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Goro Akechi is certainly in Hell. Though, he must admit, he didn’t expect Hell to be nothing but a pitch black void. Perhaps the Hell he’s wrought for himself is one of solitude. It’s fitting, at the very least.
He doesn’t feel fatigued, though he can’t really ascertain the passage of time. He feels he’ll go insane in mere moments, here. It’s almost guaranteed.
“Are you just going to stand there?”
A voice calls him from behind, and for a moment he chooses not to react. After what feels like a reasonable pause of contemplation and breath, he turns.
The first thing he notices about the individual is his piercing violet eyes, followed by the amused smile. The man sweeps his hand over the scene in front of him, saying, “especially when there’s a perfectly fine seat right here.”
The unidentified man sits in a well-cushioned chair, old-fashioned in its woodwork and pattern, and an identical one faces across from him. In between the two is a simple one-legged table, with an already arranged chess set atop it.
“Who are you?” Is the first thing Akechi must ask, because even in death he is still able to lose.
“That’s of no consequence,” remarks the man. “Though, if you’re in such dire need for a name, you may refer to me as Zero. It’s a pleasure, Goro Akechi.”
At this statement, Akechi learns two things. Firstly, that Zero knows far more than Akechi could’ve possibly anticipated. Secondly, that Zero is overtly bored.
Zero’s lip curls. “Care for a game?”
Akechi sits.
An eternity goes by without a move being made. Akechi is on the white side, as he is usually, though he does not lift a finger. Zero is silent and unmoving, intimidating, suffocating.
“What is this?”
A scoff, “Is that a sincere question?” Zero rests his chin on delicate fingers. “It’s chess. You’ve played, no?”
“I have,” Akechi says. “But you’ve not said the purpose of this game.”
“My entertainment, of course,” which Akechi expected. “But also to leave,” which Akechi did not.
“To… leave?”
“You’ve died, and this is your Purgatory,” Zero reveals. “Apologies if I was the one to reveal this information to you.”
“You’re not. I was aware.”
“Well, that saves us time. Your move, if you would.”
“What do you mean, ‘to leave?’”
“Exactly as I’ve said. The outcome of this game will determine if you may leave. Return to the world of the living.”
Akechi opens his mouth, but no words escape. “...How?”
“Again, of no consequence,” Zero waves his hand.
“No,” Akechi shakes his head, voice returning. “How is it that I received such a privilege?”
Zero chuckles, truly fascinated, “The choice is–”
Akechi stands from his chair abruptly and Zero pauses mid-word.
“I’ve no desire to live again.”
Despite the finality in Akechi’s words, Zero remains nonplussed.
“Is that so? How can you say such a thing when you had no desire to die?”
“I was at peace,” Akechi near-seethes, “with the inevitability of my demise. There’s nothing left to achieve. That world isn’t for me anymore.”
“Nothing, you say?” Zero’s mouth forms into a somewhat immature pout, and it’s the first time the youthfulness of his face reveals a man who is not yet an adult. “Whose decision was that?”
“My own,” Akechi answers instantly.
“Good answer,” Zero says, “you still have your selfishness. Why use it to continue punishing yourself? Is there nothing you desire that can only be had in life? Is there nothing that you left behind?”
In spite of Akechi’s no longer beating heart, he feels the sensation of it dropping into his stomach.
Against his better judgment, he sits back down. Zero’s face does not reveal any reaction. Akechi raises a hand, then moves a pawn up two spaces. The game has begun.
Several moves on either side pass in generally rapid succession without words exchanged between the two. Akechi acknowledges Zero’s skill, though it was obvious without the man even breathing his first word. The man’s violet eyes reveal calculations of every move, every move after that, and every move after that one.
“Goro Akechi, are you trying to win?”
“I’m playing the game you laid out for me.”
“Hm… and that was your decision, yes? Will you decide to choose victory?”
“I’m choosing to be rid of these strings,” Akechi says, castling his rook. “If this ends with my defeat, then at the very least I’ll no longer be bending to your whims.”
“But what if I’m not the last? What if there will always be some method of control over you? What if that’s your fate?”
“What do you know,” Akechi muttered, finally asking what’s been plaguing the last few moments of thought.
“About you? Assume I know everything. That’s my only purpose, after all.”
“Your purpose…?”
“There will always be things you are able to control, and things you cannot. The forces of nature, the concepts and opinions created by the collective, the certainty of death. No one is a true god. All are fallible, and will either change or be changed. Check.”
It’s an easy escape, and Akechi moves accordingly.
“Nothing is more maddening than the illusion of free will,” Zero continues without missing a beat. “But to impose that upon yourself is even more so.”
Akechi’s jaw tightens.
“No matter how you try, you can’t control the ones around you. Trust is a dangerous thing, in its fluctuating nature of both fragility and strength. One may consider it magnanimous, or a selfish transaction. Though one thing is certain: there’s nothing worse than dying alone.”
Zero oddly sets up a bishop that can be easily taken. It seems like obvious bait, but its current position is so precarious that Akechi uses his knight to eliminate it.
“And you would know, is that correct?” Akechi asks.
Zero pauses for a considerably long time, just eyeing the board. “I would.”
The game is much slower after that. The pace is still very much set by Zero, and Akechi feels tethered to it like a shackle.
“Would you say life is like a game of chess?” Zero breaks his created silence.
In the past, Akechi might’ve. He doesn’t say this.
“In the past, I might have,” Zero says. “Anticipating the next move, adjusting tactics with the changing state of the board and the most immediate threats, using sacrifices when necessary. So tell me, Goro Akechi,” he moves his queen. “What is it that you sacrificed?”
Akechi feels a chill go down the back of his neck akin to the slice of a blade. “Don’t you already know the answer to that?”
“Quite the contrary,” Zero denies. “Understanding a series of events doesn’t even scratch the surface of a person’s life. That’s the purpose of the game.”
Akechi must admit to himself now - he’s not playing anything near like he would be in real life. His eyes are seeing the pieces and their functions, but not the larger board. His hands are making each move, but he’s not thinking .
Zero sighs then, almost disappointedly. “Are you not having fun?”
“...Fun?” Akechi’s eyes narrow just slightly.
“Of course,” Zero tells him. “It’s a game . Even when the world was hanging in the balance and you were merely a disposable player, you still had fun , no?
Akechi now fully understands the depth of which Zero did not understand his life. It makes him laugh, uproariously so. He laughs and laughs and laughs and realizes the game is potentially half complete and he hasn’t been playing at his best. He’s really going to die, and no one is going to know he had the potential to live again.
“Certainly,” Akechi says on the tail end of a manic chuckle. “I had fun . I had such glorious fun averting my eyes from the terror I wrought upon faceless strangers by destroying their lives. I had fun making hopeless wishes for a cure for the loneliness that I alone created. I had fun deceiving myself into believing I wasn’t just a tool who’d already been used for its designed function. I had the most fun, of course, systematically obliterating any chance of a future that was truly my own. What is it I sacrificed? Ahaha, oh… I sacrificed nothing. Nothing at all. Nothing and everything.”
Zero viewed this entire display with unreadably apt attention. “And yet,” he says next.
Akechi’s eyes widen, realizing something of note. “And yet,” he echoes.
The game resumes, and Akechi’s metaphorical shackle feels just a bit more loose.
“Tell me about him. The one you would have fun playing chess with.” Zero prods ever further.
“He is foolishly optimistic,” Akechi answers, “and self-destructively selfless.”
Zero shakes his head, the laugh escaping him almost gentle. “He was your anchor to the hope of a more beautiful world.”
“He was everything I despised, and everything I wished I could be.”
“You would live for him?”
“Not for him,” Akechi refuses. “But…”
Zero raises a brow, “hm?”
“But perhaps, even if he were the only one who cared, it would be enough.”
“I understand.”
The game’s pace has become erratic, strange. It is a game fitting for one outside of the universe of life, of time.
“Who are you, really?” Akechi asks him when they are only left with four pieces left each. “That name, Zero… what kind of alias is that?”
“Even if you knew my name, it wouldn’t matter,” Zero tells him, and it feels honest, somehow. "I’m truly no one, not to you.”
“But to someone, you are,” Akechi catches on quickly. This man isn’t one of his world, and for better or worse Akechi is quite intimately familiar with the idea.
“...Perhaps.”
“And yet you spend your eternity in a place like this, playing chess with any recently late passerby to determine their fates. Is this the punishment for yourself you so craved?”
“You consider this my punishment, but in fact I’m having fun,” Zero smiles at Akechi’s words. His gaze seems to phase right through Akechi but he refuses to let it show. “How odd that you don’t see me as one to find satisfaction in dictating the fates of the unassuming. It’s a bold underestimation.”
“As inhuman as you may be now, you did once live,” Akechi claims. “You had just as strong an anchor to life as I and yet you chose this instead. Were you so unfulfilled by the outcome of your existence that you needed to derive such base satisfaction from the desperation of others?”
Zero’s face has an expression that can only be described as profoundly fond. “Unlike most, your words hold weight. It’s commendable.”
Goro Akechi has said many meaningless, pointless, empty, and worthless words over the years.
“The flames of rebellion still burn within you,” Zero tells him, and for a reason Akechi can’t fathom, he hears the words reverberate through his skull and in his soul. “Your pain is your strength and also your burden. Fear and doubt are inevitable, try as you may to cast them aside. But know, the war will never end so long as you draw breath. You’ve fought well, Goro Akechi. Checkmate.”
Though the reality was certainly determined from the moment Akechi was beckoned by Zero’s voice, Akechi is nonetheless crushed by this result.
From afar, then, he hears the sound of a heavy, polygonal shift, and behind Zero lies a passageway leading to a soft white light.
“What is this…?” Akechi breathes.
“You’re clever, Akechi, I must admit. But the fact that you immediately assumed the condition for your leave was victory almost cost you your chance.”
“You mean I… That door leads back to the living world?”
Zero’s hand flourishes across the desolate nothingness around them. “This is my domain, and I create the rules. As I said, the outcome of the game would determine if you leave. This was one of my better matches, I have to say - now, step through that door, and live once again. Though, heed my warning… as your second afterlife will not be so generous.”
Akechi stands, still shocked. His feet carry him away from his chair, away from the chess board. He finds himself standing frozen at Zero’s side.
“I’ve played many games, and won countless, and lost just as many. Some have succumbed to their own Hell, and others I’ve granted their lives. The door only goes one way,” Zero tells him. “You have the choice you sought.”
“You can leave, can’t you?”
Zero does not turn. He is arranging the pieces for the next game. Akechi just barely manages to catch the working of his throat.
“I see,” says Akechi. “Selfish punishment, you said? How ironic.”
“I know you like I know myself, Goro Akechi. But you and I are not the same.”
“I’m aware,” Akechi concedes, then wonders aloud, “What ruin had you brought upon your world that made you believe this was your sole course of action, I wonder? I suppose I’ll never know.”
“True,” Zero folds his hands in front of him, “as you’ll forget all of our exchange the moment you leave.”
“That’s of no real consequence,” says Akechi, startling a chuckle out of Zero. “After all, you’ll remember.”
A short, muted breath escapes the other man. “I may.”
“Before I leave,” Akechi muses, “tell me about them. The one who gave you hope of a more beautiful future.”
He can’t see Zero’s face, but part of him can tell that no one’s ever asked. “He and I were unstoppable together.”
“And now?”
“Now…?” Zero, for once, seems genuinely surprised. “I couldn’t say,” he smiles then.
“The door only goes one way,” Akechi repeats back the other man’s words.
“I once considered any form of eternity its own Hell,” Zero tilts his head back in his chair. “Though if I still took mortal breath, I’m certain he’d make my finite time a living one.”
To himself only, Akechi thinks that Zero looks far too openly glad when saying these words of his own unavoidable doom. He continues his forward momentum towards the door.
“May we never meet again, Zero,” says Akechi, waving without looking back.
“Until then, Goro Akechi.”