“Flight 714 to Shenzhen Bao’an is now boarding. I repeat, Flight 714 to Shenzhen Bao’an is now boarding. Please present your boarding passes to the border control official and make your way onto the plane.”
The airport’s announcer spoke in a tone somehow even more frigid than the air itself. Dreary passengers, idling in the limbo, stirred in their uncomfortable metal lounge seating. Retrieving assorted baggage from underneath and around them, they shuffled over to form an orderly queue in front of the gate. Their expressions were absent, eyes unfocused. Endless mobile scrolling was a constant. A few of their eyes showed momentary flickers of light, as the occasional notification or funny short video sent a fleeting hit of dopamine through a dulled, information-saturated brain. They faded, however. The brief twists of their mouth relaxed, and soon they looked like all the others.
This functional liminal space, iron girders criss-crossing over the cavernous ceiling, echoed, eerily hollow, as thousands ignored one another and went about their ways. It was not a space to be inhabited, but passed through. Heavy footsteps made the floor of Tokyo Narita airport tremble. A literal colossus strode toward the gate at a faster pace than the adjacent travelator. Arms swung by his sides, creasing the shoulders of a well-tailored blue suit. Nobody looked up. Nobody had the capacity to care. The blanket of ignorance lay as thick here as it did everywhere else. Oppressive white noise.
“Remind me why I have to travel by plane?” Gus Ishimatsu growled to the man striding alongside.
Hideyori Hakana, while still tall, felt a little dwarfed. The executive chuckled and tipped the brim of his hat. “I ain’t never been to China before, boss. My moments can only take you where I’ve left ‘em. You should know that by now.”
“I can’t blame you for that. You were only internal security, weren’t you?”
“Insulting my credentials, first thing in the morning?” Hakana raised an eyebrow, and grinned.
“You’re in an awfully good mood.” A low sigh rumbled deep within the CEO’s chest. “Let me have those files.”
Hakana snapped an orb into being and reached within, procuring a stack of papers. “This is all the intel I could gather on the Suo Clan. Not surprising, they keep their ops pretty well under wraps. Then again, I know a guy who knows a guy. Managed to scrounge together a little something: just all their personnel, trading partners, exports, armouries. Getting an audience won’t be a cakewalk, but should be no trouble for you either.” He coughed into his sleeve, and wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth with a tissue. “You’re lucky I don’t charge extra for this.”
“I pay you an eight figure salary.”
“And? This is beyond even my paygrade. You know how many informants I’ve lost in the past two days? Purebred rats ain’t cheap.”
“You irritate me.”
Hakana’s derision at this remark forced the man into another coughing fit.
Gus caught sight of the blood on the tissue, and narrowed his eye. “Are you sick?”
“Concerned for me? Sorry, boss. I don’t buy it.”
“Get it seen to.” The CEO wrinkled his nose. “I will not have my executives be reduced to sickly carcasses.”
“Yes sir.” Hakana saluted with a heavy eyeroll, then stopped walking. They had reached the boarding queue. “I trust you don’t need me to escort you onto the plane? Don’t think that’s in my contract either.” The man extended a hand beyond the sleeve of his coat and clicked his fingers to procure another moment. “I’ll be here when you need me.” With a rush of wind, the man’s body warped and contorted, diving into the orb’s glassy surface.
Gus snatched and slipped the orb into a jacket pocket. The line ahead of him had fully formed, everyone idling away on their distractions. Since no-one objected, he strode past them the entire queue and begrudgingly presented his documents (wasn’t he so polite?) to the rather shocked man at the front desk. A few outraged passengers behind him took audible notice, but Gus paid little attention. They couldn’t do much to stop him, and they weren’t foolish enough to try.
The flight official, a feeble little creature with a short black fringe and sticks for arms, wilted behind his computer under the man’s crushing stare. “Unfortunately, sir,” he trembled, “it seems you’re on the international no-fly list. I’m going to have to ask you to step out of line.”
Gus’ lip curled, storing away his passport away. “Would you look at that,” he deadpanned. “I’m famous.” He then kicked the barrier clean off its hinges, and without another word, marched down corridor shaft and into the plane.
* * *
The concept of segregating aeroplane seating by socioeconomic class was so laughably transparent Gus Ishimatsu was concerned why so few seemed to actually care—or so feeble as to let objections die in their throat. He understood the economics of such a system perfectly well, and that was precisely what he took issue with: the so-called developed world’s incessant need to capitalise on human suffering. It was a strange hill to die on, but that was precisely his point. Let them get away with one thing, and suddenly all liberties are swept from underneath one’s feet like wet carpet and everything single sundry thing is placed behind an arbitrary paywall to line the pockets of the corporation responsible.
One might be tempted to call hypocrisy. Gus was, after all, CEO of one of the largest scientific research corporations in the country. Taking into account his charitable spending, however, one might might reconsider. Gus wouldn’t blame you for not knowing about it. Those who proclaimed and advertised how much they gave away to the “less fortunate” (such a sickening insult) missed the whole point by such a large margin, ignorance was no longer an excuse. Every single one of JPRO’s private medical clinics, orphanages and mental institutions were entirely subsidised. Gus didn’t even pay himself a salary.
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The fact that every single one served as a funnelling outfit to JPRO’s human experimentation pipeline was a non-factor. By Gus’ express decree, JPRO was completely transparent in its dealings to those who chose to look, controversial research included. The fact the company had been allowed to grow so vast, amass such capital, with the truth obscured behind a threadbare curtain that very few cared to peer behind, only proved his point tenfold.
The root of Gus’ ire came from a lack of accountability. So many claimed such virtue, yet in that same breath contributed to a systemic exploitation of those too feeble and downtrodden to stand up for themselves. He wasn’t the least bit sympathetic to the victims: in his eyes, anyone who chooses to live kneeling rather than dies standing for their beliefs frankly deserved every bit of mistreatment. No, the true display of weakness came from those at the top: those who wasted imaginary riches on useless trinkets and pathetic peacock displays; those who paraded around wearing such an aggrandised halo atop their shiny heads, while refusing to take the slightest shred of responsibility—or even acknowledge—the widespread suffering they help perpetuate.
Gus had very little objection to their amorality. If he were to judge others on that basis, the first he would judge—and no less harshly—would be himself. Gus knew himself evil. However, the difference between he and they, was that he was not in denial, and he was no coward. He wore his actions, and their consequences, on his chest. He took responsibility in full knowledge, with no falsehood. He had nothing to hide. What he objected to was their weakness: how they orchestrated such misery for their own gain, and spent their lives covering their tracks, while pretending to be perfectly innocent; how they made the rules for everyone else, and acted above them; how they had engineered this well-oiled socioeconomic machine to give them their cake, and allow them to eat it, too.
It was this exact machine, stemming from the inherent flaw in the human condition, that Gus sought to destroy.
That was why, as his first act, he converted every seat on the plane into “first class.” The whirlwind of pent up frustration tore almost half the seats from the plane, giving everyone the space they needed. Anyone at the back of the queue who missed their flight as a result of the reduced capacity, again, simply didn’t care enough to get on before others. That wasn’t his problem.
This one action wouldn’t change the issue he despised, but it was symbolic. Just because this act wouldn’t instantly root out the corruption, he could not allow himself to excuse even the smallest thing. Again, by permitting one small injustice, you are permitting hundreds.
The other passengers boarded the plane in varying degrees of disbelief, many recording the incident on their phones. What they hoped to gain from that wasn’t his concern. Perhaps it was an automatic behavioural adaptation, a compulsion to live every moment through an external perspective, a way of coping with a world that is so quick to cast one’s feelings aside, and repress expression of individual will. A couple voiced their disdain, but their failure to act on it only cemented their resignation to fate. Despite his destruction to the interior, there was no damage caused to the actual plane, and so they took off, leaving about a hundred disgruntled passengers behind.
The flight would have taken just over four and a half hours, which would have passed so smoothly, had it not been for one choice interruption, halfway over the East China Sea.
Gus Ishimatsu didn’t recline. The seat was too small. Instead, the man hunched forward. He held head in his hands, temple veins throbbing, his jaw clenched. It was all he could do to contain the Tyrant’s maniacal laughter at his earlier rampage from seeping through his own mouth. The vengeful spirit was beside himself with glee, ranting a storm inside the man’s head. Gus had grown sick and weary of his boastful roars years ago. Still, this was but another test. Until he had united the Ascension Blade, this was the greatest test of his strength: to endure. The commercial airliner soared upon the frosted heavens with haste, cutting through thick blankets of stratus and cruising thirty five thousand feet above, a mystical land where the sun shone unabated.
From that same benevolent sun, however, descended an almighty shadow. Cloaked and hooded in splendour, a heavenly demon: the primordial phenomenon of the Fall, Ashinaga, came into view. The deity’s bone white mask gleamed in the morning sunlight, bathing that plane, minuscule by comparison, under its forlorn gaze.
“Your arrogance knows no bounds, Gus Ishimatsu.” The skies trembled with every word. “You continue to defy me, wilfully trespassing in my domain. You lead your kind to ruin.”
The blanket of cloud underneath the plane flashed dark, as a charge of static rippled through. A gigantic celestial fist, half as wide as the plane was long, manifested in the skies above. The light refracted in its nonexistent depths: a coalescence of pure force. Ashinaga looked down upon his unwilling subjects with dispassion, then struck.
> Heavy Fist: Strike
> 重拳「伐」 Jūken・Batsu
The heavenly fist obliterated the plane completely. There was no explosion. The impulse ripped through the centre of the chassis as though it were never there, killing every single passenger in an instant—all except one. The nose and tail of the plane, discarded like a prawn carcass, crackled and burst into flame as they plummeted towards the ocean. Gus Ishimatsu broke the ocean surface, ballooning a fifteen foot pillar of water into the air. Cast into the freezing ocean depths, he hung suspended in the water, dazed. Thin rays of sun filtered through the hole the phenomenon had punched through the heavy cloud. The light reached into the water, illuminating the taunting visage of the self-proclaimed god that had spited him once more.
So, that’s how it’s going to be, is it Ashinaga?
The water boiled around Gus. An incandescent torrent of fury churned the surging water for a mile around. Psychic energy crackled through the man, through every fibre of his being, and into his surroundings. His first fight against the sky titan had helped him realise the adaptation that let him pull on the manifolds of space itself. By extension, this stood no challenge.
> Overpower
> 圧倒
Another adaptation, an extension of the last, carved itself into Gus’ soul. His fingers clenched around the water, compressing it within his fist. He grabbed onto the manifolds of the sea, and drew them tight into his chest. His psychic energy surged in a blistering column, as the crackle became a mighty roar.
“If the world will not part for me, then I will part it myself!”
Gus flung his arms wide, and the sea around him parted. A column of expanded space, twenty metres wide, pushed the unimaginable weight of the ocean water to either side. A corridor of uninhibited passage stretched from here to the distant horizon in a completely straight line towards the coast of mainland China. The corridor cut a line through the sea, all the way to the ocean floor, onto which Gus descended. As by his decree, all of the water had been driven out. The ground was dry. The immeasurable weight of the water, held in place by the force of his own crackling psychic energy, strained against its spatial bounds, but Gus’ strength was simply overwhelming.
Shaking the remaining drops of water from his jacket, Gus’ mouth twisted into a grin. “I suppose I’ll have to walk from here.”
Psychic energy burned a current through his legs, sending every twitch muscle fibre into overdrive. Gus’ eyes lit up. The sensation of sheer psychic energy expenditure would never fail to enthral, to remind him of the joys that existed under heaven. The man lowered himself into a sprinter’s stance, then tore across the path, leaving only the void behind to be crushed under the surging depths of water no longer kept at bay.