Bab 226: Chapter 223 - Brewing Storm
The room was bare, the bed made, the covers changed.
A pungent smell of clean and fresh was permeating the air.
A weird sense of déjà vu overwhelmed me and I had to turn and check that Dad wasn't with me to be sure.
There had been a white urn on the bed.
There wasn't one on this one.
Puzzled, I walked into the room, looking around to find anything that would give me a clue about what was going on.
Something soft grazed my knee.
I looked down and realized I was crushing to death the fresh flowers I'd brought.
The bouquet fell from my hand.
I grabbed the bed sheet and brought it to my nose, inhaling deeply.
It did not smell like Keigo.
Nothing here smelt like him.
Anxiousness shot up my chest; I looked around, searching for anything that would prove I wasn't crazy, that this truly was his room.
I'd spent countless hours here – hell, I'd spent most of my nights in this fucking room.
I didn't come for one day – 36 hours – and he just... disappeared?
And suddenly it hit me.
A slow, insidious, terror rose from the pit of my stomach, crawling up my spine and clawing at my brain until it poisoned all of my thoughts.
They- they have not done to him what they did to Touya, did they?
I had to hold myself against the door so as not to fall.
Goosebumps flooded my skin. I felt both icy cold and burning hot, shivering and yet feeling like I was going to combust.
I stormed out of the room and grabbed by the arm the first nurse that crossed my path.
She yelped, and I held her harder, the mark of my fingers imprinting itself on her wrist.
"Keigo Takami from room 414", I rasped, barely able to speak coherently. "Where is he ?"
I felt like I could burn the whole hospital down.
I felt like I would burn the whole hospital down.
Her eyes widened.
"I- I don't know"
I pushed her away and grabbed a doctor who, nose in a notebook, was turning around a corner.
"Keigo Takami, room 414: what did you do to him ?"
Anger surged through me like a firework. Fire started flickering on my skin. Smoke was rising from my mouth each time I exhaled.
The more I asked the less they knew the more frustrated I got.
I realized I was losing it when I grabbed the Hospital's Director by the throat and he turned violet.
"The soldiers, they- they took him away and-" He wheezed, hitting my arm like you would in sports when yielding. "Can't-"
I released him and he collapsed on the floor, massaging his throat.
Red fingers were printed on his skin.
I cracked my knuckles, eyes calmly roaming over the roomful of doctors.
They had scampered close to the walls, breathing as quietly as possible.
"No need to look at me like that. I'm not going to hurt you"
Their fear made me angrier.
I never hurt innocent people: it was against my moral code.
I started warming up right here and then, cracking my knuckles and jumping up and down to get the blood pumping.
Behind me, the Director was wheezing.
A woman looked at him hesitantly before her gaze crossed mine: I nodded at him and she ran to help him.
Two shunshins later I was on my motorcycle, riding as fast as I could through Tokyo, zigzagging between cars, running tens of red lights.
My helmet felt like a burning fist squeezing my head to make it burst.
Sweat was dripping down my temples and rolling down my neck.
Strands of hair were sticking across my eyebrows and forehead.
I was barely aware of my surroundings, the picture of Keigo's clean bed on which laid a white jar playing again and again in my head.
I flashed through a crossroad: an incoming car from the left stopped abruptly, tires screeching against the floor.
Soon after I heard the sound of other vehicles braking angrily and of two cars colliding.
Angry shouts echoed in my wake but I was already three streets away.
I arrived like a tornado at the Defense's headquarters, my tires screeching against the road.
As soon as they spotted me the soldiers in the entry's cubicle stood up – slow, so slow - from their chairs, awkwardly straining their weapons on me.
I didn't bother to stop: I jumped off the bike while it loudly hit the ground, sparks bursting forth while it drifted on the ground for meters.
Still mid-air, I tore off my helmet, a fresh wave of air cooling me.
Their guns rose: I was already inside when the first shots were fired.
I appeared in the lobby.
There were desk clerks, chatting soldiers passing by, someone sweeping the floor.
Outside shots echoed inside: people ducked, hiding their heads in their shoulders.
Eyes rose towards the wide open door – in front of which I stood – but I'd already shunshined upstairs.
An emergency alarm was blasting when I appeared in front of Shirai's office room.
"AN INTRUDER HAS ENTERED THE GROUNDS: PROCESS TO THE CLOSEST EMERGENCY EXIT"
I kicked Shirai's door open and stormed in.
The broken door hit the opposite wall at breakneck speed.
My eyes swept over the room.
"Get on the ground !"
No one.
"AN INTRUDER HAS ENTERED THE GROUNDS-"
Eyes narrowed, I looked to my right, extending my senses.
A soldier – barely a meter away – was toying with his gun to grab my attention.
"Hands behind your head and on the ground now !"
Above his shoulder I spotted a group of high-ranking soldiers getting out of a room, wondering out loud what was going on while looking around.
My eyes locked on a tall, ash blond-haired guy.
I took a step forward.
The soldier shot.
"-EMERGENCY EXIT-"
I looked back, catching my afterimage while everyone's necks painfully slowly snapped to where the sound had come from.
I grabbed Shirai by his collar and shunshined back right to his office.
As soon as I let him go his knees buckled and he threw up on the floor.
It was the physiological response of anyone who wasn't used to traveling at breakneck speed: I'd experienced this a lot a decade ago.
He wiped his mouth, haggard.
"What the-"
His gaze settled on me.
Realization lit his eyes: he stood up straight, his mouth a thin, hard, cold line.
"You do know you're going to pay dearly for that, don't you ?"
"-INTRUDER-"
"Where's Keigo ?"
A clean eyebrow shot up, his voice quiet and smooth as if I represented no real threat.
"I beg your pardon ?"
Soldiers stormed in.
I grabbed Shirai by his shirt and lifted him until we were nearly face to face.
Fire flickered on my cheekbone.
My patience was waning.
"Where. is. Keigo."
Shirai didn't look the least bit concerned about me hurting him: he didn't take me seriously.
"Ungrab me", he said imperiously.
And it fucking pissed me off.
My nostrils flared and I tightened my grip.
Someone's hand landed on my shoulder.
"Son, let him go"
My eyes were locked with Shirai's.
"If you do not tell me where Keigo is right now, I will roast you alive"
People's breath caught in their throats. I heard horrified gasps.
Shirai's gaze lost its apathy and a cold, vicious satisfaction rose in my chest.
"And don't think I'll stop with you"
The hand on my shoulder tightened.
"Let him go"
Shirai didn't look away from my gaze: he was assessing me, wondering if I would make good on my threat.
"I won't repeat myself"
I watched in his eyes' reflection as my sharingan slowly spun to life.
"Everyone, get out"
"Sir-"
"I said get out !"
It was the first time I heard him raise his voice.
He looked away for the barest of moments, vein throbbing on his neck, and that's when I understood how tense he truly was.
He didn't try to talk me out of what I was doing, and didn't offer to talk : he knew I'd do it - that's why he was getting everyone out.
Nezu was right. None of them are on my side.
But that was alright because I wasn't on anyone's side either.
People – civilians working in the administration - quickly left, though the soldiers lingered longer.
Once the last one was out, Shirai dared to look at me once more.
"Now unhand me"
I let him go.
He massaged his reddened throat casually, acting as if it didn't hurt.
"Hawks has killed President Pantu"
The shock made my mind go blank.
Keigo would never-
My hand rose towards his neck but he took a step back, smoothly avoiding it.
"Don't lie"
"To ensure Hawks' security, the Commission has recorded everything that happened in his room day and night", he said evenly. "I have the tapes right here"
Slowly, his wary gaze strained on me as if I would pounce if he made the wrong gesture, he went to his computer.
I searched his face for anything that would tell me he was lying whereas he browsed through his files.
He turned the screen towards me.
The camera was in the left corner of the room, right next to the door, showing them three sitting in a loose triangle.
We could not see Keigo's face.
My blood turned to ice.
I saw Keigo, one moment sitting on the edge of his bed, and the next above Pantu's body while he stabbed her to death.
Her hand pointlessly rose to protect her face. The man next to her screamed and fell from his chair.
Keigo stabbed her raised arm with a vicious sort of vindictiveness until it fell limply at her side.
He bent down and hit her straight in the jaw : he tore flesh until we saw her, shreds of bloody skin flying everywhere, splashing across Keigo's throat and lower jaw.
The curved tip of the feather dug into her face like a shovel would in soft soil.
His feather caught in the flesh and he ripped mightily from her lower cheek to her throat.
He ground her throat and made it look as if she went through a blender, speckles of blood flying on his face and her clothes and the floor and the wall.
He turned her skin to mush, mutilating her with a violence I never ever imagined hidden inside him.
She looked like a malleable plastic doll made to be manhandled.
I fell back in Shirai's chair, stunned, unable of any coherent thought.
There was blood everywhere.
As if – amidst his psychosis – there was some logic, Keigo methodically worked his way down until he got to her heart.
We heard his ragged, angry breathing, the sounds amplified by the otherwise silent recording.
He stabbed with renewed energy, stabbed stabbed stabbed.
I felt sick.
"86", Shirai said darkly. "He stabbed her 86 times"
Beyond the sound wet of wet flesh ripped apart, we could hear Keigo's breathing turn to pants, each exhalation heavier and rougher in ways that sounded primitive.
His gestures were slower, his muscles contracting painfully beneath the skin.
Yet there was an obsessiveness to his motions, an inhabitative madness that made him unable to stop.
He kept stabbing.
Shock had liquefied me from the inside out.
The one on the screen wasn't the Keigo I knew.
He kept stabbing.
On the lower corner of the screen the seconds ticking by turned to minutes.
I breathed out quietly :
"Why ?"
My voice was croaked, hoarse, weak.
This wasn't him. This wasn't him.
"When Heroes snap, we don't… We do not give them the same treatment as villains. In regard to their career and everything they have done for our country, we show them mercy"
From the corner of my eye I saw Shirai shooting me an uneasy glance, and something akin to pity – and hesitation – flashed on his face.
My eyes were locked on a tranquil, blood-covered Keigo, eyes wandering through the window.
He smoked slowly, exhaling each puff as if it were heaven's scent.
He looked so serene.
So peaceful.
"We sent him to Tartarus"
*
A/N :
P@treon's highest level have 3 bonus chapters (in addition to their own chapters ahead) which means that, until I get back to the official release schedule next wednesday, I have 3 chapters for y'all.
Here's the first, I'll publish the second one in a few days.
And yeah, I think someone said it, but this arc really is the beginning of the end.
Part 2 finishes at chapter 252.
Check our p@treon, Nar_cisseENG , if you want to read ahead of schedule.
See you in the next update everyone !
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