LI B E R I FA T A L I

Chapter 1

Junshin struggled into consciousness through a drug induced haze. His entire body was restrained behind straps on a metal table that straightened his spine at an unnatural angle. A helmet encased his head, and Junshin couldn’t maneuver his head very well underneath the heavy weight. His neck was also bound, like his arms and legs and chest, from straps that attached him to the metal table and the too confining straitjacket he wore. A murmur of voices surrounded him. Junshin wanted to speak, though the only thing he could do was drool.

“Ah, he’s awake,” one of the people mentioned around him. “Someone injected too many drugs into him. We don’t want to overdose our golden goose, do we?”

“Everything is going according to plan,” another person spoke, and Junshin heard footsteps clacking on the metal floors. “His father’s research really is a wondrous thing. Such brilliance. Hiding secret knowledge inside a Psion’s brain—what better way to keep your secrets than to entrust them into someone else’s memory? Though we will eventually decode Taka Fujimoto’s research.”

One of the scientists paused, before checking on Junshin. “Fujimoto-kun? You’ve got a little drool coming from your left lip. Were you trying to say something?”

Junshin wanted to spit in the scientist’s face. He hated this undignified treatment, he hated having his freedom stripped away, and more importantly he hated being used as their personal lab rat. Or in this case, the goose that lay golden eggs. Junshin couldn’t remember anything properly—they kept him too drugged and dazed to resist and fight them; though he wanted to escape.

“He’s got the Mind of God,” one of the scientists said. “In essence, he is omniscient and has god like powers, can possibly be omnipotent as well. One day humanity will become an evolved species that surpasses the original mankind and we will become godlike as well. The secrets to enhancing humanity is through this young teenage boy.”

Junshin wanted to scoff at their notions of helping humanity. Did that mean someone who didn’t have god like powers didn’t have the right to exist anymore? What if someone hadn’t consented to having these powers? Wouldn’t technology suffice in comparison to psychic powers? Humankind achieved many kinds of things without the assistance of the Mind of God or whatever it was that was inside of him. Why have telepathy when you have cell phones? Why have telekinesis when manipulating magnetic forces was just as applicable? Junshin wanted to rant and rave against these lunatics, that he didn’t ask to have the Mind of God implanted into him.

You’re only going to bring about humanity’s destruction, Junshin thought darkly. Even superpowers didn’t solve humankind’s arrogance and need to exceed beyond boundaries. They still haven’t solved war, world hunger, or other crises such as humankind’s inclination to murder and rampage and cause wars with one another. This Mind of God was more trouble than it was worth, and Junshin would happily be rid of it. However, that didn’t mean he wanted his brain detached from his body into a chemical pickled jar to preserve it. He very much wanted to be alive and breathing and have a physical body, thank you very much.

He had been forced to endure the program this long. They were trying to brreak him so that he would be compliant to their wishes. When he disobeyed, they would injected him with all kinds of diseases and poisons to see if he could suffer through them all. They tortured him at every opportunity that they could, breaking limbs, stabbing him, choking him, and even doing unethical experiments on him because Hatoyama convinced the public that he’s working on something that will revolutionize the scientific world with his funds. Junshin supposed he was under Kazuki’s protection, which was the reason why Dr. Hatoyama got away with human experimentation.

Absolutely unforgiveable. Junshin clenched his hands into fists whenever he thought of Kazuki. IT was because of Kazuki that he ended up in this mess. Being locked up in prison for a crime he didn’t even commit. But no, no matter how he tried to present them with reason and evidence, the legal system was corrupt and swayed by Kazuki’s hand. His brother outsmarted him. Too bad that his brother didn’t put his talents to use for other reasons, like helping make the world a better place, to share knowledge and inform humanity about things that will prove their advancement and hopefully towards the betterment of society. No, Kazuki simply wanted to watch the world burn, as far as he was concerned.

Junshin was one experiment away from that mindset, actually. Fuck the world that betrayed him. Why should he strive to help save a world that turned its back on him? Nobody cared about him, only labeled him as a criminal because that’s what Kazuki wanted. And he learned the most important rule of all; eveyrone is out to betray you. Including someone that you once loved and cherished. So Junshin, when he was told that he would get out of jail if only he worked for Dr. Hatoyama, was desperate and said he would do anything to earn his freedom.

But instead he ended up captive to another person. And betrayed again.

If there is a God, he is one sadistic overseer. Or maybe it’s bad karma from a previous lifetime? Did I let someone get away with something that they shouldn’t have? Did I do something so terrible, so unredeemable that I deserve to be subjected to this kind of treatment? I don’t know. But I just don’t care anymore. The world is so senseless. The notions of justice and the notion of right are only written by the victors. So in a world where Kazuki is right because he influences the criminal underworld and manipulate powers, the losers like me will be shoved into obscurity and left to rot and crushed underneath his heel once they become disposable.

There was another voice that Junshin would hear in his dreams. Something that still gave him a glimmer of hope, even in his darkest despair. He wondered if it was God or some kind of other deity that might’ve been talking to him, though Junshin felt so powerless. He couldn’t do anything. They consistently put him under drugs so that he was barely in consciousness. They infected him with a mutated strand of the virus flu so that his head was pounding in delikrum from pain and he couldn’t think. He struggled to remember the meditations that a religoius text he read when his father gave him a book to find serenity and peace, but the ever pervading pain kept on pulsing and dragging him udnerneath the undertow. He felt like a swimmer drowning and gasping for breath in the ocean, stranded with no land somewhere in sight.

In his deliruim, he thought he heard gasps and screams of dying men. Junshin was too much in pain to hope for a rescue. Even if they did rescue him, he would just be another captive. And Kazuki would be sure to make his life a living hell if he resisted against him.

A man with slate grey eyes was saying something to him. Junshin tried to catch his words, though they remained incoherent babble to him.

“He’s delirious,” he thought he heard the man say. “Hina, you can stave off the worst of it, right?”

He heard a girl in the background ,a brunette girl with wide brown eyes that stared at Junshin with concern and worry. “Don’t woryr, I’m on it,” she said. “Curing him is top priority. He’s almost near dead. But make everyone else keep the soldiers off of me while I’m curing him.”

“Right,” the male with slate grey eyes said, before he gestured towards other people in their positions to spread out through the laboratory while Hina worked on healing him.

Junshin saw blue light emit from the girl’s hands, and suddenly his pounding headache and delirium was gone. The effects of the drug were staved off, too. He could think clearly now. More clear than he could ever before. They may have showed him an act of kindness, but they couldn’t save him from Kazuki. Or they might betray him. Unfortunately, that was the experience he was taught with Kazuki. Anyone could betray you, even your most loved ones.

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The girl started to undo the latches and restraints on Junshin, before murmuring something to Reito.

“Our mission was to retrieve him , right?”

“That was the objective,” The man said. “Can you talk, son?”

“My name is Junshin,” Junshin said, suddenly feeling foolish. What did it matter what his name was to him? He was only a mission objective, not a person, to them.

“Right,” the male said with a nod of approval towards Hina. “You’re a miracle worker, you know that? But we gotta haul ass outta here. Before reinforcements come.”

“Right,” the girl said, before she hefted Junshin upon her shoulder and started running down the corridors with the male.

The girl carried him easily over her shoulder. Junshin wondered if she had super strength or something of that nature. She easily carried all one hundred twenty pounds of him, and didn’t need any assistance from the elder male. But Junshin wondered; would they be able to escape? Could he dare hope that he would escape from the torture and experimentations that he suffered for so long?

Yet, Junshin wondered if he could completely trust these guys. They might have some motive for taking him. What if they took him back from the laboratory to put him in jail again?

“I’m not going back to jail, am I?” Junshin said.

Reito glanced at Junshin through the side. “Don’t worry, we provide leverage to souls like you. We know that you’re actually innocent.”

Junshin couldn’t yet bring himself to let out a sigh of relief. “What’re you going to do with me.”

“Talk later, we got redshirts to get rid of,” Reito said as he easily took out several guards at once. Junshin blinked. Was there a glitch in his sight? Reito seemed to have stuttered in emotion, as though a video camera didn’t get proper feedback and hiccuped. Reito seemed to have…teleported and took out three guards at once? Was it teleporting? Junshin couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

But then he supposed he witnessed first hand the girl’s abilities, he shouldn’t be surprised. These guys had super powers.

“We got Junshin,” Hina said, without sounding out of breath. “You’ll be safe with us. I promise.”

“Hey, I can walk, you know,” Junshin protested and Hina set him down.

“Listen, there’s going to be a lot of gunfire and maybe they’ll bring in psionic reinforcements,” Reito said to Junshin. “You think you can handle that?”

“No time to talk,” Hina said as a glowing energy emanated from her hands. “They’re coming!”

Just as Hina said, two soldiers came in rattling gunfire. Hina used the blue aura from her hands and deflected the bullets with her hands; and Junshin wondered how she maneuvered so quickly with her hands and managed to catch the bullets that stuttered out towards her and deflect them at certain angles away from her body. She then hurtled towards them at a breakneck speed, knocking the soldiers out with solid punches to the abdomen. The soldiers crumpled, and Junshin wondered just how strong this girl was.

Once Junshin and Hina made their way out of the room, Reito, Hina, and Junshin made their way to freedom outside of the laboratory. Junshin gasped, swallowing lungfuls of air. He craved the outside air so much; to feel the sunshine on his face. It felt absolutely sublime after being cured, and he was in a rational sense of mind to think and feel the wonerful sensations on his skin and through his pores.

“I’ll recall Rika, Shizuya, and Kanna,” Reito said. “We’re out.”

Junshin wondered how Reito would be able to do that, as he had no communication device attached to him; then suddenly realizing that they must’ve had some kind of power to communicate with them without such things. Junshin shivered. He couldn’t imagine becoming dependent on those kinds of powers. His father told him if that Junshin used his psionic powers, he would be driven mad. He wondered if you had to be a little mad to obtain psionic powers, or whether his family had a history of madness. After all, Kazuki changed when he began experimenting with his powers.

Junshin was transported in a getaway car. He wondered how Shizuya, Rika, and kanna would get out, though he did not protest this. They were just names to him, really, though some part of him was concerned that they might not make it out alive. All because of him. That would only tarnish his record even more, wouldn’t it? Why was everyone putting so much effort into saving him? Was it because of the powers that lay hidden deep inside of him?

So he was being used again? Wasn’t he? That’s all everyone wanted him for. They didn’t want him because he was an individual that merited respect and human rights. He was just a tool, of course. Junshin swallowed the angry words he wanted to say. They rescued him, didn’t they? But that also meant that he was in their debt, and he hated owing people. They probably would make him work underneath them, and what freedom would Junshin have? It seemed that everywhere Junshin turned, people compromised his freedom.

“Gotta shake them off our tail,” Reito murmured as he drove. He assumed that the other three had their own getaway car or something to get out. “I’m sure they’d hate to lose such a valuable subject.”

“So you guys want the same thing they do?” Junshin asked out of curiosity. He dared not to hope that they rescued him because the scientists subjected him to inhumane treatment and wanted Junshin for him. No, they wanted what was inside his head as well. The Mind of God.

“To be honest, we are intrigued by the power that you hold,” Reito said. At least he was up front about it rather than making sweet, honeyed promises that tasted bitter when swallowed. “But we also rescue one of our own.”

Junshin pondered on this in silence. He didn’t completely trust them yet. They must’ve felt some kindred with him, because they all had special powers. When Junshin first experimented with his powers, he thought that it gave him perfect recall. He was able to ace tests and schoolwork easily, marking him as one of the top students in the district with his grades. Junshin also read tomes upon tomes of books at once, reading in sips and swallows or in long gasps. He always had his nose in a book, and he was told that he was quite smart. He often hoarded information and books like one hoarded food or clothes or other materials. His pocket money was often spend on books; and whatever was left over was for food and clothes, basically.

“You want me to work with you guys,” Junshin said, before the girl turned toward him and tried to soothe him.

“It would be nice if we got your cooperation,” the girl said kindly. “But it’s all about your consent, Junshin-kun.”

So he had a choice after all? Or maybe she was saying that for politeness sake?

Reito pressed on.

“However, it’s recommended that we transport your to SeRAPH safely at first…and then we’ll figure out what to do with you there. You can spend some of your time observing the classrooms and students ,of course, we’re not rushing you into anything, but it will be good to train you in your powers. Because there’s a lot m ore to you abilities than what you think it is.”

“Hm?” Junshin said, cocking his head at Hina.

“All will be explained in due time,” Reito said gently. “Though youre in great danger. There are many people that are after yo ubecause of what you harbor inside. We, the ANGeLs team, promise that we’ll protect you.”

Junshin wanted to say that he didn’t need babysitters to look after him, though it would look spiteful at best and well…considering he had been captured and betrayed, he really ought to be more grateful. Though Junshin didn’t like the idea of being tied to the ANGeLS or SeRAPH or whatever. He wanted to be his own free man. Since when did his ambitions of going to a college and living a normal life had disappeared so quickly? Ever since this whole Mind of God business, people were targeting him and using him as threat. There was no way that these peoiple didn’t have some sort of agenda in their mind for him, like all the others.

“Why are people after me?” Junshin asked.

“Can’t talk right now. There are soldiers chasing after us,” Reito said as he drove sharply on the road to avoid gunfire. “These guys just don’t know when to quit.”

Reito avoided the gunfire and went into giant looping roundabout ways of leading them away from their destination. Hina then opened fire on the car pursuing them, the wheel squealing and causing the car to squeal and careen dangerously, though it kept their pursuit on their tale.

“Will SeRAPH have to pay for damages again?” Hina asked nervously, and Reito shrugged his shoulders.

“The important objective is keeping Junshin safe and outside of enemy hands,” Reito said. “As much as we’d like to avoid as muc attraction as possible, they’re forcing us to go to extreme measures. Though I think Rika and Shizuya should’ve eliminated the psychics, at least.”

“Will they get out?” Junshin wonderted aloud, and Reito grinned.

“Don’t worry,” Reito said with a smile. “They’ve been personally trained underneath me. They’re professionals.”

“I see,” Junshin said, his heart accelerating with the car as gunfire rattled towards them and shot at the windows.

“Don’t worry about the driving,” Reito said, “We’re professionals. And naturally, we’re the good guys. So you’ve got nothing to fear.”

Junshin wasn’t so sure. But for now…what choice did he have? He hoped that the ANGeLS would be his savior and get him out of the mess that he was entrenched in.