Part 6

  There was, however, one snag.

  “Damn, how come this newly found puppy has more cosmetics than I've had in my entire life?”

  And even though he couldn't express his obvious dissatisfaction while looking at the contented puppy rubbing against his hands, the lone bottle of the cheapest shampoo looked like a white crow among a pile of dog accessories.

  In order not to sit in an empty apartment accompanied by mournful silence, he turned on the long-dusty TV, which was showing only news about a new technological breakthrough thanks to the uploading of human consciousness to the network, or about a terrorist who had finally been caught.

  The latter had been making Minato want to vomit for several hours. Or rather, not only that, but also the poison that was still coursing through his veins. He felt as if someone had crushed his bones with a sledgehammer and then stretched him on a grinding wheel.

  “I'm too old for this shit. Do you think regular stomach pain pills will help with this?”

  He asked the dog, who was basking in the hot air coming from the hair dryer. Only now did Minato realize that he hadn't given the new resident a name. And his aching head couldn't come up with any ideas.

  “So far, the only idea that's come to mind is to call you Patrasch, but that would be painfully wrong and tasteless, like naming a kitten Schr?dinger.”

  At the word tasteless, the rusty gears in Minato's head made a small turn, creaking against each other, which was more likely to cause a migraine than enlightenment.

  “A normal person would think carefully about a pet's name, and since I'm about as normal as a person who climbed in through the window, I'll call you Tofu.”

  With a joyful bark, as if giving permission to be called that, the dog pressed its ears tightly to its head, growling quietly toward the main room.

  “You know, you can only enter someone else's house with the owner's permission, and only through the front door,” Minato said as if to no one in particular, but he was well aware of who was sitting on the sofa in the living room. The acrid smoke from the cigarettes burned his nostrils.

  Coming out of the bathroom with the puppy and a cup of half-drunk coffee in his hands, Minato noticed a familiar figure. A cigarette smoldering in the corner of his mouth, short raven-wing-colored hair, runes on his fingers, an eyebrow piercing, and a couple of stitches with a band-aid on his face.

  The man Minato had beaten half to death in an abandoned warehouse, who in turn had poisoned Minato. Takeshi Suoh.

  “Nice place you've got here. Don't worry about the cigarette, I saw a couple of full ashtrays here, so you obviously won't mind another handful of ash.” Suoh said in a calm, barely mocking tone.

  He sprawled out on the sofa in the middle of the room, sitting opposite the TV, his feet up on the glass table, scanning the standard design of the room with an appraising glance until his gaze caught on the four guitars hanging on the wall.

  "I’d be damned, I didn’t take you for a music fanatic, but then again, I was the same at your age. Two acoustics, one electric, and one with a double riff. Do you want to be like Jimi Hendrix?“ Suoh asked. It was impossible to tell from his tone whether he was serious or treating it like a scene from a sitcom in which he was playing one of the roles.

  “One of the acoustic guitars is handmade, the one that looks worn out — it was a gift. I bought the electric ones with my own money. At the time, I thought I'd have to sell at least one of my kidneys to afford them.“ Minato replied emotionlessly, sitting down on a chair he had brought from the kitchen. “Touch even one of them, and I'll shove a mug where the sun doesn't shine, so deep that it'll stick out of your throat."

  “Did you come here specifically to bother me with your stupid questions? You have your girlfriend Aranagi, or whatever she is to you, for that,” Minato added calmly, causing Suoh to raise his eyebrows slightly.

  “Since when did you become Cupid, kid? Or has the poison already eaten away at your brain?” Suoh asked ironically before clapping his hands. "Ah, I see. You want to become a psychologist and rake in money from hysterical teenagers, am I right? Sorry, buddy, but I'm no longer your target audience," said Suoh, holding his palms together in front of his face and bowing his head.

  Watching Suoh's unflappable expression as he tried to turn the whole thing into a farce, Minato's patience was running out faster than water from a bucket with no bottom. The events of that day and their intensity didn't help.

  “There was no time to think things through then, I acted on instinct and emotion, which is clearly not something you would say about me,” Minato said with a dry, empty laugh.

  “That's for sure. It's easier for a child to read the Bhagavad Gita than to understand what's going on in your head.”

  "But if you needed to kill Aranagi, when I arrived at the warehouse, I would have found only her cold corpse. If your goal was to capture her, then when I got there, I would have found nothing. Instead, you inflicted serious injuries on her, immobilizing her, waiting for me to arrive. Broken bones, torn tendons, internal bleeding. The wounds are dangerous and could easily be fatal, but you did everything just right, didn't you?" Minato asked in a cold voice.

  In fact, he knew much more about the condition of Aranagi's wounds, but if he had to describe everything in detail, they would be sitting there until the next day. To tell the truth, he himself was disgusted by how much he knew.

  “Not bad, Sherlock,” Suoh said mockingly, flicking his cigarette into the ashtray on the table. “However, I'm not surprised by your knowledge of anatomy. After all, who could know the structure of the human body better than a man known as Thanatos and a cannibal?” Suoh asked in a completely calm and measured tone.

  The question made Minato's tired eyes widen, almost popping out of their sockets. For a second, his body was paralyzed, and his hands clenched the cup so tightly that it cracked.

  His teeth gnashed together, and the desire to smash Suo's head in for those words overwhelmed him with terrible force. At that moment, Minato's student ID card, thrown by Suoh, landed on his knees. Slowly raising his eyes to his interlocutor sitting opposite him, Minato saw only Suoh's satisfied face, with eyes that pierced his soul like an archaeologist looking at a rare skeleton.

  “You wouldn't believe how much you can learn about a person with just their first name, last name, and face.” After a couple of seconds, his face returned to normal, and he just lit another cigarette. “Now that your attention is finally focused on me, we can talk.”

  “How much do you know?” Minato asked quietly. His voice trembled. He hadn't trembled when they fought to the death, when he was directly involved in a dance with death, and yet now, during a normal conversation, he trembled like a frightened child.

  “Hmm, everything. Including the reason for your nickname. And, anticipating your question, I haven't told anyone else about your childhood exploits. I even deleted the data, if that will earn me points in your eyes.”

  There was no lie in his words, only a slight, condescending disregard. Even though it was harder to believe his words than a success course from a cunning charlatan, Minato had to take the risk. His free hand was clenched so tightly that his knuckles were about to crack if he didn't relax.

  "So, the million-dollar question is, what do you know about Aranagi Shinso? Actually, no. What do you think you know about her?" asked the uninvited guest.

  The question was predictable, as Minato had already brought her up in conversation. And, in truth, he already had both answers and questions with unfounded suspicions. The main question was, how much of what she said was true?

  “Only what she said about herself and what I managed to figure out myself. She was a scientist who was called in to help investigate the serum case because she had been studying the effects of drugs used in the ability development program for a long time. And, as it turned out, no such scientists were involved.”

  "She made it up on the spot, taking advantage of your and your friends' inexperience. For you, any ordinary person wearing glasses would be considered a Doctor of Philosophy. However, part of her knowledge is not fiction. Several doctoral theses that influenced the ability development program at SHA were written by her. The number of accidents related to overdose or excessive strain on the brain and central nervous system has decreased dramatically, becoming close to zero."

  “It's time to say that artificially endowing the incapable with Special is one of the tasks,” Minato replied dryly, expecting Suoh to either refute his assumption or dismiss it as a joke.

  “We'll get to that later,” Suoh's voice remained unchanged, only adding a mocking tone, like a sarcastic storyteller around a campfire.

  “Crap, I was hoping it was just paranoia,” Minato replied with a deep sigh. “Okay, I get the gist. She's smart. How did it all come to our little get-togethers?”

  “Well, in short, she's my wife, and...”

  “Fuck it, are we in a Brazilian soap opera?” Minato exclaimed, slapping his forehead. He understood that he had gotten himself into a situation that no normal person would call normal, but this was the last thing he expected to hear.

  “...and we were part of the staff at the Nemesis research complex,” Suoh replied calmly, ignoring Minato's hysterical forehead-bashing as if he were just an annoying mosquito. “He was known primarily as a leader, a man who was called the second Da Vinci, and the greatest mind of our time, a man you know very well. Himura Kosaku. I suppose you still remember him?”

  The name made Minato's blood run cold. He would be damned if he didn't know that name. Like a mark of shame burned into his skin, the memory of this man was engraved in his mind like a century-old marble.

  “Of course I know him. The scum of the earth. Those who called him the greatest mind simply didn't know what this freak was doing. Actually, he's one of the reasons for my gourmet delights,” Minato replied. Although, it would be more accurate to say that he spat out this information like bile stuck in his throat.

  “We didn't know,” Suoh said in a humble voice, like a repentant criminal on the scaffold. "We didn't know the true nature of our research. We thought we were helping. Treating muscular dystrophy, dementia, autism, developing humans as a new stage of evolution, safety for everyone who wants to be stronger. That's what we were striving for."

  Exhaling a cloud of smoke, Suoh stared at the ceiling for a moment. Perhaps it was then that he understood what it meant to truly love. The him of that time was hardly different from the him of now.

  Cruel, cynical, pragmatic. A person who knew almost nothing about empathy or common human feelings. But she, Aranagi Shinso, was able to break through the wall he had built around himself.

  “Perhaps her kindness, acceptance, and desire to help people selflessly, regardless of their appearance or past, were the reasons why she became dear to me,” Suoh said thoughtfully, glancing at Minato, who sat with a grimace of disgust that disrupted the pleasant picture of better times, like passersby interfering with a romantic moment. “Sickeningly disgusting, isn't it?”

  "And that's not all. What kind of exposition is this? Revealing yourself through five pages of babbling? I already understand, you were cold and ruthless, she was a kind Samaritan who pulled you into the light, a beauty and a victim of a torn condom. Are you going to recount half your life to me now? Please, skip the honeymoon part. And don't you dare use the phrase “a rapidly crumbling castle in the air.”

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  The thought that Minato should have been chained to cinder blocks and his mouth taped shut with construction tape occurred to Suoh. But it was too late. With an exhausted sigh, he continued.

  “Oh, you know how to cut right to the heart. If you want the short version, we had a child. We...”

  “Okay, time out, time out! How old are you anyway?” Minato interrupted rudely.

  “Thirty-five in a month, why?”

  “You're an old man, but you look like you're twenty. Do you drink from the same fountain of youth as Tom Cruise? Screw you, go on.”

  "...We conducted research on children. As you know, it's easier to track progress in a developing organism, so we selected several dozen orphans whom we looked after and who voluntarily agreed to participate in the experiment. With a favorable outcome, by administering the developed mixture of drugs and properly stimulating the nervous system, it would be possible to obtain a serum capable of safely curing any disease related to the central nervous system."

  Suoh said this in a voice that made it clear that there was no favorable outcome. On the contrary, it was the worst possible outcome.

  “Let me guess, they died? Every single one of them?” Minato asked in an even voice. Anyone else, hearing how calmly Minato spoke about it, would surely have lost control and started smashing his face in. But not Suoh.

  "Yeah. Everything went wrong from the start. The method Kosaku proposed was experimental, but we had no doubts about it. After all, until then, he was the kindest person I knew. Believe it or not, he cared about the children more than anyone else. Or rather, I thought I knew. I didn't see the rotten core hidden beneath the surface.“ Suoh's voice was breaking with anger, as if a few more words and he would start screaming.

  ”Ruptured blood vessels, cerebral hemorrhage, possibly organ rupture and acute inflammation of the nervous system. Am I right?" Minato asked with a slight bitterness. How he wished he didn't know, how he wished he could forget that such things happened. But he couldn't. The picture painted itself before his eyes, a masterpiece painted with blood.

  “You're even more right than you think. When I close my eyes, I immediately hear their screams, smell the stench of burnt flesh and entrails.” Taking a deep breath, Suoh finished half a cigarette in one drag, smoking it down to the filter before continuing.

  "We didn't know it was the first time we were shown what the knowledge we shared with the devil in human form could lead to. And we ran. We wanted to tell the world about the atrocities that were happening behind closed walls. But we couldn't. I think you can imagine what happened next. Children clearly have plenty of imagination."

  “It's not about imagination, it's about experience. You know how to fight, so they must have crippled you and left you to die in the trash. As for Aranagi and the child...” He fell silent for a second, nausea rising in his throat, and it had nothing to do with the poison, which he had already forgotten about. “Knowing that freak's twisted sense of humor, he experimented on the kid, turned it into an unrecognizable lump, dismembered it, or roasted it alive, all in front of her. And then he gave Aranagi away, knowing that even if she told anyone, she wouldn't be able to prove anything.”

  Instead of words, Suoh simply took a small, crumpled photograph out of his coat pocket. The image showed a disfigured body that looked like a long-decayed corpse, with protruding bones and torn flesh. It only vaguely resembled a human being, as the limbs were twisted at unnatural angles and the mouth was torn to the ears.

  One could see how it writhed, screaming with its mouth, wanting to break free from this shell where it felt nothing but pain.

  “Even Harlan Ellison and Cronenberg would want to puke at this,” Minato replied quietly, his voice equally emotionless. “You mean I guessed right?”

  “You hit the fucking rotten apple. Every word is true.”

  At that moment, Minato wondered how strong a person's will must be to keep themselves under control like Suoh did now. Although, no. How crazy, how deranged must a person be to continue after something like that?

  “If I guessed everything right, then the question is, how did you survive?”

  “One person saved me. A former Specialist, now a regular vigilante, acting on his own rules. That's all I can say.” Suoh replied casually, coldly dismissing a direct answer that Minato didn't quite believe.

  “Let's say that's true. What about Aranagi? Did she take that creature and go off to make serum with it to get revenge on Kosaku for all the pain he caused? Regardless of the damage her actions will cause?”

  "Would you have done anything different? If your precious Aya-nee, who is now lying in the hospital with a burned face, had been turned into a barely alive, rotting corpse, would you have done anything different? Would you pay attention to the people around you when you have no one to rely on?!" Suoh asked, his voice breaking into a cry that did not hide the pain and anger that lurked inside.

  “I'm not saying I'm any better. If I lost her, I would burn alive everyone who was even remotely involved, beat them with my bare hands if necessary, and I wouldn't give a damn about the circumstances.”

  It is rare that circumstances justify the methods used to achieve a goal.

  Minato couldn't blame Aranagi for wanting to use those around him for his own purposes just to get what he wanted.

  But when people compete in their pragmatism, it's like a competition to see who has the best Special, who is the biggest bastard.

  "Oh, sorry. I completely forgot that there are more drugs to enhance your abilities in your skull than there are flies in shit, so you've probably forgotten how to think and feel like a normal person. I didn't even think that you were a victim too." Suoh said indifferently, not even suspecting how bright a flame he had lit in Minato.

  In the next moment, a mug of cold coffee smashed into Suoh's head, cutting the skin on his forehead, but Minato clearly didn't care. For the first time in their conversation, honest emotions appeared on his face, which he did not hide.

  “I never used that pussy word in my entire life, and don't you dare put it in my mouth, got it?!” Minato almost growled, his face practically disfigured by a grimace of rage.

  The cold coffee clearly cooled Suoh's head, as he came to his senses and took a deep breath. He had never told anyone about this, keeping all his malice, anger, and resentment deep inside, which is why their outburst now was unnatural, but so necessary for peace of mind.

  Wiping the coffee from his face, he continued as if nothing had happened.

  "One of the guys you beat up the day we met was my agent. I caught him trying to sell the serum to young children. I forced him to work for me and promised to protect him if he gave me information about where to get the drug and short text messages with a code from the creator of this junk. That's how I found Aranagi.“

  ”You didn't want her dead, I suppose?" Minato asked, calming down a little. The puppy nudged him with its snout, as if trying to comfort him.

  “Yes, even though I modified and augmented my body in various ways, they turned out to be useless. I couldn't kill her and put an end to this circus,” Suoh muttered with a slight self-deprecating chuckle, realizing how pathetic it sounded.

  “Augmentations?” Minato asked, trying to remember if there was a difference in sensation between beating Yorinobu and Suoh, but came to the conclusion that it felt the same.

  “Yeah, I was literally broken into pieces as a result of the escape. Because of that, I had to change almost every cell in my body. But you, you filthy brat, you hit like a gorilla, which pierced my subcutaneous plates,” Suoh hissed, deliberately exaggerating and gritting his teeth.

  “Glad to try, king of freaks. What about that girl Tsuna was fighting? Is she your agent too?”

  "You mean Haruka? She's an orphan I picked up a couple of years ago. I taught her how to live, but that fool decided to follow me everywhere. So I asked her to try to find out something, but I doubt she was successful. She's not quite right in the head," Suoh muttered with a shameful sigh.

  Putting the puppy down on a chair, Minato stretched his legs slightly. Suoh's face was already starting to make him sick, so he thought it was time to wrap things up, since they had dotted all the i's and crossed all the t's.

  “So? What do you want from me? Advice from a psychologist? Then you've come to the wrong place. Especially since I don't take clients after 10 p.m.”

  “I'm sick of being here myself. If I had my way, I'd plaster a roll of wallpaper on your face. But I need your help in arresting Aranagi.” An awkward silence hung between them, and for a moment there was dead silence. Only when his brain processed the information did his eyebrows rise.

  “Huh? Did you fall out of a tree? Why would I help you? You found information about me, so why don't you find information about Kosaku's experiments, about what happened to you, and report it to the authorities?” Minato looked questioningly, as if someone was trying to sell him a miracle potion.

  “The truth isn't in their best interest. It's easier to set all the dogs on Aranagi and make her public enemy number one. They're all under Kosaku's thumb, no, under someone higher than Kosaku, you and me and everyone else. They'll just kill her like a rabid dog.”

  The truth cut deep. Minato understood, understood perfectly well. But he didn't want to have anything to do with it. With the past that always stabbed him like a rusty needle. Simply put, he was afraid. Afraid to take responsibility for the things he had done and the things he might do.

  He was afraid of making mistakes again, mistakes that would prevent him from ever being able to look in the mirror without screaming in rage.

  “You're afraid, aren't you? Afraid that if you get involved in something that has even the slightest connection to them, the people you care about will be in danger, isn't that right? That your hands will be stained with new rivers of blood? That even more human flesh will end up in your mouth? You're afraid, aren't you?”

  “I'm afraid, damn it!” Minato shouted, unable to contain his anger, not only at the situation, but above all at himself. "Why do you think I hate my ability? Why do I only use it when there is no other way out, which is why I almost died in that warehouse? Because it's all because of it. Because of it, I walk around like an empty doll, because of it, I have more deaths on my hands than I can count, and most likely, because of it, you, your wife, and your child were dragged into this hell! Because some sick, unstable freak wanted to get his hands on it!"

  He was to blame, he was the root cause. A lab rat who was mistakenly given the right to freedom. An object whose power was the cause of so many people's misfortune.

  “Just imagine, Special, capable of nullifying other Specials. And some freak with a screw loose wanted to get his hands on that power and develop it at any cost. And the tragedy of your family is just a small step that brought that bastard, who stands above all of us, one step closer to his cherished goal.”

  He could barely catch his breath, because, like Suoh, he had so many emotions that it was impossible to pour them all out without spilling gallons of the pus that had accumulated inside.

  “Are you afraid because you feel guilty about what happened?” Suoh asked, as if asking himself as well.

  “Of course I am. Am I not to blame? Huh? Am I not? You know perfectly well that if it weren't for me and my fucking ability, you'd probably be fine. I have no right to help.”

  Suoh took a deep breath, ready to argue, but couldn't. He knew about the past of the guy in front of him, knew the circumstances that had caused him to spill rivers of blood, that had made him who he was. And that couldn't be changed. He had no right to judge him. Especially since he was just a child.

  Taking a small oblong ampoule out of his pocket, Suoh stood up and walked over to the balcony.

  “I understand, do as you see fit. The ampoule contains an antidote, consider it payment for the psychotherapy session. Oh, I almost forgot, your two friends agreed to help.”

  With these words, he stepped over the balcony railing and jumped down. There was no sound of a body hitting the ground, so he probably didn't die.

  After breaking the glass top and drinking the contents, Minato felt extremely bitter. And it wasn't because of the taste of the antidote. He was consumed by guilt. Guilt for letting his feelings get in the way.

  He could have done something worthwhile, something right. And yet, he didn't think he had the right. The puppy looked at him reproachfully, tugging at his jeans with its teeth and whimpering softly.

  “Ugh, this isn't like me. Since when did I become such a whiner, damn it!”

  Slapping himself in the face, Minato leaned against the wall, thinking about what to do. Did he have the right to overcome his guilt and do what he really wanted to do?

  He wouldn't bring back the lives he had lost that way.

  So was it better to just do nothing?

  That would definitely drive him crazy and torment him for the rest of his days.

  Fear, hatred, hesitation—all of these feelings tormented him.

  “The only question is which of these feelings you will choose as a guiding light for your actions, learning not to be ashamed of what you feel, right?” Repeating the words of Aya-nee, which he had heard not long ago, he punched himself in the face with all his might, then again, and again, until blood flowed from his nose and his face resembled a piece of bloody meat, beating out the cowardly nothingness that was hiding in his head. And it was gone.

  Walking calmly to the parked expensive sedan, Suoh sat down in the driver's seat and lit another cigarette. He had lost count in the morning, so by evening he didn't even try to count.

  “How are your lungs not rotten if you smoke like a locomotive?” wondered Makoto, who was lying in the back seat out of boredom, like a queen sprawled on silk.

  To get her support, Suoh had to briefly explain the essence of the events without going into details, since she wasn't as involved in all this as Minato was.

  “The less I think about it, the easier it is for me. Blissful ignorance,” Suoh replied nonchalantly, throwing his head back and blowing a cloud of smoke right at her.

  “Agh! Bastard, no wonder he beat you up!” Makoto shouted, waving her arms wildly in an attempt to disperse the smoke. “Ahem, do you think he'll come? It doesn't look like you've come to an agreement,” she asked through a cough, glancing at the new cuts on her face.

  “Time will tell.”

  After sitting in an awkward silence that felt like an eternity for about half a minute, the left front door opened and Minato climbed into the car, his face bloodied and a small chunk of ice on his eye.

  Seeing Minato, Makoto silently rejoiced that he had joined them because, oddly enough, it was easiest with him, despite their constant disagreements and arguments. She would never admit that, though.

  “Guess who's back?” she asked rhetorically, voicing her thoughts aloud.

  “Shame is back.” Minato muttered hoarsely, as if trying to drown out reality.

  If he didn't start acting in accordance with Aya-nee's words now, he would never be able to. He would never be able to live in harmony with his conscience or forgive himself.