Chapter 50
[69]
It’d been 30 minutes since Futaba and Sojiro left, forcefully escorted off the premises by the guards. Wakaba sat alone in her cell, replaying her last conversation with them. It hurt, telling them the truth after all these years of lying, she was reminded of the terrible things she’d done in her life. She truly was a monster, not just the other side of her that killed for sport, but this self, her real self, had done terrible things long before she was Ms. Negative.
Speaking of the devil, Wakaba could feel her other half pushing for control of her mind once more. Her regenerative period was over now, so she once again wanted to come out. Wakaba’s headache was growing stronger by the second as she watched her hands change to black. But this time, she didn’t fight it, she let Ms. Negative take over because Wakaba knew that she’d already won.
Ms. Negative stretched as she woke up, surprised by how easy it was this time. Maybe Wakaba was finally learning her place in their relationship and wasn’t going to give her any more headaches while waking up.
Upon finishing her stretch, the negative villainess examined the area around her. White walls everywhere. Where was she? Why was it so quiet? She got up to walk around, only to smack directly into a glass wall in front of her.
“What the hell!?” She held her hands against the glass before pounding on it with her fists. “NO! NO! NO! Wakaba, you bitch!” She continued slamming against her containment.
From the control room of the facility, a guard sat with his feet up, watching the screens displaying the prisoners. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw movement on one of the cameras. Checking the feed from that cell, he saw a strange looking woman pounding against the walls of her containment.
He let out a chuckle as he watched the woman struggle, there was no wifi here, so this was the closest he got to entertainment during work. The woman herself was interesting, they got a lot of strange prisoners here on their way to The Raft, Rhino men, guys with wings, and your regular run of the mill freaks, but no one who looked like her.
He watched as the woman shot some kind of beam from her hands at the glass, to no effect. Huh, that was new. He hadn’t seen anyone do that before. But, as usual the glass held, so he didn’t worry about it too much.
After a few more minutes of attacking the glass, the woman walked to the center of her cell, seemingly giving up.
“Hey, don’t worry about it champ, you’ll get it next time.” The guard joked to himself, planting his feet back up on the console.
He continued to watch the woman’s screen. She was standing perfectly still now, for a moment, he wondered if the camera had frozen. That couldn’t be the case however as the time on screen kept ticking.
He leaned in closer towards the screen as the woman’s arms began shaking, glowing brighter and brighter over time.
“What the fu-”
His sentence was interrupted as the screen flashed white shortly before cutting to static. At the same time he heard a bang from outside of the control room, followed by the sound of glass hitting the ground.
“SHIT!” He yelled as fell out of his seat. “Shitshitshitshitshitshitshit!” He got off of the ground and pressed a button on his console, setting off the alarm. He stuck his keys into the weapon locker before quickly grabbing a rifle loaded with rubber bullets.
As he ran out into the hallway, he was met with smoke filling the hallways, Seeing a silhouette advancing towards him, he trained his weapon on the target.
“F-Freeze! Get on the ground and put your hands behind your head!”
However, to his surprise, more silhouettes appeared from out of the smoke, approaching him at high speed. Emerging from the smoke, several guards sprinted towards him at full speed. Their pupils noticeably glowed white in their otherwise black eyes.
The other guards tackled him against a wall, pinning him and forcing his weapon away. Now unable to move, the guard was forced to watch as the woman from the video approached him, confidence in her stride as she emerged from the smoke.
“Oh, poor baby.” The woman taunted as he struggled to get free. “Did the mean guards hurt you? Here, let me kiss it all better.”
“No! No, please no!”
But it was too late as she leaned in and planted a forceful kiss on his lips and the guard felt his control over his body begin to leave him.
[70]
Ren sat at the counter in Leblanc, his untouched cup of coffee growing colder in front of him. Sojiro stood behind the counter, absentmindedly wiping down the dishes while Futaba sat in one of the booths, hugging her knees as she sat silently. The only sound that could be heard in the cafe was the rain that was pouring heavily against the windows.
Normally, around this time, Futaba and Sojiro would be at home, Futaba watching anime and Sojiro asleep while Ren would be up in his room, exercising or doing maintenance on his gear. However, after today’s events, no one felt much like following their routine. Instead, the trio chose to sit in silence, just coming to terms with what’d happened earlier that same day.
Ren couldn’t help but feel guilty, like he’d ripped this family apart, after all they’d done for him. Sure, it’d been Wakaba who had chosen to turn herself in and yes, she had committed violent criminal acts, but she was still a beloved mother and family member, and Ren couldn’t help but feel that he’d played a part in things coming to this.
Realizing how late it was getting, he decided to head up to his room for the night. Before he reached the stairs, he remembered something important. He reached into his backpack and pulled out a thin card as well as a torn plastic bag containing the locks from Akihabara before presenting them to Sojiro.
“Here, I nearly forgot to give you these.” He held out the items.
As he looked over to Ren, seemingly snapping out of a spell, Sojiro accepted the items. “Oh right. Forgot I gave you that.” He said, putting them away. “Thanks.”
Ren nodded in response before bringing his bag upstairs with him. He shut the door behind him and tossed his bag onto the floor before sitting down on his bed, the old wood creaking beneath him. He removed his shirt and checked on the wound he’d received from Mitsuru earlier, it was healed now, but the skin was still pink and stung to touch. It looked like he was going to have another scar to add to the collection.
He sighed as he laid his head down on the pillow, glancing over to the futon that Yusuke had been staying on until recently. Despite the fact that his former roommate frequently bugged him with his talk of aesthetics and capturing emotions, Ren wished he could be here to lighten the tension in the air a bit.
As he shut his eyes to go to sleep, he was interrupted by the sound of his phone buzzing from within his bag. For a moment, he considered ignoring it, waiting until tomorrow to deal with whatever it was. But that wouldn’t be the right thing to do, a voice in his head reminded him. That wasn’t what Spider-Man would do.
Ren opened his eyes and began digging through his bag, searching for the buzzing phone. Throwing his costume and spare clothes from his bag, he found the device right before it stopped ringing. He pressed the answer button and held it up to his ear without even checking who it was.
“Hello?” He asked the caller on the other end.
“Ren!” The voice of Naoto Shirogane yelled from the other end. “Where are you!? We need you in Shujin right now!”
“What’s going on?” He asked the detective, his voice concerned.
“It’s Wakaba! She’s gotten loose!”
‘Oh god.’ Ren thought to himself as he dropped the phone. He rushed over to his costume and pulled it on as fast as he could, ignoring the torn bits on his chest for the time being.
As he finished pulling the mask over his face, he was already out the window and into the cold rain of the night.
He arrived in Shujin not long after, it was easy to tell where he needed to go as he followed the smoke that was rising in the air as well as the sound of gunshots. As he landed on the street where the gunfight was taking place, he saw Naoto taking cover behind a squad car.
“Good, you’re here.” She said, relieved to see him. “Take care of Isshiki, we can handle the cronies.” Was all she needed to say before Ren took off in search of the villain.
Meanwhile, at Leblanc, Sojiro was finishing up washing the dishes before he and Futaba went home for some much needed rest. Without thinking, he went to turn off the TV before realizing it was already off. As soon as it turned on, and before Sojiro could shut it off again, the news began playing, showing a gunfight on the streets of Shibuya.
The news anchor covered the report as a helicopter captured the footage from above, what captured Sojiro’s attention the most though, was the text at the bottom of the screen.
“Random Tokyo citizens involved in a gunfight with police, suspected to be under the influence of mind controlling villain.”
“Wakaba…” Sojiro said under his breath. Knowing in his heart that this was her work. Before he could hide it from Futaba, she was already behind him, reading the report for herself, she turned to him with a determined look on her face.
Back in Shibuya, Ren was dealing with the various rampaging citizens looting the various shops around them. Quickly webbing them to the wall with his rapid fire, he searched for the woman behind all of this. No quips, no jokes, no banter, tonight it was all business for Ren.
As he rounded a corner, rainwater splashing beneath him, he finally saw her. Glowing black and white as she converted another citizen to her followers, here Wakaba was in all her villainous glory. Before she could release the man out onto the city, he was dragged by a web over to Ren and punched in the face, knocking him out cold.
The masked hero and the negative villainess stood facing one another, the rain pouring down on them hard. Under his mask, Ren was scowling at the woman who had betrayed her city, her daughter, her family. Looking at the smiling villainess before him, Ren could feel nothing but contempt for this woman.
“Come back for a rematch Spider-Man? You’re lucky I don’t have any more windows to throw you out of.”
Ren didn’t respond to her, he only clenched his fists angrily. He charged forward at her, prepared to take her down. His spider sense buzzed and he rolled out of the way of a blast, not missing a beat, he continued to charge forward.
Ms. Negative planted her hands on the ground and a black wave rippled across the wet road. Ren leapt over the wave, taking this opportunity in the air to attack her from above. He shot a webline to either side of her and pulled himself down quickly, landing a kick squarely in her chest.
Wakaba was sent tumbling back from the kick, hurt but not knocked down. Losing her earlier bravado, her face became serious and she charged up her fists for another attack. Ren didn’t give her the chance however, he leapt in with a punch to her face followed up by two weblines to her arms.
However, before Ren could pull her towards him, Wakaba grabbed the weblines and sent her power coursing through them. The black energy quickly made its way up the webs and directly into Ren’s hands. The resulting explosion sent him flying through a shop window, the glass cutting into his back as he landed.
Too hopped up on adrenaline to feel the pain, he quickly leapt back out onto the street. Examining his webshooters, Ren could tell at a glance that they were out of commission.
Ms. Negative smiled once more as Ren climbed out of the shop. “Looks like I did find a window to throw you through.” She released another burst of energy she’d been preparing towards Ren.
The vigilante rolled out of the way, when he tried to get up, he was surprised when his body struggled against him. Like a tidal wave, he was hit by the sudden realization of how exhausted his body was. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast and he’d been fighting crime since this morning.
As he was rocked by a metaphorical wave of exhaustion, he was soon after struck by a literal wave of dark energy that threw him hard into a fire hydrant on the sidewalk. As his back came in contact with the metal hydrant, he heard several bones crack throughout his body, his vision flashed white for a moment, and all of the air was knocked out of his lungs.
Wakaba strode over to the injured hero, trying and failing to pick himself up off of the ground. Choking as he tried to take in breath, Ren pulled up the bottom half of his mask to try to breathe. When the villain reached him, he was unable to do anything to stop her as she stomped on one of his legs and grabbed his head, tearing the mask off of his face.
“Hmmm, oh! I know you! Or rather, Wakaba does. You’re that delinquent boy staying at Leblanc. Small world, huh? Do Sojiro and Futaba know about this? If not, I’d love to be the one to tell them.”
“P-Please.” Ren managed to get out between ragged breaths. “Don’t *wheeze* don’t do this.”
“What, is Mr. Hero afraid to die? Don’t you know? That’s what heroes do.” As Wakaba prepared to end the teenage boy, a light shined in the corner of her eyes.
Ren saw the light too, thinking that it was death coming to welcome him, he thought about everything that had led him up to this point. He had so many regrets, so much he still wanted to do. He was scared. Was this how Narukami felt when he was dying?
The light shining on them wasn’t divine in nature, rather they were the headlights of Sojiro Sakura’s Porsche 356. The car came to a screeching halt against the street and two figures immediately hopped out of the vehicle.
“Mom! Please, don’t do this!” Futaba shouted over the rain.
For a moment, Ms. Negative’s look of triumph faltered as she looked at her daughter. Her colors flashed back to normal for a moment before returning to the negative look.
“Wakaba! You can beat this! You’re the strongest person I know! Fight it!”
“I-I can’t fight this!” Wakaba struggled as she began flashing back and forth between normal and negative.
“Yes you can Mom! Please! Do it!”
“Futaba!” Wakaba grasped her head in pain, falling to her knees in pain. Tears began to pour from her eyes, masked by the heavy rain.
Finally, letting out a pained cry, Wakaba changed back to her normal self.
“Mom!” Futaba ran up to her mother, hugging her in her moment of triumph.
That moment was short lived however, as Wakaba turned to the injured Ren on the ground. A pained expression on her face as she held back the villain inside of her. In her pain she only managed to get out two words.
“K-Kill me.”