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At his barest essentials, Ogata is a sniper; and so, he’s naturally inclined to observe.
He picks up on little details. He always has. The precise movements of birds and the patterns at which they fly, for example– it makes them all the easier to shoot– and the habits and quirks of combatants in a fight, which also applies just the same. He can equally deduce small, seemingly unimportant information to pick away at people behind the scenes. Bring up some sensitive subjects here and there, and it’s often effective to get whatever he wants when necessary.
It’s almost a type of psychological warfare, in of itself. His acuteness towards perception isn’t necessarily for fun. It’s just the closest thing to an interest that he has.
People are still often predictable regardless, and they slot into his views on the innate human condition nearly every time. Provoke a good man, and he’ll always bite back. Doesn’t much matter what their upbringing is, or how composed they often are. Children can’t choose their parents, and thus, they’re a blank slate at first.
They can be shaped. None of them are different, in the grand scheme of things. Tokushiro Tsurumi is a murderer, Genjirou Tanigaki is a murderer, Saichi Sugimoto is a murderer, and Hyakunosuke Ogata is a murderer. They’ve all been pushed by circumstance, honestly, and it doesn’t matter just what their pasts were.
Asirpa is an exception.
Asirpa, Ogata is convinced, can be swayed to kill. She has enough conviction for it under the current circumstances, just too much morality. Even then, Saichi Sugimoto bleeds onto her like an open wound, a boil, and it’s only time before he infects her with his own ill– whether he’d prefer to or not, and whether or not he adamantly tries to protect her from doing so.
It’s a bit of a shame. He’s such a weight upon her. Without him, she would be able to protect herself, to live in a way valiant and untethered. But she doesn’t seem particularly eager to leave (quite the opposite), and so, Ogata thinks, maybe it’s too early.
Even so, Ogata can only think of himself. It should never be too early.
–
Ogata observes and he thinks. He’ll play along with their merry crew, for now. He has his own reasons for doing so.
Asirpa clings to Saichi Sugimoto like a leech. A bear cub to its mother, and Saichi Sugimoto does the same in turn. It’s a mutual partnership.
Ogata knows that Saichi Sugimoto doesn’t do it only out of the kindness of his own heart, looking after her. It’s never that simple, no. He’s looking for some kind of redemption, some kind of humanity, a reminder of himself. Maybe a small shard of the normalcy he’d left before the war with whatever woman he mentioned loving and her child when he’d abandoned them. A nuclear family is what he wishes he had, no doubt.
It’s a shame. Saichi Sugimoto is always at his best when he’s violent, unhinged and detached. In his natural state. He’s much like Asirpa in the sense that he’s simply better when he isn’t held back by her.
Now, he doesn’t fight. Not like Ogata knows that he can. The sutures on each side of his face are proof of it. All that Saichi Sugimoto does is blow on the stew that he’s been relegated to cooking tonight, cooling it with his breath and adding a little bit of miso before giving Asirpa a quick, tasting spoonful.
It must be good, judging by the way that she beams and hums. Ogata really wishes that she would stop referring to it– miso– as ‘shit’ despite her apparent enjoyment of it. Sugimoto must, too, judging by the way his face still scrunches a little even when his lips quirk at a positive reaction.
Such are children, Ogata supposes. He wouldn’t know.
“Ogata,” he hears, and he snaps back into reality only to see Asirpa hovering a steaming spoon in front of his face. “Here, try some! It’s really good.”
Ogata glances farther away and finds Sugimoto staring at him, scrutinizing. Blank. He still must not trust him, or even like him much at all past strained toleration for that matter. Funny that it’s warranted. If he only knew. It can’t be helped that he’s so unabashedly yielding to a child that wants to trust all of the men here so badly.
He’s not that hungry, but when he takes the spoonful, he makes direct eye contact with Sugimoto the whole time. It’s almost out of spite, at this point. As if to say, see what she thinks of me, too.
Saichi Sugimoto is all too well-aware of the fact that they’re both murderers. Asirpa can’t grasp the depth of it, and that’s part of it, Ogata decides.
–
Asirpa walks into the hut with twigs in her hair and mud all over her clothing, looking utterly dejected with Shiraishi in tow.
Not shocking. The rain is coming down hard outside, so incidents were bound to happen while hunting out in the woods. It’s the exact reason Ogata came down from the trees and inside before he would have inevitably slipped and broken his neck somehow.
He also just hates the goddamned rain. There’s that, too.
“Help,” she says in a grumble, mildly distressed as she turns to Sugimoto. Ignores Ogata and Shiraishi entirely.
It’s always him. Sugimoto has been around the longest, after all. They’re the closest, and he’s certainly the most honest out of all of them. The least of a threat.
Sugimoto looks up from his rifle (which he’s failing to oil correctly, did the army even teach him how to use it) and pauses, blinking once and then twice before setting it down entirely and gesturing her over with his hands.
Asirpa gets a brush from… somewhere, Ogata isn’t looking to catch where because he’s so fixated on how bad Sugimoto is at gun maintenance, but she promptly plops down in front of his crossed legs without any caution as to how she’s probably getting mud on his pants and boots. Sugimoto doesn’t seem to care, judging by the way that he takes the comb and gets to work on her hair.
It’s a peaceful routine for them. Ogata senses that on an objective level, especially as Shiraishi says something about grabbing more clothes from someone else in the kotan and dips out of the hut. It’s private. Certainly makes Ogata feel like the odd one out as he considers oiling his own rifle out of disgust for Sugimoto’s own methods of doing so.
“You start brushing from the bottom and make your way up,” Sugimoto mumbles, impossibly tender and patient with her like he always is. It makes Ogata wonder. “You’ll get the tangles out easily that way.”
Slowly, a pile of debris forms alongside where Asirpa and Sugimoto sit. It’s entrancing to watch it accumulate. Ogata actively tries not to, even if they wouldn’t notice him doing so; all alone off in their own little world.
Asirpa’s head nods a few times, clearly tired. She absently busies herself with tending to the mess of mud and dirt on her clothes, grooming herself not entirely unlike a cat. Ironic.
Asirpa shifts as she fidgets, but her expression doesn’t change. “When did you learn to do this?”
There’s a childish joke in there, somewhere. I thought that you were dumber, that you didn’t know that much, that you needed me to spoon-feed information to you. Sugimoto still pauses for a moment.
It’s momentary. It’s blink-and-you’ll-miss-it, but Ogata pounces on it like he always does; it's all in the way that Sugimoto falters, the way his face crumples only for a moment before he lets out a quiet, low little laugh that ends up being betrayed into longing by the look on his face.
Asirpa wouldn’t know unless she was looking at him. That’s how Sugimoto operates, Ogata has learned. He shields her from the reality of things far too often, and Asirpa is complicit in it. She wants to be shielded, although from what as to why, Ogata isn’t sure yet. But he will learn.
“My mom taught me while she was down,” Sugimoto says, and that’s that.
That’s why she could never reach her full potential.
But Ogata can teach her.
–
Ogata picks up more about them over time.
Sugimoto is open to physical touch with her. He’ll either initiate holding her hand, or she’ll do the same for him. He’ll carry her, or she’ll climb him, not unlike a child to a jungle gym. A transaction.
They cling to each other like parasites. They yearn for the connection, the both of them. Even Shiraishi does when they all sleep in rows. Ogata tries to comprehend why. It certainly has something to do with human nature. It has to fit somehow.
Ogata watches Sugimoto tuck Asirpa in and he realizes.
He has enough decency to wait until Sugimoto has draped his blanket over her properly before dragging him away, looking impossibly content with the results in the moment while Asirpa doses off. She always insists on him doing that, and–
–Ogata takes his arm and yanks him away from the campsite. To Sugimoto’s credit, he doesn’t say anything until they’re completely out of earshot.
“What the hell?” Even now, his voice is hushed and uncomprehending, and it pisses Ogata off to no end. He almost wishes that he would yell instead. Sugimoto doesn’t get it. He should, but he doesn’t.
Ogata swallows thick. His brain stutters once, twice. “Why do you do that.”
Sugimoto’s brows knit, and his eyes narrow. “What?”
Ogata doesn’t know how to put his thoughts into words. Irritating. Always irritating. He’s supposed to be better than this, and it’s downright embarrassing that he doesn’t have enough brainpower rattling around in his head to snark back.
“...With Asirpa,” he adds, which really doesn’t clarify anything at all. Sugimoto’s head tilts painfully like a dog’s, albeit subtly. “You treat her like a child.”
“She is a child,” Sugimoto mutters, still clearly confused. Maybe more verging on annoyed at this point. Ogata is too. “That's what you're supposed to do. Asirpa is still her own person.”
Ogata scowls. This isn’t getting anywhere. Sugimoto understands some things, but he doesn’t understand enough. But he’s not supposed to, either.
“No,” Ogata insists, purring into a manic sort of grin. “You’re just here for the gold, too. But you act like–”
(You’re her father.)
Ogata’s lips purse shut.
(And she plays along with it.)
“--She chose you.”
Sugimoto blinks back, blankly. Ogata can’t determine what he might be feeling right now. It’d make anyone else anxious, probably, but he’s never really felt fight or flight in the way that a normal person should.
Children aren’t allowed to choose their parents.
Asirpa shouldn’t be forged by someone else’s care. Not his.
“You’re not Nopperabu, Sugimoto,” Ogata insists. He doesn’t know who he’s trying to convince anymore. “Stop trying to be his replacement. You never will be.”
He should have lost the chance to long ago with his humanity.
Ogata’s knuckles curl until they’re white as he stalks off. It doesn’t occur to him until later that he forgot his rifle.
When he turns back, just to check, Sugimoto is still standing where he left him. Just staring with those eyes.
“What does that make you, then?”
A hidden sort of: why are you trying to compete, why give a damn at all? What are you trying to pull?
Another admission of a lack of trust.
Ogata turns back around. He doesn’t look back.
–
Ogata finds it funny, looking at Nopperabu and Saichi Sugimoto side-by-side.
There could only ever be one of them. He gets to make sure of it.
He shoots Nopperabu first. A taunt. Purposeful. Not meant to miss; salt in the wounds. Ogata knows that Sugimoto will be aware of exactly who shot him, knows that he'll probably live up to his namesake. They've both always known that things would end this way from the start.
Asirpa won’t have the option to choose anymore. Only the option to bloom from what’s left.
She’ll be untethered. Ogata will make sure of it.
He’ll prove all of them to be killers, one way or another.
Ogata aims at Saichi Sugimoto.
He shoots.