Chapter Text
October 31, 2018
The bitter satisfaction Hiromi felt slamming his gavel into the judge and prosecutor’s heads began to fade alongside the adrenaline. Killing them had felt better than he had expected it to. The mania that fueled his impulsive urges had finally started to sink itself in the familiar pool of apathy. His thoughts were both too loud and too quiet, spiralling themselves into tightly tangled webs that eventually wound themselves tight into knots.
Hiromi comes back to his body in phases. The profound detachment he had felt while slaughtering the court officials had left him floating faintly while he watched himself move without his input, slamming the gavel over and over again.
His senses were overloaded even through the profound silence of the courtroom. The screams had long ended– the only sounds being his heaving breaths and the steady dripping of blood. His ears were ringing. Every droplet added to the puddle beneath him felt loud like a gunshot.
Higuruma, standing in the middle of the room, turned to look down at the two bodies of the judge and prosecutor. His breath hitches.
Gore-covered corpses and lifeless eyes, once blind to injustice, now unseeing completely. Blood from their gavel beaten skulls splattered violently where their bodies had hit the floor. Terror was still readable in their expressions.
His own personal crime scene.
Two victims. Homicide. Bludgeoned to death with a gavel.
The murder weapon had an inexplicable heaviness to it unrelated to its physical weight. His grip on it, white knuckled and desperate, had become almost an extension of himself as he brought down the judge and prosecutor’s verdicts. The weight of it in his hand barely registered, his visceral wielding guided only by sudden instinct. Every movement had felt ingrained in his soul, every slam carried out like a long buried reflex. This was his new purpose, justice bloody on his hands.
He didn’t know how long he stood there. The puddle of blood beneath him had grown steadily until it was close to getting on his leather shoes.
He was a murderer now. Hiromi had built his world on categories, on inputting information and carrying out the correct outputs. Everything had its place– the books on the shelves, the arrangement of the court, the sunflower pin straight on his left lapel. He had his role– a public defense attorney to present the truth and only the truth. The prosecution and judge had their roles as well– churning through cases with the sole responsibility of carrying out predetermined guilty verdicts. That was how it was supposed to go.
The script had played out exactly as written. It didn’t matter if there was another potential suspect. It didn’t matter if there was definite proof of his client’s innocence. They were always going to appeal. The verdict had been determined before he even stepped foot in that forsaken courtroom.
Why couldn’t he accept it? He had been in public defense for over ten years, taking on impossible cases and watching them lead nowhere. The routine was ingrained into him. His emotions had begun to suppress themselves before a trial even began, the hurt of losing a case and his client’s inevitable blame pushed onto his shoulders tucking itself away deep in his mind. Eventually, he started leaving himself behind outside the courthouse before the charges were even presented.
Something about this case had been different. Not in any obvious way– Hiromi had handled plenty of cases just like Oe’s before. The difference was in Hiromi. His restrained manner and professional indifference had been key pillars of his person. The pillars had cracked with the pressure of his endless list of failures, and only now came tumbling down.
Hiromi remembers being a lawyer under Takagi-san’s firm. He was in charge of a case of injury due to reckless driving, the client an unfortunate case of peer pressure. He remembers the quiet despair Hiromi had hidden away in a bid of professionalism as the witnesses corroborated their stories on the stand, walking away from the case without even garnering his client a suspended sentence. Hiromi hadn’t learned yet to completely separate himself from his cases yet like he could now. It felt like his own, personal failure to right the obvious wrong, and it weighed on him visibly.
He remembers the visit to his client afterwards. He was 19, Hiromi only around 4 years older. Hiromi was still a beginner, then– it was one of his earlier cases before he made the shift towards more punishing crimes. He had been careful not to promise anything during his prior meetings, and thought he had done an adequate job. But still, he had forgotten not to promise himself a win. No matter how he argued, no matter how good of a lawyer he may be– it was impossible to even gather enough money for a settlement.
Watching his client throw himself against the glass, spitting angrily enough to land white foam on the surface, Hiromi couldn’t help but feel it was deserved. His client had put his hopes in him, and he had failed. His anger had been volatile and almost frightening in its tenacity as the officers led him away, but Hiromi had kept his face decidedly blank. He couldn’t let it get to him, especially not that early in his career. Takagi-san had approached him afterwards, eyeing his carefully empty expression with visible concern. He had brushed her aside.
It had been over ten years since then. Over time his blank mask had stopped being a mask altogether. Every new failure had him sinking deeper into the pool of detachment, the descent speeding up with every emotion trying to reach him. It was what kept him sane– separating himself from his work so thoroughly that nothing could hurt him.
The vigilant walls held steadfast against his soul came undone under Oe’s disappointed stare. Every bit of restraint honed across his entire career faltered. More emotions ran through him than Hiromi had felt in almost a decade. His brain couldn’t process it, any and every thought in his head pausing with the overwhelming feelings shooting through him like bullets.
The trial went off-script He demanded a retrial, banging his gavel again and again and again on the sound block like he could physically act out the boiling resentment that festered in him over years and years. He stepped into a new role. He enacted his own, personal justice, and forced the script to adapt.
He was a murderer, now. A criminal. The blood splattered sunflower pin on his lapel twinkled in the bright lighting of the courtroom.
Hiromi had a sudden urge to lay himself down on the bloodied courtroom floor. Judge, Prosecution, Defense. All dead at the scene where convictions reign over compassion– where injustice has sewn itself so deep into the system that outcomes are determined before it even starts. All under Lady Justice’s blindfold.
Hiromi vaguely wondered if she saw him now, resisting the temptation to lie in the steadily growing pool of blood until he died alongside his dead. It would be so easy.
Higuruma Hiromi wasn’t known for doing things the easy way. Even if it killed him.
It took every drop of resolve left in him to turn himself away from the crime scene, and take heavy steps towards the exit. The atrium had long since emptied while Hiromi had been detachedly processing the blood on his hands.
The script had played out, and now it was only Hiromi and the haunting emptiness of the courthouse. He took slow steps to the front exit, each footfall taking more effort than usual. The statue of Lady Justice stared at him through her blindfold as he walked through the entrance hall. Her gaze burned through his back like a brand.
Let her watch, Hiromi thinks. Let her see, let her blind eyes look at how far he had fallen. The shadow of her behind him lingered until he had walked the emptied streets far enough that the building was no longer visible. Then, the only shadow left was his own and the inexplicable one that had physically formed from his rage. Hiromi didn’t let himself think about it.
The gavel was still in his hand. Most of the blood had dried, but still he heard phantom drips as he trudged down the sidewalk. His ears were still ringing through the echoed bangs of a gavel cracking skulls.
People he encountered on the strangely empty path back to his apartment were all glued to their phones, barely noticing him passing– even covered in blood like he was. Hiromi wasn’t surprised– humans often turned a blind eye to make things easier. Only now, the blind eye was to him. He almost wished they had looked at him.
Looking at the street ahead, Hiromi noticed more civilians visibly in a rush to get indoors. They weren’t running from him, specifically– most were staring at their phones too hard to notice him. Whatever was on the screen had obviously created the panic. Distantly, Hiromi recalled an incident that sprung similar panic.
Last year there had been a terrorist attack on Christmas Eve that had devastated parts of Shinjuku and Iwate. He barely remembered it, having missed most of it while working in his office. It had been Shimizu, working overtime during the holiday, who had told him it was even happening, panicked while shoving her phone at him. He didn’t often look at the news– too many times watching the public rage at him and his cases had turned him off from checking it of his own will.
Faint curiosity surfacing, Hiromi listened to a rushed conversation from some miscellaneous pedestrians, the words ‘Shibuya’ and ‘magic’ repeated in a tone laced in awe and horror. Also not too dissimilar to last year’s Christmas terrorism, he noted. The public had marvelled at the impossibility of some of that footage for months afterwards, citing ‘magic’ as the only possible explanation. Hiromi didn’t really care, then. The terrorist leading the attack had been confirmed killed, and the area around his part of Iwate was mostly unaffected. He only slightly recalls being annoyed by all the notifications and turning his phone on a seemingly permanent ‘Do Not Disturb.’
It was only then that he remembered his phone in his suit jacket. His hands still bloodied, he put his gavel down on the sidewalk to fish out the device. The gavel suddenly disappeared once he laid it down, the only evidence it was there being a faint spot of blood where it had touched the ground and a faint leftover energy in the air. Well, there were stranger things. Maybe it was for the best that the murder weapon disappeared. Hiromi didn’t let the observation linger too long.
He powered on and unlocked his phone with bloody fingers and watched as notifications flooded his inbox. Texts from Shimizu dated days back. Reminders set up to remember to eat left ignored. And then, finally, a new notification.
CIVIL PROTECTION WARNING: EVACUATE THE SHIBUYA AREA. STAY INSIDE.
Shibuya, huh? How bad was this disaster that they were being advised to stay inside even all the way in Iwate? He opened his news app.
Presumably live footage from Shibuya was playing out, a news commenter off the the side yelling questions out to the camera man who could only give panicked responses.
Shibuya looked wrecked. Screaming could be heard through the microphone even with no one in frame. The camera zoomed in on a point in the sky.
Hiromi squinted. Was that… a person? He could see why the pedestrians had mentioned ‘magic’ before. A devastating quake shook the ground, visibly destroying more buildings and creating huge clouds of smoke from a growing fire.
The news commenter looked shocked as well, asking the camera man desperately what was going on. No answer. The commenter went silent, the camera feed suddenly replaced with harsh static.
Looking up from his phone, Hiromi saw the streets were now completely empty, and loud booming could be heard through the ringing in his ears. It was a different kind of ringing now, no longer echoes of blood dripping but a loud distant drumming accompanied by a heavy dread. He stood in the middle of the street, and thought:
It seems the world is ending after all.
The thought was strangely comforting. After all, his life had ended today, too.
~
Hiromi reached his apartment eventually, his legs aching from the long walk. Normally he took the train or the bus home, but all the stations he could find were flooded with people evacuating with trains stopped on the tracks. He was still covered in blood.
The emergency alarm from his phone blared indignantly, screaming at him to get inside. Observing his surroundings saw no visible danger– most of it was in Shibuya, after all– but still, Hiromi complied and entered his small apartment.
He shut off his phone and sighed at the sudden silence without the harsh ringing of the alert. Everything was so hectic and overwhelming, and Hiromi just wanted it all to stop. If only the world would stop spinning, everything would stop moving, clocks would stop their incessant ticking. If only he could finally rest.
Out of habit more than anything, Hiromi toed out of his shoes and shrugged off his bloody blazer while tugging at his tie. Now clad in only his blood stained shirt and dress pants, he dumped himself unceremoniously on his dingy sofa. Tilting his head back to stare at the water-stained ceiling, Hiromi’s spiralling, knotted thoughts went decidedly blank once more. The only thing running through his mind was the lousy state of his apartment, and the sweat clinging uncomfortably to the back of his shirt.
The police would come and investigate here eventually, he knew. Maybe he should clean it up a bit for their convenience. If it weren’t for the apparent disaster happening in Shibuya, he’s sure he would have been arrested before even stepping foot outside the courthouse.
He looked around his apartment with a sigh. Beer cans were scattered across the kitchen counter, left over from the weeks leading up to his 36th birthday in a bid of mild misery that felt inconsequential now. Takeout containers were almost overflowing the trash– he was careful to stack them in a way so he could still fit it all in the waste bin without it tipping over. The bookshelves were the neatest part of the apartment– books neatly alphabetically ordered and covered in a thin layer of dust from being left untouched for years.
The walls were void of pictures and decoration like the many other apartments he had seen. Even Oe’s sad, overpriced, dingy apartment had more personality to it than his. Hiromi didn’t like to spend much time here, surrounded by the loneliness that drenched every inch of the space. Most nights he spent in the office, only coming home to pass out on his futon without even turning the lights on. In the mornings he’d take a cold shower because he couldn’t be bothered to wait for the water to warm up. There was no point to it anyway, and he had work to do.
Not anymore. Work had decidedly been postponed for the foreseeable future– if not for his becoming a murder then the disaster in Shibuya that surely had the government running around like chickens with their heads cut off.
A shower sounded nice now, if not for the ache in his legs felt pointedly while sitting on the sofa. His thoughts blessedly empty, Hiromi reached for the TV– a small flatscreen given as a gift from a client– remote and flicked through the channels mindlessly. Eventually he landed on some news channel or other, and let the droning on of the commenters filter through his brain, words heard and not processed. They were still talking about whatever the hell was happening in Shibuya.
Hiromi couldn’t find it in himself to give a damn. He slumped further on the sofa until he was leaning his whole weight on the arm somewhat comfortably. His head cradled itself in his arms, the call of sleep– a call always heard faintly in the background– grew more and more tempting. Hiromi closed his eyes, the sounds of disaster coming through the TV serving as white noise.
Still, he couldn’t fall asleep. He had consistently had a headache every day since he turned 30, but now it had fully transitioned into a migraine with all of the pounding that hadn’t ceased since he had marched its beginning like a conductor, slamming his gavel on time with the throbs in his head.
He should have given in to his urges back at the courthouse. At least then, when he gave up the will to live, it would be somewhat poetic with the judge and prosecutor rotting alongside him.
Nevertheless, Hiromi lifted himself off the couch with considerable effort and walked to his dingy bathroom. The small shower in the corner called to him for reasons he couldn’t articulate. Not that he would articulate them. Most days he used the shower quickly enough that the water didn’t have the chance to heat up.
Hiromi wanted to boil himself in it. Prepare himself for hell with bad water pressure.
Maybe later.
He turned to his reflection in the mirror. His face and shirt were still splattered with dried blood, and his hands were covered in enough that he could see the gap where he gripped the gavel.
He twisted the knob for his unreliable hot water and watched the faucet sputter a bit before turning on. Putting his hands under the stream saw the water nearing the drain turn a rusty orange. He could see the blood visibly flaking off and going down the drain. The stubborn dried bits in the creases in his hands gave in under a bit of scrubbing. He didn’t bother using the cheap hand soap by the faucet.
Even though there was no longer any visibly on his forearms, Hiromi knew the feeling of blood on his hands would never fully go away. He had heard something akin to this on many a story of guilt and crime, but now he fully understood the notion. He cupped some water and splashed it on his blood splattered face.
He stared at his mirror image as he washed off the blood, the familiar routine from many early mornings now tainted with dried blood. He met his own eyes. They looked deader than they ever had. He had watched himself lose the spark in his eyes as he grew older, but now the difference was hauntingly apparent. His cheeks had hollowed, the dark bags under his eyes deep enough to carry things in.
He looked as good as dead.
He ignored the extra shadow in the reflection– he had done an apt job of disregarding it so far, but now, standing in his cramped apartment bathroom, its appearance at his back felt dizzyingly apparent. He didn’t know if it was anxiety or curiosity that led him to take a quick glance at the floating shadow behind him, but either way, his eyes ended up lingering further than he intended.
He stopped breathing. In the courthouse, its presence had felt large and menacing and at his command, but now that he was looking directly at it, he wondered if it were not the one commanding him.
It had a face like a mask in the middle of its huge, bloated form– the eyes stitched shut symbolically (he assumed) that seemed to stare at him in quiet disdainful judgement.
”Judgeman.”
He didn’t know how he knew it was the creature’s name, but saying it aloud felt correct. The Judgeman’s stare hadn’t ceased, only seeming to focus on him further. Before, he had thought it to be a figment of his imagination– a sleep deprived manifestation of his fall from grace. Looking at it now, in the dim light of his apartment bathroom, he sensed it was more than a that.
He felt its energy radiating at his back, something so undeniable about it he couldn’t dismiss it as his own madness anymore. Of course, this acceptance only seemed to further the other part of his mind’s observation of his depleting sanity. But even so, Hiromi felt in his bones that if he reached out his hand would meet flesh– or whatever it was that made up the floating mass behind him.
He didn’t, his hands too busy gripping the sink hard enough he could feel the porcelain start to crack under his fingers.
”I carried out their sentences, Judgeman.” He mumbled to both himself and the creature behind him.
Hiromi looked in the stitched shut eyes of his personal judgement.
“What’s my verdict?” He asked, calmly.
Judgeman didn’t reply. It didn’t need to. Hiromi already knew his verdict.
Guilty. Life Sentence.
All he needed to do was wait for its arrival.
----