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Leviathan. The City Killer. The monster that drowned Kyushu and Newfoundland. An abomination that continues to haunt Wakako Okada in her dreams and, apparently, wherever she happens to end up. Having survived a second Endbringer attack from Leviathan ought to make anyone consider themselves either blessed or terribly cursed. Most wouldn’t dare test their luck after the first time and move somewhere inland. But Wakako was an old woman, stuck in her ways and stubborn enough to give death itself a scolding. No matter what happened, she would not part with the sea, the salt-touched air seemingly the only constant in her long life. Growing up in Nagasaki on the island of Kyushu, Wakako’s first love had been the endless blues of the ocean horizon, decorated with the ships, boats, and skiffs that would dock on the busy port of the pier. Her father would take her out into the endless expanse on his fishing boat, waves rocking her to and fro as they pulled in fishing nets full of sea life with weary, gloved hands. When the sun wasn’t baking her skin into a tanned shade it was sparkling off the shiny scales of the freshly caught and shimmying fish she would sort through before collaring them and bleeding them out. Truly, the only blemish she could remember from those days was the occasional smell of blood and sweat that would mix with the ocean’s scent when her father stopped the boat and the winds were still.
But now? Here, in Brockton Bay? Those brief moments were at the forefront of her mind as the tainted stench of rusting metal and growing mold defiled the seaside air, hanging in the damp and ruined streets. The sidewalk was littered with debris and puddles; chunks of brick and concrete spilling out of the demolished walls of damaged buildings with their interiors open and exposed to the world. Empty office spaces were filled with the dim red light of the rising dawn over the horizon. Cracks and craters in the street remained filled with water as bits of plaster and insulation foam floated in the puddles like tiny dinghies.
Dressed in a recently dusted-off, plain black ankle-length funeral kimono, Wakako stepped off the sidewalk onto the street to avoid a pile up of overturned, quickly-rusting cars. Her weary face crinkled in contemplation; crow’s feet deepening as her eyes slightly narrowed while looking at the pile, idly wondering if it had been used as a barricade of sorts during the fight with the Endbringer. Bits and shards of glass shattered under her soaked and ruined shoes as she walked further into the dead and quiet street, the sea breeze flowing across her tied up gray hair and bringing gentle comfort to her heart as she continued to take in the hauntingly familiar sight of another ruined and flooded cityscape.
Quietly following her off the sidewalk was her son, a fine middle-aged man dressed in a formal black suit and tie obtained from the dark and partly flooded closet of their house, the fallen power lines having presented a slight obstacle. His eyes blinked wearily from the light of the red dawn sky, still tired from receiving subpar sleep on the floor of the Endbringer shelter, having given up his space to another family as befits the gentleman Wakako raised him to be. His wife next to him placed a gentle supportive hand on his shoulder as he yawned, herself dressed in a modest black dress. In her hand was a small plastic bag with some fruit and candles; offerings for the dead.
The two of them understood the weight of why the matriarch of their family had insisted they wake up before dawn and head out onto the streets so soon after the memorial to the fallen had been erected. It had been only 12 years since the accursed beast had taken away everything. Their home. Their friends. Their country. Their pride. Left with only each other, they left behind the sundered land of the rising sun and the heroes that sacrificed everything in its defense. It was only right to honor them in some way. The gesture might not mean much coming from a small family, but it was something, which is more than nothing. And they knew that nothing was a terrible thing to have. In solemn silence, they made their way across the damaged and cluttered streets.
The same could not be said for the youngest member of their family.
“Geez, what a fucking mess…”
Wakako’s face turned stern with her lips tightening to thin lines as she raised her chin to look down at her young granddaughter Han in disapproval at her foul language. Despite having accompanied her family to their house, Han had chosen to forgo wearing the perfectly acceptable dress Wakako knew her mother had previously bought for her, choosing instead to wear a dull gray hoodie over some jeans that Wakako had been informed had been ripped before they were bought. Honestly, the things kids wear these days…
At least she isn’t wearing her red and green outfit. Better a beggar than a depressed Christmas elf.
Han approached the pile of cars and kicked out, her dirty sneaker striking the underside of an overturned truck. The creaking of the truck’s rusted undercarriage cut an unpleasant whine through the quiet early morning calm.
Wakako’s son sighed, “Han…”
A short reprimand like that wasn’t nearly enough. Han was far too hard-headed and stubborn for her attitude to be fixed with some weak disappointment. A harsher hand was sorely needed. She understood wanting to cherish their only daughter, but Wakako still thought her son and daughter-in-law were entirely too soft on the girl. Sparing the rod only allows arrogance and selfishness to take root. Weeds that fester and despoil a precious little girl’s mind into thinking that it was permissible to disrespect her parents.
But perhaps she was being too harsh in turn. The girl was only a baby when the Leviathan struck Nagasaki. Her childhood consisted of seeing her parents struggling to get their feet on solid ground in a country they did not even speak the language of at the time. Han had largely gone through most of her life’s struggles alone, unable to truly rely on her parents’ guidance in regards to how to act around people and in school. Things were so very different here, and Wakako herself was still having trouble adapting to the culture Han grew up alone in. Was it really any wonder why Han would develop such a strong sense of independence?
Was it really that much of a surprise that a teenager with a lonely, troubled upbringing like her’s, on the verge of becoming an adult, would seek companionship from a gang of misfits like the ABB?
Han shuffled past her parents and Wakako, the lazy dragging of her shoes scraping along the ground. Shards of windshield glass crinkled underfoot, sparkling green in the light of the dawning sun. Han kicked out, her hair in a ponytail flicking with the movement. A shower of glass and bits of asphalt were sent flying into the various puddles in the street, splashing like a sudden rainfall.
“I still don’t get why the fuck we couldn’t wait at least another fucking hour or something. It’s too fucking early to be up.”
“If it's too early to be up, then it’s too early for your whining. Hush yourself and mind your language. You talk like a child overly eager to use their favorite word.”
Han visibly bristled at Wakako’s stern rebuke. Being compared to a child wasn’t going to make her granddaughter warm up to her anytime soon, but the girl needs some serious course correction in her life soon before she ends up dead in some alley.
But she almost already has, hasn’t she? Wakako thought to herself, her keen eyes looking at the back of Han’s head as she walked ahead of the rest of her family. The end of a pale, vertical scar could be seen on the back of Han’s neck as her ponytail swayed side to side, starting thin as though drawn with a sharpened pencil where the hair on the back of her head ended before widening a bit like a painter's brush stroke.
Even after the ABB fell apart following the arrest of the Lung and his petulant terrorist bomber, the literal and metaphorical scars of their rampage remained. Without Lung to hold them together, the remnants of the ABB split apart into smaller groups, none of which were worth remembering. Any “entrepreneurs” looking for some hoodlums to do business with stayed clear of the Asian gangs, worried of getting caught up in another maniac’s ego trip. Without any benefactors, these gangs were nothing more than groups of friends whose combined intellect rivaled that of an illiterate feral child. They couldn’t even be relied upon to protect their own kin, undisciplined cowards that they are. The various Asian communities were left on their own to deal with the lingering animosity after Bakuda’s horrendously foolish temper tantrum. Even despite being a respectable elder, Wakako would still catch people glancing at her as though she were a suicide bomber. Honestly, that whole catastrophe left them in a worse state than if the ABB never existed in the first place.
Wakako and the rest of her appropriately-dressed family followed after Han, heading east toward the bay. The sun was finally rising over the horizon proper now, blinding them as the red sky shifted toward a heavenly orange after the break of dawn. A breeze of fresh ocean air kissed the wrinkles on Wakako’s face, providing a brief reprieve from the depressing weight of the ruined cityscape. Aside from the occasional car or crater, the streets were mostly empty, likely from the Endbringer’s various tidal waves having washed everything further inland. Passing through a crosswalk, Wakako turned her head to look down the perpendicular street and saw far more debris piling the road, probably having been smashed together by the diverting currents from the westward surge.
Reaching the bay proper now, Wakako and her family could see the tip of the Endbringer monument piercing the sight of the Atlantic Ocean. A four-sided pillar of black marble, jutting tall and wide like a miniature version of the Washington monument in DC. Placed in the center of a concrete dais, it cast a long shadow under the light of the early morning sun, presenting a path of sorts for visitors to walk in as they approached the obelisk. Contrasting with the blackness of the marble were glints of light on the faces of the monument; etches in the marble that revealed the stainless steel core within. The engravings were done in the shape of letters, shining with the names of the capes that perished during the Endbringer fight. Some of the names were accompanied with an additional name; the name of the individual beneath the mask; the name of a person who gave themselves unto death rather than allow the world to surrender to despair.
Approaching the monument, Wakako’s ears began to pick up an odd sound amidst the gentle breeze and soft tumbling of waves. It sounded like someone was repeatedly dragging a metal pipe along the ground. The scraping and grinding of stone grew louder the closer they got to the obelisk. And was that… panting? Like a dog?
As the base of the pillar came into view, it became apparent that Wakako’s family was not the first to visit the monument that day. A younger person, possibly a teenager, knelt at the base of one of the obelisk’s faces with a dog laying down beside them. It was a small thing, a terrier that seemed to lack any fur at all with its light, chestnut brown skin soaking in the sunlight just beyond the shadow of the monument. Covering the left side of its head was a plastic mask of a dog, the type of mask one would find in a cheap, knock-off Halloween store. The hairless terrier didn’t move upon noticing Wakako’s family, but she could see the dog’s only visible eye turn toward them as they came to a stop.
Shifting her sharp gaze to the person accompanying the dog, Wakako was greeted to a sad sight. It was a young girl, somewhat around Han’s age, with light brown hair cut short like a boy’s and dressed in dirty street clothes. Unlike Han’s, however, this girl’s clothes looked well-worn as though the rips came from actual use rather than some silly style. In her hands was a bent piece of rebar, probably obtained from somewhere in the nearby rubble. Her exposed arms trembled with exertion as she used the rebar to grind against the monument. Her skin looked tanned and dried, reminding Wakako of her own childhood working under the hot sun. And her face…
In her mouth was a flashlight, held by her teeth to point at the monument where her hands worked, the light having been turned off or perhaps the battery within it died. Drool dribbled down the corners of her open mouth as she breathed heavily. Whether she was panting from the effort she was putting in to defacing the obelisk or from holding back the sobs in her throat was unclear. White salt lines from long dried tears ran down her face, connecting with the trails of drool. Her eyebrows were furrowed in what could either be intense rage or pain, with her upper lip and nose scrunched together like a dog baring their teeth.
So preoccupied with whatever it was that she was doing that the strange girl didn’t even seem to be aware of Wakako’s family approaching her. With indignation and a harsh rebuke rising within her, Wakako prepared to give the brat her very worse when Han hissed through her teeth as she tensed up beside Wakako.
“Shit, I recognize her from the wanted posters, that’s Bitch of the Undersiders.”
Ignoring her foul tongue for now, Wakako took Han’s words to mean that the brat was a parahuman, and a particularly dangerous one at that, if there were posters of her unmasked face hung where Han of all people would actually pay attention to. A feeling of trepidation slowly began to weigh on Wakako, fearing for her family’s safety despite the truce still being in effect. It certainly didn’t help matters that Wakako could see Han pulling her hands from her hoodie, the glint of a knife blade peeking out from the confines of her front pocket.
Looking back at the now identified Bitch, it was clear that the villain had no intentions of fighting. The little terrier with the mask hanging on its face had raised its head at Han’s words yet remained still, alert but unbothered. It was well within view of the young parahuman but she seemed to take no notice of its interest in them. The girl’s guard was completely down, with no thought given to her surroundings other than her self-appointed task.
On the monument itself, Wakako peered at what exactly the criminal had been doing. The black marble had been scratched and gouged to the point that more of the inner stainless steel had been exposed. Crude lines marred the surface, like the kind of grooves seen on bus and train windows made by some punk with a knife. All straight lines with multiple passes to make the ugly vandalism stick out, forming the rough impression of words.
KOOROW BULLIT
MILK STUMPY
BROOTUS JOODUS
AXIL GIl
Terrible misspelling aside, there clearly some sort of meaningful intent behind the girl’s additions to the monument. It must have taken her hours to graffiti those words, arriving in the late evening or the dead of night and yet she was still here, working on the eighth name. And they surely must be names, for the words were too strange and unrelated to one another to form any kind of message or identifiable tag often left by other “street artists.” Each name was aligned horizontally in a presentable manner, not scrawled at a tilt like comments in a notebook, and spaced apart in a way that took some thought beforehand in order to avoid running out of room for the letters. Most likely, these were the names of capes, other brave defenders whose sacrifices were missed in the chaos. After all, capes aren’t averse to using lousy names, their city’s own Clockblocker being an example.
“Okaa-san…”
Wakako turned to her family, her son and daughter-in-law staring at the criminal with wary gazes. Her son had stepped in front of his wife, his hand reaching into his suit jacket for his gun. Civilians they may be, they were still residents of Brockton Bay and liable to be mistaken for or fit the description of any number of people who have earned the ire of dangerous people.
Regarding the strange cape one last time, Wakako pondered on the names she was adding to the monument. They certainly weren’t capes from Brockton Bay, perhaps she knew them from somewhere prior? Or maybe she was like them, trying to honor the fallen and ensure their sacrifice was remembered by someone. Criminals don’t wake up early to do crime, and the girl had been here for so long. There was no need to disturb her at this moment.
Wakako placed a gentle hand on her son’s arm, the one reaching for his gun.
“No, not here and not now. We will come back another time.”
“Okaa-san, we can’t just let her get away with this. Not after they fought Leviathan .”
Had things been a little different, her son’s heart might have been in the right place. But his tired eyes failed to see what exactly the girl was up to. And even if the girl was willing to share the somber space, Wakako knew there would be no consolidation in hearing strangers praising one’s loved ones for being dead. Han, at least, seemed indifferent at coming all this way only to turn back. Or maybe she was relieved to avoid a potential fight with a cape.
Turning to lead her family away from the monument, Wakako spoke.
“The dead will still be dead tomorrow, along with a few additional names to remember. Come, let’s go back to the shelter and get some rest. Perhaps tomorrow you can get your daughter to wear something more appropriate for the occasion.”