The Tree Remembers
(A/N: This chapter will be pretty interesting, and slightly longer than the previous chapters. Nonetheless, I hope you enjoy it. Make sure to leave your thoughts with a comment below!)
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[2 Weeks Later]
[Narrator's POV]
The warehouse was eerily quiet despite the fact two individuals were within it. The first individual wore a simple surgical mask and some shades to presumably obscure his identity. In contrast, the second individual was unconscious and restrained to a metal chair that was bolted to the floor.
The first individual kept to himself, passing the time for the second person to wake up by reading a novel. He was roughly a quarter of the way complete before he perked his head towards the unconscious man who was slowly gaining consciousness.
"What the hell…" the restrained man said in a daze, his eyes slowly opening as he tried to recognize the unfamiliar location he was in. He first tried to get up from sitting, yet quickly found himself in visceral pain.
"AUGH-" Adrenaline was quick to pump into his system as his eyes bolted to where he was feeling such a piercing pain. Simply put, it was on both of his arms and legs. But to be more specific, it was in the area between the wrist and elbow fold for the former, and the ankle and knee for the latter.
The man was sharp to notice blood dripping out of where his whole forearm was bound, as blood simultaneously trickled down his legs and stained his white socks a bright red. "WHAT THE FUCK!" he screamed as he attempted to pull away from his restraints, which further irritated his newly found wounds and caused more blood to leave his body.
"WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?! RELEASE ME OR I'LL KILL YOU!!!" the man screamed profanities at the other person reading, who by this point was flipping to a new page in his novel. But hearing that his guest was now wide awake, he folded the top corner of his page into a small triangle — bookmarking it — and put the novel aside while getting up.
"You did this to me!" the restrained man shouted, gaining more control of his emotions after the sudden shock wore down, yet still possessed spite for his situation. "You harbour a lot of questions from me, Shinohara Yuki," the restrained man, now identified as Yuki, could only groan in pain as the masked man continued to talk.
"But to answer your questions in reverse order: you did this to yourself, you won't be killing me, you can leave in a moment, and you can call me Jigsaw."
"How in the world do you know my name?!" Yuki exclaimed in shock. "Hmmmmmmm," Jigsaw, otherwise John Kramer, hummed before responding.
"It didn't take too long to find you. Your tattoo of that snake was a dead giveaway of who you are. Otherwise, it was just waiting and gathering information before finding an opportune time to knock you out with some sedatives." Kramer could only gesture to a table not too far away, on which was an empty syringe.
By this point, Kramer started to walk away from Yuki, eyeing a contraption that was below the same table that had the empty syringe. The contraption was fairly simple in design, being a set of kitchen knives that were stacked together.
"This right here will be your key to freedom," Kramer gestured to the contraption he was holding with his head as he worked on attaching it to the chair Yuki was restrained to so that the sharp ends of the knives were facing towards Yuki's face, but weren't touching his face.
"What the FUCK are you doing?!" Kramer paid no attention to the frantic shouting of Yuki as he continued to talk with an eerie calmness laced throughout his voice.
"I've learned many things over the years doing this kind of thing," Kramer said, reaching for a screwdriver in his pocket to tighten the contraption. "For one, the chair you find yourself strapped to is much sturdier than when I first did this. And for another, these tools I design serve as metaphors."
Yuki continued to groan in pain as blood continued to drip out of his wounds, but the Jigsaw continued with his work. "The device you see here was the first trap I designed. And considering you have a knife-related quirk, I find this quite poetic," Kramer hummed as he thought of something else, but didn't say anything. 'Even more so as this is my first trap in this world…'
"Look, look," Yuki spoke with haste. "Whoever you are or whatever I did to you I'm sorry, ok? Just let me go and we can all be on our separate ways!" he reasoned with desperation etched into his voice. Kramer was equally quick to respond. "Oh, I forgive you, Yuki. I truly do. But then you wouldn't learn, would you?"
Yuki could only respond with a growl in pain once more as the knives were digging into his muscles. "I'm surprised you don't recognize my voice," Kramer spoke, tilting his head to the side. "Maybe it's the fact that my mask is muffling how I sound. Maybe your mind is more worried about your injuries than how I sound. Or maybe…"
"You commit so many crimes that you forget who your victims are…"
"There's an African proverb that I'm quite fond of. It goes as follows: 'The axe forgets; the tree remembers.' It's easy to be an axe and chop down trees, but it takes time to plant and nurture a seed to full health."
The Jigsaw was almost done with attaching the stack of knives to the chair, taking out the final screw from his pocket as he continued to talk to Yuki. "Now is your moment of truth, Yuki," Kramer spoke.
"As a robber and a thief, you've used your quirk to threaten others and prey on their vulnerability. It's a horror that's festered in your core. Today, you will see what it's like to have a knife to your face and bring that horror outside…"
"Just lean forward," his voice was almost intoxicating. "Lean into the knives with your face. If you press hard enough, it will release the arm and leg restraints that bind you. Press hard and you will be free — or don't — and bleed to death."
Yuki screamed with a combination of shock and fear. "You SICK FUCK!" he hollered, praying that someone would hear his distress. "FUCK YOU!" Yuki shook and thrashed as Kramer only circled him, humming to himself before heading back to where he originally sat to continue reading his novel. But before that, Kramer gifted Yuki a few final words.
"Live or die, Yuki. Make your choice."
"FUCK YOU!" The robber shouted a multitude of profanities towards Kramer who ignored him as he started to read the page he bookmarked on his novel. Seeing Kramer not respond to any of his pleas for help, Yuki could only breathe in and out, internally hyping himself up to gain the courage to do what was required to escape the trap.
Yuki closed his eyes as he leaned forward, feeling the ends of the many knives touch his skin. But he pushed further, and the knives cut deeper. "GRAHHHHHH-" Yuki screamed in agony as he pushed with all his might, but despite it only being roughly 15 seconds the knives only moved a few inches outwards.
It was a visceral pain to endure, but he couldn't stop now, fearing that if he did then the knives would move back into their starting position. Yuki's tears mixed with the blood that coated his face in bright red, the scent of iron lingering over his nose and salt in his mouth.
"PLEASE GOD PLEASE!" Yuki wallowed in absolute suffering. By this point, the knives started to cut into the cartilage of his ears but still felt the metallic knives trace over his cheekbones. The robber was at the cusp of freedom, reassuring himself that in a moment all of this would be over.
Kramer flipped to a new page of his novel, uninterrupted by Yuki's shrieking.
The deathly contraption clicked as Yuki shoved his face forward, and with one final push, Yuki screamed like a banshee as the tips of the knives touched the back of his jaw, before snapping backwards to their original position.
Yuki — as bloodied as he was — successfully escaped Jigsaw's knife trap. The restraints on his arms and legs loosened as Yuki simultaneously fell to the floor in a fetal position, covering his face as his blood pooled beneath him.
Hearing the trap snap back, Kramer took a glance up before putting his book aside and rushing to get a few towels, gauze, and other miscellaneous medical items for injuries. First padding down the criminal with a towel to clear out some of the blood, Kramer was quick to patch up Yuki's wounds, albeit rudimentarily.
Yuki didn't fight back, too exhausted and in pain to do anything of that nature. For a while, both of them said nothing. Yuki breathed in and out heavily as Kramer tended to his wounds before the Jigsaw broke the silence.
"Most people are ungrateful," he began softly. "They are ungrateful for the fruitful lives they live…" As Kramer spoke, he recalled how his past life treated him. His son's death, the end of his marriage, his cancer, and surviving suicide. It followed him like a shadow, events that were constantly behind him. Even in his second life, they reminded him of how lucky he was.
"But not you, not anymore," Kramer continued, his voice steady yet intense, carrying the weight of experience and conviction. "You've been given a second chance, Yuki. Most people waste theirs, but you now know the cost of your actions — the pain, the suffering you've inflicted on others. It's all been brought to the surface. You've faced your darkness, and now you understand what it means to survive."
Kramer gently applied more pressure to the gauze, his hands methodical and calm. "You have a choice to make, Yuki. You can go back to your old ways, continue to be the axe that forgets, or you can change. Use the pain you've endured to become someone more. Someone who values life — your own and that of others."
He paused, letting his words sink in, then added with a solemn tone. "I won't be there to guide you, and I won't forgive you again. From this point on, your life is in your hands. Make the right choice, Yuki. Or you'll find yourself in a place far worse than this."
Kramer stood up, looking down at the bloodied and broken man on the floor. "Remember this moment. Remember what it feels like to be on the other side of the knife. If you truly value the life you've been given, you'll never let yourself forget it."
With that, Kramer turned and walked towards the exit, leaving Yuki alone in the dimly lit warehouse. "Live or die, Yuki. The choice is still yours…"
(A/N: I thought that Kramer using the same trap he used on Cecil in SAW IV would have been quite poetic to use against the person who robbed Kramer's store back in the last chapter. But anyhow, did you like the chapter? Were there any grammatical mistakes? Comment your thoughts below!)