Akira Fan Fiction / Fan Fiction ❯ Project: Evolution ❯ Highway 04: Bad Moon Rising ( Chapter 4 )

I don't usually do prefaces, but I wanted to toss in an apology for the long delay. Rough, rough semester. Hopefully I'll be able to finish up a bit more writing in the next couple weeks, and get a little work done during the upcoming, more literary semester… many thanks to those who're still reading!

 

Highway 04

Bad Moon Rising

Darkness.

There was darkness everywhere in the tunnel, clinging to the concrete walls and spilling down from the ceiling like an ethereal mist. It was a surreal, wretched darkness, the kind that conceals the suppressed memory of a past sin, and the sense of wrongness in those shadows was almost palpable.

It seemed to pool in corners and cracks, like some kind of ephemeral sludge. Kinuko avoided it, as she walked onward, toward the relative light in front and away from the pitch blackness behind her.

The corridor was bleak. Its cement construction was featureless in the purely ambient twilight, save for the spaces between the gray monoliths.

Somehow, its orderliness was dreadfully oppressive—wrong, even, like the shadows lurking in the hall's most remote edges.

It should have been smashed, she thought. It should have been crumbling and shattered under the weight of time and—

Time and Akira.

She didn't know what that meant, but she was absolutely sure of it. Time and Akira should have made ruins of it.

Kinuko's steps echoed as she left the darkness, stepping out onto the dais. The stadium stretched before her. She could see details all the way to the far end, but it seemed at the same time impossibly huge. Somehow, that was more troubling than the myriad corpses clamoring in the stands.

Some were terribly burned, some had parts of their bodies crushed, and some had been shot or torn open; there were figures emaciated from starvation, children riddled with bleeding holes, and drowned men still oozing filthy water from their noses and mouths; some were dressed as JSDF soldiers, some as businessmen and housewives, many as derelicts and punks. Their only obvious commonalities were that they had all died in Neotokyo in 2019, and that the entire horde of them radiated a field of bewilderment and forlornness so overwhelming Kinuko could feel its roiling pressure against her face.

She turned back to the corridor she had left. There was no open archway, but rather, she faced a burnished metal wall like the door of a bank vault. She had seen it once before, when she was shown around the Institute with Tetsuo.

Leaning forward, she let Cerebro's retinal scan explore her eye with laser light; she pressed her left hand to the hand-scan panel which was there, and after reading the 41 which had never before been imprinted on her palm, the massive steel door opened. It seemed to move reluctantly, like a steel prisoner on the way to its execution.

She thought it was trying to warn her.

A white plume of gelid air billowed out of the dark opening. Kinuko noticed that there were tubes, varying in thickness from a finger's to an arm's, leading out of the doorway. They were sheathed in frost and the breeze felt like a window had been opened to the middle of the arctic circle. She stepped into the cold twilight passageway.

As Kinuko walked down the corridors deep below the Xavier Institute mansion, the same darkness from before now clung to the corners and walls and ceiling. Red and yellow lights tried to flash and alarms tried to scream, but the darkness was drowning them all out, and it churned motionlessly in contradictory parody of the suppressed activity; the lights and alarms could only lend the ambient dusk and vague white noise a ruddy, buzzing oscillation.

People shied away from her—people she knew, although they were like distracted, flustered ghosts, not quite realizing that they did not exist. Although the people were indistinct and faceless, she knew they were the X-Men she had met, the Brotherhood, other students, teachers. They fled her with all the animation of a blitzed chameleon, and she made no attempt to pursue them.

She stepped into the infirmary. Someone had planted a tree in the middle of it and drawn strange figures of lines and curves on the floor; there were childishly fanciful pictures of space scenes on the walls and toys strewn about. Jean lay in a bed, helpless and visibly infirm, where Storm—one of Xavier's teachers at the Institute—and Kurt flanked her protectively, the former in a hovering chair. Kinuko was almost overcome by the sensation of her contempt for them.

Logan stepped between Kinuko and the others.

“Number 41!” Logan said. “Return to your quarters immediately!”

“Shut up!”, Kinuko answered reflexively. “I don't take orders from you, and I'm not some stinkin' number!” She felt strangely like a dispassionate observer within her own body, impersonally aware of the surging hate filling her head.

“Number 41!” Logan's claws were extended. “This is the time I've been waiting for...!”

With one simple motion, those claws were slashing cleanly across Kinuko's face, and her vision went black. She noted with awed detachment how effortlessly the adamantium blades sliced through the bones of her skull.

Suddenly, she felt pain in the darkness, and in the company of abject terror, it cut into her brain just as easily as she remembered Logan's claws had. Kinuko sat huddled in the dark of her room at the Institute, gasping for breath and sobbing mutely with panic.

“3:41,” glared her alarm clock's bright red numerals.

Only then did she realize that the pain was from knocking her head against the nightstand—that she had awakened with such a start she had flung herself from her bed.

The dreams were getting worse.

 

* * * * *

 

Kinuko sat in the cafeteria at school, and as she watched the hour hand of the clock crawling laggardly toward the “1,” considered making Friday her new most hated day of the week.

She had grown used to sleepless nights, over the years, but the utterly unrestful sleep she had experienced in the last couple of days was something new, and the nightmares were the kind of thing she had thought she would never have to suffer through again.

That being the case, she found herself feeling as though at the end of her string when the day began, and it had only gone downhill from there.

She had got out of bed a little too abruptly at about a quarter of four in the morning, but three full hours of lying in bed and squirming were not enough to make her brave her dreams again, even when her headache had dulled and concentrated into a tender lump. Three hours of silent, passive, internal conflict between exhaustion and fear had only left her more worn out.

Finally, she had given up—the Institute was coming to life in earnest as 7 a.m. drew near—and sluggishly dressed, dragging herself downstairs. She had moved among the small throng of Xavier's other students as though halfway in a dream, and the breakfast she had made herself was thrown together so mechanically she drew a blank the rest of the day trying to remember what it had been. Not that she was preoccupied with her nightmare at that point; looking back, she could scarcely even guess where her mind had gone to on vacation.

But grogginess was not the only reason for her lack of detail—the other great contributors had been panic, followed by embarrassment. Vague and lackluster as her memories were about most of her morning, extending even to the usually exhilarating ride into school with Tetsuo, one thing was still making her skin crawl when she thought about it hours later.

She had been partway through eating her forgotten breakfast when it happened: Logan walked into the room.

“Kuso!” was the only thought Kinuko had after she registered his presence, and she expressed it, loudly. With neither hesitation nor forethought, she was scrambling backward at full speed as her ill-fated first meal of the day crashed and clattered to the floor. She scarcely would have noticed, save that everyone went quiet, looking between her and Logan as though straining to see an explanation written in the air or across their faces.

“What's eatin' you, kid?” Logan grunted. “Ain't never seen me in the mornin' before?”

“I— I—” Kinuko stammered and shook her head vigorously, although her eyes remained locked on Logan in dazed terror and defiance.

“I have to go!” she murmured hurriedly in English through conflicting urgency and embarrassment, and hurried for the garage before anyone could squeeze a comment into the confusion. She never found out who had cleaned up the mess she had left on the floor.

She was sitting in the cafeteria, remembering that inauspicious beginning of the day and trying to forget that she was only halfway through it, when she was shocked halfway out of her dazed state by a crash from several tables away. She sat perfectly still, with her back toward the source of the sound, hoping it would leave her alone.

“Alvers?” she heard from Scott, in a thinly-concealed tone of surprise. “There something I can do for you? If you're asking to join up again, you can try asking nicely.”

“Yeah, right,” answered the less familiar voice of the student who had come to harass her and Tetsuo on their first day, speaking in a hushed, private tone. At the sound of his voice, Kinuko discreetly pulled up the hood of her sweatshirt to make herself as invisible as she could, and listened with her eyes closed.

“Last thing you'll ever have to worry about,” he continued quietly. “I'm here to tell you that new girl you guys picked up, that Japanese one, is a total grade-A psycho.”

“If that's all you've got to say,” Scott answered, “I'm busy. You know how it is. Lunch, and all.”

“Hear me out, Summers!” Lance growled under his breath, keeping his voice low. Kinuko could almost taste the frustration bleeding off of him. “You don't like me. That's fine—I don't like you, either. But I'm tellin' you, she's gonna snap, and you'll be sorry you ever let her within fifty feet of a kitchen knife.”

“Sure. But it's not your business anyway, right?”

Lance glared at Scott angrily; Kinuko wondered vaguely how she could tell while facing the other direction, with her eyes closed.

“Damnit, I'm serious! Whatever she did to Fred today had him about knocking down the walls to get away from her, and the way she was looking at me, I'd swear she was trying to— I don't know, damnit, trying to make my head explode, or something. And every time I saw her around, she was muttering about the cold, like she doesn't get that it's in the 80s. She's a nutjob, I'm telling you.”

“Kitty?” Kinuko asked, glancing over her shoulder and staring at Lance. He almost jumped out of his skin when he saw her suddenly sitting there, just a few feet away.

“E- w- what?”

“You'a as'king becoss of Kitty?”

For a split second, Lance looked like he had been sucker punched; then he straightened and turned to walk away.

“Whatever! Don't listen to me if you don't want to, Summers, but it's your funeral if you keep hanging out with Carrie, there!”

“What a jerk,” Scott muttered. He glanced at Kinuko, where she sat with her arms limp at her sides, looking worn thin as she gazed out from under her hood. The dark circles under her eyes seemed to be getting larger each day, and the Professor had secretly expressed some concern about her state of mind and lack of socialization.

“Uh, hey,” he started, rubbing at the back of his neck absently. “You okay, there, Kinuko? Sorry about-”

“Yes,” Kinuko answered, staring after Lance for a long, silent moment. Finally, in a soft voice as though speaking to herself, she added, “yes, I am fine. Don't be sorry; not for me.”

Without another word, she stood and walked away, leaving Scott to stare after her in confusion.

 

* * * * *

 

Kinuko closed her locker and leaned against it, her shoulders resting heavily over the stenciled-on “41” which marked the metal door. The hall seemed to extend infinitely in both directions. A few dozen nearby had numbers—most were dilapidated, with busted latches, doors hanging half-open, peeling paint, rust spots, and all the signs of disuse, misuse, and neglect.

“Even with your eyes opened as wide as they will go,” called a voice from nearby, “you cannot perceive something so large that it is beyond the range of your vision.”

Kinuko looked toward the voice, and saw Xavier sitting in his chair in front of the locker marked “19.”

“Men gather together,” he continued, “as though they would reverse the cosmic stream, but in truth they are only driftwood.”

“That stuff about streams and vision is just metaphysical bullshit!” Kinuko snapped in response, carried on a tidal wave of alien, psychotic frustration. “I want to know something concrete! What the hell is Akira?!”

Around her, white frost billowed in the air like fluffy clouds. Kinuko watched Xavier dispassionately, feeling the lockers around them coat with ice as the cold spread out until Xavier was frozen solid like a statue. Kinuko turned and began walking down the frozen corridor, and ignored the sound of Xavier falling forward and shattering.

Even the air seemed to freeze around her. With every step forward, it pressed invasively close and then shattered into nothing, as though she was haunted by some noncommittal ghost.

Ugly but near-indestructible school carpeting, chilled into a state of fragility, crackled under Kinuko's feet as she walked. She could feel that the walls, covered in a sheen of frost, would shatter if struck. The whole world had become brittle, like the flower dipped in liquid nitrogen that every child sees in a science program on TV. With a thought, she could smash it all, bring it crashing down around her, end the pointless game.

She stood in front of a window, looking out at the city. Buildings leaned at odd angles with all the glass shattered out of them, looming threateningly over the debris-clogged streets far below.

It was like a picture of downtown Hell.

Kinuko stared out at the post-apocalyptic wasteland and let go a chuckle which grew slowly into mad, body-racking laughter.

The futility!

The meaninglessness of it all—of mankind's struggle to create and sustain order under the burden of the universe's Will to Entropy—was almost more than she could handle.

It was in mid-cackle that she saw it there: a perfect, round, unblemished moon hanging over the city—her city—Akira's city—looming proudly, daring to challenge her. With a wave of her arm as though dashing game pieces from a board, she threw open the red cape she now wore as symbol of her authority—of her apotheosis.

She would teach that damned moon a lesson.

Kinuko felt her will exert itself, and watched as the perfect white sphere shuddered; a huge crater covering a nearly a sixth of its profile appeared in the wake of a massive telekinetic explosion.

The earth heaved in sympathetic reaction, and the building in which Kinuko stood, frozen brittle like the carpet in the hall, cracked throughout from the sudden shock. A corner fell from the top; tons of steel and concrete dropped through the air like a diving bird, and struck the ground in a cloud of cement dust and debris.

“If you continue such ill-considered releases of power,” called a voice from the hall, “it is only a matter of time before Akira reacts!” She whirled to see Jean there, watching her frailly from a bed.

“It's dangerous to expend that much energy at once,” added Storm, in a chair hovering at Jean's side. Kurt was nowhere to be seen, and Kinuko smirked contemptuously.

“You are like that half-shattered moon,” sighed Xavier, “floating in precarious equilibrium.” He stepped up in front of the other two, walking with the aid of a cane. Kinuko barely even noticed that he had no wheelchair.

“Nice party you got there,” Kinuko sneered.

“Prepare to strike together when I give the word!” Xavier called to the other two.

“Here's a present,” Kinuko replied with a wickedly indifferent grin, “for our lovely reunion.” In silent demonstration, a rough slab of reinforced concrete the size of a cement truck hovered menacingly in the air behind her with the demeanor of a cobra poised to strike.

“Haaaaii!” shouted Xavier, holding his free left hand forward. The power of the gestalt between the Professor, Storm, and Jean spiked exponentially, and guided by the most experienced of the three, the force flung Kinuko out the window and through the wall of a building across the street.

It was quickly shrouded in frost, as well, as ominous cracks formed throughout it.

“She came expecting friends, and got slapped instead,” Kinuko could still hear Xavier comment. “How hurt she must be... yet hurt shall turn to anger, and that anger and hate shall crash upon us! We must endure it! Force her power to its apex!”

“Hahahahaha!” Kinuko answered hollowly from the building she had impacted as the supercooled structure began to crumble around her.

“How could you understand,” she chuckled unevenly as the fractures multiplied through her own building and all those nearby, “what's happening inside of me?!”

Kinuko felt the power rising and surging to new heights as her own body became brittle and was run through with cracks, and then let out an inhuman cry as she literally burst with an inconceivable energy, expanding to swallow everything, to freeze everything solid.

She woke groggily to a crash as her door burst open under the influence of Tetsuo's shoulder, but her wits were so addled that she wondered whether she had in fact awakened or gone to sleep. She could scarcely process a word Tetsuo said, or why she could see his breath, or why all the walls of her room were gleaming white. The trip to the infirmary was even more of a haze.

Between her delirium and sleep deprivation, it was hours before she could understand what they meant when they said that her core temperature had dropped to 30 degrees Celsius.

 

* * * * *

 

Tetsuo sat in the kitchen, brooding at the clock on the microwave as its digital display blinked to 6:30. The last few days, his sleep had been getting gradually worse, but now it seemed like an impossibility, so he stared at the clock, instead. He was finally starting to feel warm, although his nervous tension refused to go away; he couldn't claim to be entirely surprised by that, after the night from hell. Sometime in the wee hours, he had awakened, shuddering with cold and inexplicable terror, to the sound of a blood-curdling shriek from right across the hall—from Kinuko's room.

Without hesitation and without any extensive forethought, he had leapt out of bed and set his shoulder to Kinuko's door as soon as he saw the white billows of condensing water vapor spilling out from around it. Three tries and a bit of a bruise got the door open, and he rushed her to the infirmary in a haze of action. More than two hours later, as he sat in the dark, he was only just catching up with everything that had happened, himself.

Tetsuo had been quickly herded back out of the infirmary by a big blue apelike man once his part of the story was delivered, and he was questioned twice more by other Institute staff, as though they had expected his story to change. All he could get out of anyone was that Kinuko would be fine with some rest and some heat, and that the blue ape-man was Dr. Hank McCoy—or Beast.

“Hey, Doc,” was his favored abbreviation, when he looked up at the sound of knuckles rapping against the frame of the kitchen door and found Beast there. Tetsuo rubbed at his eyes tiredly, casting another glance at the microwave's clock—6:40—and then back to the blue ape-man. “Che... so how's she doin'?”

“I am pleased to be able to tell you that your friend will be quite all right, with some more rest and warmth; she is thankfully out of the woods, so to speak. Although we still do not know what caused such an event, save for mutant powers.”

“Kuso!” Tetsuo cursed, scowling and uneasily running a hand through his hair. “So there's some fucker goin'round fuckin' freezin' people now?”

Beast scowled at the boy's choice of words, and shook his head. “We know of only one mutant with such powers on this scale, and besides such a thing being quite out of character for him, he has a verified, airtight alibi. Unless there is some other active mutant of whom we know nothing, the most reasonable conclusion would seem to be that she was manifesting her own powers.”

“Eeh? Aww, you guys ain't startin' this bullshit `bout us havin' `powers' again, areya?”

“It is not— ahem. It is nothing of the sort,” Beast replied calmly, although he gave Tetsuo a sour look for his language. It was more for the sake of soothing Beast's own volatile temper; he knew better than to think a million sour looks would change the boy's ways. “If the Professor says you are mutants, then I certainly believe him, and recommend that you would do the same.”

Beast sighed at the skeptical leer he received from Tetsuo by way of response, and added, “as was inscribed at the entrance to the Oracle at Delphi, Mister Usuda, gnothi seauton: know thyself! You can see for yourself that it would do me little good to deny what I am, and that much we have in common, even if my condition is more obvious.”

Tetsuo glowered and ran a hand through his hair again. He was getting a serious headache and his nerves were still shot, and getting preached at by a pedantic blue gorilla was testing his limits.

“Che. Whatever, Doc. Y'can call me a fuckin' radioactive space alien, if it'll helpya sleep at night, but I ain't got no fuckin' powers, an' neither does Kinuko-kun. So, can I fuckin' go an' see'er, or what?”

“Yes, yes,” Beast sighed, “very well. But try not to get her too excited just now. She needs rest, and whether you accept it or not, this apparant ability of hers is clearly ill-controlled.”

“Sure, Doc,” Tetsuo scoffed, grinning defiantly—and more than a little sarcastically—as he stood and began walking to the infirmary. “I'll try. But I can't promiseya nuthin', bein' such a fuckin' excitin' guy.”

Kinuko was still in the cot where he had set her down when he arrived, and the sight of the pitiful condition she was in—pale and laying under heaps of sheets with the bearing of a tattered rag doll, an IV tubes running under her covers and monitor leads reaching out to express her condition in dubious lines and flashing numbers—knocked the sarcasm out of him like a slap in the face. She was curled up on her side with her back toward the door.

Quickly regaining his composure, he scowled, and stuck his trembling hands in his jacket pockets. Even after his near-death experience with Rogue the other night, he had kept his hands steady, if white-knuckled, and he was proud of that—but now, they refused to sit still, no matter what he did with them, and he could feel the tremors struggling to clamber up his arms and into his shoulders.

Damnit, Kinuko-kun, he thought, straining to resist the urge to pace around the room. What's happenin' t'you?

“W-wak...ar...nai...” she murmured, groggily slurred and indistinct with tremors, as though in response.

Tetsuo blinked, and rested a hand on Kinuko's arm delicately. “Wuwazzat?” he asked, leaning nearer and reflexively switching back to Japanese. “What'dja say, Kinuko-kun?”

“S-said I— don't know,” she repeated sluggishly. “Don't know, Tetsuo-kun. What's happening— I don't know.”

Tetsuo hesitated and drew a shaky hand from his pocket to run in through his hair, pausing uncertainly. How th'hell'd she hear—

“Not deaf, Tetsuo,” Kinuko murmured bitterly.

“But I din't—” he began, then stopped; he jammed his hand back into his pocket and shook his head. “Nevermind, Kinuko-kun. Sorry, thought'cha were sleepin'.”

Kinuko stayed silent for a moment, then made a drowsy scoffing sound. “Sleepin',” she grunted sarcastically in a half-whispered echo, as if the word itself was a tasteless joke.

“Well, I did wakeya up, an' after what happened, an' all—”

“Don't care,” she interrupted in a low, mumbling tone. “Not sleep...ng ever, Tets...o-kun...never...” He stood and listened quietly as in the middle of Kinuko's objections, her voice grew softer and gradually faded into the incoherency of slumber.

 

* * * * *

 

Tetsuo stood at the closed door of Xavier's study and listened. He could just recognize the voices of Xavier and the redheaded Jean Gray, but it was difficult to tell what they were saying; the most he could make out was something about last night and Kinuko, discussed in tones of disagreement.

Th'hell d'they know, anyway? He scowled at the door crossly, his hands jammed forcefully into his jacket pockets as he leaned against the wall. His head was full of cotton; he felt like his stomach would have crawled up his throat, if it hadn't been blocked by his pounding heart. For a few days already, he hadn't felt completely himself, but now he felt skittish, dazed, depressed—sick.

Of course, he would never tell that to Xavier or his giant blue quack, as he described Beast to himself.

“You're sure about this, Professor?” One of the double doors had swung quietly open, and Jean had paused just inside.

“Only as much so as we can be, in these circumstances,” he answered kindly. “But I will certainly keep your concerns in mind, Jean.”

She nodded and turned to leave. In passing, she smiled reassurinigly, and that look of consolation stung Tetsuo so that he could only give her an acerbic glower and make a vague scoffing sound. The way her expression failed to falter in response was infuriating.

Tch. Keep outta my fuckin' head, he thought bitterly, feeling a cagey paranoia bubbling up from his queasy gut.

“Thank you for being so punctual, Tetsuo,” said Xavier from beyond his desk, with the demeanor of a studious practitioner of superhuman patience. “Please, come in.”

Tetsuo entered the study, at once visibly sullen and high-strung. The presence of the doctor—the one he regarded as the “giant blue quack”—as well as the professor set him that much more on edge. He glanced warily from one to the other and back again, half expecting a solitary, stark lamp to descend from the ceiling, and the interrogation to begin. He was in such a state of distracted agitation that he scarcely noticed the attitudes of the two authority figures, and misunderstood what he was aware of: Beast's discomfort and Xavier's concern, he took, respectively, for guilty apprehension and condescension.

“You can relax, Tetsuo,” Xavier offered, indicating a seat. “I did not ask you here to grill you for answers; there's no need to be jumpy.”

“Tch. I ain't jumpy, Destro.”

“Be that as it may, I wanted to speak with you out of concern for your friend Kinuko.” Xavier frowned sympathetically; it was a blessing that he had not been required to breach such subjects with his students at the Institute. “When you brought Kinuko into the infirmary last night, we took the opportunity to perform some blood tests; we have been concerned for some time by her behavior and the disrupted impressions Jean and myself have sensed from her.”

“What'cha sayin', Wheels? Could'ja cut t'tha chase, y'think?” Tetsuo scowled, getting edgier and more wary as the excuses dragged on.

Xavier sighed and turned his eyes to Beast.

“If you would, Henry.”

“Yes, well,” Beast began. “To `cut to the chase,' as you asked, we found faint traces of dextroamphetamine, corresponding to perhaps a week's disuse.”

“Th'hell're you sayin'?” Tetsuo glowered suspiciously. “Use some fuckin' normal-size words.”

Beast grimaced irritably at the boy's distasteful response. “Dextroamphetamine is also known as Dexedrine—or `speed,' in street vernacular—and what seems to be plaguing your friend is withdrawal, after an extended period of dependency. She has been showing such symptoms as irritability, depression, extended but disturbed sleep, confusion—”

“Tch- oi, this's bullshit!”

“Tetsuo—” Xavier began.

“Bullshit!” he repeated, standing and punching the top of Xavier's desk, leaning forward aggressively and waving an arm at Beast. “Tell this fuckin' quack he's full'a shit, willya? I ain't gonna sit here an' listen'a this crap! Kuso!”

Beast was on his feet quickly, but paused when Xavier lifted a hand and gently waved him back into his seat.

“Please calm yourself, Tetsuo. I have complete faith in Doctor McCoy's abilities, and while I understand that this is troubling—”

“Che! Y'don't understand a goddamn thing!” Tetsuo interrupted, his voice uncharacteristically shrill with agitation, and turned to storm out of the study.

“Tetsuo, wait!” Xavier called after him, and sighed when the youth's only response was a single expressive finger displayed over his should as he passed through the open door.

“Should we…?” Beast began, standing again and looking to Xavier.

“Yes, we should follow him. I know just where he is headed, and I believe he will regret his impassioned haste most of all.”

Beast smiled wanly, and moved to push Xavier's wheelchair, heading toward the infirmary. “Ahh, Sophocles—`you clearly hate to yield, but you will regret it when your anger has passed,' hmm?”

“Kinuko-kun!” Tetsuo huffed, stepping dazedly into the infirmary. “Oi, Kinuko-kun!”

“Mwh?” she mumbled drowsily, tentatively raising herself up on her elbows, and squinted blearily at him. “Whach' shout'ng for?”

Tetsuo stared at her for a second, not sure what he was expecting her to do or say, and then started treading back and forth at the side of her sickbed, running a hand through his hair.

“Shit, Kinuko-kun,” he muttered in Japanese, “y'don't even know what they been sayin', doya? These fuckin' creeps're tryin'a tell me you've been doin' speed now! Idunno what th'fuck they're planning, but they gotta be up ta—”

He fell silent as he was turned in the middle of pacing, and caught of glimpse of the clear expression of shame, all the more shocking in contrast to the pallid, lifeless stares of recent days. Whatever plan he had been hatching, whatever suspicions he had entertained, were vanished without a trace. He stared at her for a string of unending seconds before he could bring himself to complete the inescapably obvious thought.

“You were doin' speed.”

“Tetsuo-kun,” she began, raggedly.

“You were doin' fuckin' speed.”

“Listen, Tetsuo-kun,” she tried again, shaking her head.

“Shuttup!” Tetsuo growled. “You were fuckin' doin' speed, Kinuko!”

He glared at her in a long moment of mutual silence; words spun about in his head, stripped of meaning by their insignificance next to what he needed to express.

“DAMNIT!” he finally concluded and spun about. The crash of the door against the wall when he kicked it open stung his ears and rattled in his head, but it was satisfying, and it drowned out the sound of Kinuko calling his name from the infirmary.

Beast and Xavier could only guess what might have happened when they arrived to find Kinuko sobbing into her pillow.