Work Text:
He hardly had any memories of the sweet middle child of the Hoshidan family before Nohr stole them away into the everlasting night that was their lands. He didn’t know where they had taken Kamui or if Kamui was still alive at all. They had gotten Azura only weeks later, the gold eyed princess from Nohr a hostage in a plea to have their stolen Royal back. Takumi’s mother told him to treat her as their own sibling when the weeks grew on and the return of Kamui was unseen.
When Kamui returned to Hoshido, frantic and disbelieving, Takumi almost cried out in joy at their return, before they made a choice of families - friends or the ones they were born to. He did cry, tears of betrayal as Kamui was forever torn from Hoshido. Wounds were worsened by the lack of that warm presence of his ever loving mother. Kamui’s fault that she was dead, her body laid to rest as one of the last deaths before full on war.
Azura, oh, the sister he had learned to love over the years; shakily and slowly learning to love, she was torn away from Hoshido too, chased out by the people of his kingdom because she was of Nohrian blood, of blood that betrayed them. If their own royal would abandon them for the darkness that clouded their hearts, there was no doubt that a princess stolen from that kingdom and brought into the light would do the same, turning naginata towards their own ranks and betraying the ones that loved her.
He saw Kamui again, cloaked in that foreign armor where Hoshidan fabric and metal should have been. He was leading an army and he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to put one of Fujin Yumi’s arrows through their traitorous heart. They ran from the battle with tails between legs, abandoning Hoshidan bodies that they should have recovered and buried, yet left them as carrion on foreign pavement and stone, nursing wounds and broken hearts. Takumi was beyond heartbroken. He was empty these days, and not even the sharpest of his tactics were enough to outmatch the onslaught of Nohr’s forces. They were pushed back into Hoshido, their own lands stolen and burned to the ground.
The pounding in his head would never leave no matter how much he took to dull the edge. Medicine no longer seemed to work and the pain would come and go.
Hinoka had failed to safeguard the Rainbow Sage, and his death was more blood on the Hoshidan Royal Family’s hands. Takumi found his actions of more of a puppet, drawn deeper and deeper inside himself. Fujin Yumi’s arrows were forced, harder to come by as his concentration shook and shattered under the harsh betrayal and his own sense of hopelessness. There were so many Hoshidan deaths, too many to count. He hated himself and he hated Nohr almost as much as the loathing directed for Kamui. This was all their fault.
His body still had needs, and it was the blond Nohrian prince that had been in his fantasies as his hand curled, moving to satiate one of the only things he still had control of in his hell filled life. The relief was quick to fade just as it had come, shame filling him for much longer after that. He didn’t even know the prince’s name, and it was an enemy he was groaning for. He wasn’t sure which he was more ashamed of: the fact the fantasy was of another man, of another prince, that he didn’t know his name, or that the prince was the enemy.
They had gone to Izumo to protect Izana, but ended up meeting the family of Nohr. His tongue had been clumsy and silent in his mouth as Ryouma and the Crown Prince Xander shared cruel words, swords at the ready to draw blood before Izana had forbid the bloodshed. Of course, they had to be a fake, a Nohrian mage disguising himself to fool the royal families into letting their guards down.
He was embarrassed that they had to be rescued by the Nohrians, his Fujin Yumi taken from him and the lines in his mind started to blur, actions more and more like a puppet.
He wasn’t sure when he started viewing the actions his body took as out of body, as if he was watching Ryouma or Hinoka fought. The words in his mouth weren’t his, and when he was lucid again, he was on the wall, yumi clutched tight in his hands. Words left his mouth that he had no sense in registering, but it was clear that his only action left was to jump, killing himself and his body. His body wouldn’t die, and that’s when he knew that it had been rotting away. Knew that the pounding in his head was because of whatever curse he had been under was working, keeping his body moving.
That something else was using his body as a puppet.
When he saw his mother again, he curled into her arms and wept, sobbing about how he wished he could love Kamui, love that prince of Nohr. Of course, it was out of his control.
It wasn’t much longer before Ryouma joined them, apologizing to Takumi and their mother that he couldn’t protect Hoshido, but their sisters were safe, Kamui had assured them. He was the one who did it, his Raijinto through his torso in the samurai’s way of death. Death before dishonour, and Takumi understood. It was what his last action was in Hoshido was of too. Death before dishonour; death they performed with their own hands. Ryouma wasn’t sure which it was that killed him; succumbing to wounds from battle, the ruptured organs, or Raijinto’s lightning burning from the inside out.
Kamui was there, there and not there. Mikoto and Ryouma shared words with them first before he told them that it was not him in that body. It was something made of hatred and that they needed to destroy it.
His last thoughts when they left were of his yumi, the blond prince, and his sibling returning to Nohr again.