batman, then you should stick with just Batman's lines. I mean, at least—"
Yomotsu was not able to finish, because his attacker had hoisted him up and hurled him swiftly over his shoulder. His gut being pressed into by the man's plated shoulders, Yomotsu nearly spilled his stomach's contents. He heard only a few more words before passing out of consciousness and being carried away by the man in a Batman suit and cape:
"And… here… we… depart…!"