Chapter Text
Green.
The colour green haunted him like a ghost.
He’d stand in front of the frightened people crowded into his throne room and he’d see green – maybe it’d be a flash of reflection, or a coat or a glove, maybe it would even be hair – and any of his commands, his thoughts, they’d be questioned, not by his advisors – they were all too afraid of him now – but by him.
Green was going to be his downfall.
It didn’t help that her fingers had been everywhere according to his tech advisors. Oh, yes, she’d already tracked the blink drive down, she’d even disabled it, and that was a problem since she wasn’t even in the palace.
Yet.
“Bring me the girl,” he said, waving a hand and letting out a sigh. He felt exhausted. He’d collected the blink drive and then he’d gone home, beginning his proper reign as Emperor.
And she’d gotten in the way at every turn.
At one point, one of the billboards in the city had read Poopiehead Thief. It had taken his tech crew an embarrassingly long time to get rid of that.
Then his rap sheet had been emblazoned across the sky. He assumed she’d worked with someone on the planet to have that work, but they’d found that impossible to track down.
The next thing he’d known, people had started disappearing. His staff had just started vanishing. It turned out they were getting free vacations and surprise trips to beach planets.
“Ryo,” Misaki had hissed. “Do you know who is doing this?”
He sighed. “Yes.”
“Did you date her?” she said. He looked over at her and she met his eyes. “She seems personally offended.”
No, he had not dated Five, he’d just made her trust him instead. He’d taught her to fight, to defend herself against physical attack, but in doing so he’d opened her up to emotional chaos when he reclaimed his memories, killed his family and left.
He didn’t feel guilty about it – at least, if he did, he didn’t recognise the feeling – he just found himself lying awake at night thinking about it and wondering if she was okay.
He knew the crew of the Raza were unhurt, he’d been very careful to have spies placed in areas he could keep an eye on them: they weren’t injured or dead, and aside from some problems with Six and Three they even seemed to be flourishing without him, but that didn’t speak for their emotional state and he knew that Five was young, a kid who opened herself up and trusted the whole crew, and he’d stabbed her right in the heart.
That explained why the things she’d been doing to his planet had been so vindictive. She’d removed advisors and trusted council members, she’d exposed his past and she’d even made him a laughing stock a few times with some well-placed images of him from casual times on the Raza.
He was angry, that was true – she was coming between him and his people – but a few times he’d found himself amused. Poopiehead had been one of those times, ripping a laugh from his chest without warning when he’d been shown the image.
He’d found little chance for mirth after returning home, and the halls were quiet and empty without his brother and father, without the crew of the Raza.
Misaki was company, when he chose to reach for her, but sparring was boring – she always held back now, unlike Nyx who had always given it her all and Five who had even surprised him once and bruised his nose (and then apologised for a very long time while he laughed) – and conversation was filled with lectures and demands to know why he was an idiot.
He had no idea how they retrieved Five, but he knew that he’d sent a contingent of fifty men and only seven had returned, and most of them had bruises.
He could tell by the placement that he’d trained her well.
“Where is she?” he said.
The man at the front of the group, sporting a broken nose and claw marks down both sides of his neck, tilted his head down from where he’d been trying to stem the flow of blood and glared. “We put her in the tower with the other criminals.”
There was no way that Ryo would bolt in the presence of his men, but it was a brisk walk that took him to the tower and a wave of his hand that told them to leave him alone.
He was pretty sure he heard someone mutter something about needing a new emperor and he held back a chuckle.
The tower was the last place Ryo had any intention of leaving Five, so he collected a guard on the way and had him wait outside as he opened the door and stepped inside.
The list of people he wanted dead doubled the second he saw she was chained to the wall.
“Five.” He moved across, sparing no moment for hesitation as he crouched down and unlocked the shackles. She looked at him in disgust and hatred and he didn’t meet her eyes. “I had no idea they would—”
“So you’re a liar too now?” she said, chasing his gaze like it would give her some kind of personal pleasure and satisfaction to make him squirm. “A coward, a traitor and a liar.”
He dropped the shackles and straightened back up to his feet, then held his hand out with his wrist braced. She took it, but only long enough to pull herself upright—
—and then punch him square in the face.
To his credit he didn’t make a sound as he jerked backwards and clapped a hand to his face, and he didn’t let her land another punch, blocking the next attack unlike the first and then grasping her wrists in his strong hands.
He supposed this was how she felt: blindsided and attacked while her defences were down, but it didn’t make his cheek sting any less.
“You will be made comfortable,” he said, meeting her eyes.
She dropped back to her heels with her wrists still trapped in his iron grip. She didn’t tug to get them away, she just glared at him like she could set fire to his palms with her mind.
It briefly crossed his mind that she might be able to, but that thought was quickly shoved aside when she said, “For my execution?”
The only person in the galaxy who was capable of blindsiding him had done it far, far too many times recently and this was just one more. “Wha—No.” He couldn’t hold back the smallest frown that found its way to crease his brow. “Why would you think that?”
She finally stopped looking like she was made of steel armour and averted her eyes just a little before locking them back on his and pulling her wrists from his hands as his grip started to slack. “You killed your step-mother—” she said.
“My step-mother was a coward and a traitor to the crown, my father and to me,” he said. “She deserved nothing better than a swift death and far worse.”
She didn’t look away. “Your brother.”
He had no excuse for that one. “He would have usurped me.”
“He gave the crown to you willingly,” she said. “What possible reason would he have for usurping you?”
He glared at her. “He would have in the end,” he said and took a step back. “They all would have betrayed me in the end. I did what I had to.” He gestured at the open door. “There is a guard outside, he will escort you to your room. It will be to your liking.”
She didn’t move. He hated that. He’d given a command and she refused to follow it and he was unsure whose power play this was – his for the command, or hers for not moving.
“Did you not learn anything about trust on the Raza?” she said and he clasped his hand around his wrist behind his back, tensed his neck and looked at her without emotion. “I thought you had.” When he still didn’t speak, anger sparked in her eyes again and as she stepped towards him and he prepared himself to block another physical attack, but this one was verbal.
“You say he would have usurped you,” she said, “that they all would have betrayed you, but once your step-mother was dead the only traitor left was you. The only betrayer here is you.”
He tensed his jaw and watched as she stormed past him, out of the room. “Don’t touch me!” she snapped, the words echoing down the hall, and he swallowed, wondering if he should have assigned more guards to escort her.
Probably.
He took a moment, rubbing his fingers and thumb across his forehead and then taking a breath as he strode back out.
Another guard, posted a few meters down the hall, looked across at him. He looked confused and just a little afraid.
Ryo wasn’t surprised.
***
Ryo had an itinerary that was a little different to the one his military advisor had given him.
The advisor’s was simple: scare the girl, torture the girl, break the girl, make the girl fix the blink drive, execute the girl.
Had it been written on paper, Ryo would have torn it up and fed it to him.
His own was a little more complex: feed the girl a good meal because she hadn’t left her room in three days, make her fix the blink drive, decide what the hell to do with her because she couldn’t go back to the Raza because she’d just break everything of his again from there but he didn’t feel right keeping her from her family.
Was this a conscience? He was sure he didn’t possess one of those.
“Really, sir,” his military advisor said on day four of Five not leaving her room despite demands. “What would a little torture hurt?”
Ryo considered this. “It may please me to insert bamboo beneath your fingernails, yes.”
His advisor snapped backwards a few paces and if he was one to show emotion Ryo would have smirked, but he wasn’t, so he didn’t. Instead, he looked across at him and said, “Tell the kitchen to prepare a meal, something that tastes good and is nutritionally satisfying, and include something sweet for dessert.” He waved a hand.
His advisor blinked. “That is hardly in my jurisdiction,” he said.
Ryo looked across at him.
“Right away, sir,” he said and skittered out of the door like a frightened crab.
This was how Ryo found himself holding a tray and standing in front of Five’s door. He knew all the steps that had brought him here, but somehow he was still unsure how this was where he had ended up in his life.
“Five,” he said, deep voice reverberating down the halls. No answer. “Five, I know you are in there, so respond.” Nothing. “Five?”
Of course, it was possible she wasn’t in there.
Had his advisor done something against orders?
He opened the door, noting that it was unlocked (which meant anyone could get in, and either he needed to have it locked or to vet his guards) and stepped inside.
Five was sitting on her bed, her legs pulled up under her small frame, and she looked across at him.
It occurred to him that she’d just won round one.
And now he wasn’t sure what to do with himself. “I brought you something to eat.”
“Don’t you have servants for that?” she said.
He did. “No.” He walked across, thrusting the tray out towards her. She didn’t move. “Take it.” She still didn’t move. He grit his teeth. “Please.”
She took the tray and his internal score count went up to two-nil to her.
He hovered. Four would sit with her, talk to her perhaps, but Ryo was an Emperor and he would not sit on her bed and talk to her like a schoolgirl.
He found a medium, dragging a chair across and taking a seat in front of her. He kept his back straight and his eyes locked on her as she delved into the food like a starving gazelle.
“You could have come out for dinner,” he said.
“Well, I’d been put in chains by the last members of your court I met, so I didn’t think I’d be very welcome at the dinner table,” she said and glared at him.
“That,” he said, “was not by my command.”
She set her jaw. “They wouldn’t have done it if they didn’t think you’d want it.”
She wasn’t wrong. “I would never want you to be in chains, Five.”
“But other girls,” she said. He wondered if she knew how wrongly that could be taken. “Thieves trying to survive, girls like me, girls like I used to be.” She looked at him. “You’d have those in chains. Would they ever get to go home?”
He wasn’t sure what happened to thieves brought to the castle. He hadn’t looked into it since he’d come to power. He didn’t speak, and she seemed to take that as an agreement that indeed, he was responsible for the torture of many teenage girls.
“I taught you well,” he said, trying and failing to keep pride from his voice, “I saw what you did to the guards I sent to collect you.”
“Three killed a lot of them,” she said, stabbing a piece of food. He wondered if he shouldn’t have given her cutlery. “Two a couple. They cornered me and took me from the Android.”
“Was anyone hurt?” he said. “I left strict instructions—”
“No.” She looked at him. “Not that I know of.”
He nodded and watched her. “You know why you’re here.”
“I got in the way,” she said. “Like your brother.”
He inhaled, slow and deliberate to keep tension from rising any further in his body. It was like she was determined to drag an emotional response from him regarding his brother and that just wasn’t going to happen. “You will not be killed.”
She snorted and stabbed the food some more. He assumed she was thinking about his head, or other select parts of his anatomy.
“You will not be killed,” he repeated.
“What if I don’t do what you want?” she said. “What if I’m not obedient or don’t stay in my room?”
“I have invited you out of your room,” he interjected.
“What then?” She met his eyes. “Will you kill me then?”
“You will not be killed.” He’d say it until he was blue in the face.
Until she believed him.
“Tortured?” she said. “Starved?”
“I invited you to dinner with me,” he said, an edge of grumpiness creeping into his tone. “At least accept the facts as they are presented to you, even if you will not be accepting of the ones of which I speak.”
“I will not be killed,” she said, “yada yada yada. You also said you didn’t mean us any harm.” She popped a piece of potato into her mouth and bit down on it. That... That was not his head. He suspected thumb or toe. He ignored its shape. “Let’s see how quick that changed.”
“I did not harm any of you.” He scowled at her when she let out a ha! sound. “Five, I warned the Android of the impending explosion.”
“You blew up a station filled with people,” she said, “people we were there to protect, and then you act as though you protected us with your life because you gave us warning?” She shook her head. “You showed your cowardice. You killed innocent people to further your own agenda. I don’t care that you warned us, I care that you did that. And?” She waved her fork at him. He felt thoroughly chastised, the likes of which he hadn’t felt since Misaki’s last lecture and Five’s scornful words were twice as strong as hers. “I was on the station when it exploded. We were all on the station except for Nyx and the Android.”
“You weren’t hurt,” he said, looking her over. “You have no limp, no—”
“You’re missing the point,” she said, and this time she just seemed despairing. “What happened to you, Four?”
That caught him off-guard. Every time he threw up defences, she found another hole and forced her way through it. He felt like swiss cheese. “What?” He didn’t even try to correct her. He didn’t know if her voice calling him Ryo would be yet another hole in his iron.
“You’ve never been a good guy,” she said, “but you were never—” She sighed. “You were never this.”
“I was,” he said and looked at her. “I was a drunkard and a fool, a child trying to stand apart from my father’s shadow and my step-mother’s influence while failing to be strong enough to ever make a worthy emperor. And then I was a criminal, a mercenary, a murderer. And then I was Four, and I never made show that I was anything but a criminal, a mercenary, and a murderer.”
“You spared the boy you sparred with, you went easy on him so that you wouldn’t hurt him,” she said.
“And my father beat me for it.” He didn’t glare, he just stared into her eyes. Which, he realised, would be a mistake if she kept gazing back at him like that. “The Ryo you saw was a child, I am an adult, a grown man who has now a planet to govern and a war to win.” She opened her mouth, but he cut her off. “Which brings me to why you are here – you will fix the blink drive.”
Her jaw went slack without her lips parting and her head tilted. “Fix the blink drive?”
“Yes.” He looked at her. “You hacked into it and disabled it. You will fix it.”
“I’m here for that?” she said and let out a laugh, confusing him. “Not the billboards or the security grid?”
“No, for the—” Pause. “What did you do to the security grid?”
“...nothing.”
“Five,” he said, voice dropping an octave into what most people knew as the danger zone.
She offered him the cutest face imaginable, not that he would ever think of it that way. “I may have made it pink,” she said. “And... text-based.”
He narrowed his eyes. “What does it say?”
She blinked at him and put another piece of potato in her mouth. “Six gets mad when I speak those words, so I can’t say.”
So his planet was probably telling the entire solar system and all approaching vessels that Emperor Ishida Ryo was a giant cunt in big pink text.
Excellent.
“You will fix that too,” he said.
“Will I?” she said and poked the gooey chocolate cake the cook had come up with for her. “What’s this?”
“It’s—” He was not her servant. “—chocolate cake.”
She poked it some more. “It looks like a melted protein bar.”
He paused. He should focus on the large pink text insulting him, or the fact he needed the blink drive to work again, not on the sudden realisation she hadn’t had a normal or pleasant childhood, not even close to his. “Have you never had chocolate cake?”
She glanced up at him. “Not that I remember.”
She remembered more than she let on, he knew that, so he took a moment to study her. “Before... You were Das? Emily?” A flicker of surprise passed over her face. “Do you remember? Did you have chocolate cake then?”
“No,” she said. He wanted badly for her to open up, he could see her right on the cusp of it, but he couldn’t blame her when she shut down entirely instead and put the tray down on the table at the end of her bed, the chocolate cake uneaten.
He didn’t know if she didn’t remember, or hadn’t had cake.
“I’m tired,” she said after a moment and looked at him. “It’s late. I should sleep.”
She should, he thought, she seemed tired, probably from lack of nutrition and, well, imprisonment on a planet far from her home.
He stood up and the internal tally he’d failed to keep ticked over to ten-nil, because it was a nice round number and he knew full well he’d lost repeatedly to the tiny strip of a girl currently occupying a bed that would swamp Six.
He picked up the tray and hesitated. What was the right thing to say in this situation?
“Sleep well,” he said.
She looked over at him. “I’d like another pillow,” she said. He eyed the six on the bed. “They’re uncomfortable, and I’d like one for my feet.”
Whatever this was, the tally went up to eleven. “I will have one sent to you,” he said. He was still holding the tray, like a servant would, waiting to be dismissed. “Is there anything else you’d like?”
She wasn’t a prisoner, he told himself. She was a guest who couldn’t go home right now.
“Water, I drank mine,” she said.
He glanced around. “Does your bathroom not have flowing water?” he said. He wondered if his advisor had given her a room with a broken bathroom as a way of pointedly treating her like a prisoner still.
“Tap water isn’t good for you,” she said. “It contains toxins and chemicals.”
“Water is water, and the palace has clean water,” he said. She looked at him. “I will... have a jug sent, with the pillow.”
Something passed over her face, he’d seen it before when she’d stood in front of him and told him she’d lived through his memories. He waited, but she wasn’t forthcoming.
He put irritation and exasperation into his voice. “What is it?”
“I know you won’t let me have a console or a computer or anything,” she said, “but can I have things to fix?”
He looked across at her. “To fix?”
She nodded. “Gadgets, tools, weapons without the firing clip,” she said. “Anything to do with my hands.”
If his advisor had his way, her hands would be in thumbscrews, but clearly Ryo was soft, and that was a problem because he couldn’t make himself stop being soft when she was staring at him with big blue eyes and biting on her lower lip.
“I will speak with my technicians,” he said with a sigh. “I’m sure we have many things that require fixing that you can work with without being a threat.” He paused, a concept flitting through his mind. “Of course, if you are helpful and cause no trouble, you could receive more jobs to do, outside of your room?”
“I’m fine with things to fix,” she said.
He considered breaking the tray in two, but he was far too controlled to show such violent frustration. Instead, he nodded. “You will fix what you broke,” he said. “And then you will be allowed other things to fix.” That seemed like a fair deal.
She seemed to agree. “As you wish,” she said.
He wondered if letting her into the systems to fix her vandalism would be a mistake, but he supposed if he had enough people monitoring her it would be all right.
Not that any of them had been able to fix her wanton destruction.
She was a genius, and he was unsure she even knew it.
“You will come to dinner tomorrow,” he said. When she opened her mouth he added, “That is not a request.” She snapped her mouth closed. She was a guest, but a guest that needed to be controlled, and forced into fixing the things she’d broken. “If you want more privileges, you will earn them, just like you did on the Raza.”
He watched the muscles at the sides of her jaw, just under her ear, as they twitched, tensing and releasing the iron clench of her teeth.
Then she nodded. “Okay.”
“Rest well,” he said and walked out, closing her doors behind him.
He’d finally achieved a victory. Eleven-one.
Why didn’t it feel that way?