Survival Skills 1

"Requesting connection with Oracle. Activate line."

"Oracle present."

"Begin report on subject 0666."

"Subject named Nagi Naoe, currently eight years old. Already he has shown more potential than both Mastermind and Berserker when they started at Rosenkrus. Under our care, I believe his power can expand to immeasurable proportions."

"You sound confident in your find."

"My foresight has never failed me before."

"Hm. Report living conditions and family history."

"He's living on the streets with a gang of other little kids, doing petty thievery and small crimes. Groups like these are popping up everywhere in the slums of Tokyo. The little kids are under the protection of an older gangster, and in return for his so called protection, they give him the majority of their profit and fear him like a tyrant."

"Ah big city crime. Remind you of your New York City, Oracle?"

"Something like that. There's an interesting thing with this particular gang that 0666 is in."

"And that is?"

"There's a set number of young children disappearing each month. Most of them are girls, but some of the more beautiful boys have gone missing as well."

"Child prostitution."

"Most definitely."

"And his family history?"

"He was abandoned at age four. Taken in by a few orphanages, but he ran away from all of them. Joined the gang when he was six."

"And what of his mother and father?"

"The...father is dead. He died a few months before 0666 was abandoned by his mother, crushed to a bloody pulp. The mother died in an insane asylum."

"He's got some violent tendencies."

"Nothing more than what humanity gave him."

"Continue observation of subject. When the time is appropriate, bring him here. Report to me if you need more people. It seems like we might need a great deal of force to deal with this boy."

"No need. I won't use force. I'll make him come to me."

"Hmph. Whatever you say, Oracle. Terminate connection."

===========

Nagi held the boy's hand while he died. He had been dying for a long time now, months, maybe even a whole year. The boy had lost track of time and did not know how long death had been eating away at him. It really didn't matter to him.

Nagi met the boy purely by chance. He had been prowling the streets for potential marks when he passed the alley and heard the boy's soft voice calling out like a dying kitten. After a moment's hesitation, he went to the voice and found the boy.

Nagi thought the boy's face looked somewhat familiar, not with the familiarity of someone you've met before and recognize, but the recognition of the kind of person someone is. Living on the streets, they all sold something. Some sold their soul, morality, humanity. Some, like the boy, sold their flesh to the pleasures of customers.

Their kind are easy to recognize. They are all dough, spread out like victims across the world, made with the same cookie cutter precision to them, waiting to be devoured. Nagi felt sorry for the boy, who looked about his age, slumped against the wall of the alley, looking as if he had not eaten much in quite a while. His clothes were dirty and he had soiled himself, the stench rising off of him in nauseating waves. Nagi could see dried urine stains spreading out from beneath him.

"What's your name, oniisan?" The boy rasped. His grip on Nagi's hand was painfully tight.

"Naoe Nagi."

The boy nodded and smiled. The attempt was gruesome. His face, which was reduced to a thin layer of pallid skin stretched over his skull, could not produce the cheery effect of a smile. It looked like he was grimacing in pain, like he had already died and rigor mortis was setting in.

"You're beautiful, Nagi Naoe. I'm Shotaro," Another grimace, though not from physical pain this time. "I used to be beautiful, too. Now I'm hideous."

Nagi could not offer any comforting words to the boy, because what he had just said was the truth. He was hideous. He was a walking corpse. The boy's hand tightened on his,

"I'm really glad you're here, Nagi Naoe. I was really afraid that I'd have to die alone."

The boy closed his eyes and Nagi could hear the thin rasping of his uneven breath. The boy's skin was hot against his hand. Burning, like a furnace was running in there, trying to cleanse the body of the disease eating away at it. Maybe the boy would burn to death.

"I'm going to get you to a hospital."

Shotaro murmured something softly in response, but Nagi couldn't make out what it was. He knelt down and carefully lifted Shotaro onto his back and told the other boy to hold onto him. Shotaro slumped against him and made a small effort to lock his hands together and hold onto him.

There was a hospital six miles away. Neither of them had any money, but Nagi was sure they would accept Shotaro into the hospital. They couldn't ignore a dying child, could they? All he had to do was carry Shotaro the six miles to the hospital. It didn't seem like such a big task, since the other boy was so light.

It struck Nagi as strange, how Shotaro could be so light. He was the same size as Shotaro, but Shotaro hardly weighed anything at all. It was like he was hollow, just a shell. Maybe he was. Maybe the thing eating itself out inside of him was almost finished now and would soon eat its way through Shotaro's stomach and attack Nagi, burrowing into his spine and then eating him inside out as well. Nagi flinched and almost dropped Shotaro.

What would the doctors find when he brought Shotaro in? Would they have to cut him apart and take out the disease inside him? Just take a knife and slice the sucker right out of him. What would it look like? When they cut him apart, would they see Shotaro's hollow remains? Dust flying up in their faces as they peer in and see the withered remains of internal organs; crimson dust, rusty blood dust.

Or maybe the thing eating away at Shotaro would still be there. Maybe when they cut him apart they would see a thousand dark writhing worms flourishing in there, their slick wet bodies squirming in and out, pulsating malevolently, defiantly up at the doctors peering in, as if to say, "We're here to stay. What are you going to do about it? We're here to stay and we're not going to pay the rent and there's nothing you can do about it. So. Fuck. Off."

But no. That would not happen. They would not cut Shotaro apart. They only cut dead people apart. Shotaro was starting to get heavy and Nagi's arms screamed out for relief. He kept on walking, ignoring the stares people gave him. People stared. Nobody helped. He could tell himself to hold on, but if his arms got too tired, he would end up dropping Shotaro and that would be bad. You don't tell a person you're going to help them and then drop them in the middle of the street. That's not proper etiquette.

He couldn't stop walking either. There were benches where he could sit to wait for the bus, but he could not stop and sit down in one of them because if he did he would never get back up; he would abandon Shotaro at the bus stop and run all the way home and try to wash the stench of the other boy off of his body. So Nagi used it. His special thing, that which made him unique.

Once, when he had finished picking pockets for the day, he had stopped in front of a window display for color TV's and watched the shows that came on. Most of them were boring adult shows with people kissing and arguing, but there was one show where a strange man, who for some strange reason liked to dress up like a gigantic pink rat, would dance with little kids and tell stories. Nagi thought most of it was pretty stupid, but there was one thing the man said that he remembered.

He said that everyone had something that made them who they are. One special thing that made them unique. Nagi knew right away what made him unique. He took it out now, that special power he had, and used it to lift Shotaro. He had to be careful to make it look like he was still carrying Shotaro though, because he was in the middle of the street and the last time he used his power in the middle of the street without trying to hide it, people ran away screaming. Some ran towards him screaming too, and then he had to run.

But this time, he was careful and nobody noticed a thing. Shotaro himself didn't seem to notice either, because he didn't make a sound. Nagi thought about what he would do once he got to the hospital. He would drop Shotaro off, but then people would see him and start asking questions. What's your name? Where are your parents? Then they'd call him a poor little thing and promise to get help for him, and call people to take him away to another orphanage.

Nagi didn't like orphanages or foster homes. He had been to several and had ran away from all of them. In the orphanages, the children didn't like him and he didn't like the children. They thought he was weird. He thought they were stupid. Once, when he was very young, one of the boys from one of the orphanages had hurt him. And Nagi had hurt the boy back; he had hurt him bad, hurt him bad so that the boy could never ever hurt him again and that had gotten the nuns upset. They were like the children. They thought he was weird, too. One of them called him the son of Satan. Nagi didn't know who Satan was at the time, and thought that the nun must be very stupid, for if Nagi had a father named Satan, he wouldn't be in an orphanage now would he?

That memory was fuzzy. He was adopted once, but the people returned him like damaged merchandise a few months afterwards. They thought he was weird, too. He wasn't affectionate enough for them. That was fine with Nagi. He hated the orphanage, but he hated being adopted even more. They gave him a room painted blue with plastic dump trucks and action figures to play with. They gave him hugs and called him things like "honey" and "darling" like they were his real parents or something, like he should just forget all the bad things in the past and pretend he was their real son, happy and bursting with sunshine. And then, just when he thought that maybe things weren't so bad after all, they took him back. But they loved him. Really they did. Bullshit. He had learned that word from the TV, too.

So he ran away. He ran away and found others like him, children abandoned by society to form their own little society, a society where the rules were shaped not by thousands of years of ingrained civilization, but by primal instinct.

The rules were simple: sink or swim. Nobody would help you. You were always on your own, and the only time you had any company is when said company is ready to beat the living shit out of you and steal whatever you have. Not that you have much, but just a little is better than nothing. There was a hierarchy that was painfully obvious; obvious because any damn fool can see it, painful because if you are a particularly stupid damn fool who can not see it, someone will gladly introduce it to you. The strongest and the biggest rule. The smallest and the weakest are crushed into the dust. Nagi learned quickly.

He wasn't the strongest, but he wasn't weak either. Most of the big kids left him alone and went to pick on easier prey. Everybody did their share of work, just in different ways. The little kids did it the good old fashioned way: going out and picking pockets. The bigger kids had it easier. They just went up to the big kids and demand that they be given a present for protecting the little squirts. Protection from what? the naive ones would ask. The answer usually came in the form of a fist to the face, and the question would never be asked again. Everyone learned quickly.

The one they all answered to was Big Brother Gimp. He was the biggest of the big kids and everyone had to contribute something to him, as gratitude for his protection and for letting them set foot in his territory. They called him Gimp because his right foot was lame. Anyone who talked about it within his hearing range would be beaten to a bloody pulp. So those were the rules and everybody followed them.

Still, just because you followed the rules didn't mean you would survive. The rules made sure the strong ones live at the expense of the weak ones. The weak, like Shotaro, had to find ways to live. Some simply didn't have the knack for picking pockets and stealing. The only thing they had were their bodies. They all knew what they were in for. People told them things, all those diseases that would eat you inside out. But you couldn't think about the future when you're dying of hunger now. There was never enough food. They just needed enough to pass through the day.

Nagi saw the hospital. "Shotaro, we're here."

He got no response from the other boy, who was probably too exhausted and had fallen asleep. Nagi carried him into the hospital, using the emergency entrance. So many people and voices everywhere, running and talking and breathing and living with such a furious pace in a place of death.

"Can I help you, little boy?" A male nurse looked down at him, eyes flitting nervously to Shotaro on his back. He didn't wait for Nagi to response, calling for a wheelchair to be brought over and lowering Shotaro into it.

"Where'd you find him?" Nagi didn't answer for a moment. He was tired from the walk. Everything ached, the way it always did after he used his power. Shotaro was slumped in the wheelchair, unconscious while the doctor came with his stethoscope and started checking his vital signs.

"He was in an alley. I carried him here because I was afraid he would die." Everything was okay now, though, because Nagi had carried Shotaro those six miles back to life. For the first time, he had used his power to save someone, to protect someone. He was tired and he needed a bath and he was hungry and he wanted a soft bed to sleep in and everything ached, but it felt so good and the aching was so sweet because it had done some good in the end.

"He's not going to die is he?"

The doctor bent over the wheelchair, listening intently to the stethoscope pressed to Shotaro's frail chest. The man lowered it and looked at Nagi without saying anything for a while. The nurses wheeled Shotaro away. Nagi knew it before he even said a word.

"I'm sorry, but that boy is already dead."

He should have known. Nagi nodded silently to the doctor.

"Ahh, do you need help though? Maybe some food? I could...I could call up someone to help you, maybe get you a place to sleep or something. Would you like that?" The doctor could recognize his kind. Nagi nodded silently. He could see the doctor breathing a sigh of relief as he lead Nagi to the cafeteria, where he bought a small carton of milk and some food for him. "I'll be right back. Stay right here, okay?"

Nagi nodded and the doctor went to call child services. He was only gone for a few minutes, but by the time he got back, Nagi was already on his way back home. He ate the food while he walked, stuffing it into his mouth as fast as he could swallow it. He wanted to save some of it, but if the other kids saw him with food they'd only gang up on him and steal it. He had wasted the day with Shotaro and now it was too late to find any good marks. The whole day. Wasted. Fruitless. It was a lesson to be learned Nagi decided. He would never make the same mistake again.