Chapter 5: Revelations
For the past twenty minutes, Inori stood idly beside the window and watched through the gap between the curtains ever since she was ordered by Haruka to keep an eye out for her and Shu as they pack their stuff and prepare to leave the house.
While Shu is hastily stuffing his clothes and other necessities into his luggage which he placed on his bed, he has been wondering what gotten Haruka into such a frenzy that she would suddenly wake him and Inori from their slumber, though it is obvious that it could have something to do with what she discovered from Kurosu's phone.
After neatly arranging his stuff inside his luggage, Shu closes it shut and turns his head to the door just in time to see his stepmother entering his room while carrying a sling bag on her back and placing her hand on the handlebar of her own suitcase.
"Are you done?" Haruka asked anxiously.
"Yes." Shu nodded as he and Inori stared at her.
"Good. I've already booked our flight tickets as well. We must make our way to the airport now." As Haruka turns around however, Shu quickly walks over and grabs her left wrist. She stopped and turned back to her stepson in confusion. "Shu?"
"We're not going anywhere until you tell me what is going on." Shu said sternly to Haruka.
"Shu, we have no-"
"You discovered something from my father's phone, didn't you?" Shu asked flatly as he tightened his grip around Haruka's wrist, causing her to wince. "Tell…me…the truth."
Haruka stared awkwardly at him for a few moments and sighed. "Alright. I will."
After bringing Shu and Inori into her room, Haruka takes Kurosu's phone from her work desk and hands it to her stepson. The three sat together on the side of Haruka's bed and the stepmother told Shu the password to unlock the phone. After doing so, Shu goes to the gallery and sees the thumbnails of the videos Kurosu recorded in the secret facility.
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you anything earlier." Haruka said to Shu as she sat beside him on his left. "By the time I finished watching Kurosu's last video, I was still processing everything he said and recorded. And after writing everything down in my notebook and planning what I should do next, that's when I came to the realization that we must leave."
"Why should we leave?" Shu protested. "Isn't this place already-"
"We have to hide somewhere more isolated." Haruka raised her voice at him before looking at Inori. "For her sake."
"Inori?" Shu uttered as he turned to Inori as well. The pink-haired girl stared at both her assets in confusion for a moment until Shu looked down at Kurosu's phone. As he begins playing the first video, Inori sat close to Shu as she and Haruka watched it along with him. The three could see the late scientist holding up his phone and staring at its camera lens while recording. He pushed the strands of hair away from his eyes and took a deep breath as he stood inside what appeared to be a restroom.
"Hello Haruka. Hello Shu." Kurosu said uneasily to the camera. "I wish I could make my first ever video to the both of you in a long time under better circumstances. But there is something you must know." He paused to take a gulp. "I have been deceived for the last six, almost seven months. Keido lied to me. No. Us. He lied to us…that I was hired by his company to create a vaccine for cancer. But this facility that he brought me into…isn't a medical science facility to develop any type of cure at all." He paused again as he tried to stomach what he was about to say. "It was actually a facility, owned by Matou Industries…to turn the children and teenagers they have brought here into living human weapons. I first learnt that from a girl named Inori Yuzuriha." Kurosu sniffled as he could feel tears starting to form in his eyes. "An innocent…9-year-old girl whom I thought I've cured her from bone cancer. But instead…I was enhancing the serum inside her body that makes her and the other patients function as killing machines."
As Kurosu paused once again to remove his glasses and wipe away his tears, Shu glanced at Inori to see her eyes have widened, and her mouth slightly gape open upon hearing what the late scientist said. The brown-haired boy looks back at his father's phone to see him putting his glasses back on and staring at the camera again with a solemn frown. "I wish…I wish I knew this beforehand. And now…I'm just as guilty as Keido and the other employees of Matou Industries in enhancing these innocent children into more advanced living weapons. But I'm going to make up for it by showing you both what they were doing here." The scientist taps the button on screen to stop the recording.
Shu, Inori, and Haruka spend the next hour watching the other videos Kurosu recorded in the facility. The next two videos they view through are Kurosu showing them and explaining every detail and information regarding the Od serum and how it works on the human DNA on his desktop computer in his cubicle.
In the next video, they see Kurosu secretly filming and zooming his camera through the glass window of a door. Shu, Inori, and Haruka could see three mercenaries, a doctor and a woman dressed in a black suit and pants surrounding a patient who is strapped to a procedure chair by leather belts around his limbs. The doctor proceeds to insert the syringe into his lower left arm and inject Kurosu's improved version of the serum.
"I do not recognize that man in the white coat. He was not among me and the other scientists who first came into this facility back in February. I've never seen him until now." Kurosu whispered.
A few minutes later, Shu, Inori and Haruka see one of the mercenaries slashing his combat knife across the patient's lower right arm. The patient bellows in agony while the others quietly watch the fresh cut on his arm patching itself up within less than thirty seconds.
The doctor stopped the timer in his phone and said to the woman, "Twenty-one seconds. That's faster than the previous version."
"Good." The woman nodded to him.
The fifth video Shu, Inori and Haruka watch is Kurosu holding up his finger in front of his lips while standing behind a corner. He quietly turns around and zooms his camera at Keido, Guin and two masked mercenaries as they all stand at the other side of the hallway.
"Now that all the subjects have been injected with the updated version of the Od serum, have your men prepare the obstacle course." Keido said to them with his hands behind his back. "Within eight days, we will have important business partners coming here to watch them how they perform and fight in the battlefield."
"Yes sir!" Guin and the mercenaries responded in unison right before Kurosu whirls about and stops the recording.
"Business partners?" Shu asked in confusion.
"Watch the next one." Haruka advised.
Shu plays the sixth video and the three see Kurosu standing in front of a metal shelf filled with folders and flipping through the documents in one of them after successfully sneaking into an office in the facility. The pink-haired girl quickly recognized the mugshots on the documents as the same people who watched her and her fellow patients performing in the obstacle course from the viewing gallery that day.
"These people…the business partners that Matou Industries have ties with…they represent terrorist organizations and authoritarian regimes around the world." Kurosu commented before turning to another document. "They are selling these children to them."
"No." Inori suddenly uttered. Shu paused the video as he and Haruka looked back at her to see the pink-haired girl looking dumbfounded with furrowed brows.
"I…I thought they were representatives of peacekeeping forces around the world." Inori said to them. "They told us that."
The three look back down at the phone as Shu resumes the video.
After watching the rest of it, Shu plays the seventh video, and they see Kurosu recording himself while walking through a wide-open area located at another part of the facility.
"I managed to sneak in here after I saw one of the guards entering the password the other day. None of the scientists they hired outside, including me, has ever set foot here before." Kurosu explained. After turning his phone around, he holds it back up and walks over to a few large missiles stacked onto each other at the side of the wide-open room. "As you can see, they are not just producing human weapons. This is something they called…Grail missiles."
Haruka forwards the video for Shu, and they and Inori see Kurosu placing a folder he took from the office the other day on the pile of missiles and opens it to reveal the contents inside it.
"It says here that the contents inside the missiles do not affect anyone injected with the Od serum. Anyone who isn't injected with the serum will die from contact with even a single spore of whatever it is inside these things." Kurosu sighs heavily as he turns the camera around to show the dread in his eyes. "These things can literally make entire nations beg for mercy."
After Kurosu closes the file and picks it up, Haruka forwards the video for Shu again while Inori turns her head away and breathes heavily, trying to overcome the mixture of shock and confusion that is now swirling through her head.
Haruka removes her finger from the screen when she and Shu see the late scientist now walking through another wide-open room. Inori looks back at the phone and the three notice the room is filled with large and tall metal shelves, lined up in vertical rows and containing stacks of metal crates. As Kurosu walks past the shelves, he turns to his left and shows a good view of the crates and the names of the places labeled on them with his phone.
"Hafnir…Funchal…Praia…Port-au-Prince…it isn't just Bautzen. There are many other secret facilities around the world that are mass-producing the Od serum for Matou Industries…and probably other weapons like the Grail missiles." Kurosu said.
After watching the remainder of the video, Shu plays the next one, which is a short three-minute clip of Kurosu secretly holding his phone up above the wall of his cubicle to film several scientists that he worked alongside with for the last seven months being escorted out of the room by some masked mercenaries.
Afterwards, Shu played the ninth video. In it, as Kurosu slowly pushes the door, he steps into a room located at the other side of the facility where his fellow scientists had been taken to. Kurosu turns on the switch behind him to reveal multiple bloodstains and bullet holes displayed on the wall on the right side of the room. Shu and Inori gasp and widen their eyes in horror upon seeing this. As the camera began trembling, Kurosu groans as he felt his stomach is now performing a violent flip-flop, and he quickly plants his other hand over his mouth and stops the recording.
"No!" Inori cried, causing Shu and Haruka to look back at her. They see the pink-haired girl is now staring aghast at them after seeing the horrifying footage they had witnessed. "This can't be! This cannot be true!"
Knowing that she is now trembling and hyperventilating from the overwhelmingly emotional state she had gotten herself in, Shu hands the phone back to his stepmother and gently grabs Inori's hand. He continuously strokes his hand gently across hers until he manages to calm the girl down. As Inori breathed heavily at a normal rate again, she slowly shakes her head and murmured to Shu, "This isn't true. We are defenders…not killers…"
Shu gently strokes his hand down the back of Inori's left shoulder before looking back at Haruka. "Play the next video."
Haruka obliged and did as she was told. When Shu and Inori heard some shouting, they looked back at the phone to see Kurosu secretly filming at the window of the door in front of him where they see a couple of masked mercenaries standing outside. The lights in the room which Kurosu is currently hiding in have been turned off, and the scientist is also in a crouching position so that his pursuers would not spot him.
"The data from Kurosu's computer have been copied and retrieved." One of the mercenaries said to the other.
"Have any of you found Kurosu Ouma yet?" The other mercenary asked.
"No sir."
"Then keep searching! Zouken Matou wants every scientist including him dead!"
"Yes sir!"
Just as the mercenaries make their leave, Kurosu lets out a sigh of relief and stops the recording.
Shu takes the phone back from Haruka's hand and brings up the final video. He plays it, and as soon as it begins, the boy lets out a soft gasp as it starts off with Kurosu slouching on a chair in the facility's security room with a huge pool of blood on his clothes.
His late father coughed out some blood before saying to the camera between his breaths, "H-Haruka…S-Shu…as you can see…I ain't got much…t-time left…I was shot…b-by Keido…ugh! Man, it hurts…" He paused for a moment to take a deep breath. "I guess I should…take the time to record the live fire exercise they had the other day before I…you know…"
Kurosu turns to the computer beside him and brings up a video of the live fire exercise. After filming the first few minutes of the exercise, he stops playing it and brings up the video of Kotomine and Keido's discussion on performing a vivisection on Inori.
"That girl, Inori Yuzuriha, is truly an amazing specimen." Keido said to Kotomine.
"Not even Sakura Matou herself has such a capability." Kotomine rubs his chin. "We need to know more about her. How her body works, and why she is special from the others."
"Are you suggesting vivisection, sir?" Keido asked. Kotomine nods his head.
"Do everything you can to learn more of her. Zouken Matou's dream of creating a better and peaceful world depends on it." Kotomine said. Keido places his hand on his chest and solemnly bows his head to him.
"Yes, Kotomine-sama."
Inori continued staring at the footage in shock as Kurosu closed the recording and looked back at his phone.
"And that's it…that's all I can show you though…" Kurosu suddenly coughed again. "B-b-but…this should be sufficient enough…as evidence…" He groaned in pain. "The reason why I can't show you the entirety of the live fire exercise…is because there was something really special about Inori that makes her stand out from the rest…so special that it made the higher-ups of Matou Industries desire to vivisect her…But I can't tell and show you what it is…not even to my family…because what is so special about Inori…cannot be shared with the rest of the world…All I can say is…I'm going to find Inori after I'm done recording this…and release her…and order her to find you both…when she does…keep her safe…no matter what…she may not be related to us…but she has no one else…and I see her…like a daughter…so please…take good care of her…and whatever happens…I love you, Haruka…I love you, Shu…How I wish we could have gone to Hawaii…" He chuckled at his joke and gave a warm smile to the camera. "Goodbye."
After the video ends, Shu turns off his father's phone and hands it back to Haruka. The boy lowers his head, clasps his hands together and stares quietly at the floor for a few moments, processing everything that he has learned from the videos he watched. Eventually, after what seems like an agonizing long period of time, he bites down his lower lip and closes his eyes, letting the hot tears flow freely down his cheeks and splash onto the floor below.
Now overwhelmed with a mixture of grief, sorrow, and most of all relief, Shu buried his face in his hands and wept uncontrollably as he finally gotten the answers which he had been desperately seeking for the last seven years. Now knowing that his father was not a monster who abducted children and turned them into living weapons after all, the boy could finally pay his respects to the man who loved and raised him.
As she felt fresh tears forming in her eyes too, Haruka moved closer to Shu. The stepmother gently wraps her arms around him and rests her head on top of his, hoping her tight embrace would help ease the boy's inconsolable grief.
While she remained silent, Inori watched her superiors weep in confusion as the display of misery caused memories of Kurosu crying above her after his live demonstration to come flooding back into her mind.
'Is he…proud of his father?' Inori thought.
When Shu finally finished letting out all that he could about twelve minutes later, he wiped away the leftover tears in his eyes and turned his head to his stepmother.
"Whatever your father discovered about Inori…we cannot let it be known to the entire world, even to ourselves. This is why we must go into hiding. Before he left us, I promised your father that regardless of what you think of me, I would take good care of you no matter what. And I swear that I'm going to continue doing that. For you, and Inori." Haruka glanced at Inori before looking back at her stepson. "I'm sorry that we have to move out of this place. But I promise we'll find a new place that is just as peaceful and comfortable as this one. And when we do, we can start over. Be a proper family this time. Just the three of us."
Admittingly, Shu was hesitant at first as he has become accustomed to this house and neighborhood for the last six years. But as soon as he remembers what his late father said about Inori being special from the other human experiments in that facility, he knows that his new roommate must be kept safe from the outside world no matter what. It is his and Haruka's responsibility to look after her now, not only out of obligation to respect his father's dying wish, but also his own desire to never let Inori be used, deceived, and manipulated by anyone again.
"Yeah…" Shu managed to choke out as he gave a nod to Haruka. "The three of us."
Both Shu and Haruka pull themselves into another embrace before looking back at each other.
"Now let's move out." Haruka said firmly.
After making sure one last time that they have taken everything they need for their journey, Haruka, Shu, and Inori step out of the two-storey tall grey house with their luggage, and the brown-haired woman locks the main door for the final time. The three stepped away from the entrance and bowed solemnly to the house, thanking it for its hospitality for the last six years.
The three turn around and walk over to the black sedan car. Shu and Inori place their luggage in the back of the vehicle while Haruka gets inside the driver seat and starts the engine. After closing the trunk, Shu and Inori get in and sit on the passenger seats, and Haruka presses a button on her car key to open the gates. When the metal gates have fully swung wide open, Haruka drives her vehicle out of the boundaries of their former home and turns onto the road. She closes the gates before the three begin their journey to the airport.
As they drive through the residential village, Shu takes a good look at the familiar surroundings, feeling despondent that this may be the last time he will be setting foot here.
Once they drove past the residential buildings and into the small forest, Shu leans back on his seat and sighs before turning his head to Inori, who had been looking out the window beside her and staring blankly into nothingness ever since they first got inside the car. He frowned as he knew the girl was silent ever since the truth about Matou Industries and their real purpose in training her and her fellow patients into unstoppable fighters had undoubtedly taken a huge toll on her. Feeling concerned, he places his hand on her right shoulder, causing the pink-haired girl to snap out of her thoughts and look back at her superior.
"Are you alright?" Shu asked concernedly.
"I…" Inori said bewilderedly before lowering her head. "I just…"
"I get it. The people who trained and raised you back in the facility did not turn out to be who you think they were. I know the feeling too." Shu said. Inori pursed her lips and curled her hands on her lap into fists as the images she saw from Kurosu's phone swirled through her mind again.
"No…" Inori uttered as her pained voice grew noticeably louder. She shuts her eyes and shakes her head before looking back at Shu. "It can't be true. I'm supposed to be a soldier who brings peace and stability. Not someone who brings countries to their…" Inori frowns as she closes her eyes and breathes heavily. "It's not true…"
The two remain silent for about a minute until Inori's breathing return to normal. The girl sadly opens her eyelids and looks back at Shu as she said in defeat, "Shu Ouma…if what Kurosu Ouma uncovered really is true…then I should be disposed of-"
"No!" Shu scolded her, causing Inori to widen her eyes in shock. Even Haruka glanced at them through the rear-view mirror in concern, worried that the girl may contemplate suicide again. "You can't do that!"
"But if it's true that I was meant to bring pain and suffering to others all along, then I-"
"Then I'll prevent you from becoming one!" Shu bellowed. The two stared blankly at each other for a moment before Shu places his hand on top of hers and holds them up in front of them. "Always remember what Kurosu said to you before he died…Live your life normally. Live free. That is your mission now. Your new purpose. And we'll continue discussing this when we arrive at our next destination. Until then…" He leans closer to her as he glares into her eyes. "As your superior, I order you not to die. Understand?"
Feeling obliged to obey him despite the conflicting thoughts still racing through her mind, Inori falls silent once more as she seals her lips and nods her head to the brown-haired boy. Shu lowers her hand and gently places it onto the middle passenger seat before turning away from the girl and looking back to the front. Inori turns back to her front too with her head lowered as they and Haruka continue their journey without saying another word.
Unbeknownst to them however, the same fly-sized drone has been following and hovering above their vehicle ever since they left their former home.
Back in the residential village, the same man in a black hoodie and white cap had been watching them through his phone which he mounted on the front of his motorcycle. Now that his target is about a substantial distance away from him, the man in black starts his vehicle and drives down the road as he journeys his way to Ngurah Rai International Airport.
Sovereign: I would like to thank Darth Necron, LayLay lives and Fana4tiik for reviewing, and Kanius and michelous89 for favoriting and following. Thanks everyone!
Sorry if you find this chapter short after a nearly six-month long wait, because originally it was going to be longer. Until I realized I've made it more than twice of this chapter's length, so I decided to split the rest into another chapter. So, stay tune for the next chapter which will be up within a few days. Until then, read and review! :)