Chapter Text
…
Sinking.
Something was latched onto him, pulling him under, farther and farther away from reality. Tethering him to an abyss.
Is this what it feels like… to die?
Teeth grit as he was enveloped by folds upon folds of darkness. He didn’t want to die.
Though his recent actions could betray exactly the opposite, that fact remained.
Yet every time he blinked, he saw a fuzziness. A light.
Every time he blinked, his eyelids would get heavier– So he stopped, and very quickly, his eyes became bloodshot.
His hands balled into fists to try and keep himself awake.
The resilience of the ultimate police officer was nothing to sneeze at– Once he got an idea, you’d be damned to try and stop him.
And right now, the desire to survive was carved into his mind- stronger than anything else he’d experienced in his life, despite the fact it was flashing before his eyes.
…
‘I put myself here, in the end.
In the end, I couldn’t save anyone.
And I’m going to die like this…
As a terrifying, delusional person.
Who everyone distrusts.
Who no one can understand.’
The thought infuriated him. But then again, he was aware he typically felt anger before anything else. Before anything else, he was quick to reprimand, to issue punishment for any misdeeds done, whether with the help of a grand system he was part of or on a one-to-one-level. Anger was acceptable, because anger was drive. Any other negative emotion was to be expunged or at least suppressed. That was the way it had always been. So, was he angry? Was that the truth?
No. The truth… the truth was raw and ugly. He didn’t want to look at it, but he couldn’t escape it anymore. This was the worst thing for any police officer to end up entangled with in a time of crisis– an unwanted feeling that he thought he’d driven out of his psyche years upon years ago.
…
Fear was like a fire. If you kept a close eye on an initial spark, it would be as easily extinguished as stepping upon it, smothering its chances to alight. That was how he had lived his life so far, until emotions like that had stopped being a variable for consideration entirely.
Maybe that was the reason for this now. Maybe his negligence, his overconfidence, had cost him. Because he hadn’t been monitoring it closely enough, and while his back had been turned, his entire mind had gone up in flames.
There was no method of stopping it; it devoured and devoured without regard; a universal predator without an inhibition, a beast that couldn’t be sated or stopped, not anymore.
And he wanted to escape the smoke almost as badly as he wanted to live.
Wanting to live, but intending to die…
It would have been blood without purpose.
It would have been death without justice.
It would have been pain without function.
If Yuki hadn’t been there…
I’ve made my decision, and it’s time for you to make yours.
…
He was so exhausted, so drained, his entire being trying to sink into oblivion. Every movement brought haziness and pain. He could hardly think, hardly breathe. Stay alive. Stay alive. Stay alive. He chanted to himself, afraid he would lose all sense if he didn’t desperately hold on.
Even now, even still, rotting away in his room, fighting every moment not to disappear, not to relent to the call of death, he wondered if he’d done the right thing. These feelings wouldn’t have been as complicated if he’d just followed one line of logic, like always. But Yuki didn’t even tell him to stop. The only thing Yuki did was insinuate that he trusted him, and leave his life in his hands.
Why… such a direct trust…
Surely he remembered what had happened the last time a friend’s life was entrusted to him.
But he’d done it anyway. Yuki Maeda… what an incomprehensible person.
Where was Yuki, anyway…? What was he doing now…?
Gripping around on the floor and his clothes was a sluggish endeavor. Even the small movements were dizzying enough to make him need long seconds of rest. Despite his search, he couldn’t find what he was looking for. That gun… the gun he’d planned to use. Where did that gun end up?
Maybe someone was going to murder. And then all of his efforts would be for nothing. Someone would bloody their atrocious hands, and then…
And then…what? It’s not like all this painstaking, invisible sacrifice would even save anyone. In the corner of his mind somewhere, he knew about these things, about cases of starvation. The clinical descriptions of sensations and experiences now were inadequate when they were ravaging his own body. It was to the point that he couldn’t move. He was alone, trapped in this pitch-dark room, counting the seconds until he died.
All alone.
He didn’t want to die.
He never had.
…
But…
…
He was unable to fairly complain, because he was drowning in the consequences of his very own actions.
…
…
Why couldn’t things just be easier?
…
Maybe, if he’d been a normal student instead of the ultimate police officer…
…
…
He could have been friends with everyone.
…
…
…
…
A single spotlight turned on, illuminating his otherwise hazy world of darkness. He flinched with a grimace, shielding his eyes with a hand. “What is this? Who’s there??” He demanded, calling out into the void with immediate hostility, as his shoulders tensed and he prepared for any threat.
…
An object came skidding out of the darkness. It hit the side of his shoe, slowing to a stop. It was like this darkness had regurgitated it, just to deliver it to him.
…a shiny, metal gun.
“Atone.” A demented voice instructed him. “Atone, NOW.”
Like his body was moving against his own will, he leaned down and grabbed the gun. It felt natural in his hands. And he was glaring, mouth dry, as he stared down at the weapon. For so many years, he’d seen this as nothing but a tool, but now… he didn’t know how to feel about it anymore.
…ah. Wait, he could remember who this voice was. This was a memory he’d pushed to the back of his mind, repressed for countless years. A memory that had almost disappeared, before hunger and stress had drawn it out of him amidst the delusion. If he followed along with this memory, he’d be planting the barrel of the gun on his forehead and pulling the trigger.
…
It was tempting to just give in, like always. Give in to the natural flow of justice. It was true that he couldn’t remember what he’d done to deserve this punishment back then. But whatever it was… must have been sufficiently awful.
He must have deserved it.
…
He gritted his teeth, and raised the gun slowly. However, he didn’t point it at himself. He pointed it towards the voice.
“I’m not going to do this anymore.” He rebut flatly. “I don’t need to kill myself, do you understand me?? I have no desire to die! YOU on the other hand… who are you? What do you want from me??”
“…
I want you to serve and protect. Isn’t that obvious?”
“Me to serve and protect.” He parroted, grip tightening.
“I want you to be a guiding light for others. I want you to be the justice that breaks through the evil in this world. I want you, in your position of power to give the common people hope. I want you to fix the world. To create a utopia where no one can dare to commit crime.”
“…That isn’t all, though, is it?” He demanded blankly. “You’re missing a chunk of the sentiment.”
“…I want you to be a person that prevents criminals from hatching. I want you to be the savior to cut through the disgusting people of this world. I want you, in your position of power to destroy anyone who dares to defy you. Don’t you ever wonder why you were named the way you were? It was your destiny, from the second you were born, to be the ‘sword’ of light that cuts through the rotten darkness.”
“Yet the world is still dark.” He shook his head.
“You’ve been making it darker. The light from your justice should not discriminate. If you become rotten, your last just act should be vanquishing your own self. That is the type of person you should be, yet…”
“..I’m that type of person! And yet here we are! And despite my fight, things are still awful!” He exclaimed, voice cutting through the darkness with growing anger and fury. “You say I’m supposed to see more and more light when I cut through the darkness! Why, then, has only blood spilled on my hands?? Despite the whole way I’ve lived my life, diligently to the very end, it still ends with punishment! Why must everything end with punishment?!”
“…
don’t tell me, you instead expect forgiveness?”
Forgiveness?
“That’s…” He averted his gaze.
“Who would forgive a person like you?”
Memories suddenly hit him in a devastating onslaught.
Locking people up without regards to their desperate cries.
Shooting without hesitance or regard when given the okay.
Mowing down groups of innocent people.
Incompetence leading to the death of a fellow ally of justice.
Slamming someone’s forehead into the table.
Manhandling someone out of a room.
Dislocating someone’s shoulder.
…
Putting a gun to Yuki Maeda’s head.
“ENOUGH! STOP TALKING! I’M NOT LISTENING TO THIS NONSENSE ANYMORE!” He snarled, finger tightening resolutely on the trigger. This bastard… preaching without knowing anything! Had he ever really known at all? Or had all his competence on the force been a bluff for his inflated ego? This righteousness, this punishment… it was all bullshit.
And the person who had preached such bullshit since the very first day-
They deserved to DIE.
He fired. And he fired and then fired again. Over and over again, he shot into the darkness, precisely towards the noise.
…
And now, there was a great, expansive silence.
He holstered the gun. It was a comfortable, familiar motion. And then, with narrowed eyes and calculated, even steps, he walked towards where he’d fired.
He had to make sure he’d never come back, after all.
This person…
should have been gone from his life a long time ago.
He’d just been too deluded to realize it.
The faint light illuminated him. He was glowing. Radiant. An ally of justice, a vessel of justice, who had done the thing he had meant to all this time. Who had pulled out the roots of this problem. Did this mean it was over… that it was all over..?
…
A corpse came into his view.
The first thing he saw was blue. And then, red.
Blue and red… like sirens. Sirens that only turned on to indicate great danger.
The person he’d shot down was a teenage boy wearing blue, with red eyes, surrounding by red that blossomed from gunshot wounds all over him.
He froze.
No.
This wasn’t supposed to… he hadn’t thought the person he was shooting at was…
He’d thought it was…
The root of this problem? But… no…
Or… maybe it was gone now? Maybe the rotten darkness was gone now, and he’d been the shining light that cut through it?
…
One way or another, he had shot himself.
…
Unable to handle it, he stumbled back, and then ran away as fast as he could.
No, no, no, no, this wasn’t supposed to happen-
“You’ve done the right thing.”
“I’m proud of you.”
And he was still glowing. The darkness bent around him. The darkness FEARED him. Terror, the same seen in his classmates’ eyes- the same classmates he was supposed to protect. It was so familiar, fear always followed him, but not now- God, This wasn’t supposed to happen, this wasn’t-
“I knew I was right to trust you.”
“SHUT UP! DON’T USE HIS VOICE!!” He roared, continuing to run. At the same time, he knew he couldn’t hide forever. Was this future inevitable? No…
There had to be a better way. He had to find one himself. Because… someone important had stripped him of his iron convictions, and then left it up to him.
“Am I wrong?” He’d once asked a person, who immediately told him he was.
After that, things had become a little more clear. Memories had started to haunt him. Suddenly, everything he’d done was wrong. Suddenly, everything he’d done was evil. Suddenly, everything he’d fought so hard for in his years as a police officer, dedicating his life to a single purpose, was obsolete.
There was only one way to deal with such evil people.
But at the same time-
“None of us want you to suffer.” A person had once told him, and he’d immediately disbelieved them.
His suffering was only fair, after all. One who made others suffer should suffer themselves. An eye for an eye. A death for a death.
But then suffering led to suffering, compounding upon suffering, branching out to others. His suffering had made others suffer. It was like an infectious disease. If he was wrong, if he’d been wrong all his life, he needed to punish that, but if he couldn’t punish that…
What else was there to do?
If he couldn’t supersede Yuki's logic upon his own anymore… if he had to think for himself..
What possible way was there to solve this situation?
…
Whatever it was… he’d need to reconstruct himself, his values, from the ground up, destroying them down to the foundations and starting from scratch. A temporary solution… trying to adhere to someone’s thoughts… that wouldn’t work anymore. Not for the long run.
He had to completely change the way he looked at the world, and he had to do it alone.
But he could do this. He had to do this. To spare himself and everyone who came in contact with him from a future of suffering.
Because he had a reason to live, and because…
someone was counting on him…
He’d find the way to do it right. He had to find the way. There was no way he’d allow himself not to.
There had to be a path of hope.
Eventually, he stopped. His whole body was shaking- That body felt burdened, odd again- ripped away from this void, pulled out, towards reality, towards the undeniable truth that had unfolded since his absence.
Finally, Tsurugi Kinjo woke up.