Archive of Our Own ^beta

The sound of crystals clinking against one another. The sound of heels echoing off the stone floor. The sound of glass breaking. The sound of alarms blaring. The sound of more gems and jewelry clinking against one another.

Shibusawa opens his eyes, as red as the rubies scattered across the table, and stares at the ceiling.

Boredom. Listlessness. Restlessness. Ennui.

He sighs, something much lighter than it ought to be with the weight of the lethargy behind it. And then he sits up, eyes locking on the wall across from him. It’s as blank and white as his hair, his skin, his clothes, as everything in the tiny apartment he calls a home. The only color here is his collection of crystals and jewelry and other shiny objects of various values. (Some are of immense value, and others of none at all. Light bulbs are just as worthy a target as jewels when he enters a place intent on stealing anything that catches his eye.)

Of course, this is the physical collection he’s nurtured and gathered, but there’s one far more grand kept in Draconia. That’s the true form of his ability and the true prize in his eyes. It’s beautiful in all its intricacies and symmetry and multicolored light.

He doesn't know how long he's been living like this. There are gaps where he knows memories should be, but somehow he doesn't mind. Somehow it's unimportant. 

( Everything is unimportant in comparison to the vague knowledge nagging at the back of his mind, even if he can't recall what that is. There's something he's meant to do. Something he's meant to find. Ah, well. If he can’t recall what it is, it’s unlikely to be important. Nothing is a surprise, anyway.)

---

He has but one friend. Someone Russian, with dark hair and eyes the red of garnet, or wine. He gives information, and Shibusawa accepts it, and acts on it.

He doesn't question how they know each other, or how this man knows so much. But he listens, and he acts accordingly. Even if the man is lying, his information is good, and his advice is a tantalizing poison that dances through Shibusawa's mind. His collection, the Draconia of his ability, grows rapidly as he listens to the whispers fed into his ear from this mysterious source who calls himself a friend and acts upon them. He hardly pays attention to the news and how reports of his activities spread; he only cares about collecting abilities, not the chaos and fear that doing so causes. Whether this man is truly a friend or not doesn’t matter; nothing can surprise him or surpass his expectations. The entire world is dull.

He's a ghost, known only by a picture and a nickname: Pale Qilin. His name, his gender, his age… those are all unknowns to those who would want to stop him, and that's to his advantage. He can move freely from place to place, and that nondescript nature is even more advantageous as he visits the scenes of his crimes (for only a fool would do such a thing, rendering any suspicion moot).

And when he finally crosses the Port Mafia in Yokohama, things go very badly for him. Perhaps he was too flippant with his speech as he recounts the depth of his boredom, but the red-haired boy doesn't take kindly to his words about the mafia lackeys he'd killed. Perhaps he was a little too dismissive of the lives he’d ended, but they’d been so boring.

The boy’s power is surprising and immense, and Shibusawa is killed.

Or so it seems in that instant. Fatal isn't necessarily fatal for him, which he takes with his usual quiet pensiveness—and he lies low for a few years. While he may have survived, Draconia itself suffered a massive blow; he has to start over again, building that striking collection back from nearly nothing.

The collection in the apartment grows in the meantime, from valuable jewelry to beautiful crystals people ascribe metaphysical meaning to to the light bulbs from places he steals from. Shining color spills over counter tops and atop otherwise bare tables, ever-growing even has he has to start from scratch with Draconia once more. It's unfortunate, but that's what he gets for growing too sure of himself and his ability.

One by one the gemstones drop to the floor, making a sound similar to glass as they collide.

One by one the days go by…

---

The poisonous whisper that sets things in motion is that of a special ability that rises above all others. It stands out. It shines brighter. Even through his lethargy and apathy, Shibusawa is interested, and he allows himself to become part of the demon's plan. Dostoevksy will get what he wants, with a large portion of Yokohama's gifted wiped out amid the fog of Shibusawa's ability and their inability to survive against their own abilities, and Shibuawa will get what he wants: something that calls to him in a song that breaks through the mundanity and repetition of the world around him. It's a promise of true color in an otherwise monotonous world, and he grasps at it near desperately, scraping its surface with long, black nails that are so like claws.

And, surprising perhaps to only himself, it's a lie.

He's been set up, but not just this once.

He's a ghost, but he has been for well on a decade now. He's dead, kept under the guise of living by an ability even he doesn't fully know the strength of.

Killed by his own hubris and a boy whose ability he sought, but whose strength and ferocity was unmatched even as no more than a child. Even now, he's still so young—just barely an adult. And yet the world and all the pain he's endured has made him even stronger, his strength growing as he did.

His own ability is turned against him in a singularity that takes over all rational thought; he becomes Draconia, or it becomes him, or merges with him—the details don’t matter, really, as there’s no time or awareness to process them—and then together they become something else: a dragon, single-minded and bent on destruction.

Perhaps Dostoevsky has more influence here, or perhaps the singularity was just so carefully put-together that it feels that way. He has no concept of self in this form, but because of that he can’t be bothered by it. He simply exists and causes as much destruction as his ability wroughts. The city is enveloped, and it takes the return of the red-haired boy to take him down again.

And then awareness returns, and he fights the boy from the orphanage. It’s his ability he truly sought; that was the truth that nagged at his mind when the demon was feeding him tales about an ability that shines above all others. This was the true one, not the one that negates other abilities. This one shines above them, not dulls them. 

And getting here and learning that was a thrilling setup, and he feels exhilarated as he fights for what it would be a reach to call his life. This is a surprise, and a welcome one. For what may be the first time in his interesting life, these developments were unpredictable. This caught him by surprise. 

And he laughs.

He doesn’t win, which is somehow no surprise at all. (Despite the mundane predictability of the entire world, every situation involving Yokohama and those who reside within it has ended up a terrible surprise. Interesting. )

Once more, Shibusawa finds himself dying, and it feels cyclical. It's a surprise as the memories come back to him in a rush of pain and dread.

---

His career as part of the Special Abilities Department isn't a cover; while he has no genuine moral attachment to such an organization, it's a job he does well enough at. As distant and eccentric as he is, no one really knows him, and he's fine with that. He's an enigma to his coworkers and superiors, and when he leaves he ensures he remains that way—erasing as much as he can of himself from their records.

There's been a whisper fed into his eager ears. It's a story of an ability above all others. It belongs to a boy in an orphanage, with no past—and no future. A nuisance to the orphanage that shelters him. Unloved. Uncared-for. (If he was to disappear under mysterious circumstances, no one would bat an eye, the demon explains.)

So Shibusawa uses his resources and education to form a cover: he plays a doctor or scientist or something in-between, making up excuses about wanting to help the boy. The Headmaster doesn't care. He probably could have walked in with no cover at all and not been stopped. The disdain for the child emanating from this place is obvious, but he doesn’t think anything of it. It’s not important. Nothing is.

But things don’t go as planned. The boy’s ability is special; back then, it wasn’t a lie. It’s special and powerful and he’s no match for the strength of it, even as it’s contained within such a small child.

He dies that day, beneath a cold and cruel orphanage. It’s quick and brutal, the way he bleeds out. He’s given no funeral—he’s put in the dirt out back unceremoniously, and when he considers that reality the fact that the same thing could have happened to the boy occurs passively. Not that it matters in the end.

---

He’s being killed by the very same boy now, all these years later, so clearly he made it out of that orphanage alive and more or less well. There’s something awe-inspiring in that fact. His ability, his ferociousness, his drive, his power, his life —oh, yes, this boy is something special, and Shibusawa can’t begrudge him for either defeat at his hands.

Something about this moment, this death, with all of its setup and betrayal, feels eerily final. No death has stuck before, but something about this one feels like it might. It feels like an end.

It’s a surprising end, and there’s some joy to that fact. Finally, something caught him by surprise, even if not in the way he wanted. (That’s the point of surprises and unpredictability, isn’t it? It doesn’t have to be what you want. It just has to happen. And happen this does.)

---

It’s not an end.

---

The world continues spinning in all its monotony and sameness. The sun rises and sets, and the moon does very much the same.

Again, Shibusawa has to start from scratch with his collection and his life. The few jewels he has clink together as he moves them in his palm and between deft fingers, ruby eyes locked on the light glinting off their colored crystalline depths. 

He has memories this time, perhaps mercifully; he knows to lie low and keep himself out of the sights of the demon Dostoevsky. This time he won’t allow himself to be manipulated, nor will he get involved. He’ll watch, and he’ll wait. He’ll see what moves people make, both predictable and unpredictable, and he’ll decide what to do when the time is right.

The gems fall from his palm as he opens and tilts it, watching and listening to them as they hit the table’s surface.

Boredom. Listlessness. Restlessness. Ennui.

He sighs, something much lighter than it ought to be with the weight of the lethargy behind it. And then he lies down on the small couch, eyes locking on the blank ceiling above him.

His life feels strangely cyclical and endless, which was only briefly surprising. Now, the surprise has waned into staleness and he wonders if he can die at all—or if the surprise of a true death will be the one true surprise in this world, but one he won’t be aware of experiencing once his consciousness is truly snuffed out.

Not that it matters, he supposes, and he lets his eyes drift closed.