Title: See Who I Am, Break Through the Silence

Author: Emjen Enla (Fanfiction)/emjen_enla (Wattpad)/emjenenla (Tumblr)

Teaser: Slight AU of Episode 10. Shibazaki speaks to Nine while he's in police custody.

Rating: PG-13/T

Canon/Timeline: Canon divergence from Episode 10 "Helter Skelter"

Dominant Characters: Nine, Shibazaki Kenjirō, appearances by Hamura and Kurahashi, mentions of Twelve and Mishima Lisa

Pairings: none

Warnings: Nine is a terrorist. He has an atomic bomb. He is also terminally ill.

Notes:

-Special thanks to Nightsmoke from Fanfiction and ao3. Since the show does a pretty poor job of giving us specifics of what's going on with Five and Nine and why Twelve doesn't show any symptoms, I used her stories to build my headcanons about all that stuff.

-Also, to those of you reading my Six of Crows fanfic, I hope to get part three out soon. (College is leaves you with so much free time…Not!)

Disclaimer: I don't own Zankyou no Terror/Terror in Resonance or the song "See Who I Am" by Within Temptation. Special thanks to Nightsmoke!

"Remember, I can only give you a couple minutes," Kurahashi said as Shibazaki and Hamura followed him down the dark hallways of the police station. "You're not even supposed to be in the building so the sooner you can get in and out the better."

"Do we know who he is?" Hamura asked, taking a couple jogging steps like a small child until he was walking alongside the older man.

"He was registered in one of the area high schools as Kokonoe Arata," Kurahashi said. "He hasn't gone to class since the first bombing. We think Sphinx number 2 might be another new student called Hisami Tōji who has also been chronically absent since the bombing. We did background checks on both of them, but it seems likely both identities are fabricated. We've had no luck in getting him to give us a real name."

Normally that would have been a problem, but Shibazaki was fairly sure that in this situation there wasn't a name for them to get. "Has there been any sign of Sphinx 2?"

"None," Kurahashi said. "It's making me nervous. He could easily be out there setting a bomb to go off if we don't release his partner."

"That's unlikely," Shibazaki said.

"How do you know?"

"Sphinx 1 turned himself in," he explained. "No one would have to break him out if he hadn't marched in here in the first place. Don't get me wrong, I fully believe there's a plan, and it probably involves a bomb, but it won't be to break him out. Sphinx 1 is right where he wants to be; the trick will be figuring out exactly why this is where he wants to be."

"That's encouraging," Hamura muttered.

They reached the door to the cell block. "We can't move him to an interrogation room without the Americans getting wind of it," Kurahashi said as he opened the door. "This will have to be good enough."

He stepped inside and muttered a few words to the guards who left without glancing at Shibazaki and Hamura. Kurahashi motioned with a hand and they stepped through the door.

The cell block was empty aside from one cell directly opposite the door. Inside it a teenaged boy sat on a cot, his back against the wall and his cuffed hands draped over his drawn-up knees.

One of the most wanted terrorists in Japan watched them silently as they crossed the room. Kurahashi opened the cell door, Shibazaki stepped inside and the door closed behind him. He grabbed the cell's single chair, spun it around and settled into it, resting his arms on the top of the seat. "Well," he said. "You said you wanted to talk to me."

Sphinx 1 just stared. He expression was unnervingly blank. Shibazaki stared back and tried to get a feel for the young man before him. He had slightly long black hair that looked freshly washed, like he'd taken a shower in preparation of turning himself in as a terrorist. His eyes were somewhere between blue and gray, and he was wearing surprisingly normal-looking black framed glasses. The black shirt he had on looked like the same shirt that he'd been wearing during the airport bombing.

That wasn't what Shibazaki found alarming, though. The boy was almost impossibly thin and there were dark bags under his eyes. He had a pallor akin to snow, aside from the hectic splotches of red on his cheeks like he had a fever. All in all, he looked sick. Shibazaki hoped that someone had at least taken the kid's temperature and given him some acetaminophen.

Sphinx 1 still hadn't answered his question. Shibazaki wasn't going to put himself at the disadvantage by asking the question again. They stared at each other for at least five minutes. Shibazaki heard Kurahashi and Hamura shifting and murmuring behind him, but ignored them and continued staring pleasantly at the terrorist before him.

Finally, Sphinx 1 cleared his throat. "Did you figure out about us?" he asked quietly, his eyes deep, old and watchful. "Do you understand now?"

It was like being struck by lightning, suddenly Shibazaki realized that Sphinx 1 and 2 had wanted someone to look into the Athena Program. They'd wanted someone to look into where they'd come from. He'd acted exactly as they'd hoped. The thought of playing into the hands of a pair of terrorists was more than a little disconcerting.

He swallowed around that massive realization and forced his voice to be level and pleasant when he replied, "Are you number nine or number twelve?"

Sphinx 1's emotionless masked cracked. A look of childlike relief spread across his face, and he leaned his forehead against his knees for a few moments. When he looked up again his eyes were wet and there was a tiny smile playing around one corner of his mouth. "I'm Nine," he said.

"Alright," Shibazaki said trying to regain his metaphorical balance. This conversation was going to be nothing like he'd originally thought it would. "And what would you have me call you?"

The boy's eyes moved to Kurahashi and Hamura on the other side of the bars. He raised an eyebrow.

"I trust them," Shibazaki said. "They're not going anywhere."

Sphinx 1 sighed. "You can call me Nine," he said. "That's what Twelve and Lisa call me."

Lisa. Shibazaki filed the name away in the back of his mind. They'd calculated that there had to be another person beyond Sphinx 1 and 2 at the airport during the bombing, perhaps that was this Lisa person.

He didn't mention any of these musings to Nine, however. "And I assume Sphinx 2 is Twelve?" he asked instead. Nine nodded his face still flooded with adolescent hope despite the minor distraction of Kurahashi and Hamura. Shibazaki went on. "Where is he right now?"

Nine's face fell immediately. "I don't know exactly," he said. "We split up, but I do know that wherever he is, he's not planning any more trouble for you."

"Why did you split up?" Shibazaki pushed as gently as possible.

"We had…" Nine sighed and fiddled with the handcuffs. "He decided something else was more important than completing our plans."

Shibazaki couldn't say he was exactly surprised at that something like that had happened. The stress of what they were attempting had to be immense, especially for a pair of teenage boys. "And what are you plans?" he asked.

Nine looked up and dropped his legs to the floor. The emotionless mask was back. "Sphinx is ready to make a demand."

Shibazaki felt like he'd been given whiplash from the sudden change in topic. He forced himself to focus. Sphinx had never made a demand before; this was important.

"I want a press conference," Nine said. Back straight, shoulders back, voice shockingly adult. "As many camera crews as possible from as many countries as possible. I want it broadcast live in Japan, and I want to be allowed to speak freely."

Shibazaki couldn't help it; he raised an eyebrow. "That's all you want?" he said. "You plant multiple bombs and post complicated riddles on the internet and all you want is a press conference?"

"I want people to listen to what I have to say," Nine said, eyes boring into Shibazaki as if expecting him to understand.

It took a minute, but then Shibazaki did. "You want to tell people about the Athena Project," he said. "That's what all these bombings are about."

"If Twelve and I had just dumped our story on the internet," Nine said. "Only the nutcases would have believed us. Now we're one of the biggest stories in the world. People will listen. Important people will listen."

So that was what this was all about. These kids had gone around threatening the lives of thousands just to get people's attention. Shibazaki wasn't sure whether to be annoyed or pitying. "And what if you don't get your press conference?" he asked. "What happens then?"

Nine's face was cold as ice. "Then I tell you that Twelve and I didn't steal plutonium from Aomori; we stole an atomic bomb. If I don't get my press conference, a failsafe will activate and the bomb will go off."

"What?" Hamura's body crashed against the cell bars, but Shibazaki didn't let himself look away from the terrorist in front of him. "You can't do that!" Hamura roared.

"I won't tell you where it is no matter what you do to me," Nine said calmly. "Finding Twelve won't help you; he doesn't know where it is either. You can either give me my press conference or the bomb will go off. There are no other options."

Shibazaki took a deep breath and forced himself to relax. Shouting would do no good. "You do realize," he said in a tone of voice almost as calm as Nine's, "that if you set off an atomic bomb in Tokyo while you're still in Tokyo, you'll die along with everyone else."

There was a long pause, then Nine's right shoulder rose in an almost imperceptible shrug.

"You don't care?" Shibazaki asked.

"Not particularly," Nine admitted. "In fact, the bomb might be preferable to the alternative."

This boy didn't care if he died during these bombings. He just wanted the story to get out no matter what happened to him. It took a moment for the reasons for that to sink it, for Shibazaki to remember something that Mamiya had said. "You're dying," Shibazaki said. "Both of you. That's why you don't care what happens to you."

That look came back. The one of relief. The one of finally being seen. Nine looked like someone had thrown him a life vest in the middle of the ocean. "Degenerative encephalopathy," he grinned darkly. "They really should have done more testing on those drugs before they pumped us full of them."

Shibazaki was fairly sure Hamura and Kurahashi weren't breathing which he understood completely; he wasn't breathing either. "How long?" he finally got out.

"Hard to say exactly; neither of us have had an MRI since we escaped," Nine said, gaze floating away evasively. "Twelve might have a year or so; he didn't have as many treatments before we escaped. I've probably got a matter of months. Two, perhaps, maybe less."

Shibazaki had completely lost his battle at remaining stoic. He gaped. He knew that knowing that he was talking to a terminally ill seventeen-year-old shouldn't change anything, but somehow it did. "I'm sorry," he said, and that seemed so inadequate, but he didn't know what would be better.

"I've been dying for a long time," Nine said looking back up at Shibazaki. "I'm used to it. What I want is for people to know what happened to us so that the people who did this to us don't get to try again once they come up with a new cocktail of drugs. If I do that anyway other than a live press conference under the protection of the police everything will just be swept under the rug. The story needs to get out in a way they can't control."

The kid leaned forward, eyes wide and earnest. "I don't want to kill anyone," he said. "If you let me do this; I promise I won't set the bomb off. The instant the press conference is over, I'll tell you where it is and how to disable it. I won't cause any more problems. I'll plead guilty in court and everything. Just let me do this first. Please."

Shibazaki stared at him for what the longest minute of his life. He knew he shouldn't be touched by the boy's story. He knew that nothing excused the violence Sphinx had wreaked on Tokyo. Still, he wanted to find a way to make something better for this child who obviously had little experience with kindness. He wanted to help.

He took a slow, careful breath. "You'll get your press conference, kid," he promised, not carrying how angry Kurahashi got at him for making that decision. "It's the least I can do."

I'll let you all decide how much this changes in the long run.

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Emjen