Yes, I know that nobody likes the Bount Arc. I didn't like the Bount Arc for about half of it. But I did like the Bounts, especially Yoshino and Koga. They were surprisingly well developed for filler characters and were fascinating, although tragic. I just finished the arc and was very pleased that Koga survived and stayed with Rantao, apparently. Of course I started musing on Koga and Rantao and Yoshino and I just wanted to put some thoughts down. I fully expect a minimal or nonexistent response due to it being the Bount Arc. Although I would be very happy if you proved me wrong.
Vague references to potential pairings, namely past KariyaYoshino, mild onesided KogaYoshino, and potential future KogaRantao.
I hope there are some other Bount fans out there. Please, come out of hiding and talk to me about them!
Enjoy
Just when Koga had been sure that his long, arduous life was finally over, he woke up to discover that he was the last of his kind who had not yet been granted the reprieve. And when he woke up, he woke up to Yoshino.
No, not Yoshino. This woman had her looks, her smile and her grace. But the eyes behind her glasses still possessed a spark; a will to live that had disappeared from Yoshino's eyes long before she had finally died. This woman-Rantao, creator of the Bounts-was looking at him, with kindness and care, the way Yoshino never had. She only had eyes for Kariya, and once her faith in him shattered, so did her trust in everything else. Koga was simply part of the scenery. Yoshino was always utterly consumed by her desire for Kariya and later, her desire for his destruction. Rantao did not belong to Kariya, although she looked just like his most prized possession. She was her own woman in a way that Yoshino hadn't been since meeting Kariya.
But this woman, Rantao, was intriguing, and to be intriguing when he was still half-wishing that he hadn't ever woken up was quite a feat. When they had come to Soul Society, he had known that someone would be destroyed, whether it be the shinigami or the Bount. Either way, his fate would be unpleasant, but manageable: either death or a life of following Kariya until he was obliterated by Kariya. But it seems that he had been cheated by fate, or perhaps by that strange woman called Yoruichi, who had saved him and left him to the surprisingly tender care of Yoshi-Rantao.
And really, he was beginning to see that Rantao and Yoshino, although they could be sisters, were entirely different people. Rantao carried the same burden that he did, the pain of losing people you wanted to protect, but she carried on, while Koga had already committed himself to destruction. She looked at him as a kind of salvation, the last Bount, and the only one she managed to save. She was probably deceiving herself-he was no prize, just the last vestiges of a dying race. Utterly alone, for all of his comrades and even Dalk were gone now, Koga was content to submit to the forces of extinction, had mentally prepared himself for years. He even told her so, that he would happily submit to his fate. But when she briskly ignored his fatalistic words and told him that she wanted to hear the story of The Last Bount-his story, of Cain and Kariya and Yoshino-his will to die evaporated completely.
Reviews are lovely, as I would love to write more Bount stuff and feedback encourages more writings!