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Kato Kuromizu was cursed.
Whenever she bled, her blood rapidly oxidized. Then, it would morph into large chunks of metal, shielding the wound.
Kato was born with this curse, and she had spent her entire life so far trying to get rid of it, trying to find someone to take the rust away.
Not long ago, Taitle seemed like the perfect opportunity to wish the curse away. In reality, it was anything but. The only gifts she was given were heartbreak and the gift of death.
She was alive again, somehow, but the curse remained. Her legs didn’t even ache as she trekked onward.
Kato was having a rough day, and she hadn’t even been awake long enough to get the full story yet.
Brittle brick tiles crunched under her boots, lightly fracturing with each footfall. The fragmented streets and surrounding skeletal, yet near identical remnants of buildings made Kato wonder what part of the city she was even in.
When did Taitle get so wrecked?
Kato trudged through the remnants of the steampunk city, the vague layout gave way into piles of rubble and billowing clouds of dust. She still hacked and choked on the smoke even when she thought that she had avoided the clouds.
She didn’t encounter any stray competitors for what felt like the longest time. For a while, she assumed she was all alone in Taitle. A part of her was relieved by that thought. After meeting with the demon that killed her to begin with, she preferred the isolation.
It didn’t make much of a difference to her, even if deep down she did want companionship. An end to the journey.
And then, suddenly, there was someone who rose from the rubble.
A tall, tan, spindly human man stood, wavering in place. He was marveling at his hands and arms, inspecting them like intricate mechanisms. Kato didn’t quite understand the reverence. He just looked like average flesh and bone to her.
“Hello, I am Murphy.”
In the single moment Kato looked somewhere else, the man had noticed her presence and made direct eye contact. She froze.
“Hello? Do you know what’s going on?”
“Hm… not anymore!”
He seemed unusually nonplussed by not being aware of anything. Murphy didn’t make any attempt to move toward Kato.
She hesitated. He could’ve just been waiting for her to let her guard down, but how could she really be sure?
“Are… are you hurt?”
“No.”
If he actually wanted to cause harm, he would’ve said he was injured to lure her in. He had to be genuine then, right?
Kato approached Murphy with all of the hesitance of a prey animal sniffing at a snare, “Are you lost??”
“I’m not lost, I know exactly where I am!”
Kato’s brows furrowed. Whatever untrustful thoughts she had regarding Murphy before had rapidly diminished. In its place was sheer confusion and a strange sense of earnestness between them.
Well, better than the alternative, she supposed.
“Do you know Lucia?”
She was yanked out of her thoughts when Murphy started speaking again, “Uh, who?”
“She is my best friend. The last time I saw her, she was leaving this hotel with the parts. We were going to go back to the headquarters, but…”
Kato looked around. There was no hotel in sight. Only rubble.
Oh, goodness…
“What does Lucia look like?”
Murphy hummed, then raised a hand up to his shoulder, “She’s this tall.”
“… Anything else?”
“Her hair is very teal, if that helps.”
“Now that would be hard to miss. I could help look for her on my way out,” Kato held the back of her neck, “I won’t be staying in Taitle very long, so after I get you to Lucia, I’m off.”
“Okay!”
Conversation between the two of them was few and far between. Kato wasn’t exactly great at small talk, and it didn’t exactly help that Murphy’s topics were a bit hard to follow.
“So, you’re telling me you were a robot?”
“Yes! I feel very different now, though.”
“Well, yeah. You don’t look like much of a robot to me.”
Murphy’s expression contorted into something hurt, as if he’d just been betrayed, “I am. I am Murphy.”
“Hey, it’s not that you’re not you, it’s just—”
Kato cut herself off with a stagger, stumbling for a moment as she nearly lost her balance. Now that she was actually looking ahead of herself, she saw the dip in the road that led pretty far down.
That wasn’t even mentioning the towering, mechanical automaton that blocked what little remained of the street that wasn’t just a huge sinkhole.
Kato jumped back when she was face to face with the deactivated machine, its head alone being far larger than her entirely.
“Agh?! What even is this?!”
“He looks tired. I hope he doesn’t wake up.”
“Me neither,” Kato shook her head, but before she could finish her train of thought, two children popped out of the machine’s back hatch.
One was a pale blond in his late teens and the other a tiny, ashy lad that looked to be far younger. Barely in his double digits.
“Ey, who are you??” The younger one pointed at Kato and Murphy.
Kato held up her hands in surrender, “I’m just passing through!”
“I am Murphy!”
She gestured behind herself at the waving man, “And- And he’s Murphy.”
The blond squinted at the two of them as he hopped onto solid ground, then scampered over toward them.
“Wait, like the robot? What happened to you??”
“A lot.”
The man muttered, sounding surprisingly defeated considering how neutral he’d been with Kato.
“Well, yeah, clearly!”
She tuned in as the kid rambled on about what happened in the past hour. There was a murderous statue man, people getting possessed— which Eric was personally a victim of— and an uprising of toy soldiers and abandoned Taitlean machines spearheaded by a teenage girl. Apparently.
She was surprised the demoness she met wasn’t included in the list of insane bullshit described.
“And I don’t even know who you are!” Eric pointed at her, to which she decided now was a good time for her to butt in.
“Kuromizu. Kato Kuromizu. That’s about all you need to know, I’m very out of the loop.”
“That’s… fair,” Eric seceded, “I don’t feel like I’ve processed anything that’s happened in the past few hours.”
The sound of a teenage girl’s voice cut their conversation short.
“Eric, you better be alright over there!!”
A wide smile overtook Eric’s face as he zipped away in the voice’s direction— likely a friend or something more.
“Jinam, did you see that?!”
“Oh, there he goes then.” The sweep commented as he watched Eric go, “You lot should really get out of ‘ere soon, it’s all smashed.”
“So should you, kid,” Kato gestured at the kid, “We’re already on our way to the wishing machine, wherever it is.”
The sweep glared at Kato before placing a hand on his chin in thought, “Pretty sure it’s up just north. Who knows if it’s even still there though.”
“Thanks, we’ll get out of the way of… whatever this is.”
“Oh, yeah,” He glanced back at the hunk of metal, “I dunno what’s up with this either. I just live here.”
Kato sighed, “Right. Come on Murphy, let’s go north.”
“That’s my third favorite direction!”
“What’s your… you know what? What’s your least favorite direction?”
Murphy answered with all of the vitriol of someone resorting to extreme violence, “East.”
Kato let out a genuine guffaw. Whether it was out of bewilderment or amusement, she didn’t know.
As the two of them trekked north, Kato glimpsed at Eric and his redheaded friend, Jinam, as they passed.
Jinam restlessly listed about, as if struggling not to pace circles around her friend.
“Hey, I’m sure it’ll be fine! If Murphy’s alive, then Mizuno probably is too!”
Kato and Murphy walked out of earshot before they could hear any more of their conversation. She wasn’t sure about Murphy, but she wouldn’t have been able to sleep right knowing she’d eavesdropped on something so dire.
She could afford to hear less.
The headquarters remained amazingly intact despite the destruction that had come across Taitle. Kato assumed some more robot giblets would have at least been spread about.
Maybe it was best that there weren’t though. She couldn’t really say for sure, but she figured Murphy was already offput enough as is.
“You’re sure this is where Lucia is?”
“It should be. This is where Annie is too.
“Wait, who’s Annie?”
Kato strode through the front doors with Murphy by her side, making eye contact with the machine turned man.
“Another friend. She was broken the last time I saw her, though.”
Another one dead? Kato didn’t say it out loud, but she was starting to notice a pattern of bodies across all ends of the competition.
She wondered if the devil that manipulated her had died too, and felt almost relieved. But no, she would be alive again anyways. It was a nice thought, though.
Kato’s still-cautious strides stopped shortly after stepping inside.
A woman with spiky, teal hair leaned against the wall parallel to them. Her head was down, and her hands were stuffed into her pockets.
Unless there was someone else with aggressively teal hair in Taitle, that must’ve been their Lucia.
Kato nudged Murphy’s shoulder, “Found her.”
The neutrality lifted from Murphy like a fever breaking, and the widest smile he could possibly muster broke onto his face.
“Lucia!!”
The woman flinched as she snapped to attention. Her face was splotchy and pink.
“Murphy?!”
He ran up to her and reeled his fist back. Her eyes widened for a moment as she raised her arms, swiftly hugging his abdomen before he could swing.
He’s definitely punched her in the face before, hasn’t he?
“I can’t believe it, their crazy plan worked!” Lucia laughed.
“What plan?” Kato raised her hand, to which Murphy and Lucia both looked at her, “Sorry, I’m still out of the loop.”
Lucia’s attention shifted away from her reunion, “Oh, uh, who are you?”
“Kato Kuromizu.” she rubbed the back of her neck, “I found Murphy on my way out of here and… brought him over.”
“There were a lot of roadblocks,” Murphy hopped back to Lucia’s initial topic, “Where are our friends?”
“Ginger and Annie? They’re… they’re just fine. They left a while ago, right after they made the wish. God, I’m so glad it worked…”
“The wish?”
Kato stared at her wrists. The blood that ran through her veins still felt like coagulated rust, even when it remained unshed.
The wish was gone, yet not wasted. Many people were living again, but the curse would stay. She wondered what she’d even come here for in retrospect.
“Huh. Well, I’ll be going then. Do you know where any train or public transport would be?”
“Oh my god, no,” Lucia let out a breathy chuckle of disbelief, “I really doubt there’s any transportation out of Taitle, especially not right now.”
Kato grimaced. She never found much enjoyment in staying in one place for too long, and it being the desolate city that she’d already died in once didn’t ease the inconvenience.
“Just peachy.”
“Can we bring Kato with us? She’s very nice.”
The two born-humans stared at Murphy as they considered the suggestion.
“I don’t think fishbot has that many seats.”
“We could make more seats.”
“Murphy, you don’t know how to tinker.”
“I could,” Kato found herself, “I work on vehicles all of the time!”
“You do?” Lucia’s eyebrows raised, “You… wouldn’t happen to have any spare parts on you, would you? I already ran out when repairing my ride the first time.”
“Well, not anymore, but I bet there’s plenty of scraps around town. It’d be a shame not to use any of them.”
“I guess that’s true, huh?”
Murphy cheered, “We’re recycling my brothers!”
“Yeah, yeah we are.” Lucia’s smile reached her eyes.
The sound of their voices faded in Kato’s head as she followed them further elsewhere in the headquarters.
Kato Kuromizu was back from the dead, and was now in for the long haul. Taitle wasn’t the end of her journey for a cure, but at least she’d gotten something out of it.
One step forwards, two steps back.