Work Text:
He wasn’t supposed to look like this.
Hotarumaru clenched his hand. He unclenched his hand, spread it out, as wide as his fingers were willing to stretch.
Ah, how small it was.
He looked at himself in the full length mirror in front of him. Closed his eyes and opened it again.
He was still small.
In his frustration, he frowned. He was an Oodachi. A respectable Oodachi with his own legend and story. He was supposed to be large and imposing and a thing of beauty.
He was not supposed to be a little boy. Not one with large green eyes, round cheeks and soft skin. Not when the other Oodachis struggled to not hit their heads on the top of doors. Not when they looked beautiful and imposing and adult.
He was supposed to look like them.
Yet here he was, small. Shorter than most of the Tantous, even. The manifestation of his sword body weight down on his body, much larger, much heavier than his human body was.
And then he thought of fire and war. Of men clothed in foreign uniforms and tired, lifeless eyes speakings words he didn’t understand. He thought of how he could only watch as they took his steel body and how he couldn’t scream when he burned.
He thought of how the fireflies couldn't save him - didn’t save him - not this time, because it was his turn to glow brightly and disappear into the night.
He closed his eyes again and rotated exactly once. When he open his eyes to see his reflection in the mirror, he found that his figure remained unchanged.
He sighed deeply.
He clenched his fist and unclenched it again, stretching it out to as far as he could to feel the muscles of his fingers.
At least, he thought, he was here.