#zombieman just walked next to him like 'okay yeah alright then' | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

metalbatandzenko · 4 years

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Grief and Other Intangibles

Based off of this very sad but somewhat goofy scenario from @opmheadcanons.

AO3

This was supposed to be a ficlet. It’s over 5k words.

Oops.

Anyways, heads up for major character death.

---

Zombieman turned around just in time to see it happen.

The second that the cybernetic spider legs stored in Child Emperor’s backpack found their mark, the monster’s talons found theirs.

The boy’s eyes widened in shock, and he looked down at the talon protruding from his chest, at the rapidly spreading red stain. He looked up, making eye contact with Zombieman.

He looked so young.

The monster let out a death screech, rearing up. The hand holding Child Emperor flailed out.

Zombieman could only watch as the boy hit a nearby building with enough force to crack the cement.

Child Emperor crumpled, and did not rise again.

He might just be knocked out, part of his mind tried to reason with him. But he knew.

Zombieman had been dead once. He’d been in positions where he should have been dead countless times since then.

The kid wasn’t coming back.

The acknowledgement sent a chill through his already cold body, radiating from his empty chest all the way to his toes.

He turned to the remaining monsters.

The hero’s almanac said he liked killings that created a river of blood.

He was about to prove it right.

---

The rest of the fight was brief and brutal.

The moment the last monster fell, he dropped his axe and sprinted towards Child Emperor’s unmoving body, not bothering to look back.

He’d known before that his kid was gone.

But seeing it, seeing the trail of dried blood leaking from his mouth and ear, feeling how cold, and limp, and small he felt when Zombieman picked him up…

Zombieman had been dead once. He’d been in positions where he should have been dead countless times since then.

But that didn’t mean he was prepared for this.

He’d long since lost the ability to cry. Whatever the mad scientist had done to him had messed with that.

But as he cradled Child Emperor’s corpse to his chest, a tremor shook his body.

He cried, even as tears refused to fall from his dried up tear ducts.

His sobs were low, guttural, pulled from somewhere primal, somewhere low in his belly where grief and bile were stored.

With a shaking hand, he tapped his earpiece.

“This is Zombieman. The threat in City F has been neutralized.” He swallowed.

How would he say this? How could he sum up what had been lost?

The words tumbled from his lips.

“But they got Child Emperor.”

Got.

He wasn’t ready to use the stronger word.

---

When the Hero Association representatives made it to City F, they found Zombieman holding the boy’s head to his shoulder, as if by hugging him tightly enough, he could bring him back.

They reached out to him with gentle hands and coaxing words.

Zombieman, it’s okay. We’ll take it from here.

They didn’t expect the frenzied rage in his eyes, or the way he held Child Emperor even closer, looking back and forth between them like a caged animal.

They didn’t respect his response either.

“No.”

He shook his head, as if he was unsure they’d understood what he said.

“No,” he repeated. “He’s just a kid. I’m staying with him.”

The representatives looked back and forth at one another.

Finally, the woman in the front spoke.

“Alright,” she said gently. “You can stay with him.”

She extended a hand and after a moment, Zombieman took it.

She led him to the Hero Association vehicle and he climbed inside, still clinging to the child’s body like a lifeline, a vacant look in his eyes.

As the vehicle took off, she sighed. She’d seen that look all too often in her line of work.

It was well known the two were close, that Child Emperor was the closest thing the man had to a family.

Watching the hero cling to the boy’s broken body made her wonder why they authorized children to fight in their wars in the first place.

---

Zombieman felt a hand on his wrist.

“Hey, Zombieman, right?”

He turned and found himself facing the kid he’d seen at the S Class hero meeting.

“Yeah, that’s me,” he said, figuring it was best to humor the boy.

The boy extended a hand. “My hero name is Child Emperor. But you can call me Hikaru.”

Zombieman took his hand and shook it once. “Child Emperor, huh?”

Child Emperor nodded. “I’m the go to tech guy for the Hero Association. It used to be Bo—Metal Knight, but ah—” he flushed.

Metal Knight: one of two no shows at the meeting. He took it the hero wasn’t exactly popular.

Child Emperor continued. “Anyways, if you ever need any weapons upgrades or equipment, let me know.”

Zombieman gave him a half smile. “Thanks kid, I appreciate it.”

“Do you need help navigating to the exit?” Child Emperor asked.

If anyone else had asked him, he might have suspected they were mocking him. But the kid looked up at him with such earnestness that he let the unintended insult roll off his back.

The boy must have taken his lack of response as a sign he’d gravely offended Zombieman, because he stuttered.

“I’m not trying to say you can’t find your way out alone! I just—” he took a deep breath. “Occasionally I get lost trying to get out of here,” he confessed. “Bo—Metal Knight designed the place and he’s a bit paranoid, so he made it hard to navigate on purpose.”

That was the second time the kid had slipped up on the name.

He catalogued that detail for later.

“So if you get lost, what’s the point of taking you with me?”

Child Emperor opened his mouth. He closed it again and looked away, but not before Zombieman caught the gleam of dejection in his eye.

He nudged him. “I’m kidding. Apologies, I’m not the best at jokes. I’d be happy to have your company, Child Emperor.”

“Hikaru,” the boy corrected him.

Zombieman sighed. “I’d be happy to have your company, Hikaru.”

The two walked in silence for a moment.

“What’s your real name?” Hikaru asked. The boy immediately balked, apparently realizing it might not be the politest thing to ask. “You don’t have to tell me,” he added quickly. “I know a few of the heroes don’t like giving out their civilian names. I just wasn’t sure if—”

Zombieman waved him off, doing his best to hide his amusement.

The kid might be a genius, but he was obviously still a kid.

“My name is Experiment Sixty-Six,” he told the boy. “But that’s doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, so I don’t really use it.”

Hikaru’s face darkened. “You don’t have a real name?”

Zombieman shook his head. “Why don’t you give me one?”

Hikaru stopped in his tracks.

Zombieman looked back at him. “Hikaru?”

“That’s a lot to put on a person you just met,” Hikaru said, his voice rising in pitch with every syllable.

Zombieman shrugged. “You don’t have to decide now. But I figured we’ll probably be spending quite a bit of time together with work, so you’re as good a person as any to decide it.”

He started walking again, the faintest smile on his face.

---

The Hero Association asked him to speak at Child Emperor’s memorial.

He declined.

He’d already spoken at the boy’s funeral, and that had been hard enough. But the thought of speaking at the Hero Association’s memorial for him—which was just a thinly veiled publicity stunt and cash grab—would have made any living human’s stomach turn.

He went to the kid’s plot in the cemetery instead.

They’d interred his bones and ashes in the base of a statue of him. The statue showed him mid battle, held up by his mechanized spider legs, his trademark lollipop peeking out from between his lips.

On the plaque, in big, bold letters was his hero name.

Underneath was some meaningless platitude, probably supplied by a Hero Association minister.

And underneath that, in smell letters, was his real name: Hikaru Sato.

As if by making his name so small, they could hide the fact he was a person beyond his work.

That he was a child sent to fight while a bunch of suits sat around and let him take the risks they weren’t willing to take themselves.

Zombieman rummaged around in his pocket, pulling out an underdog figurine he’d made for the kid before he passed.

He placed it on the base of the statue, knowing it would soon be joined by many more offerings.

“Here’s to you, kid.”

---

It took Hikaru a month to come up with a name for him.

He threw open the door of Zombieman’s apartment, and Zombieman idly noted that giving him the key may have been a mistake.

“Augustus,” he said.

Zombieman raised an eyebrow and took a sip of his coffee. “Is that supposed to mean anything to me? And I told you the key was for emergencies only.”

Hikaru hopped onto the stool next to him. “You asked me to give you a name: Augustus.” He conveniently didn’t respond to Zombieman’s complaint.

Zombieman reached under the counter into his mini fridge and passed Hikaru a juice box. He’d started stocking up on them when the kid started coming over more regularly.

“What made you choose that?”

Hikaru stabbed his straw into the juice box. “I figured an old fashioned name would suit your old fashioned sensibilities. I can choose a different name if you don’t like it, oji.”

Zombieman chuckled at the nickname and shook his head. “No, it’s got a nice ring to it. Good choice, kid.”

---

Zombieman stood in what had been the kid’s lab, a pack of cigarettes in one hand, a bottle of whiskey in the other.

He’d managed to buy the property before it could be sold off. It’d pretty much cleared out his savings to do so (he had a feeling the realtor could smell his desperation and priced the building accordingly) but he’d done it.

It felt strange to be in Hikaru’s lab without him. It looked so much smaller without him there to buzz around the stacks of papers, or look for a specific book in his shelves (organized by subject, author, and color, in that order).

He made his way over to the desk and computer.

Hikaru had a few pictures framed on his desk.

The first was a picture of the kid and his parents before they died. He held his backpack by the shoulder straps in the picture, his gap toothed grin so wide his eyes had closed.

Zombieman smiled.

Next to it was a photo of the Hero Association’s cherry blossom viewing the year before.

And next to that…

His breath caught in his throat.

Next to that was a picture of them.

It was set of photos technically.

He remembered a civilian had taken of them after a fight with the promise to send them to the two.

The first one they were obviously posing for the camera. Zombieman had his axe slung over his shoulder and his other arm slung around Hikaru’s.

Both of them were absolutely covered in beast blood.

But despite that, they were grinning. And it wasn’t the tight, half smile he put on for fans. The exhilaration of battle and the stupid pun Hikaru cracked the second before had him grinning from ear to ear.

The next picture showed the aftermath of Hikaru’s terrible pun. Zombieman had him in a headlock and was giving him a noogie. Hikaru’s small hands grabbed at the arm locked around his neck, but both of them were laughing.

He took a step forward, his fingers ghosting along the edges of the photograph.

He leaned back against the desk, and took a drag of his cigarette.

“It’s weird being here without you, kid,” he said into the empty space. “I guess—I guess I should have known I would outlive you. But I thought we’d have more time.”

He swallowed down the lump in his throat.

“I didn’t think it would end like this.”

He leaned his head back, taking a swig from the bottle of whiskey.

A light turned on.

“Hey oji!”

Zombieman liked to think he was hard to startle.

But hearing that voice made him spit take.

He whirled around and found himself facing Hikaru.

The bottle of whiskey fell from his hand, shattering on the floor.

The boy raised an eyebrow, seemingly unimpressed. “Planning on drinking and smoking in the lab?”

Zombieman took a step back. “How are you here? You’re—”

Dead.

The word got caught in his throat.

Hikaru nodded. “This was the backup plan. You’re speaking to a hologram.”

To prove it, he pointed at his feet, where Zombieman found a small projector.

Zombieman found himself smiling despite himself. “You really think of everything, huh?”

“Yeah, well the plan was to not have to deploy this for at least another few years,” Hikaru said. “But obviously, that didn’t work.”

“I’d hope the plan was to never have to deploy it,” Zombieman shot back.

The hologram shrugged. “Everyone dies at some point, even if it’s from old age. This would allow me to continue researching even after that.”

Zombieman sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Of course it would. Kid, as someone who won’t get the chance to go back to being dead in a very long time, believe me when I say that once you’re that old, you’re not gonna want to kee—” he stopped.

In his confusion, he’d forgotten who he was talking to.

Hikaru laughed. “It’s okay. Talking to someone from beyond the grave must be weird.”

Zombieman nodded. “Yeah. It is.”

“I do have something I need to ask you,” the hologram said.

Zombieman’s eyes narrowed. “What is it?”

“Since this program was a few years out from being ready, the device a bit buggy. The AI is fine, but the projector itself will need maintenance to get it upgraded enough to be stable.”

“How much maintenance?”

“A few years’ worth.”

Zombieman sighed. “Leave it to you to leave me homework. I guess we better get started then.”

The hologram clapped its hands together, and to Zombieman’s surprise, the action was accompanied by the sound of a clap.

Hikaru really did think of everything.

“Great! I’ve got some books complete with pictures and diagrams that will walk you through the maintenance.”

Zombieman noted how Hikaru refused to make eye contact with him.

“Hikaru, how many books are there?”

As if on cue, a mountain of books dropped from the ceiling.

Hikaru winced. “Thirty-six.”

Zombieman gawked at the pile of books in front of him.

“Do I really have to—”

“Yep.”

Zombieman paused.

“Really?”

“Uh-huh.”

Zombieman sighed and picked up the first volume.

He immediately closed it.

“What the fuck is a CPU?”

---

Sitch cleared his throat. “That is all we have on the agenda for this meeting. I will stay behind to answer any questions you have.”

Zombieman shuffled out of the meeting room, eager to get away from the Hero Association officials.

“Oji! Wait up!”

Zombieman stopped and turned around, letting the kid catch up to him.

Hikaru stopped next to him and hunched over as he caught his breath.

“You know, you didn’t have to run,” Zombieman said, a small smile gracing his lips. “I would have waited for you either way.”

Hikaru righted himself. “I need a favor.”

Zombieman cocked his head. “I’m listening.”

“I’m working on a new bot, and I need data to program it with,” Hikaru began. “I was wondering if you’d be willing to help.”

“I don’t know anything about programming, kid. Sorry to disappoint you.”

Hikaru shook his head. “It’s not that. I’m making a cooking robot, but I don’t know how to cook.”

Zombieman arched an eyebrow. “And what makes you think I do?”

Hikaru glared at him. “No person has your kitchen and doesn’t know how to cook.”

“I can guarantee you that Blue-Hair has a kitchen fit for a chef but doesn’t know how to fry an egg,” Zombieman replied.

“Hence why I’m asking you, not Mask.”

He paused.

“Also, Mask scares me.”

“And I don’t?” Zombieman quipped.

Zombieman felt an arm get slung over his shoulder. He turned his head to find Metal Bat standing between the two of them, as if he’d been summoned by the chance to mock Amai Mask.

“Aw, Karu, there’s no reason t’be afraid of Mask,” he said, pressing his knuckle to the boy’s cheek. “He’s jus’ another dipshit.”

Hikaru crossed his arms. “A dipshit with inhuman strength and speed.”

“Language!” The teen chided.

“You said it first!”

Metal Bat straightened his posture. “Ah, but I’m yer elder,” he said imperiously. His face split with a grin. “But if Mask gives ya any trouble, jus’ dump a bucket of water on him. He’ll be too busy worryin’ about his meltin’ makeup t’retaliate.”

Zombieman hummed. “You wear makeup too, Badd. Could we say the same for you?”

The teen shook his head. “Nah. All mine’s waterproof. This shit could weather th’apocalypse.”

He turned back to Hikaru. “None of these heroes are worth bein’ afraid of, ‘kay? Yer too smart fer that.”

“Not even me?” Zombieman asked.

Badd laughed and slugged him in the shoulder, hard enough that he felt the bone break. “Bah, yer not foolin’ anyone Auggie. Y’can play tough all y’want, but yer as gentle as a lamb.”

Before either of them had time to respond, the teen had extricated himself from their side and was halfway down the hall.

He sent them a salute. “See ya at th’next meetin’.”

Hikaru turned back to him. “Auggie?”

Zombieman shrugged. “I told you, I liked the name. Now about helping you with your cooking robot—”

The boy perked up.

“—I suppose I could show you what I know.”

---

“The nice thing about being a hologram is I can’t smell your cigarettes,” Hikaru said one night.

Zombieman looked up from volume three of thirty-six. “That’s your takeaway from all this?”

The hologram nodded. “They reek.”

He looked back down at the book. “Yeah, I know. I didn’t smoke them around you for a reason.”

A thunderclap shook the building.

“Uh-oh.”

Zombieman sighed. “What is it?”

He looked up again to find the hologram flickering and distorting.

“A fuse blew in the east wing of the lab and if you don’t fix it in—calculating—ten-point-two minutes then I will fizz out.”

Zombieman groaned. “But it’s raining outside.”

“Do you want me to die again?”

Zombieman’s throat closed up.

“Too soon?”

Zombieman nodded. “Yeah.”

“Oji, I’m sorr—”

Zombieman stood, the scraping of his chair against the floor cutting off the rest of Hikaru’s apology.

He grabbed his trench coat.

“I’ll go fix it then.”

---

“Are the dots necessary?”

Hikaru nodded. “They’re reading your brainwaves and helping me map the AI. Just try and go about cooking as normal.”

Zombieman chose not to mention how cooking as normal might be hard to achieve with all those wires on his head. “Do I even have brainwaves?”

Hikaru nodded again. “You wouldn’t be conscious if you didn’t.”

That seemed fair enough. But Zombieman’s physiology was anything but ordinary, so he had to check.

“Hey kid, come over here.”

Hikaru’s eyebrows furrowed, but he complied.

Zombieman passed him a rectangular knife. “Now, I’m not gonna teach you everything, but the least I can do is teach you some basic knife safety.”

The boy crinkled his nose.

“Hey, no funny looks. Teaching is the best way to show you know something, right? This should be helpful for your AI charting.”

“Mapping,” Hikaru corrected him.

“Yeah, that’s what I said.” Zombieman placed a bunch of green onions on the cutting board. “Now what you’re using is a Nakiri Bōchō. It’s the standard vegetable knife. The cutting edge is sharpened on both sides, so it’s good for making straight cuts.”

He held up his knife. “This is an Usuba Bōchō. It’s similar in silhouette, but it’s only sharpened on one side of the cutting edge. You can get much thinner cuts with it, but it takes more practice to master.”

Zombieman turned the knife over in his hands.

“We’ll cover all the different types of knives, but for now, let’s focus on your form.”

He curled his fingertips under his knuckles, and pressed the flat side of the knife against them. “See how I’m protecting my fingers?”

Hikaru nodded and copied his form.

“Good. Now push straight down.”

He demonstrated, pushing the knife through the air in one decisive motion.

Hikaru mirrored the action.

“Good. Now let’s try that with the green onions.”

---

This kid was going to destroy his life savings.

Zombieman walked out of the hardware store carrying a couple hundred-thousand yen’s worth of parts.

“This is so fucking heavy,” he grumbled.

“Hey!”

Zombieman stiffened.

“Hey is that you?”

Oh god.

He sped up, hoping that the minister would leave him alone.

But the minister was never one to take no for an answer.

He felt the hand clamp down on his shoulder. “Hi there! Long time no see!”

Zombieman glared at the hand on his shoulder. “Yep.”

Minister Sitch looked him up and down. “You look…” he hesitated. “Wonderful.”

Zombieman resisted the urge to raise his eyebrow.

He hadn’t shaven in two weeks, his hair was disheveled, and he was covered in coolant and oil.

A few words came to mind for how he looked.

Wonderful was not one of them.

He gave the minister a flat stare. “Thanks.”

If Sitch could tell how much Zombieman wanted the conversation to be over, he didn’t show it.

He slung his arm around Zombieman’s shoulders and Zombieman resisted the urge to throw it off of him, spare parts be damned. “You know, I get it. After everything that’s happened and Child Emperor’s…” his voice trailed off, and he coughed.

At least he had the decency to look guilty.

“After his passing, it’s only natural that you’d take a while off of work. Although, it has been three months. Everyone’s itching to see you again.”

“I’m sure they are—”

Sitch cut him off. “I kid, I kid. Take your time, really. If you ever need anything, just call me.”

Zombieman shook the man’s arm off his shoulder. “Cool—”

“What’s in the box anyway?”

“I’m building a robot,” Zombieman replied.

Sitch’s mouth opened, then closed again.

“Well, maintaining one,” he clarified.

Sitch looked him over. “That’s…neat.”

Zombieman nodded.

The minister coughed again. “Well, I’ll let you get back to it.”

Before Zombieman could respond, the minister scurried off.

---

“Hey Gus-jisan? How do you tell someone you like them?”

Zombieman took a sip of his coffee. “I’m probably not the person to ask about that one, kid.”

Hikaru’s face fell.

“But, I can try my best,” he said. “Tell me about them.”

“She’s in my class,” Hikaru started. “She’s really smart, and sweet, and she’s stubborn—”

Zombieman cut him off. “—And I’m gonna stop you right there kid. Rule of thumb, people don’t like being called stubborn.”

The boy tilted his head. “I guess that makes sense. Is it better if I say she fights for what she believes in?”

“Much.”

“And she’s really pretty,” Hikaru added. “And she played the piano for me last week.”

“Have you tried talking to her about it?”

Hikaru nodded. “I’ve even given her little gifts. I made her a mechanized flower that opens when it hears her voice.”

Zombieman smiled. “That’s sweet.”

“And I think she likes me too,” Hikaru said.

“Then what’s the problem?”

The boy chewed his lip. “She has an older brother.”

Zombieman furrowed his brow. “Are you scared he’ll beat you up?”

Hikaru shook his head. “No it’s not that it’s just ah—her older brother is one of our coworkers.”

Everything snapped into place.

Zombieman pinched his nose bridge, an action he’d become all too familiar with.

“Hikaru,” he started. “Please tell me you’re not talking about Badd, ‘My-Sister-Is-All-I-Have-In-The-World-And-I-Will-Protect-Her-With-My-Life’ Fukichi’s sister, Zenko.”

The boy grinned sheepishly.

Zombieman sighed. “Kid, you’re in deep shit.”

---

“I need you to change my coolant canister.”

Zombieman groaned and set aside volume twenty-six of thirty-six. “Again?”

The hologram shrugged. “Well, somebody deciding to turn the heating unit all the way up—”

Zombieman stood. “Fine, fine. I’ll do it.”

He opened a metal cabinet, pulled out a new canister and a wrench, and made his way over to the system in the corner.

He heard Hikaru’s voice from the other side of a pile of papers.

“Hey, stay positive!” He said. “By this time next year, you’ll have learned enough from taking care of me that you’ll be eligible for three PHDs in robotics! Isn’t that exciting?”

Zombieman crouched and loosened the bolts on the old canister. “Oh, joy!” He yelled back, keeping his voice as flat as possible.

He could almost hear Hikaru stick his tongue out.

The thought made him chuckle.

He slid the new canister into place and connected the nozzle, then tightened the bolts around it.

Zombieman stood, taking a look at his handiwork. “How’s that feel?”

“Much better!”

As he turned to return to the main section of the room, the wrench slipped from his fingers, falling on his foot.

“AH FUCK!”

---

“Hey, kid, can I ask you to do me a favor?”

Hikaru looked up from the project he was working on. “What do you need, oji?”

Zombieman placed his Desert Eagles on the table. “I need ammunition with greater stopping power.”

The boy disassembled the guns with shocking ease. He examined one of the bullets. “Is there a reason you’re not using hollow point ammunition?” He asked.

Zombieman shrugged. “Call me a sadist.”

Hikaru sighed, and placed the bullet back on the table. “Well let’s start with that. No way you should be coming in here asking about stopping power while using round nose bullets.”

He pried open the casing, pouring the black powder onto the table. “Plus, that’s already about as much powder as you can use without destroying the gun or your arms.”

Zombieman nodded. “Well, the recoil destroying my arms isn’t an issue here. The pistols are another story.”

Hikaru hummed. “I’ll see what I can do.”

---

“It’s been good having you back,” Zombieman said one day. “When you were…when you were gone, I worried I’d never see you again. Or at least, I’d have to wait a very long time, long enough that you wouldn’t remember me.”

Hikaru smiled. “How could he forget you?”

Zombieman paused. “He?”

The hologram stiffened.

Zombieman swallowed. “You—you’re not him, are you?”

The hologram sighed and shook its head.

Zombieman pressed his lips together.

He’d forgotten how much betrayal felt like heartburn.

“Then what was the point?” He grated out, hating the way his voice cracked.

“Like I told you, to continue his research. But also—” the hologram hesitated.

“‘But also’ what?”

“He was worried about what would happen to you if he died before he finished his deadman’s switch. The research I could continue no problem, my AI’s been programmed for years. But this hologram was for you. He hoped it would help you grieve.”

“His deadman’s switch,” Zombieman repeated.

The hologram nodded. “He’d been working on a way to upload his consciousness to this lab when he died since he first joined the S Class. I estimate he was only a year or so out from the switch being completed when he died.”

Zombieman raked a shaking hand through his hair. “So if he’d focused on completing the switch instead of you and these damn manuals, he’d be here.”

Hurt flickered in the hologram’s eyes. “No,” it said quietly. “The hologram took him less than a day to make.”

“THEN WHAT WAS THE POINT?” He exploded, swiping the volumes off the table. “What was the point of him making you—what, to help me grieve? How is any of this—” he gestured wildly at the hologram “—helping me? What, by prolonging my grief? By making me think he’s still around? Now I’ve lost him twice, and I’m no closer to closure than I was when he left!”

“When he left?” The hologram repeated. “He’s dead, Augustus. And in the entire time you’ve been working on maintaining me, you’ve never once said that word.”

Zombieman crumpled on the floor in front of it.

“You think he wanted to die Auggie? Do you remember the fear in his eyes? He was just a child. And yet here you are, saying he left, as if he had a choice in the matter! Like he chose to leave to spite you!”

“Of course I remember,” Zombieman said, wishing—not for the first time—that his tear ducts still worked. “God, I remember he looked so young, and so fragile and so scared. And I couldn’t get to him in time.”

His shoulders shook with sobs. “It should have been me,” he choked out. “I should have done a better job dissuading him from going on that mission. He’s gone, and it’s my fault.”

A blue glow entered his periphery.

He looked up to see the hologram crouched in front of him. “It’s not your fault,” it said. “Hikaru was going to do what he was going to do. He was stubborn.”

“He fought for what he believed in,” Zombieman corrected.

The hologram laughed. “Maybe so.” It sobered. “But oji, we need you to say the stronger word.”

Zombieman shook his head. “I can’t,” he whispered. “I’m not ready to say goodbye.”

“You never are. But you have to.” It reached out and placed its hand on Zombieman’s shoulder. While he didn’t feel the pressure of a hand, he did feel warmth radiating from the spot.

“August, you need to move on. He wouldn’t have wanted this for you.”

“Yeah, well he’s dead,” Zombieman spat out.

The second the word was off his tongue, he recoiled.

The hologram flickered. “That’s what I needed to hear.”

It disappeared, and Zombieman was left in a dark room, alone.

Hikaru’s computer screen blared to life.

Zombieman looked up, and there he was.

He stood, and walked over to the computer as if in a trance.

“Hey Gus-jisan,” the recording said. “If you’re watching this, that means I’m dead. It also means I didn’t finish my deadman’s switch before I died.”

Zombieman’s fingers touched the screen.

Hikaru shifted in his seat. “I’m not good at speeches, so I’ll try to keep this brief.”

“I know this has probably been hard on you,” he started. “And I’m sorry to leave you behind. I hope Holo-karu has been of some comfort to you.”

Zombieman snorted.

“If I know you, you’re probably blaming yourself for this. But this is not your fault.” Hikaru paused, a wry grin on his face. “And if it makes you feel any better, I think I did well enough this time around to land myself a spot in the Pure Land. And if that’s the case, when your time finally comes, I will greet you at the gate as a friend.”

He sobered. “I want you to know it is okay to grieve. But it is also okay to move on. I hope by the time you’re watching this you will have returned to work, even if it’s not hero work. I instructed Holo-karu to play this when they thought you were ready to hear it. I’m sorry if that means you didn’t hear it when you needed to.”

The boy straightened in his chair. “Before I close this out, a bit of housekeeping. There’s a locked file cabinet under the desk, I’m sure you’ve noticed it. The combination is 4766. Inside you’ll find a collection of drives. They’re labelled with the names of who they’re for. You’re welcome to invite people over here to view the message I left them. But keep the Hero Association, Metal Knight, and Drive Knight out. I don’t want them exploiting Holo-karu.”

Zombieman opened the drawer and sure enough, there were a dozen drives stored inside, names inscribed on them in Hikaru’s familiar scrawl. He dumped them on the desk.

Hikaru smiled, his eyes brimming with tears. “I’m gonna miss you, oji,” he said. “But I’m grateful for the time we had together. And I’m so incredibly honored to have been part of your family. My only hope for you is that you don’t stop seeking that family now that I’m gone. There are people out there who would love to be a part of your life if you’d let them. Invite some of them over for dinner, show off your cooking skills. Ojisan, it’s time for you to put yourself out there.”

He gave one last smile. “Good luck Uncle Augustus. I believe in you.”

The screen went black.

#my writing

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