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Touya had laughed when they brought out the steel collar and cuffs. By the time they had them locked around his neck and wrists and hooked through with chains, it had turned to near tears. “What do you think I’m going to do, run? You know I’d just go back to the roof,” he said when he finally caught his breath, voice hoarse and tired. Even though the things that lived in the shadows around them were restrained or caged he was still so tired, like they were nibbling at him without physically touching him. If only they had been that considerate at any other point in his life, he might not be having a shoulder length white veil draped over his head before being led towards the auction stage.
They had always been there, those things, creeping out of shadows for as long as Touya could remember. They had followed him, the little ones slithering around, sipping his bath water or nipping at his feet. The bigger ones, those ones could knock him around and bite into his skin properly. Mother had taught him the tricks to keeping those ones away. Hot water, hot metal, bells with the right chime, salt mixed with ashes, sometimes charms from temples but only sometimes and neither of them could ever figure out what made the ones that did work so special. But they were always there, always following him; they had followed Mother too, at least until she wasn’t there to follow anymore. But they hadn’t stalked her like they did Touya, they hadn’t attacked those close to her like they did those close to Touya.
As he grew older the things in the shadows grew bigger, grew meaner and nastier and more powerful in general. He hadn’t understood why Mother had screamed about him dooming his siblings before she went away when he was young, but he understood now. They had attacked Shoto because he had been close to Touya. Mother had saved him but no one would ever believe she had been trying to help when she poured boiling water on her youngest child. Now, Touya knew he was in danger of having to resort to something like that to protect his siblings too, especially when they swept away the blackened salt he trailed around the house, or when they didn’t understand why he set steaming cups of water in their rooms some nights and kept coming in to refresh them. He’d heard them talk sometimes about how like Mother he was, how he was going to end up like her.
His siblings weren’t wrong.
Mother had figured out how to keep them all safe even if she hadn’t finished what she started. She had shown him what needed to be done to keep his siblings safe, because the things in the shadows only followed him. It was like they couldn’t touch those that couldn’t see them unless Touya was nearby.
The solution was to leave. With everyone thinking he was mentally unwell, not to mention his own cowardice at the idea of living alone, there simply wasn’t a way for him to do that. Just like Mother, Touya decided a more permanent solution was the only available option.
Giran had stopped him before he could step off the roof.
“If you’re going to throw your life away anyway, why not get something for it?”
“I can see them, you realize. I’ve seen them follow you around for a while now. There were whispers about you, but I couldn’t really believe them until I saw you for myself.”
“No kid, they don’t want me, all I can do is see them. You, though. You are a well of power for them. Of course that comes with a serious drawback.”
“Well, yeah, suppose them hunting you is a drawback, but I was talking about your life kid, all that power isn’t meant for a human body. Yours isn’t gonna last more than another couple years.”
“Your ma may have been able to see them but you aren’t what she was kid. Nah, you’re something with value. Let’s make sure you get some of what you’re worth, yeah?”
Half of what he sold for would go to his siblings. Giran had shown him the contract and he’d met others that had received what they were owed for the sales the broker made for them. It was a little different of course, since Touya himself was the merchandise. He was collared and cuffed, dressed in a white linen gown and the sheer veil that covered his face and shoulders. He made a pretty picture with the white streak in his red hair, even if his gem-bright eyes were sunken and shadowed with exhaustion. He would be sold, at worst for food and parts, and Giran wanted him to look as rare and enticing as he claimed Touya was as he was brought out into the harsh lights of the stage.
“This, my fair audience, is a real treat, a rarity even among what we offer here. Our promised and most coveted lot, a Sleigh Beggy! We’ll open the bidding with one-hundred million yen.”
Touya snapped his gaze up from the stage floor to stare, wide-eyed, at Giran. Despite having discussed it previously, he hadn’t actually believed Giran when he told him what the opening rate for his bid would be. The money wasn’t for him - half of whatever he was worth would go to his brothers and sister and any amount at all was more than what he thought he would be able to offer them in his whole life. The doctor he had seen in the back of the auction house had only given him maybe three years to live; he could endure anything for that long if it gave his siblings something.
“Two-hundred million!”
“Two-hundred fifty!”
“Three-hundred twenty five!”
The numbers were not small, but Touya let his eyes return to the floor. If he hadn’t been so tired, so ready for everything to be over, he might have laughed again. Touya had never been worth anything before, always too much trouble to justify his existence, even if his siblings liked to disagree. Hell, his own father hadn’t looked at him since Mother left. Even so the numbers climbed, by halves and then quarters, but still they climbed.
“I have four-hundred twenty-five million yen, going once, going twi- Sir! You can’t come up here!”
Looking up as a shadow passed over him, Touya took a quiet but sharp breath. There was a man looking down at him.
He wasn’t especially tall, but something about him felt off. It seemed like the shadow he cast was meant for something far larger than his frame. He was well dressed, a suit and vest with a wine red tie, glittering gems on his fingers and even set into the knot of his tie. There was a scar over his lip, another over one eye, and shadows seemed to creep along his neck and face where they shouldn’t. He stood there, looking at Touya, the red of his eyes glowing, honestly glowing, his uncanny shadow driving away the little things in the peripheries that had been sneaky enough to follow Touya.
“Yes,” the man said, voice a rasp yet still echoing through the auction hall. “You will be perfect. Eight-hundred million.”
Eyes going wide at the sudden number jump, Touya was barely able to pay attention to the whispered outrage of the crowd or the fumbling confusion of the auctioneer. He didn’t know what about him could possibly be worth that much or what he was perfect for, but he couldn’t bring himself to ask even as he opened and closed his mouth while words refused to come.
The man just tilted his head, not smirking or smiling in spite of how satisfied his voice had sounded. He was eerily blank, as uncanny as his shadow. “I see Giran went ahead and dressed you up like a bride.”
“What?” Touya finally managed to ask, voice barely a whisper, drowned out by the auctioneer next to him.
“Sold! For eight-hundred million the Sleigh Beggy will go to Tomura Shigaraki the Dust Mage!”