in this valley of dying stars
Who: Hatake Kakashi, Maito Gai
When: Week 19, Day 4 - Evening
Where: Yomisato
Status: Closed
Style: Prose, present tense
Rating: R for violence
Warning: Character death. ;___;/
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms
In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
He had known a storm was coming.
The earth was still with silence, like the calm before a battlefield before the first drop of blood meets the sand. Before the ground underfoot trembles with the thunder of feet rushing towards death and into war. A hundred young lives would go out in an instant. Just like that, the flame goes out. Extinguished before it even really drew its breath. They are always too eager for the taste of battle, bred on stories of glory and dreaming of what it means to be legend. Not understanding the weight of sacrifice that comes with the word, that comes with war.
War is never a beauteous thing, however pretty the words that describe it.
And neither are storms.
Kakashi was born in a storm. Or at least, that is how the story goes.
Thunder and lightning broke overhead just as he took his first breath and as his mother took her last. He was never certain what it was that took her life: his being born or the storm that awaited him. When he was young he used to believe when it stormed, there was an angry god in the sky, yawning and cutting the heavens open with his jagged teeth. Making rain fall like the sound of bodies hitting the floor during war. Maybe the god demanded sacrifice, or at least demanded it of his mother. Trading her life for his tiny one.
Maybe that was why he could always tell when a storm was brewing. Could feel it, sense it. Smell the ozone in the air, or maybe that smell was just the smell of fear, of men filled with too many false words and not enough understanding. Lelouch's arrest was but a warning, a sign of the days to come. Kakashi had thought they would have days; weeks, if they were lucky, to prepare.
The scent of storms is not too unlike the scent of war.
Like the stench of blood.
A murder of crows circles overhead in the setting sun, waiting for the crowd to disperse so they can dine. Certainly not anything out of the ordinary for a place like Yomisato, where life passes to death far too quickly in dangerous streets. But it's the silence that is unnerving, a kind of heavy weight that settles from the unmoving dust under feet that have come to a stop instead of continuing on with their business. This death is not just any other, not merely another nameless vagrant fallen in the street or a destitute woman in rags to be scraped off the ground and buried in some mass grave with all the others.
Kakashi had been on his way to the market when he saw it.
The murder of crows, and the crowd just under it, a darkened figure in silhouette propped up on a cross.
Maybe it was the way eyes came across his face only to glance off far too quickly, or the way the crowd parted too easily that made Kakashi's heart sink, made him realize it was one of them. Perhaps Lelouch, come to a bloody end, just like his captors had promised in the mock trial. And as much as Kakashi knows death is merely a passing thing, like a bad dream in this world -- or at least, for those who are not native to it -- Lelouch at least deserves a proper resting place. Doesn't deserve to have his death mocked, his body defiled like some kind of garish exhibition. A warning, certainly, for any other-worlders that might dare to break the law of the land or bring blasphemy to gods.
It is only when he's reached about ten feet away that Kakashi realizes there is something extremely wrong about this image. The body strung up on the cross doesn't have the thin, waif-like limbs of Lelouch, nor the long strands of brown hair Kakashi has long come to associate with the boy. This body is more familiar, chiseled through hard work, made strong through years of relentless training. The body of a shinobi. And though those arms no longer are clothed with bright green, the shadow of that hair is unmistakable -- bowl cut and black. Under which a pair of bright eyes once shone with endless enthusiasm and sincerity.
Lee.
Kakashi freezes mid-step and closes his eye because this can't be happening. This is some kind of nightmare that he will wake from, gasping and breathless and then his Hitomi will start to make the annoying sounds of others responding to the dream and asking annoyingly probing questions. This is not happening because it is not allowed to happen. Lee is not really strung up, bloody and so broken Kakashi can barely even recognize his face, which is not so much a face as it is a mass of flesh and blood, on this cross like some kind of criminal for public show. On this cross like Kakashi had been strung up by Itachi in a Sharingan world when ten thousand swords plunged into his gut and twisted so sharply he thought the pain would never end, would never stop. And death seemed too much a release or even a mercy.
But there was no mercy then.
And there is no mercy now.
Kakashi would give anything to have Itachi standing in front of him and himself strung up on the cross instead of Lee when he opens his eye again and sees that this is not a dream. Or if it is one, it is a dream he can't seem to wake from.
All too quickly, he shoves his way through the crowd and scales the cross, cutting down the wires that they'd used to string Lee up, which sliced so deep into his arms the wire nearly went right through bone. Kakashi is only relieved that Lee was already gone when it happened, the coldness of the young boy's blood seeping through his flak jacket as he gently pulls Lee down from the cross and into his arms.
As he shifts one arm under Lee's knees and the other around his waist, he catches sight of a plaque that had been nailed to the foot of the cross.
THIS HEATHEN OTHER REVEALED VILE NATURE
ATTACKING GOOD MEN UNDESERVING OF VIOLENT BLOWS.
MAY ALL OTHERS BEWARE.
*
It is only after.
After Kakashi had washed the blood from Lee's body and wounds. After he had stripped off the shreds of green spandex and clothed Lee in a mourning yukata of white. After he had stitched up, to the best of his ability, the most vicious gashes that were cut so deep, bone shone through. After he had done his best to give Lee the proper respect he deserved and laid him out on a futon in his small living quarters, that Kakashi finally picks up the Hitomi and sends Gai a simple text message, telling him to come to his apartment.
In the intervening time, he changes into another flak jacket.
One that is not soaked through with Lee's blood.
He had known a storm was coming.
He just hadn't expected it to come like this.
When: Week 19, Day 4 - Evening
Where: Yomisato
Status: Closed
Style: Prose, present tense
Rating: R for violence
Warning: Character death. ;___;/
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms
In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
He had known a storm was coming.
The earth was still with silence, like the calm before a battlefield before the first drop of blood meets the sand. Before the ground underfoot trembles with the thunder of feet rushing towards death and into war. A hundred young lives would go out in an instant. Just like that, the flame goes out. Extinguished before it even really drew its breath. They are always too eager for the taste of battle, bred on stories of glory and dreaming of what it means to be legend. Not understanding the weight of sacrifice that comes with the word, that comes with war.
War is never a beauteous thing, however pretty the words that describe it.
And neither are storms.
Kakashi was born in a storm. Or at least, that is how the story goes.
Thunder and lightning broke overhead just as he took his first breath and as his mother took her last. He was never certain what it was that took her life: his being born or the storm that awaited him. When he was young he used to believe when it stormed, there was an angry god in the sky, yawning and cutting the heavens open with his jagged teeth. Making rain fall like the sound of bodies hitting the floor during war. Maybe the god demanded sacrifice, or at least demanded it of his mother. Trading her life for his tiny one.
Maybe that was why he could always tell when a storm was brewing. Could feel it, sense it. Smell the ozone in the air, or maybe that smell was just the smell of fear, of men filled with too many false words and not enough understanding. Lelouch's arrest was but a warning, a sign of the days to come. Kakashi had thought they would have days; weeks, if they were lucky, to prepare.
The scent of storms is not too unlike the scent of war.
Like the stench of blood.
A murder of crows circles overhead in the setting sun, waiting for the crowd to disperse so they can dine. Certainly not anything out of the ordinary for a place like Yomisato, where life passes to death far too quickly in dangerous streets. But it's the silence that is unnerving, a kind of heavy weight that settles from the unmoving dust under feet that have come to a stop instead of continuing on with their business. This death is not just any other, not merely another nameless vagrant fallen in the street or a destitute woman in rags to be scraped off the ground and buried in some mass grave with all the others.
Kakashi had been on his way to the market when he saw it.
The murder of crows, and the crowd just under it, a darkened figure in silhouette propped up on a cross.
Maybe it was the way eyes came across his face only to glance off far too quickly, or the way the crowd parted too easily that made Kakashi's heart sink, made him realize it was one of them. Perhaps Lelouch, come to a bloody end, just like his captors had promised in the mock trial. And as much as Kakashi knows death is merely a passing thing, like a bad dream in this world -- or at least, for those who are not native to it -- Lelouch at least deserves a proper resting place. Doesn't deserve to have his death mocked, his body defiled like some kind of garish exhibition. A warning, certainly, for any other-worlders that might dare to break the law of the land or bring blasphemy to gods.
It is only when he's reached about ten feet away that Kakashi realizes there is something extremely wrong about this image. The body strung up on the cross doesn't have the thin, waif-like limbs of Lelouch, nor the long strands of brown hair Kakashi has long come to associate with the boy. This body is more familiar, chiseled through hard work, made strong through years of relentless training. The body of a shinobi. And though those arms no longer are clothed with bright green, the shadow of that hair is unmistakable -- bowl cut and black. Under which a pair of bright eyes once shone with endless enthusiasm and sincerity.
Lee.
Kakashi freezes mid-step and closes his eye because this can't be happening. This is some kind of nightmare that he will wake from, gasping and breathless and then his Hitomi will start to make the annoying sounds of others responding to the dream and asking annoyingly probing questions. This is not happening because it is not allowed to happen. Lee is not really strung up, bloody and so broken Kakashi can barely even recognize his face, which is not so much a face as it is a mass of flesh and blood, on this cross like some kind of criminal for public show. On this cross like Kakashi had been strung up by Itachi in a Sharingan world when ten thousand swords plunged into his gut and twisted so sharply he thought the pain would never end, would never stop. And death seemed too much a release or even a mercy.
But there was no mercy then.
And there is no mercy now.
Kakashi would give anything to have Itachi standing in front of him and himself strung up on the cross instead of Lee when he opens his eye again and sees that this is not a dream. Or if it is one, it is a dream he can't seem to wake from.
All too quickly, he shoves his way through the crowd and scales the cross, cutting down the wires that they'd used to string Lee up, which sliced so deep into his arms the wire nearly went right through bone. Kakashi is only relieved that Lee was already gone when it happened, the coldness of the young boy's blood seeping through his flak jacket as he gently pulls Lee down from the cross and into his arms.
As he shifts one arm under Lee's knees and the other around his waist, he catches sight of a plaque that had been nailed to the foot of the cross.
THIS HEATHEN OTHER REVEALED VILE NATURE
ATTACKING GOOD MEN UNDESERVING OF VIOLENT BLOWS.
MAY ALL OTHERS BEWARE.
*
It is only after.
After Kakashi had washed the blood from Lee's body and wounds. After he had stripped off the shreds of green spandex and clothed Lee in a mourning yukata of white. After he had stitched up, to the best of his ability, the most vicious gashes that were cut so deep, bone shone through. After he had done his best to give Lee the proper respect he deserved and laid him out on a futon in his small living quarters, that Kakashi finally picks up the Hitomi and sends Gai a simple text message, telling him to come to his apartment.
In the intervening time, he changes into another flak jacket.
One that is not soaked through with Lee's blood.
He had known a storm was coming.
He just hadn't expected it to come like this.