Chapter Text
"Please save Crow. Someone, please help me get Crow out. I will do anything. Someone please help."
~*~
When Yuuri was very young, he took up ballet classes -- because he saw a magazine cover with a prima ballerina, and he fell in love. A year after his first meeting with Minako-sensei, Yuuri enrolled in a class at the local skating rink, and he loved it even more.
It was only a passing love, though. He skated through middle and high school, even competed locally, but ultimately, Yuuri never became one of the top skaters in Japan. In another universe, maybe.
Elsewhere in the world, Viktor Nikiforov never became a figure skater, and Katsuki Yuuri never followed in his footsteps. Not then, anyway.
~*~
When Yuuri is nineteen, he starts a summer internship at Iida Media. Fresh out of his first year classes with innocent, vigorous hope that he can change the world, Yuuri jumps at the opportunity presented by his Communications professor, diving into a realm of fast-talking businessmen and professional suits. Every day, he puts on a tie he hates and leaves his tiny apartment early enough to catch the first morning train. He gets very little sleep, and every stress-induced binge eating episode is countered by missed lunches and only tea for breakfast.
For two months, Yuuri spends every day running for coffee, delivering documents, and waiting outside boardrooms to rush in after meetings to clean. It is the worst job in the world, and he catches absolutely nobody's notice. He corrects spelling in news scrolls, listens to half-whispered conversations by the coffee maker, and realizes, for the first time in his life, how much of the news is censored from the public.
The answer: nearly all of it.
He learns of key government officials that have been taking money from corporations and private groups for years, using the influence to pass legislation in favor of those groups. Iida Media is hardly innocent of this, though Yuuri doesn't know the extent of it. He never knows the full story; only pieces of different stories that, when put together, paint an ugly picture of the world.
He learns to distrust the media. He isn't even halfway through his internship before he decides he never wants to work in journalism ever again. He braves out the rest of the drudgery, and at some point, he starts taking information home.
The interesting thing about Yuuri is that, to the average person, he is hardly interesting at all. He grew up in a small town. His parents owned their own business and put him through private school for most of his life. He had few friends and, thus, was terrible at networking. His closest friends were made through ice skating, but he had long given up that hobby by the time he reached college. His hobby is gaming, and his strength is dieting. His face is average; he is small and unassuming. Most people don't even notice Yuuri is there.
His unassuming nature makes it ridiculously easy to spy on other people.
He keeps copies of transcripts that were "updated" and thrown out, that paint the world very differently than Iida Media and its conglomerates like to portray. He writes down the strange, whispered conversations in a notebook and hides it under his floorboards, feeling increasingly like someone is following him.
They might be. He is betraying his contract, after all. Maybe even his country.
(The worst isn't that the government is ridiculously corrupt with money freely exchanged beneath the table, though Yuuri certainly hates that part of it. He uncovers the scariest secret purely by accident.)
Near the end of his internship, Yuuri has to become more subtle in his thievery, more outgoing with his fellow interns, makes a point of kowtowing to his managers, and the feeling of being watched fades. It leaves him nervous, though, and when the internship is finally over, he flees back to college and buries himself in studies in Computer Science, a degree innocent enough that no one seems to suspect anything of him.
Before that, though, he meets Viktor Nikiforov.
It is the last day of his internship. Yuuri has been running errands all day for his supervisor, and when he slumps against a wall sometime in the late afternoon, he is irritable and exhausted. His tie is a little crooked, his hair messy and limp, his body lagging -- he needs a break. Yuuri pauses by the water dispenser, glancing down the empty hallway and listening for his supervisor's voice.
Good, the man is still in his meeting, and from the schedule in Yuuri's pocket, he should stay there for at least another twenty minutes. Yuuri ducks away before anybody can turn the corner and send him on another errand.
At the end of the next hallway is a dressing room that has been empty all summer. Yuuri glances back and sees no one, then ducks inside, relieved to have a moment of privacy. His fingers find the light switch, flicking it up to turn on the overhead.
With a sigh that thumps his shoulders against the wall, Yuuri loosens his tie a bit more, closing his eyes for a moment as he breathes. A week into his internship, he had been told to clean this room, and he had discovered that whoever had this dressing room last had kept a trove of candy, and Yuuri has made it a habit to sneak a piece every once in a while. His eyes flick open; something is different about the room. He glances up and notices that the mirror lights are already on, and then he freezes.
A man is standing in front of the mirror, in the middle of pulling on his shirt. He is tall with sleek, straight hair, a silvery blonde that immediately announces him as foreign. Broad shoulders, tall figure, a good physique -- and wildly, a small circle on the left side of his back, that glows green and twinkles at Yuuri in the light like a glimmer of metal. Thin lines run away from the circle, like electrical pathways on a circuit board.
A moment later, the man slides his shirt up and buttons it, and Yuuri's stare is drawn to the mirror by another flash of green, where he meets vividly colored eyes that seem to turn from green to blue in an instant. The man holds his gaze for a long moment, perhaps catching the terror on Yuuri's face, because Yuuri has realized exactly whom he walked in on.
Lieutenant Viktor Nikiforov of the Russian military, one of the soldiers they are interviewing today.
"I'm, I'm so sorry, this room is usually empty," Yuuri stutters, hurrying to bow, and Nikiforov's serious expression melts away into a smile, polite yet cheerful.
Nikiforov turns to face him, buttoning up his shirt and picking up a jacket, and Yuuri doesn't dare watch. (Years later, he will wish he had.) "That's no problem. They put me in here at the last minute, after all." He falls silent for a moment, during which Yuuri inches toward the door, ready to flee before his supervisor hears of this, but Nikiforov is already striding across the room, long fingers catching the door knob before Yuuri can. He stops beside Yuuri and leans in, sending a wave of cologne into Yuuri's space.
"I won't tell anyone if you won't," Nikiforov says, putting his finger to his lips and winking, and somehow, Yuuri knows he means the glowing circle on his back. Yuuri nods, and then the man is gone.
Yuuri breathes in deeply. The cologne smells nice.
More importantly, Viktor Nikiforov had something in his back that glowed. Yuuri spends the rest of his day in a daze, barely remembering to thank his manager and supervisor for their hard work (using his hard work, but Yuuri would never say so to their faces). He rides the train home in silence, paying little attention to his phone or the other passengers.
His mind remains focused on Viktor Nikiforov and the glowing object in his back.
What was it?
When he turns on the news, Yuuri goes to one of the Iida Media channels to catch the interview with Viktor. On the television, the man is wearing a dark suit, and his charming smile makes the reporter blush. There is no sign that he has something strange in his body, and the interview has little information that Yuuri did not already know about Japan's affairs with Russian military.
It is a strange friendship, one that many of their allies disliked. Viktor Nikiforov is the face of that friendship, popular in both Russia and Japan alike, despite being young and relatively inexperienced in the military. Everybody loves him. Yuuri isn't quite sure when Japan and Russia began performing military exercises together, but he knows that Viktor Nikiforov is in Japan often, usually in conjunction with robot exhibitions. Nikiforov will publicly test several high-grade military robots at the Denten Robotic Symposium next week.
Yuuri goes online. He, embarrassingly, searches for topless figures of Viktor Nikiforov. To his dismay, many of them exist, from posing with his fellow soldiers during training, to standing in swim shorts at the beach, sunglasses pushed back through his hair. Every photo is beautiful, and none shows the glowing object that Yuuri definitely saw.
He tries to search the internet about it, using many combinations and word searches, even tries English-language websites. (He can't figure out the Russian pages. He makes the decision to learn the language later.) Little comes back, except off fanwork collections, movie reviews, and conspiracy theorist pages, and Yuuri closes his laptop, defeated. He suspects the internet is just as censored as the news, because a few times, he had thought a link would be useful, only for the webpage to stop loading suddenly. He has little expertise on internet security, so he doesn't bother trying to get around the firewalls built into his internet service provider; he'd likely get in trouble if he tried without reading up on it first.
Yuuri learns, though. Over the years, he learns proxies and anonymous emailing and private browsing. He learns encryption, though he is far too paranoid to put his thoughts on his computer. He writes it all instead, jotting it down in a mix of Japanese, English, Thai, and Russian, languages that he picks up over the years through friends, studies, and the internet.
Viktor Nikiforov stays in his mind. The glowing circle follows Yuuri into the next four years, through graduation, and back to Hasetsu, where he mires in anonymity. The entire time, he follows the news with little trust in the delivered information, his attention sharpening whenever Russia is mentioned. He keeps an ear out for news on Viktor Nikiforov, who rises quickly in the Russian military, and who always seems to have a presence in Japan, for meetings and diplomatic affairs alike.
The more Yuuri searches the internet for news on the glowing circle, the more he finds websites, channels, forums, hidden deep in guileless places, where people talk in hushed whispers, just like at Iida Media -- though they talk about the guilt of the government, secrets that need to be shared, and a mysterious person called the Crow.
From the information Yuuri gathers through determined lurking, the Crow has been trapped in the government's hold since their childhood. Nothing is known about their gender, their looks, nor even which country has entrapped them. All that the forums know is that the figure apparently has super powers: high speed, incredible strength, and supposedly all manner of superhuman abilities that could include flying, telepathy, and mind-reading. Yuuri is skeptical of the last few, but the few shaky videos posted in those dusty, shadowed forums lay down the proof that somewhere, there is a person who can stop an armored tank with one hand and jump five stories with a single leap. A modern-day Superman, amazingly, though it still infuriates him that none of these videos appear in the mainstream news.
Genetic modification. Crow was created by their government purely as a superhuman soldier. Some even suspect he is a mix of two or more countries' modifications, research that should be illegal, because of the trails of human trafficking into Russia, Latin America, and Southeast Asia.
Hundreds go missing. Most assumed to have run away, but the forums suspect otherwise. Friends and neighbors snatched off the street, seemingly loners, but for a few friends that sat up and noticed. The trails always disappear, but sometimes, the kidnapped people come back.
And they are not the same.
Yuuri strikes upon the truth in his fourth year of college, when he enters an exchange program for a semester. He goes to Detroit for half a year, to see more of the world and search the United States' less censored internet for rumors and information (not that Yuuri tells the customs personnel that).
He studies and researches, and he runs into more dead ends. Frustrated, Yuuri takes up skating again, and one night he runs into Phichit, a cheerful man from Thailand who is staying in Detroit to train for figure skating competitions.
"Wow, your skating is amazing, Yuuri! Do you compete here? Are you training for the nationals?"
"Oh, no, I stopped skating in high school..."
"What? And you're still this good? Come on, you've got to skate with me from now on! Join our skating club!"
They hit it off immediately. To Yuuri's embarrassment, Phichit is happily in love with the internet. Soon, Phichit's Instagram is full of too many pictures of Yuuri's surprised face, alongside delicious meals in cafes around Detroit and smiling faces laughing at Phichit's antics. To keep up with him, Yuuri agrees to start an Instagram, despite not knowing how it works. Phichit is one of the first friends Yuuri has made in years, so he isn't too upset.
One day after a grueling final exam, Yuuri goes to Phichit's apartment to collapse for a while on his couch, browsing through old tags on Phichit's Instagram.
"I can't believe you're going back to Japan in less than a week," Phichit laments, leaning back against Yuuri's leg heavily. Yuuri doesn't bother moving; Phichit seems happily ensconced on the floor, picking through a large plate of snacks.
"I know. I'm going to miss it here," Yuuri sighs, his voice muffled by his arm.
"And me," Phichit adds, not even bothering to sound sly, and Yuuri grins.
"And you. Though I think we have enough pictures of each other to last a lifetime." He flips through photos, finding another tag marked "forever <3" and opens it. Images of a younger Phichit smiling with another Thai teen fill the screen, and Yuuri blinks. "Who's this?"
Phichit looks back to the screen, and when he sees the picture Yuuri selects, his face falls, his eternal smile fading so abruptly that Yuuri thinks he is looking at another person for a moment. After a long pause, Phichit manages a smile again, though it is a mere shadow of his usual cheer. "That's my friend Chatchom. He's dead now."
Yuuri inhales softly. "I'm so sorry, Phichit-kun. I didn't mean..."
Phichit shakes his head, giving Yuuri a sweet smile. "Don't be sorry, it happened years ago. He was my best friend growing up. We did everything together." He falls quiet for a moment, then seems to summon his bravery. "When we were thirteen, though, he was the victim of a human trafficking scam. The police found him and brought him back, but whatever they did to him, he wasn't... Chatchom anymore. He got into drugs and eventually disappeared, and they found his body a year later in another city. I miss him, but I never blamed him for what happened. He was a good person, and... someone hurt him, bad enough to change him. It wasn't his fault."
As Phichit gathers his thoughts, Yuuri stays quiet, thinking of the forums he has been reading lately, of missing persons from Southeast Asia. He wonders if Phichit knows any of the case details, or even where his friend was taken, but he stops himself from asking, because Phichit looks troubled.
Eventually Phichit starts talking again, his melodic voice holding Yuuri captive. "His death never sat well with me. Not only because of the way he died, but... it's like his heart was stolen and replaced. Sometimes... I thought I saw him doing strange things. Like, one night, I thought I saw him jump a two story wall." Phichit catches Yuuri's stare and laughs. "Wild, right? People can't jump that high. It was late, I thought I had imagined things... and I never got to ask him. I think the people who took him did something to his body, because one time, I saw him shirtless."
Yuuri holds his breath.
"He had a ring on his heart. It glowed," Phichit tells him, hushed, then looks around as if someone might be listening. Yuuri glances at the window out of the same concern, but he sees nothing unusual through the blinds.
"That's wild," Yuuri whispers, and he wants to say more, admit that he has seen the same on someone -- but then he thinks of Viktor, a popular public figure, and keeps his mouth shut. He wonders if it is actually the same. Two people from different countries with green circles on their bodies -- how could they be linked?
If only he had looked at Viktor's chest that day!
Phichit nods, not noticing Yuuri's distraction. "It was horrible. I think it drove him insane. He left me a note before he left, but I couldn't read it for a long time, and it didn't make any sense afterward. The note kept talking about a circle. The green circle. It was so strange, because he had one on his body, too." Phichit stares down at his phone, then looks up at Yuuri with a smile. "Weird, huh? I've never told anybody that. Something about you makes me trust you, Yuuri. Well, I knew you were amazing already. I'm going to miss you."
Green circle. Yuuri manages a small smile. He has research to do when he gets home. "I'll miss you too, Phichit-kun. We should definitely keep in touch on Instagram and everything. I might start posting more."
Phichit lights up at that idea, his solemnity forgotten for the moment. "That would be amazing, Yuuri! Oh, please let me upload some photos for you! Let's go out this weekend and take tons of pictures!" He chatters on, beaming, and Yuuri is glad for the distraction.
He doesn't forget, though. Not when he goes home to Japan, nor any time after.
The Green Circle. Even his usual conspiracy forums whisper the words with caution. A secret coalition of several different international government agencies, so secret that not even the citizens of each country know they exist, joined in unholy matrimony with military research and human testing. A program to produce the perfect super soldier through genetic modification. Russia seems to be the biggest offender, though the United States isn't far behind. The other participating countries make it even worse, because one of them is Japan.
This, Yuuri learns in pieces over the course of seven years from the day he meets Viktor Nikiforov. He gathers the pieces of the puzzle carefully, and when he lays out all the information together, the results chill him. The Green Circle isn't just genetic modification; it is a combination of genetic modification through special serums and training, alongside robotic manipulation of the body. Such soldiers are stolen from countries that make human trafficking easy, experimented on, and usually die -- or so Yuuri's fellow conspiracy theorists assume. Few people return from the Green Circle programs, after all. Chatchom seemed to be one of a scant few who escaped.
What Yuuri manages to figure out, through hundreds of blurry photos and underreported news articles on sketchy conspiracy sites (that Yuuri has backdoor passes into; his hacking gets better every year), is that there are superhumans in the world, and all of them have green circles on their chests. The mysterious Crow is part of the Green Circle, too, and a favorite of the conspiracy theorists. Perhaps because their pictures are the clearest, or perhaps because of the growing love for the Crow's heroics in a world full of hate and violence.
Yuuri wishes he had looked at Viktor Nikiforov more closely that day. He has little doubt that Nikiforov must be part of the Green Circle as well, though he can't imagine how or why Nikiforov would join such a group. Maybe he had been forced into it, like the others? Or maybe he had joined willingly? Is his work with Denten Robotics related to the Green Circle? What has he really been doing in Japan?
Whatever the case, Yuuri is forever glad that Nikiforov had not done anything to him for seeing the circle. He could have died that day, had Nikiforov reported him to the government. For that reason alone, Yuuri thinks a little better of Nikiforov.
Even after graduation, after he returns to Hasetsu, Yuuri keeps his knowledge close to him. He boosts up his encryption and firewalls and keeps an unassuming air in public. What he knows could kill him, could kill his entire family. He takes a nondescript job in his nondescript town, and he hides every piece of information away beneath the floorboards of his modest home. He keeps an eye out for strangers in Hasetsu, for anybody showing more than a passing interest in him, because he believes it is just a matter of time before the government figures out that he knows and has him captured.
In the meantime, though, Yuuri learns to fight, because he cannot abide by this injustice.
~*~
With a small twist to the large knob, the static fizzles into a faraway voice.
"...vorona na more ... rytsarem ... prodolzhat ... nesti sebya..."
Yuuri jots down the words, knowing that his spelling is atrocious and wishing he had brought his dictionary from the other room. He prefers the older way of looking up definitions, having little faith his command of the Russian language and hardly any more in the online dictionaries, especially when his WI-FI goes out at inauspicious times.
"...vorobey parit..."
The voice fades away. Yuuri waits for several minutes, but no more messages can be heard. He sighs, makes note of the time and frequency, and stows the notebook in his desk drawer, turning the shortwave radio off before leaning back in his chair and stretching. For a long moment, he stares at the ceiling, wondering about the voice on the other end of the wavelength, then shakes his head and tugs himself up, wandering into his kitchen.
The crow and the sparrow, huh? Good luck to both of you.
A bowl of rice and vegetables later, Yuuri plops down on the worn sofa in the middle of his small living room, flicking on the TV and absently stirring the fried egg into his rice. Outside the wind blows harshly against his windows, rattling them, and Yuuri frowns, leaving his bowl on the table as he gets up to close the curtains.
The evening news catches his ear as he stops at the window, staring out at the snow falling heavily and hard outside.
"A reminder to our citizens that the Strike Task Forces will be patrolling the area. With increased security risks from our foreign neighbors, we ask that all citizens report any suspicious individuals to their local police force immediately. Please obey all orders and requests from any Strike Task Officer that you meet..."
As if any officer will be out in this weather. Yuuri snorts, pulling the wooden shutters inside the windows closed, then tying the curtains closed. The rattling fades a little, and he shuffles back to the couch, pulling his bowl close to his chest as he eats, bored with the news but caring little about other channels. He lost his TV guide and has no idea what might be on, and he doesn't care enough to search for a movie or a special.
"In other news, Russian authorities have increased their border patrols in all regions. Commander Alexei Sokolov spoke to the media yesterday via livestream and praised the talents of Captain Viktor Nikiforov, the most accomplished man in the Russian military. Though he is taking an extended rest to recuperate from a skirmish earlier this month, Captain Nikiforov will be attending the International Summit, taking place in Tokyo in two months, alongside the brightest and most successful Strike Task Force members..."
Yuuri sits up, staring at the image on the television screen intently. The picture of Viktor Nikiforov is old, at least six months past, but his charming smile and piercing blue eyes still catch Yuuri's attention with a powerful punch. He sighs, knowing well that the world is enamored with the attractive man, and that he is hardly any different.
"Extended rest," Yuuri scoffs. There is little doubt in Yuuri's mind that Viktor Nikiforov is missing, in jail, or dead. He is waiting for the day the news reports on the Captain's "tragic accident."
He knows how to read between the lines.
He thinks of his first and only meeting with Viktor Nikiforov. Just a small moment to meet and admire the most illustrious international warrior on the planet. Hardly more than a few minutes, but it was enough. To Nikiforov, Yuuri had just been another stuttering intern, but the day had definitely left an impression on Yuuri that had lasted years. One small glimpse at something innocuous, and it had turned Yuuri into an anarchist.
"Thanks a lot, Viktor," Yuuri sighs, though the words sound almost fond. He is grateful that Nikiforov opened his eyes. The world has much to account for, and every day that he can fight a little longer, he is thankful.
Would that he could escape it completely.
A year ago, he had found a shortwave radio at the electronics store where he worked. With a little bit of extra work, he fixed the broken device up and started scanning, searching for the mysterious frequencies his fellow conspiracy theorists liked to use and study. He found a few that were boring, and a few that were interesting, and then some.
"Please save Crow. Someone, please help me get Crow out. I will do anything. Someone please help."
A single message heard late one night -- a connection to someone in Russia, determined to save the victims of the Green Circle, first with Crow, and others too. A cause Yuuri could believe in, and something he could feasibly achieve. It's taken a year to get to this point, but Yuuri is ready, more determined than ever.
At twelve minutes to midnight, Yuuri goes back to his desk and turns on his equipment. With the transmitter ready, he taps out his message, numbers replacing the letters that replaced his native syllables.
Knight acknowledges. Castle is ready.
~*~
On January 7, late at night, Yuuri looks up from his book to a series of knocks on the door. He narrows his eyes and rises from his bed, crossing the darkened living room silently. In the front hall, he lifts an old mask from a past festival and slides it over his face, before he walks over to the door and leans against it. Adopting a confused voice, he murmurs, "I could have sworn I heard something outside."
Three knocks, one rap, two more knocks.
Yuuri takes a small breath, perhaps to calm his stuttering heart, and opens the door. Outside stands an imposing figure swathed in white ski gear, a second, shorter figure standing behind them. Yuuri steps aside, allowing the two people inside, idly thinking that the taller one is rather buff, a visible bulge over their stomach. Not his business if Crow gained some weight recently -- Yuuri is rather bad at maintaining a good weight himself.
"The outside hatch is covered in snow, so you'll have to enter from inside here," he says instead, his English muffled. Crow nods to him, and Sparrow looks around nervously, but neither person takes off their mask, nor their clothes. Bemoaning the mess the melting snow will make, Yuuri closes the door and locks it, then leads the two through his house to a closet in the back, kneeling down to lift up the floor board inside, revealing a ladder that descends downward. Crow waves a flashlight over the small opening, then hands it to Sparrow and carefully climbs into the crawl space, descending into the dark. Yuuri waits patiently, Sparrow tense beside him.
"Bezopasno," Crow calls up, and Yuuri realizes by his voice that Crow is male. Sparrow seems to sigh, then climbs down after Crow, and Yuuri waits until they have reached the bottom before following.
Beneath the main part of the house is a wide basement, large enough for two cots, a tiny kitchen area, a stove that vents outside, and even a small toilet walled off in the corner. He got this house through one of his parents' friends, a man old enough to have survived the wars of old, who dabbled in fallout shelters. An odd hobby for a modern-day Japanese man, but Yuuri did not complain -- instead, he outfitted the tiny shelter with food and supplies over the course of several months, all in preparation for the day he could help rescue one of the Green Circle victims.
"As you can see, there's a bed for each of you, and a toilet over there, and clothes in those shelves. For baths, you'll have to come upstairs. I usually take baths in the evening so any time after that is fine. You have your own food in the kitchen, but if you need anything, send me a message on WhatsApp. If it's not safe, I'll send you a message. Is that alright?" Yuuri asks, keeping his nerves in check -- he is speaking to the infamous Crow, after all, and if rumors are to be believed, Crow can probably hear his heart beating right now, and any lies he tells.
Yuuri would never lie, anyway. He is nervous, though.
Crow pulls at the mask over his face, but leaves his goggles on, revealing pale skin. "That is fine," he says quietly, and something in his voice catches Yuuri's attention. It sounds familiar, but he cannot place it at all. He shrugs off the déjà vu. "Thank you for this, Knight. For all of it."
Yuuri nods, glancing between Crow and Sparrow, a small smile touching his lips as he relaxes. They made it. They really made it here, safely, without anyone following them. All the way from Russia to Yuuri's small house in Hasetsu, just one more step in their escape from the Green Circle. "I'm happy to help," he says, meaning it, and something in Crow's and Sparrow's postures relaxes at his words, perhaps hearing his smile.
Yuuri nods to them both and climbs back up the ladder, carefully replacing the floor panel in the closet, aware that his footsteps are audible to the two hiding below his house. They are here, though, for the next several weeks at least, until their next contact finishes the final step of their journey through Japan to escape.
How he will deal with two Green Circles living under him, Yuuri has no idea -- he will have to be very careful. One wrong move, and they will all be dead.