Chapter Text
Take a deep breath.
He does. The air is cold, biting against the back of his throat, and he lets the feeling sink in deeper as he runs his eyes over the glimmering horizon. All those lights. Pink and red and blue and green and white and silver and gold and others Akira doesn’t have the time or patience to notice.
In his chest, the synthetic heart hammers, irregular double-beat thumping against his ribs in anticipation. He looks down, down, down at that glittering street; it really is such a long way down. He grins at it, the specks of life floating, some dark, some gaudy and bright. The balls of his feet rest on the edge of the building and he tilts forward, just slightly, just enough to make his stomach drop a little when he nearly loses his balance.
Akira exhales through his nose, breath warm against the his collar in sharp contrast with the icy wind around him. He thumbs at his grappling hook, still smiling.
He holds his breath, because it’s always been better breathless, and every nerve in his body screams at him, conflicting wails of WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU THINKING and do it do it DO IT DO IT as two different sets of survival instincts try desperately to save his life. The animal and the machine never did manage to get along.
He’s used to it.
Akira pushes off, flips over in midair to face the glowing city sky, and he hangs there for a split second that seems to last hours before plummeting into the sea of light.
Those who get off on giving advice always have something to say about being in control of your own destiny, but Akira doesn’t imagine anything compares to freefall. Too slow, splat . Too nervous, too fast— splat . Something about knowing it really is all up to you, whether the euphoric moment with your heart in your throat really will be your last.
He, however, would like to live to do it again, so he whips his arm forward, holds his breath a moment longer until he feels the hook click onto the edge of its target. A nearby skyscraper, which he swings himself towards with a howl of laughter that’s immediately ripped from his lips and swallowed by the wind.
“Having fun?” says a dry voice in his ear.
Akira chuckles. “Watching me again?”
“You’re gonna be late.”
“I’m never late.”
“First time for everything.”
“Uh huh.”
“You know people can probably see you, right?”
“Oh, I know.” Akira lands on the ledge of the skyscraper with a flourish, bowing towards the dumbfounded stragglers on the street. “Hope they enjoyed the show, right?”
Futaba grunts, and he can almost hear her eyes rolling. “I will never understand you.”
He laughs again, still breathless from the fall, and squints across the yawning space between where he is and where he’s promised to be; the park at the end of the long central street, holo-statues visible even from the distance. “Yusuke made up his mind yet?”
“He’s doing all four of them.”
“All?” Akira raises an eyebrow. “Can you swing that?”
Futaba doesn’t dignify that with a response.
“Okay. Yeah. Sorry for asking.”
“Nothing’s gonna happen at all if you don’t move your ass.”
He smirks. “Yes, ma’am.”
His eyes grow warm as the implants hum to life, tracing the map of signals that unfurls across the street. Faint pinpricks of red light shine from his pupils and dance over the rooftop as he gazes out at the city’s electric veins.
Mine.
Akira loves the city. Akira has always loved the city. Things worth loving, he thinks, are things worth freeing.
His chest is itching again so he begins to run, pushing off the edge of the rooftop and swinging over to the next, increasing his speed until the cold wind carves at his face like razor blades. His heart pounds every time he sweeps past the security cameras—he knows where they are, knows to expect them, and though there were certainly routes he could take that would avoid them entirely, Akira has always found subtlety to be such a boring concept.
He pauses to stare into the lens, watching the red light from his eyes reflect off the glass, and smiles behind his mask. He can see the wires extending down into the building, twisting together with the others in what’s likely some sort of security office.
He winks at the camera and waves, listens until he hears the alarms going off on the lower floors, and then he’s gone, leaping from building to building once more. Behind him, a cluster of bemused security guards bursts onto the rooftop, searching for a dark figure with shining red eyes.
“You did that on purpose,” grumbles Futaba in his ear, and he grins.
“Distraction,” Akira tells her, dropping onto the ledge of a low-roofed restaurant. “Tactical maneuver.”
“Pretty sure you’re just a show-off.”
“I’m a tactical show-off.”
The pressure is building behind his eyes. He blinks twice, shutting off the crimson lights, and sighs regretfully as the city’s sparkling bloodlines go dark once more. It’s a shame, he thinks, but it would be inconvenient to get a bloody nose before even reaching the location of the main event.
He lands in the street and shoves his hands in his pockets, scowling up at the billboard now flashing the face of a smiling bald-headed man, his pupils gleaming yellow as the captions laud him for his courage , how he’s so daring to have tried out this new prototype, how he cares so much about the city and risks so much to protect it.
No side effects with the model Shido’s using, Akira can bet. He tugs his hood up and moves on.
A gangly figure in dark clothing and a glowing kitsune mask leans against the gate at the entrance to the park, scribbling frantically into a drawing tablet that rests on his knee. Makoto stands a short distance away, motorcycle helmet hiding her eyes as she scans the street and mutters something into her headset.
“He’s here.” Ann emerges from just beyond the gate. She taps Yusuke on the shoulder; he barely reacts. “Joker. Is. Here,” she repeats. “You gotta be done now.”
“It’s not right yet,” Yusuke mutters. “It isn’t—”
“It’s a 3D render of the mayor in a clown costume,” Makoto says dryly. “I’d be shocked if you found a way to get that wrong.”
Yusuke grunts.
“Everything okay on the way here?” Makoto eyes Akira, who looks back innocently. “I heard some chatter on the security channels.”
“Just a little distraction. Plan B.”
“I don’t think that’s how it works.”
“It’ll have to work. And you need to export that,” he adds, poking Yusuke’s mask so that he grumbles. “We gotta go.”
Ann is practically bouncing on the balls of her feet, the LED lights wired into her panther’s mask bright even under the gleaming streetlights. She catches Akira’s eye and winks. “Excited?”
“Oh, it’s gonna be fucking funny, that’s for sure. You heard from Ryuji?”
“He’s still running security on the perimeter. Says it’s fine for now.”
“Yusuke?”
“Sent.”
“He listens to you ,” mutters Ann.
“Everyone listens to me. Futaba?”
“You’re gonna have to go in all at once,” Futaba warns. “If I’m gonna get the worm in there that prevents them from just turning the shit off, I mean. If they realize it’s been breached they might be able to shut it down before I can freeze the holos in place.”
Ann frowns. “I thought we were rigging it to change during his speech tomorrow?”
“We are, but that does require, you know, no one realizing anything is wrong until then.”
“Right. You guys got the USB drives?”
The others nod.
“Remember where to put them?”
Another set of nods.
“Let’s go.”
Akira makes his way towards a holo-statue and wrinkles his nose as he gazes up at Shido’s face. Even now, as fragmented as his memories are, the eyes make his stomach turn. Being watched through a window as though he were nothing more than a statistic to be optimized. As though none of them were anything more than that.
He narrows his eyes and shakes his head. Not now. A girl who snorted when she laughed. A boy who bounced his leg when he thought too hard. No. Not now.
At least one pet project was back to bite Shido in the ass.
“On three,” says Futaba.
He looks over at the others, kneeling at the bases of their respective statues.
“One…two…three.”
Akira flicks on his augmented vision, watches as the sparks of light race under the concrrete and braid together before disappearing into the depths. The holo-statues flicker once, then stabilize.
They’re silent. Ann slowly gets to her feet, backs away from the statue, as though expecting it to turn and accuse her of wrongdoing. “Did it…work?”
Futaba snorts. “Of course it worked. Set for tomorrow. Right during that stupid speech with his stupid face.”
“Clown,” mutters Makoto.
Yusuke nods seriously. “Yes, that’s the intended outcome.”
They head back for the entrance. Akira checks the time; it’s nearly eleven, and time for his late shift at Leblanc. “You guys coming back to the bar?”
Ann shakes her head. “Meeting up with Ryuji. We got some places we wanted to hit.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah, gonna do some…decorating with that strip of fancy restaurants in the north city.”
“Can’t wait to see it.”
Ann bats her lashes. “I’d never disappoint you.” She waves as she trots across the street; on the other side, a familiar hooded figure raises his hand in greeting.
“I’ll come back with you,” says Yusuke. “I have an appointment at 11:30.”
Akira raises an eyebrow. “Who the hell wanted to get tattooed at that time of night?”
“I didn’t ask,” is the delicate response. “They are paying quite a lot.”
Makoto swings one leg over her motorcycle. “I’ve got a midnight race.”
“Go win that shit then.”
“I intend to.” Her face is still mostly concealed by her helmet, but he can hear the smirk in her voice. “I don’t particularly like my opponent’s attitude.”
They watch her streak off down the street, leaving trails of light in her wake.
Leblanc is an ordinary bar, as Sojiro will tell anyone who asks with perfect clarity. It’s a completely respectable establishment that just happens to be accessible only via the grate in the bottom floor of a parking garage and several flights of metal stairs. Sojiro had an eye for good real estate value; this one just happens to have been a bomb shelter in a past life.
Akira clatters to the bottom stair and shoves the double doors open, the brightly lit Leblanc sign casting shadows on his and Yusuke’s faces. There’s a small group of heavily augmented young women huddled in the corner, some of their limbs appearing to be makeshift, and a few familiar faces at the bar itself; at one of the tables, a pair of elderly men are engaged in what seems to be an extremely intense game of chess.
“You’re late, boy.”
“Traffic,” says Akira airily.
“Lie better next time.”
“You could’ve let Morgana take over.”
The cat looks up dubiously from his position by the register. Sojiro rolls his eyes.
“You’re closing. I’ve got a date.”
“Ladykiller, huh?”
“Something like that. And don’t let Futaba stay out past midnight.”
“She here?”
Sojiro jerks his head towards the bar. A red-haired figure sits crouched on one of the stools, typing furiously into a laptop. “Refused to go home until you got back.”
She waits for Sojiro to pull on his coat and disappear through the door before spinning around on her stool with a wicked grin.
“I am so good,” Futaba says. “I am so, so, so good. Tell me I’m good, Akira.”
“You’re good.” Akira leaps over the counter and winks at one of the regulars. “Usual? Anyway, yeah, you’re good. You’re great, actually.”
“Yes, I am. You say it too, Inari.”
“I wish I’d had more time,” laments Yusuke. “I wasn’t finished.”
“Oh, come on, I’m sure your—clown Shido. Cleeto. Get it? Clown Shido?”
“Keep your voice down —”
“Like it matters.” Futaba flings her arms wide. “Look where we are.”
“Oh, shit, that reminds me. Don’t you have a—?”
“Mm. Yes. She’s not here yet, though.”
“Do you even know what she looks like?”
“Student.” He eyes Akira. “Lost her lower arm in a car accident and had it replaced with a bionic. She’s asked me to sleeve it for her.”
“Ohhhh, can I watch?” Futaba closes her computer and stares up at Yusuke with wide eyes. “Please? You haven’t done a bionic one in so long, I love watching those.”
“You can watch until midnight,” says Yusuke sternly, poking her in the forehead. “Your dad wants you home.”
“You listen to him too much.”
“Because he’s not charging me rent for running the parlor out of his bar.”
“He wouldn’t even know .” Futaba leans forward. She bats his hand away like a cat. “C’mon, all I have to do is get it somewhere he won’t notice—”
“I am not tattooing you against Sojiro’s wishes and we are not having this conversation again.”
Akira hides his smile, glancing instead down at the cocktail shaker in his hands. He traces a pattern through the condensation with one fingertip as he listens fondly to the bickering. They have this argument at least once a week. Sometimes more.
In Futaba’s defense, Akira had Yusuke do his own arm when he was sixteen, so he could see where the unfairness angle came from. In Yusuke’s defense, he would not want to be on the receiving end of Sojiro’s ire if the man found out that his wishes had been disobeyed.
It’s between them, as far as Akira’s concerned. And probably will continue to be, up until Futaba turns eighteen next February.
He glances towards the doors. A girl pushes through, looking around herself with a twitchiness that’s markedly nervous. Someone who hasn’t been here before.
Akira jerks his chin. “Yusuke.”
“Ah. That’s—yes.”
The girl’s left glove is fingerless, tips having been worn through by the sharp new texture of her hand, and Akira feels a pang of sympathy. She notices him looking and quickly tucks her hand into her coat pocket, ducking her head. He smiles and shakes his head, rolls up his sleeve so that she can see the bionic joint of his own wrist—covered over with an intricate pattern of spider lilies, courtesy of Yusuke, but still recgonizable for what it was, if you were looking closely enough.
“He’s good,” he says to the girl. She stares at his arm, looks from the designs covering it to Yusuke.
“Did you…?”
“He did.” Akira rolls his sleeve back down. “You’re in good hands.”
Yusuke blushes slightly, barely visible in the low light of the bar. “I’m set up in the back.”
“Yeah. I’m…yeah.” She glances at Akira once more. “Does, does it, uh—hurt?”
He shakes his head again. “Nah. Not like a normal one would. You’ll be fine.”
“O—okay. Yeah. Okay.”
She follows Yusuke into the back room, standing up a little straighter. Akira and Futaba watch them go; Futaba huffs as soon as they’re out of sight, dropping her chin into her hands.
“She couldn’t have even been older than me,” Futaba mumbles. “It’s not fair .”
“Think about it this way.” Akira chops a lemon into wedges, wincing when a drop of juice flies into his eye. “It’ll be really fucking satisfying when you finally get to get it, right?”
“Easy for you to say.”
Suddenly she reaches across the counter to grab his wrist, frowning at the scuffed joint. She flips his hand over skeptically.
“You’re putting too much strain on it,” she says in a tone of reproach. “The whole damn thing is gonna rip off if you keep this up.”
“That’s what I have you for, right?”
“Akira, I’m being serious.”
“So am I.” He slides the martini glass across the bar, inclining his head to the patron on the other side. “I trust you with it.”
“I can’t help you if your whole freaking arm rips off—”
“I bet you could.” Akira grins at her. “I’ve seen you do crazier shit.”
Futaba studies him for a moment before sighing. “You’re going out again tonight, aren’t you?”
“Does it matter?”
“It’s getting worse.”
“That’s not the word I’d use, personally.”
She leans forward to flick his forehead.
“Ow,” he says calmly.
“Don’t do anything dumb. I’m gonna go hang out with Inari.”
“Remember to get home by midnight,” Akira calls after her, and she rolls her eyes.
“Sure, grandma.”
//
His memories of before are a mess of light, color and pain. White walls and needles and pills and the feeling of his body slipping out from inside itself. Eyes on him always, some artificial, some clinical, some not.
There had been three of them. The girl who snorted when she laughed, the boy who bounced his knee when he thought, and him. Akira, though he hadn’t been Akira, before.
Subject 00. And the boy, subject 11. And the girl, subject 17. He didn’t remember their names. He used to try, thinking that if he had been able to remember his own then at the very least he should know the others’, but every time he tried he was knocked nearly unconscious by those splitting headaches and after a certain point he stopped trying. Remember them by number. Number 0. Number 11. Number 17.
Only one name remains; he remembers the red-haired android called Faith. He remembers the day Faith tore open the doors she had been sealed behind with a machine’s scream, the sound nearly indistinguishable from the metal she ripped through as though it were no more durable than skin. He remembers the woman with dark hair and kind eyes telling him to run.
He remembers someone pushing him off a high place, screaming something at him as he fell, but he can never remember what. He remembers falling for a very long time, although he doesn’t remember all of it, because his heart had stopped.
Then he remembers being dead. He remembers being dead, and then he remembers being nothing but the desire to not be dead. He remembers a bright blue butterfly circling through the darkness, light trailing from its wings, murmuring a string of numbers and letters; he remembers listening to the voice.
And then he remembers Futaba.
Thirteen years old then, wearing a coat with a hood so fluffy it completely obscured her face, legs curled beneath her as she typed. She had disabled the kill switch in his heart, she had explained, as nonchalantly as though she were telling him she’d given him a haircut. She had expressed a certain degree of surprise that he’d had any life in him at all when she found him, said that she didn’t know cybernetics could allow you to allocate your consciousness like that, keep it in stasis even though the body was technically dead. Even then she’d had that tone, while talking about something she didn’t understand. Like she was taking it personally.
How did you find me? he asked, and she jerked her thumb towards the corner of the room, where a black-and-white cat sat licking its paws. It looked up and meowed disinterestedly.
That thing was crawling all over you, said Futaba. Wouldn’t shut up with all that cute little meow-meowing.
The cat meowed again, sounding offended. It turned out to have been microchipped, but the data was mostly corrupted, revealing only a name: Morgana.
The cost of survival had been the lucidity of his memories, so when she asked for his name, he never did know why it was Akira that slipped from his lips. But that was what he’d said, and so that was who he became.
Much to Sojiro’s gratification, it turned out Akira had a natural knack for mixology, even if he had to semi-regularly be threatened away from several of his more avant-garde combinations. Much to Futaba’s gratification, he was actually quite happy to have her look at his bionic arm, so long as she agreed to perform maintenance on it at intervals—it wasn’t as though he could waltz back into the Okumura labs and politely ask for some upkeep, after all.
Okumura. It was the font , of all things, the fucking font of the stupid logo—the first time he’d seen it after recovering enough to take a walk with Futaba he had become so lightheaded he nearly cracked his skull against a brick wall. It hadn’t all come back, but it had been enough; enough flashes of name badges and clipboards and paperwork and even the logo on the syringes to know.
He hadn’t left Leblanc much, over the course of the following year, spending most of his time bartending with Morgana, who quickly became a permanent fixture at the counter. He had felt so horribly small, every time he went outside and saw the name everywhere , all over, as though there were nothing it didn’t own a piece of—even him , he knew, and sometimes he felt like ripping his own arm off, just to get rid of what they’d left inside of him—
—and then, on one of the few times Sojiro bullied him into leaving for groceries, he met Yusuke Kitagawa on the train.
Akira hadn’t been able to stop staring at the tattoos covering his forearms. A fox wrapped in white lilies on one, what appeared to be a solar corona on the other, blooming up towards his elbow like the petals of yet another flower. Yusuke was all too happy to discuss them—his mentor, he said, didn’t view tattoos and other form of body modification as particularly serious forms of art—and after the conversation wound on for long enough that they both missed their stops, Akira found himself giving Yusuke directions to Leblanc, saying that he thought there may be some inspiration to be found there.
He wasn’t sure whether or not he really expected Yusuke to come. But Yusuke did come, spending his evenings sitting at the far end of the bar and sketching furiously while Akira snuck him drinks. Eventually, Akira gathered enough nerve to show Yusuke his bionic arm.
His eyes had lit up. He had always wanted to tattoo a bionic limb, he said, and Akira had found himself grinning for the first time in months. That’s what I hoped you’d say , he’d replied.
First came the spider lilies, wrapping from wrist to fingertips like gloves. Then the stylized tarot card on his inner forearm—the Fool, he’d decided, tongue-in-cheek—subject 00 with the 0th card of the deck. Some Yusuke himself designed, and Akira was all too willing to play canvas to his pen, even when he occasionally slipped up as he wasn’t used to tattooing anyone but himself. Coverups just meant more opportunities to fill up space, said Akira, and he wanted the entire arm full.
He never told Yusuke that he was trying to conceal the nature of his bionic arm, and if Yusuke knew, he never said anything.
One day Yusuke arrived at Leblanc with a sketch. He showed it to Akira somewhat sheepishly, saying he knew it was different from the rest of Akira’s tattoos, but that he hadn’t been able to get it out of his head.
Akira looked at the figure, monstrous and graceful, with red coat and spidery limbs and flaming eyes half-hidden beneath the brim of a top hat. He asked if it had a name. Yusuke said he thought Akira himself might like to name it.
And just like his own name had slipped out two years ago, Akira hadn’t hesitated beforing saying Arséne .
Soon Yusuke was running an informal tattoo studio out of Leblanc’s back rooms, something that Sojiro largely pretended he didn’t know about, at least at first; this, in turn, was how Shiho Suzui ended up discovering his name and deciding she wanted her own bionic leg to look like something beyond bad memories.
Shiho’s story wasn’t exactly unknown, largely because Suguru Kamoshida’s downfall had been so spectacular. Even Akira, as underground as he was at the time, had heard of it; how the names of every student he had victimized had been spray-painted in crimson across the entire school, how a recording of him admitting what he had done had been set to play on loop over the loudspeaker, with the door to the control booth welded shut so that school administration couldn’t break in to shut it off until everyone on campus had heard every word. How it had all been signed off on by the graffiti collective known as the Tower, which, up until then, had been known only for casual tagging around more affluent neighborhoods.
Ann still considered Shiho a member of the Tower, though she couldn’t go out physically these days due to the nerve damage to her leg; Ann herself grew cold-eyed every time she spoke about Kamoshida, which she generally preferred not to do. Akira took an immediate liking to her and Ryuji both, the spark and anger that lurked behind their grins.
If it weren’t for tagging with Ann and Ryuji, Akira might never have realized that he was still dead. He might never have been alive again, either, if it weren’t for the night when he pulled the can of spray paint from his belt only to be met with the snap of floodlights and the scream of a siren, and he had looked straight at the security camera, and he had laughed.
Later, Ryuji told him breathlessly, you run from the cops like you’ve done it before, and Akira could only keep laughing, laughing and laughing and laughing.
Like it was all just a big joke.
He hadn’t recognized it. How sick he had been feeling, the fever lurking under his skin; he had become so used to the constant headaches and clamminess that to breathe without it, to feel the night air clear and sharp against his face between pounding heartbeats and all that delicious terror. What could he do but laugh, knowing that such a feeling was possible? Not only possible, but possible for him ?
Could he have it again? Could he have it every day, if he hunted it hard enough?
He leaped from buildings, waited until he could count the cracks in the sidewalk to cast his grappling hook and save himself, the gasps of anyone who was out on the street at three in the morning making him giggle like a child. He winked at surveillance cameras and painted right over them, dodged floodlights and search lights and security guards’ bullets. It began to take more and more and more to get the electricity flowing through his veins, more danger, more adrenaline to really get the kick , but Akira didn’t mind.
That just made it more fun.
He kept hunting. Slipping into subway tunnels and running until he could feel the train coming, then running faster, pressing himself into alcoves at the very last second and letting the beast of steel whip past, close enough to touch, artificial heart hammering wildly against his ribs. He would watch it, wide-eyed, too breathless to laugh but grinning from ear to ear.
You could’ve fucking died , Futaba told him, scowling as she fiddled with his arm after he had cut one too close and twisted it in the wrong direction. You know that?
That’s the point, he said. Making it so that not dying takes some work. Usually it’s so easy.
There’s something wrong with you.
Definitely.
The night Yusuke stumbled into Leblanc an hour after closing, his eyes feverish and his hair mussed, Akira felt the air move. He knew, even before Yusuke opened his mouth, that something was about to change.
Madarame killed my mother, Yusuke had said, matter-of-fact and frantic in equal measure. My mother painted the Sayuri.
Akira had been quiet for a moment. He looked at Yusuke, the angry tears glittering in his eyes, a look he had never seen before on his friend’s face.
What do you want to do? he asked Yusuke at last.
I want him to pay. Yusuke had paused. I want to make him pay.
Akira had smiled at him then, wicked and bright. Want help?
Vengeance. It seemed as righteous a purpose as any, to shred a life built on lies. Even if it hadn’t, the look on Yusuke’s face would have convinced Akira: Madarame had to go.
And so he went.
The Phantom Thieves claimed their first victim a few weeks later. Futaba combing through his records to find evidence of every exchange, every bribe that had kept the blood on Madarame’s hands under the table; Ryuji and Ann covering Madarame’s home with gleaming silver letters that spelled out Yusuke’s mother’s name, glowing in the dark like bloodstains under a blacklight no matter how hard anyone tried to scrub them off.
Futaba said it would be easy to hack into the public announcements. She had cast a sideways look at Yusuke, asked if he wanted that.
Yusuke had just laughed.
They opted to display an image of the Sayuri , running Akira’s voice through a distortion algorithm as he told the story. Akira and Yusuke had stood in the crowd when it happened, watching the looks of first confusion, then skepticism, then the muttering as witnesses pulled out their phones to search for Madarame and the Sayuri , people who had never even heard his name before now learning of him for what he was.
Liar.
Murderer.
Fake.
The high of it all was almost overwhelming. Every instant of every day for the week following, Akira kept expecting someone to kick down the door to Leblanc and shove a gun in his face, to know what they’d done—what he’d done. Half wanting it to happen, just to be forced into finding the next impossible escape route.
But it never happened.
They got away with it. The negative publicity ruined Madarame’s image, and though it was never formally recognized—the episode with the PA system being roundly condemned by the city government, as expected—it became a widely accepted fact that he had not painted the Sayuri himself, and he withdrew from the public scene.
The clock tower was another one of Akira’s egregiously cocky ideas—it was, after all, one of the city’s biggest landmarks, abandoned as it was. He had walked past it a million times, jumped from the roof more than once, and it really only seemed like the next logical step to haul a pair of bolt cutters to that same roof and crunch through the rusted padlock that was only half-heartedly keeping the trapdoor closed.
It was beautiful, inside. Beautiful and dark, and empty, and dusty, with webs of powered-off lights covering the walls and floors. And no one was using it. It seemed such a shame, that no one was using it. Someone should be using it.
That was, effectively, his pitch to the others as to why they should move in. Not that they needed very much convincing, once they’d seen it; Yusuke in particular declared it to be his new home, as he had been crashing on Ryuji’s couch ever since moving out of Madarame’s.
They made the clock tower theirs. Futaba found it trivial to rewire the electricity, filling the halls and high-ceilinged chambers with flickering LED lights that shone red and blue and green and pink. The top floor had a wide circular opening just under the skylight where Ann planted a cherry tree sapling that, against all odds, managed to begin growing, and they draped it in twinkling lights that shone in the otherwise dark room. Each carved out space for themselves; Ann with her tree, Ryuji’s makeshift gym on the third floor, Yusuke’s studio plastered over with paintings and tattoo designs, Futaba’s cave of screens and keyboards and cool electric light. Even Morgana claimed the secondhand couch they had hauled up, frequently found crouching on it and watching the goings-on closely with sharp blue eyes.
And Akira had his little bar by the window that he always kept just barely cracked open, even when it rained. Ryuji joked that he kept it open so that he always had an escape route if he needed one; Akira raised an eyebrow and smiled, because that was exactly the case.
Makoto found them a few months later, through Ann. They had been classmates, hadn’t really spoken much, what with Makoto’s reputation for being something of an ally to the administration; Ann had found herself almost too shocked to respond, then, when Makoto pulled her aside after class one day and said in a hushed tone: I saw what you did to Kamoshida. Can you do it to someone else?
Her sister had become wrapped up in a case, she explained. A local mafia boss with a disgusting amount of money and ties to the government, making him near-invulnerable, though this wasn’t something Sae had been able to prove. And she had started to receive threats. A dead bird in their mailbox, Makoto said, her face expressionless, her eyes blazing. Holographic letters that Sae wouldn’t let Makoto see, leaving her to imagine the worst.
And despite Sae’s efforts to conceal the nature of the threats, Makoto knew what would happen if her sister was hunted for long enough. Her voice grew cold as steel as she told Ann: I won’t let Kaneshiro touch my sister. I want you to help me ruin him.
As Ann had put it later: how could she say no to a pitch like that?
Makoto was satisfactorily impressed upon meeting the others and discovering their connection to Madarame’s very public downfall. She fit in remarkably well, allowing Futaba to tinker with the motorbike everyone else was markedly surprised to find she owned; eventually she confessed to have been taking to the streets in a helmet that hid her face, to blow off steam. You should try racin’, Ryuji told her with a grin. Blow off even more steam.
She had smiled awkwardly and shrugged it off, but the thought never quite left her mind.
Publishing Kaneshiro’s account statements triggered the appropriate uproar. Futaba barely seemed to find it difficult, only time consuming, spending several days hunched over her setup in the clock tower and answering questions with nothing but grunts. Still, she enjoyed it; Akira could see it in her eyes, how she basked in the astounded looks the others gave her when she finished and laid out Kaneshiro’s finances for all of Tokyo to see. No amount of higher-up connections could save him from Makoto’s wrath, and Sae was safe.
Soon after, the informal community of after-dark street racers found a new competitor: a girl in a black bomber jacket and helmet, eyes and face obscured, known only as “Queen”. She earned the title, too, mercilessly outpacing her opponents with wild laughter they would only hear for a split second as she ripped past.
Akira went to watch, a few times. Looked like fun to him.
Makoto took to keeping her motorbike in the tower, where she also stored an extensive collection of brass knuckles and a punching bag that had to be replaced once every couple of weeks when she inevitably pummeled the current one into oblivion.
Akira liked her.
He knows Shido’s face. He’s known it since he saw Shido interviewing on the Leblanc television, talking up some bullshit about societal reformation for the greater good, and he’d seen him take off his glasses to clean them on his jacket, and he had remembered seeing that before, nearly bit through his tongue fumbling for the remote to change the channel.
Shido and Okumura. They’re connected. They have to be connected, because they both come from before , the big messy jumble of memories that were nearly nuked when the kill switch in his heart was thrown.
All he knows now is that Shido’s an asshole with too much power, and that Akira really enjoys making people like that look stupid.
“Dick,” declares Futaba, throwing herself down on the couch and pointing at the screen. “Look at that asshole.”
Akira glances. There’s Shido, smiling broadly as some news reporter for a minor channel tucks her hair behind her ear nervously. The sight makes him feel a little ill.
“Eugh,” mutters Ann. “She’s totally flirting with him.”
“He is a celebrity.”
“Whatever, man.” Ryuji throws his arms wide. “The bigger they are, the harder they fall, right?”
“ Higher ,” says Yusuke. “It’s the higher they are.”
“Well, I bet big shit falls pretty hard too.”
Yusuke pauses thoughtfully. “I suppose that’s true.”
The door creaks open. Akira tenses, as he always does, but it’s just a familiar young woman in a blue coat—Makoto, opening the door with her foot to keep her hold on several cups of coffee and pastry bags.
“Here.” She throws one of the bags at Ryuji, who catches it with a grin. “Take your muffins off my hands.”
“You walk past the square on the way here?” asks Akira, as Ryuji begins to devour his chocolate-chip muffin with an alarming amount of passion. Makoto nods.
“Huge crowd,” she says. “All his adoring fans and such. You know how it is.”
“More to see Yusuke’s beautiful Cleeto.”
Makoto furrows her brow. “Cleet…?”
“Clown Shido.” Futaba beams mischievously, clearly still proud of herself. “My idea.”
“That’s—”
“Hey, guys, cut it—dude, he’s starting!”
“...in the wake of these events of vandalism, I will be proposing an increase to ambient city security measures, effective immediately…”
Ryuji frowns. “Hold on, but it hasn’t—”
“Shh,” hisses Futaba, eyes glued to the screen.
“Thus far, the only threats have been petty ones, and as such have posed no real danger to society.”
Akira crushes his soda can in one fist. I’ll show you a danger to society.
There it is again. The fury. Akira stares at Shido. What did you do to me?
What the fuck did you do to me?
“However,” Shido continues, his voice booming across the park, “they reveal crucial weaknesses in our system, insofar that they are capable of being exploited for such juvenile means and thus could easily be exploited for more serious ones by copycats, or worse.”
“That motherf——”
Futaba goes suddenly pale. She snatches her laptop off the floor and begins typing, occasionally flicking her eyes up to glare at Shido’s image.
“No,” she mutters. “No, there’s no—no, no, no way.”
“Even today,” Shido says, “even today, even here, vandals seek to undermine authority.”
Akira’s face feels cold. “Futaba—”
“There’s no way,” Futaba repeats frantically. “We weren’t being monitored. I made sure we weren’t being monitored.”
“Earlier today, security teams intercepted attempted vandalism here at Inokashira Park, where a group of masked instigators had hacked into the holo-statues. As you can see,” he gestures towards the central statue, where the clown-faced version of himself blinks accusatorily, “the attempt was remarkably immature.”
Even so, a ripple of giggles passes through the crowd, quickly stifled. Somewhere off-camera, a young man with pale brown hair and crimson eyes coughs into his fist. Yusuke looks equal parts mollified and infuriated.
“That’s the point ,” he snaps at the television. “The immaturity of the thing is the entire point, you fucking buffoon.”
“Luckily, my recent budget proposal included funds necessary to install secure, hidden cameras in many public venues—including within the bases of the statues—that allowed us to form comprehensive, three-dimensional reconstructions of the criminals.”
“Oh, fuck,” says Ann.
Futaba’s hands fall to her sides. Her eyes are wide, despondent. “Shit. I—I didn’t know, I didn’t—”
“No.” Ryuji shakes his head. “It ain’t your fault, Futaba.”
“It literally is my fault, I—you guys, you—it’s my responsibility to make sure this shit doesn’t happen, and—”
“Guys.”
Makoto points at the screen. Her hand shakes, but her voice is steady.
` “Look.”
The holo-statues materializes as four figures: one in a long coat and panther mask, one in a glowing kitsune mask, one in black leather and a motorcycle helmet, and one with his face almost entirely shadowed by a hood, only the hint of a smooth white mask.
“God damn it,” mutters Futaba. “God damn it.”
“These four vandals have invaded the city systems and pose a threat to your security,” declares Shido, his eyes serious in a way that makes Akira want to throw up. “They are likely to escalate their behavior in the coming weeks, and sources believe they are gearing up for a much more serious attack. We urge you to report any sightings, even suspected ones, to this designated tip line—”
Makoto hits the mute button with force that suggests she’s dreaming of doing it to the man himself.
No one speaks. The only sound is the high electric ring of the still-playing television, the faint crumple of paper as Ryuji twists the pastry bag in his hands.
“So what?”
They others turn to stare at Akira, who has suddenly stood. His face prickles all over. He knows what he wants to do.
“It’s not like we had some kind of approval from the administration before. So what? Is this supposed to change some shit? Change anything ?”
“I race in that helmet,” Makoto says sharply. “People will recognize it.”
“And you think,” Akira turns to face her, “that your partners in illegal midnight street racing are going to turn you in?”
“I—”
She closes her mouth and thinks about it.
“...I guess they probably wouldn’t.”
“It’s kinda badass,” Ryuji adds. “Street racer Queen, and now they know you’re behind some of the sickest shit that’s happened recently. You’re gonna get mad respect, I bet.”
“I earn respect,” says Makoto, but she blushes slightly.
“Catch us if you can is what I fucking say.” Akira spins on his heel, gazing out through the window at the rooftops beyond. As if some bald fuck was gonna stop him. “He wants a fight, he’s gonna get one from me.”
He glances at the others. “You guys don’t have to. You can lay low if you want, I’m not going to judge you or any shit like that, but I’m not stopping. He wants them to think we’re gonna escalate?”
Akira grins widely, his heart beating faster at the prospect of it.
“Let’s give them the show he promised, then.”
The others look at each other, but Futaba has eyes for Akira only.
“Futaba,” he says. “Can you…?”
“I sure fucking can.” Her face twists into a wicked smile as she clicks through the windows on her laptop. “It’s just an overlay. Punks didn’t even figure out how to get past my worm.”
“Look who it is.” Ryuji jerks his chin towards the TV. “Wanna see what Cyborg Prince has to say about all this?”
His perfect lips move silently, still muted. Freakishly beautiful and more machine than human. It was almost impossible to not know who Goro Akechi was, plastered as he was all over administrative propaganda. The pinnacle of cybernetic integration, they called him. The flawless union of man and machine.
Akira narrows his eyes. “Unmute it,” he tells Makoto, and she does.
“...on this turn of events?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t call it a turn,” says the cyborg in his smooth, lilting voice. “Many of us have been deeply disturbed by the recent…disorder, I would say. As Shido-san stated, it points to imperfection in the current system that must be smoothed out if the citizenry is to live securely.”
“God,” Ryuji grunts. “Every time he opens his damn mouth, it’s like…like listening to some kind of mini-Shido, or something.”
“Do you believe the culprits will be caught?”
Akechi nods. “Certainly.” He gestures towards the holo-statues, still flickering with the masked figures. “They don’t seem to be particularly sophisticated with their methods, and I intend to lend Shido-san as much of my aid as he can use.”
Anger flares at the pit of Akira’s stomach. He narrows his eyes at the flawless smile. “Futaba, how close are you?”
“Done. And they won’t be able to overwrite it this time.” She smirks. “They’ll have to cut power to the holos entirely if they want Cleeto down.”
“Can you get into the speakers?”
“The ones on the statues?” Futaba raises an eyebrow. “Sure, but why?”
“Want to say hi.”
Makoto frowns. “Are you sure that’s—”
“That rules,” Ryuji interrupts.
Ann nods enthusiastically. “Show that dick we’re watching.”
“Just let me make sure it’ll run through some voice distortion on the way out.” Click-click-click. “Okay, yeah. You ready?”
“Mhm.”
She takes off her headset and hands it to Akira, counting down with her fingers: three…two…one.
“Hey, hey—this thing on?”
His voice echoes through the television speakers on a slight delay. On screen, the crowd ripples, looking for the source of the sound. Shido’s frozen, staring at the central holo-statue.
“Sorry, sorry. Hey, can we get the right one up, here?”
He gestures to Futaba, who nods and keys something in. One by one, the holo-statues flicker back to Yusuke’s clownish rendition of Shido.
“That’s way better. Anyways, just wanted to say thanks for the shout-out, Shido-san. Really flattered that you noticed, we’re huge fans, as you can see. Hope you like the present!”
Ann muffles a snicker in her hands.
“You’re welcome to play hide-and-seek with us, if you want,” continues Akira with a wink in her direction. “Honestly, I thought you’d find it too childish, but we’re so happy you’re in. Looking forward to it.”
Still in the foreground, Akechi’s eyes are fixed on the statue. Slowly he turns around, looking up and around himself with furrowed brows.
“You’re not gonna find us there, Your Highness.”
Akechi blinks. He looks into the camera lens, almost curiously. The reporter, suddenly putting two and two together, flinches and moves to turn her camera off, but Akechi raises a hand to stop her.
“There you go! Hi. Sorry it’s not too sophisticated.”
His eyes are cold, like chunks of frozen blood, but the corners of his mouth twitch almost imperceptibly. He inclines his head slightly. “A pleasure.”
It’s a little annoying that he’s maintaining his composure, but at least it was funny.
Security swarms the statues, trying frantically to switch the holograms. Akira laughs.
“Well, good luck with that. Gotta go now, got some more juvenile shit to wrap up, you know how it goes. See you all soon!”
Futaba clicks the microphone off. It’s Yusuke who breaks the silence with a loud snort.
“Well done, Akira,” he says. “Well done, indeed.”
Ann cackles. “Did you see his face ? Oh, man, he was pissed.”
“Good.” Akira’s voice is vehement, his eyes bright. “I hope he’s pissed.”
“You know we’re in the shit now, right?” Ryuji leans back, taking another large bite out of his muffin. “Like, really in the shit,” he adds, mouth full of muffin.
“Congratulations, everyone,” Akira says, taking a dramatic bow. “We are now, officially, in the shit.”
The others cheer. Even Makoto is smiling.
“You’re a big deal now, Queen,” Ryuji tells her, slapping her on the back. “Just wait till the next time you’re racing. You’re gonna be a celebrity.”
Makoto sighs. “I suppose it might work tactically,” she muses. “To throw people off…”
“See? Now you’re going for it.”
“I guess I’ll see.” She cracks her neck. “I was supposed to do a run on the freeway tonight.”
“Ooh!” Ann jumps up excitedly. “Ooh, can I come?”
“I haven’t been in a while, either,” adds Akira. Makoto frowns.
“All of us in the same place? After…”
She gestures at the TV.
“Just three.” Ann flicks her shoulder. “And it’s like Akira said. Are your motorbike buddies really gonna be the ones to rat us out?”
“But if someone else sees you…”
“On the highway overpass? At one in the morning?”
“Who cares who sees us?” Akira shrugs. “I’m not scared of them.”
“Besides,” says Ann, “you’re not worried about yourself?”
“I’m on a bike. They’re not gonna catch me.”
Not exactly an airtight excuse, thinks Akira, but he doesn’t say it. “And you didn’t even consider not racing.”
“That’s because it’s…”
She trails off, looking from Akira to Ann and back again. She sighs.
“I guess all we really have to do is take the masks off and we’re unrecognizable again.” She shakes her head slowly, smile returning. “Promise you’ll be at least a little careful, though.”
“I promise not to get caught.”
“That is not the same thing.”
Akira grins.
“I’m serious, Akira, you—you know what’s been happening to people who get in his way.”
They didn’t end up doing so well. One of them had “walked” in front of a subway train. Another had been thrown from a building—or “jumped”, as it was reported—caused a nasty four-car pileup. The majority just went silent, though. Likely blackmailed or threatened into submission. Maybe the handful of people who had been shoved out of his way in more gruesome manners were all a coincidence.
And no one seemed to care . It was like Shido could do no wrong, in their eyes.
“You know what I think?”
Akira leans over the table.
“Let the fucker come.”
He wasn’t trying to bait anyone into anything. He just wasn’t willing to hide.
“Careful” was such a dull word. Dull and mushy. Akira didn’t like it. He never had.
It’s 12:58 a.m. They stand on the overpass, leaning against the chain-link fence, watching the rare car streak by in a blur of color and light. Ann is braiding her hair, the LED lights of her mask humming pink. The small crowd of onlookers had originally shot them a couple of looks, but they were hardly the only masked ones there, and so far as Akira can tell no one’s on their phone reporting anyone to anything. Too busy watching the lights go by, or popping the pill of the week, or smoking.
Akira inhales deeply. It smells of leather and stale cigarettes, trash and dirty snow.
He loves it. He loves it so, so, so much. No one takes this away from him.
The city flickers invitingly and he knows damn well he isn’t going home after this, not when there’s an adrenaline kick waiting for him so close by. He smiles to himself. So many choice. And it’s so much more dangerous now that he’s wanted .
The thought sends a shiver down his spine, his heart jumping a little.
“You coming back to the tower after this?” asks Ann, as though reading his mind. He flicks his eyes up at her.
“I think I’m gonna fuck around in the city a little bit. Just a little,” he adds, when she folds her arms. “You know how it is.”
“What, that you get the fucking flu when you go too long without jumping off a building?”
It wasn’t pretty, the last time he’d sprained his ankle. Yusuke had found him hanging out of a fifth-story window at the clock tower just to assuage the crushing feeling in his chest. “Yeah, that part.”
She snorts and leans back. “Makoto won’t like that, you know.”
“And what, she gets to have all the—”
A murmur ripples through the crowd, quickly rising into a chorus of yells. The bikers are coming back around.
“Oh!” Ann jumps up. “Oh, Akira, look—look!”
Akira chuckles. “That’s our girl, huh?”
“Hell yeah it is!” She bounces on the balls of her feet. “GO QUEEN!”
The black bike tears across the highway, so fast the circling lights on its wheels are nothing but a smear of green and blue in the night, its helmeted rider leaning over the handlebars. She raises her head at the sound of Ann’s voice and kisses her fingertips, the motion barely visible at her great speed. Ann giggles.
“Oh, they’re not even close.” Akira watches the other riders bear down, a cluster of blurry lights and roaring engines. “Looks like she’s got it.”
“Yeah, ‘cause she’s the best.” Ann jumps again and blows on her hands. “ And she’s got Futaba to work on Johanna. And Futaba’s also the best.”
He smiles. “‘Course they…”
His eyes slide to the side, the hairs on the back of his neck sticking up.
“...are…”
Just another hooded figure. Not out of place at all. Akira himself is a hooded figure, with a mask on to boot.
But…
He narrows his eyes. Something about the way this one’s walking towards them feels different. Long, quick steps, the way Morgana walks when he’s going after a bird.
Suddenly Akira feels cold. The tingling feeling spreads from his shoulders to the tips of his fingers. His smile grows wider, sharper.
“Ann,” he says. “I gotta run. Tell Makoto congratulations for me.”
“Huh? But you—”
“Shit’s fine, I just have to go. Okay?”
“Okay…”
She watches him walk towards the end of the high overpass. Towards the end he breaks into a jog, not looking to see whether the hooded figure is following or not, and throws himself onto the roof of a nearby building.
He lands. He holds his breath.
Thump.
Akira chuckles.
“So who’re you?” he says, turning. “One of Shido’s dogs?”
Click.
He rolls his eyes. “ Seriously .”
BANG!
Akira dodges the bullet easily and slips into the maze of ventilation equipment that covers the rooftop, keeping his footsteps light and reminding himself that his pursuer couldn’t hear his wildly pounding heart. He slides out from underneath a massive fan and grapples onto the roof of an even higher building, sucking in air when he hears another soft thwack.
Okay. So they can follow him that way, too.
He likes that. He can work with that.
To his surprise, they don’t take another shot, instead charging towards him and headbutting him in the chest hard enough to knock the air out, sending them both flying back across the rooftop. Akira cracks his head against a pipe and curses, rolling out of the way just in time to avoid a blazing red blade in the eye.
He pulls his karambit knife. It shines like an oil slick in the sickly industrial lights of the roof. The hunter tenses—Akira can see their silhouette better, now, the sleek leather-and-steel armor and hood, black mask covering half the face with red lights concealing the eyes. Their mouth is twisted into a half-smile, half-snarl as they lunge for him again.
An alarm goes off. Akira twists away from the hunter and glances from the skylight to the surrounding buildings.
He sprints to the edge and jumps again, eyes closed this time, shivers flowing through his body as he throws his hook out at random—it catches on something, and he opens his eyes before pulling himself up towards another rooftop. He blinks, lets his eyes warm up to the electric heart of the city, and—
Akira lets out a shout and stumbles back. The shape closing in on him isn’t just bright with electricity.
It’s blinding.
The hunter leaves sunspots on his vision; still blinded, Akira slashes wildly with his knife, catching something that makes them hiss at him, and then he’s flipping back again but they’re faster and before he knows what’s happening he’s pinned to the asphalt, something heavy pressing down on his chest. The red blade is like a bloody shooting star as it comes down.
Wait.
His heart shudders in his chest.
He can’t lose .
Akira raises his bionic arm and blocks the blade, shoving it to the side as he kicks the hunter in the stomach. He rolls to his feet and points his knife at their face. He can feel every inch of his body as though it were on fire; his skin tingles, every cell galvanized.
They stare at each other, Akira still trying to blink away the aftershock of the hunter’s blinding electric signals. Suddenly the hunter lets out a low “huh” of laughter. A young man’s voice.
The hunter straightens up.
Click-click-click.
Four appendages unfold from his back, black and metallic, like the synthetic wings of a crow.
He crouches. His silhouette is nothing close to human.
Okay. So you’re like, augmented augmented.
Akira backs up. The crow-hunter stalks towards him, red blade dragging across the asphalt. He can feel the bruises blooming across his back and shoulder.
Okay, so it looks bad. So it looks really bad. So maybe he’s up against a bionic bird-person-assassin.
He can’t help but laugh.
The crow-hunter stops at that, eyes inscrutable behind the mask. He tilts his head, not unlike a real bird.
Where would a bird lack the advantage?
Akira’s laugh rises, growing shrill.
Underground.
He waves to the crow-hunter to follow, and leaps from the building once more, only this time he doesn’t move to another; he drops, down, down, down, until he can see the dumpsters in the alleyway, and then he catches himself, breath in his throat as the whiplash travels down his arm. He scans.
There.
The grate is still half-open, steam rising from beneath, and Akira slips through, grateful for his gloves as he feels the heat of the iron ladder seeping through to his palms. The steam tunnels would lead to the subway—if he could just lead the hunter to the subway . Then he could get away.
Not that he was tired, exactly. Or that it hurt. But something in his chest told him that the longer he let this thing chase him, the less likely he was to survive to let it chase him again.
The pipes are rusty and ill-maintained, spurting hot steam at irregular intervals, and Akira barely avoids being burned as he rounds the corner. Yellowing fluorescent lights flicker overhead; graffiti lines the walls. More than likely some of it belongs to Ann, Shiho, Ryuji.
He can hear the crow-hunter’s footsteps behind him, quick and light. He doesn’t dare look, knowing the electricity is the only thing leading him to the right place, and that being blinded by whatever the fuck kind of circuitry was going on there would not help him get to the right place.
His breathing is ragged. His blood is on fire.
It’s euphoria, in as many words.
Their footfalls echo in the cement-lined tunnels, beating in time with the mechanical exhale of the pipes. Akira reaches the fork, swerves left, and—
—nearly slams into a dead end.
He whips around. He can see the heavy security door on the other side—the side he’d meant to take. Over the shoulder of the black-hooded figure that’s trying to kill him.
Shit.
The figure’s chest rises and falls. Akira raises his knife, staring desperately at the door—the train is coming, he has one shot, he only has one shot—
One slash. Duck. Second slash. Parry, but he underestimates the crow-hunter’s strength, and ends up with the blade carving a line into his mask—third, he can smell sweat and smoke and something else that he knows he should remember but doesn’t —
The ground rumbles. He’s about to lose his chance.
The hunter swings. Akira sees the opening, twists underneath it to grab his gauntleted hand and kicks his elbow hard, forcing a low curse from the hunter. His grip loosens slightly, just long enough for Akira to knock the crimson sword free.
They stare at each other. Akira thinks he can see eyes behind the gleaming red glass, but he can’t be sure, and he doesn’t have time to care.
With a bow, he presses his lips to back of the crow-hunter’s gauntlet.
“It’s been an honor,” he says, and in a single motion he twists the hunter’s arm until something lets out a metallic crunch —without looking back he shoves the hunter out of the way and tears for the security door, yanking it open with his bionic arm and nearly ripping off said arm in the process—he can feel the tracks rattling, the train bearing down on him, and he charges across, barely remembering to vault over the third rail without touching it—what an embarrassing way to go, that would’ve been, after all that—he lands on the other side, presses himself into the alcove just as the train slashes by, pulverizing every version of himself who wasn’t quite fast enough.
For a moment he thinks he might like to stop and breathe, but his hands are shaking and his skin is still sparkling with adrenaline and a laugh tears free from his chest, a wild sound, hardly more human than the thing that chased him had looked under the rooftop floodlights.
He makes his way back to the surface, pulling off his mask and pulling up his hood as he joins the crowd of late-night commuters. He waits until he’s on the street with the cold wind slicing at his face to dial Futaba’s number. It’s two in the morning, but she picks up immediately.
“Futaba,” he says breathlessly. “Guess what the fuck just happened.”