Shattering Humanity-Chapter 77: Broken Hearts

The entire group of Takamagahara, except Saku, Itsuka, and Friend, are in the padded training room once again after their quick baths.

There is an empty chair in front of Aiden. He’s wearing rubber gloves and is sitting on a stool with a small side table next to him.

On the table is a tattoo gun, a bottle of black tattoo ink, and a small ink cup half filled with the ink.

The young genius looks at the tattoo gun and steps on the pedal attached to the device in his hand. It makes a "BUZZZZ" noise as the needle moves and stops once Aiden lifts his foot off. He takes a deep breath and looks at the rest of the group.

Aiden: "Since creating permanent art on someone’s skin is completely the opposite from the relaxation of how I normally view art, can we keep the designs simple? I won’t be able to live with myself if I gave one of you an embarrassing permanent mark. I’m sure once I practice enough, I’ll be able to comfortably do cooler pieces for you all."

Katsu smiles at his friend and quickly runs to the chair and plops down. He rolls the sleeve of his shirt up to his shoulder and gets star-eyed.

Katsu: "I wanna super cool looking dragon flying on my tricep, spitting flames on Icemen and melting them on my bicep!"

Everyone smiles at the goofball except Aiden who is sweating at the request. Daisuki steps up and saves the panicking amateur tattoo artist.

Daisuki: "We only have a limited amount of black ink, Bud. I was thinking we could all get small matching tattoos. It should be our symbol for Takamagahara, that when others see it, they think of peace within destruction but also destruction within peace."

Everyone thinks for a moment and Dom gets an idea.

Dom: "What about a cloud? Clouds aren’t usually seen as scary."

Katsu: "NO!"

Everyone looks in confusion now at the young man who grew up as a nerd.

Katsu: "That’s not original enough. And trust me on this one, a single cloud for a rebel organization symbol can easily be turned into a symbol of fear."

Everyone goes back to thinking and Daisuki chuckles.

Daisuki: "If everyone is interested, I’ve been thinking about this since I spotted the tat gun and I think I have an idea that will make everyone happy."

The tat gun is buzzing over Katsu’s hand and he winces in slight pain as Aiden drags the needle over his friend’s skin.

Katsu: "Ah!"

Aiden pulls back quickly.

Aiden: " I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I don’t think I can do this... I don’t like hurting people and that is exactly what I have to do to tattoo you all."

Katsu puts his other hand on his buddy’s shoulder. Aiden makes eye contact with his friend who now has a left IceEye.

Katsu: "Aiden, don’t give up! That was my bad for flinching and I promise, as a man, I won’t move or make a sound until you’re finished giving me a cool tat."

Aiden takes another deep breath and looks around at the rest of the group. He nods and picks up the tattoo pen. Katsu rests his hand on the small table and Aiden leans over it, getting back to work. The rest of the group watches silently, other than TayTay, who is eating a cooked turkey drumstick.

After 5 minutes, Aiden looks up and sees Katsu with his eyes closed, holding a tough face.

Aiden: "All done, Bro. You’re officially tatted."

Katsu opens his eyes and looks down at the back of his left thumb. There is now a black heart shape outline with a single jagged line vertically down the middle of it. It quickly heals from the IceEye base-kit properties, leaving behind the ink within the fibroblasts of his skin.

Katsu: "Woahhh! This is awesome Aiden! You’re so freaking talented man! Thank you!"

The impressed Katsu stares at his new ink in amazement as he gets up and walks to Shelly.

Katsu: "So we’ll all get to have these on our thumbs!?"

Daisuki sits down next and smiles at his new tattoo artist while answering his "Lil Bro".

Daisuki: "Not exactly... Put it on this one, Bud."

Aiden nods and gets to work. Within 5 minutes Daisuki lifts up his hand showing his broken heart tattoo on his long right hand pointer finger. Everyone looks in amazement.

Dom: "Me next!"

Daisuki: "Ok so here’s how this will work..."

Sol is sitting down, unfazed while watching Aiden tattoo a broken heart outline on her right hand ring finger. She looks at Taylor, he is now eating a whole rolled up pizza. As he raises his hand to his mouth, his fully healed broken heart tattoo can be seen on his ring finger.

Dom, Scylia, and Charybdis are looking at their right hand middle fingers with the new inked in symbol.

Dom holds only his tatted middle finger up, proud.

Scylia blushing, holding her chin with her left hand while taking in the sight of the new design quickly healing on her right.

Aiden looks up and takes a breath.

Aiden: "All set, Sol. So you really didn’t feel any of that?"

Sol, shakes her head. While blushing and smiling, she holds up her hand and her golden eyes fixate on the tattoo, not quickly healing on her ring finger that is shorter than her middle finger.

Sol: "The only thing I feel right now is ’at home’ and ’with friends’. Thanks a bunch, Cool Smarty Pants."

She gets up, and the last one, Shelly, sits down.

Aiden begins sweating even more and is visibly nervous in front of the beautiful young lady with her delicate and soft right hand held out to him. He hesitates to grab her right hand.

Shelly: "Aiden, don’t worry, I trust you to give me my first tattoo. We’re all getting closer as a group of friends because of you."

Aiden looks around again at the whole room, everyone is admiring their permanent body art that he personally gave them.

Aiden: "You guys really aren’t just humoring me? You actually like my shitty amateur work?"

Katsu: "They aren’t shitty!"

Aiden gets startled and can feel what everyone else can feel, with or without an IceEye, Katsu’s flip has switched, but not enough to pop off his eye. Just enough to get everyone’s immediate attention.

Katsu: "Just like this IceEye that Shelly gave me, this new permanent marking will always remind me of you, as one of my closest friends ever! As a brother!"

Aiden tears up and turns to Shelly. She smiles at him and nods before they lock their human only eyes. She puts her right hand back on the same table everyone else had previously.

Shelly: "And so I’ll always have something to remember you by too."

Aiden’s face goes from worried to confident and he slowly grabs her soft hand, dips the tip of the needle in the messy ink cup with black ink around the reciprocal and steps on the pedal on the floor making the pen "BZZZZZZ".

Aiden: "Ready?"

Shelly nods and Aiden focuses on her hand.

Again after 5 minutes, Aiden wipes the sweat from his forehead, leaving a black ink mark, and looks at the young woman.

Aiden: "Done."

Shelly lifts her hand showing her matching thumb tattoo to Katsu’s but on her right hand. She blushes, smiles, and gets up to hug the amateur tattoo artist.

Shelly: "Thank you, Aiden. I truly appreciate you. Not only for the tattoo, but you’re one of the only two people who have proven to me, I’m not perfect and not the best at everything. But in a humbling way. So every time I see this little bit of ink, not only will I think about Katsu, but you, and how you’re proof I always have room to improve. No matter if it’s my intelligence or physical ability."

She breaks the embrace with a bright red Aiden and walks over to Katsu, sticking up his tatted left thumb, not to show it off, but as a sign of acknowledged success of his close friend.

As Aiden begins taking the rubber gloves off, Daisuki steps up to him, putting on his own pair of rubber gloves, and smiling a creepy smile towards Aiden.

Daisuki: "There’s just one more member, in the room, without their Takamagahara tat."

Aiden flinches back and shivers in fear.

Dom: "Big Bro, dude, are you sure? It seems from watching Aiden for the past hour, tattooing is really hard and stressful. Are you sure you can replicate Aiden’s artistic talent off rip?"

Scylia softly chuckles at the new member’s doubt in their leader. Daisuki lifts up his pant leg, exposing his thighs fully covered in tatted ink. Almost like a heavily graffitied wall, there are different designs in different styles and obvious signs of novice mistakes mixed in with perfect line work from a veteran tattoo artist.

Daisuki: "Trust me. I know just how impressive of a feat, Aiden just accomplished, ’off rip’."

Sol: "If you know how to tattoo, why didn’t you give them to us?"

Daisuki holds up his pointer finger with his tattoo.

Daisuki: "What kind of teacher just does everything for their disciples?"

After 2 minutes, Aiden is holding up his right hand pinky finger with a tiny broken heart on the back of it.

Daisuki: "I guess once Saku and Itsuka get here they can get theirs."

Char: "So what’s the meaning behind the finger placements, Uncle Mina?"

Daisuki talks while taking off his rubber gloves.

Daisuki: "Have any of you young geniuses ever heard of ’Palmistry’?"

Shelly raises her hand and answers.

Shelly: "Isn’t it another pseudoscience of the human body, that supposedly indicates what type of person someone is depending on the skin patterns within their palms?"

Daisuki points in enthusiasm at his genius of a "student".

Daisuki: "Correct!"

Aiden: "Isn’t there also another branch of that practice that combines itself with Planetary Astrology based off...fingers?"

Everyone, except an uncut watermelon eating TayTay, looks at their new tattooed finger and Daisuki is just as caught off guard by the young genius being able to help the rest.

Daisuki: "With you two around, it’s going to be a whole lot easier explaining how my niche and outdated medical practices, correlate with my intended meanings. But you nailed it Mr. ’Genius/Tattoo Artist’..."

He again holds up his pointer finger with the Takamagahara symbol.

Daisuki: "The pointer finger is ’Jupiter’. The teacher of the solar system."

He looks at Scylia, Charybdis, and Dom.

Daisuki: "Always in close rotation with Saturn, Jupiter’s most trusted ’servant’. But in this case, you’re my most trusted soldiers."

Dom looks in doubt at his new leader’s words.

Dom: "I’m one of your most trusted? Even though you just met me today? I may not be a genius like Aiden, but putting me with these two sounds like a poorly made reason just to include me!"

Katsu: "Dom..."

Daisuki walks up to the timid new member of his sanctuary and puts a hand on his shoulder.

Daisuki: "Don’t forget, I have all the memories of what my clone saw back in Son Goku City. I watched you buckle up in front of a challenge you’ve never been prepared for, with or without a power-up from Taylor, and back up your talk. No matter which division you end up on, I want you and Char to start getting acquainted as the ’gunners’ of Sanpaku."

Katsu gets excited and star-eyed at the title of his friend.

Katsu: "’Gunner?!? That’s the coolest position name in football Dom!"

Char reluctantly chimes in to help his Uncle convince him.

Char: "We may not get that many chances to make that big hit, but when we do, we hit like pick-up trucks."

He holds out his hand to Dom. It takes a second for him to cave in and smile, while dapping up his new "coach".

Dom: "Not just a pick-up truck, we’re the whole 18 wheeler!"

Daisuki looks at Sol and Taytay, who is now eating a humongous bowl of cereal in his arm.

Sol: "Where are you getting all that food from Big Guy?"

Taylor drops his spoon and reaches for it, exposing his ring finger, longer than his middle, with the tattoo that took the most ink. He picks it up and without hesitation, he sticks it back in the bowl and eats.

Sol: "You’re going to get sick like that!"

Daisuki approaches them and explains the meaning behind their tattooed ring fingers.

Daisuki: "The ring finger represents Apollo, or the Sun. The two of you are none other than such. With your incredibly unique and elegant eyes, it’s your willingness to live as the dormant caretaker for her loved ones. And his incredibly unique eye ability, it gives us all the confidence to take risks in this dangerous world, and successfully fight back against humanity’s oppressors."

Sol looks at Taylor chugging the huge bowl of milk as Daisuki approaches Aiden.

Aiden: "The pinky, Mercury, is the representation of intelligence."

Aiden looks at his noticably short pinky finger compared to the other appendages on his right hand.

Aiden: "Even though it is pseudoscience and not based off actual natural law, the way you willfully cherry pick terms from fake scientific practices and mythology to create interesting names and ranks is kinda fun Mr. Daisuki! Thank you for seeing me as Mercury! It’s an honor!"

Daisuki bumps left fists with the young genius and finally approaches the two with tattoos on their thumbs.

Katsu is star-eyed from realizing how his Big Bro was able to coordinate such a cool way for them all to be unique but still part of a group as a whole. Shelly is still looking at the back of her thumb but looks away once she notices her Sensei had walked up to them.

Daisuki: "The three phalanges of the human thumb, nothing the other planets could replicate, are the most crucial part to our species existence. We can have these big brains that have better cognitive awareness compared to the other life on this planet. But without thumbs, humanity wouldn’t have made it far enough for aliens to even threaten their existence."

Both Katsu and Shelly look at Aiden, who nods in agreement then back at their once "mentor", now "sanctuary leader".

Daisuki: "Within the thumb is power. The ability to fight back against this dangerous world whether it’s using tools to create shelter, to be able to collect more food, or hold a weapon to protect the lives that are worth living for. But also within the thumb is love and exception. Since your name means ’Win’, Katsu, what is one of the human universal instinctive signs for ’Congrats’ or ’Yes’?"

Katsu gets record breaking sized star eyes and holds up his thumb and comedic smoke puffs out his nose.

Daisuki: "Almost like when a parent, fights to protect, a properly balled up fist has the thumb protecting the rest of the fingers."

Aiden: "And when you try throwing a punch with your thumb being covered by the rest of your fingers, it breaks your thumb. You’re a genius Mr. Daisuki!"

The man rubs the back of his head and chuckles.

Daisuki: "It’s all just useless information I read while I was imprisoned. The creativity of humans before documented science was both extremely toxic and influential to our progression towards ultimately becoming one. The Sun, the Moon, the visible planets during certain seasons along with the constellations, were the original source materials for all inspiring stories humans have ever created. Those simple stories went on to inspire the next generation of humans to create more stories that repeat the cycle unintentionally started by infatuation."

Katsu quickly looks over to Daisuki.

Katsu: "Wait, so if there is a finger for everyone based on this astronomy stuff, where is Saku going to get his tattoo?"

Right on queue, Saku, freshly clean and wearing the matching black tee, grey sweatpants, and black sneakers as the other refugees, barges in with Itsuka close behind. He points right to the left temple on the side of his face.

Saku: "If we’re getting inked, I wanna face tat!"

{Somewhere Unknown}

In a dark dungeon like room, General Gray, beaten and bloody, his breathing heavy, a high pitched wheezing is heard with every inhale and exhale. A rusty metal door is heard opening and Gray looks up with his IceEye. Suddenly, a hand seems to "cover" the alien eye and a gory tear is heard.

Gray: "Ahhhhhhrrghhg!"

Gray’s human eye looks up at his assailant who tore out his alien eye, his vision is completely blurry and vignetting to darkness. A hammer of a gun is heard being cocked back. His breathing is getting slower, and with his final few breaths, the once respected General, whose honest change of heart, impacted Saku, says his final words to his killer.

Gray: "You can try stealing all the powers....in the world, punk... but Squad 40... and their allies... are unbeatable. That boy....Those boys...200%.... they’ll beat your ass....you weak bitch."

A gunshot is heard. A bright yellow cloud floats peacefully into the night sky, as if it’s destination is the moon.