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Shinji led him a good ways out from the house, near weather-beaten cliffs overlooking the all-devouring ocean. Kobayakawa followed content with having rice cakes to munch on. He waited patiently as Shinji stared off into the distance.
"What have you found?"
Oh, so it's to be THAT sort of Bosstalk, eh? Well, he could not expect Da Boss to be fun about this sort of thing. "We gots the Gretchz workin' boss. One'a dem saw Minase stop at a call booth to phone someone instead of using her cell phone. She ducked into a store and came out looking different, hair up in bun and everything. Dude in a moto-bike came by and took her off."
Shinji nodded absently. "You know, I SHOULD be feeling some dismay at how you have kindergarten kids stalking people, but I just can't seem to raise it right now. I'm impressed though, they're surprisingly patient and hard to fool."
Kobayakawa lifted his double chin up. "My Gretchz are da best, boss. No one ever notices a little kid. Have four of dem squatting in a corner and nobody cares what dey do. It's like derr invisible. If dey look playing, they can do anything."
"Good job. Now what's about dis runty squig? I don't think the Gretz can follow dem on a bike, can they?"
"No need ta, boss!" His voice then brightened. "We gots dis little Gretz, we call 'im Bike Boy. He knows the bikes of EVERYBODY in dis town. If its on two wheels, he knows it. Dat cause his brudda runs da bike shop. He works da Gretz on messenger service. We gots him and other shops on it, so we always haz a stash of candy for all da boyz back at da hut. No toyz is too expensive if ya can share it. No one messes wid da mob without da rest chippin' in."
Shinji nodded approvingly. Da Boyz were actually loved by the merchants downtown. Let them grow up a bit more and that cut off an entire generation of thugs who would bilk local businesses out for 'protection'. Da Boyz would actually protect these people. They were basically ad hoc militia already for reasons completely outside his control.
"We gots some bad news for ya, boss. Da squig's Kotaru Jishin, he's in high school, third year. Now HIS brudda's actually Yakuza. He's in prison right now so the squig's behavin'. He's 'ard though. Runs da junior high mob, nutting like OUR mob." Kobayakawa seemed to shrink into himself. "If we gets at him, a lot of da boyz are gonna get hurt."
"So? Don't. I only asked you for information."
"But you're DA BOSS! Who hurts ya hurts all da boyz. Who don't respects da don't respects da boyz! We should stomp him! STOMP HIM GOOD! W-"
"DON'T!" Shinji turned, his eyes glittering madly. "That word is NOT to be used so lightly, so foolishly. Do you understand me?"
Kobayakawa took a step back. "Uh, sure boss."
"The Waaagh! is sacred. It is not for the boyz to waste. Da Waaagh! Is to be done when and only when da world needs turnin' back to the right and proppa. You smacks someones, you stomps someone. But you don't call Da Waaagh! without a warboss! And you don't have a warboss until you HAVE A WAR! Do you hear me?"
"Boss! I hear yas!"
"When you calls a Waaagh!, I expects there to be nothing left! You will stompz da target until it is gone, you will breaks der stuff, you will digs der landz up until nobodys can remember where dey once waz, you will send da boyz and da boyz will not stops until da odda side is all right and propa and OURS! DAT, IS DA WAAAGH! Do you getz it?"
"Y-yes, boss. I getz ya, boss." Kobayakawa had an expression which could only be described as religious awe. "You Da Boss."
Shinji stepped back, and sighed heavily. "So, don't say it."
"…not gonna say it."
"Something has to be done about this Jishin. He's got that broody bad boy image young girls love." Shinji steepled his fingers, and held it up to just under his nose as he thought. "He wants her money. He wants her body. He will use her, he will break her. I can See it."
/And I can just let it happen. Wouldn't that be perfect? Let people just have the consequences of their own actions./
He closed his eyes and sighed. /But that would be bad./
He sighed again. "Send someone to follow him and Minase around, ready to call the cops." Crap. He blinked as he realized. He had just sent Ayane out to find Minase. "You know Mitsugane Ayane? She's my friend. I need you to watch out for her. If she's in trouble, I don't care what, jump in. Protect her."
"Yes, boss. Sure thing boss…"
Shinji turned and smiled now. "Auntie makes good rice cakes, doesn't she? It's the sliver of cheese she puts on top. Come on, let's get you some more."
"Thanks, boss!"
=][=
Shinji was still waiting. The silence in his skull was deafening. For years now he had imagined life into those little plastic people, and filled his bland moments with the joyful noise of their bickering. He had made them the companions who would never disappoint him, would never abandon him.
He took deep breaths and tried to clear his mind. He went out into the beach where he found them and listened to the waves. A constant pattern in the background helped him concentrate, he had no need to control the pace of his breathing to enter into a meditative trance. He breathed in with the surf, out with the riptide. No wonder so many temples were built near the shore, he mused.
Though it all there was only the serenity, the utter and artificial silence within his mind.
He was starting to hate it. He would usually seek that meditative state to help him think, but now that he could reach it so easily he found himself preferring the chaos of their little voices batting away thoughts back and forth.
He made them as the ones who would never betray him, so the logic was that he betrayed them. They did not leave, but were shut away. How? He had no idea, just as he didn't know at what point it time they crossed from mere voices in the head into distinct seemingly self-sufficient personalities.
He thought that he should have brought the figurines, they helped him focus. But really, did they reside in all that plastic? He had used them as a crutch for too long.
"I STILL NEED YOU!" he shouted into the silence. "COME BACK!"
There was no response. If this was what it meant to grow up and decide from oneself, he could do with remaining a child for a while longer.
He stood up and looked down at himself. Black pants, white shirt. Even out of school he preferred those simple clothes. No wonder Minase found him weak and boring.
He kicked off his shoes and began to walk over to the shorelines. He stopped right at the water's edge and let the waves lap at his feet. The horizon stretched out to beyond time, the sky vast and infinite. Under it, his problems faded into their temporal insignificance.
"Was it the pact with Chaos?" he asked the silence. "But… Chaos doesn't exist…!" Even then, shouldn't his Chaos Worshipper remain?
What happened while he slept? He missed them, missed them terribly.
He yelled out to the crashing waves: "What will you take for them, oh sea? You brought them to me from your depths. What can I offer so you can bring them to me again?"
The winds blew but there were no answers. The waves rushed on, but it was no reply.
Shinji bent down and scooped up some water in his palms. He splashed it into his face. He scooped up another handful and drank in its salty tang. He let most of it dribble down.
He fell back and lay down there on the beach, much like he did all those years ago. He felt the same pointlessness, the same sourceless sadness. "What am I doing?" he whispered. "This is so worthlessly dramatic. I'm brooding. Brooding, damn it!"
He slapped at the sands on either side of him, palms up. "They were awesome." He felt that if he could touch that, that thread of awesomeness once more, he could follow it and pull his miniature companions out of whatever box they were sealed in.
Breathe in. Breathe out. Waves up. Waves down. Clouds grew and shrank in his vision. He had a feeling of timelessness, as if in the future he would lie down on a shore again, always in sunset with all that dramatic red. The waters were all orange, the sky as red as blood.
He felt something watching him. Like a big floating head. He looked down, suddenly cold, but the post-Impact sea was still a wine-purple darkness, wounded but eternal, and completely uncaring of humanity. The sky was starting to darken even, though. He saw a single star weakly twinkling out in the distance.
"I'm sorry." he said, but there was no one to hear it.
He clenched his fists. "But this is pathetic. I am my own person! If the future is closed to me, then I'll break it open with my bare hands! I will teach them all to respect me! I'll take my own justice! I'll never be afraid again! Thank you for everything you've done. Thank you!
"If we never talk again... I think I'll be... fine, somehow."
Shinji got up and walked back to his house. He still had his own life ahead of him. He felt more powerful than he had ever before.
=][=
He found there a child waiting by the front door. The boy stood up, and looked at him doubtfully. "You're scrawny." he said.
/'Great. Now I'm being criticized by a being even smaller and bonier than I am.'/ He actually chuckled a bit. Being made fun of by tinier things was familiar. "And you're little." he said back. "Who are you?"
"I'm da Gretz" the little boy proudly said.
"I thought there was more than one? Collectively, you're Gretchin."
His eyes widened. "You don't look like one of Da Boyz. But you're right. We're all da Gretchz, but nobody knows dat secret name…" He scowled. "But I'm the Gretz here and I have a message. I've gotta make sure."
"Um, okay. What do I have to do?"
"You gots to prove you're one of Da Boyz."
"How do I do that?"
The child put both hands behind his head and half-turned away. "I dunno." He said casually. "If you're one of Da Boyz, you know."
Shinji blinked. All things considering, he wasn't actually one of Da Boyz. He'd never been part of their meetings, he had no idea of their initiation rites or how they identified each other. His contact with them were limited mostly to the three other kids who had legitimate reasons to fear the heck out of him and elevated him to their boss.
He slapped a fist down into an open palm in the common Japanese expression of 'eureka!'. "Wait here." he said, and rushed into the house.
When he returned, he had his cello. The little kid squinted at the spindly, fragile-looking instrument. It didn't look properly 'ard and awesome like the boyz would use. Shinji smirked a bit, and mouthed 'try this'.
He held the cello improperly, head down like a fiddle. He stomped his right foot down on the concrete, hard. Then, twice more, faster. He began to play. It was a simple melody, repeating, rapid, violent. He went at those strings as if he wanted to rip them right off the wood.
(Bassline: Orks. Orks. Orks. Orks. Orks.)
Ere we go! Ere we go!
(ʰᵗᵗᵖˢ://ʷʷʷ.ʸᵒᵘᵗᵘᵇᵉ.ᶜᵒᵐ/ʷᵃᵗᶜʰˀᵛ⁼ᵈ⁰ᵘᴮᵁ⁵ᵈᵈˣ⁴ᵁ)
Troo da cosmos.
Troo infinity.
Orks are made fer fightin' and winnin'!
When he finished his hair was all mussed up, his eyes were wide and his teeth were bared in a feral grin. He held the cello up to the sky like an axe. "Ere we go. Ere we go. "Where we go? NOBODY KNOWS TIL WE GETS DERE!
"ERE WE GO.
"ERE WE GO! WHAT WE DO?'
"Nobody cares til we gets dere…!" mumbled the child. "That was awesome! You ARE Da Boss!" He kicked his heels and stood up straight. "Gots a message for you, boss."
Shinji made a wearied 'heh-heh' with his chin jutting out. "So wot's Da Word?"
"Something's going down at da old Salt Park, boss. Boss'yakawa's already dere. He tolds me to come gets ya. We gots to go!"
He blinked. "Then what's with all the dancing around for? We should hurry."
"Da Word was for Da Boss. I had ta be sure. If you're the boss I shouldn't be wasting your time." The boy sniffed. "But if you're not Da Boss, then you're a squig-head wastin' MY time, and I don't gots to show you any respect."
Shinji sighed. He went back indoors only long enough to shove his cello into his aunt's hands and mutter a quick "Sorrygottago!" He ran back out again, but stopped after a distance. He looked back to see the Gretz scampering to keep up on his stumpy little legs.
He crouched down and motioned for the child to get up on his back. Though he did look scrawny, Shinji was actually quite fit for his age. Subconsciously a lot of his roaming around and exercise was physical conditioning geared towards endurance and ignoring pain rather than strength. He bore the burden well as he went off at a steady lope towards the town.
"What's going on?" he asked the child hanging over his shoulder.
"Dunno. I was tolds to come gets ya just as he was headin' in. My feet were already moving, so I hads no time to ask."
Shinji tried to turn his head. "Wait, are you telling me you RAN all the way from the Salt Park to here?" At the boy's nod, he added with simple admiration, "You had better be getting lots of candy…"
"What, are you crazy? I should be expecting candy for this?" the child's indignation threatened to topple him off his feet. "Da Boyz needed me and I was dere. Da Boyz are always happy ta do what da boyz gots to do."
Shinji groaned. Such fanatic dedication. How many young lives had he inadvertently corrupted thus far? He kinda envied that sense of brotherhood a little bit. Being the boss means never being actually welcomed so completely by the group.
He ran, and swiftly, his steps lightened by fear and worry.
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