Chapter 67
[92]
On Ren’s side of the fight, things had gotten strange, as he was dodging blasts from Mysterio’s palms, (made much easier now that he recognized the pattern, thank you Haru!) the dragon Mysterio was riding suddenly began glitching. The winged creatures features became obscured as it flashed numerous colors and quickly lost it’s shape. A horrible, technical screeching noise accompanied the flashing lights and Ren was forced to look away. When he turned back, rather than a masked villain riding a dragon, he saw a small army of drones floating in the air before him.
‘Yes! They did it!’ Ren thought to himself gladly. The others that Makoto had sent to Mysterio’s base must’ve messed with his tech. Now, with no illusions to hide behind, they would be easy targets to take down. Just as Ren thought this, the drones, which had been floating in place, all suddenly turned to him, weapons active.
“Oh shi-” He was interrupted before he could finish, hit with a sonic pulse by the legion of drones.
As he flew backwards onto the street, he managed to right himself midair and land on his feet. Ren quickly prepared for the next attack, but was surprised to find himself surrounded by a ring of drones. He braced himself for another attack, only to be surprised again when no attack came.
He looked up and saw one drone out of the ring approaching him, a light began glowing on a small device attached to the front of the drone and a holographic display of Mysterio appeared in front of him.
“Well well Spider-Man, it appears my secret is out. But will that really help you stop me?”
As Mysterio finished, Ren suddenly felt his spider sense go off right before a sonic pulse sent him flying backwards once again. He flew straight into the subway entrance and landed on his back in front of a crowd of civilians.
“Is that Spider-Man?”
“Did Mysterio really just beat him?”
“Oh my god! What do we do?”
The murmurs of the crowd sounded behind Ren as he picked himself up.
“God, today’s just not my day.” He said while cracking his back.
“Spider-Man! Are you alright!?” A concerned, familiar voice asked from the crowd.
Ren turned around and saw Yusuke and Morgana had pushed their way through the crowd to check on him. Before he could say anything, Mysterio’s legion of drones flew down into the subway.
Ren turned back to his friends. “You have to get everyone out of here! NOW!”
“Come on Spider-Man, aren’t you going to rescue the civilians? Without you, they’ll be doomed!” Mysterio’s voice played over the drones’ speakers.
“Don’t hurt them!” Ren half ordered, half pleaded to the villain. He was still feeling pretty weak after the last few hits and any time he could buy would hopefully save lives. “They’ve done nothing wrong!”
“Ah, even when faced with mortal peril, your first concern is for others. That’s what I admire about you Spider-Ma-a-a-a-a-” The audio from the drones became distorted, repeating the last sound over and over.
Suddenly, all of the drones began to twitch and fly erratically, crashing into one another and falling to the ground.
“W-What the he-” Mysterio’s distorted voice began before being interrupted by static.
The crowd watched in stunned silence as the remaining drones hovered, the static coming through them was almost deafening to the crowd of onlookers who watched in suspense. Suddenly, a voice came over the static, one very different from the voice prior, and one Ren recognized very well.
“Hello? Hello? Is this thing on? *ahem* People of Tokyo! There’s no need to fear!” The female voice said in a mock tone. “For your new savior, Alibaba is here!”
It took everything in Ren’s power not to call out Futaba’s name at that moment. After having not spoken to the girl in weeks, here she was, saving his life yet again. He could honestly kiss her the next time he saw her. (But that would be totally weird since they had a brother-sister sort of thing going on...right?)
“Spider-Man! Destroy the drones now! I’ve only got control for a short time!” Futaba ordered.
Ren didn’t need to be told twice, he immediately set to work destroying the army of disabled drones.
Meanwhile, back in his room, Mishima was frantically typing code, trying to override whoever had taken over his controls.
“I can do this. I can do this! Oh god, think Mishima, think!”
As he typed away at his computer, he didn’t hear the pair of figures coming up from behind him. Ryuji, who’d managed to pick himself up despite his injury, put the smaller boy into a headlock and pulled him away from the computer.
“What are you-NO!” Mishima cried out, trying to knock Ryuji away. Suddenly Ann, blood pouring down the large gash on her forehead, picked up the boy’s keyboard and smashed it across his face so hard that the keys flew off. The blue haired teen fell to the floor, unconscious and with a bloody nose.
The two blondes stood over the boy’s limp form, looking down at the person they’d thought they knew.
“What happened to you Mishima?” Ann asked sadly. “You were our friend.”
The unconscious boy made no sound, only dripping blood onto the wooden floor of his bedroom.
With the villain defeated, the pair looked at the display on the monitors just in time to see Ren destroy the last drone, putting an end to Mysterio’s attack. Ryuji let out a sigh of relief, glad that this shit was finally over and done with. He looked over to Ann, only to see her dazed and about to fall over, her head wound was bleeding a lot.
“Shit.” Ryuji said as he assisted Ann to Mishima’s bed. “Hold on, we’ve got to address that wound.” He limped over to the first-aid kit that’d been dropped onto the floor and brought it back to Ann.
As he wrapped her forehead in bandages, he saw the sad look in the girl’s eyes as she stared at the wall.
“Is this our fault Ryuji? Were...were we not good enough friends?” She asked, tears rolling down her eyes. “I just...after everything that happened with Shiho...It feels like I keep letting down the people closest to me.”
Ryuji was silent for a moment, surprised by the statement. “No.” He said sternly. “Whatever kind of shit led Mishima to this moment, to resorting to this, it was his decision and his alone.”
Ann said nothing, only staring down at the smaller teen’s form on the floor as Ryuji finished tying up the bandages.
The two got up and began to walk out of the room, Ann assisting Ryuji with walking out of the room.
“What the hell are we gonna say to his mom?”
Haru arrived home later that night. After the day she’d had, she wanted nothing more than to go lay in bed. The attack had ended not too long after she’d gotten to safety, thanks to Spider-Man whom she couldn’t help but find something familiar about.
Sugimura had disappeared almost as soon as the attack had begun, which Haru found strange. Not that she was complaining, any time she got away from that man was a blessing.
As she climbed the stairs to her bedroom, Haru couldn’t help but notice that the lights were still on in her father’s study. Had he really been there all day? Well, if he was still awake, she wanted to see him and maybe tell him about what had happened today.
As she opened the door, she was surprised to find her maid, Kirumi, standing in front of her father in his chair. Only, the two weren’t talking. Instead, clutched in the maid’s hand was a bloody knife, and Kunikazu Okumura was slumped back in his chair, blood seeping out of the wound in his neck.
“F-Father!?” Haru gasped in shock at the sight, clutching the table next to her for support.
“Haru!” Kirumi turned around, surprised to see the girl here. “Oh, um...This isn’t what it looks like!” The maid dropped the knife and began to walk towards Haru. “Now now Haru, we don’t need to do anything rash here.”
“Stop!” Haru ordered, grabbing a letter opener on the table and holding it defensively. “Stay away!”
“Haru! What are you doing!? You know me! You’ve known me for years! It’s me, Kiru-”
“YOU’RE NOT KIRUMI!” Haru interrupted. “You’ve been acting strange ever since this morning! I saw something! Something weird earlier! I thought I was seeing things, but you’re not her!”
“Oh Haru.” Kirumi said, a devious smirk suddenly appearing on her face. “You always were too observant for your own good.” As she spoke, Kirumi’s voice became deeper and more masculine.
The maid’s image flickered just like before, only this time it was replaced by the image of a man in a white full bodysuit with a mask with two small eyeholes. The figure that stood before her was taller than Kirumi, yet somehow he’d appeared to be the same size as her before.
“It’s good to see you again Haru. Sorry about cutting our date short earlier, but I figured it was a great opportunity for me to get some ‘work’ done.”
“S-Sugimura!?”
“The one and only!” The white clad figure flickered once again, this time into Sugimura’s form. He was even dressed in the same outfit he’d been wearing earlier. “But when I’m on the job, I go by The Chameleon.”
Haru turned to look at the bloody body of her father on the couch, then back at Sugimura, her weapon still raised at him.
“Yeaaah sorry about the mess.” He said, looking over at the man’s body. “It wasn’t supposed to go down like that. I put a mild poison in his tea this morning, but it looks like the old bastard was able to fight it, sooo I just did it the old fashioned way.” He mimed slitting a throat with his fingers and neck.
“B-But why?” Haru asked, tears in her eyes.
“Why else? I’m an assassin, I got paid to.”
“Why are you telling me all of this?”
“Oh Haru, what makes you think you’re getting out of here alive?”