It was during his weeks of torment that something broke in Akachi. To be treated that way by those who were meant to protect and serve you, to know that they could kill you and nothing would happen, it does something to your mind. Pain can clarify things. He told me later that after hours of unrelenting terror and agony, he’d stopped fearing death, that he’d realized then that he’d been so focused on surviving the system that he hadn’t ever truly been alive, that he was doing nothing but dying slowly and had been doing so for a long time. He told me that when he was released, he’d resolved to ensure things changed.
