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Tenma would tell the police he had woken up, so there was nothing to do but leave. Besides, there was no reason to stay. He had recovered, and now he had people to see. His sister, then Tenma, then...
I visited your mother.
He did not have a mother. There had been a woman who carried him and his sister to term, a woman who had held his hand tight (but had she known it was his?) and told those men to take the other instead.
She told me your names.
Names were nothing. He would not see that woman.
The sun was warm on his back, the air fresh and cool. He could not recall taking such simple pleasure in the feel of the world around him. It had always been something to analyze. But he found himself simply enjoying Heidelberg as he...as he what? Gained his bearings?
He always knew his bearings. He always had a goal, plans, the ability to impose his will on others. Except his sister. Except Tenma, though he almost had the doctor. He would have had the doctor, but his sister proved stronger.
He smiled. Perhaps that was as it should be.
His sister still went by Nina Fortner. He watched her from a distance, felt something odd and warm in his chest when she passes her exams. She will become a lawyer, an excellent one, because they had been bred for greatness.
He still wanted to kill the couple caring for her. They were not her parents. They way they doted on her as if they were, as if they cared, was wrong. But he refrained. His sister...
His sister had use for them. She may even need them. Either way, they were hers to kill when she's ready. He'd wait.
He returned to Prague, slipped back into the underworld as Otto Baum. He made money -- like names, money was nothing, but people loved it, so he took it -- made people self-destruct like before, but none of it held his interest. So he killed Otto.
Before he left Prague, he burned the Three Frogs. It should have given him pleasure, but despite their heat, the flames did not touch him. It was Tenma's doing. He had done something to him in Ruhenheim, something cruel.
Of course. His laughter bubbled up thick and bitter. The doctor was his own kind of monster.
Tenma was always on the move. Sometimes he wondered if Tenma was running from himself. Everyone else seemed to think he was embracing his profession. Médecins Sans Frontières was such a noble organization, and Tenma -- oh, how Tenma had everyone fooled -- was such a noble man.
And because he was so noble, he always returned to Heidelberg. Today, he was meeting with his former patients in "their" coffee shop.
He watched from across the street. "You always get a king's welcome."
Tenma looked up, like he'd heard him. They make eye contact, briefly, and then he melted into the crowd.
It was, perhaps, tempting fate to return to Heidelberg as Anna. The identity was comfortable, and he enjoyed walking on the fringes of his sister's life.
She quickly discovered him. "Stop it," she said, and he had to smile at the intensity of her expression, "Or I'll call the police."
He covered his heart with both hands. "On your own flesh and blood?"
It was the right way to get to her. She bit down on her lower lip. "What do you want?"
"Come with me."
She shook her head.
"When you're ready." She did still have things to do.
He has always been patient, but his sister's stubbornness tested him. It was one thing to use the name those people have given her. She had decided upon her path -- and she was indeed an excellent lawyer -- and needed a name to succeed. He could stomach her choice of Nina Fortner.
But she kept going back to them. As if she was their daughter. As if they were a family.
It was disgusting. They had been destined for greatness, could be anything they wanted, and this was what she chose? No. She was like him. She'd come to him. Eventually.
He kept an eye on Tenma while he waited for his sister. Sometimes, he got so close that it was disappointing when the doctor didn't see him. He was always so focused on his patients.
If he wished, he could kill Tenma. It would be easy. Sons were supposed to defeat their fathers, and Tenma was like a father to him twice over now.
He slipped into Tenma's tent one night, held a knife to the man's throat. "Come find me," he whispered. He pressed the knife deep enough to draw a bead of blood.
Tenma stirred but didn't wake.
His sister sought out Tenma. Tenma, not him. He replayed the phone conversation he had recorded. "I'm ready to see her." His sister's voice wavered in the speaker. "My mother."
He was her family. Why did she want to see that woman, the woman who'd given her up? Not that one. This one.
"Are you sure, Nina?" The way Tenma asked...
His sister remembered and had shared the memory with Tenma. And she still wanted to see that woman, still called her mother.
Would she forgive her like she had forgiven him? Bile rose in his throat. No. She couldn't.
It was easy to follow Tenma to that woman. The convent in Southern France was postcard beautiful. Tenma, he was sure, considered the place peaceful. He would find it peaceful burnt to the ground, the few remaining stones scorched, the bones of the nuns bleached white under the sun.
He planned how he would do it, visualized his success. It would serve as a beacon to Tenma and his sister. That alone made it tempting. The fact that it was also what that woman deserves...
No. His sister and Tenma expected him to do something like that. He'd surprise them.
What better surprise than to visit that woman before his sister? He sat next to her on a stone bench, stared out at the orchard with her, pretended to enjoy the first warm day of spring. "He told me he would be bringing my daughter." She laughed, softly, gently, like the breeze slithering through the branches. "I didn't expect you."
"Doctor Tenma said you'd named us."
"Yes."
"My name is Johan." Names normally meant nothing, but he couldn't let the woman have his. Or his sister's. "Hers is Nina."
She took a shaky breath. "They are fine names."
They were.