Work Text:
Like Ointment to an Aching Wound
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Takako Uro was a strange case. A tough nut to crack, as some might say. Long locks of blush pink hair, fair skin and the figure of a model. But her face told a different story. Marred by memories of the Heian era and all that rotted away at her soul, deep lines of age-old anger etched a picture of hate on her once beautiful face.
Memories of how she received the very name, Takako Uro, and why.
In all honesty, she hated her name. But she could never part from it. It was who she was now; it was the identity she had been allowed, and she clung to it fiercely as to never forget the reason for her hatred.
One day, she told herself. One day, in some way, she would exact revenge, and find justice. One day she could finally have closure, and seal that wound of hatred and betrayal that had been bleeding and rotting inside her heart for countless years.
But then he showed up.
Yuuta Okkotsu.
Raven black hair, weapon in hand and sunken eyes that eluded to nothing but tiredness. There in his countenance and in his sickeningly kind voice, however, there was fragility.
The second she realized that it was there, she wished to crush it.
Finally, the means to an end appeared, and Uro hungered and ached to devour him like a beast to their prey. To break what seemed so fragile about him, to feel soothed at his pain.
It was an unfortunate thing, however, when her grip of their battle had been torn away from her in the form of a severed arm, and in turn had been left defeated.
Blackness filled her vision quickly as her pain disappeared, and the subconscious soon replaced it.
When Uro woke up however, something was different. No, everything was different. She woke up slowly, sense by sense, understanding what it was that seemed— or felt, so different.
It was cold. That was the first thing she noticed. Something beneath her thighs and around her back was cold, and she didn’t seem to be resting on solid ground, like she’d previously been left.
There was something soft around her too. Like fabric. Uro never cared much for clothing when she could simply adorn the sky itself as her raiment. This wasn’t that. Something abundant in size closed around her from neck to thighs, and as true consciousness teetered at the edge of her mind, she began to realize just how strange it was.
But that was when she heard it.
Rhythmic. Steady. Monotonous against her ear to the point where it was almost soothing.
A heartbeat.
Uro took that moment to listen to it. To question it. To understand why she was hearing it.
But then, cold consciousness washed over her like a bucket of cold water to a resting vessel, and her eyes snapped open.
Uro yelped despite herself when she saw the man carrying her, muttering a string of profanities as she scrambled to get out of his hold— with one arm, she realized dimly.
Yuuta’s expression only went slightly panicked at her sudden outburst before easing her onto the ground as carefully as he could. “You’re awake…”
Uro clung to the front of the white jacket —which she realized quickly was his— for the sake of dignity as her expression went sour. “You…! What are you doing…!”
Ooh, she was seething. Yuuta felt a twinge of both sympathy and misfortune at the anger bleeding from her voice. She was probably just confused, so he thought. After all, they’d just fought.
Uro flicked a lock of pink hair away from her face so she could see him properly.
His clothes were battered, but whatever handful of injuries he may have been dealt before were all healed. Right, reversed cursed technique, She thought numbly.
Despite how unassuming his figure might’ve been in his jacket, with only a thin black shirt underneath, he looked stronger than she had initially thought. Rounded shoulders, toned arms and the posture of someone who held himself with confidence.
There wasn’t an ounce of unclarity or timidness in his body language, which served to further confuse her when comparing such to his expression.
His eyes were dim. They held a darkness in them she couldn’t quite comprehend, but they weren’t unkind. In fact, they were quite the opposite. They held her gaze quite unabashedly and with a wealth of consideration that she decidedly felt repulsed by.
Uro repeated the question. “What are you doing, Fujiwara?” The disdain in her voice was palpable. Uro never got an answer the first time, for he seemed to simply watch her from their short distance, but her question was still prevalent in her mind.
Yuuta found it useless to beat around the bush, so he kept the truth simple, at least until she calmed down. She was still quite livid, and it added to the confusion clouding his mind. What had he done? “I was taking you somewhere safer.”
“Safer?” Her eyes narrowed, voice on the brink of losing any of its remaining calmness.
“I didn’t want to leave you out in the open, since you were still alive. At least, not in your current state...” Yuuta’s voice and gaze remained leveled. If anything, he was fighting sounding too soft. He really wanted to understand why she seemed so angry with him. It clearly wasn’t just about the fight or losing, especially with her constantly calling him ‘Fujiwara,’ and all the mentions of this repressive past of hers.
Uro noticed his gaze lowering slightly when he spoke that last part, and at that moment, she couldn’t tell if he was referring to her lack of an arm, or her lack of clothes.
Shame rested uncomfortably hot on her cheeks as she thought about the jacket she clung to so earnestly for dignity. Her cursed energy reserves were depleted. This was the only thing she could do to hide herself.
She shook her head, pressing further at the man at hand. “What are you planning? Why didn’t you kill me?”
Yuuta never moved. Steadily in place, aware that a single movement could turn the situation foul. “I didn’t need to kill you. All I really want from you is your points, I don’t intend on killing you to get them.”
There was another question behind his words though. She didn’t know what it was.
“And if I refuse? Then what, you’ll kill me then?” She more or less mocked. It was so obvious to her, the two faced underlining of his words. His body language didn’t lie. He was completely sure. His eyes told lies of care and kindness; she knew those eyes. She knew them too damn well.
She wouldn’t fall for the same trick twice.
Yuuta shifted his weight, eyes oddly unbothered by her accusatory question. “No.”
“Liar.” She quipped.
“I’m not lying. If you won’t give me your points, I’ll just leave you be.”
In all honesty, Yuuta didn’t love the idea of missing out on a handful of new points, but this situation called for a change in plans. He really didn’t want to kill her. He was curious as to what she had against him, but also, when it came down to it, he was saddened by the weight behind her gaze.
He could almost see the cross she bore on her back. The weight of the past, the weight of the memory thereof, and the pain that piled itself onto her gaze and hid cowardly behind the forefront of anger she brandished like a weapon.
She seemed so tired.
“Can I ask you something?” Yuuta couldn’t help himself. His voice interrupted the string of vice-like words she had been preparing to spit.
Uro’s mouth opened slightly, at a loss for words at the sudden change in subject.
“Why are you so angry with me?”
The fire of anger raged within her. Why? How dare he ask why. How dare his kind, how dare he exist, how dare he act as if he doesn’t know or as if his lineage had no part in the very thing that killed her.
She could still see the blade at her throat so clearly. The moments prior to her death, looking at the man she once trusted, the man who once held her heart.
“You Fujiwara scum.” Her voice came out hoarse. Grating. Seething. “You took everything from me. You took away what I never even had.”
Yuuta watched her in silence. At the mess of a woman before him. The poor soul. Anger weaved so tightly through her expression, it almost seemed to hurt. Her eyes were glassier than they had ever been before, hand clutching the front of his alabaster jacket because, when he thought about it more, there was nothing else she had to hold onto. Nobody else.
She had nothing.
She had no one.
Nothing but a name that taunted her.
No one but a man who wished to undo everything that ailed her so.
“Your kind gave me a name just to dispose of me. Not because you acknowledged me as a person, but so you could bend me to your will.” She grit her teeth. “I was never anyone to begin with because you all never allowed me to be!”
For a time, the silence prolonged. Words formulating and dissipating before yuuta even had the chance to speak them into existence.
However, before Uro could turn on her heel and walk away with nothing but his jacket and a sort of wetness in her eyes, Yuuta’s lips parted to speak.
“You already are someone.” it was a little thoughtless on his part. He knew better than to oppose her while in such an emotional state, but it bothered him, her words.
Uro’s brows flinched downward in newfound puzzlement.
Yuuta continued. “Names and usefulness don’t determine whether or not you become someone. You were already a person to begin with. And if anyone ever told you otherwise, then I apologize in their place for telling you that lie.”
Uro couldn’t seem to wrap her head around this sudden battle of beliefs. From the lies and distorted truths she’d been served all those years ago, to the untainted words he spoke that she had frankly never heard before.
An identity beyond names?
“What are you getting at, Fujiwara?” She was still defensive, but the venom that had been previously poisoning her voice was slowly disappearing. The shield she’d kept raised around her heart was lowering.
In that moment, however, Yuuta made a daring move. He’d taken a step closer. Never wavering his sight from her critical stare. Hands evenly at his sides, no trace of malice of intention behind them.
“You were already your own unique, distinctive person before anything else. You were already valuable, and you already mattered. Nothing can change, add, or take away from that.”
Uro hadn’t even noticed when he came closer, focused more on his eyes than anything else. Those tired, woeful eyes of his, that looked at her in a sort of way no one had ever looked at her before.
Like he was truly seeing her.
Not the possibilities of what she could do for him. Not with lust for her body. Not with judgement and coldness, or delight in her weakness.
The way he looked at her was essentially that of being wrapped in a warm blanket and gently held.
A part of her so buried with time and rage, felt longing at the sight. She wanted more of it even before she could comprehend it. The care. The sense of individuality. The sense of being wanted.
It was like ointment to the old wound of anger she’d been left with to bleed for so long.
Yuuta’s voice grew softer this time, and Uro distantly noticed how close he was now. “I just wish you could see that.”
If it wasn’t clear to her before, it was surely now.
This man….
…he wasn’t the same as his kin.
He wasn’t them, Uro consciously realized in that moment, as if clarity finally entered her mind.
No one had ever told her these words before.
She hadn’t even told herself them.
Her mind, still haunted by the abominations of the past had still clung to the philosophy of value that those scum had drilled into her from her youth.
all this time she never bothered to think beyond what they had given her.
A value beyond names. Beyond merit. She was her. It was as simple as that. Nobody else could be her, or take her identity from her because she was her own, special, unique and one of a kind soul.
She never had to earn her identity. Even if she never harbored a name before what the Fujiwara had given her, she was still her own person.
And all it took was their descendant to help her realize it. Part of her clung to the suspicion and distrust for him, but at the simple, untainted truth he’d offered her, she found herself listening.
Maybe… just maybe…. There wasn’t a cost to his words, or a price to his insight. No anterior motive.
“The people who hurt you before are gone. You have what they didn’t give you, and they can’t take anything else away from you now.”
Something no one ever tells you about anger, is how tiring it becomes. Years of clinging to reasons to hate and seek after vengeance can only do so much to power the spirit before it becomes another weight on your soul.
Uro had never quite acknowledged it until now, but her heart was heavy. Exhausted. A reason to hesitate her wrath was all she needed to understand just how drained she truly was, and the minute she put her baton of anger and vengeance down, she felt so much smaller.
Weak. Tired. So much energy of the second life she’d been given was spent preserving an anger that rotted away at her soul, that now, she simply wanted no part of it.
Perhaps all this time, what she truly wanted was a reason to let go of the hate.
To finally release herself from the burden of the past. And she knew, deep down, and the more she gazed at the descendant of that wretched clan, that there was no reason for her to begrudge anymore.
They were long gone.
The chains they shackled her down with all these years were made of nothing but air now, a whisper of the wind.
Uro couldn’t quite explain it. Deep down, she was still that young girl, forced to slave and kill, and kill even more to earn even a semblance of identity in her life.
This could only be considered the start of what we as common folk refer to as truly ‘living.’
The blurriness rising hot behind her eyes betrayed the sterness she willed herself to have, so she shut her eyes tightly, wishing for this bout of emotional release to pass.
The sun beat down on her face overhead, generous clouds spotting the azure sky, and yet the breeze at the top of the building still overshadowed it’s warmth, cool air twirling her hair from where it resided behind her. a lock of silken pink hair fell across her face.
The hand that met hers almost blended in with the wind with how cold it was. Uro’s eyes fluttered open.
Yuuta didn’t meet her gaze, a strange hue of pink dusting the tips of his ears, but he watched the hand he held with earnestness, a twinkle of something soft in his eyes.
“I apologize for upsetting you,” Yuuta half mumbled, sheepishness influencing his expression and behavior in a way that could only be considered cute, even by the most frozen of hearts. “If you want, I can heal your arm?”
Yuuta must have felt really guilty to be offering such generous prospects. First, he’d changed his mind and decided to let her go without receiving her points. And now, he’s even offering to heal her arm.
Yuuta had trouble saying no to people who caught themselves in a snag in his heart. his good nature and compassion wouldn’t let him sit still if he didn’t act on it. Not when he could so clearly see the pain behind her eyes and words, and the weight she’d been carrying all this time.
Uro’s thought process however was a little different from his. An unexplainable hue of crimson began warming her face at the sudden contact, and now that she wasn’t after his throat, she’d seemingly fallen stupid under the contact.
That was when she remembered. The sound of his heartbeat, his arms beneath her as they carefully carried her unconscious body.
And worst of all, something he’d previously said to her during their battle inside the museum.
“—Don’t you have a lover?”
Despite how cold the hands were that held hers, her fingers seemed to burn the longer their hands stayed connected.
Uro glared at him speculatively. Is he trying to seduce me?
Yuuta caught her gaze with a look of puzzlement. The longer their hands stayed together however, the redder their faces seemed to grow, but Yuuta wasn’t letting go and Uro wasn’t going to move an inch in her state of paralysis.
“Miss… Takako, was it?” Yuuta tilted his head to the side to see her better. Neither of them knew just how pink their own faces were.
Uro eyed him speculatively, more or less because of the sudden awareness of their closeness, and the daring usage of her name. “…What?”
“Can I heal your arm?”
Yuuta worded it that way deliberately. He didn’t really want her to say no, so he made it so that it was harder to refuse, eyes already twinkling at the lessening vehemence in her expression, and maybe from something else too. He’d been staring at her this whole time. I don’t think he even realized how charming he found her.
“You’re able to do that?” Uro blinked. Sure, he was a phenomenal sorcerer, she’d been proven of that plenty of times during their three way battle. But restoring an arm to top it all off?
Yuuta nodded easily. “Of course.”
A twinge of suspicion still lingered in Uro’s mind, at all his eagerness. What she couldn’t wrap her head around was how far she managed to lodge herself into the softest part of the raven-haired man’s heart.
Her eyes narrowed. “You’re not going to kill me once I let my guard down, are you?”
It was already pretty low, considering he was still holding her hand in both of his.
A humorous smile crossed his face, and he gently squeezed her hand. Uro became consciously aware of her heartbeat as he did so. “No, I promise I won’t.”
And he wasn’t lying. The pink haired woman was still dumbfounded by the honesty in his eyes, but she found it more valuable to take up his offer on regaining her lost arm than pondering on the antics of this strangely sweet man.
However, in Uro’s opinion, even when he finally released her hand, the worst part came for her when Yuuta finally got ready to heal her arm.
The two had sat theirselves on the ground on recommendation from Yuuta, for the better focus of his ability.
Yuuta was careful not to let his gaze wander or linger when she shrugged her stump of an arm out of the jacket, doing what she could to cover herself. Embarrassment burned on her face as she did so, but she knew the results would be worth it, so she endured the shame as best she could.
But then cold fingers grazed her shoulder. She flinched hard, hot skin unexpecting of how impossibly cold he was.
Yuuta was quick to apologize, “ah, sorry, I should have warned you first. Does it hurt?”
Uro glared at him from side. When Uro thought about it, her injury was less painful, and more numbing, as if adrenaline was doing its best to mute the oncoming flood of pain that… usually comes with a severed arm. “…No, you’re just cold.”
The realization only now dawned on Yuuta. But before he could open his big mouth and prolong the moment for her any further, Uro grabbed his hand back and held it for a moment as if to warm it with hers, before pressing it back against her shoulder.
The last thing she wanted for him was to speak again. Her face was hot enough already, she didn’t need any more reasons to be embarrassed about the moment.
“It might sting a little for a moment…” Yuuta said softly, golden light already emanating from between his palm and her injury.
The process wasn’t long, but it wasn’t short enough to be spent in silence without a little bit of awkwardness, so Uro cleared her throat.
“Why are you doing this for me anyway?” Now might as well be the time to ask this. The question had been on her mind since the moment he began contradicting her in their argument earlier. “It’s not like you owe me anything. There was no reason for you to help me.”
Yuuta glanced up at her from where his gaze was previously honed on her repairing arm. “Just because I wanted to.”
Upon catching her expression, he could see she wasn’t having it, so he added, “I saw a problem, and it bothered me, so I wanted to help fix it.”
“So I’m a charity case to you?” She deadpanned.
“I wouldn’t put it that way.” His gaze fell back to her arm. “I won’t deny that I do feel sympathy for you…”
“There’s no need to sympathize for me. I’ve dealt with far worse. I was once the captain of the Sun, Moon, and Stars. Your pity is wasted on me.”
“But that’s exactly it.” Yuuta countered, his reply quick. He made it seem almost easy, with how he carefully trained his gaze on her injury. “You did deal with far worse. And you were carrying that pain with you all this time. You weren’t letting your wounds heal into scars.”
Uro knew what he meant. Keeping the wounds of the past fresh, and open, because her bitter soul couldn’t let go of the injustice.
She wasn’t particularly wrong for doing so, but unforgiveness and unresolved hate usually end up hurting the victim more so than it does the perpetrator.
“Even so. It’s unusual for someone to concern themselves with another’s problems so selflessly. Your kindness doesn’t make sense to me. You must want something.”
Yuuta replied simply. “Well, originally I did want your points, but that’s not why I helped you. Even now, if you don’t give me your points, I won’t stop helping you.”
“But why?”
“Because you’re someone who needs it.”
“That doesn’t make sense. It does nothing for you.”
Yuuta met her gaze. “It makes me feel better knowing you’re okay.”
A sort of silence prolonged after he spoke. An odd one. One where neither of them could find their words anymore.
Uro’s mind simply ceased to think. After all her effort trying not to think about how bothered she felt by him, he went and drove the nail in with words so sincere, she couldn’t even focus.
Well, that is, focus on anything other than him. The shape of his lips. The languidness of his eyes, and yet the hint of blue fire behind them. The way he watched her. His now warmed fingers on her shoulder, distance almost nonexistent between them. She felt suffocated. Her heart might as well be trying to break itself out of her chest.
And the damn heat. Uro’s cheeks were akin to a tomato in terms of color from the heat warming her face, and the more Yuuta pondered on his own words, the more he realized just how purely affectionate they seemed.
It wasn’t that he didn’t mean it at all, that wasn’t it. He meant every word. They just sounded so….
Yuuta could only keep that stream of thoughts going for so long before his thoughts and feelings started to align more with hers. Yuuta struggled to keep his eyes on hers, and even then, he was struggling within himself. Nobody really ever tells you how stagnating it is to be so close to someone so beautiful.
Yuuta shook his head from his tempted thoughts, retreating his gaze back to her half developed arm. “Your arm is almost finished. Just a little longer.”
He sounded so meek. It nearly drove Uro’s already blank mind insane from how close he sounded. Only inches from her ear. Voice so hushed, it was almost a whisper.
Uro tried mightily to fight the tightness around her heart; as best she could while the subject of her emotional flurry resided mere inches beside her.
When the flesh wove itself together, her wrist nearly complete, Uro found it in herself to speak again. “Thank you.”
It was due, after all. He’d done much for her already.
Yuuta’s half lidded eyes met hers.
Uro cleared her throat slightly, eyes averting. “For healing me. And your help. I hope it… puts you more at ease now that I’m doing better.”
It was only slightly meant to be a jab at his previous words, but Yuuta’s heart still ran wild at the knowledge of her still presently thinking about it.
Uro should’ve known better that he wasn’t going to run away from it, though. “It does.” Then he murmured, a slight smile on his lips, “I’m glad.”
Neither of them were winning this. Not that there was a competition of wits to be won, but yet somehow these two still found themselves competing for the last say.
The blows they dealt each other however were going to have them both reeling for quite awhile, because no matter how much they might try, neither of them were prepared for each other’s words.
However, saved by Yuuta’s quick reversed cursed technique from the awkwardness, her arm had finished reassembling its flesh and flexibility, as good as new.
And for the record, I wasn’t quite telling the truth when I said that they were saved from the awkwardness.
Much to Uro’s dismay, Yuuta’s hands found her wrist and upper arm, observing the meeting point of her new limb and old shoulder to make sure of its security.
Uro was completely baffled. She didn’t expect him turning and flexing her bare arm around so suddenly, and she almost lost her composure.
“…what’s are you doing?” Uro choked out.
Yuuta didn’t seem to even realize what exactly he’d done to bother her. “Just making sure everything’s healed well. Does it hurt? Can you feel your hand?”
Yuuta made it a point her slide the palm of his hand against hers, bending her hand back and forth with the pressure as to test her sense of feeling. His hand was quite a bit larger from hers, when compared against each other like this.
Uro almost wished she wasn’t able to feel it.
“…I was able to feel what you were doing a long time ago already.”
The meaning go her words flew over his head. “Oh, that’s great then! You’re all done now.”
Yuuta let go, much to Uro’s relief, and stood up with newfound enthusiasm. Uro followed weakly after, briefly accepting his hand when he offered support, half noting its new warmth.
Uro, still holding the jacket down over herself, carefully turned and flexed her new arm, gazing out it with a bit more awe than she was intending on showing him. He really did fix it. Just as he said.
“I underestimated you.” She hummed, finding his eyes again and seeing how they lit up at the words. “…what was your name?”
Yuuta’s heart was beaming from pride. “Okkotsu Yuuta.” He smiled, “Just Yuuta is fine.”
Uro was never going to admit it, but the slightest, most barest flinch of a smile twitched the corner of her plush lips. “Yuuta…” she tested the flavor of his name on her tongue, eyes distant with thought. Yuuta’s face warmed.
Then she nodded, mostly to herself, a look of decisiveness hardening her eyes. “Kogane.” It was the least she could do, she thought. The small creature appeared beside her with a flourish. “Go ahead and give Okkotsu Yuuta all of my points.”
Even he didn’t really expect that. After all the fight she’d previously put up about giving him her points and what his motives were, he’d thought she would simply just be on her way. That thought absently tugged at his heart with a sense of longing. He couldn’t quite explain why, though.
When the deed was done however, and Kogane disappeared with a chirp, Yuuta sort of just stood there, a cross between surprise and delight. “You—“
“Don’t mention it. it’s the least I could do.” Uro mumbled, gaze wandering really anywhere but him.
“But still… thank you.”
Uro half thought to herself that the smile that graced his lips was probably what poets wrote songs and proses about.
“It’s nothing. But at the moment… I’m going to have to keep your jacket…” the pink-haired sorcerer shuffled her feet.
“I don’t mind. You can just give it back to me next time.”
Next time?
“I’ll be camping out in the stadium if you ever want to come by. I wouldn’t mind a little company.” Yuuta offered amicably. He would only be there for a few days, but he hoped he’d see her at least one more time before the time came for him to move. He still had to help the remainder of civilians still lost in the city.
Uro, a little dumbfounded by the offer, only nodded, her usual straightforwardness all but gone. “…I’ll keep that in mind.”
Offering her to join him? Maybe he really was trying to seduce her. And if he was, he probably didn’t even realize it himself.
Uro found it in herself to pick up her feet, making her way past him, but not without meeting his onyx colored eyes just one last time. “Until next time… Yuuta.”
Yuuta hardly had any time to reply, as she was already walking away, so he simply watched as her figure faded, slipping her new arm into the sleeve of his jacket, silk-like hair the color of cherry blossoms swaying behind her as she disappeared.
She…. Certainly was something.
But he couldn’t quite stop himself from smiling. He was already looking forward to the prospect of seeing her again. Perhaps he’d keep an eye out for her in the sky.
“…See you around.” He whispered. Only the wind heard his voice.
.
-~•~-
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Later on in the dwindling evening, Uro found herself looking out the window of an empty apartment she found, thoughts quiet, like the rest of the world as far as she could see. Silent. Not a car going or passing. Not a spike of cursed energy catching her senses.
As far as she knew, the world outside was quiet from where she was, perched at the edge of a bed with a particular view of the distant stadium.
She had quite a lot of time to think and ponder on the events of today. Uro’s hands instinctively gripped the white jacket in her hands. She glanced down at it.
It was a bit dirty with dried blood and soot.
…perhaps she could wash it for him.