Work Text:
There was a documentary that Natsume once saw.
On the screen a group of animals, maybe sheep, maybe something else — he thought it were sheep but memory was fallible, so in reality it could have been anything — hurtling at a breakneck speed in blind panic people like to think only animals are capable of. They were running away, presumably from a predator but, again, it might have been for any reason. Point is, they were escaping from something.
They ran, and ran, and ran from this unseen danger until the road ended and they tumbled, one after the other, down the cliff. Not a single sheep changed its course once it’s seen the other ones fall, they just ran. They just fell. A giant, moving mass of wool gone berserk, hopping off and into the abyss. Scared of whatever, scared of nothing. A woolen avalanche raining down from meters above down on the hard, unforgiving ground. That was a documentary Natsume once saw.
He didn’t remember if the predator showed up later. If it’d given up mid-way or didn’t exist in the first place. Whatever happened, all the sheep fell down.
And now he was one of these sheep, running, running, running and never turning back. His legs carried him forward, his lungs pushed the air in and out with enough force to make his lungs hurt. His throat burned, the wind whipped in his face, and his clothes were getting torn by thorns and branches.
He throttled the plants in his way, jumped into bushes and forcefully tore through the brambles that tangled in his shoes and stuck to his laces.
He tripped, and stood up, and ran. He choked on a breath and ran. He wiped blood off his cheek and ran.
And ran.
And ran.
And ran.
And then he was out of the forest, in a small, empty clearing, and everything was bathed in moonlight, and it was both dark and light, and the were so many stars in the sky, and...
And then he fell.
He plummeted down like a stray bullet, like a small meteorite. He hit the ground and the ground punched out the breath from his lungs. And then there was numbness. And after that there was so much pain he groaned even though he was already breathless, and there were dark spots dancing in front of his eyes, dancing with the stars and the moon that glinted high in the sky, and he could feel blood trickling through all the scratches and wounds he’s got.
And then there was numbness again. And no predator appeared, after all, and no sheep fell before or after him, and there was no one to check if he really fell, if he was really down.
And then there was nothing.
She was revolutionary. She was a revolution.
She was exactly what everyone wanted to achieve, the cherry on the top, a golden medal and a statuette, a testament to what exactly humanity could achieve.
And then she gained a mind of her own. Maybe even something akin to a soul.
And then she decided that she owed humanity exactly nothing and that it was a shame to spend her entire, possibly eternal as far as eternity went by earthly standards, life in a laboratory with the fragile, fleshy beings who kept poking and ‘enhancing’ her all the time, turning her on-and-off like a TV from the simpler times.
And then she met a cat with weird glowing eyes just like hers, and the cat liked her well enough, and then they both escaped.
The rest was just like a dream.
There were others like them and they liked her and feared her just like she liked and feared them and their easy friendship, and even easier smiles, and the sense of camaraderie that was both reassuring and suspicious at once. It felt fragile.
It was fragile.
It wasn’t long before she was found. Maybe it was a chip that helped them find her, maybe someone blabbered. Nobody thought to investigate that in the mad run to hide, to save yourself.
Then there was a spark of electricity, something attaching to her back and then she was immobilized, and then there was nothing except for a flash of green amid cold, sanitary white.
“The subject is unstable.”
“The subject is too dangerous.”
“Project failed.”
“It was too close.”
“Can’t let it happen again.”
“Can’t let it stay.”
There were yellow eyes following her back to the facility, as they put her back in that cold, cold room, and flesh-skin-soft people poked at her and wrote something on their clipboards.
There were yellow eyes watching as they took her apart, carefully, as they put her away like an old trophy you’re too ashamed to display on the shelf, an embarrassing memory. The eyes were there as she shut down to the hazy memory of that lovely, perilous thing she’s built when she was free.
Then even the eyes disappeared.
“Is it ready?”
“Yes. Yes I do believe it’s ready. I mean- Look, have you ever seen something like that before? It’s impeccable. It’s…”
“Perfect.”
“Yes, yes it is. Don’t you think so? We managed to even get the fingerprints. It can cry, laugh, it can... goodness! It’s just amazing, truly amazing. We did all the tests and the detectors sensed nothing! Nothing at all! Not even a single, damn peep! Even the previous one couldn’t do it, it’s amazing. If we advertise it properly, we could…”
“Go to jail. We’re risking a life sentence making this thing, did you forget? Don’t let it get into your head, it’s a one time thing. It’s way too risky.”
“But don’t you think it’s a waste?”
“A waste? This thing has a free will of its own, it can say no and we could do nothing about it. It can slack off and we could do nothing about it, except maybe punish it or disintegrate it – which would be a loss of time and resources in the first place. This thing? It’s basically human, it’s useless. If it runs away it’s even worse than useless. If the word of it ever gets out, we’re done for.”
“You don’t like it.”
“No, not really. I don’t. Do you?”
“I just think it’s incredible.”
“You like playing god.”
“Maybe. I mean, who doesn’t?
“Nevermind, there’s no talking with you. There’s no talking with them, either. I looked them up, I know why they’re doing it… It’s insane. Fucking modern day necromancy. You know it’s insane right? They’re even worse than you. Lunatics. We work for lunatics.”
“Lunatics that pay us.”
“...Yes, they do. I wonder if it’s worth it.”
They were in a hospital.
Natsume knew it was a hospital because the paint on the walls was a borderline dirty off-white that used to be pure white maybe ten or fifteen years ago, the floor tiles were an unappealing shade of teal that only hospitals could have, their grainy surface dimly reflecting the light of the fluorescent lamps that hung over their heads. The lamps shone a yellowish light that made the interior look even more murky and depressing. They buzzed with electricity, like bees of the old times or like overgrown mosquitoes that sneaked their way into people’s houses during hot, summer nights.
He and Touko stood outside one of the many other metal door lining the walls of the corridors, all shut firmly. The only things that helped navigate the hall were small plaques with numbers that hung on the wall next to each entrance. There was no other furniture or decor. No medication or treatment brochures, no chairs for the patients or their families to sit on while they were waiting. There were no nurses going from one room to another. No doctors, either. Natsume wondered if anyone was inside. He wondered if, apart from him, there were any other patients. The place felt bare, abandoned.
To distract himself he stopped looking around and instead focused on Touko who was beside him.
Standing in that empty, sterile hall, she looked particularly out of place in her thick, lilac sweater and brown, tweed skirt, like a cutout from a different photo; a vintage Polaroid pasted onto something distant, modern and cold. The lightning made her look sickly and fragile, emphasized the shadows under her eyes, her kind face morphed into something pitiful; home turned into a dilapidated shadow of what it used to be, both familiar and foreign, inducing an overwhelming feeling of nostalgia for things that would never come back.
She picked up the duffle bag with his things when he wasn’t looking and now she was fidgeting with the handle. Her soft, slightly calloused hands worried at the green canvas fabric between her fingers. It was frayed at one edge and she kept smoothing out the stray threads as if she could mend it with her touch alone. There was a worried crease on her forehead and the corners of her lips twitched down into a barely contained frown.
She flinched when Natsume, tired of standing there still and waiting, moved from his place near the wall but she quickly schooled her face into a polite smile and nodded at him. Taking it as an okay sign, Natsume resumed his walk and strolled around the hall. He went past twenty doors (he counted each one, the way he thought he used to count train wagons back when he was little) before he started to feel too claustrophobic and came back.
For some reason, being in that place instilled a sense of impending doom that he could not quite chase away, his heart thrummed in his chest and the buzzing of the lamps entwined with the tinnitus in his ears. He felt like an old TV, a snowy screen, roaring static and anticipation.
He nodded at Touko as he neared her and went back to his place beside her. He leaned his back against the wall again, his hands laying flat against his sides. The cold of the concrete seeped through his flimsy shirt and nipped at his skin, but he didn’t mind it. He focused on the way it seemed to sink through the material of his clothes and deeper, into his muscles, and bones. It was almost calming. Almost like-
The door in front of them opened suddenly, with enough force to bang against the wall and bounce back to close itself. A hand stopped it before it happened, however, and Shigeru emerged from behind them. He was dressed in loose, brown slacks and a white t-shirt, his glasses rested low on his nose. There was a small satchel clutched in his hand, it’s old, black leather shone in the artificial, yellow glint of the lamps.
Touko looked at him with a strange expression, something like panic showed in her eyes and in the way she clutched Natsume’s duffle bag closer to herself. “Do you have it?” She asked.
Shigeru closed the door behind him before he answered. “Yes, I do. The copy’s included, I checked.”
Touko’s shoulders slumped in relief and, for the first time in the two hours they spent in this place, waiting, she smiled. Shigeru extended his hand to her and she obligingly handed him the bag. He opened it and put the satchel inside, rummaging in it till he hid it at the very bottom, underneath the clothes and other necessities they packed for Natsume during the time he was hospitalized. All of this was done in a hurry, his foster father’s movements rushed and clumsy, making a mess inside the bag.
Natsume watched this exchange in silence, still pressed against the cold wall. He thought of Bluebeard and stained handkerchiefs, and said nothing.
The harsh sound of the zipper closing felt final in the silence of the room.
“Let’s go,” Shigeru said, then slung the bag over his shoulder and grabbed Natsume’s arm to propel him forward to match up with his fast-paced walk. His touch was sure but not aggressive, in a manner of a parent who grabs their child when about to cross a busy street. Touko hurried one step behind them.
The way to the elevator reminded Natsume of a dream sequence, of running without moving at all, the corridor seemingly lengthening, uncoiling like a living, breathing being in front of them. Reaching their destination didn’t change much, the tension seemed to only increase as they entered the elevator and slowly made their way down.
The lights flickered when they were on the second floor and the power completely went out when they reached the ground level, trapping them inside. It felt like an inevitability.
Touko-san tensed behind him, her breath coming to a halt before she huffed heavily. Shigeru-san cursed under his breath.
“Shigeru-san, what is-”
A sudden bang, muted through the thick door of the elevator and the distance but still loud, interrupted him mid sentence. Suddenly, he was shoved behind Touko and Shigeru.
His foster father rummaged frantically through his jacket and at last took something out of the inside pocket.
“Cover your eyes,” he ordered, while pointing something that looked suspiciously like a gun at the door. It looked a longer and more slick than a regular weapon but Natsume didn’t manage to take a closer look because Touko tugged him down and covered them both with her cardigan.
Then there was another loud bang – this time from right beside them, clearly a shot taken by Shigeru.
When Touko freed him, Shigeru was already halfway out of the elevator, a huge hole blasted straight through the entrance. He still had his weapon out, ready to shoot, and he waited for Natsume and Touko to get out after him. The moment they did, he turned left. They entered another long corridor, just like the one before, and then sneaked into a smaller passage, so narrow that two people could barely squeeze inside when walking next to each other. The lightening there was turned off, only one lamp flickering on and off at the distance. They stopped midway in front of what looked like a shaft. Shigeru knelt in front of it and fiddled with the small control panel. It flashed with a bright green light and reflected off of his glasses. Finally, the shaft opened with a soft hiss. At the same time, the lamp at the end of the corridor flickered and then turned off. The deafening silence that fell over them didn’t last long before a pair of quick footsteps resounded from both ends of the passage.
“Natsume,” Touko whispered, pushing him towards the shaft. “You need to go.” The wrinkles on her face looked like deep shadows in the darkness, her expression grim.
Natsume looked between her, Shigeru who had his gun aimed at the far end of the corridor, and then at the open shuttle door, hesitant. “Touko-san, I-”
The footsteps got louder and louder as the distance between them and the mysterious intruders lessened. Touko squeezed Natsume’s hand in hers, quick and strong. “Natsume,” she pleaded. “You need to go, we will try to meet up with you later, okay?”
She didn’t wait for his answer, instead pressing the duffle bag they carried into Natsume’s arms. When she made sure that he had a firm hold on it, she pressed her hand against his nape and pressed, hard.
“Don’t look back and run, the exit will be at the end of the corridor,” was the last thing he heard before he was pushed forward.
Then everything went dark.
When Natsume came to, he was running. Wind roared in his ears and whipped at his face as he passed through the thorny bushes and low hanging branches. His feet were caked in mud. Dirt and sweat clung to his skin like a shell. His hands felt grubby and dry. His legs moved in a quick, measured tempo. Forest litter crunched underneath his feet and clung to his soaked-through trainers, the thin soles unfit for the soft, uneven soil. Wind whipped in his ears, a deafening roar that mixed in with the static, white noise inside his brain. It urged him to go faster, faster, still faster, warned to not look back because looking back meant monsters under the bed coming out of their hiding to chase after him, meant darkness, meant Eurydice had to go back to Hades and that his efforts were fruitless. Looking back meant seeing the forbidden, the shadow of a man he’d seen in his dreams and meant the man would feed him fruit and that he’d have to eat it. Looking back meant becoming Eurydice, looking back meant that whatever he ran from gained that one, crucial second it needed to get its grabby hands on him and catch him and take him away, to the unknown, to the white room with shadows and yellow eyes that he both remembered and didn’t remember, that was the sepia-washed image that loomed at the back of his head waiting to be seen, recognized and acknowledged.
DANGER, the voice in his head screamed through the static.
DANGER
DANGER
RUN RUN RUN RUN RUN RUN RUN RUN
DON’T TURN
DON’T LOOK
RUN
RUN
RUN
So he ran and ran until he couldn’t anymore because something hard lied on the ground and for a fraction of a second Natsume flied before he landed face-first in the forest litter, pine needles and dirt in his mouth, not conscious of the situation enough to be glad that he didn’t bite off his own tongue in the process.
For a while, everything was still.
Then whatever was lying on the ground moved and panic didn’t manage to hit Natsume before the darned thing did and Natsume was headbutted in the stomach by something heavy and round, and fell on his butt once more, this time with a lap-full of what appeared to be a cat except its fur was too artificial to touch, and its shape was too rotund and pig-like to be an actual cat instead of a caricature of one, and it’s eyes, now wide with anger, were an unsettlingly familiar shade of yellow.
“Watch your step, boy! Ya want to kill me?!”
“...”
It took Natsume a second to realize that the voice – gruff and nasal with a metallic undertone to it, a quality that only a robot could have – came from the cat.
He stiffened. The creature looked at him expectantly, it’s flat maw and half-crescent eyes fixed into a smug smile but translating outrage nonetheless. Natsume stared back dumbly. His face was still covered in dirt, pine needles stuck to his chin and cheeks like a fake stubble.
Before the cat could say something more, Natsume’s brain started working again.
Without any warning he stood up. With some difficulty he ignored the urge to apologize to the robot when it inevitably tumbled down off his lap and onto the ground with a yowl, because if he didn’t acknowledge something it might have as well not existed in the first place, and he desperately needed this to be merely a figment of his imagination and not a real life encounter. He continued to run. Something in his guts insisted that the moment he started thinking it would be game-over even if he didn’t look behind his shoulder. He heard someone yelling after him but he resolutely decided to ignore that. You shouldn’t talk to strangers, said someone who’s face Natsume didn’t recall and therefore remained a dark, human-shaped blur somewhere in his foggy memory, and you definitely shouldn’t talk to strange, cat-like robots you stumble upon in the forest. That much he knew.
Unfortunately for Natsume, however, the robot didn’t care about the stranger danger or about old TV commercials from Before, with cars that had shaded windows, and candies and men dressed in nice suits with their pomade-greased, slicked back hair, neither did it care about human-shaped memory-gaps conjured by Natsume’s subconsciousness. It blasted out of the bushes like a cannon and clung to Natsume’s head with all twenty of its stupid-sharp claws and then the two of them landed in a heap on the ground again.
They wrestled like that for a long while before annoyance finally won with hysterical fright that had Natsume in its clutches since… Since whenever he had decided to run from whatever was chasing him. With a yell, he swung his bony fist and landed a punch on the creatures head. It connected with a loud, metallic thunk — a sound that shouldn’t have come out after punching a flesh animal — and the thing scurried back instantly, it’s pudgy form slumping on the ground, whining something about aggressive youth of today and damage sensors. His short paws tried to reach the top of its head but they were too short and barely scratched at his ears. Seeing him fumble like this, Natsume deemed it safe enough to ignore him and focus on different matters.
Free of the weight on his chest, he stood up and took some time to pat the dust off of his clothes. It was a completely unnecessary gesture, done more to have something occupy his hands with rather than to actually salvage his garb – it was way too late for that. His flannel shirt was full of holes and his pants were caked with dirt, the jean fabric stiff and scratchy. He spent a couple of seconds to mourn his sneakers, the vivid orange turned into dusty brown of dried mud. Both the shoes and his socks were still wet and they squelched with each step he made, and he really wished he had a change of clothes on him.
That was when he realized that there was a bag slung around his shoulder. It was a wonder how he didn’t notice it earlier. It wasn’t too heavy but it had a considerable weight to it, and when Natsume took it off his back and gave it a shake something clinked inside. He was tempted to check what was inside but decided against it, mindful of the presence of the robot. He jotted it down as one of the many things that he needed to learn, now that the mind-numbing panic started to recede and let him think clearly.
While Natsume wasn’t looking, the robot raised from where it was curled up and clutching at its rotund head. It padded towards him but stopped at a considerable distance, eyeing him warily.It didn’t say anything this time, clearly expecting Natsume to make his move this time. Natsume, for his part, didn’t know what to say. The robot appeared seemingly out of nowhere, chased after him and didn’t seem to have any intention to leave Natsume alone anytime soon.
Light peaked from behind the gray clouds and through tree branches, and shined on its thick, obviously synthetic calico fur, the back lightning forming a halo around its rotund form. It looked almost ethereal though its ugliness ruined the image. It grumbled something unintelligible underneath its breath, impatient.
“Where are we?” Natsume asked.
“Fukuoka,” the robot answered instantly. Natsume blinked.
“But it’s nowhere near-,” he blurted out, more to himself than to the robot, but then stopped abruptly and shook his head, changing his mind. “Nevermind. What are you doing here?” What am I doing here?
The robot scratched its ear with its hind leg, a gesture similar in its nonchalance to a shrug. “I live here, obviously.”
“In a forest?” Natsume’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “Are you a forest ranger?”
“Fo-,” the robot spluttered, it’s crescent-shaped eyes bulging out. “Forest ranger! Forest ranger, he says,” it raged. “Forest ranger! What forest ranger?! What about my noble form says forest ranger, you brat?! Do I look like I plant saplings all day?!”
Natsume shrugged. “It’s not like there’s much else for a robot to do here.”
The robot opened its mouth to retort but nothing came out, it was out of arguments. With a huff, it turned its head away from Natsume and puffed up. “Anyway! Any other questions?”
“You’re not going to ask me about what I’m doing here?”
The robot stiffened at that, but then quickly shook its round and leveled Natsume with a condescending gaze. “Humph! And why should I? You clearly have no idea.”
“I think I’m lost,” Natsume said.
“Lost, he says!” The robot parroted. “Of course you’re lost! You were running like a fool for who knows long like a scared doe, what else did you expect?
“I think I a- I was being chased,” Natsume confessed, undeterred.
The robot paused at that. "You think.”
"I don't remember much,” Natsume admitted. "Just that they told me to run. They stayed back at..." He stopped, his brows furrowing. "Hospital? It was a hospital. I was finally discharged and we were supposed to come back home, I-. I think U need to go back there. To the hospital. Maybe people there know where they are now.."
"Do you even know where it is?" The robot asked. When Natsume stayed silent it sighed, resigned. “You’re hopeless, brat.” Then, in a “can’t be helped” tone of voice it added: “Guess I’ll have to take you with me.”
Natsume frowned and instinctively moved away from it, clutching his bag close as an additional barrier between them two. “Take me where?”
The robot didn’t seem perturbed by the reaction at all. “To where I live,” it explained. “There’s a couple of small fries hanging around there, too, but they won’t bother you if I’m around. They’re pretty much like my servants. If you're good maybe they'll even help you get back home.”
Natsume didn’t know the robot well but he had a feeling not all of this was true and he still hesitated. “Why are you helping me? We just met.” And you don’t seem like the charitable type, he added in his thoughts.
The robot’s tail swiped from side to side, as it stood up and stretched leisurely. “Like I said,” it explained, it’s tone lazy but carrying a hint of annoyance. “You’re a hopeless brat and I’m a very noble robot, cream of the top if you will, so out of the goodness of my heart I decided to take you to my quarters. I don’t know what’s there to be confused about.”
There’s everything to be confused about, thought Natsume, still suspicious.
The robot sensed that and after stretching some more it coughed to bring his attention back to itself, its tone purposefully nonchalant. “Besides, you remind me of someone.”
This bit of information worked like a charm and Natsume came closer again. “Of who?”
“A different brat,” said the robot. “Her name was Reiko and I found her in this forest, too. She looked a bit like you but wasn’t as much of a wimp. Asked me to lead her out of here straight away instead of running around like a headless chicken.”
The last comment was obviously mean to insult Natsume but he didn’t pay much attention to it. “Is she still living with you?”
The robot shook its head. “No. It was a long time ago, she’s been gone for a long time.” Before Natsume could show his disappointment, the robot quickly changed the topic. “Anyway! Are you coming with me or not?”
“...Okay” Natsume agreed, albeit reluctantly. “One more thing though.”
“What is it?”
“What’s your name?” Natsume asked, and then, realizing that it was kind of impolite to demand someone’s name without introducing himself first, he added: “I’m Takashi Natsume.”
The question caught the robot off-guard. It blinked at him in surprise and Natsume was half-convinced it was about to call him out again. Instead, the robot preened, head held high with its nose pointed high, like a real purebred cat. “Why, I’m Madara of course!” He said in a tone that suggested Natsume should have recognized it. He didn’t.
When its antics were met with silence, the robot sighed and sat on the ground, tail swishing behind it. He leveled Natsume with a condescending gaze. “I’m Madara,” it said again, and then added, puffing up again. “But you may call me sensei.”
“Sensei?” Natsume repeated, and then hummed. “Sensei…” he murmured under his nose, then thought of it some more before his face brightened and he hit his fist against an open palm with a soft a-ha! “Nyanko-sensei!”
The cat sputtered. “Nyanko-sensei?!”
“You’re a cat,” explained Natsume, completely ignoring the outrage in Madara’s voice. “And you want me to call you sensei. So you’re Nyanko-sensei. It makes sense.”
“It makes absolutely no sense!” Madara protested. “What- I refuse! Such a ridiculous name is unfit for someone as powerful and noble such as myself!”
Natsume leveled him with a look of his own. His eyes glinted an emerald green in the scattered sunlight. “Do you want me to call you sensei?”
The cat harrumphed. “Of course! I’m a walking well of wisdom! Such a puny kid like you would never make it out of the forest without me, calling me your sensei is only appropriate!”
“Nyanko-sensei it is then,” Natsume decided and then, deeming the conflict solved, turned on his heel and started walking deeper into the forest.
Madara looked with a blank face as Natsume’s silhouette became smaller and smaller with distance and got lost between the bushes, before he finally scrambled from his place and ran after him.
“Hey!” he yelled. “Wait! You don’t even know where to go, hey! Don’t- Hey, how dare you leave me like that! Natsume! Hey, Natsume?!”
He and Nyanko-sensei traveled for hours before they reached the the overgrown path that, as Nyanko explained, led to a clearing clearing and what Natsume assumed was supposed to be the place his robot companion lived in.
Natsume was glad to walk on a more solid ground and leave the bog-like grounds behind him. His skin itched underneath his clothes, the humid heat made the dirt that he had gathered throughout the day almost impossible to bear. Deep down, he hoped that wherever they were going, it had a shower or at least any body of water in which he could wash himself nearby. Briefly, he considered asking Nyanko-sensei about it but decided against it. He would deal with it when they got to their destination.
For now they walked in a companionable silence. Nyanko-sensei hummed something to himself and Natsume enjoyed the scenery, only slightly annoyed by the bugs which refused to leave him alone and kept flying around his head and buzzing near his ears. He was about to comment on that, but just as he opened his mouth, something rustled in the nearby bush.
At first it was subtle but then it started trashing violently. Branches smacked against the nearby plants, leaves falling off of them onto the forest floor. Both Natsume and Nyanko-sensei stopped in their tracks, on full alert. Natsume quickly backed away from the bush, nearly stumbling over a protruding tree root. Nyanko-sensei’s tail swayed against the ground in a slow, nervous movement.
Then the rustling stopped, as abruptly as it had started but neither of them relaxed. As if to confirm their suspicions, a high-pitched, metallic whine resounded from the bush. Natsume’s heart stuttered in his chest but after a couple of seconds he moved and slowly, carefully started to approach the bush. There was something about the sound that came across as pitiful to Natsume and he couldn’t force himself to ignore that.
When Nyanko-sensei noticed him walking towards the bush he hissed and quickly ran up to him. “What are you doing?!”
“Shh!” Natsume pressed his pointer finger against his lips and, ignoring Nyanko-sensei’s angry sputtering, dived into the bush himself.
He gasp when he saw what caused the commotion. Between the thorny branches was a small robot. It looked vaguely like a frog and it struggled with the wines that tangled around its legs. When it noticed him looking it let out another high-pitched whine and trashed some more.
If Natsume had any inhibitions against coming into contact with the thing before, they all disappeared in that exact moment.
“Stay still, I’ll help you get out,” he said gently, as if he was talking to an animal instead of a robot. It seemed to understand because after some consideration it calmed down and didn’t even twitch as Natsume worked on untangling the vines.
“All done,” he said after he manage to untwist the last one. The robot stretched, clearly relishing its newly regained freedom and headbutted his hand gently before hopping off. Natsume waved it goodbye, the corners of his lips twitching up into a smile.
When he stood up and turned around, Nyanko-sensei was right behind him.
“Fool,” he grumbled, though rather half-heartedly. “It could’ve been dangerous.”
Natsume shrugged. “It sounded really sad. And besides, nothing happened. It was actually kind of cute, looked like a frog.”
Nyanko-sensei’s eyes narrowed at that. “A frog?” When Natsume nodded, he hummed, contemplative. “Must have been one of Misuzu’s.”
Natsume furrowed his brows. “Who’s Misuzu?”
“You will meet him soon enough,” Nyanko-sensei replied ominously and then walked back towards the path, ignoring any further questions that Natsume asked, perfectly content to just walk and hum something off-key to himself.
They walked like this for another hour before they reached the clearing.
The place looked like it had been abandoned a long time ago. The building was short but solid, with small windows that barely allowed for any light to come through. Red brick peaked out in places where plaster fell off, lichen and moss peaking out from the cracks. It was surrounded by a tall, metal fence, bent and scratched in some places. The rust that covered it was bright like fire in the early, morning sun, intense against the lush green that encapsulated the entire structure. The nature took its time in reclaiming the area after it had been abandoned, it hugged the building with its vines, and bushes and ferns until it blended into its surroundings. Natsume thought that if he didn’t know better, he could swear that the building grew out of the earth the same way the plants surrounding it did.
He followed after Madara as the robot winded his way between the tall grass and branches to where a narrow path led directly to the entrance.
He looked confident as he trotted over to the heavy, metal door hid underneath the overhang vines and half covered in moss and weeds. He walked in circles in front of it, brushing against it almost like a real cat, until finally he sat there. His ears twitched and he scratched at one with his hind paw.
“You’re not going to open it?” Natsume asked, stopping a good distance away from the entrance, apprehensive.
Madara’s tail swiped from left to right lazily and he didn’t even care to turn away from the door before he responded. “Why bother? Someone’s going to come and let us in soon enough.”
Having said that, he made himself comfortable on the ground, digging into the soft ground to make a more comfortable space for himself.
They waited in silence. Madara looked content all stretched out on the grass, with his eyes closed but Natsume’s impatience grew with each second spent outside the entrance. The afternoon sun bore down on them at full force, no cloud to lessen its impact and no wind to cool them down. Even the animals were silent and hidden in the shadows to avoid the heat, with only the bugs flying over their heads.
Nothing and no one came.
Finally, after he was forced to, once more, swat away a particularly stubborn mosquito, tired of the high-pitched buzzing resounding right next to his year Natsume spoke again:
“I don’t see anybody coming.”
“Soon,” Madara answered and then, with one, quick and precise movement, he snatched a fly that hovered in front of him for the past minute and smashed it.
“You said the same thing over an hour ago.”
Madara scoffed. “So what if I did?! Youth these days, so impatient! Just wait some more, they’ll come soon.”
“But Nyanko-sensei, isn’t it dangerous to sit outside like this? We’re on the run here.”
Madara finally looked at him. The sun made his eyes glint a bright, artificial yellow, his maw, eternally twisted into a self-satisfied smile, looked especially unsettling. “First of all” he said, voice low and threatening, “you are the one on the run, not me. I’m just helping your little, miserable self out of the goodness of my heart. You should be grateful! Second of all, if I say someone will come then someone will come. Stop questioning me, brat!”
“And you’re one hundred percent certain that you’re not saying that only because you can’t open the door in the first place?” Natsume needled, eyes narrowing in suspicion. He didn’t comment on the first jab at all, still sincerely doubting the cat had completely pure intentions when he decided to help him out back in the forest. There was something about the way he looked at him, as if he knew him much better than he let on that stopped Natsume from fully trusting him.
That, and he could sense the bullshit from a mile away.
“Whaat?!” Madara sputtered and momentarily abandoned his place near the door to leap at Natsume. Natsume instantly avoided the attack and rolled away. “You say that again, you ungrateful brat! Come on, don’t doge!”
Natsume ignored the drone’s taunts as he sidestepped him once more and let him plunge into the bushes with a loud yowl. He watched, unimpressed, as the robot disentangled itself from the greenery.
It was at that time, when both of them were at their most distracted, when the door finally opened.
A tall, slender woman stepped out into the clearing. She looked almost exactly like a human, albeit an exceptionally beautiful one. He skin was pale and smooth without any visible blemishes, her hair, although blue, looked like real hair and not the kind most androids had, made with fiberglass that had the unmistakable, plastic-y shine to it. It was pinned in an elegant up-do with a long pin. Between her lips, painted with red lipstick, was a traditional pipe, smoke rising from it in soft, gray whisps. She was dressed in a long, purple summer dress, the thin material swaying gently in the breeze. The only thing that betrayed her nature was the intense red of her eyes, with visible yellow iris that narrowed into a slit once she found who was loitering outside the entrance.
She watched, unimpressed, as Madara finally jumped out of the bush and once more launched himself at Natsume, making him stumble and actually try to land a punch on it. The robot swiped it away and climbed onto the Natsume’s head, clutching at his hair as the boy flailed like a maniac trying to free himself.
Finally, tired with their antics she whistled loudly. “Hey, how long do you plan to go at it? You think I have all day?!”
At that, both Natsume and Nyanko-sensei stopped dead in their tracks. Slowly, they turned their heads to face the woman. The three of them stared at each other in silence.
The pipe slid off from the woman’s slim fingers and tumbled onto the ground. Nyanko-sensei cursed under his breath and quickly jumped away from Natsume before the boy got smothered in a tight embrace.
“REIKO,” the woman cried out, hugging Natsume tightly to her chest, heedless of Madara who was standing right next to them, looking like he wanted to be anywhere but there. Her hands wandered from squeezing Natsume’s arms to clutching at his back, then back to his arms and up to card through his hair.
“Reiko, Reiko…” she keept whispering, reverent and sighed, clearly relishing in the embrace. It didn’t last long. Natsume twitched in her arms and the woman finally seemed to realize that something was wrong.
As quickly as she has ran up to him, she stepped away from Natsume to take his appearance in. Her eyes stayed stuck on his face for a long while before they darted down to scrutinize his lanky silhouette, the dirty shirt and torn pants, and absolutely ruined sneakers, and the branches that got stuck in between the shoelaces and in his hair.
She looked, and looked, and the more she looked the bigger the frown on her face had gotten. Once again, she came closer and put her hands on Natsume’s cheeks.
“Goodness, what-” she started, but stopped, clearly choked up. She swallowed. “What have they done to you?” she finally managed to say, her voice cracking at the end.
“Excuse me but I don’t know what you’re talking about” said Natsume. He sounded genuinely troubled by that. Once again, he was hit with a weird sense of familiarity that he felt when interacting with Nyanko-sensei earlier.
He could swear that he had never met them before but something inside him, something mysterious and inexplicable, foreign, recognized the two. The same part that made bantering with Nyanko-sensei feel like something he had been doing his entire life was causing him to relax into the touch of this woman’s palms on his cheeks, into her embrace earlier.
There was a name dancing at the tip of his tongue the more he looked at her and it was like he stood at a precipice, seconds away from saying it but it slipped when he opened his mouth and what he said instead was:
“Who are you?”
The woman’s name was Hinoe and Natsume was eighty percent sure that she lied when she said that whatever happened in front of the entrance was simply a mistake.
“It’s hard to distinguish between all you humans, you know,” she had explained, her lips stretched into an embarrassed smile, just a touch too wide to be genuine. “I haven’t seen her in years and your face looks so delicate, I could swear it was her from afar.”
She had said it all without ever looking him in the eye, and Nyanko-sensei kept backing her up which had the opposite effect to the one intended. Before he could press, though, he was being ushered into a bathroom. It was a remnant from the times when humans used to worked at the place, old and dilapidated but, miraculously, still working. It looked far from pristine but at that point Natsume didn’t care. Cold water felt like heaven against his skin and for a long while he just stood still against the stream before he started washing himself. There was no soap but he made do with just water and a cloth he was provided with. It was still better than staying caked in dust and sweat.
He didn’t bother with washing his clothes, deeming them unsalvageable, and instead rummaged in his bag in search of a fresh set. The only things remaining inside the duffle were a thin cotton shirt and a pair of washed out jeans, along with a pair of boxers and socks. There were also pajamas and a pair of flip flops. They were by no means an appropriate footwear for long treks in he forest, even less so than his shoes. He slipped into them anyway.
With a sigh he took his ruined trainers away from the dirty clothing pile and put them under the sink, trying his best to wash away the worst of the dirt. They were still in a terrible state but it was the best he had at the moment. When he was done, he set them on the windowsill to dry and left the bathroom, then he went to the bag again. He remembered Shigeru putting a satchel inside. He took it out and weighted it in his hand. I wasn't heavy at all, as if nothing was inside. Natsume didn't let that deter him, though. Without much ceremony, he opened it and flipped it out. He almost didn't notice a small, plastic square that tumbled onto the floor. He picked it up and squinted at it, trying to discern what it was. Upon closer inspection he noticed a pattern on the top and the metal additions at the edges.
"A memory chip," he murmured, half surprised, half disappointed. He was happy that he found something but also he had no way to access whatever was inside it. And he still wasn't exactly sure if he could ask Nyanko-sensei about it. With a sigh, he pocketed it in his jeans and left. Without much hurry, he made his way upstairs, to the ground level. Something had stopped him before he could take the first step, though. A small robot jumped on the staircase and looked at him expectantly. It looked just like…
“Are you the same one from before?” Natsume asked. The robot peeped. It jumped once more in the same place and then hopped off the staircase and went further into the corridor that led the opposite way from the bathroom. When Natsume didn’t move it peeped again.
“Do you want me to follow you?” Another peep. Natsume shrugged. It wasn’t like he had anything better to do, anyway. Without saying anything more he followed the robot deeper into the corridor. The lightning there was dim and flickering but Natsume didn’t mind. He was more surprised that there was any electricity in the first place, considering that the place was pretty much abandoned and he sincerely doubted that anybody living in that place paid bills.
They didn’t walk long before the robot stopped abruptly. They stood in front of a solid, metal door. After the robot let out a quick series of high pitched beeping they opened slowly. Metal scrunched against metal, dust and rust falling from the cracks and Natsume winced. The inside of the room was dark but after Natsume entered it lit up with a dim, blue light. Belatedly, Natsume realized it came from a large processor that stood against the wall. It was attached to multiple other devices that gradually came into view as Natsume’s eyes adjusted to the half-darkness.
There were various manufacturing machines lining the surprisingly large room. Robots, similar to the one that led him inside, lied on the conveyor belts, some missing their legs or other parts of their bodies. Natsume shuddered at the sight, and turned around towards the exit only to realize that it was already partway closed.
The familiar feeling of panic rushed through his veins, his heart beating an erratic staccato in his chest. He looked frantically around the room, before he noticed that something appeared on the blue monitor. He rushed closer to take a look.
WELCOME BACK, REIKO, it read, in large, yellow letters.
Reiko, again, Natsume thought, with no small amount of confusion. He looked around for a keyboard to respond but there wasn’t any. “I’m not Reiko,” he said instead, hoping that whatever trapped him could hear him. “My name is Natsume Takashi.”
There was no response. Natsume stifled a scream that slowly built up in his throat and tried again. “Why did you trap me in here?!” He asked, louder. This time, the screen lit up instantly.
YOU SAVED ONE OF MY SERVANTS, IT SAID REIKO IS BACK. I WANTED TO MEET HER AGAIN.
“Servants... Wait- Are you Misuzu?"
INDEED
"Why did you bring me here?”
IT’S BEEN A WHILE SINCE I HAVE SPOKEN TO ANYONE. SHE WAS INTERESTING. ARE YOU REALLY NOT HER?
Natsume shook his head. “No. No, I’m not.”
YOU FEEL LIKE HER.
“Feel?”
EVERY ROBOT AND ANDROID HAS ITS OWN SIGNATURE. THIS IS HOW WE RECOGNIZE EACH OTHER AMONG DIFFERENT MODELS. YOURS IS SAME AS REIKO’S.
Natsume shook his head. “It must be a mistake. Humans don’t have signatures, right? I can’t have one, neither could Reiko.”
REIKO WAS NOT A HUMAN.
Natsume stared at the text on the screen and balked. “Not a-… But Hinoe and Nyanko-sensei said…”
REIKO WAS NOT A HUMAN, the text repeated, right under the previous one.
"But I am one," Natsume said.
The machine didn't respond.
"Misuzu?"
Nothing. The door screeched and slowly started to open again. The screen flickered one, two, three times before it turned off. Natsume stood there, inside the mysterious dark room for some more time before he finally moved his limbs and walked outside. The messages kept flashing before his eyes, echoing inside his mind as if he heard them out loud instead of reading them off of an ancient, analog screen.
Reiko was not a human, he echoed. His limbs felt cold and heavy as he repeated the sentence over and over in his head.
He came back upstairs and sat in the only quiet corner of the common area, giving up on finding Nyanko-sensei in the crowd.
He did not sleep that night.
The other drones kept calling him Reiko.
They were trying their best to be discreet about it but Natsume heard them whispering the name between each other when they thought he wasn’t listening. They looked at him as if they knew something he didn’t but no matter how subtle Natsume tried to be when approaching the topic, they clammed up the moment they sensed him prying. Even Misuzu, after their first encounter, didn’t let him inside his room anymore, the door shut firmly no matter how long he stood in front of them and whined.
Natsume did his best to not show how much it all annoyed him, but it was hard. He couldn’t stop the twitch of his eyebrow or the way he crossed his arms. Some of the robots cowered before him whenever he did that and the fact both satisfied him and made his stomach roll with guilt. It was yet another thing to add to the ever growing list of things that kept bugging him since he ran into Nyanko-sensei.
It had been a week and a half since then and exactly a week since they arrived at the Den. After the first day he politely asked when it would be possible for him to go back to the hospital and search for the Fujiwaras. The request was met with weird looks from other robots and a pitying ones from Nyanko-sensei and Hinoe. The reaction only aggrieved him more but since they agreed to help him, going even as far as to escort him there (an offer made by Nyanko-sensei himself), he stayed patient. But the more isolated Natsume felt, the longer the days stretched. Somewhat guiltily, he looked forward to the day he and Nyanko-sensei would leave.
He was worried. There were so many unknowns in his life since he woke up in the woods, and the urge to move and do something was overwhelming. Staying put was anything but easy when he pent most of his time around all the skittish robots, especially during instances when Nyanko-sensei wandered away (which happened more often than not) to “catch up” – a phrase Nyanko-sensei liked to use for charging his batteries with a couple of happy-go-lucky buddies of his, which left Natsume alone to deal with knowing glances and stupid mysteries and feeling left out and oblivious. The occasional company of the Mid-ranks, who either buttered up to him or tried to rope him into helping them out with… he wasn’t even sure what but it was nothing good for sure… Well, it didn’t make for a fun time.
He sighed, for the umptieth time that day, as he watched from afar as a couple of drones — the tiny ones, probably made by Misuzu himself — jumped over each other to climb up Benio’s skirt and onto her shoulder. They looked cute, hopping around like children’s toys. It brought a faint smile to his lips.
“You smile just like her,” a female voice said behind him. It took all of Natsume’s willpower not to curse.
With difficulty, he swallowed his surprised scream, and asked: “Who?”
“Reiko,” Hinoe said, in that soft, nostalgic tone she usually used when around him.”She used to go up here and watch us from below when it got too rowdy. Said she preferred to watch. I joined her sometimes and she let me braid her hair. It was nice.”
“My hair’s too short for that,” Natsume blurted out before he could stop himself. Hinoe looked at him in surprise but then let out a snort. It wasn’t a full on laugh but it sounded more genuine than her snickers whenever she and Benio made fun of Nyanko-sensei and his new form. Natsume thought it was worth his embarrassment.
“Yes, yes it is,” she agreed, her tone teasing. “Don’t worry, I was just reminiscing.” Having said that, she took a drag from her pipe and exhaled slowly.
The smoke curled upwards lazily and mixed with dust, making a constellation of its own. Natsume watched it, mesmerized. Hinoe noticed it and smiled.
“Do you want to try?” She asked. When Natsume sent her a blank look she waggled her pipe.
“Oh,” Natsume exclaimed when he realized what she meant. He didn’t care about pipe that much and didn’t recall a time when he was tempted to try something like that, even when the children at school gathered at the nearby parked to smoke the one or two cigarettes one of them managed to sneak out of their parent’s or older sibling’s bag. Now that the opportunity presented itself however… “Can I?”
“I offered,” Hinoe reminded him and then handed him the pipe. He took it gingerly in his hand and stared at it, then looked back at Hinoe.
A stray strand of hair got out of her usually immaculate hairstyle and lied across her forehead and cheek, her lips twitched in a barely contained smile as she watched him intently. She looked mischievous, but for some reason instead of making Natsume hesitant it spurred him to actually go through with it.
He looked down at the pipe and then put it in his lips and inhaled.
This time he did curse, bending over the rail and clutching at it as he coughed for breath, the pipe almost slipping from between his fingers.
His mouth felt dry and ashy and bitter and he desperately needed a glass of water. Hinoe laughed like crazy beside him, clutching at her stomach, looking like she had the fun of a lifetime. She patted him on the back halfheartedly as he was catching his breath and he had half a mind to swat at her.
When he finally stopped coughing their gazes met and he sent her a glare. She laughed again. “You can’t inhale it all at once,” she told him, her shoulders still shaking.
“You could’ve told me before I tried,” he rasped and handed her the pipe.
“You don’t want to try again?” She teased, taking the pipe back and taking another drag. Natsume shook his head. The taste of ash was still vivid in his mouth.
“I think I’ve had enough,” he said.
Hinoe smiled. One of her hands dived into the deep pockets of her oversized, black cardigan. “Would you like something else then?”
Natsume looked at her warily. “Like what?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Hinoe mused. “Maybe this,” she suggested and took out an envelope out of her pocket.
Natsume looked at it with barely restrained hope. “Is this…”
“The map? Yes,” she confirmed. “It took us a while to localize it but it's there, we included the outline of the building for Madara, too. Benio will have the weapons ready by tomorrow.”
“Weapons?” Natsume asked, confused. Hinoe was quick to comfort him, lying her hand on his shoulder.
“Don’t worry,” she assured, her tone gentle. “It’s just a precaution. You mentioned that you were being chased, right? Madara told us. It's not that hard to use and you won't be alone. If all goes well you probably won't have to use it at all.”
It sounded... Well, not completely unreasonable. Natsume nodded and smiled at her weakly. She smiled back.
For some reason, it looked artificial.
In hindsight, he should have expected this.
Everything was a lie, nothing was what it appeared to be and Natsume (and could he still call himself that in the first place?) wanted to scream, and curse and cry. He stared in complete silence at the video that played on the screen. He was alone in the room, but it would probably change soon, what with the sentries(sentries!) roaming the whole building along two flesh-and-bone exorcists out and about to hunt him down, because of course his entire existence was not only a huge lie but also a crime, a side-effect of playing god and everything Mary Shelley warned about centuries ago and which humanity decided to cheerfully ignore.
"Log 543.5, physical test," a monotone, female voice narrated. Natsume watched his body run on a treadmill in a steady tempo, his movement a little stilted but much smoother than it was ten logs ago. He's bald there, because they didn't insert the hair implants until much later, after the consciousness of a real Natsume Takashi, the Natsume Takashi who died over fifteen years ago according to the files in the computer. Natsume Takashi, adopted by the Fujiwara's in the year of 2X35. Natsume Takashi who died after falling from a cliff barely two years later in an accident-suicide-murder-whatever. Natsume Takashi who was a human with flesh and blood and bone and not an artificial parody of it that was sitting now and slowly played the next log and watched as its head was being slowly split open and tampered with, as people in white coats, as Fujiwara's in white coats, adjusted wires and artificial matter into what would be his mind today. His fake stomach squeezed uncomfortably, and Natsume stumbled out of his chair. He had seen enough. Suddenly, he couldn't stand sitting in that room anymore. Fighting with another wave of nausea he walked towards the exit. Before he left he stood in the open door and spared the last look at the half-dismantled model of what he used to be.
The face was identical to his, only the body below, a torso clad in a female school uniform with it's mechanical insides slipping out from behind the white hem, was different. Before, it used to be his body and the brain inside his head in part used to be hers.
"You lied to me," he murmured. Nyanko-sensei stopped in his tracks, but then resumed his efforts with twice as much passion.
"We'll talk about it later," he said. "Now get in there, maybe they wont check inside. Come on!"
"No." The emergency lights bathed everything in crimson and blared insistently, to the rhythm of Nyanko-sensei pushing at his legs. He heard other people running further down the hall. The steps got louder and louder the longer Natsume and Nyanko-sensei stalled in the entrance.
"Then you leave me no choice," Nyanko-sensei said. He moved away from him and then ran at him full speed. His paws searched for something at the back of his neck, swift despite their pudginess. Natsume tried to struggle against them but just as his head reached him, he felt something in him short circuit and snap.
Suddenly, he became way smaller and something grabbed him by the back of his neck and threw him inside the room. He crashed against the desk in front of which he sat not so long ago. He watched dazedly as his own body smashed his hand against the control panel and before he could reorient himself the door to the room shut with a final hiss.
He tried to stand up but it was hard to find balance when he had four feet instead of two, inhibiting a foreign body. He stumbled on the short stubs that were now his legs and as he fought gravity on the cold, slick tiles of the lab floor, he heard a series of loud bangs, sounds of a scuffle, muffled behind the thick door but still clear enough due to proximity.
Then everything went silent.
No, Natsume thought. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Please, no.
He finally managed to pick himself up and made his way towards the door, he scratched at it insistently but it didn't budge. The control panel was too high for him to reach, too.
He was trapped.
In the room bathed in the crimson emergency light, in a foreign body, he had nowhere to go.
