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Chapter Fifty
Denouement
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“Say something.”
“Do you ever wonder what being dead feels like?”
Kohaku slowly drew her hands up to her face, resting it in her palms and supporting the whole position on her drawn-up knees with an audible groan. “Say something else.”
The television in the corner of the ceiling flickered to life as power to the room was restored. Footage of the crimson sky and the resulting mass panic flooded every station, thoroughly crushing any further motivation to speak Rook may have possessed. Kohaku’s eyes snapped to the door at even the slightest noise outside, and the distant echo of steps prompted a quick scramble to find the remote and turn the television off.
The clicking steps preceding his appearing gave Kohaku every reason in the world to begin scowling in contempt long before he appeared, but she only fully crinkled her brow in anger as Odgu stepped through the doorway, his feet clicking against the floor. He sent her a weary glance as she, having hurriedly resumed her position of sitting with her knees drawn up to her chin and her forearms blocking her nose, stared daggers into him.
“They have finished with the surgery.” The cicada mumbled, continuing slowly past Kohaku and weaving around the hospital bed before leaning against its opposite side before he continued. “It could be a month before he regains full feeling in his skin. Muscle reintegration could take even longer. He may never fully control his face again, or have the lip control to speak properly. That’s what they told me in surgery.”
Kohaku’s eyes drew towards him, pulling the rest of her head along, disbelief mingling with her anger. “They let you into surgery???”
“They did.”
Kohaku’s eyebrows raised involuntarily at the words echoing through her ear. Appearing in the doorway, the bandaged figure of Tone stepped over the threshold, adorned with a heavy grey sweatshirt atop hospital scrubs, his face concealed by gauze. Odgu’s head lifted up to stoically meet the eyes that shone through the bandages.
“…No mask, huh?” Kohaku’s voice betrayed her typical mannerisms as the defensive reaction they had become. “Now we’ll finally get to see that handsome face you’ve been hiding under there.”
In response Tone weaved his fingers hidden beneath disposable gloves into the bandages atop his face and swiftly tore them off, revealing the metal mask underneath. Kohaku’s rapidly onset dismay at its reappearance was quickly overridden by a more thorough glance at its edges. “I don’t…”
“It was you.” Tone stepped forward, stopping just opposite the hospital bed and staring down into Odgu’s elusive pupils. “You stalled Ren at the woodshop to give us time to catch up. You were there in surgery expediting the recovery of my skin to the degree that I can’t find anything left of the tear.”
“I was not exactly let in, per se.” Odgu’s eyes landed on Kohaku, the implications of a wry smile dancing in his voice. Disappearing for a moment, he reappeared in the exact same spot a second later, lifting up the old lump of battered fabric mashed into the shape of what had once been a hat atop his brow to reveal the old, tattered theater mask beneath. “I still had one trick up my sleeve.”
“Where did you get that?” Tone’s voice was quiet, but his mannerisms made his amazement blatantly clear. “Wild said he lost it years ago.”
“It is not something we should discuss at present.” Odgu returned the hat to his head with a sullen air, his gaze redirected to the hospital bed in front of him. “There are other priorities.”
“What do we do, sir?”
All eyes landed on Rook, whose empty sockets atop the mannequin stared confidently into Tone’s shadowed eyes. His implication was beyond obvious, and the seconds of silence dragged on, the room waiting in anticipation for Tone’s impending response.
“No.”
Tone extended his hand out to the side, gesturing for Kohaku to hand him the phone by her side. “We’ve all been burned too heavily by this. Because of us, Japan is in utter chaos. The rest of the world can’t be fairing too much better. The Demon that Wild refused to believe in now has whatever power was kept from him.”
“And Corey is dead.” Tone eventually reached for his phone after Kohaku failed to comprehend what exactly he wanted. “I don’t know what kind of state Ren is in right now, but it’s not a responsive one.”
“This is what the eye does.” Odgu looked at the solemn figure lying in the hospital bed. His skin was deathly pale, his pulse having disappeared entirely. “Each one is infinite. He can draw things in, let things out. He can share that infinity with your mind, like he did to me… Or he can take things from you. Thoughts. Feelings.”
“What Hawk did to me.” Rook turned the mannequin head to face Odgu, realization unmistakably ringing in his voice. “That was the Demon eye.”
“Either Ren gave him something as part of whatever deal he made, or the Demon took it by force.” Tone had given up trying to make the glove register on the screen and relented to using his exposed wrist, tapping in a contact before dialing. “Either way, it means he’s now in limbo; he’s here, but he’s also not here. Are you there, Race?”
“I’m here.” Race’s voice crackled over the phone speaker. “Bekko’s also here with some of Koi Blood. They’ve got a surgeon coming from the hospital over here because they think it’s too dangerous to move me. Are you on speaker right now?”
“We’re at the hospital.” Tone replied, resisting the urge to scratch at the edges of his mask for a moment before remembering he could. “And yes. What’s been going on in the world?”
“As far as Japan goes, it’s pretty bad.” Race’s monotone delivery was far from inspiring. “Turns out we’re not the only mask-wearing weirdos out there. Some guy named Red Scare just made a big speech about uniting them together, and that prompted them to start rampaging through the major cities in the hopes of causing enough of a problem to get his attention. The military’s been blowing the head off anyone with a mask that even looks at them wrong, and a few turned themselves in to avoid getting killed.”
“I’m staying here.” Kohaku interjected, her eyes peeking out from under her brows to stare decisively up at Tone. “No matter what happens, I’m not leaving.”
“Race,” Tone resumed after a slight pause. “I have to stay here and keep Ren and her safe. I have a feeling this hospital’s going to be very busy for the next few months at least. Unless there’s any objection, I’m putting Odgu in charge.”
“None.” Race replied.
Tone’s eyes calmly settled on Rook, whose silver mask focused in him in silence for an unbearably long minute before he responded. “No objection.”
“You already know I have his contact info.” Race tore herself away from the phone at the end of the sentence, eventually returning to it with urgency in her voice. “The surgeons are here, I gotta go.”
“Odgu.” Tone nodded at the cicada. “Until we get Ren back, we need someone to lead us. It would be an honor if you would take up the role.”
Odgu turned back towards Ren, his inhuman hands digging into the retractable guard rail. “I would have a word with you before I accept.”
Tone immediately turned and left the room, Odgu following closely at his heels. The pair walked nearly to the end of the hallway before Tone leaned against the wall, folding his arms and watching the cicada from the bottom of his eyes.
“We’re only buying time, you know.” Odgu took his hat off and folded it up, concealing the theater mask inside. “Soon we’re going to run into someone with a more powerful mask. You won’t be able to protect them all forever.”
“You called the noises of my mask frequencies.” Tone tried and failed to restrain the smile that crept under his mask. “That got me to change how I approached using it. It’s given me much greater control over what I can do, and I want to expand that as much as possible.”
“You have a reason for telling me this?” Odgu objected.
“It’s been more than two years since Wild died.” Tone stood up off the wall. “Since then I’ve had these wounds, ones that won’t heal, from the burns and the blast. I’ve done a lot of bleeding and an awful lot of feeling sorry for myself for something I could not change.”
Odgu nodded, his eyes floating from Tone to the lower half of the wall. “I will do what I can. But I fear what may come of your outlook on life if you fully implement all that I tell you. No amount of technical knowledge can give you Corey again.”
“It was not technical knowledge that took him from me.” Tone uncrossed his arms. “It will not be technical knowledge that brings him back.”
The pair stood in silence, quietly staring into the room itself before a deep and distant rumble penetrated the thick walls of the building. “Read up on every anatomy book you can find.” The cicada trudged back down the hall, Tone following at his side. “Memorize the electrical patterns of every nerve in the human brain. Your wounds were inflicted by the permeation of the Demon, the origin of all masks; you may be able to circumvent him by the mask’s power.”
“Anything I can do to be ready, boss.” Tone glanced at the ceiling as a much louder rumble shook the lower levels of the hospital above. “Just in time for the end of the universe.”
“It’s not the end of the universe.” Odgu strode forward, increasing his pace as he and Tone moved on towards the doorway ahead. “It’s just the end of the world.”
—
“I haven’t seen this much red since we last painted the town.”
“What the heck is your problem?” Tone turned with a look of the utmost disgust on his features. Wild’s sly grin in return quickly softened as it became evident the Renegade Mask’s revulsion was not going away any time soon.
“C’mon Tone, you gotta keep your sense of humor.” Wild patted the jacket shoulder of his associate, whose look of disgust slowly transformed into a disapproving glare. “You let this stuff get to you and soon you forget how to smile.”
“I forgot the moment I met you.” Tone grunted, shifting another piece of metal up for a moment before abruptly dropping it into place again. “Yep. Another one. Look, how many more dead bodies do we have to see before we go home and let the government handle this mess?”
“Orbiting space stations don’t just drop out of the sky for no reason, Tone.” Wild stepped over another trail of crimson liquid and wobbled as he regained his footing on the other side. “Especially not ones with hammers and sickles plastered all over them.”
“Yeah, but there’s no way this thing is actually soviet.” Tone followed his boss’s path by clambering over the rubble instead of walking around it. “I think someone in current day Russia waned to prank people and stuck it up there without telling the world about it, to make the old regime look competent.”
“It wasn’t exactly competent for this thing to suddenly fall from orbit and crash into a love hotel in the middle of nowhere.” Wild braced, the oni mask spitting off steam as he flipped a large portion of the former building upwards, wincing as it crashed into the surrounding trees.
“This place sucks.” Tone sniffed, pocketing his hands and staring off at the noticeable lack of treetops where the rubble had landed. “I don’t care how much you love hotels, you don’t go all the way out here in the hills just to stay.”
“…You don’t know what a love hotel is, do you?” Wild lifted his mask to more visibly raise an eyebrow at Tone, who pushed Wild’s mask back down to cover his face again. The motion drew the senior Renegade Mask’s attention towards a tiny blue light which peered out of the base of the rubble.
Exerting a tremendous amount of strength on the pile, the steam cleared to reveal the resulting hole in the basement of the building. Pressed up against the wall was a metal sphere, several ports around a line running through the center of it connecting to steel beams which had shredded themselves upon impact. A number of small blue lights surrounded a circle set into the structure, itself emblazoned with the words МЕНЯЮЩИЙСЯ АНГЕЛ.
“Menyayushchiysya…” Wild felt the edge of the circle for some indication of how it opened. “I think I know why Shiro Utsuri sent us here.”
“Of course you know how to speak Russian.” Tone grumbled, descending into the ruined basement and trudging over to Wild, who knelt in front of the large structure as he continued his search. “Does it say 'property of Mr. Wings O’Blood, senior, to be returned to the kremlin if found?”
“It says-” Wild grunted, pulling on the only available handhold artificially caused by the metal warping. The steam that jettisoned off his body yielded no result in its condition, and the resulting growl of frustration was cut off by Tone placing his hand gently over the circle and closing his eyes.
“…It says Angel.” Wild leaned forwards as the circle rotated and levered outwards, swinging past his eyes and revealing the darkness inside.
The figure hidden beneath the metal exterior was almost as tall as Wild, cradled in the fetal position and clothed in elastic attire clearly pushed to its limit. His silver hair was excessive, nearly covering his entire face ad extending past the base of his skull. A somewhat delicate apparatus in the center of the sphere had snapped from its base, allowing its passenger to lay free of his apparent restraints. Two transparent tubes extended from the apparatus, entering his right side below the ribcage and above the hip.
“What on earth…” Tone whispered, eyeing the character up and down repeatedly before turning towards Wild. “He can’t be from the soviet era, time dilation in space doesn’t work that quick.”
“Did you just use time to describe time?” Wild questioned, destined to never receive an answer as the tired eyes of the unknown sleeper suddenly shot open, pulling his startled gaze towards the pair as what little muscle he possessed began to tighten.
Tone aggressively rolled his eyes at the sight of Wild yet again removing his oni mask in an attempt to placate the fear in the stranger’s eyes. “What’s your name, son?”
“He’s Russian, you have to speak to him in Russian.” Tone elbowed his superior in the shoulder before interjecting, in extremely improper fashion, “Welc-… Wilkommen, da, da. Speak, uh, Russkiy, comrade?”
Wild’s glare of unrelenting and unfiltered disappointment was interrupted as Tone extended his hand to the cradled figure, gesturing behind his metal mask for the gesture to be returned. With significant hesitance a bone-white hand entered the moonlight, its skin impossibly colorless as the thin fingers lightly gripped the extended hand.
Gently leading him outwards, Tone supported the figure as he suddenly collapsed, the tubes pulling at his side before abruptly severing, the skin and tissue surrounding the remnants rapidly growing to cover the holes. The rest of his skin rapidly took on a much healthier complexion greatly mimicking that of the hand that steadied him.
Wild’s reaction was far more subdued than Tone’s, and he met the frightened eyes behind the metal mask with an artificial calm. “We’ll get you to safety as soon as we can. Take you in, fix that awful haircut, get you something more befitting a member of society. Clothes, I mean.”
“…And maybe a mask.” Wild turned away with a wry smile, feeling the double take Tone performed without having to see it. He faced the distant city lights, which flashed as first responders drew near to the impact site. “Having a mask is a big responsibility, you know. It means you’ll be a proper Renegade like us.” He turned back towards the pair, having ascended out of the basement with the littlest effort and now towered above them. “We’ll call you Ren for short. That work for you, Ren?”
Tone stared in amazement at the sheer audacity of Wild’s naming schemes at their finest, his head tipping slightly to emphasize his second-hand misery. But the wobbling figure leaning on his arm took a deep breath in response, his eyes locked on Wild’s, a look of the utmost determination mingled into his sharpened stare.
“Ren.”
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