#really just sitting there with an expressionless face but. internally flailing

[eshtaresht]

ough ouch puch yeowch really feeling this tonight

pros of EMDR therapy: shit WORKS

cons: unrelenting anxiety and feeling like a gutted fish for days after a session

[dragonrajafanfiction]

Ghosts’ Journey (Part 2): The History of Chime Gen

Here it is... the whole thing. I wanted to cut it but there was no good place. I did my best with the translation. (FINGEL PLEASE SPEAK HUMAN) Because this is important information to the Chime/Ruri fandom the Content of his speech is nearly exactly as it is in the novel.

@rurifangirl By request

The plan was to wake up before him. You had learned from Z that Japanese men were conservative. You didn’t know each other. He was out of it. He might think you took advantage of him. That sort of thing happened in Black Swan.

But he was also human and humans needed touch. Z’s hug transformed you even more than Herzog’s laughter. You didn’t get any affectionate human touch as a child. You would give him that precious touch so his mind could heal. Or maybe you would give him that touch because you desperately needed it yourself. Maybe you gave it to Ruri because he could give it to you and not require anything in return as a doll-person.

These were the excuses you gave yourself until you fell asleep in his arms.

As soon as you opened your eyes and felt the sun coming through the small window, you realized that you failed your mission objective. Ruri was sitting up next to you while you lay on the pillow. He was looking out the window. His eyes were no longer empty, but they held no joy. They were still, without any spark.

Guilt makes you freeze momentarily. “If you wanna push me off the bed, you can.”

The words shocked him out of his reverie. He looked down at you with those dark eyes and you detected a strange hesitation. His eyes meet yours and shift away without any friction. “You can stay if you want,” he said in a soft melodic voice.

“Sorry. I meant to wake up before you. Are you… in any pain? Physically I mean. The rest is obvious.” You sit up and swing over the edge of the bed. Ugly black veins are pulsing up your feet. The dragon blood in your body was now showing up more permanently. You flexed your toes and tried to calm it.

“No.”

“Good.”

“I want to apologize to you. For making a promise I won’t be able to keep.” He said.

“And what promise was that?” In this light, Ruri Kazama was no star performer. He looked shockingly ordinary, able to blend in with the masses on the streets of Japan. You probably wouldn’t recognize him were it not for his long hair.

“All of them. It’s all a deception.” 

“You’re going to have to be more specific.” You whisper, looking up at him seriously. On the one hand, it wouldn’t be the first time you were deceived by a man, but on the other hand, you personally understood the intense warping of the mind that came with being a child of Herzog. 

“I made you believe that I was Ruri Kazama. That I had power and wealth. That I could lead the Devil Clan by defeating the King General.” He paused for a long time before whispering. “None of that was true.”

You shrug it off. “Okay. I’ll believe you. But you’ll have to understand that was not why I pursued you. And I’m sorry I gave you that impression. If anything, I have many more reasons to stick with you now.”

“The King General will kill you.” He said gravely.

“Not if Bondarev gets to me first.” You quip and smile but his sharp intense glare makes your smile falter a moment. You stare at each other unblinkingly for a moment. “Look. Don’t play this… ‘you need to stay away from me’ line.” You whisper, but your tone is kind. “I will be in danger no matter what. I should be dead by now. And every day I live is on borrowed time.” 

You roll up your sleeves to show him the black veins beneath pale skin dotted with sparkling gold scales. “Can I at least have your company for the time I have left?”

Chime Gen gives a sad shake of his head. Maybe if he were in another state, he would have insisted and argued. But now he just gives up and hangs his head, his hair covering his face. When you reach out to brush it back, his hand catches yours and gently places it in your lap.

You bite the inside of your lip and fight your internal panic. He wasn’t feeling well. He had a humiliating and terrifying night. You’d seen him at his lowest. He was revealed to be nothing but a doll, a marionette whose strings had been cut. So of course your affection was painful.

“What do you want right now?” Your voice is flat and expressionless.

“Can you bring me that box?”

He points over to an ornate wooden box. It had a curved metal handle and a pot-like metal lid. It had a few small drawers and two hooks with which to carry a long narrow pipe. Ruri knew what to do when you brought it. He took the pipe from the box and then opened the drawer.

“Can you tell me about this?” You ask quietly.

“This is called a kiseru. It uses a special kind of tobacco. You won’t find it outside of Japan.” He pulls a wood box covered with hand written script on rice paper. The smell of the leaves reaches your nose. It was tobacco but it had a richer, almost meaty aroma.

“You just roll it in a ball between your fingers and put it into the pipe like this.” The pipe was narrow and very long but Chime was so practiced that he could roll the tobacco in one hand and hold the pipe in the other. He stuffed the pipe and you held out the open box of matches. He glances at you but you keep your face carefully neutral. He takes the box of matches from you and strikes one. He pauses for two seconds and lights the tobacco. There’s a small compartment in this box that he drops the spent match in.

You set the box at the end of the bed and then sit next to him. He inhales deep and breathes out a long smooth stream of white that swirls around his face like mist. It smelled different from Caesar’s cigars, not as sweet, but this was the smell on his clothing when you found Ruri Kazama in the rain, fleeing from the Hydra operatives.

“It… doesn’t bother you?”

You shake your head. “I like it.”

He hasn’t pushed you off the bed yet so you stay there and watch him smoke. His eyes and mind were far away, like he’d gone on a long journey. All you could do was wait for him to come back.

You weren’t at peace for long when you heard Caesar’s voice coming through the door.  "Then, as the best journalist among us, this great task falls on your shoulders! Whether it's psyching him up or hanging him up and beating him, get the information about the King General out of his mouth." Caesar opened the door to your room and pushed Fingel inside, "We’ll go have breakfast first, and, hopefully, we'll hear good news from you when we return."

Apparently, all the boys were awake and in the hallway. Fingel stumbled in, locked eyes with you and then flailed. “Aaah! Sorry, I’m interrupting!”

“You’re not.” You say with a sly smile. “We just finished.”

Chime inhaled sharply and coughed.

You flinched. “Sorry. I… I say things like this. I’ll shut up now.” You turn back to Fingel and the others and beckon them in. Then you look around. “Sorry, there’s nowhere to sit!”

“I’ll get something, you sit right there.” Caesar’s eyes hold a sly little light.

Caesar returned with chairs and they all sat around the bed while Chime silently finished off his pipe. He looked incredibly peaceful and you calmed yourself inside that you’d done and said the right thing.

The silence lasted for nearly five minutes and you were impressed with the boys’ fortitude. True to character, Caesar broke first. He kicked Fingel and nodded sharply towards Ruri.

 Fingel, looking a little nervous, cleared his throat, and prepared an opening statement: "You have the right to remain silent."

It took everything in you not to crack a smile, even though you were practiced. So you followed the joke up with a withering look of absolute disdain while you clenched your stomach and held your breath. 

Chime gently exhaled a mouthful of smoke, and his face was submerged in it, shielding him like a veil: "I know what you want to ask, and I will tell you. But please don't rush to ask me. Let me take my time to figure it out, so that it will be more clear."

You swivel your head to look at him, immediately concerned. The simple humble request moved you more than any of Ruri Kazama’s quick-wittedness. His voice was speaking like a small tired soul out of a grave. His eyes were heavy with sadness.

"My current appearance surprises you guys, right? Actually, this is my actual appearance. Every time you see me, I have more or less put on makeup. Only some of the makeup is so good that you can't see it." Chime Gen thought for a long time before he spoke again, "I have the same face as my brother, but I am not as good-looking as my brother. It’s only after wearing makeup that I look like him.” 

“When I was young, I always thought how nice it would be if I could be like my brother. He’s so perfect that people used to wonder how an insignificant person like me could be his brother. We both have been fatherless for as long as we can remember. No one can really prove that we are brothers. There were times when people said we didn't look alike, and I hid and cried. I was such a weak character as a child."

You squint, not understanding. How could Chime say Chisei was perfect if Chisei couldn’t see the truth if it was standing right in front of him? He still supported Tachibana after realizing that he was turning people into Deadpool and planning to awaken the Light king. You tried to help Chisei only because Chime asked you to. It was not Ruri Kazama who asked you to. It was Chime.

Chime turns to you, seeing the look in your eyes. “We both grew up in the mountains. There was only one middle school in that town and every girl in the school had a crush on my brother -- or, at least, that was what I always believed. He was the team leader in the kendo department and the team leader in the basketball club, and the girls loved to watch him sweat and practice his sword in the sunset. He was so focused, so intense, that even if there was a wall in front of him, he would break it down. So, even though he was so cold that he didn't even look at the girls, the girls kept sneaking glances at him, day after day after day. You may think that my bloodline is better than my brother's, so I'm stronger than him, but you're wrong. My brother's strength is not in bloodline, it's in his heart. He is the kind of man who will go forward once he has decided, and he will be able to achieve great things. For example, if he decides to be a friend of justice, he will be a friend of justice all his life.”

If it were anyone else saying those words, you would have a fiery response to that. His brutal murder of Chance was his decision and you couldn’t persuade him to stop. But who’s fault was that really? He only turned into that killer after Chance’s blood acted up. Before that, he was Chance’s protector. His Savior. He was going to let him go.

“I’m not going to ask you for your forgiveness.” Those words. Chisei had made his decision about Chance. But he was okay that you stayed upset with him about it. In your mind, you look at Chisei over the gap between you again and wonder if you should still hold out hope for him.

"My brother said he must work hard because we do not have parents. Only by hard work will we not be looked down upon.”

“He said he was going to take the entrance exam to Tokyo University and take me to Tokyo one day. I just hated that I was a useless brother, that I can't get into Tokyo University and that I can't help my brother. Everything my brother does is so that he and I can have dignity. I really wanted to be like my brother: a determined man, so that I could stand by his side and be considered his brother. But I was also a little jealous of my brother. Why is he the same as me, but he is so good and I am so weak, being called girly? But I never wanted to outshine my brother, I just wanted to be able to share a little bit of my brother's glory... just a little bit less than him.”

 "Then Tachibana Masamune came to the mountain and he said that both my brother and I had excellent bloodlines, and he would take one of us to Tokyo to train, and the other would stay in the mountain. If the former was killed, the latter would be the replacement. He said we could never tell the outside world that there were two Gen Clan children, and that the Gen family did not need two heads. As a matter of course, my brother was taken away as the future head of the family and I was left behind. I was his shadow. I have been his faceless shadow all my life. So sometimes I hated him too.”

He glanced at you but you said nothing. Beneath his words, the viper Bondarev slid. You couldn’t know exactly where he was in this whole story. But he separated Chisei from Chime. Chisei said his brother was ‘probably dead’. Were those Tachibana’s words? So that Chisei wouldn’t visit him?

"It was then that I met the King General, and he appeared to me as a man wearing a Noh theater mask.”

“I grew up loving noh and kabuki and was curious about this man in a noh mask, but the King General didn't actually know how to perform noh, he just knew the human heart too well. He started by coaching my performance and got to know me gradually. He would always meet with me alone and asked me not to tell my brother or anyone else. I didn't tell my brother because everything in this world is my brother's. I wanted the King General to be my teacher alone, something truly mine. King would say he saw my potential. He said I am better than my brother.”

Your eyes slide to one side as you hear the song of the manipulation. With just Bondarev alone, you didn’t hear it though you suspected it. It wasn’t until you heard the play of both Bondarev and Herzog that the sound of it became clear that these boys were being double teamed. That said, you also realized that both of these boys were plagued with a strong sense of pride. While he readily admitted he didn’t want to outshine his brother, at the same time, Chime didn’t want to be too low. And when King General promised him greatness, he fell for it.

 "It was like I was living in a fantasy during that time. Every night, King would wait for me in the mountains, and we would stroll along the mountain paths until the moon was in the middle of the sky. Under the stars, he explained to me the characters in the kabuki, and he gave me a strong drink which warmed my body. I was not tired even after walking with him all night in the mountains. Suddenly, one day I noticed a girl smiling at me shyly, with an expression I had never seen before. I was delighted at first, thinking I could learn that expression, but as I kept practicing that shy smile in the mirror, I realized why she was smiling at me like that; because I had become beautiful. My whole being looked like it was glowing.""

 "That wine was mixed with evolutionary drugs?" Caesar asked.

“Yes, I am the only one in this world who swallowed that many evolutionary drugs without losing control of who I was. My own blood can restrain the evolutionary drugs' side-effects.  My blood is more poisonous than evolutionary drugs." Chime said slyly.

"Sorry to interrupt you... Please continue." Caesar said.

Chime Gen nodded: "I can't remember the rest. Those memories are very vague, I only know that the Final Police Report said that the town's serial killings of female high school students were all caused by the same person. Because that person left, they closed the case."

"What does that mean?" Caesar did not understand.

 "I killed a total of fourteen girls and turned their bodies into waxed human statues and placed them in the deepest basement of the school, where I sewed kabuki costumes for the dead and practiced imitating the women. This incident was considered by the Yakuza Hydra family to be a crime committed by a deadpool. So my brother was sent back to that town on a clean-up mission. That night I killed the fourteenth girl right before his eyes. He found me when I was in the basement preparing the corpse, dressed in women's clothing, singing."

Chime spoke softly, "I was stabbed through the heart by my brother. He threw my corpse into a deep well, locked the lid forever, and then buried the whole well. I think it was because I became the devil in his eyes and he was afraid that the devil might rise from the dead. Even if he had my body burned, he wouldn’t rest easy. He wanted to be able to see my bones, my body at the bottom.”

All of you shivered in unison, and the thing that was even more frightening than that atrocity was that Chime Gen talked about such bloody matters as if he were talking about another person, calm to the point of indifference.

 "I know what you're thinking. You're wondering if I've gone crazy. Clearly, I killed so many people, but I talk about it as if those things have nothing to do with me. But I really don't think I killed those girls. During that time, I was having a nightmare, a nightmare in which I lived a happy life, in which my charm conquered every girl in the school. I finally wouldn't disgrace my brother. I asked them to go to the river to see the stars. They came shyly. I took their hands and they all accepted, and then I cut their throats with a knife. At their happiest moment. But their beautiful expressions weren’t preserved on their own. They were made into statues by me, so that I kept the most beautiful side of them. In the dream, I felt that there was nothing wrong with this. Until someone outside the dream was calling me, I suddenly realized that it was my brother who came back. My brother came home to see me. I suddenly turned around and came back to reality all of a sudden, but I didn't have time to hug my brother before I ran into his blade head-on.”

 "When I woke up again, I was on a huge stage. There was a beam of light hitting me from above. I was wearing the clothes of The Great Maiden in the Clouds, with long hair and full makeup. I didn't have any wounds on my body, but the pain from being stabbed in the chest seemed to remain there. I was sitting on a gorgeous throne. And next to me stood various girls in Kabuki costumes, each one beautiful. It seemed like I had just taken a nap while my attendants waited for me to wake up. I suddenly couldn't tell reality from illusion. I felt like I was still in that basement full of corpses. I couldn't tell if the girls around me were living or dead. The girls and the members of the Devil Clan sitting on the stage applauded vigorously as if they had just watched a thrilling performance. The King announced to everyone that he had found the true successor to the Great Three Clans, and that was me, and that I would guide the Devil Clan into the future. Their faces ran with tears. I asked the King General what was real and what was not, and the King General simply said congratulations on the awakening of the Emperor."

    "So you remember all these things, only you think some of them happened in a dream but some were reality?" Chu Zihang asked.

 "Yes, the serial killing was like a dream to me. Everything in the dream was blurry. Only the faces of those girls and the moment I killed them were clear. In the dream, I seemed to become another person. Killing was not a terrible thing for me. It was a beauty. I would be ecstatic for the moment when the girl's dying smile had not completely faded, before despair and panic had appeared, and I would be excited to see the blood spilled." Chime Gen said, "But I look back on that state afterwards, especially when I think of all the dead bodies I had sung to in that damp basement, and I'm so scared and disgusted that I can't help vomiting every time."

 "So you don't deny that you killed those girls?" Caesar said.

 "I can't deny it, I remember every detail so clearly. If I didn't do it myself, who could have put those details into my head?" Chime Gen said, "It's as if there was an evil spirit hiding in my body. That evil spirit woke up and took control of me. The really gorgeous and charming part of me is that spirit. As for me, I'm just a mediocre person."

Lu Mingfei quietly shivered.

You sat still, not looking at anyone. Now your hair fell in front of you. Ruri was silent. You could see him watching you with a cold expression a moment before turning back to the window.

"Did he exchange anything with you?" Lu Mingfei asked cautiously, "I mean the evil spirit inside your body."

Chime Gen smiled indifferently, "I am not going to excuse myself. I am the evil spirit. The evil spirit is me. The evil spirit is another state of mine. It is one with me."

"That's why you hate King General so much, because it was the King General who drew out the evil spirit in your body. He went to the mountain to find you, in fact, to find the evil spirit in your body." Chu Zihang said.

 "Yes, and I failed to resist his temptation. He was the one who created the unbreakable barrier between me and my brother, and, from that day on, my brother was no longer my brother, and the relationship between him and me was between a Devil Slayer and a Devil." Chime said, "The King General ruined my life and turned me into his 'Dragon King'. I wanted to get rid of his control, so I had to kill him. Otherwise, he could find me no matter where I fled. Even to the ends of the earth. Last night, I thought I had succeeded. I thought I had shaken him off. But I was wrong, he could not be shaken off, we two evil spirits were destined to go all the way."

You lift your head slightly. You said the same thing about Renata’s killer Bondarev. You understood this. It would all end in blood eventually. There was no other way.

 "Do you believe that there are really evil spirits in this world that cannot be killed?" Caesar turned to Chu Zihang, "I mean King General."

"As I said before, although my reason tells me that there should be no such thing as ghosts in the world," Chu Zihang said slowly, "but what I have seen is beyond human understanding."

"He will come for me, and it is useless for me to hide anywhere. No one in this world can kill him, and neither can I." Chime said quietly, "He also took away the power he gave me."

"What does that mean?" Caesar asked.

"That banging sound. That's what he used to control me. He can use the sound of the clapper to put me into the state of the 'evil spirit'. In that state, I will have the power of the bloodline, my confidence and determination will skyrocket. Kazama Ruri is actually the name of that evil spirit. He can also use the sound of the clapper to make the evil spirit sleep, so that I can become a Chime Gen. With my current strength, I can't even hold the hilt of my sword. When he finds his way here, I have no choice but to sit and wait for death."

“Is this consistent with what you know?” Chu Zihang asked, addressing you.

“Yes. If I may… speak.” You look at Chime. “I know about the clapper sound. I was present with King General, when he was Dr. Herzog. I saw how he can turn access to dragon words on and off… although I was raised by him, I was not given the treatment that would put me under his control.”

“So you know?” Chime asked.

You nod slowly. “I know a lot.”

Chime turned his pipe upside down and tapped it into the ashtray.

"Lu Mingfei also reacted to that banging sound, but Lu Mingfei didn't seem to switch any state!" Caesar said.

You turn to Lu Mingfei in shock. “What?!”

“Given that lowlife face he’s putting right now, he’s definitely the real Lu Mingfei. Accept no substitutions.” Fingal nodded rapidly.

You continue to stare at Lu Mingfei for an uncomfortably long time until Mingfei just drives his eyes into the floor. Lu Mingfei is Z’s brother. Z was with you in Black Swan… then… that means...

Caesar pondered for a moment: "Initially, we thought that The White King was our enemy, but now it seems that the King will be no less terrifying than a Dragon God. This situation is tricky for both us and Hydra. It seems that we should join forces with your brother, and, as for the conflict between the Academy and Hydra, we can take our time to resolve it afterwards."

 "You have to gain my brother's trust first. He doesn't trust you, much less me. Even if he has watched me attempt to assassinate the King General, he will have thought it was an internal fight in the Devil Clan. With the death of Tachibana Masamune, and with his position in mind, he is bound to make his own plans. Tachibana Masamune's plan was to destroy the White King and make the Hydra family independent again. To take control of the future of the Japan Branch. In this case, my brother will not cooperate with you." Chime Gen said, "He will find a way to kill the King General himself."

You’re silent through all of this talk. None of this is relevant to you after all. You’re still reeling from the revelation that Chime had killed women like you before under the influence of the King General. Although he might not even realize it was the clapper sound causing the killing sprees, he recognized the split personality state that sometimes people were put in when they heard the clapper. You recall the handsome and flirty Anton, who was changed to the Anton who was dead inside, what was changed to the Anton that was like a reptile.

The fact that Lu Mingfei was also susceptible to this sound shook you as well. Lu Mingfei’s sudden great headache on the roof during the Tokyo Tower mission: Was that also a result of the clapper? You didn’t hear any clapper that you could recall at that time. But still, while Lu Mingfei cringed and moaned in front of you, you tried to speak with him and your words were not reaching him. It was like he was turning into a doll, but didn’t go all the way.

"I'm not doubting your brother's fighting ability, but you’re clearly the smarter one. I don’t think that your brother is clever enough to face the King." Caesar said.

"Brother still holds the last card, he has Erii Uesugi in his hand."

"Erii is more powerful than you?" Lu Mingfei asked.

 Chime Gen shook his head slowly: "I don't know what Erii Uesugi is, but I really don't have the certainty to say that Ruri Kazama can beat her. She seems to be extremely crippled in some ways, but her kind of catastrophic killing power is a power on the level of a Dragon King."

“Japan is really a place full of monsters." Caesar said with an exasperated sigh, "Get some rest, we still have to go to breakfast. Want us to bring you something?"

"After hearing all the things I've done, do you still see me as a friend?" Chime looked up and looked Caesar in the eyes.

"If you do another vicious act in front of me, I will stick my knife in your heart just like your brother; but until then, we should be considered allies, if not friends." Caesar walked out of the room without looking back and the others followed. "If the King will indeed find you here, we will keep you safe."

 The door closed, and Chime was silent for a long, long time, sighing softly, "It would be foolish to make rash statements like who you will protect until you truly know the King's General but thank you." Chime looked at you. “What say you? MC?”

You stare after the closed door, eyes empty. “I understand what you mean now. When you said the King General will kill me, you meant to say, he will use you to do it. Right?” You look in his direction.

Chime Gen’s eyes were sad, so sad.

You close your eyes and nod in confirmation. “I understand.” You take a deep breath and turn to him, leaning in closer. “But I’m not giving up.” You whisper. “First, we have to survive. Then… after that, we can be together. But you promised me you would not give up your life. Keep that promise. Don’t seek death. Okay?”

You squeeze his hands tightly and he returns that squeeze with a firm grip of his own, a grip so tight it was painful. The pain in your hands distracted you from the pain in your heart. When your hands finally released, that throbbing ache in the bones of your hand was as good as a kiss.

You get up and walk quickly out of the room. Your things were no longer in the bath house so you had to head down the hall to the elevator. Much to your shock, Caesar was there waiting for you alone. You stop, hesitant. “Lose your appetite?”

“I wanted to make sure you were okay. That must have been very hard for you to hear.” He stood, one hand in his pocket. He looked almost too innocent and you wonder if he was eavesdropping.

You shrug. “It is what it is. Until the King General dies… Now if you excuse me, I have to pack.”

You step around him and he catches your arm. “What do you mean pack?” His blue eyes snap at you.

You look up at him in confusion. “I’m leaving. I can’t stay here. The …” You stop talking and sigh, massaging your forehead. Do you really have to spell it out for him? “Okay. Listen. The King General wants me dead just as much as Bondarev. He must know I love Ruri Kazama by now and if he comes here, he will not kill me. He will use Chime to do it, just because he’s that much of an asshole! He’s the type of person who would punish Chime for rebelling like this. He’s used Chime as a murder weapon before, and he’ll do it again!”

“You can’t go out there. Chisei or Hydra or Bondarev, if he’s still alive as you think he is, are still around and hunting you. How are you going to defend yourself on your own?!” 

Caesar didn’t let you go but you jerked out of his grip. “I’ll have to find a way! But I can’t stay here and be a sitting duck for Herzog. You heard what he said! Herzog will find him no matter where he runs. And he’s the type of person who would do this!”

“No,” Caesar’s eyes were firm. “That Gen brother needs you. He would never hurt you.”

You laugh but there’s no joy in it. Your frustration and anger is building in your eyes. “What part of mind control don’t you understand! Do you think he would ever hurt the 14 girls he already hurt? Why am I different?”

“Because you’re already in his heart! That’s why he’s sending you away to protect you right?” Caesar hissed.

You shake your head and raise your arms only to drop them in frustration. “Caesar. … I told him not to send me away. But after hearing what he said, … this is my decision.”

“No.” Caesar dug his heels in. You could see that firm immovable light in his eyes. “I’m not letting you out of my sight.” He stepped around you easily. It was confrontational, blocking you. He was serious. He was between you and the elevator and your back is against the wall.

You look at him in disbelief. “You’re just going to let me sleep in the same place as the murder weapon?”

“Hey!” He hissed. He bangs his fist against the wall next to your face and there’s a crack visible in the plaster. He points down the hall toward Kazama’s room. “He is not a murder weapon. That is the man you love. He needs you to believe in him!”

 Your eyes have gone distant and dull. You couldn’t believe those words had come out of your mouth. After everything that had happened to you. How could you ever say something like that? You feel like your world is spinning. The logic of survival dictated that you leave him and stay away from him. So you continue to protest. “Caesar… Herzog is counting on me to stay close to Ruri. He’s betting on it. He’ll set the stage. He’ll make it beautiful and when it’s at its most beautiful and we’re so close… Ruri will...”

Caesar takes a deep breath and shakes out his hand. “So we’ll think of a plan B.”

“What plan B? None of us can beat Ruri Kazama if he loses his mind to the clapper.” You whisper hoarsely. “I don’t care as much about dying as much as I do about breaking his heart. If the King General makes him kill me.” You look into his eyes, begging him to understand. “Caesar… it will destroy him. I don’t want to give King General that satisfaction. That’s what I really care about.”

Then you see in Caesar's eyes a black boiling rage like a ferocious thundercloud! A killing aura! “I want to see this bastard try. I don’t believe in Ghosts or evil spirits or any of that fake ass shit.” Caesar spat. “You know better than anyone else here. King General is just a man. A man behind a curtain of tricks. You already saw through his trap today. If you run off, you’ll just run into his back-up trap. It’s better to deal with the devil you know, go about our business as usual and set up a trap of our own.”

You finally relent. “Fine. What do you have in mind?”

“I’ll think of something.” Caesar rubs the back of his head. He glares at you when you laugh. “In the meantime, stay put.”

“God… okay…” You cover your eyes with your hand.

“You just need to stay calm! He knows you’re smart but guys like him have low opinions of women. Once he sees you falling all over you’re favorite guy like you did last night, he’ll think you’re just like all the rest of the so called ‘weaker sex’” He puts this in air quotes. “He’ll let down his guard.”

“Yeah…” You’re still uneasy, but you’ve started to calm down, rubbing your arm and looking away.

“Trust me… Trust me!” He gives you a firm pat on the shoulder. “Good hustle, MC. Go upstairs and get dressed and meet us for breakfast. Then I’ll have you serve your man!”

[cortex-reaver]

Chapter 61: From the Jaws of Victory

Warnings: Language, cyborg horror

Masterpost

Goggles watched the sleeping Hacker silently, wincing every time the Super-Reaver's wires plunged into his head and bored into his brain. Every sickening crunch and schlurp sounded as if from her own nightmares, and the sight of both her good friend and one of her greatest heroes in that thing--

She held her staff in front of her, running scans on the Hacker and the Super-Reaver frame every few moments. She knew he'd want her to take him out if the plan failed and the Super-Reavers, and PsychoDAN by extension, got full control of his mind. She warily watched his sleeping face.

Sleeping faces could fool you. And that went double for when neuro-tech was involved. You had no idea whether someone was actually unconscious or suffering the worst depths of Hell in there.

The walls' machinery hummed softly, as if holding its breath.

Yeah, me too, Goggles thought grimly as a bead of sweat trickled down her face. C'mon Hacker. Wake up already.

The staff pinged a notice: Armor modifications detected. Nanite-based modifications detected.

She glanced down to the Hacker's suit of body armor from Craig's Reaver factory. A faint silvery sheen now covered it, and its wrist bracers had begun growing a series of mean-looking modifications. She guessed the Super-Reaver's nanites would soon turn them into the monster's wrist-mounted rapier blades.

Hacker's skin looked the same, save for a slight tracery of circuit-board lines along the sides of his face near his ears. Otherwise he looked as fleshy and normal as ever. She wondered whether his implant would let him dictate how the Super-Reaver frame's modifications went.

A quick glance via the staff's systems told Goggles that the Hacker's body now had several billion more nanites than before. And looking at bio-scan mode revealed the nanites repairing all of his injuries and restoring him to full health in a fraction of the time a regenerator would take.

She let out an impressed whistle. No wonder he thought he wouldn't need regen time.

“Bet you can eat bullets and blades now too, huh?” she asked softly.

The staff pinged once more: Subject regaining consciousness.

Oh here we go...

Hacker's eyes opened abruptly, wide and focused at some spot over her head. They had once been a warm brown, but had turned a dark silvery gray. His face remained slack and expressionless, and his Super-Reaver frame rose up menacingly--

Oh shit shit shit SHIT--

Goggles turned the staff over to Focus Fire.

A demonic grin split the Hacker's face. He lifted both hands, wiggling their fingers evilly.

“Boo!”

The staff's beam scored into the wall a split-second before Goggles disabled it.

“FUCK YOU!” the soldier screamed, finding the curse woefully short of the sheer fury she’d crammed into it. “I ALMOST CUT YOU IN HALF!”

Hacker merely cackled as he sidled away from the crater her staff had left in the wall. The frame's tentacle legs wobbled and flailed as he struggled to control them.

“C-couldn't resist,” he giggled. The frame bobbed in tune to his laughter.

Goggles just smoldered at him.

“Really couldn't r-resist,” he went on, now howling. “Your face!”

She flipped her most obscene gesture at him with her free hand.

“Oh God, that was great,” Hacker wheezed, then his frame crumpled to the floor, leaving him sitting with his legs akimbo.

He blinked a moment.

“Wait, what? Don't they run these things with self-training gait software like the bots or...?”

He closed his eyes a second, then groaned with an expressive rolling of his eyes.

“No, cause they programmed the gait into the mutant bodies' brains so they didn't have to stuff the software into the frame's CPU. Idiots. How'd you even pick up new bodies if....ohhh....they weren't meant to just zombiefy random bodies? Wow. Specialization's a bitch.”

“That's weird,” Goggles remarked. “The old ones certainly were. By the way, you ever use cybermechs in your spec-ops time?”

“My guess is SHObeta intended 'em to be all-out,” Hacker muttered. “So she went with Beta-Grove style mutants for the corpse bodies. Probably more programmable that way.”

He blinked as he looked up at her.

“Mechs? Sure. Ever driven a Crawler? The one they call the Armchair of Doom? One of the reasons I thought I could do this. Now I'm not so”--

“Yeah. It's four-legged so it translates to a Reaver pretty easy,” Goggles replied. “Had to drive one for a couple missions. Tried it on my Reaver. Worked nice for getting the gait right. Try going 1-2-3-4 on the rhythm. Stick to a side-to-side sway to keep your balance evened out.”

She eyed his crumpled position on the floor with a lopsided smile.

“For uh, getting up,” Goggles added, “just push up with all four limbs.”

The frame heaved itself upwards, then smashed into the ceiling. Hacker yelped when he hit the floor, then skittered backwards until he hit the wall.

“Ow! Ow. WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU GIVE A CYBORG LIKE THIS A PAIN REFLEX?!”

“SHObeta. You know how she thinks,” Goggles muttered blandly as she rolled her optics. “Pain's her idea of behavior control.”

“Yeah, well she's an idiot!” Hacker growled, then pried himself off the wall. “Just so we're clear on that.”

This time the Super-Reaver frame obeyed him. After some bobbing and frantic clattering, he finally managed a better balanced standing position with the tentacle legs.

“Oh. Oh okay. Kinda like a big spider with long coily wires for legs or something...okay just uh 1-2-3-4, and repeat,” he muttered while slowly walking forwards. The frame wobbled, but kept its balance. He looked up at her with a slight smile.

“Doesn't hurt anymore. Not on my body, anyways. I think the pain's just wired to the frame's sensors so the uh, Reaver doesn't go too all-out and waste its hardware. Though given how tough they are, I can't imagine them doing that real easy.”

“Well they're valuable chess pieces,” Goggles pointed out. “PsychoDAN probably didn't want 'em going out on a limb.”

Hacker stuck one the limbs out sideways and wiggled it. He nearly tipped over in the direction of that limb, but kept upright by shifting his weight to the other direction.

“Hah to that,” the soldier remarked with a snicker.

Distant clattering echoed down the corridor. Hacker perked, then frowned.

“Damn. Wasn't expecting a response for a while,” he commented. “We should get going. They figure out what I did, they're gonna swarm us like locusts on Stam-Up and Berserk.”

Goggles nodded her agreement, then eyed him quizzically. Had he cut the Reaver frame's network connection to the station?

“And no, they can't hear me,” he answered her puzzled expression. “The rig is so like Tri-Op hardware that null.ethic did most of the gruntwork. Dropped me off the network, and had the system glitch out all the internal passwords on reset. The rest I can fine-tune as time goes on. Since null.ethic, uh, flips control to the core processing element. In the station, that was SHODAN. In here, that's my brain.”

He squinted at the clattering as it grew louder, despite nothing coming into view.

“For that much noise already and them being that far away? Damn. Didn't count on the network throwing an alert that fast. We gotta run.”

“Anything to get further away from Fugly Town is a good idea,” Goggles agreed, then headed to the elevator.

Hacker followed, his limbs clattering more evenly as he got the hang of the massive machine's walking style. The soldier reached the elevator then slapped the DOWN button. She froze at the massive shadow of Hacker's new rig falling over the doors.

“Shit,” she muttered, then turned back to him.

“What?”

“Did you figure out whether you'd be able to fit in here once you got wired in?” she asked, jerking her thumb to the doors. “Rebecca said something about having to bundle those legs like a yarn ball.”

Hacker blinked, then blinked again. He swore softly.

“Shit. I sorta did, but with you on the next elevator! I didn't think they'd react this fast!”

He turned to survey the hallway. Still nothing came into view yet, but the clattering had turned into a dull roar. He turned back, disgust and exasperation flooding his face.

“There's no way we're both gonna fit in there,” he groaned.

“Sure there is,” Goggles replied, an evil grin on her face. “How are you with full-body tentacle hugs?”

“WHAT?!”

The doors banged open. Thankfully it wasn't the ambush elevator this time.

“Grab me, then get inside!” Goggles shouted. “Fold everything up once you get in!”

“But how do I...? Without crushing you?”

“This armor's from the Reaver factory, remember?! You know my loadout! Now get your metal ass in there!”

Behind Hacker, the dull roar had become a thunderous rumble that shook the walls.

Grimacing, he carefully lifted one tentacle limb before looping it once around the soldier's waist. Goggles tried not to think of how many Super-Reavers that din amounted to. Her armor creaked as Hacker's limb squeezed her more tightly.

“Okay, going in,” he muttered, threading two limbs into the elevator.

Their claws angrily scraped the walls, throwing sparks as Hacker struggled to find his footing. He leaned the rest of his frame inside, then pulled up the last limb behind him. Then he huddled down, wrapping himself with all his limbs except the one holding Goggles.

“Okay just do a Reaverball, just do a Reaverball,” she heard him mutter over the noise of grinding claw feet, straining elevator walls, and sliding tentacles.

Through the open doors and Hacker's squirming Reaver limbs, Goggles could see the first Super-Reavers coming into view – from all sides of the corridor. Some crawled along the ceiling, while others skittered along the walls. And all of them moved with more unholy speed than she could've imagined.

“Get the door! Get the door!”

“Working on that!” Hacker shouted. “They're not coopera—AHAH!”

The doors suddenly banged shut, silencing the roar of the approaching mass of Super-Reavers. She sucked in as deep a breath of relief as she could with her squeezed torso.

“Don't worry about the elevator controls,” Hacker called out faintly amid the squished mass of bent tentacle limbs. “I figured out how they hacked the elevator in the ambush. It's really easy. Okay uh...here goes.”

The conveyance abruptly shot downward, with even more zeal than the regenerator room's doorway. Goggles crashed face-first into the ceiling along with Hacker and his new cybernetic toy. He clearly hadn't figured out how to keep his balance yet.

They stayed plastered there, screaming for what felt like an eternity.

Screeching loudly, the elevator bolted to a painfully sharp halt, sending both to its floor with simultaneous crashes. In Goggles' case, Hacker's long tentacle limbs mostly broke her fall. He landed face-first and stayed there.

Its doors whizzed open so loudly Goggles would've jumped if not for lying in a stunned heap next to a sprawled Super-Reaver. The limb holding her uncoiled, releasing her as it flopped limply through the doors.

The soldier tumbled out with it, her face in too much pain for her to think about moving just yet. One of her cybernetic lenses had cracked, showing a splintered picture. The other had gone out completely, blasting angry blue glitch into her brain. She heard her staff clunk into the floor and roll away from her limp hand.

“Hey,” Hacker called out, “You OK over there?”

“Next time, your ass is riding a freight elevator.”

He paused a beat.

“Gotcha.”