Heroes and Villains

6 - Being a hero

I look shocked at the girl I still have pinned under me, more particularly at her face that I just revealed. She looks terrified as she stares up at me, not that she can see me anyway.

She is Yumi Hamato, the young woman who is the current heir to the entire Hamato Industries. She is known for her brilliant and innovative mind, but also because she was born blind with stunning white eyes. What the hell is she doing here playing hero?

Looking down at her pearl-like white eyes, I cautiously back away and let her stand up.

“Why did you do that?!” She shouts, clearly upset, as she picks up her mask.

“You were not gonna stop following me” I tell her, still trying to wrap my mind at the fact I’m talking to the actual Yumi Hamato. “I had to do something that would throw you off your feet. Literally and figuratively”

“You had no right!” She says, standing up straight with her mask back on. She seems to have recovered her confidence again.

“You’re telling me about rights?” I mock. “Your company takes innocent people from their homes and turns them into lab rats, just because they’re mutants”

Her posture changes and she looks confused. Not taking her bullshit, I continue.

“You created this beautiful city around your facilities, but ‘forgot’” I use my fingers as commas to emphasize the word. “About the other citizens who didn’t have enough money to afford living up here. You left them to rot downtown and everything just got worse as you started manipulating the local authorities and the government itself. All because of money and profit. All because you wanted to explore the meteor without any interferences”

“I did none of those things…” She says, her confident demeanor dropping completely.

“Oh, right, sorry” I say. “Your ‘company’ did it”

“I had no knowledge of this” She tells me and she does sound sincere but I’m taking none of this crap.

I laugh forcibly to mock her words. “So, you mean to tell me you had no idea that the company you are going to inherit is a mutant testing, money-grabbing, piece of s**t?”

She clenches her fists as I continue talking.

“You probably don’t know it either, but that guy we just stopped from robbing the bank works for YOUR company!” I shout at her. “Why were you trying to stop him? To try to prove everyone that Hamato Industries have nothing to do with Monkey Paw?”

“I didn’t know…” She mumbles but I can barely hear her.

“Tell me now” I push further. “What does YOUR company do to the mutant corpses after they’re done with them? That’s right! They DUMP them right where belong: Downtown!”

“I DIDN’T KNOW!” She suddenly shouts and catches me by surprise when she rushes to me and grabs me by the collar, pushing me to the edge of the building.

If not for her grip on my collar, I would dive the 20th floor building and crash like a pancake. She watches me angrily as I take a peek down the abyss.

“Ok…” I say. “Maybe I took it a little too far”

She seems to calm down a little and pulls me back in, letting go of my collar once I’m balanced enough not to fall down the edge anymore.

“What were you going to do with the money?” She asks me quietly.

“I was going to return it to the people who really need it” I answer. “Not those pompous people up there”

“People downtown?” She asks.

“Yes and no” I say.

She tilts her head in confusion. “I don’t follow”

I sigh, adjusting the bags of money on my backpack. “I’m giving it to the mutants”

“Oh…” She looks surprised. “You… are one of them after all”

That sentence, one of them, has always managed to make me feel terrible. Truth is, I’m not like other mutants. Other mutants don’t have the ability to turn into human form. I do, but they are stuck like that from the moment they are born to the moment they die.

I don’t know why I am so different. My past is a bit blurry and I only remember bits and pieces of my life before Jaden found me and Luki.

“I’m not one of them” I finally say and look at her. “I guess it’s only fair I show you my real identity now that I already know yours”

She doesn’t object to this, clearly curious to find out who I am.

Sighing again, I focus to shift my appearance back to human. My ears shrink, my hair turns its normal dark brown color and my eyes turn back to hazel.

I look at her, expecting a reaction, but have none. Then, I stupidly remember she’s blind.

“Oh, shoot” I mumble. “I just turned human, just so you know”

She chuckles, amused at my reaction.

“I can see you just fine” She tells me, surprising me. “Just not the way normal people see”

At my confusion, she smiles and removes her mask once more, looking at me with her ghostly white eyes.

“I have been blind all my life, but ever since I was a little girl, I realized I could see glimpses of the near future” She explains. “I learned to control it and manage to project glimpses of the future before me even if I can’t really see them with my eyes”

“Oh…” I mumble, impressed. “The Foreseer… I get it now”

She smiles and nods, confirming my suspicions for her choice of name.

“So, does anyone else know that you’re doing this?” I ask her.

“No” She quickly replies. “And I would like to keep it that way”

“No offense” I start. “But why are you doing this?”

“I beg your pardon?” She asks me, confused at my question.

“Why are you doing this?” I repeat. “I mean, you live in a mansion filled with technology. You have everything anyone wants in this life and yet here you are: Fighting for Justice. It sounds odd especially when you didn’t even know about the atrocities your company is committing”

She takes a while to answer.

“I don’t have a straight answer to give you” She starts. “My father was brutally murdered in front of me when I was but 10 years old”

“This is about revenge, then?” I ask. “Your daddy killer is here in this town”

She shakes her head, denying my hypothesis.

“No, the people who killed my father have been always been unknown” She tells me.

“Then why?” I ask again, even more confused.

She hesitates again. “I wanted to bring Justice to the world. Use these powers that I was born with to do good, instead of just sitting in my lab and do nothing”

“You know you can do a lot of good if you stop your company from doing what it’s doing right now” I comment.

“Yes, and I do intend to do something about it now that I know” She says. “But… The company is not mine yet. My grandmother holds full responsibility of the shares. I have no say in anything that happens at Hamato Industries. Not yet anyway”

I whistle, having no idea this was the case. I sincerely thought she was the boss around there.

“I see. Sorry about earlier, then” I apologize and she seems to understand my motives.

“I get why you would be mad at me, but I have nothing to do with what is happening here in Chicago. I and my grandmother just arrived from Japan” She says.

“Well, you certainly got off of your throne, princess” I tell her, smirking. Then, I raise my fist toward her. “Truce”

She smiles, realizing her intentions, raising her own fist to bump against mine. “Truce”

I smile back. “Come on. I think you should see the people you just swore you are going to protect”

“I did not promise anything” She objects.

“Well, you did now” I say, grabbing her arm. “You’re coming downtown with me”

Not giving her a change to refuse, I reach out for her grappling hook. She tries to stop me, but is not fast enough. I shoot the grappling hook to another building and hold her close to me, jumping off the edge of the building.

She yelps in surprise, but doesn’t refuse when I tell her to follow me. Smirking, I lead the way downtown, making sure to avoid the guards standing at every connection between the upper and downer parts of the city.

They always keep close vigilance, afraid any mutants will come and try to infiltrate Uptown.

She looks surprised by this too. I suppose there are many things she doesn’t know about this city, having just come back from Japan.

I know we can’t get through the guards blocking the stairway without knocking them out so I tell her to wait behind a trash can while I go ahead and deal with the problem.

If it were just me, I would be fine. After all, I do this every day and no one has noticed me before. However, she doesn’t have the same cat-like abilities as I do.

Sneaking behind each of the guards, I hit each of their necks at a specific point and they both pass out, dropping to the ground like flies.

She comes out of her hiding place and looks surprised at the men on the floor.

“That was a specific ninjitsu tactic” She says. “How did you learn that?”

“Hey, we just met” I tell her. “You don’t want to find out every single thing about me all of a sudden. What will happen to the mystery of the relationship, then?”

She blushes, not used to my forward personality.

“We are not in a relationship” She says and I laugh at her embarrassed response.

“Come on” I tell her. “Let’s go before everyone has to retreat for the day”

“For the day?” She asks me as we start descending the stairs.

“I’ve told you” I start. “Mutants are hunted down by trained Hamato Industries men, so they have to live further underground, in the sewers. Some of them come out to collect supplies during the night, but after a specific time, they close the entrance to the underground. They are too afraid that the hunters will find where they live”

“I see…” She says, looking thoughtful.

I quicken the pace when we finally reach downtown and rush to where I know the entrance to the underground is. I tap one of the manholes on the ground with three knocks followed by a scratch of my nails so they know it’s me.

You probably think I’m crazy, right? I mean bringing the near leader of the Hamato Industries down here to the hideout of the mutants her own company is hunting down does sound like a terrible idea.

The thing is: she needs to see the real world for once. I always wondered what the Hamato family would do if they could see mutants as they really are: people.

We are not monsters or things to be feared. We are just people and I really hope she will come to see us this way. Maybe, just maybe, she can change the way things are at the root of the problem.

Not too long afterwards, the manhole opens and we are greeted by a man who looks like a racoon. He has the black mask on his face, the tail, and everything.

“Kat! We were starting to think you weren’t gonna make it today” He tells me and then his eyes fall on the Foreseer and he immediately looks startled.

“Hey, Jensen” I say. “Don’t worry. She’s with me”

He still looks wary at her but does go back down to let us come inside. It’s going to take a long time until these mutants get used to having a human amongst them.