Broken Ties

Hearing such things from Ayano gave her a bit of a relief. She still hesitated greatly on what sort of people that they were. Even the best intentions could still lead to the worst outcomes. And she wasn’t about to judge the whole group just off of Ayano. She still wanted to know what they wanted to do as an end goal. Resisting or fighting, whatever it was against the UN was merely the first step. A difficult and lengthy one that wouldn’t be settled in any reasonable sort of time, but there had to be plans after.

Saki followed the woman out of the room. It still surprised her to see that the whole group lived in the apartment. They had a very different arrangement than Hiroshi’s group. However, he had the benefit of having someone with a very unique skill set. They had no such thing. They had no clue to what happened, who caused it or why. They had to do things on their own and she could be impressed by that.

Ayano clicked the elevator button, giving them a few moments to wait. Saki doubted that the apartment was so busy as the wait would be long. However, it did give her the perfect chance to ask. “What’s with all of this? You don’t just come by something like this.”

Leaning against the wall, she looked back down the hall. “A little bit of luck and good opportunity.”

“That’s not really an answer.” She wondered if she didn’t want to explain something that might have a less than shining example of who they are. There were several different ideas that went through her head on how they did. Some of them were less than ideal.

“It’s nothing like what you’re thinking. We didn’t kick out the people living here. Quite the opposite, we were invited.”

“Invited?” The elevator door opened with a clear chime. They entered together and Ayano set the elevator for the eighth floor. Saki wondered what Ayano wanted to show her. She already got a small taste of their situation when she woke up.

Crossing her arms, the serious Ayano remained in the conversation. “The owner of this apartment complex invited us. He wanted protection.”

“Against the UN?”

“That’s right.” The chimes of the elevator moving down ticked off. Ayano remained silent for some reason waiting until the door opened. The hall looked no different than any of the other halls Saki had seen thus far.

All of that changed though as they walked around a loop in the hall. Things suddenly opened up into a large central shaft going through the center. Judging from the shape and size, it was a cylindrical building that stretched from the ground to the height of the apartment and connected out to the other buildings in the complex. Glass and metal railings closed in each of the floors as elevators ran up and down the wide open space. Around the lower floors shops could be seen open and busy.

Everywhere Saki looked there were people moving around talking and looking like they had normal lives. Things seemed to not be affected at all by the outside world. This was the way that she remembered things before all hell came raining down. It made her smile a little to see that there was still something of the old world held on within the chaos.

Ayano leaned against the railing looking down at the people milling around. The thick sounds of a crowd with people’s voices filled the whole building. A seemingly forgotten, yet simple noise made such a difference. “Starting to understand a little what we’re fighting for?”

Chapter 371 – Broken Ties

Saki stared out at the people lost in the entrancing sounds that she had surprised herself to have already forgotten. It was familiar and yet foreign. In the world that they lived in now such a thing shouldn’t have existed, yet it did. It almost made her want to cry. “…yes…”

They stayed watching life pass by for more time than they could remember before Ayano started to move again. Saki pulled herself away and walked alongside her. “It wasn’t always like this. We put a lot of work in to get things to this point.”

“How did all of this happen? I didn’t think there were places like this.”

“There might not be others like this or there may be a lot. It’s hard to know. It all started when the UN forces arrived.” Ayano guided them up stairs to reach the tenth floor of the central building. Windows gave a good look out on the city. She pointed out with her hand to a location in the city. “My group is from there. The Black Taiga Gang.”

‘Mixing English and Japanese? She trying to sound cool or something?’

“I put together the gang back when I was in high school. We were just a bunch of delinquents that wanted to rule the school and silly childish stuff like that. In reality, we just hung out and did very little that actually resembled anything that you might think a real gang would do. We just hated school and blew it off.”

Saki couldn’t help but sweat a little at hearing her story. Given the intimidating presence that the woman carried with her, such an origin story didn’t really seem to fit with the image. How did they end up like they were now? The way they looked didn’t look like a bunch of pretenders. “How did you—“

“Become what we are now?” she finished for Saki. Ayano’s hand pressed against the glass. “That’s a bit more complicated for a simple story. The short version of it is that we crossed the wrong path one day and got our faces punched in. Things changed that day and we stopped being children and had to become adults. And our goal changed. We stopped being about goofing off and screwing about.” She turned to face Saki wanting to see her face. “Why do you do what you do?”

“To protect those I love,” she stated without any hesitation.

“Exactly.” It was what she expected to see out of Saki’s eyes. The same that she knew she saw before. The boundless determination to see the course. She leaned back against the window. “From then on out, we started getting into fights and wars. It was endless, but important to us. These guys you saw upstairs, they’re the leaders of all of the gangs in the area, our enemies until two months ago.”

“The UN?”

“Yeah. Things had become worse and that’s when they came.”

“Worse?” Saki had a slight idea of what she might be implying, but asked anyway to be sure. She expected the answer to be a common one that she would find wherever she went.

Gesturing with her hand, she directed Saki to look out at the city again. With a more direct view, she saw Ayano pointed at some ruined buildings. It had nothing on what she saw in her neighborhood from Takako’s efforts, but it was still familiar. “Once people started to discover that they had abilities the gang wars went out of control. None of us could stop the violence from escalating and it only seemed to bring out even stronger powers, the desperation. That was when the UN came under the banner of peace. We were just criminals in their eyes and given what we were doing they’re probably right.”

A sigh came out of Ayano’s lips, a surprising expression that Saki didn’t expect. One that hinted at the weight of what she bore. Something that was very familiar. “It became a rallying point for everyone. No one wanted the UN here taking away people because they were afraid of us. Just showing off our powers was enough to be deemed a threat to peace.”

“I didn’t know it was so bad…”

“Rather than allow those that ran to the UN to support them in picking all of us off, we banded together. I made the first move, forced to crush a couple of the gangs in the process. But I was able to get the rest of the gangs in the area to pay attention to me long enough to form this alliance. We are the frontline in the north. We don’t allow any of their patrols in our area.”

Saki questioned her immediately once she said that. It didn’t fit with the rest of what she wanted to claim. “I thought you said that you don’t fight.”

“We do when we have to, but we aren’t fighting them at our borders. No, thanks to the abilities of a few of our people, we’ve created a defense barrier that keeps them from entering. They’ve tried to use their special teams to break the barrier, but so far they haven’t been successful. But we don’t know how long it will last. One thing that we’ve all noticed, the powers we have are still growing. They are evolving and getting stronger. But not everyone advances at the same pace. We can’t be certain that we’ll be able to keep up since the groups the UN has are constantly fighting and improving. Eventually, we will be forced to fight again. They mostly ignore us since we’ve cut ourselves off. But it won’t last.”

“If you’re protected here, how did any of you get captured?”

Slumping a little in her lean, Ayano didn’t seem to want to recall it. “I made a mistake. I thought since we had established ourselves as a force to be respected that the UN would actually honor that. So I went to negotiate with them for peaceful terms. We were running out of supplies quickly and needed aid or assurances while we’re gathering. But they betrayed our trust and it was just a trap to capture as many of our leaders as possible.”

Hearing such a story made her fists tighten up. Saki knew that they weren’t all like that. Masayuki was different. But Masayuki also wasn’t the one in command of the UN. Other people were, like the one she met at her sentencing. Things weren’t going to be so simple. “It didn’t cross your mind that it was a trap?”

“I sort of expected it to be one, but I hoped that they were being genuine. I needed them to be if we were going to find some sort of peace in all of this. So I was captured and unfortunately know that there won’t be any peace with the UN for as long as those men see us as monsters. They didn’t even see me as a human anymore when I was at the table. We see these sorts of things all the time in books and movies, but you think people would be different in reality, but they’re not. If anything, they’re crueler than fiction.”

Her words weighed heavy on Saki’s shoulders. She understood that very well. The reality that she already faced wasn’t one that she would wish upon anyone and that was without any sort of meeting with the UN. Her time before them was all too brief to get any real sense. But she had to agree with Ayano that they didn’t seem to be willing to see them as human beings anymore. It was a difficult situation to be in.

Even more difficult now that Ayano explained things to her. She could sympathize with her and the troubles that her people went through. But it was a story that wasn’t going to be unique to Ayano. It was something everyone in Japan was dealing with. It should have made things simple for Saki, but she was still human and had emotions like anyone else. She didn’t want to leave these people not knowing when their peace would be shattered.

“And that’s the story. You seem like someone that is driven and motivated. You could help a lot of people by joining us.”

“Yes, I know…” She looked out at the city once more. It made her think of the sacrifice that she made for her friends. She did what she could to protect them and keep them above the dirt. Yet now that she was rescued she didn’t know what to do. ‘Is my original plan even worth it anymore? Would going back mean anything? I did it all just to keep the UN off them. Is this my second chance?’ Saki didn’t expect to find herself in such a position. She thought things were over. Yet now she was being told that the road still had further to go.

While she thought about things she did fear something. “Do you know how the UN has reacted to you rescuing me?”

“The raid? They haven’t really done anything yet. They’re still recovering from the attack, but I’m going to guess we’re going to be under attack soon because of it. There’s no doubt that they know it was us.”

‘So they’re safe. But these people aren’t. Damn…this isn’t a good situation either way. What do I do?’ Saki’s mind turned with ideas and doubt. Things quickly flew through her head as she tried to find an answer. Something that would fix things. “How long will the barrier last?”

Ayano scratched the side of her face in thought. “We don’t know. It’s held so far against them, but they’ve got powerful people on their side. It’s only a matter of time.”

“But it’ll hold for a bit.”

“Yeah.”

It came to her. The things that she set in motion already. Things would have to be accelerated but they might work. “I’ve got a plan.”