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A pair of boys walked in single file down an alleyway in what had once been a city.
One wore a well-pressed suit. The other, a ratty sweater ripped from wear and tear, still somehow free of grime.
The boys were connected by a thick chain, hung from a metal collar around the neck of the boy who walked in back, held firmly in the hand of the boy who walked in front.
They walked on broken glass, shards scattering beneath their distressed soles as they crushed them further and further towards dust. The smell of smoke hung thick in the air, smothering what was surely a plethora of other, less savory scents. Garbage. Sewage. Blood, of course.
There was a body, a corpse, propped up against a graffiti-plastered section of brick towards the end of the alley. The taller boy, the one who trailed behind, wondered absently how long it had been rotting.
The sky above them was deep red and laced with smog, tinged black with smoldering ash long since reduced from the rubble it had once been.
The Servant tilted his chin up to take in the despairful sight.
How wonderfully hopeless!
He let out a breathy cackle, which broke down quickly to a wheeze. It wasn’t long before the Servant found himself coughing violently, hands on his knees in a futile attempt to catch his breath.
Perhaps it wasn’t wise to inhale more of this air than he needed to.
Still, the Servant had learned that wisdom, here, mattered less than revelry. Basking in despair while one could was the law of this lawless land. After all, he knew better than most that he could die at any moment.
A bullet to the head. Slow brain death. To him, both alternatives seemed equally probable.
Still, the Servant was lucky. He knew that he would survive as long as he needed to, however long that was. His eventual death would be far from quiet.
He wasn’t the type to succumb to illness. He knew that his luck wouldn’t allow it.
The god-in-boy’s-skin treading ahead of him tugged at the chain linked to the metal collar he wore. The Servant smiled as his neck was jerked forward and upward, his air cut off for one shining, glorious moment.
He could have sworn he saw stars. Those patches around the edges of his vision were likely just dark spots, from his anemia. Or from the tumor. Still, the Servant’s cough was effectively silenced. His smile widened.
He liked to think that they were stars. Stars from Kamukura. His Kamukura.
He wiped a bit of ash off the corner of his lip.
“So, Kamukura-sama? What are we doing here?”
The Servant glanced around, lightly kicking the top half of a glass bottle cracked jaggedly in two. He casually watched as it rolled and clinked loudly into its missing bottom half several feet away. They aligned themselves perfectly. How lucky.
The Servant continued.
“It’s just that, well, there hasn’t been much news from around these parts for ages. Pardon my probing, I know that I am an insignificant pest truly unworthy of questioning you, but–”
The boy holding his chain yanked at it again, harder this time. The other tripped as he was jerked close to him, held upright by the dark haired boy’s firm grip on his metal lead.
The Servant grinned. Kamukura remained nonplussed.
“I could explain my reasoning to you, but it would be inefficient.”
The red eyed boy spoke in monotone. The Servant knew that he was bored. Kamukura was always bored.
He was convinced that he could change that. After all, he had been successful in the past. More successful than most.
Kamukura shot him his equivalent of a glare– his face mostly slack, but eyebrows narrowed.
His master had very little variation in his facial expressions, the Servant had noted. Still, he had traveled with him for long enough to recognize the minute difference between how he wore satisfaction and disappointment.
It was in that difference that the Servant had his fun.
“I thought we agreed that you would stop asking questions on this trip. That was my condition for you coming along. Have you changed your mind? Would you prefer to leave me?”
The Servant stuttered, quick to backtrack.
“No! No, I want to stay! I simply… It seems best that we avoid detours for the sake of detours. I know that you want to reach Towa city by the end of the month, and this is not the fastest route, nor the safest for that matter.”
Kamkura kept his gaze even. The Servant burned beneath it. His neck felt exposed even under the thick-cut metal of the band that locked tightly around it. Perhaps it was because of it that he felt so…
So vulnerable. So entirely at Kamukura’s mercy.
His heart beat fast, his ears growing more and more red by the second. Heat pooled in the base of his stomach.
Kamukura really was so hopeful!
“And you think you know the route to Towa better than I do?”
The Servant knew that the question was meant to go unanswered.
He decided to answer it anyway.
“I simply think that this city is less than consequential, and I wonder why someone as unassailable, as brilliant as Kamukura-sama would lead us here.”
The Servant kept eye contact with the boy holding his chain. He waited for Kamukura’s response.
For a moment, it seemed to the Servant as though he’d get one, an answer to his challenge at the very least, some other reaction if his luck was kind to him today. Kamukura’s eyebrows narrowed infinitesimally, and the Servant watched as the muscles beneath his jaw twitched.
The white haired boy schooled his face into a carefree smile even as he swallowed hard, feeling his collar bob on his neck as he did. Kamukura’s hand remained clasped around his chain, not even a foot away from his chin.
And then, Kamukura dropped it. He continued walking on ahead.
Well! The Servant hadn’t expected that.
“Kamukura-sama?”
His master swept his long hair over his shoulder as he turned around, meeting the Servant’s puzzled stare.
“We both know that you like it when I do that. For time’s sake, it follows that I shouldn’t indulge you today. You may come with me if you wish. No more questions.”
The Servant’s eyes remained wide. His Kamukura really was…
He was radiant! Amazing! So truly, magnificently, wonderful!
He stood in place for a moment longer, turning his chin towards the sky. He felt the weight of the chain on his neck hanging down beneath him, tugged down by nothing but gravity.
He cackled, manic and wheezing.
Reveling in despair was the law of this land, after all, and truly, Kamukura’s reaction to him had been the most despairful outcome possible! What good luck was sure to come his way!
The Servant caught his breath and rushed forward to catch up to his companion, scrambling for ground as he saw his master’s silhouette fading fast.
In his rush, the Servant nearly tripped over the leg of the corpse he had noticed earlier. Indeed– it was quite decomposed! Flies scattered on impact, dispersing only moderately as the Servant attempted to swat them away.
It was hot in this alleyway. Too hot for his liking. Sweat plastered strands of wispy white hair to his forehead. He hated sweat.
It really was a shame that the apocalypse had to be so dirty.
The Servant hummed.
“Kamukura-sama? What do you think about death?”
If Kamukura seemed surprised by the Servant’s continued conversation or his existential choice of subject matter, he showed no indication. He continued forward, not pausing to spare the chained boy a glance.
“I thought we agreed. No more questions.”
Yes, Kamukura had implied as much. Still, the Servant had never explicitly agreed to those terms, the tacit consent of his persisting companionship be damned.
Besides, he knew that Kamukura didn’t really dislike his questions. If the other boy wanted him gone he would have forced him to leave long ago, or killed him otherwise.
He knew how easy it would be for Kamukura to kill him. To crush his throat. To snap his windpipe…
But he hadn’t. The Servant knew that meant something.
And so, he stayed. He stayed, and he continued to question.
It was best to avoid annoying Kamukura, but only past a certain threshold. The Servant knew that before that point, Kamukura actually enjoyed his antics.
He was a lowly specimen of a human, truly unworthy of Kamukura’s attention. While the Servant recognized this sentiment and fully endorsed its truth, he found himself largely unwilling to enforce the boundaries it ought to have placed around him.
He was unable to stay away from Kamukura. The way his hope shined was too irresistible, too good, for a base thing like him to turn away from of his own accord.
If his master tolerated his company, even derived some sort of pleasure from it, who was the Servant to deny him that?
He lived only to serve.
He spoke on.
“I never agreed to your ‘no more questions’ stipulation, and you did say that I could follow you if I wanted. There was no explicit connection between the two, no?”
The Servant didn’t pause, not that he expected Kamukura to grace his shoddy reasoning with a genuine response.
“So, Kamukura-sama, what do you think of death? Do you think about it? Do you ever think about it happening to you? To me?”
Kamukura was silent for a moment.
“Death is inevitable. We will both die. Everybody dies. It’s boring.”
Ah, so the Servant wouldn’t be refused, today! He had read his companion correctly. He smiled to himself.
“Yes, yes. I suppose that you’re correct. Hmm. Still. Death is such a broad subject! So, how about murder? Death is inevitable, but its timeline isn’t fixed, now is it? Taking life away… That’s something else entirely, don’t you think, Kamukura-sama?”
Kamukura continued walking. The Servant would swear that he saw a pause between his steps, a break in his steady pace.
So, his master thinks about murder after all! How interesting!
“You’re talking like Enoshima. I thought that you hated her. Murder is no more interesting than death. Despair is not inherently less boring than hope.”
The Servant felt his skin crawl, his left arm weighing heavy by his side from beneath its oven-mit sheath.
It itched sometimes, right at the incision site, along that hacked-up line of flesh where crude fishing wire stitches had not so long ago forced his arm to accept foreign skin. He was lucky that he hadn’t gone septic, that he hadn’t gotten any infection at all. The Servant was sure that any other person’s body would have rejected a surgery done so poorly.
Any other person’s body would have refused to meld to the half-rotted remains of someone so hellish and deranged.
But he was lucky. Lucky, and lowly.
He had needed a reminder of her. Of what despair could do when pursued unchecked. And so, he had sought one out. A punishment just for him.
He could still feel the bite of the hacksaw, if he squinted his eyes shut just so.
“Do not compare me to that horrible woman. That she-demon.” The Servant seldom raised his voice, but Junko Enoshima was one topic for which he reserved an exception, consequences be damned.
He doubled back, ever-so slightly, lowering his volume and his head.
“I’m simply saying… Killing is like a struggle. A struggle between hope and despair, where only one can prevail. The stronger will. The stronger hope. You like that struggle, don’t you, Kamukura-sama?”
I know that’s why you keep me around…
The Servant felt his gaze grow unfocused, his vision blurring more and more as his voice grew in volume.
“When you kill, Kamukura-sama, do you kill for hope? Ah, but you are hope incarnate! I’m so foolish for asking!”
The Servant wrapped both of his arms around his torso, corpse and living alike. Sweat beaded on his forehead. His eyes were blown open as wide as the grin that slowly inched its way across his face.
“You know, if you were killed, I think that I would feel such despair. Even if I shouldn’t. Stronger hope always prevails, I know that. I do! Still, if someone managed to best you, if you did die… It would be… It would be so sweet. It would be so awful… I just might die!”
The Servant took heaving breaths, his eyes screwed shut.
When he opened them, he found himself looking directly into Kamukura’s eyes.
The other boy stood close to him. His hands gripped his chain at a location close to his neck, forcing the Servant to stumble forward. He knew that he was sweaty. He knew that he was breathing too hard, gasping and stuttering through every exhale, disgusting through-and-through.
Kamukura’s chest rose and fell steadily, as it always did.
The white haired boy trembled as Kamukura looked down at him.
“You don’t need to worry about that. I don’t plan on dying.”
There was something like interest in his red, red eyes, and it gave the Servant pause.
Even still, he let his eyes fall shut, a smile crossing his lips.
He had interested Kamukura. His master wasn’t bored.
“Ah, Kamukura-sama, you know that I don’t mean to doubt–”
The Servant was cut off by the sound of glass shattering behind them– a bottle crunched under a careless footfall.
If his luck was to be trusted, it was probably the bottle the Servant had previously kicked. A fortuitous alarm bell, ringing for them loud and clear.
Kamukura dropped the chain, allowing both himself and its wearer to survey their surroundings.
“Who’s there? Come out now.”
Even now, Kamukura’s voice managed to be startlingly monotone. The Servant laughed.
“Ah, guests! We really are so lucky today, aren’t we Kamukura-sama! We should greet them!”
The Servant moved his hand to his pocket as he found himself at Kamukura’s back. His fingers brushed the handle of a revolver. Perhaps it wasn’t the most efficient weapon, nor the most reliable, but it had its uses.
Besides, his luck usually did most of the work, or the damage, when he found himself in a fight.
Not to mention, he had Kamukura by his side. His master was similarly armed, though both boys knew that he didn’t really need a firearm to do damage.
A figure emerged from the dark. A man covered in dust and grime, clothes ripped and sun-bleached. His appearance didn’t matter much– all that mattered to the Servant was the knife in his hand. It was easily a foot long, its edge serrated all the way down. It was clearly designed for hunting and killing. It had seen use, if the wear on the handle and dullness of the blade were to be trusted.
More men followed his lead out of shadow and into light. They came from both sides of the alley.
Somehow, the boys had found themselves ensnared in a trap.
The Servant cursed himself for not having noticed sooner. The air around them reeked of unwashed bodies. He wondered how he had missed it.
The first man, clearly their leader, spat on the blade of his weapon.
“Boys, we really hit the jackpot today! Wouldn’t you know? It’s Ultimate Despair!”
Hollers and laughter echoed out from among their ranks.
The Servant wasn’t impressed. This was clearly one of the many roving gangs that had bound together from the stragglers left behind in the rubble of ruined cities after the Tragedy. When the governments had fallen, so had infrastructure– chaos thrived, and survival was found in packs like this one.
This group was probably formed for a similar purpose, though they had obviously long since deprioritized their own survival if they so blatantly challenged known members of Ultimate Despair. These men were bounty hunters, surely, who thought they could fetch a pretty penny selling the two of them off on some underground market. Odds were high that its hub wasn’t far from here, and odds were high that the men were correct about one thing, at the very least.
Plenty of people would sell life and limb for a chance to pay back a member of Ultimate Despair for the havoc they had wreaked, the pain they had caused. If the two of them were captured, their fates wouldn’t be pleasant.
Still, the gang was incorrect in regards to just about everything else. Namely, if they thought they would be able to best Kamukura and the Servant in combat, they were dead wrong.
Many had tried. All had failed.
“So, boys? What are we waiting for! Get em’!”
A member of the gang, the bulkiest among them as the Servant quickly sized up, made a lunge for Kamukura. With a single kick to the knees and jab to the neck, he fell to the floor, unconscious.
The Servant noted hesitation among the gang’s ranks. He nearly laughed. They should be frightened. Still, it seemed that they weren’t entirely deterred. After all, they must have known before jumping the two of them that they wouldn’t go down easy.
The Servant wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt. Surely, they weren’t complete idiots.
“Tank’s down! You two, get the scrawny one! Shotgun, Pitbull, Rags– quit pissing your pants n’ get the motherfucker in the suit!”
Their names were utterly ridiculous, the white haired boy noted. These men got involved in one apocalypse and immediately decided to start acting like extras in a low-budget action movie? How sad.
True to orders, two men charged him, one with a gun, the other with a switchblade. He raised his revolver and without hesitation shot the man with the gun twice in the chest. His body jerked once before falling to the ground. He’d be dead in a minute, tops.
The Servant really was a quick draw! Part of that had to do, he was sure, with the fact that he had accidentally flipped his safety as they had been walking earlier. How lucky!
Before he had the chance to revel in his victory, the other man had the Servant pinned against the wall of the alley, elbow against his neck right at the exposed strip of skin between his collar and his chin.
The man was clearly angry, if the pressure with which he was holding him was any indication. The Servant attempted to cough in a breath. He managed, but just barely. He would run low on oxygen if he was held like this for much longer. The Servant knew it would be over for him if that were to happen.
His assailant flipped his switchblade, once, twice. Truly, what a show-off. The Servant mustered up enough saliva to spit in his face.
Somehow, the man’s face got redder. Sweat dripped down his forehead in visible rivulets, and rage filled his eyes.
When he spoke, spittle spewed across the Servant’s face. How disgusting. Still, his voice was quiet, crooning, almost. It dripped with vitriol. The Servant recognized his state of being well. This man was clearly in despair.
“You think you’re so tough, huh? What if I cut off those pretty little lips of yours, yeah? I don’t think you’d like that so much. You killed my friend, you freak! Your kind’ve killed more of my friends than I can fucking count. You know, I think I wanna have some fun! We can still sell you with some wear and tear. Boss won’t mind…”
The Servant kicked out, managing only to weakly thump his legs against his captor’s calf. The action elicited only a dark chuckle.
“You’re his pet, aren’t ya’? The one in the suit? Well,” the man raised his switchblade, pressing its sharp side against the Servant’s cheek, “It seems a little bitch like you is all bark and no bite.”
He dragged the tip of the blade slowly downwards, cutting a narrow gash from the outer corner of the Servant’s eye down to the edge of his lip. It wasn’t deep, but it stung. The Servant felt blood drip down from the wound, pooling along his upper lip and sliding towards his jaw.
He struggled, attempting to dislodge the man’s elbow from his neck, or move his shoulders, or free his arms– to no avail.
It was moments like these when he really cursed his poor health. He had practically no strength or stamina.
Still, he refused to give his assailant a reaction. He bit his tongue and continued to glare.
This wouldn’t last, after all. His vision was already starting to go dark around the edges.
“Mmm. You aren’t gonna scream for me? Maybe you just need a little–”
In an instant, the pressure was gone from his neck.
When the Servant regained his bearing, he saw that the man had crumpled to the ground, knife still in hand. Kamukura stood before him, the butt of his pistol still raised from where it had seconds ago collided with his captor’s head.
Knowing Kamukura’s strength, and judging by the just-short-of-determined look in his eyes, the Servant surmised that the man’s skull was likely crushed on impact.
The Servant smiled.
Behind Kamukura, the alleyway was littered with bodies. While he had been pinned and helpless, his master had clearly been taking care of business.
Some of the forms stirred, just barely.
The Servant stumbled his way upright, blinking hard. He shivered, as if doing so would remove the knife wielding man’s foreign presence from his body.
Kamukura didn’t waste time. He walked further down the alley, stepping over one of the limp bodies beneath them as he did.
“Come. They won’t be waking soon, but we should still put distance between us and them.”
He paused for a moment and turned around to face the Servant.
“We won’t be going far. You’re wounded.”
The Servant’s eyes grew wide, his cheeks flushed.
“Really, it’s nothing, surely not anything worth bothering your superior self over, Kamukura-sama! I swear–”
The boy walking ahead once again looked back.
“No. There’s a parking garage at the end of this alley. We can take shelter there.” He continued onward, knowing that the Servant would follow. Of course he would follow. “I will be looking at your injuries once we arrive. No arguments. They’re boring. Don’t bore me.”
The Servant shut his mouth quickly enough to hear his teeth click on closure.
They walked in single file down the remainder of the alley. By the time they made it to the parking garage, the Servant was out of breath.
For him, this wasn’t entirely unusual. He was in poor health, and the post-apocalyptic air wasn’t entirely conducive to clear breathing. Still, he doubted that being slammed against a wall and choked had improved his already poor condition.
Well, the Servant wasn’t a complete stranger to either of those things. Typically, though, he had a hand in negotiating them first. Quite rude of the man not to consider his consent!
Once they made their way into the garage and out of sight, Kamukura gestured towards a wall next to an old stairwell and an elevator that had surely functioned in days now long since past.
The Servant sat down and propped himself up against it. Kamukura crouched down alongside him, pulling their shared first-aid kit out from inside his suit jacket. He tied his hair back with an elastic before pulling out an alcohol wipe and a small package of butterfly bandages.
“You could have taken down that man before he incapacitated you. I’ve seen you do it, and there was nothing stopping you from doing it today.”
Kamukura ripped the alcohol wipe out of its sterile packaging and began to dab it on and around the cut on the Servant’s cheek. The white haired boy winced. Kamukura had never been one to do things the painless way. The cut needed to be cleaned, and he would do it efficiently. He always did.
The cut would hardly scar, if it was Kamukura that bandaged it. The Servant knew from experience.
Kamukura discarded the wipe, tucked a flyaway strand of hair behind his ear, and began to peel the backing off of a bandage. After securing one end to the Servant’s skin, he stretched it ever so slightly over his cut before pressing it firmly down on the other side. It would heal almost seamlessly.
Kamukura prepared another bandage and pressed one of its ends tight to the Servant’s cheek.
“You waited for me to help you. Why?”
The Servant looked down, suddenly fascinated by a cigarette butt fallen between the cracks in the garage floor.
“I… You’re right. Of course you’re right. I… I don’t know, Kamukura-sama. I wanted to test my luck, I think. To let hope and despair battle. I survived, though. I don’t know what it means, that I did. I can’t tell which side won out in the end…”
Kamukura met his eyes. His brow narrowed.
He could always see right through him.
“No,” the Servant conceded, “You know that isn’t it.”
He could feel Kamukura’s eyes on him, unmoving. He still couldn’t bring himself to meet them.
“I wanted to see your hope. You shine so brightly, and I… I like it when you shine on me. I know, I’m terrible! You can leave me behind, you know. I know that I’m boring. An inferior, truly base nuisance, a burden on you–”
Kamukura interrupted him. He had never had much patience for the Servant’s self deprecation.
“You asked me earlier about death. What I thought of it. If I ever thought about you dying.”
The Servant found himself without words. Kamukura had caught that, huh? Of course he had.
Even so, the Servant had never expected his question, that question, to be acknowledged.
He managed to look up at the boy crouching over him, unable to break himself free from the spell that was his gaze, his attention. He found himself withering under it.
He never wanted it to leave him. Even if he didn’t deserve it.
He was selfish. So selfish.
“I don’t know why I think about it, but I do. You think that you are disposable. You say it. You show it, when you act the way you did today. You’re wrong, though. You aren’t worthless. I would prefer it if you didn’t die. You…”
Kamukura rarely struggled with words. The Servant found himself hanging onto his every breath.
“You interest me. Having you around is… Interesting.”
Kamukura traced his fingertips along the length of the chain that pooled between them. It clinked together softly as each of its links passed through his grip.
The Servant leaned forward into Kamukura’s indirect touch. It was an unconscious movement. The only thought that filled his waking mind was that he needed to be closer, closer, closer.
He needed Kamukura to touch him instead.
Kamukura dropped the chain, letting it fall to the floor with a clank. He ran the pad of his thumb over one of the Servant’s newly placed bandages.
“So, please, don’t run around trying to get yourself killed.”
The Servant could only nod, the motion fast, his face red.
Kamukura finished looking him over. Apart from the cut, he had walked away from the fight with only a few scrapes and bruises. He wasn’t concussed, and none of his bones were broken. He would probably be sore for a couple of days, but he had no major injuries. Nothing would last.
Kamukura, of course, had come out of the altercation unscathed.
After medical care was seen to, food was eaten, and water had been drunk, the pair left the parking garage to emerge back into smog, stench, and unfiltered heat.
Their purpose in this city was still unknown to the Servant. He decided that he wouldn’t inquire further. Wherever Kamukura went, he would follow. That was just the way of things.
He liked the way of things.
As Kamukura began to walk into the street, the Servant found himself standing still on the threshold of the garage. Whether his feet were unwilling or unable to move, he wasn’t sure.
“Kamukura-sama?”
The boy in question paused in his stride.
The Servant fidgeted in place.
“Will you… You… You aren’t holding my chain.”
The suited boy glanced back over his shoulder.
“You were just strangled in a violent altercation. It would be uncomfortable for you if I did.”
The white haired boy picked up the end of the chain in question with both hands, letting it dangle between oven-mit and skin, his eyes glued to the floor.
“Maybe it would. I know it’s an absurd request…”
He took a step forward.
“I would like you to hold it anyway. If it isn’t too much trouble, Kamukura-sama.”
Kamukura observed him carefully. It was uncanny, really, how he could read his face.
He could read anyone’s face. He was talented. Beyond talented.
Still… It felt different, the Servant thought, when that skill was turned on him.
Kamukura must have noted something, because he walked back to where the Servant stood. He took the end of the chain from his hands. The Servant winced aloud before he was able to swallow down the sound.
He smiled and moved his good hand up to his collar, running his fingertips between it and his bruised skin.
“Thank you. Don’t worry. I trust you.”
He knew that Kamukura wouldn’t worry. As a rule, he didn’t worry about anything, or anyone. Still, the Servant felt the need to reassure him. He wasn’t entirely sure why.
That was when he saw it. Something like interest, like curiosity, sparking in Kamukura’s eyes. Maybe something stronger.
It would be years before he learned exactly what it was he saw that day.
(He would go by a different name, when it happened. So would Kamukura.)
In that moment, the Servant was content to be curious himself.
He certainly wasn’t bored, and neither was his master. That was enough.
Chain on neck and chain in hand, the two boys walked out into the haze of the apocalypse.