November 1975, Location Unknown
He steps through a clockwork-shaped portal crouching just enough to avoid the light fixture, casting an enormous shadow as he enters. He had opted to not wear boots for the occasion, treading the ground with his paws, sounding near imperceptible to the common ear. As the colossal tiger man quietly and politely entered the cell, his hooded companion walked by his side, announcing their presence with the thuds of a staff on the floor. This man wore a bright, ornate golden mask, pulling the hood over his face to obscure it’s effect.
The woman before them was shorter than expected. She was kneeling by the side of a bed with her head tilted downwards, her features fully obscured by a huge, tangled mess of black hair, that slowly writhed in response to their arrival. Dust had gathered around her knees. It was difficult to tell if she had been holding this position for 3 weeks, or for the 3 decades she had spent locked away here. Her hands were obscured under a metallic box used to handcuff them together. Though he detested the sight of those restraints, the hooded man felt a detestable little tinge of gratitude for them. The reports around her were tangled up in wartime propaganda and folk myth, but sympathetic as they were to her plight, only a fool would approach Anemia without a certain distance or fear.
She did not breathe, and the red stains on her outfit further added to her corpse-like appearance. The hooded man took a deep breath and gripped his walking staff more tightly, while the tiger man, who wore a suit black enough to obscure nearly everything but his snow white head and hands, began to speak in truncated Japanese.
"Forgive us for tresspassing. Your guards won't be distracted forever, we needed to seize our chance. We would like to speak to you."
A twitch. Words came about slowly, without noise. A death rattle remembering how to speak again.
"殺す.....殺す......殺すのか?"
His breath skips a beat, and involuntarily, Tsar Tiger takes a step back. The giant crimelord measures his next words carefully.
"No, we are not here to kill you. I believe, thusly, you won't try to kill us, either. I've journeyed here to plead your help, Anemia."
She twitches, and her hair flares up briefly at the mention of her war moniker, before quieting down. She seems to be recovering senses she hadn’t had much use for in the past decades, and lifts her head without meeting his eyes.
"Are you…a snow leopard?"
Tiger chuckles to try and defuse tension. "Not quite, I happen to be a tiger. I do come from a land of snow. I'm called Tsar Tiger, although my real name is Sevastyan. Not many know of what I'm telling you. This is my associate, Ourochorus. He has brought me here and tutored me in the language of your homeland, so we may speak.”
Another twitch. Her eyes lower, and she whispers in a hollow whistle. "....not….my…..homeland……my home….gone…."
And Tiger drops the façade of joviality. "I, see. I thought these vermin would have at least informed you about the outside world. Japan is not gone. But it is-" "no. my. homeland. the Empire… took my homeland." "The American empire, or the Japanese empire?" "the Empire." "She means the both of them.", Ourochorus chimed in, quietly addressing Tiger in his native Russian. "Speed this up, Tiger. Now isn't the time for poetry. The guardsmen won’t be deceived for long."
"Miss Anemia, I'm truly sorry for how sudden this is. Believe me. We are here because we too know what it's like to lose everything you love, everything you were, everything you could have been, at the hands of the Empire. At the hands of the West. I admire your resilience, and forgive me, but in you, I see a kindred spirit."
Tsar Tiger waits to see if she responds. She stands there unmoving, but although the lower half of her face remains hidden behind that respirator mask, her eyes shift. His words, the recollection of her senses, whatever memories those bring, all seem to stir up sadness within her, and as much as he hates himself for it, Tiger needs to seize the opportunity.
"They’ve robbed unforgivable things from me, as well. I'd heard of your power, what you'd done to those uniformed pigs. The massacre of men who deserved it a thousand fold. The statement you made. Ghastly as that affair may have been, we can no longer shy away from brutality."
"....you intend to use me…"
"No! No, heavens no, I’d gut anyone who tried. I intend for us to work together. If you want, we will break you out of here right now, and you will never have to see us again if you wish. But we can make them pay, Anemia. We can make them pay with more than their filthy maggot lives. We can make it so they never hurt anyone ever again."
".......you cannot..."
"We will. We have gathered people across the world. Strong men and women, victims of tragedies like ours. We stand not for our countries, but for the lives of our people, against the enemy of all mankind. The men that stopped you, that let it happen, that locked you away? There are countless like them now. They encircle and protect the West like hyenas defending a carcass. I have amassed power over decades to resist them. But only together, we can stop them."
"...you intend… to build an Empire atop their bodies..."
Ourochorus closes his eyes and looks away, already able to tell the exact moment Tsar Tiger made this a wasted journey.
"It, is the only way to defeat the empire, to make sure it never grows again. We must raise something on top of it. Only as brothers in arms, we may survive."
“we are not brothers.”
“Pardon me?”
She abruptly stands, leaning backwards to extend her lumbar. Four loud pops and a painful crack sounded off from within her body, as she moves to sit on the bed, calmly looking at the tiger man twice her size before her. Her sharp eyes at last meet Tiger’s own, and she speaks with a different, less sephulcral voice, and much greater clarity.
"....we. are not. Brothers. I take that word as poison, coming from a stranger. I will not have it. And what you tell me, I cannot be a part of it." "They have already made you a part of this." Ourochorus attempts to interject, tugging at his companion's arm. “Tiger, let’s go. This was a wasted effort.” The woman continues. "And my part is finished. So far, it ended in failure. You know this, and you plan to fail as I have." "Anemia, please. You failed merely because you were alone, against an entire American team. I don't mean to offend, but look at what they've done to you. They…" He stops to catch his breath, and his next sentence comes out as a choked, hateful growl, hissing through his teeth. "They killed my son. They kill us, they cage and abuse our people, make monsters out of us, and they will never stop until we make them, until we destroy them. You know this." "I do. I know I am a monster. You, are not there yet. You are a thug. A thug with flowers on the tongue and hate in your eyes. You are not honest with yourself. You cannot be honest with me."
Tsar Tiger stands straight, his head almost brushing across the ceiling. The giant predator snarls with contempt dripping from his fangs. Anemia is not impressed. "And who are you to think you know me? You ungrateful, ignorant coward. You think I came all this way because we need you?" "Tiger, we have to go. Now." "Is this it? Do you know what they've done to your precious country since then? We offer you a chance to stop turning your back on your people, and you reject it? You plan to die in American chains as penance? Are you that afraid of yourself? You disgusting coward!"
Tsar Tiger curses with baritone roars, uneven, unsteady, lost within rage, and a bitter sense of betrayal is painted starkly on his features. At last, he is fully honest with her, and she sees enough to almost pity him. Worse, she is forced to privately concede a point to him.
"My people were killed, Sevastyan. I cannot die, and as I sense it, neither can you. Neither of us will be seeing our loved ones soon. I see you, and you are me. I know the hatred that’s poisoned you. And so do they. If they haven't already, they will make an example out of you, as they did with me. And they'll make an example out of your people in turn. And you know this already. I presume it has happened to you before, and you think you are either too powerful to let it happen again, or that you have nothing more to lose now. For your sake, I hope at least one of these is correct.”
"....."
"Make no mistake, I will get out of here. But I do not intend to repeat my mistakes once I do. Cowardly as I may be, I will not be a mere cautionary tale again. We can, and must, do better."
The time limit for their departure was drawing to an end, and Ourochorus opened another portal where the prior one stood. It seemed that, unless they planned to join her in this cell and sleep on the floor until the Americans decided otherwise, he and Tsar Tiger would have to carry on Anemia’s debate without her.
Tsar Tiger and Anemia might have been able to live forever, where as Ourochorus...well, a hundred and forty years had done enough damage to his knees as is. More so than being captured, the prospect of sleeping in the floor was most unwelcome to him.
"So be it. I, apologize, for my rudeness. It seems my time and efforts were misplaced."
"They are, but not where you think. Don’t concern yourself with me. I will live to see them fall. I merely warn you to be patient."
“For what?”
“So I might save you a seat, if you get to the end with me.”