Being one of the world's wealthiest men came with its advantages, even in prison. Gentarou Hongou knew that well. After all he was sitting in a luxurious open-plan living room, bottom resting on the finest of sofas, watching the world go by through a widescreen television. Only a few bars on the windows were there to remind him that the barely-better-than-apes of the world disapproved of his actions. Even after his utter defeat, Gentarou had not a thing to be concerned about.
And Gentarou Hongou was bored.
All his accomplishments had come to nothing. All his ambitions unfulfilled: especially that final one, which would have established him as the greatest scientist the world had produced in the twenty-first century. Now all he had was his wide-screen TV and the chance to watch lesser people's accomplishments. Lesser people's ambitions.
He flicked channel over to a news broadcast. Something about some new religious movement? It seemed utterly irrelevant, at first, but then the footage switched to a press conference given by the religion's supreme leader.
Was that the brat? Junpei? Gentarou could only tell because the elaborate vestments the young man was wearing – still somewhat uncomfortably – had a colour scheme patterned after the garish cyan and the black-and-red chequer he had worn during the Nonary Game. So this was where he'd ended up? Gentarou would never have guessed.
Junpei apologized for something or other that Gentarou had no context. He promised that things were mending, and hope for the future. All the things that, as head of Cradle, Gentarou had made subordinates do for him at these sorts of apology press conferences. Until the last one.
It was an interesting curiosity, but it seemed to have nothing to do with Gentarou Hongou. That, of course, was the most important factor.
But then Junpei unveiled something on a plinth next to him: the main symbol of his new faith. Gentarou saw a painting, the image constructed from a number of black and white shapes. At first they looked like just a random collection of abstract blobs, and Gentarou scoffed. And halfway through that breath, something clicked inside his mind. Those previously abstract shapes reaching out and connecting to each other and forming something whole – something with meaning. Funyarinpa.
Gentarou's brain wasn't supposed to be able to do that. He tried it again. Yes: there once again were the meaningless components, and as he stared they coalesced into a coherent concept once more. He was actually able to make that happen. For this first time, only with this Funyarinpa; one day, for anything he would put his mind to.
o-0-o
Gentarou Hongou smiled to himself with a sincerity he hadn't had for quite some time. It had taken over a decade, and only through means entirely unexpected. But, somehow, his grand experiment had accomplished its goal after all.