Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Dusk is settling when Kyojuro readies himself to leave.

His little brother is waiting for him at the door. His anxiousness is prevalent in the way he rocks back and forth on the balls of his feet, the way his fingers tap restlessly against his side, the faint furrow between his brow as he looks up at Kyojuro.

“Be careful, Aniue,” he says as he hands Kyojuro his sword.

Kyojuro smiles at him. “I will be!” he reassures. Like usual, he squeezes Senjuro in a tight hug. Like usual, he says, “Please watch Father for me.”

Senjuro nods, offering him a timid smile, before Kyojuro steps out of the door.

Dusk is typically too early for a siren to strike, but the full moon bodes favorably for their powers, especially with the clear skies. They will be able to shift and walk on land, meaning that anyone in the town may be susceptible to their song, and not just those who stray too close to the water. But Kyojuro has long learned to differentiate a siren from a human. From their mannerisms—the faint wrongness that is but an imitation of humanity, the unnatural brightness of their eyes, the sharp teeth. The otherworldly beauty and their enchantments. And as a siren hunter, he knows best how to guard himself against the lure of their song.

Wariness seeps through the town like fog, an undercurrent of unease that hangs heavy and thick in the air. Everyone is on their guard during the full moon. As Kyojuro walks down the streets to draw nearer to the glittering expanse of the ocean, he sees the last of the vendors closing their stalls, hurrying inside their homes and barricading the doors. A few smile and acknowledge him, but all are too afraid to stop for long and talk.

The docks are also abandoned at this time of night. The moon casts a silvery glow onto the deceptively calm surface of the water, but Kyojuro knows firsthand what dangers lurk underneath the glass.

As the final remnants of daylight give way to the moon, a wind begins to pick up. Kyojuro rests his hand on the hilt of his sword and waits.

The high tide is beginning to roll in when the first of the creatures emerge from the water. Kyojuro watches as a long, shimmering tail slowly shifts into human legs. Then, with elegance unbecoming of a monster, it rises and begins to move towards the town. There is something wrong with a siren’s grace; too pristine, too perfect.

Kyojuro waits before it’s far enough from the sea before attacking, knowing that it may very well try to escape if it senses a fight it can’t win.

He disposes of this one rather quickly. It first speaks to Kyojuro with an enchantment, and when that doesn’t work, slashes at him with claws. Kyojuro twists aside and sinks his blade into the left side of its chest.

He leaves the body, knowing that the siren will return to seafoam in minutes.

Another hour passes before the second siren emerges. This one puts up a stronger fight; it rakes Kyojuro down his sword arm before Kyojuro stabs it through the heart. He’s in the middle of bandaging his wounds when he spots the third one. Wincing a bit at the blood dripping down to his fingertips and making his grasp sticky, Kyojuro moves towards it.

As the tide begins to retreat again, the ocean quiets down as well. Kyojuro keeps a watchful eye on the waters, but no more monsters emerge from its depths. Dawn is almost kissing the horizon when something catches his eye in the waves.

Kyojuro frowns. Sirens can’t shift without the full moon, and the full moon is but mere minutes away from being swallowed by the sun. This one is running on stolen time, which means it is either overconfident or stupid.

Dark blue scales shift into legs. Then, to Kyojuro’s surprise, the siren turns and looks directly at him.

Confused, Kyojuro blinks at it and wonders if it’s a coincidence. Most of them don’t sense his presence from so far off. But this one stares at him with bright golden eyes, clearly aware of Kyojuro.

He braces himself for the following enchantment, but the siren doesn’t sing at him. Instead, it tilts its head, the action oddly inquisitive. Almost like an invitation.

Well, Kyojuro thinks. Strange as this one is, if it won’t retreat to the ocean or go up to the town, then he might as well kill it like this.

Hopping down from the rock he had been perched on, Kyojuro makes his way across the sand. All sirens are creatures of ethereal lethality; beauty made for temptation, and temptation made for easier prey. This one is no different. Dark pink hair, golden eyes, dark lines of symmetrical navy blue inking over the rest of its body, like strips of the midnight sky have seeped into its skin. Unlike the rest of its kind, though, it is dressed in a simple pair of white pants held up by a rope.

As Kyojuro draws near, the siren smiles at him. Pearl-white teeth and sharpened fangs appear. “So they were right,” it muses. Kyojuro tenses, but the words are just words—no enchantments pervade it, even if the siren’s voice is silk-smooth and honey-sweet. “I heard tales of a hunter near these shores, but I thought your kind all but died out.”

Kyojuro raises his eyebrows. “You heard of a siren hunter and you still came here! Why is that?”

Instead of answering his question, the siren takes a step forward. Kyojuro touches his hand to the hilt of his sword. “I’m Akaza. What is your name?”

The line where sky meets sea is brightening, yet Akaza seems to have no regard for his own shortage of time. Never mind the fact that no siren Kyojuro has ever slain has attempted to do introductions with him before he killed it.

“Rengoku Kyojuro!” he offers out of pitying courtesy, wondering if perhaps sirens also fell victim to insanity.

“Kyojuro,” the siren purrs, and Kyojuro frowns at the familiarity that is infused into his name from the lips of a monster. “Well, are you going to just stand there and not put that blade to good use?”

Never has Kyojuro ever met a siren so eager to get stabbed either. Now he is quite certain Akaza is insane.

“Very well!” he replies.

He goes for the heart, not entirely surprised when Akaza parries his sword away with his claws.

What is surprising, however, is that Akaza is an incredibly proficient fighter. Most sirens move with grace in their human form, elegant and smooth like the calm flow of water. But Akaza is the ocean under a tempest; he hits harsh and punishing, with sharp bursts of power and speed. Truly a strange siren.

The sun is almost up, yet Akaza does not seem to care about his impending countdown. He grins when Kyojuro’s sword draws blood from him and the wounds heal.

“No one has ever put up such a good fight,” Akaza laughs. “They all die so easily.”

Kyojuro does not answer, but he frowns. Sirens don’t go for a fight. They tempt, they trick, and they kill. Although it seems like Akaza still does the last one. Every siren that has ever realized it cannot win against Kyojuro has always fled.

The first hints of daylight are spilling over the horizon when Kyojuro sees the opening and plunges his sword clean into the left side of Akaza’s chest.

No horror, no fear, no pain crosses Akaza’s expression. He doesn’t even pull away. Rather, he closes the distance and slashes his claws at Kyojuro again, pulling the blade deeper into his body.

It is only narrowly that Kyojuro evades having his eye clawed out. He feels the sting graze over his cheeks as he steps back, a wet noise produced as he yanks his sword out of Akaza’s chest.

Then, to his shock, the wound closes on itself like the rest of Akaza’s injuries.

The moon is gone. The sun has risen. He had stabbed Akaza through the heart.

Yet the siren remains in his human form, and he seems no more affected by having his heart pierced than he had been by his arm being nicked.

The confusion on Kyojuro’s face must have been evident to Akaza as well, because the corners of his lips lift into a sharp grin. “What were you expecting, Kyojuro?”

A few swings later, Kyojuro finds another opening to stab his sword into the same place, even though he has a creeping suspicion that Akaza had left himself unguarded on purpose. Flesh tears, bones crack, but even as blood pours out to stain his blade, the wound closes without problem as soon as Kyojuro draws it back.

It shouldn’t be possible. All sirens die when their hearts are pierced.

“Are you aiming for my heart, Kyojuro?” Akaza asks, his tone goading.

“Yes!” Kyojuro replies, and promptly attempts to stab Akaza on the other side of the chest in case it makes a difference. It does not.

He narrows his eyes, pinpoints his focus. He can hear the sound of the waves as they crash onto the beach; taste the salty tang of the ocean; the metallic scent of his blood and Akaza’s. He draws a sharp inhale, pushes out a slow exhale. His heartbeat thuds in his ears, fast but steady.

Just his own. No other. He cannot sense a pulse from Akaza.

Kyojuro frowns. “You do not have a heart,” he realizes. “How is that possible!”

Akaza answers by trying to blind him again.

In the end, it is a stalemate. Kyojuro is not able to kill Akaza, but even Akaza’s unexplainable ability to maintain his human form without the full moon has its limits, because he returns to the water with one powerful movement from his midnight-blue tail. Salt water splashes onto Kyojuro’s face. He winces as it drips into his injuries and makes them sing with rekindled pain.

He must kill Akaza. A siren, no matter how strange, is a siren, and that means Akaza will take lives. But he knows how fast sirens can swim in the water, and Kyojuro is no match against Akaza there. Besides, he isn’t sure how he is to kill Akaza if he doesn’t have a heart to pierce in the first place. So, torn between confused and frustrated, he watches as Akaza draws away from the shore.

Kyojuro is well-acquainted with a siren’s beauty. They are otherworldly under the watch of the moon.

But this is the first time he’s seen a siren under the first rays of morning sun. Under silk spun of gold rather than silver, his beauty is a little less monstrous. The realization strikes wariness deep into Kyojuro’s chest.

Akaza smiles at him, sharp, pearl-white, ocean-deep. “I will see you again, Kyojuro,” he says.

There is no enchantment in his voice, but Kyojuro guards his heart all the same. Because all sirens are designed to sway the human heart, and even he is not immune.

“I will kill you next time!” he reminds Akaza, who only grins wider at the declaration.

He watches as Akaza disappears into the waters.

***

Kyojuro arrives home with exhaustion sinking deep into his bones. He wants nothing to collapse onto his bed and sleep.

But his wounds need dressing, and there also lies the problem of Akaza.

The house is quiet when he returns. He washes his cuts, binds them, and decides that he will look through his family’s archives in hopes of finding some sort of information on why Akaza does not have a heart, and how he is supposed to kill a siren without one.

None of the books or manuscripts offer an answer. Kyojuro reads until movement arises in the kitchen and he hears the sounds of Senjuro preparing breakfast. A while later, his father’s short words sound, and Kyojuro realizes he will probably have to ask his father.

“Good morning!” Kyojuro greets when he joins them.

Senjuro jumps a bit. “Aniue! I didn’t know you were already home!”

“I was looking for something in the archives!” Kyojuro replies. Then he turns to their father. “Father, I have a question!”

The corner of Shinjuro’s lips twist with a touch of irritation, but he says, “Ask.”

“Have you encountered a siren without a heart, Father?”

His father stops eating for a short moment, his eyebrows furrowing. “Without a heart?” he echoes. “What nonsense are you going on about, Kyojuro?”

“I fought a siren this morning, and he did not have a heart! I stabbed him three times and he was unaffected. When I listened for his heartbeat, I found that he had none.”

Shinjuro looks at him for a few seconds more as if Kyojuro has gone insane.

“I could not kill him,” Kyojuro finds it necessary to add. “He left.” He does not also say how Akaza seemed to intend to return.

Then Shinjuro barks out an incredulous laugh. His voice is low and hollow when he speaks. “Haven’t I told you, Kyojuro? One day, this will be the death of you. Do not go back.”

Kyojuro smiles at him. Sometimes it is easier to guard his heart against a siren’s song than it is to temper it against his father’s harsh words. “I must protect the town, Father,” he replies. “But I will not fail!”

Shinjuro looks at him. Back when Kyojuro was younger, he used to look for a glimpse of something—anything—behind his father’s eyes that wasn’t rage, that wasn’t grief.

Nowadays, there isn’t even either of those. He just looks empty.

“Do as you will, Kyojuro,” his father says. “I have no part in it.”

Seawater in open wounds. That’s all it is, a little sting. Kyojuro is used to it.

***

After breakfast, Kyojuro helps Senjuro wash the dishes. Then he heads to the town archives to search for more information about heartless sirens.

With the heralding of the sun, the town also comes to life, a stark contrast to how empty it had been last night. Kyojuro greets those he passes, but he doesn’t stop to talk.

He spends the better part of the day gathering and reading books and scrolls and every scrap of information he can find in the archives about sirens, but the fables are all the same, and there is nothing that Kyojuro hasn’t learned.

Monsters. Pitiful creatures. Drowned at sea. Explanations for a siren’s tendency to lure humans are countless, none of which are confirmed. Some say that they draw their power from the people they drag out to sea, others claim that they enchant humans in hopes of reuniting with the loved ones they were separated from. It doesn’t change the fact that a siren can only be killed by being pierced through the heart, or that they are only capable of shifting into a human form in the light of the full moon. The two pieces of information that retains a consensus around all texts happen to be the very two things Akaza has defied.

Kyojuro returns home in the afternoon, thoroughly spent. He falls asleep not long after.

***

Patrolling is a much simpler task as long as the moon is not full.

The town heeds to warnings well enough that it really isn’t necessary for Kyojuro to guard the waters every night, but siren-hunting has become enough of a habit that Kyojuro feels restless if he does nothing. So usually, he makes his rounds across the shoreline, if not just to ease his mind and expel the tense coil of energy that winds itself low in his stomach. But sirens come in significantly lesser numbers on these nights, so there is typically very little, if any, killing involved.

However, tonight is different. If Akaza had been able to retain a human form even after the sun rose, then there is no saying if he won’t do it again. I will see you again, Kyojuro, he said, somewhere between a threat and a promise, which means he may pose a danger to the town.

Changing his bandages around the scratches he received last night, Kyojuro straps his sword to his belt and heads out again.

Heavy, charcoal-gray clouds hand in the sky, blotting out the moon. The pleasant breeze from the afternoon has turned more willful, which in turn stirs up the ocean into a picture of crescendoing wrath. Waves crash onto shore with no little force before curling back into the ocean, replaced by another immediately. It’s only a matter of time before it’ll start raining, or storming.

Sure enough, as Kyojuro is a third through his patrol down the shoreline when the first droplets of rain come splattering down. In very little time the sky starts pouring in earnest, very effectively drenching all of Kyojuro’s clothing and making his hair stick to his face. Fog creeps steadily over the ocean as visibility drops.

Still, there doesn’t seem to be any sirens. Which is reasonable, Kyojuro supposes, because with the weather like this, no humans would venture out, which would mean no victims to lure.

He’s just about looped back to his starting point when he senses another presence.

The rain muddles hearing and sight, but the glowing gold eyes not far from the shore is unmistakable even in the storm. Like miniature suns in the night, yet with nothing but the coldness of the moon.

Kyojuro recognizes Akaza immediately.

A wave crests over Akaza’s head, and when it clears, he’s gone. Kyojuro tenses, hand going to hover over his hilt.

Sure enough, when Akaza surfaces again, he’s almost at the tide line—perhaps a dozen sword lengths from Kyojuro. The storm seems to have no effect on him, because he looks just like he did the last time Kyojuro saw him. Otherworldly. Beautiful. Dangerous. If anything, the storm only accentuates his features.

Akaza bares his teeth into a smile. “You came, Kyojuro,” he says, that silk-and-honey tone. “I knew you wouldn’t be a disappointment.”

No enchantment laces his words, but it could be a guise to get Kyojuro to lower his guard. He’s better trained than that.

“I am unsure what you mean to achieve by returning!” Kyojuro responds, his voice nearly drowned out by the worsening storm.

There is a splash from Akaza’s tail as he pulls even closer to the shore, toying the line between land and sea. “I came to see you, Kyojuro.”

Kyojuro decides to tell him outright. “You are insane! Why would you want that!”

“You’re special, Kyojuro,” Akaza replies. “I can tell.”

Kyojuro has no idea what he is going on about. He isn’t the siren who can shift without the full moon and lacks a heart.

“I am here to kill you,” he clarifies, just in case it somehow wasn’t clear or Akaza had trouble understanding the first five times he said it (and also after the three times Kyojuro tried stabbing him through the heart).

“All the better,” Akaza replies. He laughs. “You wouldn’t be the first to try.”

Enough idle chatter. Kyojuro draws his sword. Akaza is close enough in the shallows that the water won’t impede Kyojuro’s movements too much. Besides, he’s already soaked from the rain.

Although the waves only lap at him knee-deep, fighting in water is still a hassle. Akaza doesn’t shift into human form this time, but this turns out to be an advantage rather than a handicap. He sweeps his tail at Kyojuro with crushing, inhuman strength. And unlike most sirens who protect their weak spot obsessively, Akaza has no such concerns.

The fight drags on, useless in its entirety because Kyojuro cannot kill Akaza no matter how hard he tries.

In the end, Akaza’s advantages accumulate and tide over. Kyojuro is knocked down into the water, winded from the blow to his chest and sword lost in the struggle. A wave crashes over him, making him swallow a mouthful of seawater. Before Kyojuro can try to retrieve his sword, he’s shoved down by clawed fingers as Akaza pins him to the sand with unnatural strength.

For a moment, Kyojuro’s head is back underwater and he can’t breathe. Then the sea draws away and Kyojuro sputters for breath, all the while trying to throw Akaza off him.

The siren does not relent. He looks down at Kyojuro with molten gold eyes, alluring in its uncanniness, and smiles languidly. He is every bit the predator that Kyojuro has dedicated his life to eradicating, and he braces himself to fight back against whatever Akaza will decide to do: be it drag him into the sea or tear at his neck with those sharp canines.

But Akaza does not do either. Instead, he leans in close.

“You can’t kill me like this, Kyojuro,” he purrs. “Stab me through the chest a thousand times more, and I still won’t grow a heart for you to pierce.”

Kyojuro grits his teeth. “Why do you not have a heart?” he asks.

Akaza’s smile only widens. “Without a heart, I won’t die,” he replies, as if it is as easy as that. “Surely you’ve noticed by now too?”

“How do you not have a heart, then?”

This question is not answered like the last. Akaza releases his vice-grip on Kyojuro, in time for him to sit up before another wave crashes over his head. Kyojuro’s body tenses as the siren’s clawed fingers trail lower, until they rest over the left side of his chest.

Kyojuro’s own heartbeat is loud in his ears. His sword is out of arms’ reach, and Akaza is a wildcard he has grappled with but has failed to grasp onto.

Up close, he can see that the sclera of Akaza’s eyes are light blue, marked by cracks. Everything about him feels as breathtaking as it would be to drown.

“A heart is a siren’s greatest weakness,” Akaza says softly. “Yours too, Kyojuro, I can feel how fast your pulse is.” He exhales; a hoax of an action, because sirens do not breathe like humans do. “Traitorous thing, don’t you think?”

Every muscle in Kyojuro’s body is coiled tight in anticipation. Akaza is too close, and he is certain that if he makes one wrong move, the siren will strike. Tear his throat out. Drag him out to sea.

“Well, Kyojuro?” he presses.

There is no enchantment, not truly, but there is something dangerous about the way he says Kyojuro’s name, and it snaps action back into Kyojuro. In a swift movement, he draws the dagger strapped to his thigh and plunges it into Akaza’s chest.

Akaza’s eyes only light up in mirth. He finally draws away from Kyojuro, discarding the dagger as if it were nothing at all. Blood drips down from the wound before it closes, leaving behind unblemished skin.

“How many times before you accept that it won’t work?”

“As many times as it takes to kill you!” Kyojuro replies sharply. His mind is still buzzing from Akaza’s previous proximity. His heart is quick in his chest. Traitorous, like Akaza said. Because a siren is made to sway a human’s heart, and Kyojuro has been trained not to listen to his.

“I look forward to it, Kyojuro,” Akaza responds. “You are special, after all.”

With that, he turns tail and disappears. The raging sea swallows him up seconds later, leaving Kyojuro alone, sitting halfway between shore and water.

Another wave crashes over him. The saltwater makes his eyes sting. He can still feel Akaza’s hand pressed over the top of his heart and hear the syrupy lilt of his voice, saying Kyojuro’s name as if it belongs to him.

Kyojuro takes a deep breath, suddenly acutely aware of how uncomfortable he feels with his wet clothing. He is also rather cold.

Still, Kyojuro does not allow himself to move until he feels his pulse slow down to steady once more. He breathes in deeply, breathes out slowly, just like how his father had taught him to do back when he was young. Finally, he goes to retrieve his sword.

Before Kyojuro heads home, he looks back at the sea one more time. Akaza is somewhere out there.

If he can’t kill the siren, then his only guarantee in making sure Akaza won’t harm others is to subdue him. Capture him. Just until Kyojuro figures out how to kill him.

It’s a start to finding a solution. Resolved, Kyojuro turns his back to the sea and begins the long trek home.

In the distance, the storm eases slightly.

Chapter Text

The first thing his father teaches him about hunting sirens is not to listen to his own heart.

“That doesn’t make sense, Father!” Kyojuro says, five years old and absolutely mystified on how you can even listen to your heart in the first place.

“A siren’s enchantment aims to sway your heart,” his father replies. “Your wants. Your desires. Your grief, your anger, your longing. If you do not listen to your heart, then they cannot lure you. What do you want most, Kyojuro?”

Kyojuro cannot think of anything but he is hungry, so he says, “Dinner!”

His father laughs. “Well, your mother will have that prepared when we’re back tonight.”

Slowly, Kyojuro learns as the years pass. The first few times his father takes him out to hunt, he fights furiously against the temptation of the siren song. Kyojuro can never quite remember exactly what it had promised him—just that it had, and he had wanted to follow it above all else.

But gradually, it becomes second nature. A siren sings at him, and he ignores the enchantment wrapping its fingers around his heart, tugging at his deepest desires, and plunges his sword into the siren’s chest without hesitation.

When he is twelve years old, his mother passes away.

For a little while, his father continues siren hunting with Kyojuro, but Kyojuro can tell that even though he tries, it drains him more and more. He sleeps little and eats less. His temper is always on a short fuse, ready to blow at any given moment.

Six months after his mother’s death, his father is lured by a siren.

Kyojuro had seen the way he lowered his sword as the siren sang to him. The way the grief and fury that so often twists his expression these days had slackened into a mesmerized countenance. The furrow between his brow slackens.

“Ruka,” he hears his father breathe. He sounds hopeful, he sounds happy for the first time in so long but it isn’t real.

The siren smiles. Kyojuro doesn’t know what his father is seeing under the spell. In his eyes, the siren does not resemble his mother in the slightest. This is a monster through and through. It reaches for his father with long, clawed fingers, and his father leans forward as if to welcome its grasp.

Kyojuro stabs it clean through the chest before it can touch Shinjuro.

But as the enchantment breaks, so does his father. It seems as if the spark has finally reached the end of the string, because Shinjuro turns on Kyojuro with a snarl.

“What did you do that for?” he shouts, voice breaking. “God fucking dammit, I had her—!”

“It wasn’t real, Father!” Kyojuro tries to reassure. “It was just a siren.”

But the hatred and the fury behind his father’s eyes is very much real, and Kyojuro’s heart twists and clenches, traitorous down to every single fiber in its hurt. “You should have let it take me,” he rasps, collapsing to his knees next to what is nothing more than seafoam. “Then at least I could have seen her again.”

Do not listen to your heart, Kyojuro, his father has always told him, and today Kyojuro has finally learned why.

So he steels his spine, clenches his teeth, and wills his heart to steady.

“Let’s go home, Father,” Kyojuro says.

His father never picks up his sword again.

***

It’s as if the tide is calling him back to Kyojuro.

The sea is much calmer tonight than it was the previous one, free of clouds and displaying the waning moon in the sky. But there’s a wind blowing eastward—towards the village Kyojuro guards. The waves crest and fall in the same direction.

Akaza grins to himself. If the tide calls, then who is he to ignore it?

He’d come across his fair share of siren hunters, but they had been more abundant decades ago. Akaza has also killed plenty of them. Many had been impressive, their power and strength and skill evident, but it had been the same result: they would be swayed by the enchantment, gradually slipping up when they realized that Akaza had no heart to pierce. Then, because underneath everything they were human and breakable, they would cave. A human heart was, after all, made to be tempted.

The strongest sirens spoke enchantment within every word, between every breath. It was less blatant, more discrete; dangerous, because the lack of obvious magic made siren hunters lower their guards, only to realize too late that they had fallen into the waves and there was no way back out.

But not Kyojuro. He had not faltered, not once. Even when Akaza had felt his racing pulse underneath his fingertips, Kyojuro had remained resolute. Not the least bit lured.

And his swordsmanship was truly beautiful. Sirens are creatures of night, drawn to the moon, but Kyojuro is every bit the sunrise. Gold and red and brilliant, even in the dead of night, and Akaza wants to feel the burn.

Akaza touches his fingers to his own chest. There is no beat underneath the skin like Kyojuro’s, but he can imagine the feeling of Kyojuro’s blade plunging deep into muscle and tissue.

Kyojuro would have won, if Akaza had a heart.

Perhaps, Akaza thinks to himself, amused, Kyojuro will find a way to kill him yet. All of the others had been too weak to follow it through, but Kyojuro is different. Special.

The idea is rather hilarious. He’s seen the way sirens turn to sea foam, stabbed through the heart. Their one weakness, the one that Akaza does not share. But he recalls the determined way Kyojuro had glared at him, stubborn and earnest in his declaration that he would kill Akaza.

Kyojuro would make a good siren. There is a certain magnetism that draws Akaza towards the human, and he can only imagine how that would be increased tenfold if Kyojuro were reborn as something greater. But sirens are only formed when the ocean takes pity on a select few who have drowned within her depths, so there is no reliable way of making Rengoku Kyojuro a siren also. Akaza isn’t about to drown him as a gamble.

He’s nearing the eastern shore when he senses Kyojuro again. Akaza swims closer. It seems that Kyojuro, too, is aware of his presence because he turns to face the sea, his hand resting against the hilt of his sword as he waits.

“Kyojuro,” Akaza greets when he is close enough to be heard.

Kyojuro does not move from his position, but his eyes track Akaza. “I had a feeling you would be back!” he says.

Akaza smiles up at him. “Why, you almost sound excited to see me!” He tilts his head. “Are you going to test your luck and stab me through the chest again today?”

“Are you offering!”

“Not so easily,” Akaza laughs. “Why don’t you come here and try?”

Kyojuro responds to the offer by slashing at Akaza with his sword, clearly not one for small talk today.

The ocean bleeds red as Akaza’s wounds open and close. The sword plunges into his chest again. Pointless. It will be the same result over and over. Because there is nothing beating within the hollow shell of his chest cavity. Nothing to lose.

Unlike the first few times, Kyojuro doesn’t make another attempt when Akaza’s flesh and skin knit itself back together. Instead, Kyojuro steps back, his boots splashing in the shallow water. His expression is guarded, unreadable; Akaza can tell that his figure is tense, sword arm ready to strike at any given moment.

“I will ask you again, Akaza,” he says, “why do you have no heart?”

“Don’t you think my name sounds lovelier when you say it?” Akaza replies. “You should say it more often, Kyojuro.”

“Stop deflecting!” Kyojuro says, sharper now, almost a command.

There is no crack in his walls, no room for an enchantment to seep through. Impressive.

“What do you want from me?” Kyojuro presses. “I fail to understand why you seek me out! Surely, even if you have no heart, you do not enjoy being repeatedly stabbed!”

Akaza tilts his head. “You’re strong, Kyojuro, don’t you know?”

“I fail to see how this has anything to do with my question.”

Akaza smiles indulgently, reveling in the way Kyojuro’s frame stiffens, wariness imprinting into his gaze. “Do you know what makes humans weak, Kyojuro?”

Kyojuro deigns not to respond.

“They are easily tempted,” Akaza answers for him, when it becomes clear that Kyojuro does not want to entertain this conversation. “Sing to them about a happy memory. Show them a desire. They give in so easily.” He leans closer. “Not you, Kyojuro. Your heart wants to betray you. But you don’t let it.”

Kyojuro is silent for a moment. When he speaks again, his voice is quiet but severe. “So you believe humans to be weak for giving into a siren’s lure?”

“Are they not?”

“No!” Kyojuro says. “It is not weakness to love, to want, or to grieve.” His eyes narrow. “I will clear some misconceptions you seem to carry, Akaza! Perhaps to sirens, they see their heart as their weakness. But a human’s heart is not.”

Akaza lets out a laugh. “So what is the reason you guard yours other than the fact that it would make you weak?”

“I am a siren hunter, Akaza,” Kyojuro says lowly. “My job is to protect humans against your kind, who prey on vulnerabilities and exploit loss and grief.” He pauses for a moment. “And it seems like your understanding of strength is incredibly flawed!”

Amused, Akaza shakes his head. Kyojuro’s swordsmanship is brilliant, and he is stronger than anyone Akaza has ever met, but he is still human, after all. He spins a complex web of sentimentality and excuses for human weakness, not knowing that for Akaza, it has always, and will always be, black and white—simple.

Kyojuro seems to have grown impatient with their conversation. Akaza sees his knuckles tighten around the hilt before he swings at Akaza again.

Akaza grins. If Kyojuro doesn’t want to talk, then he’s more than happy to fight.

***

The fourth time Kyojuro meets Akaza, he feels like it is the beginning of the formation of some kind of unwanted routine.

Which is rather troublesome, because he’d much rather not spend his nights patrolling the shoreside to ensure Akaza is kept in check. But given the siren’s unexplained ability to shift without the full moon, Kyojuro decides that precautions must be taken.

A mile from his house, he’s begun to fix up what his father tells him was once an old safehouse of siren hunters. Back then, they had been more abundant, part of an organization. Now, the Rengoku family is the only ones left in these parts.

Still, the space is secluded and empty enough to work. Kyojuro had begun to fortify it with iron—enough to handicap Akaza’s unnatural strength and hopefully contain him. Just until Kyojuro can figure out a way to kill him.

The iron net still needs weaving, the door needs a lock and key. He needs to ensure everything is secured and safe and Akaza has no chance of breaking free, lest he unleash a very unhappy and very powerful monster on the village.

Ten more days until the new moon, ten more days to foolproof what his father would probably call a foolhardy plan.

For now, Kyojuro traces his usual route down the coastline, on guard for sirens, even though he knows that the moon’s fading power probably means that he probably won’t get many visitors apart from Akaza.

Sure enough, Akaza shows up. Even a wildcard like Akaza has his patterns and habits and routine, it seems.

Although the sky is clear, the waves whip up a frenzy tonight. Kyojuro has walked past the sandy beaches and entered rougher territory, where the ocean crashes against shallow but rocky cliffs. Any human caught in the ocean during weather like this surely would be dashed to pieces against the stone.

But sirens thrive in the sea, be it when the waters are glass-calm or when a tempest is raging. Kyojuro feels Akaza’s presence before he actually sees him, though it’s only a few seconds later before a head full of pink hair breaks the surface of the ocean and gleaming yellow eyes crinkle into crescent moons as they spot Kyojuro.

“Kyojuro,” Akaza calls over the sound of the sea breaking on rocks. “How sweet of you to visit me every night!”

Kyojuro frowns. He isn’t particularly keen on having another conversation with Akaza, given the way Akaza had scoffed and trampled all over humanity during their last one.

But he has a job to do. A plan to execute.

Hopping down onto a dry rock that is just out of reach from the waves, Kyojuro says, “You are being delusional if you think I am here to visit you!”

There is an extra splash from Akaza’s tail as he swims closer. “You wound me, Kyojuro.”

“You are undeterred every time I have stabbed you through the chest,” Kyojuro replies, “so I don’t think being wounded particularly hurts you!”

Akaza laughs, his fangs flashing. “And will you try again today?”

“Will you shift into a human form?” Kyojuro asks. “You were able to do so without the moon. Are you still able to?”

A nonchalant shrug. The action is rather deceptively human, making Kyojuro feel a tinge of discomfort. “When I want to, yes.”

“Why?” Kyojuro presses. If Akaza can shift even during the new moon, perhaps it'll be better to lure him out of the water before subduing him. “A siren is typically only able to shift during the full moon.”

“I’m strong, Kyojuro,” Akaza replies. Kyojuro has begun to catch onto Akaza’s habit of making strength the answer for everything, even when it makes no sense. The next thing he knows, Akaza will tell him he’s eating strength for breakfast. “You have lots of questions today.”

“Yes!” Kyojuro says. “I am hoping to gauge enough information to kill you!”

Most sane individuals, sirens included, don’t react to a death threat with a smile as satisfied as Akaza’s, which once again reaffirms to Kyojuro that Akaza is indeed not sane. “How noble of you, Kyojuro,” he drawls. He swims even closer. If he reaches out he could probably grab Kyojuro, pull him off from the rock and into the treacherous waters.

“Why don’t you give it another try, Kyojuro?” he asks. There is an infuriating smirk hidden in his voice, pulling at the corners of Akaza’s lips even as he gives peers up at Kyojuro with a faux-serious expression. Long lashes sweep over his cheeks as he blinks. Another hoax of an action, because sirens don’t need to blink just like they don’t need to breathe. “I’ll even let you stab me without fighting today. So you can double check that I haven’t grown a heart.”

“You were just complaining about me wounding you!” Kyojuro replies, but Akaza is offering him a free chance so he does indeed stab Akaza in the chest. Just in case.

The water is dyed red for a moment before the blood dilutes and is carried away by the waves.

“You stopped looking disappointed, Kyojuro,” Akaza notes. He looks rather smug.

“Well,” Kyojuro says, withdrawing his sword, “it would be rather counterproductive! I will find another way in the meantime!”

Akaza tilts his head, his yellow eyes gleaming. Familiarity has washed away the initial uncanniness brought by a siren’s otherworldly perfection. His father had always told him that focusing on the inhuman was a good way to fight a siren’s lure: concentrate on the monstrous in order to not be tempted by the beautiful.

But that unease has ebbed, and the realization is an ugly thing. Kyojuro doesn’t feel tempted. But he is nowhere as wary as he should be. It’s easier when Akaza decides to fight him, and much harder when they’re holding a conversation, because it gives the illusion of humanity. Moreover, habitual conversation turns into companionship. He’d much rather not have that kind of relationship with Akaza, even if just an illusion of one.

Still, Kyojuro can’t fight here. The waves are turbulent and the water is deep; if Kyojuro steps off the rock, he’ll probably be dashed to pieces or Akaza will drag him into the open sea.

So Kyojuro endures this middle state a little longer, and tries his very best not to think that it even if the only things Akaza likes to converse about are strength, killing, and how he disdains humans (but not Kyojuro, apparently), he still feels a little less alone.

***

Day by day, Kyojuro returns to the safehouse to continue fortifying it. He has to run to the blacksmith for more iron. Slowly but steadily, he finishes weaving the net.

At night, he continues to patrol the coastside. He stumbles across other sirens occasionally, and Kyojuro finds it jarring how easily they die and turn back to sea foam. For better or worse, he’s become accustomed to the way Akaza’s body knits itself back together with no scarring, no matter how Kyojuro wounds him. He’s begun to half-expect other sirens to do the same.

Without fail, Akaza also turns up every night. More often than not, they fight, sometimes before a conversation and sometimes after.

Kyojuro tries his best to learn as much as he can about Akaza as the new moon approaches, but the information Akaza offers very rarely hints at any weaknesses. Kyojuro is beginning to think that whatever weakness Akaza has, the siren himself truly does not know either.

What he does learn, however, is often contradictory. On one hand, Akaza is centuries old—he had looked faintly amused at Kyojuro’s shock when he heard that. On another, there is something oddly childish about his behavior, and he’s usually on one extreme or another. There is never a middle ground when it comes to Akaza—it’s black and white, yes or no. The few times Kyojuro tries to reason with him is as productive as teaching an old dog a new trick.

Other things Kyojuro gets to know are much less pleasant. Five days before the new moon, the topic of siren hunters Akaza has once encountered arises.

Although he knows that Akaza speaks of human death with blase nonchalance, he has always seemed to respect strength. So Kyojuro inquired, half out of curiosity and half out of hope that it would provide valuable information.

“Hunters before you?” Akaza echoes. He’s in human form, having apparently preferred to fight Kyojuro out of the water today. There is no trace of blood on him, while Kyojuro’s sword arm feels sore from the sheer force Akaza had swung and connected with. “They were more common centuries ago. Siren hunters started becoming scarce in the past few decades.”

“I am aware!” Kyojuro says. “Did you do—” He gestures at himself, “—this with them too?”

Akaza must know exactly what Kyojuro is talking about, but he tilts his head and gives Kyojuro an innocent smile. “What do you mean by this, Kyojuro?”

Kyojuro gives him a blank look.

He receives an amused smirk back. “No, Kyojuro,” Akaza says. “I told you. You’re different from the rest. You’re strong.”

Kyojuro almost does not want to ask the question, but he does anyway. “So you killed them?”

“Is that surprising?”

It… shouldn’t be. Sirens exist to tempt, lure, trap, and kill humans. Given Akaza’s rather troublesome penchant for not dying, it’s even less surprising that he’s managed to kill siren hunters. Resisting a siren’s lure is no small feat, and for a siren as strong and untouchable as Akaza, it’s an ending that is expected despite its tragedy.

But for a moment, Kyojuro can’t help but remember the way his father’s eyes had glazed over from the enchantment, the way he had abandoned his sword, lured by a false promise to be reunited with his wife. Had that been the way Akaza had killed those other siren hunters too? Or had it been in fights like theirs, except Akaza was thorough and relentless with his blows, until what was dragged out to sea was nothing but a mangled and unrecognizable corpse?

Kyojuro realizes that his heart has quickened, anger eating at the edges of his breath. He forces out a slow exhale.

A good reminder, he tells himself, looking at those bright eyes curled into crescents as Akaza smiles and speaks of death as though it is nothing but a game. The heart of a siren is already a decorative organ to begin with—how awfully fitting that Akaza doesn’t even have that.

It would be easy to snap at Akaza for his twisted views and his disregard for humanity. But Kyojuro is not here to teach a monster to be something it is not.

“Then what do you want from me?” he asks Akaza instead. “Even if I’m strong, what then?”

Akaza’s fangs gleam bone-white in the light of the waning moon. “You said you’re going to kill me, Kyojuro, did you not?”

He doesn’t offer any other explanations.

The anger fully ebbs when Akaza is already gone, leaving Kyojuro to finish his patrol alone. He imagines himself as one of the many siren hunters who have died to Akaza. He wonders a bit, too, about what that would have looked like. If Akaza had chosen to kill him, there probably wouldn’t even be a body for his father and his brother to bury.

But as it is, he’s luckier than the rest, because Kyojuro gets to return home as the sun climbs over the horizon to paint the clouds and flood the sky. For whatever bizarre, inexplicable reason of his, Akaza has not taken his life.

And when he fortifies the last bits of the safehouse and tests the iron net for strength, Kyojuro also imagines what it would be like to live in the sea and under the moon for centuries and centuries on end.

It sounds lonely.

***

“You would make a good siren, Kyojuro,” Akaza says, halfway through a fight when he had suddenly decided to draw back and chatter.

“What!” Kyojuro replies. He thinks he would make a horrible siren. “Why is that!”

Three more days. The moon is no more than a crescent in the sky, and it reminds him of Akaza’s eyes when he smiles too-sharp and too-wide.

“Do you know how most sirens get killed?” Akaza asks a question of his own instead of answering Kyojuro’s.

“No, I do not!”

“They become reliant on their enchantment,” Akaza replies. “Back then, of course, siren hunters killed their fair share. But anybody can kill a siren as long as they stab them through the heart. So when an enchantment fails, when a human isn’t as susceptible as a siren hopes, they aren’t adept at fighting back.” He shrugs. “But you would be strong. You wouldn’t have that flaw.”

Kyojuro fights down a sigh of exasperation. “I have yet to have a conversation with you that does not lead back to strength, Akaza,” he points out drily.

“What would you like to talk about instead, Kyojuro?” Akaza asks. “The weather? How to kill me?”

“Those are on very different ends of the spectrum!”

“I’m trying to gauge your preferences,” Akaza drawls. “So, Kyojuro, how do you think today’s weather is? And would you like to try to stab me again?”

Kyojuro decides that he is not interested in talking about the weather.

***

Two days before the new moon, Kyojuro spends most of the morning at the safehouse, making sure every panel of iron is in place.

The iron doesn’t burn him like it would burn Akaza, but even to his eyes, the safehouse feels… unwelcome. Unhomely. It’s simply practicality, because Kyojuro doesn’t have the time or energy to spare to create a more luxurious prison for Akaza. He’s here to ensure the siren is safely and properly contained until he can find a way to kill him. Near the far side of the room, a decent-sized tub is filled with seawater. Iron chains attached to iron-fortified walls. Iron, iron, iron—it gleams at him, reflecting the light of the candle he holds in his hands.

If everything goes well, he will have a siren chained to that wall soon. A very, very angry siren.

Kyojuro gnaws on his bottom lip, not happy about the fact that he can already picture Akaza’s fury, how upset he will be at Kyojuro. He can almost see the way Akaza’s expression will twist.

A half-formed laugh escapes him as Kyojuro shakes his head. Here he is, concerning himself over the feelings of a monster. One that is, quite literally, heartless. He can’t lose his edge over something as insignificant as this. He had vowed to protect humans, and against someone as dangerous and unpredictable as Akaza, this is the best Kyojuro can currently do.

Kyojuro takes one look at the room again.

But—he doesn’t want to be cruel, either. He’s never wanted to hurt sirens more than what duty dictated. Even if this is necessary in order to keep Akaza from hurting anyone else, Kyojuro can’t help but feel like it is cruel.

He sighs. Maybe he will reconsider the decor. Maybe that will count for something.

***

The thought of the safehouse still lingers persistently at the back of Kyojuro’s head when he sees Akaza again, the night before the new moon.

The ocean is vast, uncharted, and full of freedom, yet Kyojuro will be dragging Akaza into the opposite: confined to the dimensions of a small room and an even smaller tub of water. Lined with iron that will burn him if he tries to escape.

“Akaza,” Kyojuro says.

They have not fought yet. The sea is calm, waters glimmering ethereally. They would be brighter had the moon been full, but tonight, the stars are the heaviest weights the sky holds.

Like the sea, the midnight-blue of Akaza’s tail also catches stray pieces of light, reflecting off the scales in a kaleidoscope of heightened colors. The waves that lap at him are gentle, shallow.

He tilts his head at Kyojuro, expression curious. “Yes, Kyojuro?”

Kyojuro swallows.

Siren, his mind warns. It is a deception that Akaza looks almost—gentle. Voice soft, eyes rounded, no apparent signs of danger.

His heart no longer recognizes the threat, and it twists and squeezes in Kyojuro’s chest at the foreknowledge of what he plans to do to Akaza tomorrow night. Pity, it offers, treacherous in its generosity. Guilt, it presses, because his heart is a saboteur even without having to be tempted by a siren’s lure.

“Do you remember your human life?” Kyojuro asks. “After all, all sirens were human once.”

There is no point in asking this question. It won’t provide him any useful information. Really, Kyojuro thinks, he would’ve done better not to ask Akaza, because if the answer is yes, what then? What good is there to know what came before the monster Akaza is now? Guilt is debilitating, and his father used to always tell him never to save any for the sirens he killed.

Still, words that have been given cannot be taken back, so he waits for the answer.

“My human life?” Akaza echoes. He laughs, carefree and unworried. “No, why?”

“Nothing at all?”

“I only remember being a siren. Who I was before is unimportant,” Akaza says. “Another disappointment, Kyojuro?”

No. A relief. He’s pursued something pointless long enough.

So Kyojuro shakes his head. “The disappointment is not mine to feel!” he replies. “After all, it is not my memories that have been lost.”

It’s nearly impossible for Kyojuro to try and picture a time when Akaza could have been less cruel, without so much hatred and scorn. Even Akaza himself doesn’t remember it.

But Kyojuro also knows that the man who can barely look at him nowadays is the same father who had once so passionately raised, taught, and loved him.

He wonders where Akaza learnt his cruelty. Or if, just like his father’s grief and anger, it had been born out of loss.

Useless, unanswerable bemusements. It won’t change anything. But for what it’s worth, Kyojuro turns down Akaza’s offer of stabbing him through the chest again.

***

A moonless sky reflects dark waters when Akaza swims towards land.

He had initially contemplated making a kill off another shore, far enough from Kyojuro’s jurisdiction so he wouldn’t interfere, since it’s been a fortnight since Akaza has eaten.

But he’s not exactly starving, and for some inexplicable reason, the absence of the moon makes Akaza restless for a fight. And no one puts up quite as good of a fight as Rengoku Kyojuro does.

Sure enough, Kyojuro is waiting by the sandy stretch of beach where they first met. With a touch of delight, Akaza realizes that Kyojuro is here for him, because no other siren would dare draw close to shores guarded by a siren hunter when there is no moon to grant them power. All the better. After all, no other siren could ever come close to understanding or appreciating Kyojuro’s strength.

“Kyojuro!” Akaza calls when he’s in earshot, even though he knows Kyojuro is already aware of his presence.

Kyojuro’s expression is inscrutable. One hand rests on the hilt of his sword as he regards Akaza.

“It is the new moon!” Kyojuro finally says. “I have never seen a siren on the new moon before.”

Akaza grins at him. “So am I your first?”

“And hopefully the last!” Kyojuro replies.

“You do know how that sounds, right?”

“No!” Kyojuro says. “I am hoping you are the last heartless siren I meet. Trying to kill you has been an incredible hassle.”

“You don’t seem to mind the hassle as much nowadays, Kyojuro.”

Kyojuro doesn’t reply, but his fingers twitch minutely around the hilt of his sword.

Well. If Kyojuro wants to fight, then Akaza won’t mind indulging him.

Even without the power of the moon to call upon, he can shift easily into human form. A moment later, he’s aiming a kick at Kyojuro, who deflects with a practiced twist of his blade.

It’s exhilarating fighting Kyojuro in either form, but Akaza will admit that there’s a certain satisfaction out of the water, where he can tell Kyojuro is his most confident. Each swing is calculated precision, not a breath wasted. He truly is remarkable.

They stray further up the beach, until the sand beneath Akaza’s feet turns from wet to damp to dry. Between blows, Akaza can see Kyojuro’s eyes, bright with concentration.

For a little while, there is nothing but the ringing of metal. Akaza can hear every breath Kyojuro draws, a short, controlled inhale and a longer exhale. If he focuses hard enough, beneath it all he can also hear the beat of Kyojuro’s heart. A steady pace.

Then his pulse quickens and the pattern breaks, even though the expression on Kyojuro’s face doesn’t change.

The blade sings through the air with punishing force as Kyojuro forces Akaza back another step, and then abruptly, all of his senses are thrown into disarray.

The only thing Akaza registers for a few moments is the feeling of burning in patches across his skin, like scalding oil. His mind supplies an answer a few moments too late—iron. Some sort of net from the feel of it.

Vaguely, Akaza is aware of the fact that he has shifted back. He thrashes wildly against the net, temporarily too blinded to see anything other than a haze. It doesn’t do anything other than exacerbate the pain.

Kyojuro. Had Kyojuro done this?

Akaza thinks of the way Kyojuro’s pulse had quickened even when neither his expression nor his actions had given anything away.

With renewed fury, Akaza lashes out again blindly, but the net restrains his movements and everything fucking hurts. His mind hasn’t caught up with the realization that Rengoku Kyojuro had tricked him before there’s a sharper, different pain spreading through his chest. This one he recognizes as Kyojuro’s blade.

As quickly as the pain had come, something numbing blooms in its wake. A flowery smell, sickly sweet, permeates through the jumble of Akaza’s senses.

He snarls something out at Kyojuro. An accusation, maybe. Or a curse. Akaza’s mind is too sluggish to make sense of his own words.

Then the pain seeps away like the tide, everything becoming as dark as the moonless night. (As dark as a memory buried at the very bottom of the well. As dark as the way the light of the moon had disappeared when he had sunk down, down, down, water replacing what was once air in his lungs.) And there is nothing more.

Chapter Text

The last thing his mother teaches him about siren hunting is that it is about protecting people’s hearts.

Kyojuro kneels by her bedside. She used to sit up so she could comb and tie his hair up for him, but nowadays, her body is too frail to even be upright for long periods of time.

Ruka wraps one of his hands with two of her own. Her fingers are delicate compared to Kyojuro’s palms, which have become calloused from hours upon hours of swinging the sword. Despite the roughness, his mother’s hands are still larger than his—and Kyojuro knows that they are not likely to see a day when his finally outgrows hers.

“Kyojuro,” she says. Soft, but still in that stern, unwavering way of hers.

“Yes, Mother!”

She smiles slightly. One of her hands lifts to stroke his face, and Kyojuro bends down slightly so it’s easier for her. “Do you know why our family has always been siren hunters?” she asks.

Kyojuro considers it for a moment, then shakes his head. Tradition? Legacy? He’s not certain. This isn’t the type of topic he really discusses with his father, who has taught him much of what he knows.

“A siren’s enchantment speaks towards your greatest longing, your deepest love,” Ruka explains. Her thumb traces smooth circles around Kyojuro’s cheek. “But it is those who have lost their greatest longing that are most easily tempted.”

A moment passes, then another. His mother takes a breath, the inhale slightly shaky. “When you protect people, you don’t just save their lives. You also protect their hearts. That is what your grandfather has done, and what your father does. That is what you will do.”

Kyojuro nods. “I understand, Mother.”

Graceful, butterfly-light fingers flit underneath his eyes. “We are blessed to have a child as kind and as strong as you,” she says. “You are our pride, Kyojuro.”

There is a lump in his throat when Kyojuro swallows. He tries to smile at his mother, because she has always told him that she loved his smile.

Later on, he thinks about what Ruka had told him. He knows from siren hunting with his father that a siren can appear as anybody to those who are under their enchantment. A child. A lover. A friend, a parent. And Kyojuro wonders if, one day, he will ever see his mother.

***

When Akaza comes to, his body is sluggish and everything hurts.

Which… makes very little sense. For all of his centuries as a siren, he’s never felt like this before.

Akaza blinks a few times. His vision is hazy, blurred. He can barely see in front of himself.

The sound of water splashing is a familiar sound as he tries to push himself into an upright position, only to be met with a brand of white-hot pain when he jostles his wrists.

Akaza turns his gaze down, which has cleared enough for him to make sense of the source of pain. Both of his wrists are manacled by thick metal bands, and underneath them, his skin is red and discolored.

Iron.

He gives another experimental tug. The chains grate and rattle unpleasantly but don’t give. The metal chafes into Akaza’s skin again until the bruised redness turns brighter crimson and blood seeps out, the wound closing at an excruciatingly slow pace, a far cry from his usual speed of regeneration. When he lifts his eyes, he sees that the chains are connected to the wall, which are lined with the same shiny metal: iron.

The last thing Akaza can remember…

“You’re awake!” a familiar voice exclaims.

Akaza swivels around so fast that he feels the iron sear his skin again. The water splashes noisily and overflows from the edge.

Kyojuro stands before him, fingers curled loosely around the hilt of his sword. His hair is no longer tied up but tumbles wildly over his shoulders. There are smudges of gray underneath his eyes.

Everything comes flooding back—from the recollection of what had happened and right down to the confused burst of fury Akaza had felt before he fell unconscious.

No. Not unconscious. Kyojuro had stabbed him, and there had been something sickly sweet on his sword. He had been fucking poisoned.

The metal gives an earsplitting screech as Akaza strains forward with a snap of his tail. He doesn’t go far before the chains force him back, but the movement must have been sudden enough for Kyojuro’s entire body to stiffen in anticipation. His fingers tighten around his sword.

“You fucking liar,” Akaza spits out, his vision spinning. “You—you tricked me.”

He remembers the way Kyojuro’s heart had sped up before Akaza had stepped into his trap. How long had he been planning this? Akaza has no idea where he is, apart from the fact that he must be quite far off from the ocean if he can’t feel its usual tug. Iron fortified every part of the room, meaning that Kyojuro must have been working on it for some while.

“I did not trick you!” Kyojuro replies, finally releasing the grip around his hilt. His hand slowly lowers to his side, even if the tension doesn’t melt from his frame. “In fact, I have constantly been reminding you that I aim to kill you, Akaza!”

“Is that so,” Akaza sneers. “So you poison me and chain me up here? That’s your solution?”

Kyojuro’s throat bobs when he swallows. “You are a danger to humans,” he replies in a low voice. “If I am unable to kill you, then I am to subdue you. That is my duty.”

Akaza lets out an incredulous laugh. “If you wanted to spend more time with me, you could’ve just asked,” he says.

To Kyojuro’s credit, he doesn’t bite the bait. Instead, he squares his shoulders. “Everything here is fortified by iron,” he says, his tone steadfast and his expression unreadable. “You will not be able to escape, so I would suggest that you do not attempt to! You will only hurt yourself.”

“That truly must have been a concern of yours when you stabbed me with a poisoned blade, Kyojuro. White oleander?”

“White oleander, yes!”

“So thorough,” Akaza drawls venomously, keeping his gaze on Kyojuro’s face. To his credit, he doesn’t turn away or flinch. “Tell me, Kyojuro, are you enjoying this? I bet you’re real fucking pleased with yourself.”

He gives the chains another yank. They clack noisily and the iron singes into his wrists. The blood that spills from the open cut mixes with the water, except there is no ocean tide to sweep it away so it pools a diluted crimson around his body.

“I have other duties to attend to,” Kyojuro says, though this time, his voice seems a little more clipped than usual. Akaza listens for his heartbeat, but it doesn’t betray anything—just a steady thump, thump, thump. “I will return at dawn!”

Dawn. So the sun must be setting, or has already set. Akaza has the sudden, unnerving realization that he cannot sense the moon. He hadn’t even known it was night until Kyojuro mentioned it. The iron smothers every one of his senses and cuts his ties to the ocean, making Akaza feel untethered from something that has anchored him all these years.

“I thought you, of all people, would have more honor,” Akaza says to Kyojuro’s back. He leaves without looking back. The iron door scrapes shut behind him, and Akaza thinks angrily that the noise is hideous compared to the ocean’s song.

For some time, Akaza remains entirely still in his position. The stone tub is large enough to be able to stretch his entire body length, but there’s already little room for him to maneuver around when the manacles restrict his movements. Just like Kyojuro said, everything around him is plated with the silver shine of iron, from the walls to the floors to the ceiling.

Fuck. Akaza almost laughs again. This is so absurd that he could almost be convinced it was a dream, despite the fact that he hasn’t slept for a few centuries.

I did not trick you, Kyojuro had said, and—really, if they were to look at the specifics, at the technicalities, then he would be right.

But this burns like betrayal anyway. Akaza isn’t so foolish to think that Kyojuro’s tolerance of him extended past the fact that he simply couldn’t kill Akaza, but he had at least assumed that Kyojuro wouldn’t resort to lies or trickery or fucking poison in his methods.

Poison. White oleander. A snarl is building at the back of Akaza’s throat, fury behind his eyes. Poison is the coward’s route, the deceiver’s weapon. It feels wrong that Kyojuro is the one wielding it.

Still, there is nothing he can do as of now. Akaza picks apart every detail of the room that he can see, but there are no gaps in the iron, no sign of weakness. Kyojuro truly was thorough with it.

Slowly, Akaza sinks the rest of his body into the water. His wrists have healed, the process tedious and hindered by the cuffs. The water is not seawater, but it offers familiarity nonetheless. Akaza closes his eyes and lets the weight of it settle over him, even though it doesn’t have the touch of currents, the tang of salt, the call of the waves. If he submerges himself, he can almost ignore the stinging of iron and the unnatural gleam of metal reflected under the light of the single candle Kyojuro had left.

Perhaps he’ll bide his time until Kyojuro lets down his guard. Rip Kyojuro from piece to piece and free himself from this prison. Sink his fangs into Kyojuro’s pretty throat and tear it open, break his sword arm so he can’t fight back. Make him pay his dues for doing something as cowardly as this.

Even as the thoughts drift through Akaza’s mind, he also thinks about their meetings before this. Fourteen times, Akaza counts—a fortnight. Half of a moon cycle. Even now, even after everything, he still can't help but think Rengoku Kyojuro is as brilliant as the sun.

Maybe once he gets out of this prison, he’ll drag Kyojuro into the sea, and it will look at him and see what Akaza does. Maybe, maybe—maybe the sea will turn Kyojuro into a siren too.

Akaza scoffs a little to himself, suddenly feeling very tired.

He can no longer hear the tide call, he can no longer feel the moon pull, and the iron makes Akaza feel as if he is the only one who exists. All alone.

How funny.

***

The rest of the night is uneventful, most likely due to the barely-visible sliver of the moon. Its power is too weak for sirens to venture far from the shores. And tonight, Kyojuro doesn’t have to keep an eye out for Akaza in the waters, because Akaza is locked up in the safehouse a few miles from the ocean, encased in a tomb of iron.

It should be a relieving thought. He hadn’t smelled blood on Akaza these past few weeks, but it would’ve only been a matter of time before the siren made a kill, and outside Kyojuro’s patrol region, he’d be helpless to stop it. Even if he can’t kill Akaza, Kyojuro has still effectively neutralized the most dangerous threat there is.

As he sits by the sea, Kyojuro remembers the way Akaza’s features had twisted into fury, the harsh clanging of the chains when he tugged on them with very little regard for his wrists. He had expected Akaza to be angry, but Akaza hadn’t been angry in the way Kyojuro had anticipated.

Liar, Akaza had accused.

of some facts, Kyojuro replies back. Technically!

Then he realizes he’s arguing with a memory. Perhaps the lack of sleep is finally catching up to him.

I thought you, of all people, would have more honor.

And what exactly did Akaza mean by honor? Unlike him, Kyojuro could not be content with their little middleground, of sparring on the beach, of a woven illusion of companionship. He is not here to be content. It feels like an unfair accusation for Akaza to throw. Kyojuro has affirmed his intentions to Akaza over and over; surely, Akaza hasn’t forgotten that Kyojuro meant them entirely? He even offers for Kyojuro to stab him every other day.

Kyojuro realizes he’s frowning at the sand. He schools his face back into a neutral expression and directs his thoughts away from Akaza.

But as he turns his gaze back to the glittering expanse of the sea, he still finds himself searching the waves by habit. He’s become so accustomed to Akaza’s presence that the sudden lack of it tonight is a deviation from an established routine.

Still, until dawn, Kyojuro patrols the shoreline like he has always done. The clouds move with the wind, hiding the small sliver of moon until it disappears in wake of the sun peeking over the horizon.

Kyojuro walks parallel to the sea just a while longer, since he knows that his next order of business is to visit the safehouse, and he’s not entirely looking forward to facing Akaza again.

The sooner he gets this over with, the sooner he can go home, eat breakfast, and sleep. Kyojuro touches his hand to his hilt, a decorative comfort that is no longer necessary, before turning his back to the sea and heading inland.

The sun climbs in step with him as Kyojuro heads up the grassy slope. It’s a lovely morning, all things considered: the clouds have cleared up, the sky is a clear blue, and the flowers on the side of the path have begun to bloom, so that the green fields are dotted with splashes of colour. A jarring antithesis to the entire of the safehouse, where Akaza’s world must be awash with burning silver.

He reaches the building a couple of minutes later. Kyojuro fishes the keys out and unlocks the door. Behind the scraping of metal on metal, he hears a splash, presumably from Akaza.

Yellow eyes bore into Kyojuro the moment he steps foot into the room. The water in the tub is even pinker than before—blood from Akaza’s wrists, it seems. Kyojuro will have to change the water again. He has a feeling Akaza will only be more furious with him if Kyojuro tells him not to pull the chains so often. Akaza seems happy to bleed if it means going against what Kyojuro says.

“That took you a while,” Akaza finally says. “Found another siren to spend your nights with, Kyojuro?”

“There were no sirens to slay tonight!” Kyojuro replies. Wryly, he thinks to himself that no other siren except Akaza would be so keen on talking to a hunter. “As you probably know, not many wander close to shores the day after the new moon!”

The water splashes again as Akaza shifts position, the scales on his tail gleaming. He tilts his head, regarding Kyojuro. “Why are you standing so far away?” he asks. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid.”

There is a hint of faux-softness in his tone, the tempting silk of siren song. Akaza has never tried to enchant him outright, but now the magic slips in as easy as breath, coiling around his heart.

Kyojuro narrows his eyes. “That won’t work, Akaza!”

Akaza laughs lightly, but when he meets Kyojuro’s gaze, his expression twists into a sneer. “Because you don’t listen to your heart,” he says. “I should rip it right out for you, since you don’t seem to need it anyway.”

“I would die if you did that!” Kyojuro tells him, still feeling rather unused to such direct animosity from Akaza. But that’s not the main focus right now; between all of Akaza’s sharp remarks, Kyojuro had forgotten what he had initially come to ask in the first place. “Is there anything you need or want, Akaza?”

“What?”

“Is there anything you want,” Kyojuro repeats. “I do not mean to keep you here to torment you, and I do not wish more discomfort upon you! If there is anything—”

“Unchain me, then,” Akaza cuts in.

“I cannot do that!”

“Then,” Akaza drawls, “I’m feeling rather hungry. I’m sure you could find me an adequate meal or two in the town. I won’t be picky with who you bring to me to eat.”

He’s clearly not going to list anything that Kyojuro can actually do. Deigning to ignore Akaza, Kyojuro sets his shoulders. “I will change the water for you later!” he says. “If you think of any reasonable requests, then you can let me know when they arise.”

“How generous of you, Kyojuro.” The words are accusatory, the tone tart.

Kyojuro turns away to leave. He must get home. He must eat and rest. And Akaza will be a problem for later.

***

Time is a foreign concept without the guidance of the moon. Akaza can’t discern day from night until the lock clicks, the door opens, and he realizes that the sunlight slanting in from outside is mixed in the shades of late-afternoon.

A second later, Kyojuro steps inside and nudges the door shut. He’s dressed in a yukata instead of the uniform he’s always worn when Akaza saw him by the seaside, so he must not be heading off to his nightly patrol immediately after this. Regardless, his sword is still strapped to his waist. A precaution then, against Akaza.

“I am here to change the water!” Kyojuro announces.

“Are you asking for my permission?”

“I am informing you,” Kyojuro says. “There is a lot of blood in the water right now!”

Indeed. Akaza glances down briefly. “Maybe it’s because the fucking iron cuffs burn my skin.”

Kyojuro’s gaze flickers to his wrists too, but instead of replying, he sets to work.

It seems like Kyojuro has taken quite a few precautions, because there’s a lever that opens the drain at the bottom of the tub, a safe distance from Akaza’s reach. Likewise, another one opens a valve as water begins to fill up again. Although it’s not seawater, it’s fresh and cool and feels a lot better than before.

For some time, neither of them speak. There is only the steady splash as the water level rises slowly, until it’s just short of spilling out. Kyojuro closes the valve again.

“Kyojuro,” Akaza calls.

Kyojuro finally turns to look at him. His expression is unreadable, so Akaza focuses on his heartbeat instead, which remains steady. For now, at least. He wonders what he will have to say to change that. “What is it?”

“How long do you plan on keeping me here?” He smiles at Kyojuro, sharp and wide. “A year? Two? A decade? A century?” Akaza tilts his head. “Although you don’t have that long, Kyojuro.”

“Until I find a way to kill you!” Kyojuro replies.

“Perhaps you can try poison again,” Akaza suggests. He braces his arms on the stone edge of the tub and leans over as much as the chains will allow him. “Maybe a higher dose will do. Have you considered that?” He laughs. “Ah, you probably have. You’re pretty heartless yourself, did you know, Kyojuro?”

How ironic, Akaza thinks, that it is with those words that Kyojuro’s pulse speeds up. His eyes narrow. “What is it that you would have me do, Akaza?” he asks. “My loyalty and my responsibility lies with the humans I have promised to protect, and you pose a threat to them. I cannot kill you, so I have no other option but to do this.”

“For the sake of sparing a few human lives that mean nothing,” Akaza scoffs, “you would resort to such cheap tricks?”

Kyojuro takes a step forward, closer now. His fingertips ghost over the hilt of his sword. A hint of anger creeps over his normally controlled features, and Akaza listens as his heartbeat sharpens, tumbling into a quicker, tenser rhythm. Traitorous. “Am I to treat your life as if it is worth more? Or am I to offer you the mercy that you have never offered others?”

The chain goes taut when Akaza pushes his body forward, baring his fangs at Kyojuro. Something warmer and sticky trickles down his wrists to his fingers before dripping into the water again. Likewise, the point of Kyojuro’s sword digs into the left side of his chest, where it has pierced skin and muscle so many times before. This time, it only draws a drop of blood.

Kyojuro’s entire body is tense, but he also seems so much more alive in his anger that Akaza can’t help but drink it all in. The dip between his brows, the narrowed shape of his eyes, the tightness of his lips. A mix of fury and admiration in one mixes discordantly in his ribcage, pulsing like a makeshift heart.

“You can’t protect them all, Kyojuro,” Akaza breathes. He infuses every bit of enchantment he can into the words until magic perfumes the air like incense. “You’ll see one day. There is always someone you can’t save. Locking me up won’t change a thing.”

Kyojuro blinks. He retracts his blade, and the fury behind his eyes fade into guarded indifference.

“I will change the water again!” he says slowly, tonelessly. “I do not believe this conversation will become anything more than pointless.”

Drip, drip, drip. Crimson begins to mix with the water once more and lighten into pink. The sea does not soothe his wounds for him. Kyojuro’s eyes are flinty when he holds Akaza’s gaze, and although he does not react to the enchantment, his heartbeat has yet to slow. But what does it matter? He doesn’t listen to his heart anyway.

Something ugly and bitter stirs in Akaza’s chest as everything else sweeps away. “Don’t bother, Kyojuro,” he says. “It would only be a waste of your time.”

***

“Are you alright, Aniue?” Senjuro asks at dinner that day.

Kyojuro blinks at him. “What do you mean!”

It’s just the two of them at the table tonight, although his brother has set aside a bowl of food for their father, warmed on the hearth.

“You’re quieter than usual,” Senjuro points out. “And you’re not eating as much. Is something the matter?”

He had been too preoccupied with thoughts of Akaza. Blood in the water. Fury behind golden eyes. Kyojuro shakes his head and offers his brother a smile. “I admit, I was a little distracted!” he says. “But the dinner you made is very delicious!”

Senjuro’s shoulders loosen a little bit. “You should rest more these days, Aniue,” he says. “You’re sleeping even less than usual.”

Locked up sirens are apparently not conducive for catching up on missed rest. Or maybe it’s just Akaza in particular. Then again, any other siren and Kyojuro wouldn’t even have to lock them up. “I will try,” he reassures Senjuro. “But I will be fine, you do not need to worry about me!”

The look Senjuro gives him seems to say, how could I not? But he doesn’t say it aloud, only offers Kyojuro another bowl of food.

Soon, night is falling and Kyojuro is heading out towards the sea again. There is a storm brewing on the horizon; the moon, still a crescent, is not visible behind the angry gray clouds. The ocean churns violently, crashing against the shores with a vengeance.

As it starts to rain, Kyojuro wonders if Akaza is able to hear the pitter-patter against the roof of the safehouse. Would he like the sound? Would he feel comforted? Or would it irritate him instead, knowing that the storm was raging just out of reach?

Kyojuro has already resolved himself to the uselessness of guilt. The feelings of a monster was insignificant compared to the deaths he could prevent by capturing Akaza.

Except that was the problem. A few weeks ago, he would have doubted sirens were even capable of feeling the way humans did. They were all creatures of instinct; preying when hungry, fleeing when afraid.

But Akaza is the opposite of instinct. He had his chances to tear out Kyojuro’s throat, to drag him into the sea, yet he had never taken them. And each passing day, Kyojuro thinks that Akaza’s anger, his cruelty, all feels alarmingly human.

Kyojuro’s duty is to protect the humans of the village. Their lives and their hearts.

Akaza is not his duty. How Akaza thinks of him, how Akaza feels—if he’s in pain, if he’s uncomfortable, if he’s lonely—that is all extraneous. If duty demands cruelty of Kyojuro, then so be it. He will find a way to live with it. He always does.

The storm clears as day awakens. By the time the sun gleams on the horizon, every bit of shrouding gray cloud has dispersed into cerulean blue. Kyojuro’s clothing has gone from soaked to damp.

Before he leaves the beach, he spots something poking out of the sand. At closer inspection, it’s a seashell: rather large, almost the size of Kyojuro’s palm. Ivory and light brown patterns intertwine, circling around the shell.

Kyojuro picks it up to check if there’s anything living inside. When he was very little, his mother once taught him to check the shells for crabs. This one is empty.

He thinks of Akaza’s furious expression when he last left the safehouse, the blood trickling from his bound wrists. You’re pretty heartless yourself, did you know, Kyojuro?

Kyojuro pockets the seashell and makes his way up the grassy hill again.

***

Akaza is submerged up to his nose in the tub when Kyojuro comes inside, but he lifts his chin above the water when he sees Kyojuro.

The water doesn’t seem bloodier than it was when Kyojuro left, so he hopes that means Akaza hasn’t been tugging at the chains again. He should change it regardless.

Akaza’s eyes follow Kyojuro’s every moment, but this time, he doesn’t speak. Silence, broken only by the sound of running water, weighs down heavily, and he wonders if Akaza dislikes the feeling as much as Kyojuro does.

“Do you hate me, Kyojuro?” Akaza suddenly asks. He’s quiet, so quiet that Kyojuro barely picked up his words over the splashing.

He turns off the lever for the valve, and the water trickles to a stop. “Hate you for what?”

“Because I am a siren,” Akaza says simply.

“I do not hate you!” Kyojuro says.

“But it would make no difference if you did, or didn’t,” Akaza says. “Because what you feel plays no role in what you do.”

There’s no anger in Akaza’s voice today, but the flat, detached tone feels like three steps backwards nonetheless.

“How long would it be before you would kill to eat, Akaza?” Kyojuro asks. “If I didn’t do this, it would only be a matter of time. Am I wrong?”

“No.” The only sign of agitation is the water sloshing from the movements of Akaza’s tail. “I would’ve had to feed sooner or later. Probably sooner.”

There is another pause. Kyojuro loses the fight with his own curiosity. “Do you hate me then, Akaza?”

Akaza’s eyes drag over his face, like he’s searching for his answer there. Then he laughs, the bitter sort where Kyojuro is certain he had nothing to laugh over, except he doesn’t know what else he could do. “No,” he says. “I should, shouldn’t I?” He exhales. His father has always told him that sirens don’t need to draw breath so it is a useless, deceptive action—but Akaza makes it look so natural. “If it were anybody but you, Kyojuro, I would.”

“I see,” Kyojuro replies. He thinks that hatred would be easier. Simpler. He could live with it.

But part of him is relieved to hear this as well. The same soft, sentimental part of him that had found Akaza enchanting from the very first night under the moon, that had been guilt-ridden when reinforcing each iron plate in the safehouse, that had thought of Akaza when he saw the shell in the sand—traitorous, dangerous to the core.

Kyojuro takes a step forward. He is all too aware that he’s too close like this, within range of Akaza’s grasp. He should be ready to draw his sword when he’s so close, but he reaches for the shell in his pocket instead.

Akaza’s gaze finally moves away from Kyojuro’s face as he opens his palm. A furrow creases between his brows, the confusion softening his features.

“It is a shell!” Kyojuro offers helpfully.

“Yes, Kyojuro, I know,” Akaza says dryly. “I’ve lived in the sea for centuries, I know what a seashell is. What is it for?”

“I found it on the beach this morning,” Kyojuro replies. “My mother once taught me that when you put a shell to your ear, you can hear the ocean inside! I thought you might want to have it.”

For a moment, Kyojuro is convinced that Akaza will snap at him; take this as a mockery rather than a gift. Lash out at him for offering a mere trinket of the ocean when Kyojuro had stolen its entirety from Akaza.

Instead, he feels the scrape of Akaza’s claws over his palms as he picks up the shell—light in its pressure, the touch brief, before he pulls away again.

He’s close enough that he could have hurt Kyojuro if he wanted to. But Akaza doesn’t, even when Kyojuro remains standing in the vicinity of his reach.

It is then that Kyojuro realizes that this is the closest they will come to an apology. Akaza for his harshness and cruelty, Kyojuro for his betrayal. There is justification to both of their actions, but justification itself has never been enough to mend hurt.

Or perhaps, because an apology has always been forfeit between them by nature, this is an olive branch instead.

And—at the end of the day, none of this is important, because it doesn’t change his duty, it doesn’t change the fact that he still must find a way to kill Akaza. But looking at him now, cupping the seashell with both palms with surprising carefulness, Kyojuro can’t help but feel a bit relieved that they’re finally taking one step forward.

***

When Kyojuro leaves, Akaza holds the seashell to his ear and listens.

He had been half-certain Kyojuro was bluffing but hadn’t argued, because—well. This was a gift, as unexplainable as that felt, and the last thing Akaza had expected from Kyojuro was to receive a gift from him. Akaza had even been certain that he was going to get a resounding yes when he asked if Kyojuro hated him.

Now, there it is: the faint sound of the ocean when Akaza positions the shell over his ear. Kyojuro had spoken the truth.

He inspects the shell a few times. It’s nothing special—larger than most that wash up on the beach, but Akaza’s seen thousands upon thousands in the sea. He’s just never done this, because why would he listen for the sea in a seashell when he could already hear it all around him?

Idly, he waits. After a few days, time has become easier to approximate. Kyojuro comes by before nightfall and after dawn: before siren-hunting, and after siren-hunting. They can’t trade blows, so they trade words instead. Akaza isn’t sure how he hadn’t noticed before how insane the things Kyojuro says can be. Or perhaps it’s the way he delivers it: smiling, an upward inflection at the end of each statement, and never the least bit phased. Either way, he finds himself swallowing his shock time and time again at each absurd declaration of Kyojuro’s.

Akaza’s initial anger seems to have dwindled down from wildfire to ember. He still nurses it in his chest; betrayal, resentment, both underscored by an ache that runs deeper than word or memory. Still, he can’t summon the same fury in the beginning, because for better or worse, Akaza can make sense of Kyojuro’s intentions. Poisoning Akaza wasn’t an act of malice or cowardice. Simply practicality and duty and his inhuman ability to ignore his human heart.

It’s funny, almost, in the most humorless way possible.

When Kyojuro returns at dusk, Akaza says, “I understand why you did it, Kyojuro.”

Kyojuro pushes the door shut behind him. “Did what?” he asks, looking a bit confused.

Akaza gestures around. “This.”

Kyojuro’s expression goes carefully neutral. “I see!” he says. “I am glad you understand!”

“Was it a hard decision to make?” Akaza presses, keeping his eyes trained on Kyojuro’s face and listening to his heartbeat.

“Does that matter to you?”

“Should it not?”

“You have a lot of questions!” Kyojuro says instead of answering.

“Only because you’re good at deflecting them.”

He tilts his head thoughtfully at Akaza. He seems more at ease today, Akaza notes—Kyojuro’s previous visits had always been full of visible tension. Unsaid, but still loudly spoken through the position of his hands, the stiff line of his shoulders, the wary attentiveness. Now, Akaza notes that Kyojuro’s fingers no longer hover above his blade’s handle.

“I’ll answer your questions,” Kyojuro decides at last, “if you agree to answer one of mine for each you ask of me!”

Akaza laughs. “Okay, Kyojuro.” Then, because Kyojuro hasn’t answered his question yet, he repeats: “Was it a hard decision to make?”

“No,” Kyojuro says. “I knew what I had to do.” He pauses. “But it wasn’t a decision I wanted to make.”

Before Akaza can actually consider the implications, Kyojuro speaks up. “My turn! Why do you hate poison, Akaza?”

“What do you mean?”

“You seemed particularly angry about the poison!”

The white oleander. The feeling it had dragged up from inside Akaza was the sort of fury that he couldn’t even bring himself to laugh in the face of, violent and unpredictable as a winter storm.

“Poison is for cowards,” he says darkly. “People who are too weak to win in a fight resort to it.”

“Do you think that I’m a coward, then?”

The answer comes immediately, automatically. “No, Kyojuro.”

“Why not?”

Akaza opens his mouth to reply, only to realize that his throat feels dry and the words don’t come to him. His mind comes up with a jumble of reasons he can’t piece together into a coherent piece. Poison… where had it been? Coated on Kyojuro’s blade, plunged into the empty left side of his chest? That doesn’t seem right, and trying to turn the fleeting impression into something material is nothing short of impossible.

Swallowing the bitter taste rising in his mouth, Akaza bares his fangs in a grin at Kyojuro. “You’re already asked me three questions when I’ve only asked one.”

“You don’t remember why?”

“Four now, Kyojuro.”

“You don’t remember why,” Kyojuro repeats, this time a statement. Then his expression clears and he mirrors Akaza’s smile. “Well, we can keep count! I have asked four questions. Your turn!”

They trade back and forths for a while, some simpler and more mundane than the rest. Kyojuro prefaces every single question with a number as if to keep track, so Akaza starts doing the same just because Kyojuro scrunches his nose when he realizes Akaza is imitating him.

At some point, Kyojuro says, “Seven! Can you eat fish?”

Akaza gapes at him. “Fish,” he repeats.

“Yes! I’m sure you know what fish are!”

“Why would I eat fish?”

“I was wondering if you could consume anything other than humans for sustenance,” Kyojuro explains. “And I happen to know how to fish! I suppose it made sense, given you are…” His gaze flickers to Akaza’s tail, something suddenly dawning on his expression. “Are sirens part fish?”

Akaza isn’t sure if he should be shocked or offended. “I am not a fish, Kyojuro,” he manages through the indignation. “And no, human food would provide no value to me.”

There is a rather telling span of silence.

Then, “Have you tried?”

“That makes nine questions,” Akaza says. “No, I haven’t.”

When Kyojuro leaves, Akaza is at eleven, Kyojuro is at ten, and it’s only when the iron door scrapes shut behind Kyojuro that the pain of the iron cuffs registers to Akaza again.

It burns, but his wrists aren’t bleeding yet, so the water remains clear. Akaza submerges himself down to the neck in the tub, and lifts the shell to his ear again.

The sea sings.

***

Kyojuro isn’t very certain how they manage to keep count, but somehow, they do.

“Fifteen,” Akaza says. It’s getting closer to a full moon, which means the amount of sirens have been increasing. But right now, morning is in summer’s bloom outside and the town is safe. “Don’t you miss fighting with me, Kyojuro?” He tilts his head, smiling wide enough that it shows his fangs. “I’m sure the siren you killed last night was quite a disappointment.”

“Well,” Kyojuro replies, “being easy to kill makes my job easier!”

Akaza lets out a laugh. Kyojuro has really come to learn that Akaza laughs at the most unfunny, morbid things, so he can’t really trust Akaza’s humor. Akaza does have a nice laugh, though. If only he used it in appropriate situations. “Do I make things too difficult for you, Kyojuro?”

“Sixteen,” Kyojuro reminds him. “And no. You have stopped being difficult, thankfully!”

It’s true. Akaza is less scathing now, no longer angry like he had been in the beginning, although Kyojuro reminds himself to keep his guard up. He doesn’t come near Akaza’s reach unless absolutely necessary, and he keeps himself on alert for any sign of enchantment.

But during moments like these, it’s easy to forget who Akaza is, what he is capable of, and what he has done. Despite the inhuman marks that trace his skin, the unnatural brightness of his eyes, the sharp teeth made for ripping and tearing—Akaza speaks to Kyojuro no differently than any other human. All eccentricities about him cannot be credited to what he is, but rather who.

The days pass. The full moon waxes and wanes. Everyday, Kyojuro repeats his same routine, although it’s not until a while later that he realizes his visits to Akaza have begun to span longer and longer. He wonders if Akaza notices. Then he thinks that if Akaza noticed, he would probably never let Kyojuro hear the end of it, so he decides that Akaza probably hasn’t noticed.

A few days after the full moon, when Kyojuro asks Akaza if there is anything he wants, he finally receives an answer.

“Another shell,” Akaza says, holding up the one Kyojuro had given him weeks ago. He tilts his head. “If you can find one.”

“It is not difficult to find on the beach!” Kyojuro exclaims, but he feels rather pleased that Akaza has finally begun to make requests.

He brings two more shells to Akaza in the evening, watching as his eyes brighten at the sight. Akaza likes things that remind him of the sea, Kyojuro notes to himself. He wonders if Akaza knows what he looks like in these rare moments: arms propped over the side of the tub, holding such a small trinket and smiling so freely. The sight stirs a sort of ache that Kyojuro can’t name.

Akaza’s mood doesn’t remain pleasant every day. He’s sheathed his claws for the most part, but there are still times where his agitation is clear, his displeasure as visible as storm clouds on his face. Sometimes his words are scathing, aimed to hurt, and his laughter a mockery of what it should be. On those days, Kyojuro changes the bloodied water silently, even if Akaza purposefully tugs on the chains to dye it red again.

But gradually, even the small bouts of anger ebb and don’t return. Akaza’s collection of sea-trinkets grows, until the side of the tub is lined with an assortment of shells of varying sizes and shapes. Kyojuro changes the water daily if only to keep Akaza comfortable, not because it’s been bloodied.

“How much of the sea have you seen?” Kyojuro asks him during one of his visits.

“Twenty-seven,” Akaza informs him. He smiles languidly. “What a strange question, Kyojuro.”

“I am curious!”

“Do you know how vast the sea is?”

“It is very vast!”

Akaza huffs out half a laugh. “I don’t think another three hundred years would ever be enough to cover it,” he replies. “But I’ve seen a lot, I suppose.” He pauses. “And you, Kyojuro? Have you ever left your precious town?”

“Thirty-two,” Kyojuro counts. “And no! My duty binds me here, I am not to leave.”

“Do the people know what you do?”

“Yes! My family has always been siren hunters who have protected this region,” Kyojuro replies. He’s surprised that Akaza is curious about this type of topic. It seems to be the kind of thing he would typically disdain even wasting time discussing. “In fact, I know everyone quite well!”

“Hm.” Akaza’s golden eyes rake over Kyojuro, assessing. Finally, he says, “How well do they know you?”

Kyojuro blinks, too taken aback to remember counting the question. “What do you mean by that?”

“Do you only smile at them and reassure them, Kyojuro?” Akaza continues. “Or do you show them anything beyond that?”

“Like what?”

Akaza cocks his head. “Your anger. Your frustration. Your exhaustion. Your grief.” He pauses. “Do you even allow yourself that?”

Kyojuro thinks of his mother’s still body resting on the bed, looking as if she were asleep. He remembers his father’s harsh words and discouragement. He feels the callouses branded on his palms, formed from times that spanned earlier than memory.

“I am a human, Akaza,” Kyojuro says. “I feel the same things every other human does.”

For a little while, he receives no reply. Akaza only looks at him with indiscernible eyes and an even more unreadable expression. At last, Akaza retreats from the edge of the tub so he can submerge himself further in the water again. “I know, Kyojuro,” he says.

***

In a fashion truly unique to time, yet another month passes by unbelievably quickly yet slowly all at once. Akaza has no real sense of the moon when iron blocks out of all of his senses, but Kyojuro keeps him informed on its phases.

There are a few things Akaza has become acutely aware of.

Firstly, there is a faint but persistent hunger growing in his stomach. He’s never gone long enough without food to have to suffer such a feeling. Although he can easily ignore it when Kyojuro is there, the long hours in between where the only conversation he has is with the whisper of the ocean in the seashells turns out to be marked with more discomfort than before.

Secondly, his regeneration has slowed. In addition to the iron impeding his healing, Akaza realizes that the rate in which his wounds close seem to have gotten longer.

Finally, Kyojuro’s visits have also lengthened. He stays for hours. Sometimes they talk. Other times they argue. Other times it’s silence—first charged and tense, then slipping into something more comfortable.

Neither of them acknowledge it. Akaza wonders if this precarious middleground will topple if they do.

I do not hate you, Kyojuro had said to him, all those weeks ago. So what was it? Akaza had wondered, then. Apathy? Pity? He would much rather Kyojuro hate him.

And because Akaza has never been one for a middleground, he decides to ask outright.

They’ve lost track of the number of questions. Kyojuro still tries to count when he remembers, but Akaza is pretty certain his number is wrong.

“Kyojuro,” he calls. He has left the door open a sliver, so the faintest scent of summer flowers drift in with the breeze.

Kyojuro looks at Akaza. “Yes!”

“Why have you been staying here for so long everyday?” he asks.

“Do you not want me to?” Kyojuro asks, his voice light.

“I didn’t say that.”

A pause. Then, “What do you want me to say, Akaza?”

“You have never been concerned with what I wanted to hear when you answered my questions before.”

For a couple of moments, Akaza is convinced that Kyojuro will deflect the question by changing the topic with absolutely no tact (but also no shame, as he sometimes does). But finally, he concedes, “I suppose I do not want you to be lonely, Akaza.”

Akaza blinks at him a few times, wondering if he had that correctly. When he doesn’t answer for a few moments, Kyojuro shifts his weight.

“This is not pity, before you go and accuse me of that!” he says, but there is a bit of hesitance in the normally unwavering confidence of Kyojuro’s voice.

Akaza hears himself laughing before he particularly registers doing it. Lonely. What a trivial concern of Kyojuro’s. What a human emotion. Comical and pointless. Unnecessary. The ocean’s breath runs through Akaza’s veins, and she has fixed all these flaws that he used to carry. He isn’t going to fall prey to something as intangible as loneliness. The iron surrounding him, these unbreakable chains—they pose a much worse threat.

“That’s sweet of you,” Akaza drawls. And because he knows Kyojuro hates it, he pools all of his magic into his words. “But I’m not human. I don’t feel like you do, Kyojuro.”

Unlike Akaza’s prediction, though, Kyojuro doesn’t react with wariness or anger to the enchantment permeating the air. His body stiffens before his shoulders slope out of the tense line. His eyes slip shut for a moment—but too long to be a blink—before he meets Akaza’s gaze again.

Gold and red: the sunrise. Silver and cold: the moon. Iron. Kyojuro’s expression reminds Akaza of that night so long ago, when he had looked more sad than serious as he said, all sirens were human once.

“I know, Akaza,” Kyojuro says at last. “I know.”