Yuki clenched his fists together, feeling his nails digging into the skin. “To hell with your world!” It was no place for him to be any longer. He thought it would be different, but it was the same. Everything changed too much and became dark.

What few people that could stand in Hiroshi’s group moved to block Yuki’s path out. He couldn’t allow him to leave, the risk was too great. It was a mistake he granted due to misplaced sentiment. No more could be made. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“To pay my respects to a friend I lost.” Yuki glared over at Hiroshi, almost taunting him. He knew the situation just as well as Hiroshi. Yet the guards remained in his way. “Do you really think you can stop me?”

“You wouldn’t fight your way out of here.”

“I don’t need to fight. You’ll let me walk.”

The confidence that permeated from Yuki unnerved Hiroshi. He knew what Yuki was capable of doing better than any of the others in his group. They would do whatever he told them. They would charge in against Yuki, someone that they would all easily underestimate. ‘That power of his…I don’t know if it is on or off right now. I don’t know if he already has plans in motion. Seems we’ve both changed…’ Hiroshi didn’t know what to make of the look he was getting from Yuki. He acted with naivety, yet had a ruthlessness that went completely contrary to him. It was an unsettling paradox, and not one he felt was worth stirring at the moment.

Flicking his fingers signaled the guards to drop, though they had some doubts about the orders. “Yuki. Stop clinging to the past. Your friend is dead and he’s not coming back.”

Yuki stared with melancholy burned into his eyes. “I’m starting to see that.”

Chapter 314 – Crawling at the Darkness

As he walked out of the room, Phoibe stopped him. “Planning on abandoning them? Abandoning your home?”

“I came back because I won’t,” he shot back to someone that felt more like an interloper than someone that actually understood things. She might have lived in the city for a while, but this was where he was born. It wasn’t something he would ignore.

“So what do you plan to do? You can’t fight Takako alone as you are.”

“They don’t worry me.”

“Already becoming arrogant in your superiority? The Atlantean blood in you is stronger than you thought.”

He slipped out of her grip and kept walking away. “It’s not arrogance or superiority, just simple facts. I gave them their powers and I can take them away.” Yuki walked through the threshold letting the door close.

Phoibe stared at the door that hid Yuki. “It is our greatest mistake thinking that we’re gods.”

Seiji popped out of the room to chase after Yuki. He lost his interest in trying to convince a bunch of dark and depressed people of their mistakes. His friend was all that really mattered. “Where’d Yuki go?” he asked Phoibe, as he searched out quickly.

“Your friend went to brood.”

“Huh?”

“He stepped out. He’s probably not very far right now, but wait too long and he’ll likely do something foolish.”

Not completely following her meaning, he understood enough that he needed to find Yuki. In his mind, there was nothing wrong with doing anything foolish. Her tone made it seem like it was a problem. Seiji was more than up for something foolish.

Outside, he didn’t immediately find Yuki. So he leapt up to the highest building in the block to start scouting things out. Finding him was actually easier than he expected. Yuki was on the same rooftop that he jumped on. “Yuki?!” His landing put him dangerously close to actually flattening him. It staggered his steps nearly making him fall backwards.

Taking a few moments to balance himself, Seiji recovered and walked over to sit down next to him. He recognized the look in his eyes. It was the same one that he had back at his shrine. “What are you doing, Yuki? I thought we already decided we were going to stop all of this. Why are you hesitating now?”

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“It’s not that, Seiji. I’m going to stop it, this is a problem I caused and I’ll put an end to it.”

“That Takako girl caused it, not you.” He didn’t really see why Yuki blamed himself for something that strangers did. The whole thing even started while they were away. So he did nothing.

“That may be true, but I’m the one that gave her powers. If I hadn’t given her powers none of this would have happened.”

“You can’t blame yourself for something like that.”

“Why not? This whole thing is my fault! The people suffering in our home are suffering because of my mistakes! My power caused this!”

Seiji threw out a quick punch at Yuki with as much control as possible. Even though it didn’t kill him, it still sent him tumbling away. It wasn’t an easy thing to hold back. “People are suffering, in pain and dying all over the world and you think that’s your fault as well?”

“Huh?” Pain still pulsed deeply in his cheek from the punch that Yuki was a little distracted. He had to right himself first. “What’s that got to do with me? I didn’t do anything.”

“But you could, right? With your powers you could go around everywhere putting an end to everything. Right?”

“I guess so…”

“But you’re not. People are dying because you did nothing. Is that your fault?”

“It’s not the same thing!” With the pain calming, Yuki started to see where Seiji was going with his direction. He was just trying to find an excuse for him. Yuki couldn’t accept it.

“It’s not? Action or inaction, how are they any different when if you acted differently things could be better?”

It was more of a philosophical debate. A rather surprising thing to be having with Seiji, Yuki admitted. He didn’t really have a clean answer for it when looked at it like that. “I-I…”

Seiji stood up and walked over to help Yuki up. “It’s not different. So you made a mistake, everyone does. You want to fix it, do so and stop dwelling. Focus on what you can do rather than what you should have done.”

Grinning a little, Yuki felt a little odd getting such help from Seiji. But it sounded right. “I need to fix this. Though it’s not always easy to forget that this is my mistake. It’s not something small that people can just forgive.”

He pulled Yuki up. They stared at each other with grinning smirks in exchange. “Well then I’ll just punch you again to set your head right. Remember to stay focused.”

“I’ll try.”

“So what’s the plan?” Seiji punched his fists together trying to put the energy back into the air. They needed something a little more positive. He was tired of all of the heavy atmosphere. “You’ve got a plan, right?”

Yuki laughed a little at Seiji, reverting to his simplicity. He gave a small nod as he turned to look out in the direction of their neighborhood. It was far away and in the night they couldn’t see a thing. The lights and smoke created a haze over the area that was only barely recognizable. “I’m working on something in my mind.”

“I knew you had to be. After your little stunt at the execution grounds, I doubted that you’d be going into this blind. Not that I’m opposed to that.”

“Yeah, it’s a different situation. Blindly charging in isn’t going to be something we can do. Not to mention they’re classmates and friends in there. I’m not hurting anyone.”

He walked out next to Yuki to join him. “That might not be possible. I don’t agree anymore with those guys’ beliefs, but some fighting seems to be likely.”

“I’m not killing anyone, Seiji,” Yuki stated clearly, turning his head up towards Seiji.

“I didn’t say we were. But a few bruises and cuts are going to happen.”

“I know, that’s why the focus is going to be Takako. She’s the core of the problem and likely the solution as well.” Yuki tilted his head back towards the water reservoir. Standing on top of it watching them, Nerine remained silent the entire time. “What about you?”

“I will follow you. But I’m a neutral party, I can’t involve myself in these matters.”

“Nerine!”

Yuki threw up his arm to stop Seiji. “It’s fine. You have to remember that she’s got a lot of burdens as well. This is a foreign country for her, involvement would come back on Atlantis. For now, Atlantis has still elected to stay out of world affairs.”

“They can’t just close their eyes and pretend the world doesn’t exist!”

“Don’t forget I’m the King, Seiji. One problem at a time.” Atlantis had almost too many problems for one person to handle. Running around Japan certainly wasn’t solving any of them, but Japan had more immediate matters. He had too many things to fix. And he wasn’t even sure he could fix the Takako problem. It was just a hope.

“So this is where you went off too,” a familiar voice called out from a building away. They jumped up the rest of the way to land nearby them.

“Tatsuya. What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be off with Hiroshi sharpening your knives?”

Shrugging a little, Tatsuya seemed to be trying to play off some of the seriousness. “You’re not really giving him a chance.”

Yuki stepped out in front to confront Tatsuya directly. “I’ve listened to all I want from him. We won’t see eye to eye.”

Sighing, he knew how hard it was going to be talking to Yuki. He crossed his arms and settled in for the long haul. “You’ve had the benefit of not being here since it’s started. I’m not sure you can easily say you wouldn’t be changed by everything that happened.”

“What? Are you justifying the murder of friends?”

“I’m not justifying anything. Murder is still murder, if the law even cared anymore about what happened, yes we all deserve to be in prison or executed for what we’ve done. But you do what you need to survive and protect others.”

“There are other ways!”

“We thought that way before, but Hiroshi learned the cost of such thinking. Before you pass judgment on the way he acts, maybe you should know what happened.”

Yuki crossed his arms as well, but meant it to close himself off. He didn’t have any interest in hearing about whatever story caused Hiroshi to change. His friend was dead and that was all that mattered to him. There was no reasoning with any of them. They had so much blood on their hands all they could do to keep moving forward was to keep killing. It was all their justification and excuse. It supported them and if they stopped they would see the sort of monsters that they had become. He couldn’t excuse such logic.

However, Seiji stepped up and put a hand on Yuki’s shoulder. “We should hear him out.”

“Seiji?”

“He is your friend right? Someone you care about. It may not excuse them, but maybe you can understand.”

Remaining silent for more than a minute, Yuki visibly looked to be conflicted. It took him all that time to take a seat on the edge of the roof. “Fine. I’ll listen.”

“Good, this goes back to a few days after everything went to hell,” Tatsuya began.