Apathy

Yuki coughed blood as Freedom appeared high in the air again, lifting her blood ridden greatsword against the sun’s rays.

“Yuki!” Kanji shouted as Pinky flung itself to grab her.

“Slow.” Freedom said, extending her sword to the side.

She teleported right ahead of Pinky’s path. It slammed against her blade, impaling itself. It tried to claw and stab her, unable to reach.

You little… Kanji raised his hammer. A cage appeared around her.

“I think you’ve misunderstood.” She spoke gently.

Meatball… The cage collapsed on itself.

“I cannot be caged.” The gentle voice sounded right in his ear now.

Blood. The greatsword stabbed through his back, lifting him in the air. Pinky was left struggling on the ground, trying to lift itself, but stumbling.

The snakes tried to close the wound, but the greatsword would not let them. The fire slowly spread to his clothes, toasting his flesh.

“You really thought you could just… power your way through destroying everything? You really thought so?” She said, “Your problem, the youths problem, is overindulgence in potentials. The moment you press against reality, only then you see your ignorance. Only after you see everything falling apart, you learn.”

Kanji slid off the greatsword as Freedom tilted it downwards. He gasped.

Yuki stood on her legs, shaking. Pointing the Katana at her.

“That look doesn’t suit you, girl. You look like a rabid dog.”

Yuki sat on her knees, and gently placed the Katana next to her. She put two fingers in front of her face, and closed her eyes.

“A prayer? Appropriate. But I’m getting impatient.”

Freedom teleported behind Yuki.

Slash.

Yuki’s head flew in the air. Her body collapsed on its side. Freedom lowered her sword.

“Y-yuki…” he tried to speak but his throat was full of blood. Tears ran down his face.

Why did she…

She teleported again, standing next to Kanji. She crouched.

“All of that for this little thing,” she snatched the hammer from Kanji’s hand and examined it.

The sunny weather gradually turned to snow. Clouds formed, and snowflakes descended from the sky.

“Hmm?” Freedom raised her head.

The snow…

The snakes returned to patching Kanji’s chest, only to be impaled again by Freedom’s sword. Kanji cried in pain.

“It’s only a matter of time until the snakes are done.” She said,

Yuki… She imitated Justice’s ability just before she died.

The snow piled more and more around Freedom. She kicked it off with the side of her boot. Another stab, blood spraying everywhere.

Pinky, Bring Yuki’s… corpse, I have to save her…

Pinky lay unmoving, imitating Kanji.

It raised itself to its knees. It straightened two fingers in front of it with its wolf arm.

Pinky… What are you doing?

The snow turned red.

“Red?” Freedom said.

“Pinky… You can use it too?” How?

Another chest stab made Kanji cough blood. The world went blurry. The snakes started slowing down, some of them abandoning his stomach, slithering away on the snow. One snake ran towards Freedom's boot, its head stomped off.

If Pinky can use it…

Blood piled around him.

It means I… can use it too, right?

The pinky finger came back.

Swap.

The hammer appeared in Kanji’s grasp. The finger lay in Freedom’s palm.

The cage extended over the entirety of the visible world. The clouds lay in steel bars.

The world is a cage, and out of it is another cage. There’s no escape from cages.

“That won’t work, hammer-bearer. I will teleport as soon as the cage closes in.” Freedom said, pity on her face.

As the cage started collapsing, another cage the same size appeared around it. Then another. Layer after layer of cages start collapsing slowly over the entire world.

Freedom stared at the sky. She disappeared. She appeared standing in the sky, staring closer at the enclosing cages. Not moving, until the cage reached her, and pushed at her nose. She teleported back, right next to Kanji.

“You…” Freedom said, her voice shaking, “You little shit! You can’t cage me!”

Freedom screeched. She started walking around back and forth in the snow. “That won’t work, that won’t work at all. You’re so stupid for thinking about that!” She put her face in her hands, clawing at it. “No, no, no no no…”

She teleported to the edge of the cage and started hitting it with the sword. Nothing happened. She hit it over and over again, screaming in frustration.

She teleported between two cage layers, and every time a new cage appeared, she teleported to the next outer layer.

“See?” She yelled, her voice echoing loudly, “I can just keep doing this, keep teleporting, keep running forever! I’m free as long as I keep chasing this small pocket of space! You see, fucker? You see how free I am?”

The snakes finished repairing Kanji’s chest. He moved to sit on his knees. He made the space between the cages grow thinner and thinner. Until there would be no more space at all.

“No… I can still teleport… I can still teleport! Look, this… this—” she said breathlessly.

She teleported next to Kanji and pushed him onto the ground. Strangling him. “AHH YOU FUCKER! LET ME OUT! LET ME OUT!”

Kanji stared at her. The cages kept closing in.

She teleported again between the cages, screaming as she looked for the largest space. But then she teleported to a fast shrinking space, one that shrank faster than she probably realized.

Smack.

Freedom was crushed between the cages.

The red rain flowed between the cracks.

The spheres of cages stopped collapsing just before hitting Kanji.

And now they disappear. He brushed his fingers against the hammer’s cold metal.

The cages disappeared one after another, from inside out.

Kanji walked to Yuki’s corpse, which was surprisingly uncrushed.

There’s no way I can let you die…

He touched her corpse with the hammer. Snakes wrapped around her, connecting both sides of her neck. Sewing it. A few moments passed. Soon enough her head reattached to her body. She gasped. She sat up, blinking in confusion.

Darkness. The background turned into a smudge, and they appeared at the top of the tower again.

“Are you okay, Yuki-san?”

“Yeah, just give me a moment.” She said with a hoarse voice.

Kanji moved to reattach his finger. He found the list of names laying on the ground, and picked it up.

He watched through the list, containing a bunch of names he didn’t recognize.

All until the very last name.

Hatanaka Yuki: Apathy.

Apathy?

“We did it, Kanji-kun. We got three birds with one stone. Now, hand me the list.” Yuki said as she struggled to her feet.

She… she’s Apathy? How?

“Wait… Yuki-san…”

“Yes?” She said, raising an eyebrow.

He looked into her plastic-wrapper looking eyes. She stared back with intensity.

“I was on the list, wasn’t I?” Yuki said.

“Yes…”

“What does it say?”

“It says you’re… Apathy.”

Yuki’s eyebrows raised. A moment later they came down, and she smiled, as if something finally clicked. “Is that so?”

“Why? Why are you smiling?” Kanji said.

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“Because what does Apathy make you smile for?”

Yuki sighed. “I don’t understand the problem. I am Yuki. I am everything Yuki ever wanted to be. Why can’t you just accept her?”

If that’s really true… Why did she want to keep me alive?

“How in the world is Yuki related to Apathy?” Kanji said.

“Yuki’s stride is your stride, Kanji-kun. You want progress, and so do I. Now give me that list.”

“You’re not making any sense…”

Yuki snatched the list from Kanji’s grasp.

“There’s only a handful on the list now. We kill them all, and we can finally reach the next stage.”

Kanji froze.

“Kill them all? I thought we just wanted to defend ourselves.”

“You want to save Japan, don’t you? You understand very well the sickness in our society. The old must be forsaken so that we can take on ourselves the new.”

The new being… Apathy?

Explosion. Sounds of gunshots and screaming echoed from the streets.

“Shit… I’m going to check it out!” Kanji yelled.

“Do as you wish.” Yuki said.

Pinky grabbed Kanji’s waist, and dove down to the street. His feet landed safely on the ground, Pinky turning back into the finger just before landing.

A policeman held out his gun and shot an old lady at point blank. He took her bag, not noticing Kanji, and started running. W-what? Across the street was a jewelry store with its front blown open. People leaped from their cars and swarmed into the store, faces uncovered, grabbing armfuls of jewelry.

What the hell is going on?

A truck stopped in the middle of a crosswalk. People were screaming and running around it. A man went out of it, grabbed a child into the truck, and tied him to the chair. No one reacted or did anything. The truck took off.

No! W-why?! I can’t let them go…

Kanji hit the floor with the hammer, the truck’s wheels punctured and it slid to a stop. The man exited holding the tied child, only to be shot by the officer. The child ran from his hands, crying. The officer ignored him and jumped onto the truck, searching for something.

Kanji extended his arm. Pinky grabbed the child and pulled him off the road, placing him next to Kanji as it clawed off the rope ties.

“Are you okay? Where are your parents?” Kanji said.

“Parents? I don’t want to go to my parents.”

“What? Why?”

“I don’t like them. Just let me go!” The kid started crying and running away.

Kanji’s face went pale.

What the hell is happening?

Another store exploded.

What the hell is happening?

A school bus flips over after being shot in the wheels.

It’s… it’s because we killed them, isn’t it? Justice, Family, Honor… All of them…

No… There has to be a way to stop it…

Pinky grabbed Kanji and flung him up the building again.

Yuki stood there, holding Ishiguro Shino’s body.

“Yuki! We need to revive Justice and the others!”

“Whatever you saw out there, know that these are only growing pains. It will all get better soon enough.”

“Growing pains? People are being murdered in the streets for no reason! Children are being kidnapped! Stores robbed!”

Kanji’s entire body shook, his stomach turning.

“As I said. If you want new values, the greater version of man, you need to first destroy the old. I know it's hard for someone like you to comprehend… Just trust me, Kanji-kun? We have worked so well together so far.”

The values disappear from the world as the monsters named after them die. Now she’s going to kill all the others…

“No! I won’t have it! Let go of Shino!” Kanji pointed his hammer at her.

Apathy chuckled. “I see. You are just like those who caused the world to look like it is now. Then, I have no more use for you.”

Gunshot. Pinky blocks the shot to Kanji’s head. with his body, screaming.

Kanji raised his hammer, preparing to attack.

But Yuki was nowhere to be found.

She teleported? No, No…

He grabbed his face “Stupid… I’m so fucking stupid…”

Pinky blinked in silence.