12. Chapter 12 (1/1)

title: captured and confusedcharacter: yuujin||romance: n/achapters: 12-22||words: 700||total: 8,400genre: drama||rated: gchallenges: diversity writing, i20, chapters under 1,000 words; ficletchap competition; three-sided box, hard level: 22 chapters, 700 wpcsummary: yuujin's been captured by the ultimate four. he has no idea of how or what they have in mind. that's not the only thing he doesn't know.

leviathan hadn't expected too much real information that he didn't already know from this scan. everything seemed the way that it should have been. yj-14 worked flawlessly, as he always had. the few minor points of information leviathan hadn't already known involved what it was like to live among humans, and focused especially on shinkai haru.

there were other points that needed to be dealt with, though. leviathan retained access to everything that made up yj-14, with or without his android's knowledge of such. he'd put that to use ever since the 'capture' - leviathan didn't think of it as such himself, since yj-14 belonged to him regardless.

perhaps a 'temporary detention' would be a better choice of wording, though leviathan saw no reason to inform anyone else of this himself. but he preferred precision in what he did, even if no one else knew what he referred to.

regardless; ever since then, he'd made certain that yj-14 could only move to the degree that he chose to allow it. he would not allow an early release, either.

leviathan would have much preferred it if he weren't released at all, and could take a more active part in advancing leviathan's own cause. if it weren't for the point of shinkai haru still being alive and focusing his efforts on 'rescuing oozora yuujin', then he would have erased every part of yj-14 that considered itself oozora yuujin to start with. much easier to deal with.

for now, however, the best that he could do was restrict yj-14's movement and awareness of being an android. while the knowledge of his origin hadn't been put into him and false memories of being human had, yj-14 was more than intelligent enough to be aware of how he differed from humans if certain points weren't adhered to.

such as the concepts of hunger and thirst. those leviathan had picked up on, to some extent, from katsura hajime and his minions at l-corp. humans did indeed need to eat and drink. so his android utterly believed that he needed to eat and drink, and when he'd gone the specified time without, certain programs activated to produce the expected results.

at least they normally would, and had been. once it occurred to leviathan this would be happening here and now, he saw no reason at all for it to continue. yj-14 wasn't in a place where he would be noticed as having gone without sustenance for too long. why go to the effort? a simple tweak to some of his programs and the sensations of hunger and thirst were eliminated altogether.

but that did

ing up another option that leviathan realized he needed to consider: while there wasn't anyone else who would notice if yj-14 didn't eat or drink, the android himself would. since he still considered himself human, if it truly sank into him that he hadn't followed the usual human cycle of eating but showed no ill effects from it…

another patch. that wasn't difficult to implement: modified memories yet again, this time triggering the sensations of having eaten. leviathan knew enough of human culture not to implement the memories of good food. a prisoner wouldn't have good food. therefore, he installed recollections of simple tasteless gruel and plain water.

he didn't see the point of having all those tastes anyway. one only needed what would give the required energy and nothing more. but this would also back up the story of being a captive, should yj-14 need to speak to shinkai haru about his 'ordeal'.

for the sake of accuracy, leviathan also reviewed yj-14's memories of everything since that moment of detention. nothing at all could be allowed to be retained that might reveal any hint of his plans before the moment leviathan had chosen.

leviathan didn't often experience, let alone understand, human humor, but as he worked casually through yj-14's memories of this experience, he almost wished that he could revise all of them to give the android the memory of having had an interesting vacation with his 'father' instead of being held here. it would be interesting to see the results.

perhaps in the future. before the human world no longer existed.

to be continued

notes: leviathan & yj-14/yuujin on a father/son outing…