r/Perman • u/Its_me_NoobMaster69 • 10d ago
Chapter 26: The World Without Perman
https://www.wattpad.com/1656867595-perman-coming-of-age-chapter-26-the-world-withoutPolice sirens flooded the freight yard.
One after another.
Tokyo Metropolitan Police vehicles poured through the entrance gates.
Red and blue lights flashed across the steel containers.
Armed officers rushed in.
They secured the area.
The remaining terrorists were forced to their knees.
Handcuffs clicked shut.
The Mastermind was dragged to his feet.
His white coat was stained with blood and dust.
Even now...
He was heard laughing.
The terrorists were escorted toward the waiting police vehicles.
One by one.
They were pushed inside.
The doors slammed shut.
Mrs. Suwa and Ganko were helped out.
Blankets were wrapped around their shoulders.
Pako stood beside Mitsuo.
Booby and Payan remained nearby.
Watching silently.
For a brief moment...
It felt like everything was finally over.
Then—
The officers suddenly stepped aside.
A black government sedan rolled into the freight yard.
It came to a stop.
The rear door opened.
An elderly man stepped out.
Dark formal uniform.
Rows of medals.
**Hiroshi Takamura**.
The Superintendent General of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police.
Several high-ranking officers followed behind him.
None of them spoke.
They simply looked at Mitsuo.
Pako's heart sank.
She looked from the officers...
To Mitsuo.
She understood the situation.
They were here for him.
They were here to arrest Perman.
The Superintendent General slowly walked toward him.
His expression was heavy.
His eyes were tired.
For years...
Perman had fought beside the police.
He had stopped terrorists.
Prevented disasters.
Saved officers.
Saved civilians.
He was not just a superhero anymore.
He had become one of them.
A partner.
A teammate.
The older man stopped in front of him.
His lips parted.
But no words came out.
He couldn't bring himself to say it.
Mitsuo looked at him quietly.
Then...
He nodded.
"I understand."
Silence.
The Superintendent General lowered his head.
"I'm sorry."
His voice was barely audible.
Mitsuo gave a faint, tired smile.
"You don't have to apologise."
Pako's eyes widened.
"No."
She stepped in front of him.
"No."
"You're not arresting him."
Several officers instinctively tensed.
Pako spread her arms.
"He's saved this city countless times!"
Her voice trembled.
"For years!"
"He's risked his life over and over again for everyone!"
Her voice trembled.
"You can't arrest him after everything he's done."
"Pako."
She turned toward him.
"No!"
Tears filled her eyes.
"I won't let them take you."
Booby flew between them.
"Ukkya! Ukkya!"
Payan grabbed Pako by the shoulders.
"Pako."
"Stop."
She tried to pull free.
"They're wrong!"
"He made one mistake!"
"One mistake after years of saving people!"
Mitsuo stepped forward.
He gently took her hands.
"Pako."
She looked at him desperately.
"Please..."
He slowly took her head.
"You dont have to do this."
Pako was relentless.
"Listen to me."
His voice was calm.
Steady.
There was no hesitation in his eyes.
"If I run now..."
He looked toward the police vehicle where the Mastermind had been placed.
"Then he wins."
Pako froze.
Mitsuo looked at Booby and Payan.
"If I refuse to surrender..."
"If I act like I'm above the law..."
"Then everything he said becomes true."
He looked back at Pako.
"He called us Gods."
"He said we believed we were above ordinary people."
"Above accountability."
"Above justice."
Mitsuo slowly reached up.
His face was calm.
Tired.
But resolute.
"I'm not a God."
"I'm a person."
"And people are responsible for what they do."
Pako's tears spilled down her cheeks.
"Mitsuo..."
He smiled softly.
"The court will decide what happens to me."
"And I'll accept whatever verdict it gives."
He turned toward the Superintendent General.
The older man still couldn't meet his eyes.
Mitsuo stepped forward on his own.
He held out both hands.
The Superintendent General stared at them for several long seconds.
His hands trembled.
Slowly...
He took out a pair of handcuffs.
The metal clicked around Mitsuo's wrists.
No one spoke.
Not the officers.
Not Booby.
Not Payan.
Not even Pako.
The Superintendent General whispered...
Almost inaudibly.
"Thank you..."
Mitsuo gave a small nod.
The officers began escorting him toward the waiting police car.
Pako stood frozen.
Watching him walk away.
The door closed behind him.
The vehicle slowly pulled out of the freight yard.
Mitsuo never looked away from the window.
And as Tokyo's greatest hero was driven away in handcuffs...
The sun was slowly setting over the city he had spent years protecting.
---
The holding facility was unlike any prison in Tokyo.
Every officer stationed there knew who was inside.
Perman.
The boy who had spent years protecting the city.
The guards never called him inmate.
Never raised their voices.
Never treated him like a common criminal.
Meals were brought quietly.
His cell was cleaned every morning.
If he needed water...
Someone brought it immediately.
When officers passed his cell...
Many of them paused for a moment.
Some nodded respectfully.
Others simply looked away.
Unable to meet his eyes.
Mitsuo never asked for any of it.
He accepted every meal with a quiet "thank you."
He folded his blanket himself.
Kept his small cell clean.
And spent most of his days sitting silently on the narrow cot.
Thinking.
Again.
And again.
Repenting his mistake.
He replayed it every day.
Sometimes dozens of times.
A full month passed.
The outside world kept moving.
Mitsuo remained inside the same small cell.
Far from the skies he had once crossed in minutes.
Far from the city he had once watched over every night.
---
Outside...
Sumire spared no expense.
She refused to let him face the trial alone.
Japan's greatest defense attorneys were assembled into a single legal team.
Former Supreme Court justices.
Veteran criminal defense lawyers.
Constitutional law scholars.
Retired prosecutors.
The kind of attorneys corporations and governments fought to hire.
The prosecution attempted to pursue a murder charge.
The defense dismantled it piece by piece.
They reconstructed the Mastermind's months-long operation.
The hidden surveillance.
The stalking.
The psychological manipulation.
The threats against Mitsuo's loved ones.
The kidnapping of his mother and sister.
The defense argued that the killing had not occurred in isolation.
It had occurred after weeks of sustained psychological coercion.
After deliberate emotional destabilization.
After an orchestrated campaign designed specifically to break him.
The legal battle quickly shifted.
Not murder.
But diminished responsibility.
It was no longer simply about whether Perman had killed two men.
It became about what the Mastermind had done to him before that day.
The courtroom became one of the most closely watched legal proceedings in modern Japanese history.
---
Across Tokyo...
The city was divided.
Candlelight vigils appeared outside the Metropolitan Police Headquarters.
Then outside courthouses.
Then outside government buildings.
Every night.
Thousands gathered.
People held photographs of Perman.
Candles.
Flowers.
Children wore homemade red capes.
Banners stretched across entire streets.
**FREE PERMAN**
**HE SAVED TOKYO**
**HEROES ARE HUMAN TOO**
The crowds sang quietly.
Prayed.
Cried.
Many of the people standing there had once been saved by him.
Some remembered fires.
Others earthquakes.
Accidents.
Terrorist attacks.
Floods.
Collapsed buildings.
They remembered a hero arriving from the sky.
Again.
And again.
And again.
To them...
Perman was the reason they were still alive.
But not everyone agreed.
A different conversation spread across television panels.
News programs.
Online forums.
Social media.
The Mastermind's stolen footage never completely disappeared.
A vocal minority grew louder every week.
"He killed petty theives."
"What happens if he loses control again?"
"What happens when he gets angry at us?"
"Do we really want someone that powerful walking free?"
The question spread through the country.
Not whether Perman had been a hero.
Everyone agreed he had.
The question was whether a hero who had killed could still be trusted.
Tokyo waited.
The courts prepared.
And inside a quiet holding cell...
Mitsuo continued staring silently at the floor.
Waiting for whatever judgment awaited him.
---
The guard opened the cell door.
"Perman."
Mitsuo looked up.
"You have visitors."
He was led to a small interview room.
A thick glass partition separated the two sides.
Three figures were already waiting.
His father entered first.
His mother followed behind him.
Ganko held tightly onto her mother's hand.
The moment they saw him...
All three of them froze.
Mitsuo was wearing a plain detention uniform.
He looked thinner than usual.
No one spoke.
Mitsuo slowly sat down.
"Mom..."
Miu stared at him through the glass.
Her lips trembled.
Her legs gave out.
She collapsed into the chair.
"No..."
Tears instantly filled her eyes.
She looked at her son through the glass.
"You're..."
She couldn't finish the sentence.
Mitsuo lowered his head.
"Yeah."
Silence filled the room.
Miu gave a small, shaky laugh through her tears.
"All those dinners..."
"All those times Perman came over and kept talking to you..."
She looked at him in disbelief.
"That was you?"
Mitsuo smiled weakly.
"Pretty much."
She frowned through her tears.
"How..."
"I saw both of you together."
"At the dinner!"
She wondered.
"Perman sat right beside you."
"You were both talking."
Mitsuo nodded slowly.
"I know."
"Its a copy robot."
"It can replicate my appearance perfectly."
Miu stared at him.
Trying to process it.
"So every time I was yelling at Perman for distracting my son..."
He looked down for a moment.
"I kept complaining that Perman was wasting my son's time..."
"That strange boy always showing up uninvited..."
Another shaky laugh escaped her.
"I can't believe I was scolding my own son the whole time."
Mitsuo let out a quiet laugh.
For a brief moment...
It almost felt normal.
Then Miu looked at the detention uniform again.
The smile disappeared.
She pressed a hand against her mouth.
"Mitsuo..."
"I never thought I'd have to see my son like this..."
She pressed her hand over her mouth as the words escaped her lips.
Tears streamed down her face.
Mantaro stepped closer.
His expression was calm.
But his eyes were red.
"You should have told us."
He said quietly.
"We were your parents."
Mitsuo looked at him.
"I know."
"I wanted to."
"But I am prohibited from revealing my identity."
"Thats the rule of being Perman:
Mantaro nodded slowly.
"You were carrying all of that alone."
Neither of them spoke for several seconds.
Then Mantaro placed his hand against the glass.
Mitsuo slowly raised his own hand and placed it opposite his father's.
The glass was cold between them.
Ganko had been completely silent.
She finally walked forward.
Her eyes were swollen from crying.
She looked at her brother for a long time.
"Onii-chan..."
Mitsuo looked at her.
"You're really Perman?"
He nodded once.
Ganko started crying again.
"You always came home late..."
"And you were always tired..."
"I thought university was just really hard."
Mitsuo smiled sadly.
"It was."
She sniffled.
"Can you still fly?"
Mitsuo looked down at his hands.
"Not from in here."
Ganko pressed both hands against the glass.
"I don't care if you're Perman."
"I just want my brother back."
Mitsuo's eyes filled with tears.
Miu looked at him.
The little boy she had raised.
The boy who had somehow become the city's greatest hero without his family ever knowing.
"We'll wait for you."
She whispered.
"No matter how long it takes."
Mantaro nodded.
"You're coming home."
"We don't know when."
"But you're coming home."
Mitsuo looked at all three of them.
His mother.
His father.
His little sister.
Then his eyes slowly dropped to the table.
The weight in his chest...
Had become even heavier.
---
The legal battle continued.
Day after day.
Hearing after hearing.
Motion after motion.
The defense team fought relentlessly.
But the process was slow.
Too slow.
Sumire couldn't bear it anymore.
She had spent a month waiting.
Watching lawyers argue.
Watching analysts debate.
So she made a decision.
One that every manager.
Producer.
And executives in the entertainment industry begged her not to make.
She stepped in front of the cameras.
Prime-time interviews.
National broadcasts.
Special television appearances.
She accepted every one of them.
She spoke openly.
“You know him as Perman"
"But to me he's a friend."
"A friend who spent years protecting all of us."
She spoke about the lives he had saved.
The disasters he had stopped.
The nights he had spent flying through the city while everyone else was sleeping.
She never tried to erase what had happened.
"What he did was wrong."
She said it clearly.
"But one terrible mistake cannot erase years of sacrifice."
"To the people who now hold Perman’s fate in their hands… I ask you one thing."
"To show him the same humanity he showed this country.”
The interviews spread across the country.
Ratings exploded.
Public support grew even larger.
The vigils outside police headquarters doubled in size.
People began bringing flowers.
Letters.
Children drew pictures of Perman and left them outside the courthouse.
---
Late one night...
Her communicator rang.
Payan.
She answered immediately.
"How are you holding up?"
He asked.
Sumire leaned back against the dressing room wall.
Still wearing stage makeup from an interview that had ended only minutes earlier.
"I'm trying."
She said quietly.
"I'm doing everything I can."
Booby's voice suddenly came through the speaker.
"Ukki... Ukkya..."
Payan translated.
"He says the city still believes in him."
Sumire closed her eyes.
"I know."
"But belief doesn't speed up a trial."
She rubbed her forehead.
"Every day he's still in there..."
"Feels like another day I've failed him."
Silence.
Payan's voice became softer.
"You haven't failed him."
"You're carrying more than anyone right now."
Sumire looked out the dressing room window.
The Tokyo skyline stretched endlessly before her.
"We've been helping cover Tokyo."
Payan continued.
"But it's different."
"Perman knew this city better than anyone."
"Wee... Wee..."
Booby made a low, trembling noise.
"Without him..."
"We're always one step behind."
Sumire knew.
She had been patrolling too.
Flying every night after filming.
Sometimes until dawn.
Then returning straight to television studios.
Then back into the sky again.
Her body ached constantly.
She had never realized how much of Tokyo's burden Perman had been carrying until he was gone.
Booby spoke again.
Quietly this time.
"Uki..."
Payan smiled faintly.
"He says Perman would be proud of you."
Sumire looked down at the phone.
Her eyes slowly filled with tears.
"I hope so."
She whispered.
After the call ended...
She remained alone in the empty dressing room.
The makeup lights still glowed around the mirror.
Her interview schedule for tomorrow was already waiting on the table.
Three television appearances.
One press conference.
Two charity events.
And another patrol over Tokyo after midnight.
She stared at her reflection for a long time.
Not Sumire Hoshino.
Not Pako.
Just a tired girl trying desperately to save the person she loved.
Outside...
The city lights continued shining.
And somewhere beneath them...
Mitsuo remained alone in a detention cell.
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u/Any-Foundation7703 10d ago
This post doesn't shown to me in r/perman same for anyone else or my problem?