Chapter 13
Posted: 03/03/2021
Status: Ongoing
Author's note: *dabs*
Were anyone left alive, they would have noticed the footprints imprinted in the sand. Two pairs, one slightly smaller than the other, both side-by-side. Soon, though, the breeze would make the sand travel, and the traces would disappear under layers of dust.
There would be no trace of their existence.
“It’s okay, we’ll be okay.” An airy voice could barely be heard in the wasteland.
That was their penance.
“Soon, everything will be over.”
…
“… What.”
“I meant just that. You two were brainwashed to hell and back and were causing havoc.” Namie stated plainly.
Shizuo blinked at her owlishly. His groggy brain had seemingly short-circuited.
“… What?” He babbled. “… Why? How?”
“I could tell you all the details we have, but I don’t think you are quite stable enough to understand it all right now. I think it’s safer to give you a summary of what happened, but I first need you to answer some questions.” She said, taking a notebook and pen from her coat and setting them on her lap. “Will you cooperate?” She asked, but her tone made it clear he didn’t actually have any choice in the matter, so he nodded.
Heiwajima Shizuo had never in his life felt quite as intimidated as he presently did in this woman’s presence.
“Perfect.” She said. “First, what is the last thing you remember before waking up here?”
Shizuo took a moment to think about it. She waited patiently, letting him take his time to put his jumbled memories in relatively chronological order. She had been assigned to him specifically, so it wasn’t like she had much else to do but wait.
“It’s…fuzzy. And some of it feels kinda like a dream.” He admitted.
“That’s fine. Tell me what you remember, it might help jog your memory.”
“I remember… I was in Tokyo with the flea, but there was nobody except us and…” He blanked. Wasn’t there someone else? There was something about that person that had been surprising to him, but…
He was startled out of his reverie by fingers snapping in front of his face.
“Focus, Heiwajima.” She said curtly, yet her tone hadn’t felt reproachful at all.
“Right, my bad. Well, the city was weird, it felt kinda fake? And it looked like Shinjuku and Ikebukuro had merged together. That was a dream, right?”
“Not exactly a dream, but close enough. It certainly wasn’t reality. Shinjuku and Ikebukuro remain separate in this reality.”
Perhaps it was because of her no-nonsense attitude, or the fact that she was clearly a woman of science, but her simple words and logic helped Shizuo feel more…grounded to reality, somehow. He felt his mind clear up slightly from the dazing combination of drugs and a coma.
“Right, yeah. Wasn’t real, it was too weird.”
“Were there any other strange details that caught your attention, beside the merging of two districts? We had no visuals of the simulation, so any details of what it appeared like from the inside is valuable to us.”
Simulation , huh.
“Uh, well, I remember waking up in my apartment multiple times, but I don’t remember actually falling asleep. I think I blacked out at some point, though?” He said, unsure.
“Tell me more. Try to include as many details as possible.” She seemed genuinely interested, in her own nonchalant way, writing in her notebook at light speed.
“I was looking for people, and I found the flea… I mean Izaya. I was pissed and tried to throw some shit— I mean stuff at him, but I couldn’t. It was like all my strength had been sapped out or something.” He gestured vaguely. “So I decided to just punch him instead and…” He trailed off.
“And? What happened next?”
“I’m…not sure. It suddenly gets very blurry then. I think that’s when I passed out. Next thing I knew, I was waking up in my bed again.”
He took Namie’s continuous writing as encouragement to keep talking.
“Then it went pretty much the same way. I was looking for some people, found the f— Izaya.”
“Wait.” She halted him in his rambling. “Just tell me this first, did you remember the previous ‘day’, so to speak?”
Shizuo was about to say he did but…he hadn’t.
Until a specific point in time.
“Ah. Actually. I didn’t. While I was looking around, something made me think of Izaya, and it all came back… I think. I got this horrible headache, and suddenly I was remembering the ‘day’ before and other stuff as well. I think some of the memories were real.”
“All those memories were real, Heiwajima.” She said in a strangely serious tone. “True, some of these you made while in the simulation, but they were all real.”
Why she felt the need to insist on the reality of his memories, Shizuo wasn’t quite sure.
“… I see.” He coughed awkwardly at the sudden intense display, then kept going. “So, I remembered a bunch of stuff, but it was very jumbled. I could hear some stuff Izaya had told me, I felt fire at some point, too. I think I saw a bunch of those red-eyed zombies, the ones that keep talking about love and stuff.”
“Saika children.” Namie said.
“Right, those. Then the headache got worse, and I saw more stuff, I think it happened later. They were mostly stuff I’d probably thought at some point…”
Monster.
He had promised himself, after this. Never again.
That was all he was good at.
Violence. Destruction.
Namie stared in silence as Shizuo seemed to be coming upon a realization, the memories gradually fitting together like puzzle pieces.
“Actually, some of it I remembered when you brought me to Izaya’s room.” He said, gaze unfocused as he was concentrating fully on piecing together his memories. “The fight I saw, it was our last one, I think. Then Izaya disappeared before I could finish him off. Things were pretty calm without him around, but then the stuff with that other gang happened…something about snakes?”
“Snake Arms. I’m impressed, you remember much more than I expected.” Namie said, and it almost felt like a compliment.
“But I’m missing something!” He said, frustrated. “I think I remember what happened until then, but after that it’s just blank!”
He went to scratch at his hair in a frustrated gesture, but Namie reached out and slapped, once more, his hand away.
“No need to stress yourself over this, those memories will come back in due time.” Her calm, even tone made him relax in his bed. “Now that we went over what you do remember, which, I must reiterate, is much more than expected considering the situation, I can tell you more about what happened. The question is: are you feeling up to it?” She asked.
“I…” Shizuo tried to answer. Was he up to it? He thought, when they had started this little ‘session’, that he would be. But the strain of trying to piece himself and his memories together had been much more exhausting than he anticipated. He gave the woman sitting beside him a helpless expression.
She nodded, as if she had predicted his reaction.
“Alright, then we will stop for today. Someone will come and bring you food very soon, then you will be left to rest.” She said, standing up from her chair and brushing up her skirt.
At the mention of food, his stomach made itself known with a loud rumbling. He pressed his hands over his belly with a blush, as if it would somehow undo this. Namie seemingly didn’t care, and continued giving her instructions.
“Your body is probably still too weak to hold itself up, so if you want to relieve yourself, you will need to call a nurse, there’s a button right there on the side of your bed. Don’t abuse it, but do use it when needed.” She said, pointing to his left side. He already dreaded the moment he would need to go. “Now then, I will be on my way. Good evening, Heiwajima.”
Just as she was opening the door to leave, Shizuo called out for her.
“Ah, wait! I’ve just got one question before you leave.”
Namie looked over her shoulder, not bothering to turn around. “What is it?”
“Is this a hospital?” He asked.
She kept silent for a few seconds, then gave him a smile that chilled him to the core, yet reminded him very strongly of a certain informant’s.
“How innocent.” She said simply, and left a frazzled Shizuo alone in his room.
…
“So, ‘Kaikyou-kun’, huh?”
It was lunchtime, and Izaya found himself alone on the roof with that new transfer student, Shinra mysteriously absent that day.
“I told you we’d meet again soon.” The boy with messy brown hair told him, sitting completely relaxed against the railing, seemingly enjoying the sun’s light. Izaya, who was standing against the very same railing, scoffed.
“That’s obviously a fake name. It’s ‘Tsugaru Kaikyou Fuyu Geshiki’ isn’t it?”
“The folk song. Yep.” He admitted with an unrepentant smile.
“I’m curious as to how you managed to convince them it was your real name.”
The boy, ‘Tsugaru’, shrugged. “I have my ways.”
Izaya gave him an unimpressed stare. For some reason, that boy made him particularly annoyed, and he had no idea why. He normally fancied himself a considerably patient person. One had to be, when their best and only friend was one of the most annoying people alive.
“So, what do you want from me?” Izaya went straight to the point.
“How conceited of you.” Tsugaru teased, but Izaya didn’t take the bait.
“You’ve somehow managed to convince people that your real name is Kaikyou Tsugaru despite it being obviously ripped off a folk song, down to the kanji, but simply rearranged, somehow managed to make yourself look like a high-schooler, and I happen to be the only one who’s aware of the fact that this is all an illusion.”
“An illusion , heh.” Tsugaru muttered under his breath, amused. Izaya ignored him.
“If you have the ability to do all that, then I doubt you would have let me know unless you wanted something from me. So, speak up. I’ll warn you though, I love humans, but I don’t care about the supernatural, spirit-san.”
‘Spirit-san’, so that’s your conclusion, huh? Interesting.
Tsugaru smiled.
“Believe it or not, I don’t want something out of you. Or rather, it’s more like I want to give you something.” Tsugaru spoke calmly, uncaring of the annoyed aura he could feel coming from the high-schooler standing next to him.
“Give me something? What would you even give me?” Izaya asked, wary, but still a bit curious. He couldn’t help but be at least the slightest bit excited from such an unpredictable situation, even if it had to do with the supernatural.
“I can’t tell you. You’ll know when you have it.” Tsugaru answered vaguely. Izaya quirked an eyebrow at that.
“And when will that be?”
“You’ll know when the time is right.” Tsugaru looked up to him and gave him a mysterious smile, which earned him an irked scoff.
“Ugh, fine. Be mysterious, mister handsome spirit-or-whatever-it-is-you-are, if it amuses you so. So I’ll know what it is when I get it, and I’ll know when that will be when the time is right. Whatever. Awesome. Can’t wait.” He snapped and finally sat down, a pout on his face. The brunette to his side looked amused.
“Did you just call me handsome?”
“… That’s what you remembered out of everything I said?” Izaya sounded exasperated, and Tsugaru laughed at his plight.