Keep Fighting

𓊈卍 𝟏𝟎𝟎 卍𓊉

Takemichi's eyes scour the article on his laptop as they carry the weight of his exhaustion. He's been reading up on news reports from twelve years ago in order to find information that could help him understand what happened in the past that lead up to this horrible future. So far, every article he read on the Battle of the Three Deities has the same information Inupi already told him.

However, he eventually fell down the rabbit hole of criminal records. Every single one of them was about Sano Manjiro himself. Ever since 2010, he was marked as a criminal and wanted for murder. Recent records have cases of all the crimes he committed while he was ruling Bonten, including murder, extortion, money laundering, prostitution, and many others.
The same question came into his mind every time he read these articles. "How did Mikey end up like this?"

Takemichi sits back on the couch, stretching and cracking his back after being hunched over for hours. Just as he's about to check his phone for the hundredth time of the morning, there's a knock at his door.

"One sec!"

He stands up, stepping carefully past the mess on the floor to open the door. But as he's about to open it, his hand freezes before it can touch the knob. A tingling sensation suddenly takes over his entire body, almost as if a whole colony of ants are crawling all over him. The odd feeling leaves as soon as it came, but he's still frozen in place.

'What..?'

"Hurry up. I don't have all day." The familiar voice beckons him to open the door, but he's hesitant. "It's (Y/n). Probably should've said it before. My bad. Open the door. You said we needed to talk."

Takemichi shakes his head to pull himself out of his uneasy daze and turns the knob. He slowly pulls the door open, to reveal (Y/n) wearing their usual stony expression. The moment he locks eyes with them, he feels that tingling shock, and his entire body stiffens. Again, it leaves the instant it came.

(Y/n) raises a brow at him. "You gonna let me in or what?"

"Uh, sorry..." Takemichi moves aside. "Come in."

The moment they walk past him, the uneasy feeling returns. He's not quite sure how to explain it, but it's something about (Y/n). 'What was that?'

"Your place looks almost as shitty as your life is."

At the mention of their comment, everything Takemichi just experienced is overshadowed by embarrassment. "Jeez, I let you into my home and that's the first thing you say?"

"I'm serious. You look like you haven't slept, you have a million tabs open on your laptop, you have pinup magazines just laying around, a month's worth of takeout boxes are piling up and scattered around the floor, your kitchen sink is the moat for you castle of dishes, it straight up smells like a landfil in here, and I can hear you neighbours fucking in the room three doors down on the first floor. I'm genuinely curious, how do you manage living here?"

'I'm a broke loser.' Takemichi can't bring himself to say it, but he knows. He heaves a sigh as he rubs his eyes and starts picking up the magazines and take-out boxes from the floor to start shoving them in the garbage bag with the most space. "You said this apartment is almost as shitty as my life. I figured you'd already know that."

(Y/n) watches him for a moment, their uncaring expression melting away into a more sympathetic one. "I'm sorry. I've been told I don't have the best sense of humour. What I meant was, we need to fix your life in order to get you the hell out of this... mess."

"Easier said than done." Takemichi opens the garbage bag for (Y/n) to stuff some more trash in. "Thanks, but I didn't ask you here to help me do chores."