I went to prison, unsurprisingly. It was incredibly easy to prove that I broke into Yaro’s skyscraper, since the mercenaries and security guards served as eyewitnesses, and the security cameras came back online some time after Keshi’s crew had to bail out. I had no idea if Keshi, Sil, Needle, and the rescued people made it out without getting caught. I had no clue what had happened to Noah.

After I was arrested, I was moved to a small holding cell inside Yaro’s skyscraper, and then transferred to a jail at a nearby police station a couple hours later. I spent a few days there until my trial, where I was provided a criminal lawyer and was quickly found guilty. After that I was sent to a prison. I wasn’t exactly sure where, but it was still on the capital planet. Everything I had, including the wiresuit that Yori made for me, was taken away, and I was thrown behind bars.

At first, I looked for avenues of escape. Maybe I could scale the fences that surrounded the prison yard. Maybe I could steal a key and a uniform from an unsuspecting security guard. But it soon became obvious that everything was futile. All exit points were monitored 24/7, and I was given the bare minimum to rot away in my cell. I was only allowed out to eat and exercise. I couldn’t even make a call outside of the prison. It was a little excessive, especially since my only actual crime was intruding upon Yaro’s private domicile. I didn’t even kill anyone! The worst I did was maim a couple people. But Bubbles had gotten pretty close to killing Yaro, so there was no doubt she pulled some strings to put me in a higher security prison. Or maybe I was just paranoid, and this was how most prisons were run.

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Being in prison gave me the slow paced daily life that I had started to wish for. But it was in all the wrong ways. I had no Yori to joke around and hang out with. There was no Noah to poke fun of. And there certainly wasn’t any good food. This place was devoid of any entertainment and pleasure. I avoided talking to any other prisoners as much as I could. They were criminals, after all. But that was hypocritical, considering how I was a mercenary. My job directly involved killing people, but in a barely legal way. I was just a paid criminal at that point.

Every day I ate, worked out, and slept. The days started to blur together, and I lost track of how much time had passed. I’d been sentenced to a dozen or so years in prison anyways, so I thought it was futile to try and keep track of the date. A dozen years was a long time, even if Togumo lifespans were pretty long.

Almost every day I thought about how I wasn’t able to return Noah to his home planet. I hadn’t even gotten close. After all of this hassle, I still didn’t know where Earth was. On top of that, by making him work as a mercenary, I turned an innocent person into a killer. And I let him be ensnared by my father, who was no doubt coaxing even more of Noah’s ruthless side out of him. I’d failed completely.

I spent a lot of time in my cell, thinking. My cell was depressing and cramped, as most cells were. Surrounded on three sides by cold, gray steel, with a single port where light was permitted to shine in. The firm bars facing the hallway separated me from the security guards and other prisoners walking by. The cell had one tiny uncomfortable cot, made too small to fit Togumo. My legs hung off of it when I tried to lay in it, and I had to squish my back arms uncomfortably against my backside to try and fit. And of course, the cell had the shitty steel toilet that made no attempt to hide what it was–the bare minimum. In short, the living conditions were not ideal. Obviously.

I was going to be stuck here for a while.