Mind Wipe

“I’m not looking for your sympathy!” she shouted as she staggered back from Yuki’s punch. A bolt of pain shot through her mind as she felt it all slipping away from her. Takako mashed her teeth together bracing herself as her gums bled.

She threw herself back into the fistfight with Yuki throwing out another blow. Yuki’s power already started to take its toll on her body. She had trouble focusing on feeling everything being sapped from her. Even though she was stronger and faster, she couldn’t keep it all together. ‘I can feel it all returning…can’t keep it all…straight…’

Feeling completely helpless, Yuki stayed with her. But she kept attacking him, proving to him that he couldn’t simply just leave her without his guard. He had to block her attack. She still had powerful hits for a normal human body like his. It was like trying to fight a trained boxer. Each blow felt like being hit by a truck. He didn’t have much of his own power to focus on his defense in his shape.

He struggled to get his body to move the way he wanted it to against Takako’s assault. She still was in better shape than him. Dodging wasn’t really an option he could ask for from his body. All he could hope for was a guard. Even with that she knocked him off his feet.

Yuki slid on his back over the beaten and battered school grounds. It looked nothing like what it had when he arrived. If he didn’t know better it could have been mistaken for a junkyard, a very strange one, but the destruction leveled everything. Their fight finished off what remained of the school and even the neighborhood.

Lifting his head up as Takako approached, he rolled out of the way of her stomping to break his ribs. “You can hate me. But you’re still a victim. I will fix you!” He could tell that his refusal to still kill her at the end and try to understand her only made her angrier. A foot came down to try to silence his noble prattle.

He grabbed her ankle and flipped her on her back. Yuki jumped over trying to pin her down and let his powers finish the job. “I won’t fight you anymore! I don’t need to! I’ll help you! Just let me!” Strength in his arms didn’t have the same power that she could still bring, even with her concentration shattered.

It only took a few seconds for her to struggle and kick him off her. Grasping her head, she tried to delay it all even though it funneled into her rapidly uncontrolled. “Argh! Gah!” she screamed in pain and of memories as she could now remember the interrogation vividly. Takako punched herself sharply, spraying up blood from the blow.

“It’s clear again…” She had a moment to recover. “I’m not giving you a choice! I reject you! This is the only solution!” Takako wound up another fist. “I’ve been through thousands of brains with thousands of powers! I know this is the only answer!”

Bracing himself for the hit was all he could manage in time. While he tried to talk her down, he didn’t prepare himself to keep fighting. He was running out of time.

Small bits of power came back into her attack, picking Yuki off his feet and tossing him a few meters. A pile of nearby debris nearly broken down to dust gave him a softened landing. It kicked up a cloud around him that made him cough. “You haven’t looked at all the options.”

“I have!”

“There’s still my power.” Yuki stood up once more just as stubborn as Takako. He only saw his way as the only solution. Laying down now would only prove to her that she was right.

She charged over to Yuki aiming to take him down finally. “The powers of a weak human?! You’re the one that gave me this solution in the first place! And now you’re regretting it because it’s too messy! You don’t get to stand above everyone when you’re dirtier than all of us!”

Rather than hitting him in the face, Yuki caught her fist. It made him nearly slip as his feet didn’t have the full support to take it. The veins around his muscles bulged as stress impacted his arm. “I am dirty. But I’m still just human and I make mistakes like everyone else. This is my mistake! So I’m fixing it right here!” Yuki swung back at Takako, knocking her back.

Chapter 360 – Mind Wipe

“Takako!” Saki suddenly exclaimed, as she ceased struggling with the weights Yuki left on her. She looked around the area in search of Tatsuya. He leaned against a couple of boards stuck in the ground watching over her. “I need you to free me, Tatsuya.”

“Yeah, not doing that. Until I know things are finished and you’re free from Takako’s control you’re not leaving.”

“Dammit Tatsuya! I don’t have time to convince you that I’m myself again! Yuki’s won, I need to go now!”

“Because Takako’s telling you to kill him.”

“No, because I have to kill her!”

Tatsuya looked down at Saki trying to understand her. He felt some doubt surfacing in the back of his head. ‘Could she be?’

Blow after blow, Takako and Yuki continued to barrage the other with their fists. He finally fully committed to standing with Takako until the end. There was no half-assing it for her. He gave her everything he had left, just as she was doing the same.

Yuki’s body was covered in blood as much as it did with Takako. He couldn’t hear the panting of his breath as his lungs told him to stop. The feeling in his chest from the multiple blows he took could no longer be felt. It was only the fight.

Blood stained the earth with each hit. Their feet dug into the ground to keep from sliding away and their backs locked up right. Nothing would stop them anymore.

He stared at Takako watching her face react. Even more than him, she went through the worst pain. ‘I won’t fold and I’ll stay resolute for you. You’re struggling so hard to live. You just wanted to be normal again. I’ll see to it that you are. This, I promise you. I will fix this, Takako! This is not the way we’re supposed to be. You’re the proof of my mistake.’

Takako threw out an awkward punch that Yuki met head on with his own. It rattled their arms as they collided. “Damn you! Even now you’re still looking at me the same! You refuse to kill!” She grabbed his wrist and pulled him to throw, but he grappled with her.

A little rusty and long out of use, he used a reversal move that he remembered from his old dojo days. It looked familiar to the style that Saki used. Throwing Takako to the ground, he pinned her to try to end the fight. Her strength still fought to overpower him. “I told you before, I’m going to save you! I will make it my life’s goal to save you!”

“You just need to die, you bastard!” she screamed as her mind flooded all the way to breaking point for her. Saliva bubbled around her mouth and she fought to keep her sense of self. Takako threw everything to her strength to try to break free.

Tiny portions of her superhuman strength surfaced enough to snap out of the pin. It nearly broke Yuki’s arm leaving him unable to defend against her. She grasped at his neck trying to squeeze even while her brain felt on fire. Her throat continued to scream through her voice even long after it went hoarse. “Yuki Hayashi!”

“Ta…ka…ko…”

The pain became too much for her to bear. Her body finally collapsed next to Yuki. The consciousness in her eyes began to fade away and she lost focus on everything. “Yu…ki…Yuki…ki…Yu…Yu…”

Coughing as he pulled himself together, Yuki fell into melancholy staring at Takako. “I’ll stay by your side, Takako. I know you’re scared. But I’m here. I’ll find a solution one day. I promise you!”

“…ki…ki…Yu…”

Tears built up in his eyes, having to watch as she lost any sort of sense of reason. The prison began to rebuild itself as though it had never left. It always watched her at her back waiting for the moment of weakness. The moment when she dropped her guard and it snatched her away from life.

Living death.

Suddenly, Takako’s arm jumped out, taking Yuki’s arm. A brief moment of lucid consciousness fought and struggled against everything to come back. “Kill…me…” It was all gone once more. The prison continued to bury her deeper and deeper into a black void of unending solitude and non-existence.

“I’m sorry.” Yuki lifted up her hand, dropping his head to her. His whole body shook. He could only repeat his promise he made to her. The one that she couldn’t accept. The one that she threw back in his face at every attack she made.

“Don’t worry. I’ll give you rest, Takako,” an unexpected voice said at a distance.

Yuki looked up from Takako in surprise to see Saki freed. “Saki!? What are you doing here?”

“Finishing the job.”

“What are you talking about? This fight is over and Takako can’t hurt anyone!”

“The job I gave myself.” She began to walk down into the crater that Yuki and Takako ended their fight in. Behind her Tatsuya followed as though watching her.

Yuki stood up feeling he had one last thing to do. “Job, what are you talking about? This isn’t something for you to do!” He could see the uncomfortable, yet familiar look in Saki’s eyes. It wasn’t something he ever dreamed to see in her eyes. He saw it in other people, but to see it in his friend’s.

Saki stopped in front of Yuki staring across at him, Takako over his shoulder on the ground completely unable to acknowledge even her own existence. “When I left that day to see Takako, I promised myself to do two things. Convince her to stop and if I failed at that, I would kill her with my own hand.”

Reaching out to grab her by the shoulders as though that would do anything, Yuki did everything in the motions to act as if he could stop her. “Saki, you can’t! I won’t let you kill her!”

“She’s my friend! I might not have known her as long as I’ve known you, but this is what I must do as her friend! This is not a life for anyone to live.”

“But I can save her, Saki!”

“Can you, Yuki? You barely understand your powers and you don’t even know how you gave us powers to begin with. Do you really think Takako deserves to suffer such a life on a chance?”

“I know I can do it! Please give me time!”

“Yuki! This is the right thing to do!” She lightly threw off Yuki’s arms to walk around him. Before her laid her friend and the last act she needed to do for her.

“And that’s exactly why I should do it,” echoed Hiroshi, who appeared on the opposite side of the bottom of the crate right next to Takako. He had a battered looking body, but seemed to have recovered enough to stand.

Saki jumped in next to Hiroshi looking to intervene. “What do you think you’re doing, Hiroshi?” She grabbed his hand, preventing it from acting.

“She’s your friend. You don’t need to kill a friend. I’ve already killed so many of my friends. I’ll do this and you can place that hate on me rather than upon yourself. I’ll bear that in your place.” He struggled with Saki to get his arm free.

“This isn’t your place! You’ll break if you think you have to carry the world!”

Hiroshi grinned a little seeing the look in Saki’s eyes. It was an all too familiar one to him. The same he saw in his own whenever he looked at the mirror. “You’re already carrying too much for him. This one’s on me. I can afford to stop, you can’t, not now!” To everyone’s surprise, he threw Saki off. She fell on her back sliding away a little.

She tried to scramble to recover, but it was all too late. Hiroshi finished the job all of them began. His hand dripped with blood as he stared down at Takako. Her life quickly faded away and he stayed at her side the entire time.

Takako was dead.

The war ended finally.

Yet none of them could be happy or glad. There was no way that any of them could be.

“I’ll remember how bitter this tastes, Takako,” Hiroshi finally said, “So this never happens again.”