Music and Mayhem ── BSD (✓)

5 CLIMB THE CORPSES TO THE TOP [edited]

I can't hear you
You're too far away
I can't see you
The light is in my face
I can't touch you
I wouldn't if I could

Bite the Hand, boygenius

CHAPTER 05; CLIMB THE CORPSES TO THE TOP

Twelve is a number of beautiful things. But when halved to six, it makes these things seem emptier than liked. And while the Birthstones were an elite group of a dozen, only half of that had been seated around the long table—it mirrored the knights of the Arthurian legend. The room was barely lit; darkness enjoyed by the dim flames of a candelabra flaunted in the centre of carved oak, the veins of which were hidden by blood-red tablecloths. It was a velvety fabric, sharing a similar colour to the curtains in fixtures beside the windows.

Fuji Miyamoto was sitting at the head of the table where a coveted golden chair was placed. It was a divine creation—the cold metal stinging her skin, still glowing in the shadows. It was her seat. It made her feel powerful. Made her less than human. Above mercy. Even if as she sat in it, she could feel her body shrinking against the large frame. 

She traced over the fresh wound on her left hand, the pad of her finger gentle at first and then she sank her nail in-between the skin. It itched but the pain didn't feel enough. It didn't cancel out Father's punishment.

"We have six seats missing," She looked up. The gold of her eyes almost shimmered as she looked around. Almost. Because they had returned to their flaxen state.

Her words prompted the others at the table to exchange glances—their soon expressionless faces briefly twitched with intrigue at the numerous empty seats scattered around the table. The absence of their owners haunted the air; it stilled all conversation.

Fuji used the silence to closely examine the remaining members of the Birthstones—her allies in battle, her equals in power. The people in this room could take over countries if they wanted; if their desire exceeded their ego. 

The strength they exuded—radiated. Fuji loved it.

Her eyes floated over to the fifth seat of the Birthstones—a seat on her right. Despite the lanky-limbed composition and the strained expression of placidity, he had a deadness to his eyes. Soft snowlike hair curved his face, finishing above the shoulder wolfishly untamed. He had a sharp face and sharper sense. Lording over his enemies with brains over brawn. Hiro. Or as much of Yokohama knew him: Deception.

A pair of circular tinted-brown glasses rested on the bridge of his, his grey eyes stormed and not sunken deep in thought as usual—like fangs into flesh—but swivelled to concentration by a peculiar speck of dust on the tablecloth. His eyes told of unspeakable things; unspeakable pain. Sufferers suffer. An equilibrium of horrors between him and his victims. Hiro kept their screams tucked between his long eyelashes like books on shelves. Their anguished expressions were carved into every crevice of his skull. For his mind was the weapon and the graveyard.

Deception, much like Loot, was a bedtime story, the Boogeyman in the shadows and a rumour few knew of. His appearances in public were limited, for the tall gangly boy, no older than eighteen, disliked the feeling of open spaces. His Ability was one of those reasons. 

Hiro was nothing but a boy orphaned by the city's slums. Dropped off at the Suribachi pit in the back of a family car by two people that never wanted to be parents. While society had moved on, he couldn't. The nature of his cognitive Ability let him climb the corpses to the top and Fuji reluctantly admitted it was rather fortunate of Father to find Hiro before any criminal organisation could touch him. Grooming him like a well-bred cat. Now, Hiro was at their beck and call. His Ability Chessboard was theirs to use to win the never-ending game of pawns and kings in the city of Yokohama.