Parting Ways

Story time over, Yuki had a few things to ponder. Yuki stood up and walked over to the edge of the roof. He stared out at the city with nothing particular in mind. “So you expect me to forgive him after just listening to this story?”

“Yuki?!” Tatsuya exclaimed with surprise. He jumped up to hurry over to Yuki’s side. Grabbing him by the shoulder, he turned Yuki to look at him. “This is Hiroshi, we’re talking about. He’s a good guy in a terrible situation.”

“And you think I didn’t already figure out most of that on my own? I can put the pieces together well enough on my own to guess what happened. I’m still not going to help you kill people. Paint all the melodrama you want, I’m not giving you justification for your actions.”

Clenching his free hand up, he hoped that Yuki would have seen reason. The urge to punch him was very strong. He tried to be reasonable with Yuki. “You weren’t here! You haven’t had to live through what we have! What gives you the right to think you’re above all of us, when you haven’t had to experience what we have!”

“I can tell you I wouldn’t allow myself to kill my friend!”

Tatsuya grabbed up Yuki and lifted him off the ground by his shirt. “Damn you, Yuki!” He had lost his patience with him as well.

Seiji immediately leapt into the scene taking hold of Tatsuya’s arm to try to free Yuki. “What the hell’s wrong with you two?! I thought you guys were friends!”

Staring unfazed by it all, Yuki looked down at Tatsuya. It was the same sort of eyes he saw in Hiroshi. In fact, the look he saw was worse than the ones in Hiroshi. “My friends are dead. That much is clear.”

“Dammit, Yuki! You can’t just come back whenever you want and think you can look down on us! You left us to clean up after your mess!”

“Then you should have left it alone for me to clean up.”

Grinding his teeth together, he wanted to throttle Yuki for his blind naivety. The situation was impossible for them. He didn’t understand, but it was becoming clear to him that Yuki was never going to understand. They were too far apart now. “They were killing people! We did what we had to save lives!”

The look in Yuki’s eyes suddenly changed. In that moment, he forced Tatsuya’s hands free from himself with just a light push from his hand. He then started to float away. “No amount of justifications will change my mind. You’ve taken the wrong path and I will fix it all.”

“He hates it! Every time he has to kill someone he stays by them until the end! He’s not the man you think!” It was a late ditch effort. He knew it was fruitless. Yuki was already convinced of their guilt. Even though he did nothing to act on it. He stayed looking at them as though he was the judge. He was so different from who he remembered. ‘You’re right, Hiroshi. The Yuki we knew was a lie…’

Chapter 317 – Parting Ways

Forced to play catch up, Seiji hesitated a little looking at the aftermath. He was with Yuki in the agreement that they shouldn’t be killing anyone. However, he didn’t know any of them. They weren’t his friends. They were Yuki’s friends and he knew how much he valued his friends. ‘Yuki? Are you fine with this? They are in the wrong, but they’re still your friends. Are you just going to abandon them?’ Hesitation or not, he didn’t want to stay with them anymore than Yuki did. He didn’t like the feeling he got from the place.

He jumped over the rooftops to catch up to Yuki. Using the air time in his jumps in hovering next to Yuki, as he floated away, he stayed within talking distance. “You sure about this? They’re assholes, but they are people you know.”

“Yes, I’m more certain now. They can’t be allowed to settle this. It’ll just mean more bloodshed. I’ll put an end to this fighting the right way.”

“But isn’t that place set up like a damn fortress or something the way you described?”

“No fortress is impregnable, even more so when you have someone like me.”

Seiji stared at Yuki, getting an odd feeling from him. ‘It’s good to be confident, but there’s something different about him. Is all of this getting to him? I need to keep an eye on him.’ The whole situation was a damnable one. He could swear until the sun rose and it wouldn’t make him feel any better. ‘This is worse than Atlantis and I didn’t think that was possible…’

Tatsuya walked back into Phoibe’s shop. His blood still boiled from talking with Yuki. ‘Damn, I’m supposed to be cool headed one now. I got all caught up in it.’ Sighing, he drew in a deep breath trying to calm himself. His heart still pounded strongly even through his exercises. ‘I need to be the support that Hiroshi requires…it’s the only way he can still be himself.’

Passing by the three women keeping the shop manned, he walked inside their temporary housing. He looked around for Hiroshi. It only took him a few moments to find him going around helping with the survivors. Tatsuya remained silent, while he helped an injured man with his bandages.

“Well?” he asked Tatsuya, not blind to his presence or intention.

“I failed.”

Hiroshi paused for a moment and then finished putting the sling on. “How does that feel, sir?”

“Much better, thank you very much.”

“I’m glad to hear it. The doctor, she’ll be around to look at you when she can. Things are pretty hectic right now, so just wait.”

“I understand. There are others still worse.”

“Yes…there are…” Hiroshi stood up and began to walk away. He moved with the expectation that Tatsuya followed. “He’s too naïve. Did he leave?”

“He doesn’t know what the real world is like.”

Hiroshi grabbed out a couple of crates of bottled water. He started moving around the room handing them out to those in need. “It’s very true. The bigger problem is going to be how he reacts when he’s unable to use his naivety to hide behind. With his powers, we could be in for an even worse situation.”

“The last attack wiped out a significant amount of our fighting force. Very few actually survived.”

Taking a moment to think, Hiroshi leaned against one of the support pillars that ran throughout the chamber. “Yeah, they killed a lot of us, but mostly just those that could fight. They seemed to know exactly who to kill. I wonder if this is something that they’ve been planning this whole time.”

“A little hard to believe all of their random attacks have been planned for this.”

“Regardless, the problem is Yuki is headed straight into the lion’s den.”

“And we don’t really have the manpower to stop him or Takako anymore.”

“We never had the numbers to take the fight straight to her as much as we would have liked.” Haruo and Yori suddenly approached the two of them. Hiroshi looked over his shoulder at them. They likely heard their conversation, not that they were trying to keep it private. “What do you two want?”

Yuki finally came to a stop. The school returned in view of him, though still a far distance away. They were in dangerous territory now. Any further, they risked getting into an unwanted fight. It wasn’t something that they could go into without a plan.

“So what are you thinking?” Seiji asked, since he already knew that Yuki had something cooked up. He got that confirmed before Tatsuya interrupted them.

He crouched down on the roof behind a broken air conditioner unit. “It’s a twofold plan. The first is neutralizing Takako’s powers.”

“Do you know what they are?”

“I have a pretty good guess based on what I’ve learned.” A ripple came out from his feet, but didn’t seem to change anything. Then a strange shaped machine appeared nearby him. It almost looked like a microwave, but with more circular shapes that twisted around on the top and sides. Inside the machine, through the clear panel, something took shape. “This should negate her powers.” He pointed to what was being created.

Seiji leaned in trying to figure out what was being cooked up. “What are her powers?”

“Mind control.”

“Are you sure? That seems a little simple.”

“Based on what I’ve heard on what happens to people, it makes the most sense. It’s a pretty classic setup in stories, using mind control or brainwashing to turn friends against friends.”

He had to play Saki’s role, since she wasn’t present. The answer made Seiji’s face go a little flat that he would bring up literature as his reasoning. “Yuki, this isn’t a damn book. This is reality.”

“Yes, but remember I also gave everyone their powers. So whatever people got came from my mind. It makes the most sense.”

“You’re gambling a helluva lot on your belief that this is following one of your stories.”

Yuki looked up at him with a little bit of surprise. “You’re being oddly hesitant for someone that doesn’t like to think about things.”

“When everyone else going in has been turned, I want to be able to keep fighting for the right side. We’re going to save Saki and the others, not to become one of them.”

“And if I didn’t feel certain about this I wouldn’t be doing it.”

Staring at Yuki, Seiji read the resolve baked into his eyes. That was all he needed to see. He could believe in what he saw in his friend. “That’s good enough for me.” Accepting their fate, Yuki handed him the completed creation. He recalled when he made something back in the inn that they were staying at for Yori and Fumiko. “This is what?”

It had thin wires around it with a plastic material that stretched out flat. On the ends and segments there were small discs like metal caps. The whole thing didn’t hold a shape well, but had a clear design intent.

“It’s what will keep you protected from Takako. If she’s got mind control powers, then this will keep your mind completely isolated. It doesn’t matter if she does it through mental telepathy, optical invasion or touch, whatever method your mind is safe from invasion.”

He stared down at the device getting a better sense of what he was supposed to do with it. “So we put it on our head? Won’t that mean this shit can be damaged or removed?”

“Anything I make is going to be able to be damaged. I don’t know what sort of effect nanotechnology or medicine would have on our bodies. So this is the safest way, even if there is a risk. Just don’t go headbutting things.”

“Right…” Seiji looked down at it a little cautiously. It looked uncomfortable, not to mention stand out. “You sure this is the right way to go?”

Yuki affixed it to his head quickly and then just shuffled around his hair. He nodded back to Seiji to do as him. “Of course, just rough up your hair a little and it should blend in. I made it with some optic stealth features so it takes on the color of its surroundings. So as long as no one goes running their hand through your hair they’ll never know it’s there.”

He really could only just put it on. While he was doing that, he focused on the other part of the matter. “So what’s the rest of the plan? We storm the school?”

A holographic model materialized between them. The soft blue lights lit up their bodies. “Sort of, it’s a little bit more complicated than that. But still pretty straightforward.”

Plans discussed and agreed upon, Seiji was ready for it. They still had a little time before making their move. Yuki needed to make some final arrangements with the plan. So Seiji went off to scout around to make sure there was nothing to surprise them. At least that is what he told Yuki. Once he was out of sight, he changed his course.

He landed on the ground after leaping through the city. It was a strange way of navigating, but something about it seemed natural. Not to mention, it kept most of the trouble from following him. He didn’t have any time for the strange monsters that liked to come out during the night.

“Sorry, Yuki.” He walked into the building and barged straight in. “Where the hell is the one called Hiroshi?” Seiji was in no mood to search. Time was short and he needed to take care of things quickly.

His shouting dragged out the one he sought along with Haruo and Yori. Everyone that Seiji wanted was present. Hiroshi looked suspiciously at Seiji. “What do you want here? I thought you left with Yuki.”

“I’m here to help you.”