" fic: the man who tried to murder time (part 1)
pandora hearts, reborn, fusion ha (editing is for losers)
yamamoto takeshi, mukuro rokudou
Yamamoto Takeshi was an aberration. Despite being of normal birth, and relatively normal upbringing (his family's trade was fish, so not as common as tailoring, but not as unusual as gemstones) he had ended up extraordinary. Not that there hadn't been indicators in his life that he would be somewhat unusual. His mother's disappearance (to say death would be too negative, and there is something terribly mysterious about her to begin with, but that's another story). His father's cheer and skill both at sea and on land with a sword (fishermen were not, normally, known for their swordsmanship). His unusual relationship with a young lord (lord to be? lordling? young man not quite suited for any leadership at all except for his own odd charisma and the fact that whoever met him always wanted to protect him). All and all Yamamoto Takeshi's life was a series of unlikely events.
And then the more likely thing happened (was it did, then). His lord, one Tsunayoshi Sawada, known for being a kind if somewhat klutzy boy with an unusual temper and a flare for protecting others, was so unceremoniously murdered. No threat, no sudden triumphant celebration held by a rival family. In fact, as far as anyone could tell it had just been a quiet (unmarked, unclaimed) dagger between the ribs that ended Tsunayoshi's life.
The funeral had been quiet. And Yamamoto took some extra time after -- he was not the only one who needed space, but the others drifted off to their own dark corners. There wasn't much to be said between friends at this moment, because even discussion of happier times reminded them of how it ended.
It was in the twilight that the devil spoke to him. Okay, well, the self-professed devil. Apparently the devil took the form of a young man just about Yamamoto's age with one red eye and one blue. And then devil preferred sweets, as he unwrapped a caramel coated in chocolate as he approached Yamamoto.
"Your Tsunayoshi is buried in a place deeper than Hell. Do you want me to take you to see him? It will be quite the long journey, but with enough blood as fuel we can end up anywhere we please."
To that, Yamamoto had to laugh.
"Tsuna wouldn't end up anywhere like that." He said. "But if you're offering a contract, so I can get a wish, that's a different story."
The devil looked a bit taken aback, and then smiled. His tone acquired a blandness, that of a merchant who knew he had already lost the sale.
"Blood is still the price I ask. A knight like yourself wouldn't want to pay with others' blood just for a trifling wish, hm?"
"For Tsuna?"
The answer, came, of course: yes.
Yamamoto had heard of chains making contracts with kisses. He had also heard of a chain dripping some of its blood into its contractor's mouth. He had not, yet, heard of chains who did both but it was not really that outside of imagination to think it possible. In fact, it was very clearly possible.
"Should I make you call out my name as well?" The chain asked. It -- he -- had probably intimidated others in the past. But Yamamoto had a good amount of height on him and found looking down at the chain. Well. Kind of funny. Even if the chain was leaning into him and had pinned both of Yamamoto's hands together above his head and there might have been a knife in the chain's other hand. The whole situation was surreal.
"Haha, woah, we just met."
The chain gave him a look. It was somewhere between mild exasperation and amusement. "We did. I can be rather forward, so my apologies." And then the chain tried to stab him. Which had the predictable result. Yamamoto defended himself. It wasn't difficult to slide out of the chain's grip, get the knife and reverse their positions.
"So, let's take it a bit slower." Yamamoto said. He was comfortable with weapons, and comfortable with fighting. It was his skill (effortless, he'd been told, you look effortless) that got him so close to Tsuna in the first place. A friend and sometimes bodyguard.
"Hm, you've cut me." The chain said, licking the shallow wound on his arm. "My name, it's Mukuro."
There was a kiss.
And Mukuro kneed Yamamoto in the stomach.
And Yamamoto ended up saying "Mukuro" but it was hardly the showy production it was meant to be.
Mukuro said the first kill was important. It was a trial and a test of one's determination. He was somewhat disappointed when Yamamoto had no problem offing someone. The conversation that followed:
"Well, that was certainly something. You're almost a terrifying person . . . "
Laughter. "Come on, don't put it like that. You said it was a test, right? So did I pass?"
"With flying colors, more or less."
"And you know, for being a chain you didn't do much."
"It was a test. I wasn't going to expend power just to see you fail it." This was said somewhat sulkily.
"But I passed."
Yamamoto was an aberration but it seems like he had contracted himself to an aberration of a chain as well. Mukuro ate food. Normal amounts of normal food. Occasionally he would make a big show about someone they'd killed, but even that was mostly gesture.
"You're really not a chain at all, are you?" Yamamoto asked, one day. He was teasing, of course, because normal people (who were not chains) don't just disappear like Mukuro does -- and they don't summon pillars of fire or flowering vines or snakes or anything either.
"What would you do if I said I wasn't?" Mukuro asked, and he was wearing a serious face though Yamamoto knew (both instinctively and because he was Mukuro's contractor) that seriousness expressions were just more tools at his disposal.
"Hm . . . haha, maybe, let's do our best to work together for Tsuna's sake?"
Mukuro dropped a snake on him for that.
"I don't even know Tsuna."
"No, but you'd like him." Yamamoto was confident.
The first time Yamamoto killed another contractor he didn't even know the girl was a contractor. But she'd stepped out into his path at night and begun clawing at his face, screaming incoherently. Behind her the shadows rolled and Mukuro buried a tri-pointed sword deep in her back.
" . . . she was almost out of time," Mukuro commented, and then begun cutting the seal off of her chest.
"Isn't that defacing a corpse . . . " Yamamoto asked, but he didn't try and stop him.
"Of course. But this kind of thing . . ." And he smiled. "It's useful to me."
"You're not going to eat it, are you?" Yamamoto was half-interested, now. Not because he liked it. But this was his chain (Mukuro, chain, half-chain? thing) and chains usually fed on people.
"That would be filthy." Mukuro sneered and pocketed it instead.
The seal was painful when it moved. Most of the time Yamamoto wasn't caught off guard. But when it moved past the halfway point the pain ripped across his chest more sharply than a sword would. He dropped to the floor of the small room they'd (not quite stolen) borrowed for the night. Mukuro watched from the windowsill, expression blank for the first time.
"What does it feel like?" Mukuro asked, leaning back against the glass. "Like something is trying to crawl out of your chest? Or maybe like time's hand is pulling your life out through your heart, one strand at a time. Worse than that? Better? Does it burn?"
"Hey could you. . . just be quiet for once?" Was Yamamoto's response.
"As you command." Mukuro smiled then and faded through the window.
Eventually, because that happens to all illegal contractors, Yamamoto was pulled into the Abyss. Unlike other contractors he didn't quite meet a nasty end. It was pretty nasty, the Abyss warps everything it touches, but it wasn't an end. And he even found a hint as to where he could find Tsuna (it turned out that assassination was not as permanent as many would like, all Yamamoto needed was the right key to opening that particular coffin).
Mukuro, since he was not quite fully a chain watched. And then wondered if he shouldn't have tried to hold onto that one more. And then went off to follow his own hint as to where the elusive Tsunayoshi Sawada had ended up.
yamamoto takeshi, mukuro rokudou
Yamamoto Takeshi was an aberration. Despite being of normal birth, and relatively normal upbringing (his family's trade was fish, so not as common as tailoring, but not as unusual as gemstones) he had ended up extraordinary. Not that there hadn't been indicators in his life that he would be somewhat unusual. His mother's disappearance (to say death would be too negative, and there is something terribly mysterious about her to begin with, but that's another story). His father's cheer and skill both at sea and on land with a sword (fishermen were not, normally, known for their swordsmanship). His unusual relationship with a young lord (lord to be? lordling? young man not quite suited for any leadership at all except for his own odd charisma and the fact that whoever met him always wanted to protect him). All and all Yamamoto Takeshi's life was a series of unlikely events.
And then the more likely thing happened (was it did, then). His lord, one Tsunayoshi Sawada, known for being a kind if somewhat klutzy boy with an unusual temper and a flare for protecting others, was so unceremoniously murdered. No threat, no sudden triumphant celebration held by a rival family. In fact, as far as anyone could tell it had just been a quiet (unmarked, unclaimed) dagger between the ribs that ended Tsunayoshi's life.
The funeral had been quiet. And Yamamoto took some extra time after -- he was not the only one who needed space, but the others drifted off to their own dark corners. There wasn't much to be said between friends at this moment, because even discussion of happier times reminded them of how it ended.
It was in the twilight that the devil spoke to him. Okay, well, the self-professed devil. Apparently the devil took the form of a young man just about Yamamoto's age with one red eye and one blue. And then devil preferred sweets, as he unwrapped a caramel coated in chocolate as he approached Yamamoto.
"Your Tsunayoshi is buried in a place deeper than Hell. Do you want me to take you to see him? It will be quite the long journey, but with enough blood as fuel we can end up anywhere we please."
To that, Yamamoto had to laugh.
"Tsuna wouldn't end up anywhere like that." He said. "But if you're offering a contract, so I can get a wish, that's a different story."
The devil looked a bit taken aback, and then smiled. His tone acquired a blandness, that of a merchant who knew he had already lost the sale.
"Blood is still the price I ask. A knight like yourself wouldn't want to pay with others' blood just for a trifling wish, hm?"
"For Tsuna?"
The answer, came, of course: yes.
Yamamoto had heard of chains making contracts with kisses. He had also heard of a chain dripping some of its blood into its contractor's mouth. He had not, yet, heard of chains who did both but it was not really that outside of imagination to think it possible. In fact, it was very clearly possible.
"Should I make you call out my name as well?" The chain asked. It -- he -- had probably intimidated others in the past. But Yamamoto had a good amount of height on him and found looking down at the chain. Well. Kind of funny. Even if the chain was leaning into him and had pinned both of Yamamoto's hands together above his head and there might have been a knife in the chain's other hand. The whole situation was surreal.
"Haha, woah, we just met."
The chain gave him a look. It was somewhere between mild exasperation and amusement. "We did. I can be rather forward, so my apologies." And then the chain tried to stab him. Which had the predictable result. Yamamoto defended himself. It wasn't difficult to slide out of the chain's grip, get the knife and reverse their positions.
"So, let's take it a bit slower." Yamamoto said. He was comfortable with weapons, and comfortable with fighting. It was his skill (effortless, he'd been told, you look effortless) that got him so close to Tsuna in the first place. A friend and sometimes bodyguard.
"Hm, you've cut me." The chain said, licking the shallow wound on his arm. "My name, it's Mukuro."
There was a kiss.
And Mukuro kneed Yamamoto in the stomach.
And Yamamoto ended up saying "Mukuro" but it was hardly the showy production it was meant to be.
Mukuro said the first kill was important. It was a trial and a test of one's determination. He was somewhat disappointed when Yamamoto had no problem offing someone. The conversation that followed:
"Well, that was certainly something. You're almost a terrifying person . . . "
Laughter. "Come on, don't put it like that. You said it was a test, right? So did I pass?"
"With flying colors, more or less."
"And you know, for being a chain you didn't do much."
"It was a test. I wasn't going to expend power just to see you fail it." This was said somewhat sulkily.
"But I passed."
Yamamoto was an aberration but it seems like he had contracted himself to an aberration of a chain as well. Mukuro ate food. Normal amounts of normal food. Occasionally he would make a big show about someone they'd killed, but even that was mostly gesture.
"You're really not a chain at all, are you?" Yamamoto asked, one day. He was teasing, of course, because normal people (who were not chains) don't just disappear like Mukuro does -- and they don't summon pillars of fire or flowering vines or snakes or anything either.
"What would you do if I said I wasn't?" Mukuro asked, and he was wearing a serious face though Yamamoto knew (both instinctively and because he was Mukuro's contractor) that seriousness expressions were just more tools at his disposal.
"Hm . . . haha, maybe, let's do our best to work together for Tsuna's sake?"
Mukuro dropped a snake on him for that.
"I don't even know Tsuna."
"No, but you'd like him." Yamamoto was confident.
The first time Yamamoto killed another contractor he didn't even know the girl was a contractor. But she'd stepped out into his path at night and begun clawing at his face, screaming incoherently. Behind her the shadows rolled and Mukuro buried a tri-pointed sword deep in her back.
" . . . she was almost out of time," Mukuro commented, and then begun cutting the seal off of her chest.
"Isn't that defacing a corpse . . . " Yamamoto asked, but he didn't try and stop him.
"Of course. But this kind of thing . . ." And he smiled. "It's useful to me."
"You're not going to eat it, are you?" Yamamoto was half-interested, now. Not because he liked it. But this was his chain (Mukuro, chain, half-chain? thing) and chains usually fed on people.
"That would be filthy." Mukuro sneered and pocketed it instead.
The seal was painful when it moved. Most of the time Yamamoto wasn't caught off guard. But when it moved past the halfway point the pain ripped across his chest more sharply than a sword would. He dropped to the floor of the small room they'd (not quite stolen) borrowed for the night. Mukuro watched from the windowsill, expression blank for the first time.
"What does it feel like?" Mukuro asked, leaning back against the glass. "Like something is trying to crawl out of your chest? Or maybe like time's hand is pulling your life out through your heart, one strand at a time. Worse than that? Better? Does it burn?"
"Hey could you. . . just be quiet for once?" Was Yamamoto's response.
"As you command." Mukuro smiled then and faded through the window.
Eventually, because that happens to all illegal contractors, Yamamoto was pulled into the Abyss. Unlike other contractors he didn't quite meet a nasty end. It was pretty nasty, the Abyss warps everything it touches, but it wasn't an end. And he even found a hint as to where he could find Tsuna (it turned out that assassination was not as permanent as many would like, all Yamamoto needed was the right key to opening that particular coffin).
Mukuro, since he was not quite fully a chain watched. And then wondered if he shouldn't have tried to hold onto that one more. And then went off to follow his own hint as to where the elusive Tsunayoshi Sawada had ended up.