Title: No Matter the Cost
Description:Once you've been dead for awhile, you start to forget things. What it was like to feel, to be human... Time has not been kind to him. All he remembers is that misery ruled his life, and so, he enjoys the moment... no matter how horrible it may be.
Rating: T
Warning: Implied suicide, mental and emotional manipulation
A/N: Not the typical Hanekoma and Josh fic I would write... I was plagued by a dark plunny one day and while visiting Fear I decided to pursue it. An alternate interpretation of the character Sanae Hanekoma, and the relationship between the Producer and the Composer.
xXx
Once you've been dead for awhile, you start to forget things.
What it was like to feel, to care- not just about your duty, but in general. About life. People. The sorts of things that used to matter to you: what it truly meant to be human.
You hang on, for awhile. But then you start giving in here and there, letting the soothingness of apathy drag you under.
It's so much easier, not worrying. So nice and painless. The world is a fucked up place, full of darkness and suffering. People can be good, but they can also be warped and evil, make you wonder if humanity is even worth protecting. It's easier just to sit back and laugh at it all, focus on the light and fluffy parts, stare at the dark until it blurs into something light enough to pass as happy.
Sometimes he gets inklings- dimmed memories, a vague sensation of something that used to be there but hasn't been for years. It's not alien, it's almost welcomed. The soft affection he'll feel for something other than the city, the strange attachment to someone other than the boss and the Big Guy. The silky touch of the child's hair as he ruffles it, the playful scowl on his face as he tries to push his hand away. A hopeful smile and soft violet eyes, full of wonder as Hanekoma explains to him the mysteries of the afterlife and the strange things he sees that no one else believes in. It's a nice distraction.
That's all it is though- a distraction, an aimless path, a detour along the road toward his goal. In the end, he still has a job to do, and no amount of fuzzy memories, no matter how warm their glow, can keep him from fulfilling his duty.
He serves a higher power, a more divine purpose. Because he is not just a part of the cycle. He has risen above it. He guides it. He controls it.
To become an Angel is the closest thing to perfection that mankind will ever be able to achieve. Angels are smart. They are wise. Or, at least, they know more about the universe and reality than most humans do. That's not saying much though, considering humanity is living in a dark and sheltered little box, and odds are they won't be stepping out any time soon. But anything inexplicable is either feared or revered by humans, and it helps that Angels are pretty, because mankind can't seem to be able to resist a pretty face.
Death and life are an endless cycle. They chase each other in circles throughout the many planes of existence, in a continuous flow. It must never stop. Reapers must reap, Players must play... the dead must fight: to ascend, to fall, to get a second chance...
And the living must die.
Nothing is eternal. Immortality, contrary to popular belief, does not last forever. A Composer is only as good as the music he writes, and when there are no more notes left in him, what use is he?
The city cannot survive without the cycle of songs, the melodies and harmonies that hold life and death together. It needs someone to guide the flow, to stimulate and protect it. Someone strong and someone competent, young and imaginative. Someone powerful.
It's a fact of life that as we grow old our mind deteriorates. It becomes stale. We lose our drive, our inspiration. Freezing yourself in time, gaining eternal youth... nothing impedes the process. The death of creativity and originality, the lack of room for new ideas, the loss of old ones... it is all a part of the process, an necessary evil that plagues both halves of the never-ending ring.
The Angels reside outside of natural existence. They are the cultivators of the garden, guardians of the wretched Eden down below. They care not for the state of it, only that it remains- that the cycle continues, no matter the cost.
Measures must be taken to ensure this, thus the role of Producer was created. The pigeons amongst the doves, Angels kicked out of their heavenly roost, told to spend their unlife down amongst the mortals and the Players. Because someone must keep those shinigami in check, musn't they? Someone has to find the perfect mind to run the Game, the soul that best coordinates with the music. A job so important could never be entrusted to a Reaper, to just any little death-god off the streets. Only one of their own could handle such a lofty task. Only Angels hold the right to the title Producer.
Yoshiya "Joshua" Kiryu. He is young. Only fifteen, yet already he surpasses those around him. His soul is bright enough to blind the sky, his Imagination powerful enough to rewrite reality. He is a burning ball of potential, waiting to burst... but God knows when he will.
The Angels know that Imagination can be crushed, confined... So easily it is ground up and drivelled away. The older you grow, the harder it is to think outside of the box that humanity has crammed itself into. The youth are told to be creative and original, to dream big... but as they grow these dreams are plucked from them, one by one, and tossed away: deemed "unrealistic" or "wasteful". The freedom their minds once knew is stripped from them, and suddenly that powerful light is gone.
The Composer's soul is old. His drive has faded, he is without a spark. The city cannot survive like thus, under such a fragile rule, desperately trying to water its people with its dry well. The music is growing faint, clunky. The Noise is a mess. Darkness creeps up from blackened corners, beneath buildings, between alleys. The Composer's light is not bright enough to vanquish it, not any more. As it was told, they need someone young, imaginative, and powerful. Someone like Joshua Kiryu.
Hanekoma is the first to see him, to hear his thoughts and understand his powers. A boy gifted with Sight, an ability to see through the veil, pick up frequencies normally unnoticed by humans- a skill so rare nowadays, it was thought to be extinct.
He is lost, confused, curious and seeking answers, and Hanekoma is the only one who can give Joshua what he wants.
Hanekoma sees no problem with the sharing of this information. It matters little to him if Joshua wanders amongst the living, carrying knowledge of the dead. Before long, the things he's learned will be more helpful than he ever could have imagined.
It only takes a moment for Joshua to look at Hanekoma and realize that he is not human, he is something more- and in that same moment Hanekoma has already decided Joshua's fate.
Waiting for Joshua to die naturally is too big a risk- and at this point, it's a risk no one is willing to take. With the state Shibuya is in, it doesn't take long for the Higher Plane to approve Hanekoma's proposal. They have little choice, after all. If they wait too long, everything that makes Joshua so perfect for the position will be gone, and he'll be just a dried out and useless as the current man in charge.
Hanekoma wastes no time with preparations.
In some foreign region of his memories, Hanekoma wonders is what he's doing is really right. He has heard Joshua's thoughts, knows his feelings better than the boy himself. The child likes him. He trusts him.
He knows it's not his fault- Hanekoma can't control what Joshua chooses to think, or what he wants to believe. In Joshua's eyes they are friends- more than that, family even. He will never say it out loud, and even in his thoughts he tries to hide such words, but they still poke through. Hanekoma hears them, and a part of him knows he should feel bad. He should feel guilty. He should be against this.
Maybe, once upon a time, he would have been? It's been so long. Memories blur together like water color, a mess within his mind, pretty to look at but holding no meaning he can figure out. There are so many pieces missing, time has not been kind.
Perhaps he had a family he cared about? People he'd wanted to protect? Something more than this city, something that mattered more than the people he recycles like paper, tossing aside once they get too wrinkled and faded.
He can't be sure. Time has not been kind to him, it hasn't left much to go by. He lives in the moment, for the moment. And he enjoys it, because if he doesn't, what else can he do? He does not remember much but he knows that he was sick of despair running his existence, controlling him.
So without further ado, he plants the seeds in Joshua's mind, shortly after planting the gun in the drawer... and he watches.
The angel watches as the boy grows paler with each day, his eyes- once full of light, of life -become dull and pallid. He is bedraggled and hollow, looking more dead than those who actually are, yet his imagination still churns. His soul still glows.
Within days his mind is overgrown, swallowed by a thicket or darkness: sadness and angst, frustration and anger, loss, emptiness...
Hanekoma pretends not to listen as Joshua's thoughts run amuck, blaring through the WildKat, so loud he would have had to have been deaf not to hear them. He pretends not to notice as the child's eyes- something wild and desperate hiding under the darkness that's swallowed them -keep flickering to the drawer behind the counter, knowing what's inside, but not sure if he really wants to see.
The Imprint has rooted itself deep enough by now, and Hanekoma has done this enough to understand: it's time.
He pretends he has something to do, somewhere to be. A quick errand, a polite excuse. He will be back in ten minutes, maybe fifteen, so just sit tight, alright?
When he comes back Joshua has to leave. His thoughts are a flurry, black scribbles intertwining messily around his head, impossible to understand. Something about homework, he says. Tests and school, words that are meant to sound important but really just sound hollow.
The door closes with a jingle and the drawer opens silently. It's empty. Hanekoma slides it shut, content. Everything has gone accordingly. It's worked.
Now all that's left to do is wait. It shouldn't take long- and if it does, he will do what he has to.
Because the cycle must continue, no matter the cost.
xXx
One day I was thinking about how in my headcanon Mr. H both wanted and didn't want Josh to become Composer- wanted him to because he was very fit for the job, with his strong imagination. Didn't want to because he knew it would just destroy Josh and he didn't want him to ruin his life. But then I started thinking about 'what if the Higher Plane ordered Mr. H to convince/Kill Josh so he could be Composer', which led to worse things, such as'what if Mr. H decided to get Josh to become Composer?'