Work Text:
In the darkness of the pod room, Kako lies in the middle of the floor under the single glowing screen used only for day and night announcements, doing her best impression of a bored teenage girl. Or maybe that’s what she is—with no bodies to create, nothing to do but lie in the dark metal room, the G’ie Kako is simply Kako.
The thought is… pitiful.
When the door creaks open, she raises her head toward the light, and in steps Eito in his class armor; he’s the person Kako knows the least about. In her original timeline, Kako hadn’t visited him much in his cage, and after that she was running a completely unrelated murder spree in a timeline where he was long dead. No time to think about him, and no need to worry about it.
“Why are you here?” she asks coldly after blinking the light out of her eyes.
Eito shuts the door behind him, closing them both off from the world; he stands tall, scythe in hand—a large, looming weapon above both their heads. Kako can’t fight back, so she sits up and pulls her hands into her lap, fiddling with the ends of Kurara’s long sleeves.
“It felt cruel of them to just leave you in here with no company,” he says. “They did the same to me, so I know how lonely it can be.”
Kako wrinkles her nose. “Mean of them to think you won’t break me out, if they did this to you. And they aren’t even worried about me doing anything to you? They must be pretty confident in your scythe.”
“I’m not Ima, that’s for sure.”
Before being thrown in here, Kako had injured Ima. What she doesn’t know is whether his body was able to bleed out like it should—she was thrown to the floor by Hiruko before she could make sure. Whether Ima died for real or was revived when the others pulled him away, dripping bright red onto the hallway’s tiles, it’s something she has no hope of knowing unless they choose to tell her.
Kako smiles—a genuine smile, thinking about the warmth of his blood and the way he had fallen willingly. He hadn’t fought back at all. “I was so happy to see Brother Dearest I just couldn’t help myself.”
Though, the real Kako had fought with him before she got taken over by the G’ie. Eito doesn’t need to know that.
Eito narrows his eyes at her—his grip on his scythe shifts, but not enough to be an immediate threat. Attacking him as they are would be too dangerous, especially when he’s prepared to attack her right back.
“Did he survive?” Kako asks.
Eito smiles cruelly. “We’ve all been told not to tell you.”
“Then why even talk to me?” Kako presses her lips together. There’s no real point to her knowing other than the satisfaction of his death.
Eito shrugs. The hole where his soul glows stands out, dim light reflecting on the edge of his glasses. “I want to see how you think.”
Unexpected. Kako had thought Eito would be the last person to come see her. Even wanting to keep her company in this dark room is strange—the Eito of this timeline really changed from the Eito in the cage in Kako’s first timeline.
"I don’t need to tell you anything either,” Kako reminds him. She looks up at him, and then looks away, and then back to him. Admittedly, it is a little lonely here, with nobody to kill. “How do you see me?" Kako asks. “With your disorder, I mean.”
"Like any other human."
"Really." Kako huffs out an unimpressed laugh. "I'm not a human, so how do I look to you?"
Eito shakes his head. "You look awful," he says. "Just awful. Your skin swells and your voice is grating, and I can barely look at you without feeling the need to vomit. You look just like the real Kako, but I can barely stand to look at you to tell if anything is different. Even knowing you're not human doesn't prevent you from looking like that. Nothing I see will change, no matter what I do, or what the Special Defense Unit do to me, or what inhuman thing is in your brain."
"Shame," Kako says. “You’d be a good G’ie, though.”
"I suppose so. I hear another version of me worked after you died to run a killing game. I’m sure that version of me wouldn’t be happy to know that G’ie are just like humans after all."
Kako perks up. "There's a timeline where my killing game happened?"
Eito's face curls into a nasty scowl, his lip curling to show his teeth. She can't help it, she wants to kill him so badly it burns. Just like all the other bodies she could've used in this timeline if her plan had worked, Eito would be so good at killing if he’d become one of them. And when she created her killing game, Eito had been running her plan to the end—to think things had worked out like that. Funny.
"It's a fitting punishment for those monsters," Eito says, disgust deep in his voice. "But I can't even imagine how you came to the idea."
Kako smiles. "Darumi."
Eito's disgust curls even deeper. His expression is as if a bunch of rotten meat were thrust under his nose.
"I don't like using other's ideas," Kako says, "but I wasn't very original sometimes. I don't dislike what I was able to come up with, though. I think I made it my own, even if I was framing her for the whole thing. I mean, the bees were nice. Programming them was easy. It all would've worked out, if only they'd gone for it." She sighs, fiddling with the ends of her sleeves again. Kako liked Kurara's dress. She still likes it, even as she is now as Kurara’s imposter, clothed for once in the high quality fabric that she'd never had in the Complex, the gentleness of is embracing her. It's held her well. It’s allowed her to keep killing without the game.
Eito clicks his tongue. "I'll admit you're smarter than I gave you credit for. I was just using you and your plan for my own purposes, though. I guess you don't know how that happened, though."
Kako shakes her head. "The killing game never happened. Not in any timeline I’ve been in yet, at least."
Eito lets out a sharp breath. “And it never will happen,” he adds cheerfully, a beat too late. “After all, time travel can’t let you go backwards unless you’re special like Takumi. He may be disgusting, but he actually managed it.”
The real Kako might be impressed, but this Kako isn’t. “I came here from another timeline. I’ve been to three, now. I killed plenty of people in my last timeline, and that’s way more special to me than any redo power that Takumi has.”
Eito watches her. His grip on his scythe doesn’t shift, and Kako doesn’t get up to try to kill him despite her excitement at the idea.
Her heart is beating fast, her face splitting with a grin. “Nobody saw it coming! There was someone none of them expected to be there all along,” Kako can feel herself getting giddy, swinging an arm out and gesturing. “That machine made it all possible! Even if no killing game happened, I could still manipulate each and every one of them into killing each other for me! I just had to show up and threaten them, and they’d do it in ways Kako couldn’t do herself!”
Eito doesn’t say anything. Kako is reminded again of all the things she heard from Takumi, in those early days when she was warned to stay away from Eito’s cage. About violence, about manipulating everyone against each other, killing in the shadows.
They’re alike, aren’t they?
“You must want to do the same,” Kako says, covering her smile with one hand under her sleeves the way Kurara did. “Kill all these humans, those monsters you see… making them do it for you is easier in some ways, but harder in others. I had to blend in with everyone, so I killed Kurara and took her clothes and mask, all so I could kill them easier. I had to become Kurara fast—I've barely been Kako at all, really. But I remember being her, I have her body and her memories..."
She flexes one hand. It felt so good to kill, to use this body so unused to violence but which has all the potential for it—but now she wonders if it'll ever happen again. Watching Eito, who won't let his guard down for a second, waiting for the moment to strike, to find some point where he'll bleed, she’s so far from that dream of happiness it hurts.
"You disgust me," Eito says, at last.
"Oh," Kako sighs, still smiling. "Well, I guess we can't help it, then. We're different species. But even if you can’t understand us G’ie queens, I understand humans. I was one, myself."
Eito’s expression twitches slightly, but his eyes stay on her, staring—even if she makes his skin crawl, he can’t stop looking at her, or else she’ll take advantage of it and fight to escape. She likes that she’s forcing him into discomfort. Every second he stays with her is going to make him hurt.
“I’ve grown fond of the Special Defense Unit,” Eito says. “Against my will, honestly. Originally, they wanted me as an animal, caged or docile. They needed my help, but first they wanted me to just let them do whatever they wanted to me. Of course, I fought it—and would you believe it? No nasty, vile brainwashing could ever work on me. But since they decided to change how they treat me, even telling me about the parallel leap machine, I’ve given them my time and assistance. Or, at least, I’ve given Takumi my loyalty while I search for the truth with him and Hiruko. They may be monsters, but they have a sort of beauty to them when they struggle against the inevitable. Isn’t it strange how things change?”
“I can’t relate to you at all,” Kako says flatly, after he finally stops speaking. “What does this have to do with anything?”
“I don’t mean to monologue,” Eito adds, but continues. “I understand how it feels to act as someone you’re not. When that was what I had to do, I would’ve killed them. I wasn’t able to get closer to the heart of the war yet, and again I tried to kill them before they trusted me. And maybe I’ll still kill them in a few days, when our hundred days come to an end and they show their true colors. As long as they stop the missiles, though… Well, I’ve come around to them. Takumi is a bit of an idiot, but he put in the work to get me on their side.”
“How nice that you get to kill them. I’m jealous.”
“Why thank you. Even just getting close enough to kill humans makes me want to vomit, though.”
“And I want to go to another timeline and slaughter more of you,” Kako says. “Looks like it’s too late for me to try now, though.” She could attack Eito, of course—but where’s the value in trying, when his scythe is still in his hand and his class armor is still shielding him?
“I don’t know why Hiruko wanted you alive,” Eito says, a note of disdain in his voice. “But I decided to trust her judgement, just this once. Though it hasn’t been very good so far.”
It probably has to do with the other Kako from this timeline, or about how Hiruko saved Kako the first time. Kako isn’t oblivious to the fact that it was her who saved Kako’s life instead of just killing her back in her original timeline. That would be too easy, a coward’s way out—and Kako took full advantage of that. She really doesn’t understand Hiruko at all, no matter how much the original Kako admired her.
Or maybe the Kako of here and now still admires her. It’s a sign of her gratefulness for allowing her to kill so many more people.
Even so, at the end of this, Kako will die. She knows that, and she’s afraid of it like anyone else. Before the G’ie, Kako had had such a burning need to live—to live with Ima, to keep fighting and keep going and never stop. Kako was a burning bright fire, and Hiruko will snuff it out with the same grace that she let her live in another timeline with.
“I already know she’ll kill me,” Kako says. “But I don’t want to die. Even if it means never killing again.”
If Eito sees any indication of a lie in that, he doesn’t say anything. Even Kako, the person who said it, doesn’t know where it came from; maybe it’s the original Kako’s feelings, and everything she did in order to survive in the war. The G’ie Kako still covets her own survival.
“I don’t know what Hiruko’s plans are,” Eito says. “So I suppose that’s the end of that. I don’t have anything to do with whether you live or die.”
They both know that when Hiruko makes her choice, she’ll carry it out with swift efficiency. There’s no room for error when dealing with someone like Kako, someone who has no reason to be alive right now. Her entire existence is a problem with no solution.
Without looking away from a dangerous creature like Kako, Eito reaches behind him to slide open the door. With his other hand he swings his scythe outwards—measured, a threat against her trying to get close. She doesn’t move, doesn’t challenge him to a fight she knows she’ll lose.
“Hey. Does the other Kako want me dead?” she asks, a last ditch attempt to find some meaning in it.
Eito shrugs. “I don’t talk to her, but probably.”
“And yet you’re here talking to me instead of killing me.”
Eito’s curiosity—if that’s even what drove him to come here—is weird to Kako. The other Kako must want him to kill her, or else what’s the point of all this conversation, and monologue, and trying to explain why he inexplicably likes the Special Defense Unit?
Eito lets out a hollow laugh. Kako stares.
“I didn’t tell anyone I was coming,” he says. The light from behind him makes his expression hard to make out—all harsh white shadows. “Takumi and Hiruko both think you’re pretty dangerous, but I had to see for myself. And you are dangerous.” Eito grins. “But I also think you’re like me.”
The door shuts with a metal bang, and locks with a shuffle and a click, and Kako is alone in the darkness again.
Whatever that meant, she’ll have a lot of time to think about it.