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Sweetheart, what have they done to you?
I will go after each and everyone of them. Do not worry, sweetheart.
I answered your call.
The voices were distant and Majima couldn’t really make them out. His head was throbbing. Pain washed over all of his body and he was unable to focus on which part of him was hurting the most.
He was out of the hole. That seemed to be the only coherent thing crawling amongst the muddy paths of his mind. It should have felt like a victory but it didn’t. He did not feel relief. He did not feel free. Something deep within him already understood he was trading one cage for another. Shimano would never let him walk away from Anagura alive, not if there wasn’t a price to pay in something other than blood.
Maybe… This is what happened after death.
His body could have given out, finally, so he convinced himself he had escaped from the darkness, the damp and the heavy, dense smell of iron.
You’re not dead.
The voice spoke again. It was low, deep and broken. As if whatever was speaking hadn’t done so in a very long time, as if it was learning how to wrap its lips and tongue around the sounds escaping its throat.
“Who…?” Majima rasped. Maybe he was hearing his own voice. He certainly sounded exactly like that. It was agony to even try to articulate himself out loud.
You called me, sweetheart. You were so weak and so angry, I answered your call.
“Shit, did he wake up already?” A voice spoke, worried.
“No way, man. He’s half dead, ain’t no way. He’s prob’ly just delirious.” Another answered, and the first voice - that had turned into a labored breathing - seemed to calm down.
Majima slowly started to register a soft rocking motion. He was probably stuck in a moving vehicle. A van. A car. Going somewhere. He couldn’t think more. Everything hurt so much. His fingers felt crooked as he cradled his hands against his chest, they were stuck in a clawed motion. Every breath felt like a stab to the gut, and his guts felt like they were spread across whichever surface he was laying on right now.
Who are you? , Majima thought to himself.
I’m… you. Let me help, sweetheart. I can make them go away. I can make the pain go away for a while .
Please. I can’t die. Saejima… , Even his thoughts felt like sludge trying to circulate through his consciousness. Something was there with him, aside from the guys that had talked earlier. Panicked at the prospect of him waking up, which was laughable. What was Majima supposed to do in this state? He couldn’t even open his eye .
I know, sweetheart. He’s still alive… and so are you.
Let me in. Whatever this voice was, it was getting insistent.
Majima, let me in.
Go on.
Majima’s body was shivering, his skin crawling at the voice that was now booming in his head. This thing, whatever it was, was offering to help him, to keep him alive. That’s all he needed, to stay alive, to go back into the yakuza. For Saejima. For Yasuko.
Yes.
After uttering that acceptance to himself, Majima’s entire world was swallowed by darkness. His mind plunged back into the unconscious and a wave of fear rippled through his chest, he hoped this didn’t mean he was going back to Anagura. Back to the hole. Anything but that.
Of course, his unconscious was not quiet. It hadn’t been for a long time. There was no such thing as respite back there, where the darkness touched every inch of you from the inside out. From where the taunting words of jailors and torturers were the only interaction he was allowed, even if he could never reciprocate any of those words said in mocking and despicable tones.
So, the horrifying laughs and sweet screams filled with white noise his brain. He wondered if those were memories from back in the hole, or things he was hearing right in that moment. The crack of a bone. The clicking of teeth against each other in a missed bite. The sound of skin ripping apart. The broken shouts. The smell of blood and piss.
It’s not memories .
It must’ve been. All of those were familiar things from the oppressing black that swallowed men and spit out their remains. Was he only some remains now? He must be. He couldn’t even form a coherent sentence or open his eyes, what else could he be but a corpse that was dragged out of the hole, with strings put in so it could continue to play for whoever was puppetiring him?
I will get vengeance for what they did.
I will rip them apart.
I will consume them.
So, you can be free.
But you also have to help me.
And wasn’t that just the crux of it all? Majima couldn’t help. His eye groggily managed to open slightly and he was greeted with the sight of an arm detached from the body. Oh, the rest of the body was across the floor of the van, spread… devoured.
Majima realised he was on his knees, his eye moving down to his hands. Tainted with blood. He frowned, and looked around. Another corpse. This one had its torso open from one side to the other with a clean slash across it, entrails painted the floor.
A creak.
Someone was opening the back door the van. Shit, the van had stopped. Majima tried to struggle to get up, his feet slipped on the floor and he was back on his knees soon enough. The black pants he was wearing were soaked through, and no one would be able to tell the shirt he was wearing had been white once upon a time.
Have I done this? He wondered, surprisingly less alarmed than he thought he should be. We have, sweetheart.
Something wearing him had done this. The thing that had crawled out of the hole with him, stuck to the inked hannya in his back, thirsty for revenge and crazed with torture.
Neon light washed the inside of the van once the doors were open. The figure of a man backlit by the artificial light of a big city, he didn’t know which. He couldn’t see the other guy’s face.
“Look at what you’ve done, tiger. I’m gonna have to train you, huh, Majima-chan?”