Work Text:
I
They slip in faster than shadows, leaving barely a footprint on the scuffed dojo floorboards. Nobody has used this place for a while, and they’re hardly likely to ever use it again. At least, not after they discover the putrefying bodies heaped in a corner. The crow men hover with all the delicacy of scavenger birds, pecking and prodding, searching for loot. Four children stand in a ghostly line a few steps away. Their clothes are soaked in the tell-tale blood-spray of close range kills, their faces impassive.
The crows’ leader, his plumage sleeker and darker than the others, ignores all of them. There are richer pickings here that they cannot smell. He hovers over the floorboards, tapping each with the bottom of his staff. Hollow-hollow-hollow…here. He reaches down, and with barely an effort rips away the board, revealing a small, huddled mass of dark blue hair and rigid limbs.
“Found you,” he says.
The bundle uncurls a little, and a wide eye peers up at him. It’s the colour of dried blood. A small whimper escapes the girl, but she raises her trembling hands in futile self-defence. “S-S-Stop!” she squeaks, her defiance a performance for her only. At her cries the children come to life, flashes of curiosity running across their faces.
The leader says nothing.
He produces a donut from the folds of his cloak. The girl tightens, and stares at it.
“Come,” he says. She doesn’t move.
The man could very well kill her. She doesn’t need to see a blade to know that. But he is giving her a lifeline, and besides, her hunger is starting to get the better of her.
The girl sits up, blue hair matted with dirt and grime falling around her shoulders. She extends a tentative hand towards the still-proffered donut, and just as she is about to take it, she uncoils, snatching the donut away with such force the man can feel the vibrations down his arm. Behind his mask he smiles, flexes his fingers. There’s not a scratch on them.
“Good.” He stands up and makes for the entrance. The children trail after him, moving like phantoms.
“Come… Mukuro.”
The beginnings of a protest well up, “B-but my name is ─”
“Why would that name matter anymore? Your former life is gone. It is only fitting your former name should depart with it, Mukuro.”
Mukuro looks at the donut. But she wolfs the rest down, and follows him.
II
She has never been especially good at lying in wait. Her limbs tend to seize up, and when she needs to move she can’t, all she’ll do is flop out into the open, struggling to stand like a newborn filly. But she is a member of the Naraku before she is Mukuro, and she obeys them above all else.
The target is not a large threat, but given the time, could grow into one. He is an up-and-coming member of the Hitotsubashi, a peacock of a man currying favour with the head of the clan and his son. If he is not eliminated, his influence could gather too many men for comfort to the Hitotsubashi clan, and as inferior those men would be, it never did well to ignore the strength of numbers.
She is meant to deliver the final blow, a responsibility she has earned ever since she was taken under the wing of the Naraku. It is a point of pride for her that she kill him as much as it is about fulfilling the mission. The other children assigned to the task are no newcomers, but they regard her warily.
The marketplace on a rest day throngs with people of all kinds, the colours of their clothes loud and intrusive. She pinches the bridge of her nose and suppresses a sigh. Where is the target? He shouldn’t be difficult to spot; the man’s a peacock in appearance and personality from what she has been told. In the shadows behind her she can sense the Naraku man hovering, the coordinator of this attack, his presence dark and stained.
There.
The target is running, limping really, and she realises the others haven’t managed to soften him up according to plan. Her prey is swinging his head back and forth, checking for pursuers. Foolish. The Naraku man throws her one glance.
“Mukuro.”
She knows what that means, and the last thing the target sees is a flash of blue, and the glint of cold sunlight against steel.
III
“Child, what is your name?”
The samurai traitor should by all rights be weeping, begging for his life, grovelling at her feet on the concrete cell floor, but he sits, cross-legged and unnervingly polite.
She should not be answering to a labelled traitor. Yet this man strikes her as more than a common traitor.
“Tell me your name first,” she demands.
She doesn’t have to see his smile; gentle amusement radiates off him in spades.
“You may call me Shouyo.”
“I am Mukuro.”
“Mukuro… and what might a child like you be doing in such a place?”
“I am your guard.”
“They left a child to guard me?” He lets slip a soft chuckle, at which she bristles.
“I’m not weak like other children,” Mukuro informs him in a tone that suggests it is a fact as much as the sun rising in the east.
“I did not say you were. The truth of the matter is, we – human beings – are born weak. As infants, we depend on the benevolence of others just to survive. And we have little choice in the matter of who our benefactors are: the mother who gave birth to you, or the strangers who took you in, and trained you to be who you are now. Their weaknesses grow in us, and our own weaknesses grow from theirs.”
Mukuro wants to snap something back at him, another adult underestimating her strength, and finds she cannot fault his reasoning.
“But,” Shouyo says, raising a finger, “As we grow up and meet other people, we learn from their weaknesses. We learn to see our own, and how they make us suffer. And in the end, we can make a choice – to resist our weaknesses, or to succumb meekly to them. I for one believe that the suffering we endure in resisting is better than the suffering imposed by yielding to our weaknesses time and time again. Ultimately, we are rewarded by change, of the better kind.”
Shouyo folds his hands over his lap and gazes at her. “What we are born with we cannot choose, but it is how we mould that we are given which makes us strong.”
“You are the child of a crow, Mukuro. Have you taken flight yet and ridden the wind, both the pillars of warm air and the howling gales? What do you know beyond corpses and death?”
“I – I’m not weak,” she mumbles, but the certainty has left her voice.
“I never said you were,” he repeats. “You are more than unbending loyalty to the Naraku, and more than another one of their child soldiers.” She stiffens again, child soldier, as if she were some sort of tin toy to be kicked about!
“Mukuro,” Shouyo says, so softly she struggles to hear him.
“What?” she snaps.
“I’m glad we had this talk, Mukuro.” Shouyo does not speak for the rest of the night, and Mukuro remembers her name in his voice, kind and soft, but heavy with the promise of change.
IV
Mukuro tugs at the white uniform, which she swears has been ironed stiffer than a corpse. She can’t argue that it looks professional (perhaps too professional), but if it constrains her movements when fighting she’ll pit its resilience against the cold, hard steel of her blade.
Sasaki looks up as she enters the office. As expected of an elite, it is spotless. She wrinkles her nose at the clinical feel of the room, then catches herself. Ever since she had joined Sasaki, her face moves without her knowing whenever she’s in his presence, sometimes a quirk of her lips, a frown, these tell-tale signs she was trained to never show.
His monocle catches the light, his other eye as flat as ever. But today there is the faintest hint of warmth there as he addresses her. “You’ve done well working for me all this time. Starting tomorrow, you will be the Mimawarigumi Vice-Captain.”
Almost as a postscript, he adds, “And please call yourself Imai Nobume.”
Oh? He has never referred to her as anything other than Mukuro all these years, and now he plucks this name out of thin air for her? Why this name in particular? It sounds deliberate, and somehow it sounds old too, as if he has been keeping it for years and years.
Sasaki fills in her silence with an explanation only an elite could provide. “A member of the police cannot refer to herself by such an unruly name, wouldn’t you say?”
“Why use such a strange name?” she retorts. “As long as it’s easy to use, any name should be fine… Or is there some meaning to it?”
This time he diverts his gaze to a spot above her head. “Not really. It’s only a name I made up just now.”
His head is tilted at such an angle that she can’t see his eyes, so she nods curtly, and turns on her heel.
V
“Nobume, what are you doing out here? Why didn’t you reply to any of my e-mails?”
She blinks. The rain is falling in curtains around her, her hair a curtain of its own shielding her face from view. She hadn’t even noticed the downpour or the growing puddles beneath her feet. Behind her, Sasaki Isaburo is… Sasaki Isaburo is drenched, like a waterlogged cat. His normally impeccable hair is in disarray, strands sticking out every which way, and his white, white uniform (of which he is so proud) is speckled with mud and water stains. Even more amazingly, he is breathing heavily, as if he’d just run all the way from Mimawarigumi headquarters to this place on the outskirts of the city.
This patch of ground is as unremarkable as the rest, but she can still see the flames, and the children screaming for their master.
The rain above her stops. She raises her head, only to see a ridiculously wide, white umbrella with gold trim. It’s exactly the sort of extravagant expense Sasaki delights in. He looks down his long nose at her, disapproval etched on his features.
“You do know you aren’t meant to be out here?” Here, this piece of history. “It’s strictly off limits; I thought you’d know better. We’re elites. Even if you were here for the history, it’s not worth our time.”
Sasaki prattles on about the Tides of History and the Winners who come out of it, but his voice fades to an indistinct buzz as she looks out, the rain parting to reveal a gentle smile. Then it closes in again on empty space, pattering onto empty ground.
Sasaki huffs at her silence. “We’re going back, Nobume.”
Nobume turns around with Sasaki, and they leave the ghosts behind.
VI
Sakura viewing is a refined art, or so Sasaki says. He doesn’t look refined, covered in falling cherry blossom petals as the two of them walk through the park searching for an empty spot away from the commoners.
“No, no, no.” Sasaki is keeping up an impressive litany of no’s, the slope isn’t right, there’s not enough light there, that family is far too loud, they have a toddler, no, two toddlers –
Nobume wishes desperately they hadn’t left the rest of the Mimawarigumi behind. If there is anywhere they exceed her, it’s in their ability to negotiate with Sasaki without resorting to swords.
“My goodness, don’t look over there Nobume, that young couple is behaving highly inappropriately in public…”
She looks up instead, at the arch of branches laden with pink and scattered green, sunlight falling through them, splashing into dappled shadows on the ground. The air is warm, and she would be uncomfortably hot in her uniform if not for the slight breeze that sends the petals swirling about her feet.
They keep walking, the trees thinning out and more earth showing than trodden pink petals. Sasaki has brushed most of them off himself by now, and Nobume’s patience is about to snap when he gives a delighted cry and strides over to none other than a food vendor. Out here, away from the crowds? It’s far from being the only one sharing the meagre pickings of the less-than-ideal location, but for Sasaki to so be so glib about it puts her nerves on edge.
Nobume hurries behind her captain, half-anticipating an ambush. When she catches up she hears his voice, strangely emotional, “How is it that you’re the only donut vendor in this park? Why are you located here, of all places?”
“Sorry sir, honestly, I just wasn’t quick enough with getting a place up there; it’s my first time doing this… Begging your pardon sir, I’m truly terribly sorry…”
“Oh, never mind your excuses. Just give me a box of a dozen.”
The hassled man (who, Nobume notes with detached fascination, is sporting a pair of sunglasses) scoops up a dozen donuts and places them all in a cardboard carrier before virtually thrusting it at Sasaki. Payment given, Sasaki turns to Nobume.
He is about to suggest they turn around to begin the long walk back, but he looks over her shoulder and sees exactly what he’d been searching for all morning.
“Come on, Nobume,” Sasaki says, rushing past her and up a gentle grassy slope to the top where a vacant wooden bench is perched. Nobume, somewhat numbly, glides after him. She hardly registers Sasaki putting the box of donuts between them. From their vantage point they can see the entire line of cherry blossom trees stretching to the end of the park, all of them flowering vividly, dusting the sky with drifting petals.
“Ah, now, this is art,” Sasaki sighs, allowing himself to slide a little into the curve of the bench. “Better enjoy it before it all goes to hell, right?”
And on that morbid thought, he opens the box of donuts and hands one to her. Nobume, who has not yet recovered from the shock of Sasaki doing something as un-elite as walking to the other side of the park for donuts, blinks.
“Hm? Nobume? What’s wrong?”
She is not particularly sure what the fuzzy feeling in her throat is, nor does she want to find out. Her answer is to bite down on the donut, hand and all, restoring some normalcy to the afternoon.
“Nobume.” Sasaki sighs a well-practiced sigh, and if his attempts to shake her loose lack some of their usual vigour, she does not say anything.
VII
He descends from the heavens, every bit the god he thinks himself. It has been too long since she has sheltered under his wings and been his talons, cutting down whomever he desired. His voice carries the same soft-sharp tone from her youth.
“Mukuro,” the crow man says.
She remembers the child of that name, a dark-haired ghost killing with no remorse, her dead red eyes set only forward and never behind. She remembers the wail of an infant cut short, and too much blood for such a tiny body. She remembers: “Your former life is gone. It is only fitting your former name should depart with it.”
“My name,” she says, “is Nobume.”