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12/5 – immediately after Shido’s change of heart.
It hurts, crying hurts, Shido thought.
Shido was only vaguely aware that the voices surrounding him – the people surrounding him – had vanished. Getting the police? The thought slipped away like water through his fingers. Coherent thought was beyond him as each memory of his past atrocities immediately summoned forth another – and another –
Shido let out a particularly violent sob, and tucked his elbows in, head nearly touching his knees, overwhelmed and unable to process as he sat on his office couch. Every breath burned and carried with it involuntary vocalizations. His muscles spasmed with each sob, somehow seeming to crush him in upon himself. He’d never experienced anything like it. It wasn’t stopping. He couldn’t even think of stopping it.
“Shido-san?”
Someone was shaking his shoulder.
“Shido-san?”
How long had they been there?
“Atone…” Shido managed to drag the word out from somewhere deep inside. “The police… h-have… ngh… have they…”
“Shido-san, you’re panicking,” the voice sounded cloying.
“Call them,” Shido snapped, anger bursting forth as he glared at the man interrupting his grief - some middle-aged nobody in a suit… It was his doctor, he paid him well, though he couldn’t remember his name. Shido wasn’t sure he had ever known his name. Calling him ‘doctor’ had always worked well enough.
“They’ve been called,” the doctor said. “But you can’t talk to them like this – you can’t even breathe!”
Shido glared, trying to steady himself. He wasn’t a child. But even as he opened his mouth to reprimand the doctor- only fresh sobs escaped.
Humiliated and aching with emotion, Shido dropped his head back into his hands, trying to choke back his sobs, but it hurt. He had never experienced such a thing.
“I have a sedative that will let you talk to the police,” doctor soothed. “I need a vein though, if you could cooperate with me?”
Shido nodded absently.
The doctor’s hands were insinuated under his left arm and it was pulled away from his tear-streaked face. Don’t touch me, Shido thought, but he couldn’t even summon the energy to be angry, the thought more of a reflex than anything else. It almost felt like it wasn’t his body the doctor was manipulating as he allowed his left arm to be worked out of his suit jacket. His only response to feeling the doctor’s hands brush at the top fastened button on his dress shirt was to turn his face away and bury it deeper into his free hand.
It was all just so… inconsequential. His arm being manipulated out of the shirt sleeve through the partially unbuttoned dress shirt didn’t matter. Nor did the too tight sensation just above his elbow. Why was the doctor doing this again?
Maybe he’s going to kill me, Shido thought dully. That seems fair. How many lives had he destroyed? Was taking his life going to even come close to balancing the scales?
An embarrassing whimper punctuated Shido’s sobs as a needle breeched his skin.
“You’ll be better soon,” the doctor sounded relieved.
Better? Shido wasn’t even sure how that word could even be applied to himself. What would better even mean for someone like him?
~
The room was dark.
Shido blinked.
It wasn’t the same room. And he wasn’t sitting anymore, but laying down.
As disorienting as the complete lack of transition was, all the more bizarre was that his unstoppable sobs had somehow stopped. His body felt like he’d overexerted himself in his penthouse’s exclusive gym, muscles aching and leaden. His mind felt like it was filled with cotton and there was a faint ringing in his ears.
He seemed to be on a bed. Where was he?
Shido slowly raised his head, only to immediately be overwhelmed by a wave of nausea. He barely managed to turn his head to the side as his body heaved – nothing came out.
What the hell…? Shido was hurt, felt sick, and was confused, all of which was serving to fuel a sort of rage. He could just make out the blurry outline of what was likely medical equipment in the dimly lit room. Hospital? Shido absently looked for some sort of bedside table where his glasses might be, but there was nothing. Those glasses weren’t merely a fashion statement…
Carefully this time, he slowly tried to sit up. It felt weird.
I’m restrained, Shido finally realized, looking at his wrists. They were secured to the hospital bedrails with some sort of white, sterile-looking cloth cuffs. His left arm had the IV in it where the doctor had put it before. It led to some sort of series of IV bags on a pole. And he seemed to be wearing a hospital gown under a thin set of crisp white sheets.
Shido felt relief flood him, and he immediately ceased all efforts to sit, collapsing back into the bed. He was restrained – he was likely in police custody, just a mandatory checkup for the prisoner before he’d go to a detention center. They’d be here for him… soon. He didn’t have to struggle against the cotton feeling in his head.
Unconsciousness claimed him.
~
“I thought you said he would wake up within seconds?”
“He is waking up, just look at him.”
“Oh, good!” Shido blinked blurrily at the too-chipper voice that had sounded terse only seconds before. “You’re awake!”
Shido squinted at the young man. It was hard to tell without his glasses but… he was that young politician who’d been helping him siphon funds from several lesser noticed government projects. He’d promised him a committee chairman position once he’d become Prime Minister. Shido recalled he’d gotten the Cleaner to take out the man’s political opponent too… the details were fuzzy. Shido had the man’s name saved on his phone… but in his mind the politician had only ever been nameless. Irrelevant. Useful, but pathetic.
His own thoughts made him flinch.
“Your acceptance speech is in two days, Shido-san,” the politician said.
“My what?” Shido had to be hallucinating.
“Here,” papers were shoved into his weak but unresisting hands. “Your acceptance speech. I made it short to be easy on you. I think I matched your usual style.”
What? None of this was making sense. The pages looked like they had a fuzzy darkness on them, so there was definitely writing, but he was hopeless without his glasses. But the papers didn’t matter.
“Where are the police?” he asked in a raspy voice. Then… “Two days?!”
He struggled to sit up.
“Mr. Shido, sir, please don’t get up too fast!” the doctor was saying – the man who’d put the IV in him.
“What day is it?!” Shido snarled at the politician who seemed to quail under his glare. The papers in Shido’s hand crunched in his fist. “Spit it out!” He snapped.
“You’ve been sedated a long time, sir,” said the doctor. “It was my call. It’s December 16th.”
Shido felt a chill creep up his spine. The sixteenth? That’s more than ten days since the Phantom Thieves…
“What have you been feeding me?!” Shido asked, aghast.
“Um, the IV and-“
“No, never mind, that’s not important,” Shido snapped, gripping the unreadable papers tighter, trying to swallow his panic and stop himself from thinking deeper on whether or not he was wearing a catheter. “Where the hell are the police?! Call them at once! I am not reading any fucking acceptance speech. I-“ must atone.
The anger vanished as quickly as it had come as the guilt came back to crush him. His breath escaped him in a woosh and he choked on it, beginning to tremble. His next breath wasn’t big enough – he couldn’t get enough air! Shido took another rasping breath, bringing his hands to his head and beginning to curl inward.
“Not this again,” The politician sighed, and Shido flinched as his shoulder was firmly shaken. “Pull yourself together – you need to read the speech. Do you think we’ll just let you walk away from your plan? Did you seriously think we’d let you blab all of our crimes to the press?”
Shido blinked, shaken, slowly lowering his hands, as he tried to control his breathing. No, he genuinely hadn’t considered whether the people in the room when his heart changed would let him – he hadn’t been capable. The whirlwind of emotions he found himself in had robbed his common sense. At the time, some part of him had seemed to believe everyone else was feeling his grief too – yet, it was only he whose heart had been changed.
Shido forced himself to focus – he may actually be in danger. The two men in the room seemed tense -though their faces were too blurry to make out any details, the politician sounded hostile.
“I’ll only confess my own crimes,” Shido tried carefully. “I’ll keep you out of it.” Because I don’t remember either of your names.
“Shido-san, we aren’t stupid. You’ll read that speech on camera. Then you’re gonna get sick. You’ll make limited appearances, do the bare minimum, and fulfill all of your promises. But for now – you just have to worry about that speech.”
“And walking,” The doctor interjected. “I’ve taken care to keep your muscles stretched and limber, and you’ve actually gotten out of bed and walked a bit once a day though I doubt you remember, but it won’t compare to-“
“I refuse,” Shido said flatly. “You can’t make me give a speech. Give me my phone. I’ll call the police myself.”
“I don’t think you realize just how little bargaining power you have here,” the politician said, his voice glacial. “We can still achieve our goals if you die having technically won the election.”
Shido snorted. “You think death scares me? Death is preferable, I deserve it. Kill me.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“Try me,” Shido hissed.
The doctor and politician started whispering to each other. Shido couldn’t care less. He loosened his grip on his supposed speech and squinted at it, bringing it closer to his face and trying to make out a few words.
“If your death doesn’t scare you, Shido-san,” the whispering had stopped, and the politician spoke. “What of the deaths of others? We may not know your methods for the shutdowns, but we have enough connections to plant a bomb on a subway station.”
“You’re bluffing,” Shido snapped, glaring at the politician’s unreadable blurry visage fiercely.
“Try me,” the man mockingly threw Shido’s words back at him.
Without being able to see his face well, Shido couldn’t read him. He clicked his tongue in frustration, glaring back at the papers in his hands.
“I can’t read this.”
“Have it your way. I’ll order the first bomb to be placed at-“
“No, you imbecile, I literally can’t read this. Where the hell did you put my glasses?”
“Ah, I.. I’ll get them,” the doctor said sheepishly before scurrying from the room.
“And get me my fucking phone!” Shido roared after his retreating back.
“We can’t let you have access to a phone, Shido-san” politician guy said. “Don’t pretend you don’t know why.”
No. No, no, no, no, no.
Humans weren’t built to feel this much, Shido’s mind protested as fear joined the cacophony of emotions wreaking havoc on his mind and body, blotting out the anger that was all that was holding together his sanity. Can’t let them kill people… they will definitely kill people just to prove to me that they’re serious… can’t let them use me as a pawn… if they sedate me again, I can’t stop them… The Television director won’t want me confessing… he will definitely be filming… he’ll cut me off if I deviate from this damn speech no doubt… it hurts to think… how do I get arrested? How do I atone when they won’t let me?!
When Shido’s glasses were replaced by the nervous doctor his mind had latched onto an idea. He was admittedly a man of few talents – what an odd thing to just now realize – but manipulating people was something he excelled at.
“I take it you paid the TV director his usual fee for getting my best angle?” Shido sighed as he started to read the paper. ‘My election is the result of every citizen’s aid. Your support warms my heart’.
‘Pains my heart’ would be more accurate, Shido thought. He was truly scum.
“His… usual fee?” The politician asked haltingly.
“Yes, his usual fee,” Shido snapped. “What, you think he quashed all those negative reports for free? He makes me pay extra when I appear to put his best editor in the room to make sure I look my best even live… you seriously didn’t know?” Shido put on a mask of mockery. “Your grand aspirations almost fell apart at the first step. Pathetic.” It almost hurt to act this way now, somehow, but the words flowed easily, almost like muscle memory. “Give me my phone. You can listen to the call if you must.”
“You can use my phone-“ the politician began.
“What person memorizes a phone number in today’s age?” Shido snapped. “My. Phone!”
~
“Put it on speak-“ Shido made a slashing motion with his newly freed hands as if the politician was interrupting an answered call.
“Shido speaking,” Shido said to the rings. “For my speech on the 18th, please contact my secretary directly and ask him to transfer the usual amount. I’ll be dumping this phone soon,” Shido spoke deliberately, trying to avoid being too obvious that he was stalling as he listened to a recorded message. “I know, I apologize for the inconvenience.” Finally, the beep came. “Don’t be ridiculous, of course the change of heart failed,” Shido told the voicemail. “Can you seriously imagine me falling for such a thing? You know what I did to Kayo,” Shido let out an exaggerated sigh, and slowly counted out a decent pause. “I assure you, I know what I’m doing. Just do your job and make sure you film me properly.”
Shido hung up and locked the phone, handing it back over as promised, suppressing a grim smile. Assuming the politician didn’t talk to his secretary sometime within the next day… he’d won. He would finally be punished.
Is there a punishment in this world enough to compensate for what I’ve done?
~
12/18 – Cameraman
“You know what I did to Kayo.”
The cameraman made last minute adjustments in his booth, thinking back on that completely unbelievable voicemail. The president’s reminder to make ‘Mr. Shido’ look good didn’t even register. Kayo was that journalist who’d interviewed him about Shido, off the record. The journalist who’d vanished.
“Just do your job and make sure you film me properly.”
That had been Shido’s voice, hadn’t it? The cameraman had never given Shido his number… but he had spoken to him. Just once. It was shortly after Kayo had vanished, suspected of murdering a politician, and Shido was set to give an interview about it. Shido made a… casual… remark about the ‘alarming number of people disappearing these days’ while his eyes bored into the cameraman’s soul, like Shido knew that he had given all of the dirt he had to Kayo. How had he known of their interview? Had Shido seriously found his number all the way back then?
“Don’t be ridiculous, of course the change of heart failed”
Why tell him that? And why call like he was in the middle of a conversation with someone else? Like it was a coded message?
“I assure you, I know what I’m doing. Just do your job and make sure you film me properly.”
The cameraman dared to hope. Kayo had likely lost her life to Shido… had the change of heart actually worked? Was Shido going to confess like the others? Shido had said he knew what he was doing, so maybe it was a coded message after all… If Shido really did plan to confess, there was no way the director would allow it to happen, let alone happen on his station, so if Shido needed to keep his intention to confess a secret…
The cameraman allowed himself to hope as he did his best to ensure that he was the only one with the ability to quickly shut off the feed. Shido’s confession would be heard.
~
12/18 - Shido
The day of the speech came faster than Shido had anticipated. He felt like some prop as he was directed to the taped X on the stage in front of the cameras when usually he would be the one giving the orders. The same two men who had been his constant companions and tormentors in that tiny hospital room were still at his side, the doctor off stage but in sight, and the young politician to his right. The TV director himself stood at his left side. Shido hoped no one had thought to ask him about the phone call he had never received. The studio lights felt draining, and all the stage makeup in the world couldn’t hide Shido’s gaunt complexion.
He just needed to hold himself together for a few more minutes. The politician’s threat of bombing a subway station if he deviated from his speech was laughable. If he deviated from his speech, they would have to go into damage control mode – the threat was only effective when they needed to prove they were serious. There would be no point in controlling him once a confession had been given.
Shido fought the tremors in his arms as he held his mic, sound check complete, waiting for the signal to begin speaking. It wasn’t only emotion that made him tremble – barely walking for over ten days had taken its toll, and the doctor had to shoot him up with some sort of stimulant to help him keep his balance against the fatigue. His stability wasn’t aided by the phantom sensations in rather sensitive areas from long term catheter usage either.
Thankfully, things seemed to be going according to his barely-a-plan. He could see that boy – the cameraman entered on his phone as ‘snitch, lead cameraman, kayo murakami’ – manning the front and center camera as he’d hoped. That hopefully meant his voicemail had been understood, and he would be able to speak, uninterrupted. Shido didn’t need long – he was a politician after all, he knew how to create a damning speech in few words. He just needed to be on air long enough to confess one major crime.
Don’t cry, Shido coached himself. Quit feeling sorry for yourself. You have to do this. You need to atone. This is your reckoning.
The man behind the camera gave him the silent hand signal. Show time.
~
It was chaos. The TV director was screaming. The young politician who had given him the speech was shouting in panic. Someone was banging on the door to the production booth and claiming it was locked. The man behind the camera was clinging to it with all his might as someone else tried to wrest him away. All the chaos was soundless to the outside world as Shido held the only live mic to his lips. He couldn’t be distracted. He dealt with rowdy crowds all the time. He paid them no mind as the words welled up from his soul.
“I am a true criminal that can be tried for any crime, and it still wouldn’t be enough!” Was there even a crime he hadn’t committed? They were too numerous to count, and he had tried. Given time though, maybe… “I will confess everything! Please, I beg everyone to pass judgement on me…” Everyone, anyone, inflict upon me the pain I have inflicted upon you, make me suffer, make me bleed – “If I could atone for all I’ve done with my life, I request that I be judged at once…” My life is forfeit, yours to use, tell me what I deserve, tell me how… to atone…
The cameraman was finally wrenched away from the camera, just as another politician from the audience thought to dive in front of the feed. He’d had enough time. Shido let his arms fall limply to his sides, and felt the mic slip from his grasp. He allowed his body to do as it willed, and collapsed to his knees. He tilted his head back and squinted at the glaring stage lights. There were cops in the audience for security, weren’t there?
His silent prayers were answered as a man in uniform roughly dragged him to his feet and cuffed his hands behind his back. The cool metal felt like a welcome embrace.
“This way!” someone shouted. The voice was familiar.
Shido’s gaze snapped to the voice. It was that damn doctor.
“No,” Shido protested in horror as he felt the cop redirect his steps. “Take me to the police station! I have more crimes to confess!”
“Yeah, that’s the problem,” the cop huffed. Shido’s panic grew as another uniformed officer joined his side. Shido stopped walking, and tried to struggle, but the pair hardly even seemed to notice as they dragged him along, his designer shoes squeaking as Shido tried to brace them against the tile.
It was all in vain. Shortly, he was outside the TV studio. The cops were taking him to his limo, not a cop car.
“No!” Shido shouted, desperation taking hold. This couldn’t be happening!
“Hey, cruiser is that way!” a different officer piped up, confused.
“Mr. Shido is unwell,” a voice said somewhere behind him and Shido felt all the fight leave him. He knew that voice. The interim SIU director he’d appointed. It was over.
“We’re taking him to the hospital for psychiatric assessment. We will hear his confession once he’s stable,” the SIU director soothed the uncorrupted cop.
The cuffs were removed and Shido felt cast adrift once more. He pushed away the hands attempting to guide him into the limo with faux care, choosing to surrender himself to the vehicle under his own power. He was akin to a spider trapped in its own web. Shido didn’t say a word as the young politician and private doctor pushed past the cops and climbed into the limo after him.
His salvation had been stolen. He had no more plans.
“I told you about the bomb,” the politician sounded anguished. “I told you!”
I didn’t believe you. “You did,” Shido nodded. He wasn’t willing to antagonize the man further, incase he was actually the sort of idiot who would deploy his leverage on someone who had nothing left to offer.
“That’s more innocent lives on your conscience!” The panicked desperation in the man’s voice was hardly convincing of a real threat. Shido maintained his silence.
The limo door opened one last time. Ah. His secretary. Shido actually knew his name – his secretary knew more of the intimate details of his operation than he did. He was wondering when he would show up. He had to have been the one pulling the strings.
The limo began to move. Shido was left alone on his bench seat while the other three sat together opposite him. Them keeping the seats the decorum of their old positions required seemed strange to Shido.
“We have to kill him.” Shido made eye contact with the secretary at his words. That should have been their first move, honestly. He knew it was what the old him would have done.
His plan failing left Shido too depressed to care about the dangerous turn of the conversation.
“I’m not a murderer!” The doctor said with alarm.
“No, you just use your credentials to flood the black market with narcotics,” the secretary sounded unimpressed. “And you, Hayashi, didn’t your opponent drop out of the race after the unexpected death of his young daughter?”
“I…” Hayashi, that was the young politician’s name. “I didn’t ask for that,” he completed quietly. “I just asked Mr. Shido if he could help me win.”
“But you know he brought about her death, and you said nothing,” The secretary snapped. “You’re already an accessory – and weren’t you the one who said you were threatening the bastard with a bomb? Unbelievable.”
Shido turned his head toward the window and leaned his forehead against the tinted glass. It was supposed to be over. The public was supposed to judge him, not three men who had gone along with his crimes. They were unworthy of making the call of how his life should end… yet at the same time he couldn’t deny that his death would bring others some measure of peace. He hoped it would be a slow one…
“Hey,” his secretary was snapping at him and Shido reluctantly returned his attention to their conversation. “We’ve decided to kill you. You’re a liability. What do you have to say to that?”
Shido felt numb. It was a bit anticlimactic.
“All I requested was the public’s judgement and you have denied me even that. If you must kill me, ask the masses how it should be done. Hacking the Phantom Thieves’ fansite and making a poll should do. Pick the most popular answer.”
Shido bared his teeth in a poor facsimile of a smile in response to the trio’s shocked expressions. “What? Did you think I feared death? All I fear now… is failing to atone.”
Shido lolled his head back to the window as their whispers resumed. Was there any possible way he could get himself to the police? Uncorrupted ones? Who was that chief prosecutor woman the old SIU director had said was a pain in his ass? Maybe she-
Shido yelped as he felt a sudden pinch in his neck. He erratically swiped his hand only to see the doctor pulling away looking guilty.
Not again! What’d he give me this time?!
It was his last thought before the darkness claimed him
~
12/24
The next time Shido regained consciousness he was in that dreaded hospital room but there were police in it and he could see his doctor in handcuffs. Not even the realization that he was nude, save a hospital gown, and catheterized again in front of a small crowd of policemen and some foreboding young woman in a pants suit could damper his mood. For the first time since his change of heart – Shido felt like all was as it should be.