6 - False Freedom

A day passed. And in one of the tents...

“I...don’t understand...”

Hiroshi sighed as he remained seated on a mattress that was, for the lack of better words, just thrown there. Inside the tent was warm, there were some books laying around which Hiroshi had no interest in reading, and some notebooks and pens that he didn’t feel like touching. He had nothing to do. To be fair, being a hostage doesn’t exactly translate to having the leisure of entertainment.

He walked around the tent, oftentimes peeking outside, checking if the security was still there, trying to find an opening to run off to a place he didn’t even know existed. But the guards always remained in place.

“They all want to...kill dad? And me?”

“For what?”

“T-there’s no way what they’re saying is true.” He thought, nervously walking around. “Dad has a lot of enemies, they all make stuff up about him to get people to hate him. These people are just as bad.”

A small spark of hope appeared in his eyes.

“But every time they went to war with dad, they lost.”

“Still...”

He took a deep breath and sat down on that mattress again, looking around, unable to feel the seconds that felt like centuries. He heard the noises of small constructions outside and the guards’ chats, he heard small sounds of destruction from far away - the Heisei must’ve been training.

He suddenly heard the guards posture up and greet someone. That person was Mukawa himself. He entered the tent, and Hiroshi looked at him with such animosity as if he had already killed his father.

“Hey, I know you hate me.” Mukawa said. “But you need to help me with something, alright?”

“W-what do you want?!” Hiroshi yelled. “Get away from me!”

“Here we go again...you know, I would love for someone else to do this, but I’m the only one who can. So just listen to me, and reply to my questions, okay?” Mukawa tried to talk things through.

“Y-you wanna kill my dad!” Hiroshi yelled, charging at Mukawa. Mukawa lightly held him at a distance, slowly pushing him back towards the mattress. He raised his hand.

Hiroshi, suddenly developing insurmountable strength, punched Mukawa and knocked him out instantly. He started beating his skull in on the ground, splattering more and more blood on the floor. And then he woke up.

“What...was that?” Hiroshi asked, confused and still angry.

“Did you get your anger out?” Mukawa asked, crouching down next to him. “It was my Dreamcatcher. Helps pacify rabid kids like you. Now, as I said, you’ll need to cooperate with me.”

“For what?” Hiroshi asked. “You just...want to kill me, don’t you? You pointed guns at me!”

“Trust me, killing you would be the most simple solution to all of this.” Mukawa explained. “We’re doing this because we don’t want to kill you, courtesy of what me and a certain Sakuto Hitori want.”

“Sakuto...?”

“Yeah, him. Make sure to say thanks to him.” Mukawa sighed. “Anyhow, get yourself together. I’m not gonna do anything awful to you with Dreamcatcher, so just...answer my questions.”

“Why do you want to kill my dad?” Hiroshi asked. The sentence was so simple that it struck Mukawa hard.

“Because...” Mukawa paused for a second. “He’s an asshole. And he wants to destroy humanity for some reason.”

“He’d never! He protects humanity!” Hiroshi raised his voice. “You’re just like everyone else, you’re making up excuses to pick a fight with him!”

“Well maybe, just maybe, if everyone else is saying the same thing, they know something.” Mukawa said.

“I trust my dad more than you!” Hiroshi snapped. “Never!”

“Did your father ever tell you about how he killed the leaders of the strongholds, one by one?” Mukawa asked. “Did he ever tell you how many people he kills every day just to make sure intelligence isn’t compromised?”

“I-”

“Hey, aside from admiring your dad for his strength, have you ever thought about it well enough to realize that maybe one person shouldn’t be that strong?” Mukawa said.

“I don’t know...”

“Most importantly, how does your dad treat you in the first place?” Mukawa asked. “Have you ever thought about that?”

A grueling silence followed.

Mukawa had a point. Kaito wasn’t just neglectful, he was also pretty scary in his eyes. Those incidents where it looked like something had taken control of him...

“I still have faith.” Hiroshi said. “I...trust my dad.”

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“Which means you’re gonna let billions of people die?”

“No, I just...I’m sure that he would never do something like that.”

“Oh for fuck sake...” Mukawa said, starting to get impatient. “Fine, you won’t do it the easy way, I’ll get you to give up everything you know the hard way.” He extended his hand and reached for Hiroshi’s forehead. Hiroshi leaned back in fear. He tried to hold Mukawa back and even kick him away, but was too weak to do so. He cried out...

“Mukawa.” Zervos said, emerging behind him and entering the tent. “I was looking for you.”

Mukawa halted his movements and slowly turned around. Zervos saw Hiroshi’s scared face and was a little concerned. They shared a silence.

“What is it?” Mukawa asked.

“I’m not going to question your methods, Mukawa, unless they involve harming him.” Zervos explained. “Please, do not step over the line. He’s just a kid.”

“If I wanted to step over the line, he’d be dead, and we’d all be celebrating.” Mukawa sighed. “Just...get to the point. Save the moral scolding for later, I don’t feel like dealing with that shit anyways.”

“I’m reporting on the Heisei’s condition.” Zervos said.

“Yeah? And how are they?”

“Come see for yourself.”

...

They went a little further away from town, where they had set up a small polygon of sorts to train and practice. The Heisei, or, at this point, whatever remained of it, was there.

Ichigo was practicing firing off light beams at targets at a distance, as well as popping in and out of his invisibility. He mostly practiced with Zawadski, who was a perfect punching bag. They trained for hours on end. Rin was there to observe and train too, she was the one training with the most determination.

Jian was practicing her long-range skills. She would get Yuuka to set up various targets at great distances, and focused on eliminating them one by one. Once the targets fell, she would aim at whatever caught her attention in the terrain - a rock that looked out of place, a piece of dead bush.

When Mukawa and Zervos arrived, Jian was shooting through yet another series of targets. She cleared all of them, and, scrambling for another one, she looked up into the sky - seeing a lone bird soaring through them. She took aim, but hesitated. She felt bad for it and let it go.

She took aim at Zawadski instead, who quickly sensed the threat and struck the ground - obstructing a small smokescreen with the dust and bits of the ground and sand to cancel the axis. Of course, he had to save and load a few times to get it right. He had asked Jian to better sharpen his skills at countering surprise attacks.

“How incredible.” Zervos said, approaching them. “Jian, or, should I say, Captain Jian, you’ve grown so much stronger.”

“Ah, t-t-thank you, captain.” Jian said, a little taken aback by the sudden compliment.

“Please don’t refer to me like that, I’m no longer a captain.” Zervos said, with a hint of sadness in his voice. But the primary flavor of his words was pride. “I’m sure that the Heisei will be a force to reckon with now that a brilliant fighter like yourself is in the lead.”

“Don’t say that much stuff, her head will explode.” Zawadski jokingly said. He did have to die and load afterwards.

“How’s the overall condition?” Mukawa asked.

“Jian and Zawadski are at the top of their game, it seems. And Yuuka, well...” Zervos looked over at Yuuka building a sand castle in the distance. “She has her own pace.”

“And Ichigo?”

“He’s weakened. But, give him some good rest, maybe a good night’s sleep or two, and he’ll be back at his strongest.” Zervos explained.

“Right. Good.” Mukawa said. “That’s good to hear. What about yourself?”

“Me?” Zervos asked, pretending to not have been expecting that question. “I uhh...I must admit I have gotten rather rusty, so...”

“Well then go ahead and de-rust!” Mukawa was very disappointed. “We didn’t just get you here to tell us things. Your soul expression is more of a solution to the Kaito problem than anything. Everyone’s a combatant. Look, even the doctor is. In fact, she’s a fighter first, doctor second.”

“R-really?” Zervos seemed surprised.

“She told me about her acclamation. I’ll reveal everything during the second meeting, which will be later today, but in short, she’ll play a key role during the operation itself.” Mukawa said. Rin started approaching them, as if she heard that she was the topic of their conversation.

“What seems to be the issue?” Rin asked.

“No issues. You uhh...you go ahead and keep training, alright? You’re gonna have to put a lot of work in.” Mukawa showed her a thumbs up. Yuuka’s distant cries were heard in the distance as Jian used her sand castle as a target.

“I’ll go check on my own soldiers.” Mukawa said. “You guys have fun doing...” He looked over at Yuuka trying to force Jian to eat sand in the distance. “...whatever that is. As long as the results are there.”

Rin and Zervos were left alone. They watched the unusual interactions between Jian and Yuuka, and they took their time to observe the chaotic brawls Ichigo and Zawadski were having.

“They’re gotten stronger.” Zervos said to himself. “Jian has been a good influence on them. I’m willing to guess that the new addition of the Heisei pushed them to train harder too.” He continued, referring to Sakuto.

“That could be the case.” Rin said.

“It feels like I’m an old guy looking after my grandkids.” Zervos smiled. “They’ve always been the true faces of the Heisei, not me. I was just...”

“I doubt they would be as strong as they are now if it hadn’t been for you.” Rin said, trying to reassure him.

“Why, thank you for the kind words.” Zervos said. “I’ve always had faith in them. I guess...it would be wrong of me to betray their own faith in me.”

“Hey, mind if I join in? Maybe this old-timer still has it in him.” Zervos asked Zawadski and Ichigo. Zawadski seemed to be hyped up seeing his captain join in the action. Ichigo looked happy to see him too.

Rin watched and smiled.

“This reminds me of the days when Hayk was still there...”

“The Heisei is a group just like ours was. They have their own issues, their own relationships, their goals...”

“Both our groups appeared like feral hounds from the outside, but we’re all just soulfuls, aren’t we? Ah, what am I even thinking about? There aren’t any barriers anymore, we’re all part of the Heisei.”

She looked slightly up.

“Hayk, what do you think of this present?”

“Do you think it’s hopeless, or hopeful? Are we on the right track?”

“Since it’s what you care about the most, give me some advice, okay? What do you think I should do to make sure the kids are safe? Because no matter how monstrously strong they might be...they’re still just kids at heart.”

She heard a few noises escape her radio.

“What is it?” She spoke into it. She was a bit concerned to hear that it was Yumichi’s voice.

“Rin! Get here, quick!”

“Huh? What’s wrong-” The connection faded away as Rin was about to ask the question. In panic, she quickly rushed to the building and entered the room. But it seemed like it was good news.