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The members of the Resistance regiments 27, 56, 32, 9, 8, and 17 had a story to tell after their successful raid on All For One’s base of operations. After boasting of scaling his high-rise in the middle of Tokyo, of disabling security systems and guards alike, of information gathered and terrorist groups linked, they all had a much stranger story about a man who joined them.
The story was of a man dressed in dirty rags that were once white, who, as the sun was rising, walked away from their temporary camp at the base of the mountain and to the river.
No one had missed how filthy he was when the Leader had guided him into camp. Like a lamb following its mother, he stuck close to the Leader. It wasn’t battle grime either- it was the grime of grease and sour smells of the body left unwashed after a period of months or even years. The comrades had smelled worse, and had not commented on it.
They said that he had not slept the night before, but rather he had curled next to their Leader and listened as they talked. He laid on top of the bedroll, clutching the palm of their Leader as if it was a lifeline. Leader had made no move to push him away or comment on the situation. Although he was laid down as if to rest, his eyes remained wide open, listening to them talk. The information-gathers that shared their intelligence and the saboteurs who bragged of their intricate traps. Even when the conversation shifted to things not relating to the Resistance, he did not sleep. He listened all night as different shifts of people took to talking and snoring.
Sakura said that listening to their stories and seeing their casual friendship was how he first learned the language. Before that night, he had not understood a word. After that night, he was fluent.
It was said that as he walked to the river, he shed his rags. He let them drop where they landed and walked across the rocky shore of the river barefoot.
Both of these details were utter nonsense of course, but they made for a better story. Of course the man could speak, nor did he leave his rags where they dropped. He did fold up his clothing neatly, showing no qualms about being undressed in front of so many strangers nor the chilly dawn air. But these did not add to the air of mystery that all of the souls present felt at his very presence.
The members of the Resistance regiments 27, 56, 32, 9, and 8 watched as he walked straight into the slightly brown water. Regiment 17 had not witnessed this, as they were all asleep at the time, but they neglected that detail in future retellings of this event. It was shortly after snowmelt, and the water was close to freezing. His stride never slowed. He didn’t shiver. He didn’t dive in. He just walked, water creeping up his legs, chest, and his neck until he vanished from sight without a ripple.
There was a long silence, as if the man they had rescued from All for One’s grasp was nothing but a ghost. An apparition. An illusion. As if the man was only a spirit, haunted by his brother’s crimes.
Until he re-emerged, hauling himself from the water. He gasped for breath, lungs too cold to expand. His hair had slicked to his scalp and neck, clung to his back. The cold had made him even more pale and ghost-like.
It was at this point that Leader shifted though his supplies as the man rubbed at his arms. Then his legs, and chest, and ran fingers through his hair. Long after the grease was scrubbed from his skin, he rubbed it raw as if he couldn’t bear to be covered in his own skin for much longer. He scrubbed at his limbs to clean them of grime and dirt, of memories, of rain and tears, of a broken heart only a brother could have.
Leader was the first to approach him, to hand him a clean cloth to use as a towel and a simple set of clothing. He gently held the man’s head in his hands as he dried his hair, before bundling him into loose fitting clothing. Then, Leader removed his gauntlets, then his jacket, leaving him in only a tee shirt in the crisp morning air. Goosebumps rose on his skin as he tucked the man into his jacket and returned the gauntlets to his forearms.
At that point the spell over the camp lifted. The Resistance regiments busied themselves with breaking camp. Waking others who had fallen asleep. Coffee being brewed. Documents rolled into waterproof folders. Flash drives hidden in pockets. Copies of information made to each member of the group. Bedrolls returned to their bags, and breakfast bars were passed out as provisions. The intelligence-gathers stuck together as the saboteurs discussed the potential outcome of their traps they laid. The cells rarely discussed such things so openly, but everyone was in high spirits after such a successful mission. A few of them did stretches and warm-up exercises for the long journey ahead.
Bruce took a few breakfast bars to Leader and their new addition. They stayed over on the water’s edge for several long minutes, discussing something that probably meant nothing in the long run. The man did not eat. At this point the cell leaders of Resistance regiments 8, 9, 56, and 17 said their goodbyes to the group and headed back to the city, to return to their undercover operatives. The rest of them would be climbing the mountain.
The fire was extinguished and the coals dumped into the river. The ash was buried. Someone grabbed the rags the man had dropped and stuffed them in their bag, resolving to burn them later. As the group started to hide any evidence of a large group staying overnight, the three men returned.
“This is Yoichi,” Leader finally introduced. The man’s long white hair had dried quickly in the swift mountain breeze. His eyes were still wide, and his cheeks finally had some color in them after his cold bath. His hand had returned into Leader’s, and Leader squeezed his hand reassuringly. “He will be staying with us for a while.”
And that was that. The man named Yoichi did not speak a word during their long hike back to their own base. It was hidden in the steep mountains, and yet he did not complain nor breath heavy when walking in the thin air. He kept a steady pace with the rest of them, only ever stopping occasionally. Leader’s jacket stayed wrapped around his shoulders.
When he stopped, it seemed like he was looking beyond the mountain at something none of them could see.
“This is the base of the terrorists who’ve been bothering my brother for so long?”
Kudou glared at the man grasping his upper arm. Shojiken’s meta ability had stringent rules for who could see their bunker, so until they found him and he used his meta-ability on their new prisoner of war/willing member of the Resistance (As Kudou is not yet sure what to classify him as), Yoichi was stuck clinging to random members of his rescue party so he could actually see the walls and the floor of their base. They were holding hands, but then Kudou accidentally let go and left Yoichi collapsed on the floor, hallucinating that he was stuck in a cave.
(Because he technically was stuck in a cave, as all information of their bunker was removed from his brain, including the information entering his brain right at that second.)
So Yoichi insisted on a much more efficient method.
Yoichi’s grin was cheeky, picking up on Kudou's unspoken mood immediately. “That wasn’t an insult. It was a compliment. I’m amazed you guys lasted so long. He really hates anything not going his way.”
“You mentioned that,” Kudou gruffed, a little irritated at his bright smile so early in the morning and after their long hike. No one should be able to hike up fourteen kilometers up a mountain and then have the gall to be cheerful about it. “Hopefully you’ll be able to give us some tips on surviving him a bit longer.”
“Oh, I fully intend to. I have a few ideas already planned out. You have the people gathered into regiments of the same typing, right? I’ll need some paper. That type of thinking is what will get a lot of groups sold out if people fall to his control, so we’ll need-”
Kudou rolled his eyes. “Jeez man, we like, just got you out of there. Let’s get you a breather, some medical care, some new clothing, and then we can discuss strategy. But first we gotta find Shojiken and get you off of my shoulder.”
“There’s more people than I was expecting here. Who are we looking for?”
“Look for a guy that looks like a bodybuilder Non-mutant. No vestige mutations. Buzz cut, Japanese. Usually not wearing a shirt. He is constantly injecting himself with performance enhancers so he’s huge, but harmless.” Kudo readjusted Yoichi’s grip. “Maybe I should just carry you. It’s too hard to walk like this.”
“Just give me a warning before sending me to the shadow realm next time.”
“I’m not going to drop you.” Kudou bent down and stuck out his free hand behind him. “Just climb on my back.
Yoichi did so, and Kudou hoisted him into the air, his legs under his arms in a mimic of a piggyback ride. It was awkward to walk like this. Yoichi didn’t weigh a lot, but he was long and lanky and made Kudou stagger before he figured out their new gait. Yoichi rested his head on top of Kudou’s.
“Is that exposed wiring in the ceiling?” Yoichi asked cheerfully. “I love playing with wires, you should let me add some of my electrical work to make this place brighter.”
“We have a few guys with sensitive eyes.” Kudou replies. It's not really a lie- a side effect of the Trigger many people used was sensitivity to light and loud noises. Yoichi took that at face value.
They pass by a gaggle of children that have slowly been accumulating in their base- Kids with visible mutations that got kicked out of their homes or communities who eventually wound up here, brought here by sympathetic members. They go silent when they see Kudou- Kudou never knew how to interact with children so he almost never talked with them. He just awkwardly told them to go places where busy hands were needed and they listened.
Yoichi waves at the children. “Hello! Have any of you seen Shojiken recently? I would like to talk to him.”
The children look at themselves, before a girl with a badger-head mutation shyly waves back. Her mutation makes her expression hard to read, but she looks like she’s smiling. This makes one of the older boys grow confident, and he points in the direction the group came from with a scaly hand.
“Thank you very much. Onward, my noble steed!” Yoichi shot a hand forward. The kids giggled as Kudou rolled his eyes and continued down the hallway.
Sure enough, Shojiken was on the ground in the middle of the hallway, facedown on the linoleum tiles. He was not wearing a shirt, and his pants had a giant hole at the knees and frayed at the hem. Several tattoos of various religious iconography from around the world were etched onto his back. Empty vials of Trigger were surrounding his person.
He needed Trigger to constantly keep his meta-ability working overtime, to hide them from satellites and surveys and eyes and cameras. It was a big base, and it being mostly underground didn’t help Shojiken’s job at all because he also had to hide it from seismic surveys and radar penetrating blasts. Shojiken’s job was a well kept secret among the upper tiers of the Resistance.
Recently, some people with similar meta abilities to him have been trying to help him out, but nothing can beat Shojiken’s sheer power to pull the wool over people’s eyes.
To the whole world, their base near the peak of Mount Fuji was invisible. Even those in the know had their memories obscured as they moved further away from their home base. They only had a general direction to get back to, even if they knew full well the in-and-outs of Shojiken’s meta ability.
Kudou had made the climb to their base several times and each time, it wasn’t until he was close to the peak that he realized they were on the most famous mountain in Japan. He always forgot when he left.
That’s the nature of Shojiken’s meta-ability, and why him being strung out on Trigger constantly was a necessity to keep their entire operation a secret.
He nudged Shojiken with his foot. “‘Ken. Wake up. Newbie needs your baptism.”
Shojiken instantly shot to his eye-watering full height of 232cm in less than a second, making Kudou feel dizzy. He glared at Kudou.
“Nice to meet you, I am Yoichi,” The koala on his back chirped. He stuck out his hand for Shojiken to shake.
Shojiken eyed Yoichi and Kudou with one bloodshot eye. Kudou was suddenly aware that Yoichi was still wearing his jacket. He shook Yoichi’s hand without a word. He lurched away, his feet dragging on the floor. Kudou bent so Yoichi could get down.
“Well, I’m not hallucinating that I’m in a cave so I guess it worked.” Yoichi went still for a second. “We’re on Mount Fuji?! ”
“Yep,” Kudou grinned. “It always surprises me when I get here too. I don’t even realize what mountain I’m climbing or what prefecture I’m in until I’m here.”
“Fascinating,” Yoichi breathed. “Localized memory alteration based on spatial awareness?”
“More than that. He can do other things. But only one thing at a time. Can’t really do people, either.”
“Thousands of photos must be taken of Fuji every day. Not to mention the scientific data that’s being collected by volcanologists. That is incredible.” Yoichi slowly spun around in a circle, taking in the whole dingy lighting of the base.
Kudou popped his back. “The best place to be is right under your enemy’s nose.”
Yoichi’s eyes hardened. “You really shouldn’t have told me that. If I am a traitor, then I would have just revealed the heart of your organization.”
“We shook the trackers off of you. The one in your hand was deactivated when one of my men zapped you, as you know. The meta-ability based ones can’t track you if your destination is Shojiken’s target. If you leave, you forget the specifics and will only have a vague notion on how to get back.”
Kudou let himself grin, showing all of his teeth.
“And we will never let you leave, anyway.”
Yoichi’s eyes narrowed, and he smiled back with just as many teeth.
“Good. I don’t intend on leaving.”
After finding Shojiken, Kudou insisted on getting Yoichi looked over by Doctor. So he had dropped him off at their medical center, and had run into Bruce on the way out.
“The Danforth family is pulling their funding.” Bruce said as they walked in tandem.
“Shit.” Kudou groaned. “Even with the intel we gathered on their competitors?”
“Yeeeep.” Bruce drew out. “That's what we get for doing work without pay. I figured we could switch over to blackmailing them but they tend to weather any political storm and scandal. Bastards are all old money.”
“We have more than enough proof to tie their dealings to certain terrorist groups in the Russian sector. We can’t leak it through our shell companies?”
Bruce shook his head. “It tends to be circumstantial. What we could do is grassroots, but that barely contributes to the significance-“
“I know. Shit.” Kudou rubbed his forehead. “I need coffee.”
“How’s our hostage?”
Kudou glared at him for that. “ Rescued hostage. It’s very clear he’s here willingly. Quick as a whip with that mouth of his. He already wants to reestablish the whole cell system for undercover operatives-“
“ Jesus. ” Bruce cussed in English. “He just got here. We haven’t even cleared him for basic refugee status yet. Look, speaking of-“ Bruce looked around and leaned in. “You don’t think this is an elaborate hoax, do you?”
“The possibility has crossed my mind several times. It is a little convenient to find an unwilling soul that’s so important to the Soulstealer in a relatively successful mission. Everything he says will have to be double checked and verified. The stuff that we can’t 100% verify we’re taking a chance on. We can get our truthtellers in, but who knows what type of meta-abilities All for One stuffed into him. We’ll need at least three truthtellers to vouch for any unverified information. At least.” Kudou shook his head. “I can’t forget the circumstances we found him in, but we cannot trust him further than we can throw him. Even if he is 100% willing, he could be bugged with something even Shojiken can’t prevent from leaking.”
“I’m not going to scold you for being compassionate, Kudou. The circumstances we found him in…” Bruce shook his head. “Anyone would fall for it. If it was a ruse, I mean.”
“Honestly, I don’t think it is a ruse. But as Leader, I have to take responsibility when this inevitably goes south.” Kudou pressed his forefinger and thumb to the bridge of his nose. “To be completely honest, I don’t know how we haven’t been nuked from high heaven yet. Soulstealer will be calling in all of his political favors for this stunt we pulled.”
“Yeah, our deep cover operatives already confirmed it. He’s mobilized all Light and White routes. To say even more so for his underground contacts. We’ll know more details later.”
“Goodness. I’m thankful for Shojiken’s meta-ability right now. Only place safer would be a nuclear bunker.” Kudou laughed.
“Considering the circumstances we found Yoichi in, I don’t think he will think the same.” Bruce said somberly. “At least here, there’s light.”
That night, Kudou dreamed of his mother.
That particular dream never ended well, and he woke up with her blood on his hands. The clearest memory he has of her face is of it in death, disfigured by a single gunshot, meat spilling out of her cracked skull.
He hopes he’s doing the right thing. He didn’t want to wake up to have everyone’s blood on his hands also.
“I don’t suppose you’ll tell me where you found this young man, are you Leader?” Doctor’s knuckles rapped on the clipboard he held with his messy handwriting. For everyone’s security, his medical records were always written in a neigh-unbreakable code known only to Doctor and Kudou. Kudou was loath to admit it, but the code itself was not nearly as good as Doctor’s handwriting. A thousand codebreakers and truthtellers could spend a lifetime attempting to decipher his small, near indescribable kanji and not be able to decipher a single kanji. The unbreakable code was just extra security.
As a result, no one else aside from Doctor could read his fucking handwriting.
“What’s his diagnosis?”
Doctor sighed. He noticed Kudou sidestepping his pointed question but did not comment. “I have to only assume war-orphan. First and foremost, his genetic material is still being run, so we’ll know of any meta-abilities later, natural or tampered. He believes that he only has one that All for One forced upon him, which he thinks is a basic stockpile ability. He admits that there could be more that All for One stuffed into him that he doesn’t know about, but he doubts that to be the case.
“The physical condition of this young man I am much more concerned about. He shows evidence of malnutrition and extreme vitamin D deficiency. I have him under a sunlamp right now. We will have to slowly reintroduce food into his diet. Has he consumed anything since his capture?”
“ Rescue, and no. Said he wasn’t hungry. The fourteen kilometer hike up a mountain didn’t make him hungry either.”
“Good, good. He would have thrown it up. I have him slowly drinking a salty broth with some vitamin pills crushed into it. But, more importantly,” Doctor lowered his voice. “His throat and esophagus show lacerations that appear to run down to his stomach. Bruises around his wrists and jaw too.”
Kudou’s stomach dropped. “Don’t tell me…”
The doctor nodded grimly. “He was force-fed. His malnutrition was self-inflicted. The bruises are from being tied down. The lacerations are from the tube being forced down into his stomach without proper medical training and him thrashing around during the process.
“There’s more, of course. According to his own testimony, he would force himself to vomit after each session. His captor would leave him bound for hours until it digested, of course, but the stomach acid still irritated the wounds in his throat and upper esophagus, causing more damage. Not to mention the damage done to his teeth’s enamel.”
Kudou had seen several different horrors in his time as an insurgent. He’s seen systematic abuse of the meta-abilitied and the powerless alike. He’s seen a cop fire a rubber bullet directly into a peaceful protester’s head. He’s seen children covered in lice and fleas eating from garbage like rats. He’s witnessed his comrades fall victim to the ghosts of their past lives. He witnessed his own mother be killed for the crime of birthing a meta.
He’s heard of protesters in jails and open-air prisons going on hunger strikes. A last resort to execute their power over themselves and their freedom. Their right to eat, and their right to refuse to eat in conjunction with their right to protest.
“How… How long had he been on a hunger strike?”
Doctor’s eyes cast away from Kudou’s. “It’s hard to say. The scarring is… extensive. By my medical expertise, I would estimate the tail end of two years. His timeline is shakey, because he said he didn’t know the date when he was originally arrested nor how old he was at the time.”
“Two years. Motherfucker . ” Kudou took a breath. “His mental state-“
“He wasn’t in total solitude. His captor will often visit him outside of force-feeding. He had a few books. But, by his own admission, he suffered greatly. The science behind what the media has dubbed “Stockholm Syndrome” has long been argued, but I can say with certainty that his mental fortitude is strong for not falling to his captors whims.”
Doctor pushed his glasses up. “In my expert opinion, he will be a great asset when he’s healed for torture resistance training. We will need a full testimony at a later date.”
“Mother. Fucker.”
“I quite agree, Leader.”
“Can the hungry go on a hunger strike? Non-violence is a piece of theater. You need an audience. What can you do when you have no audience?
People have the right to resist annihilation.”
-Arundhati Roy, 2011, on why she does not condemn violent resistance.
Kudou knocked on the open door between the active hallway of Doctor’s and the room Yoichi was recovering in. Yoichi was furiously writing in a campus notebook someone had given him (Probably Doctor) with a pink crayon. That combined with his rather thin statue and his hair tied back in duel pigtail braids made the image of a childlike scene.
Yoichi looked up, his bangs falling into his face. “Oh, Leader-san. Hello.”
“I heard Doctor gave you the runaround. How are you feeling?”
Yoichi held up his crayon. It was worn down to a nub. “I don’t suppose you’ll let me have a pencil or pen?”
“Doctor explicitly said no. But I have the right of veto power around here.” Kudou pulled a mechanical pencil from his sleeve and tossed it to Yoichi’s bed. He caught it in his left hand. “Do me a favor and don’t attempt to kill yourself or anyone else with it, otherwise Doctor will give me a pretty harsh scolding.”
“Fair enough.” Yoichi smirked. “I hate to make things difficult for you. Especially since it contradicts with my own plan.”
“Which is what?” Kudou walked across the room and took a seat by the bed so they’ll be at eye level.
“Giving this organization the information it needs to take down my brother and give me a chance to put a knife in his back.”
“You’ll have to get in line for that latter idea.” Kudou ran a hand through his hair. “But let's hear your testimony.”
Yoichi’s eyes glittered. “Oh, I have more than that. First, can you take a look at this?”
He tore the notebook in half, giving the crayon half to Kudou and immediately went back to writing with his new pencil. “My brother hates chaos. He values organization. I wrote down what I believe to be the current hierarchy and cell structure implemented here, and how he might target it. I bet you have a ton of sympathizers and prying eyes, too-“
“-wait huh-“
“-You need to take advantage of that without tipping him off. I have a list of known names too, but I’ll write those down once you read over my proposal, since my plan hinges on using them to feed false data to him. I’m sure there's more that I don’t personally know about, so if you choose to put tails on them make sure they’re in your pocket.”
Kudou looked at Yoichi in shock. Then at the notebook covered in pink crayon.
He took his time and read it. And read it again. During that time, Yoichi ran out of paper. Kudou read that too.
“Holy shit.”
“My brother often told me stories under the guise of guiding me to his own… How did he put it? Enlightenment? I have a good memory,” Yoichi’s eyes burned with a fire despite his frail body and the jacket Kudou gave him still hanging around his shoulders. “I fully intend to use this against him. Please go through whatever channels you need to confirm I’m telling the truth. I want to help as soon as possible. Consider it my thanks for saving me, my hero.” Yoichi smiled that wide grin with all his teeth again.
“Holy shit.” Bruce whistled. “This intel is enough to feed our intelligence-gatherers for years. The connections to companies in the Soulstealer’s pocket is enough to put him in hot water with a decent amount of foreign governments.”
“And the direct insight into All for One’s psyche.” Shinomori commented. “We’ll know the best way to commit psychological warfare against him using his own spies. The idea of individual operative cells with minimum contact though…”
“It’s risky. I know. But Shinomori, you’re our best truth-teller. You already vouched for his legitimacy. Considering his closeness to Soulstealer, I think he does truly have-”
“You’re right.” Kudou said. Bruce had lit him a cigarette but it sat between his fingers, warming his hands from the cold mountain air. “It’ll take a while to implement. But I think this is a more viable solution to our little spy problem.”
“I have my truthtellers working on confirming those little turncoats now. If they’re viable, I’m willing to leak some false information to them sprinkled in with the truth.” One of their comrades added. She declined a cigarette when Bruce offered her one.
“Right now, we have the basis of our cell work that Yoichi described. We can leave the turncoats in their foxholes, and feed a steady stream of falsehoods to them. Enough truths to keep All for One sated, of course. But now, I think we have to operate on the basis that everyone could turn traitor. That is of course, unhealthy, to say the least, to function in an environment like that. We’ll need to establish a culture of false information and faith in the greater system before these second steps of this new cell structure can be implemented.”
“Information being shared so handedly like this. I honestly don’t like it. It seems like the entire basis will be on gossip and hearsay. How are we supposed to establish order in an organization like this?” one of the other cell heads argued. Kudou had only met her a few times but recalled she was quite old fashioned.
“That’s the point. We aren’t here to organize. We’re here to sow as much chaos in All for One’s ranks as we can.”
“It’ll be like slime mold.”
Everyone looked over at Shinomori, who blushed.
“Slime mold can solve mazes and stuff. They don’t have a brain but still move forward to one goal. That’s what I meant.” Shinomori tried to hide in his uniform collar.
“Gross.”
“Sorry.”
“No, don’t apologize. I like it.”
“Wouldn’t a better example be an octopus?” Bruce interjected. “Like, they have brains in each of their tentacles. And they’ll live if one arm is torn off. The arm will grow back too.”
“I took high school biology. I know how octopuses work.
“Look, some of us heteromorphic metas didn’t have that privilege, let me learn new things.” one of the women growled.
“Sorry.”
“It doesn’t matter what type of animal we’re basing this off of-”
“Slime molds are NOT animals, boss.”
“Says the guy that didn’t go to high school-”
The conversation quickly devolved into chaos shortly after that.
Despite how it looked from the outside, every single member of that conversation had come to the same conclusion. After that moment, they worked hard to move the culture of their resistance into one more suited for cell-by-cell intelligence.
To be moved into the ideal form created by Yoichi.
Whether that be a slime mold or an octopus was still up for debate.
Yoichi was not in the medical ward’s bed when Kudou returned, nor was he in the nearby restroom or nurse station. Kudou felt no sense of alarm from his compatriots, and followed his feet instead.
His feet had a habit of taking him where he needed to go. He wasn’t sure if it was connected to his meta-ability or was just a convenient perspective on life. Bruce said it had a habit of getting him in trouble, but Kudou always pointed out that it got him out of said trouble just as often.
He wandered up two flights of stairs and eventually found himself in one of the kitchens that were adjacent to their many dining halls. Yoichi was cutting vegetables.
Kudou hadn’t made any particular noise when he entered, but Yoichi looked up like he was expecting him anyway. He smiled when his eyes met Kudou’s. He was still wearing Kudou’s jacket.
“Afternoon, Hero-san.”
“Did Doctor clear you out of bed?”
“You read my psychological profile, right? Considering the ordeal I went through, I think Doctor will be lenient enough to let me walk around and use my hands. Chef here doesn’t mind.”
Kudou filed away in his head that Yoichi had, in order:
- Somehow got ahold of Doctor’s records.
- Figured out how to read his handwriting.
- Reverse engineered the nearly unbreakable code Doctor wrote his notes in.
Or had:
- Listened in on his and Doctor’s conversation and now knew that Kudou pitied him.
He wasn’t sure which one was worse.
The Chef, who certainly complained often of not having enough hands despite often conscripting child labor to do such tasks, nodded curtly. “He chops vegetables well. I’m keeping him.”
“This man’s meta ability is certainly fascinating, also. Speeding up or slowing down the decay of organic matter is quite useful. Is there a garden that I can dump these scraps into with his meta ability? Organic matter is the key to having healthy soil.
“I didn’t tell you the uses of my meta ability for you to decide I should change careers, now.” The old Chef glared at Yoichi.
“Certainly not! It’s obvious you’re needed as a chef. I was volunteering myself for the role.”
“Like hell you are! I need you chopping veggies!” Chef pulled a knife to Yoichi’s neck. Yoichi calmly continued peeling his carrot.
“We used to have a greenhouse. We don’t often use it now. If you wish to restore it to a useful state, I’m sure Chef would appreciate fresh produce to choose from instead of his ancient vegetables.” Kudou replied. It seems that Chef neglected to mention the side effect of his meta-ability was making any vegetables he froze in time taste bland, no matter how many spices he added to cover it up.
“Perfect!” Yoichi seemed undeterred about having a knife pressed to his neck. He gently pushed the old man away.
“No! Leader, you have to let me have this one! The kids complain too much and don’t chop quickly! This one volunteered! I’m considering adopting him and naming my legacy for him!”
“Dude, you JUST met me. And I’m allergic to cucumbers.”
“That’s how much I’m disrespected here! I get no help!”
“I’ll send some assistants your way soon.” Kudou grabbed Yoichi by the elbow and dragged him away from the kitchen, ignoring Chef’s cussing as they closed the door behind him.
“Is everyone here in the resistance batshit insane, or is it just the people I’ve come across so far?” Yoichi laughed. Somehow, Yoichi had snagged the huge bucket of vegetable scraps and he held it close to his body like it was something precious.
“I hope you aren’t including me on that list.”
“Yes, you are included on this hypothetical list because you broke into All for One’s top headquarters to kill his little brother and instead drafted him into some random terrorist group slash leftist commune.”
Kudou shrugged. “Fair enough.”
The greenhouse was in a rather sorry state. Several boxes of soil sat overturned. The generators that originally powered the lights and humidity had been repurposed at some point, and were now powering a few computers that appeared to be hosting a cohort of webcrawlers and rudimentary programs for a long forgotten intelligence-gathering project.
When Yoichi and him had entered, there were a few kids that had broken in and were drawing on the walls in some sharpies that were clearly liberated from one their few offices. Kudou scolded them and sent them to the Chef for the aforementioned assistance for tonight’s dinner.
“This is perfect!” Yoichi clasped his hands together. “I can have this up and running in no time.”
“Can you really?” Kudou asked. He knew little of gardening or growing plants on a widespread scale. “Don’t you need power for that? I’ll figure out who’s in charge of these webcrawlers and get those generators back to you.”
Yoichi waved him off. “I was just going to snake a cord into the hallway and hook it up to your bare ceiling wires. The computers can stay.”
“I was more worried about you using them as a form of communication with the outside world. You are technically still a prisoner of war, here.”
“Wait, they’re connected to the internet? Can I use them to research ideal greenhouse conditions?”
“Again, you are technically a prisoner of war-”
“And you guys just leave computers with unrestricted access to the internet like that in the open?”
Kudou closed his mouth. He thought about the kids he just kicked out. The computers were covered with a thick layer of dust, but they still could have used them if the idea occurred to them.
Yoichi seemed to not notice or care about Kudou’s sudden silence because he swept around the room, already starting to gather things into different piles. “Tomatoes are a high yield crop with relatively low maintenance needed. I used to grow them all the time in alleyways and rubble with my brother. They can survive almost anywhere. I’ll start with those.”
“Sure.”
“I won’t touch the computers.”
“Of course.”
“I’ll use the tomato seeds in the scrap bucket to start.”
“Oh.”
Kudou did not see Yoichi for a while after showing him the greenhouse. This did not mean that he was blind to Yoichi’s actions, however.
The next day, the children were playing some sort of game with a braided hoop of wire that they said Yoichi had made for them. They tried to rope Sakura and her regiment into it, and eventually succeeded when they pestered them enough. It seemed to be some sort of combination of american tackle football, ultimate frisbee, and basketball at the same time. Kudou could not make any sense of the rules.
The base seemed a lot more lively with children playing among them.
After that, Doctor spoke highly of Yoichi because he came in and offered to help organize his medicinal supplies and make an inventory of them when he noticed how messy his cabinets were. Doctor was happy for him to do so as long as he stayed under his sun lamp and drank his vitamin broth.
Later that day, he spotted Shojiken. His pants, once frayed at the hems and sporting a large hole at a knee, were fixed.
He had offered Shojiken a new pair of pants several times. Along with a full set of clothes. Shoijiken had never accepted them, or even said more than a few words to him.
Kudou wondered just how Yoichi was able to charm Shojiken to allow him to fix his clothing.
Apparently, Yoichi had fixed some of the electrical wiring in a few of the rooms other than his greenhouse. They had a TV running in one of them now, and several people gathered around it to watch a baseball game. Kudou wasn’t quite sure how Yoichi had figured out how to get a signal, until someone showed him the impromptu satellite dish made of aluminum foil and an umbrella that was affixed to the roof of their entrance.
He really hoped that Yoichi had recruited someone else to help with that particular installation. Shinomori clearly thought it was fine, however. And Shinomori knew more about that type of stuff than him.
He was doing laundry duties on top of helping out in the kitchen and refurbishing his greenhouse. Everyone had their standard issue uniforms freshly washed by their cots or rooms every morning.
One morning, Kudou had an origami crane in his pocket. Unfolding it, it revealed a drawing of a cat sleeping in a sunbeam.
That same day, the carrots in the stew were cut into stars.
Before he knew it, it had been a whole week and he hadn’t seen Yoichi once.
He eventually found the room Yoichi had carved out for himself in their never-ending halls. It was near his greenhouse, tucked away in a little corner that Kudou would have missed if it wasn’t for his wandering feet.
Yoichi had apparently made his own mattress by stuffing plastic bags and similar waste into a giant plastic sheet, sewing it into layers, and covering the whole thing with fabric. He had no bed frame, so it functioned more like a futon than a mattress. Some of the rooms in their base had tatami mats, but this glorified closet was not one of them.
Yoichi was apparently working on making a thick quilt from scraps of cloth and random worn out shirts he had somehow collected. Probably from his laundry duties. He had them cut into triangles and arranged into squares with pins.
Yoichi glanced up when he knocked on his open door and gestured for him to come in. He had a few needles and pins in his mouth, so he couldn’t really speak but his eyes seemed bright and he made a welcoming noise with his throat.
There wasn’t really a place to sit other than the bed, so Kudou leaned against the wall. “Good morning, Yoichi. How have you been doing?”
Yoichi grabbed the pins from his mouth and stuck them into a ball of cloth that apparently functioned as his pincushion. “The tomato seeds haven’t sprouted yet, but the soil is good and moist so they should be by tomorrow or the next. Once they do, I want to use Kanamori’s meta-ability to try to speed up their growth. Just on a few of them to see if it's viable as a way of producing food. Then you wouldn’t have to focus so much on supply lines up the mountain.”
Yoichi continued to sew on his quilt. “If that seems like a viable option, I want to run a few trials to see if there’s any long term mutations to the tomatoes, like infertility later on or change in taste. But I doubt either of those would happen, since Kanamori’s meta-ability just speeds up cellular growth on a targeted area. I’m sure that there would be a potential for cancerous growths on cellular cultures with DNA if used too often, but plants don’t have DNA so the worst that would happen is the plant dying. Not too many genetic errors you can get with plants since they bounce back quickly from those things. So we should be able to have a steady supply of tomatoes soon and ease the supply line a little bit. I have yet to figure out the space and water for rice, but other vegetables I can manage later when I get the other greenhouses ready.”
He said this all in one breath. Kudou noticed his chest was heaving.
“You don’t have to do all this, you know. No one will judge you if you take a break. You’ve already given us a lot to work with.” Kudou said suddenly. It wasn’t really a thought that formed in his mind before now, but seeing Yoichi here surrounded by his handiwork and planning to do more suddenly made Kudou feel tight in the chest.
Yoichi finally looked up at him. Kudou was suddenly struck with the thought of how pretty his eyes were framed by his pale bangs. “Hero-san, I really do want to help. I don’t have the combat skills to help on the battlefield or in the intelligence cycle, so I will have to make do here.”
“I believe you. And you’ve done a lot already. More than just with the domestic agenda; To be honest, my comrades have accepted your proposal and are getting started on the arrangements to make it happen.” Kudou confessed.
“WHAT!” Yoichi dropped the embroidery he was working on. “Okay, great! But the whole point of that was not to tell me, or anyone else! Now I’m even more of a liability than before!”
Yoichi ran his hands through his long hair and tugged at the strands. “I’m glad. But you really have to keep these types of things close. If the openness of this cell-by-cell group will have to work, that really means making an effort to keep the necessary secrets hidden. Don’t go around telling random prisoners-of-war that you’re remaking your entire hierarchy on a whim.”
“I know that!” Kudou laughed. “I just think that it’s okay to tell you, Yoichi. Considering you’ll be helping us implement the changes you recommended.”
Yoichi’s eyes narrowed. “That is a horrible idea.”
“Nonsense. Within a few days of being here, you have a gaggle of children following you around asking for stories, Chef respects you enough to not kill you immediately, the intelligence cycle has been boosted into swing by your inside knowledge, and yesterday I swear I saw Bruce humming a song I heard you sing. And you’re thoughtful enough to figure out the whole supply chain issue that I doubt people have even mentioned to you. Whether you know it or not, Yoichi, my people like and respect you. You have a natural leader’s charm. We want your help and full cooperation.”
Yoichi dropped his hands. “I don’t want to,” He whispered. “This is exactly how it started with my brother, also. He charmed people like that, and they followed him. I can’t be like him. I won’t be like him.”
The last part of that sentence Kudou barely heard. It came out more as a breath than words.
“You aren’t him. You two are completely different.” Kudou took a few steps across the room and kneeled by him. He took Yoichi’s hands into his own, rubbing his finger across the smooth, unmarked palm. “Because you aren’t using meta abilities as leverage to get people to follow you. You’re just being Yoichi. You’re being kind. People won’t follow you blindly off a cliff for something like that.”
Yoichi looked up. Kudou suddenly noticed that he had a faint smattering of freckles across his nose. His eyes shown wet with unshed tears.
“You can’t let me into positions of power like that. That’s dangerous, Hero-san.”
“Dangerous is part of the job description. It's a risk we’re willing to accept.”
“I can’t just help when I can from the sidelines?”
“You can, if you really want to. But I truly think that with your help we can turn the tide against your brother. And I think that you want to help us in the fray.”
Kudou leaned back. “You won’t be in combat or in the field, obviously. I can tell that’s not what you want at all. But reorganizing the structure from within requires a rapport with our people that you have somehow established in a week. It’ll be a long process, but you’ve already helped start it. I think you can help us bloom into perfection, Yoichi.”
Yoichi looked at his knees. He didn’t reply.
Kudou took the quilt in his hands and pulled a needle and thread from Yoichi’s pile of sewing paraphernalia. “You need this bit sewn here, right?”
Yoichi nodded. Kudou began to sew the edges together. After a few stitches, Yoichi unpaused his sewing and continued on the embroidery he was working on before Kudou interrupted him.
They continued for a long while, only occasionally breaking the silence when Kudou asked for direction on what to do next.