Huge thank you to my friend for beta reading this chapter! It was a hard one and they really helped me liven this up in a way that feels natural ✌️?
Satisfaction from a full stomach eased the anonymous man's most immediate worries; he was clothed, fed, he had supplies, no open or infected wounds… All things considered, his current condition was favorable. The issue of his memory, and indeed the lack of a name, could not be rectified immediately─he had to make peace with that and take one day at a time. For now, at least, his life was calm. There was nothing to panic about.
Then the fine hairs at the back of his neck had the gall to stand straight and reject that peaceful sentiment. His heart leapt with a sudden flare of resonance.
Shameful.
He tried to ignore the feeling this time, stamp it down and refuse to entertain what would likely amount to nothing. Maybe with enough discipline his body would stop reacting like a trilling housecat every time another zoanthrope even vaguely entered his vicinity.
Behind him came the pitter patter of small rubber soles against pavement and he knew what to expect before he even looked. That little girl from before, a toddler, halted in front of him to stare with wide curious eyes. Her thin dark hair was pulled up into two small pigtails with beaded ties that matched her colorful summer frock. For a moment he was as mystified as her, frozen in a confused sort of admiration before he snapped back to reality. An urgent glance around their immediate area soothed his fear for this unattended child, as the man and woman he saw with her earlier hurried over to meet them.
"Don't run off like that, Miaka," her father gently chided while lifting the girl up.
Miaka's mother trailed behind and she gave a small huff, "Sorry about her."
"It's fine," the nameless man said, smoothing down the back of his neck.
The girl's attention hadn't left him even then; she clutched at the front of her father's shirt to ground herself in his arms, perched against his side, but her eyes focused on the only other zoanthrope between them.
"That's just a man, sweetie," Miaka's father assured, then both parents took the opportunity to look him over. They could see he was injured, of course─the wraps, bandages, and bruising over his arms and face stood out plain as day─but neither of them appeared distressed. Given recent events, a sight like that probably wasn't out of the ordinary for them. "Did you want to say hi?"
Her mother seemed as amused by the situation as she was apologetic. "She's usually so shy… You must have something she likes."
At this, the girl's father made a knowing sound. "Are you hungry? You wanted some of his food?"
"Maybe," the nameless man capped an emptied water bottle and packed up his lunch box.
Miaka shook her head, clattering the plastic beads of her hair ties.
"Is it the hat, kiddo?" Her father grinned. "You like the Hokkaido Fighters?"
"I don't think it's about baseball," her mother laughed.
"Could be anything," he offered lamely, while attempting to eject himself from the conversation as quickly as possible.
Pleasant as this family was, the desire to figure out what their daughter couldn't articulate was an unnecessary burden to him. Each inquiry from her parents was met with rejection in the form of infantile babbling and frustrated whines as her small hands made vague gestures. He wasn't versed enough in baby talk to decipher any of it except want.
After yet another failed interpretation, the little girl let out a shrill cry and wriggled around unhappily in her father's grasp.
"Really, sorry again," her mother bowed, "She's not usually like this."
"It's nothing to apologize for."
"What's that?" The girl's father lifted his head, ignoring his child's frustration in favor of something distant.
"Not you, too." Annoyance rang clear in his wife's voice. "What's what?"
"Over there… Some kind of street performance?"
"I don't think so?"
With the couple occupied, the injured man situated the rucksack on his shoulders and stood. Only when he was on his feet did he bother peering over at what caught the parents' attention. Towards the end of the block a congregation had formed in a tight circle, though they were too far from the group to hear anything over the music.
"You want to go see?" Miaka's father asked her. He took one of his daughter's hands and gently waved it; she looked at him, finally, and gave a low hum. "Let's check it out."
"Honestly…" The mother sighed as her husband began walking with their child in tow.
She offered their wayward acquaintance a bemused smile and gave silent permission for him to follow. He hesitated. This was the perfect opportunity to leave, no questions asked, but instead he dawdled like an indecisive fool. His curiosity was piqued and he had yet to decide on his next destination. Joining their little investigation gave a simple enough excuse to linger in the resonance without raising suspicion. Exposure to that sensation could be good for both of them, especially with how this little one reacted when it was taken away.
Disposing of his trash along the way, it became clear this congregation was noisier than it initially appeared. On the field ahead stood a steadily accumulating crowd encircling a smaller group with much more variance in complexion and hair color. Rather than a performance, the individuals inside this circle held their hands up to establish distance from the group that surrounded them. Each face in the crowd was strained by tension, their voices overlapping as the atmosphere grew increasingly restless.
"What's going on?" The girl's mother placed a hand on her husband's shoulder, raising up on her toes to get a better view.
"It doesn't look good," her husband sighed. "They want to enforce an earlier curfew."
From his current vantage, the nameless man among them could see that the larger crowd was made up of civilians and those in the center were a group of uniformed officers. Curfew had been broadcast on the news as scheduled around dusk, which would give plenty of time for anyone hoping to enjoy local festivities, but the authorities here expected everyone to leave within the next hour instead. By the sounds of it they weren't giving much of an explanation for why.
Nearly a head taller than most of the crowd, he craned his neck to get a clear view of the uniforms. Black fabric and kevlar vests, reinforced against bullets and blades─claws and fangs as well, no doubt. They weren't local police, dressed more like a riot guard, and the front of their gear was marked with an acronym he didn't recognize.
"S.S.C.P." he read aloud. "What does that stand for?"
Miaka's father looked astonished by the question, but answered regardless. "Special Security Corps Police. They're that task force the government brought in a while back."
Suzuki mentioned them, he recalled; more widely known as Security Corps, a private defense contractor built from mercenaries, ex-military, and trained volunteers. They were assigned by the UN to ease tensions between human and zoanthrope citizens while combating the Liberation Front's terrorism around the world.
He lowered the brim of his cap to avoid any of the officers' eyes.
Complaints from the crowd ranged between irritation with the sudden change of plans to resentment of the S.S.C.P.'s efforts overall. These officers were outsiders unaware of the Summer Festival's importance to the community, some protested. Others decried their prolonged presence in the city, arguing that none of the recent disturbances would have happened if Security Corps had better control of the situation.
"You're policing us more than those monsters!" one man shouted. "Why don't you just lock up the beasts like you're supposed to?" A chorus of jeers bellowed from citizens who had grown too comfortable with the tragedies around them.
Miaka's father sighed. "I guess we won't get to enjoy today as much as we hoped, if they're still worried about beasts running loose."
Warily, the nameless man looked at the little girl beside him, held in her father's arms. The only zoanthrope in her immediate family and neither parent seemed aware─which left plenty of room for ignorance to fester.
Even through all of the excitement, her attention rarely wavered; the girl's dark eyes moved around his face, trying to see past every obstruction to his features and, he guessed, understand why she was so interested in a complete stranger. When she found no answers, the girl strained to reach across her father. Her small hand grasped at the bandaged man's short white sleeve, gently tugging at the fabric and tapping his bruised arm. At this, her mother intervened.
"Miaka, stop bothering him…" She took their daughter from her husband, who was far more engrossed with the crowd than his wife or child. "Sorry, I don't know what's gotten into her."
"It's fine," he dismissed in spite of the knot that formed between his brows.
There were more important things to worry about, like removing themselves from a crowd that was quickly growing agitated. Or wondering why all of the music stopped.
The pause between tracks, which normally lasted only ten, maybe fifteen seconds, had now extended well past sixty. In the absence of song, a sudden roar broke over the loudspeakers and silenced the commotion. Gasps and murmurs issued from the crowd. Pedestrians beyond them paused where they stood or pulled over their bikes. Even passing cars slowed down to investigate the disturbance.
From the treeline separating this section of park from the streets, a small herd of beastmen descended. Some dozen intruders were visible on the block, donned in black combat boots and featureless green jumpsuits with stuffed pockets. They carried packed tool belts around their waists and each of them sported the head of a different animal. One of the intruders, a brown bear, pulled a radio receiver from the clip on their chest and sent harsh feedback through the park's sound system.
PARTY'S OVER, CRETINS!
An assortment of roars carried through the park─bears, tigers, wolves─any predatory creature the average human would find fearsome.
VERMIN DON'T HAVE THE RIGHT TO CELEBRATE. THE ZOANTHROPE LIBERATION FRONT WILL REMIND YOU PATHETIC HUMANS TO COWER BEFORE THE MIGHTY BEASTS YOU FEAR!
Another round of roars sounded off in support of their squad leader's declaration.
Their captive audience froze. Brakes squealed as vehicles crawled to a stop all around the block, treating these shadowy interlopers as a misguided curiosity. Dozens of people trapped between fight or flight amid predators, all collectively holding their breath.
Glass shattered across the pavement, erupting liquid flame. Shouts rang out, followed by several more flaming bottles exploding on the ground. Anything in the splash zone immediately caught fire and the liquor that fueled the blaze eagerly soaked into any stray fabric it could.
All hell broke loose.
People slammed into one another, recklessly shoving to get away. The crowd scattered like a cloud of wasps. Screaming, roaring, crashing; fire, glass, and clumsy, panicked gunshots from the security team in charge of public safety.
The nameless man's body snapped into action on the first molotov. One arm went for the mother and child─shielding, leading. She cried out for her husband and he only glanced back for a second to make sure the other man followed. Everyone around them tripped over themselves and each other, pushing and scrambling to avoid being trampled or shot.
The treeline which should have made for an easy escape had been intentionally blockaded by the militant group's entry. He routed the family to the end of the block, away from the riot, straight for the intersection, and took a hard turn into the street. They hurried between parked cars, drivers gawking in fear or stupidity, weaving around bumpers and bikes and other people fleeing the scene.
Something hard struck the heavy bag on his back, throwing his weight off balance. Fractured ribs collided with the side of a car and his vision grayed as he let out a pained shout. The mother shrieked─she wasn't under his arm anymore. He clutched at the metal canopy and pulled himself atop the car's hood. The thin metal popped and dented underfoot as the driver cursed each step it took to clear the engine's length. His shoes met the sidewalk just as his eyes found the couple who rounded off behind the same car. He pushed ahead of the group and none of them stopped running until they rounded down an alley.
"Shit!" The father shouted, stumbling to a halt. "Shit, it's a dead end. What do we do now?!"
"Nothing," their wounded guide hissed.
"What do you mean nothing?!" The other man's voice threatened to crack.
"None of them have any reason to come this way. We can hear everything going on out there, we're covered from gunfire, and look." He pointed above their heads, indicating fire escape landings that crawled up one of the buildings like wrought ivy. "We're not trapped."
"Then shouldn't we─?"
"No," he warned through clenched teeth. With an arm around his middle, he tried to compress his aching ribs. "Just shut up and stay low…"
The injured man removed his backpack to shed the excess weight and bulk. He let his upper back rest against the wall and closed his eyes. Carefully, he assessed how much he could expand and contract his lungs without aggravating his ribs. Shallow breaths for now. When he looked again, the parents were watching him like lost children themselves. He gestured for them to move further into the alley, near the back, then flattened his palm against the air. They huddled down with their little girl as directed while their guide stayed near the entrance.
Crouched against the wall, he listened to the turbulence outside. There was so much noise between every shout and scream; the speaker feedback, honking car horns and blaring alarms, sporadic gunfire. Tight clusters of buildings made every sound bounce and echo down the alley into a directionless cacophony. Sirens added to the mix, impossible to tell whether they were local law enforcement, emergency medical response, or the fire department. In his other ear drilled the urgent cries of a distressed infant, her mother's desperate attempts to hush the girl, and a disheveled man's panicky rants.
"Dammit… Why can't they just leave us alone?" the girl's father mumbled to himself. "It's not fair… How are we supposed to live like this? These ZLF freaks won't stop until they burn the whole city down."
"Be quiet!" he snarled at the father, shutting the entire family up. "That wasn't the ZLF."
"But they said─"
"They're not zoanthropes."
"You saw them. They were animals!"
"Masks."
The girl's father blinked several times. "What?"
"They were masks!"
"But─the sounds? Didn't you hear them?"
"Recordings."
"How do you know?"
"The audio looped. It was the same roar every time."
The other man sputtered, balling his fists. "That wouldn't have fooled the guards!"
"They didn't even move their damn mouths!" Never mind that zoanthropes in beast form possessed the vocal cords of an animal; clear speech like theirs would be impossible. "They probably recorded zoo animals, or downloaded clips… Must have had some kind of soundboard at the ready when they hijacked the speaker system."
Miaka's father went quiet, an obvious tremble to his upper body as he tried to regulate each harsh breath through his nostrils. "You're one of them, aren't you?"
The nameless man scoffed, pulling himself up to stand with a hand against the wall.
"You're working with them! How else would you know all of that?"
"You don't know what the hell you're talking about," he seethed through the ache in his ribs.
"Why are you doing this?!" The father raised his voice, "Haven't you beasts done enough?"
"Honey!" his wife pleaded.
"I don't care what you think," the accused man snapped. "Zoanthropes didn't just open fire on a pack of civilians! You want to believe we're all monsters, then what about her?!"
The girl's father staggered away from the stranger's wide reach, only to realize this injured man's arm had not been wielded as a threat but a gesture, toward his daughter who fussed tearfully in the cradle of her mother's arms.
He recoiled from the very notion. "Don't look at her. She's got nothing to do with this!"
"The hell she doesn't! What are you gonna do when she grows up, huh?"
"What are you saying?!"
"Wait!" her mother shouted.
Both men quieted for the woman knelt on the ground. Her daughter cried, red faced and wet cheeked, arms outstretched toward neither of her parents.
"You mean… she's─?" The woman's eyes frantically searched the stranger's face for answers.
"Oh please," the other man sneered. "Don't entertain this!"
"Let him answer!"
Her husband faltered like he'd been smacked across the face.
She looked down at her child, reaching out for the stranger that led them to safety. "That's why Miaka's been so interested in you… isn't it? You're… different… and she knows you're alike?"
"That's crazy! How could she possibly─"
"She can feel it." Miaka's father clamped his mouth shut beneath the taller man's glare. "Zoanthropes can sense each other. That's how I know there weren't any in that group."
"But─" the girl's father staggered, losing some of his bluster, "─why would anyone do something like that if they're not…?"
"Shut your mouth and think for once," he growled.
Some people would do anything to justify more violence when tensions were high, the stranger made clear. Strike with a false flag operation while the iron's hot and anyone caught in the crossfire would not only be an acceptable casualty but a valuable loss to justify their hate. Textbook results of stochastic terrorism, fear mongering against even the zoanthropes who wanted nothing to do with the ZLF.
And wasn't that what sparked the Liberation Front's movement in the first place?
The other man seemed to have all but shut down while attempting to grapple with reality. His wife, with their tearful child in hand, cautiously stepped toward their injured chaperon. Each one stifled the young girl's cries a little more, until an approving babble jogged the father from his stupor.
"Don't─" he took a single step after his wife.
She ignored his limp protest and approached this zoanthrope with the same vigilance that kept him rooted in place, jaw tight with apprehension. Her heels sounded louder than anything else, muffled only by the agitated blood pounding in his ears.
The woman stopped closer than he expected, close enough for tiny hands to reach for his face. He flinched─then allowed the intrusion. Miaka's small fingers wrapped around the frame of his sunglasses, clumsily lowering them. Red eyes locked with the dark almond of a fearless little girl and her much more anxious mother. With a dip of his head Miaka removed his sunglasses completely. She cooed, and the dread in her mother's eyes muted into fascination. That, too, became clouded by a sheen of tears.
"This isn't the first time she's done this…" the woman muttered against her daughter's hair.
Her husband's shoulders went slack. "What do you mean?"
She shuddered, fighting to keep the dam up on her emotions while gathering her thoughts. "It's like she just picks someone and nothing else matters. She won't even look at me sometimes but here she is, smiling for another stranger… It hurts. I've stayed up at night wondering what I'm doing wrong. What am I missing? Am I─am I a bad mother?"
"Of course you're not…" her husband protested weakly.
"I'm so scared she's going to run off one day… Every time she chooses a random person in the park, at the store, on the bus, it feels like─" Miaka's mother heaved a weary sigh, "like she'd be happier with them. With anyone else…"
The couple spoke to one another as though behind a veil. Her husband lifted a passive hand, unable to connect, while his wife wiped her own eyes. The wounded man, a stranger to them both, was out of place here─an intrusive spectator meddling in their lives.
"All this time I thought that I─that we─were doing something wrong. That we were failing her somehow, even though we've been trying our best. But you're saying…" her breath hitched, choking back another well of tears. Miaka's mother seemed suddenly aware of who she was talking to, one of the very same strangers she's been so worried about, then hurried to collect herself with a muffled apology. Still flushed and puffy eyed, much like her daughter had been not long ago, but the woman straightened her shoulders and met the red eyed man's gaze. "Y-You're saying that's not true…? That she's actually been sensing something that we can't?"
He remained quiet all the while, expression stony. Those vibrant red eyes trailed down from a mourning mother to her smiling child, and he nodded firmly. The woman whimpered, dampening the last embers of his smoldering anger.
Miaka's father had seemed disgusted by the mere possibility she could be a zoanthrope when it came from his own mouth, but with her mother's acceptance it was difficult to say what either of them thought now. Was he witnessing two people grieving their young daughter's lost humanity? Had he condemned this girl to a life of persecution from her own flesh and blood just to prove a point?
"W-What does it feel like?" she sniveled. "When you sense each other…"
Resonance bore such a deep nuance; he only managed the barest grasp of it himself in the last forty-eight hours and struggled to describe the feeling even to another zoanthrope. The sensation was far too complex to properly unpack for this poor woman, and her daughter was too young to even remotely understand it as anything more than pleasant.
If he had to put it in a word, "Home."
She held Miaka close, weeping into her daughter's hair. This, more than anything, broke the girl's fixation on another zoanthrope. She looked at her mother, babbled quietly, and let the stranger's sunglasses fall to the ground. Those same curious hands began to gently pat her mom's head, mussing the woman's straight hair in an attempt to comfort her.
The girl's father slumped, causing a muffled clatter as he caught himself on a nearby trash can.
"That… can't be─can it?" All that nervous energy from before seemed to have bled out of him instead of tears. "I thought this was just some childhood quirk… Something she'd grow out of if we just gave her enough time, but─" he covered his face with a trembling hand and faced his wife while fighting with his own emotions. "I can't believe I didn't realize how much this was weighing on you, too…"
"Feel bad about it later." The red eyed man retrieved his sunglasses from the ground, only giving them a quick turnover to check for damage. "It's quiet now… We need to move."
S.S.C.P. is the official acronym of a group known as Security Corps in the English localization of BR2, mentioned at the beginning of Jenny's story when she's talking to Gado. The initials S.S.C.P. are shown on Gado's vest in his BR2 V-Jump page and Special Security Corps Police is my best guess of what this might stand for. If anyone finds a more appropriate reading, or the actual translation, please let me know! I'll replace it in this chapter.
