Make It Out, a k fanfic

This takes place after Return of Kings and proposes an alternate ending to it, but it's also based around events that happened in Lost Small World. It's already very different from what I usually do and it'll make even less sense if you don't at least have a general idea of what happened in Period 2 (Mission 3) and Period 3 (Mission 2+3) of the novel, or chapters 7 to 11 of the manga. It also contains references to the short story "The eldest son and his mate".

It's not really pivotal to the story, but there's a location mentioned near the end referred as 'institute' which corresponds to the Institute for Nature Study, located southeast of Shibuya (Shibuya being the municipality Shizume is based on).

WARNING: this fic contains character death.

'Let's talk some more later!'

It's an oath, and as Misaki faces away from the crater, his semblance determined and powerful despite the sweat sticking to their skin and the dirt dulling the starch of their clothes, Fushimi holds him to it.

"You're all quiet again," Misaki points out — and it's actually funny that he notices — as soon as Fushimi thumbs his phone open and drops it on the small table by the entrance before turning to lock the door. "Something happened?"

He doesn't answer right away, clicking his tongue instead as he carefully rests his backpack on the carpeted floor before leaning against the wall to kick off his boots. It's not the fact that he has to explain everything to Misaki — he always have and doesn't mind if he'll always have to — what exhausts him, but the pull of the fatigue and gravity combined luring his body to the floor.

Following the Silver King's self-imposed Damocles Down on the twenty-eighth of January, it took him a week and half to be discharged from the hospital. He would have been released earlier, but they say stress and anguish are to a weakened immune system what carbon monoxide is to a locked room: unperceivable and lethal all the same.

Another week and a half later found him facing the decision of leaving the dorms, acknowledging some sort of residence out of a hotel room instead. Even now it's hard to miss the occasional murmurs of the guests who have seen him wear blue before, and he himself finds some of their faces familiar every time he steps into the lobby. But with his overpayment comes compliance, and the manager knows better than to nose around and ask any questions.

If he has to be honest with himself, he misses the convenience of being given a drive back to headquarters with the others after a field mission; using the public transport again to get to the mall and back seems to be taking its toll on him.

At the very least, his work hours were cut to a point where he's not even needed. To work.

Technically, he hasn't resigned, but he isn't getting any paycheck either. Rather, it feels as if he's making use of all the days off he's accumulated over the years, and maybe a bit more.

At least until things settle down.

All that matters is that about five weeks after the Slate's destruction, Misaki's moved in with him again.

It's provisory, he knows that much, but he doesn't really want to imagine how much longer he — they — can live — last — like this.

The room is decent, way nicer than the cramped space he'd been renting when he was harvesting points to climb up Jungle's ladder. There's a balcony, a bathroom, a good bed, a desk, and the company is undoubtedly better. Misaki doesn't seem to mind that there's no kitchen, but Fushimi isn't really surprised.

It's not much, but when he finally looks up at Misaki, he thinks it's worth it, feels he can endure it if it means coming back to Misaki greeting him like this, feels like it's enough.

Even today, seven weeks after the Slate's destruction and two weeks after Misaki moved in with him, Fushimi still feels that pang in his chest, can't help his heart from thrumming a little faster when he sees Misaki like this. Excited, expectant. Tousled, spiky hair. Long bangs falling over his forehead, over his nose, and a bit longer at the sides. He's wearing a white v-neck t-shirt and jogger pants with white stripes down the sides, pretty much like the ones they wore back in middle school. They're rolled up to his shins, pretty much like how Misaki wore them back in middle school.

The curve of his cheeks, the impishness of his smile, the glint in his eyes — it's all exactly as Fushimi remembers it.

'Let's talk some more later!'

In the end, it goes a bit like this.

Fushimi eventually lifts the backpack he's left by the door to empty its contents on the desk — an adaptor, two portable hard drives and two batteries. He may not have a stable source of income anymore, but he has enough saved, and his new life of self-employment keeps his mind busy.

"The servers are unstable," he replies, unable to help the rueful smile haunting his lips, because it's not like Misaki cares about things like that.

There's a pause.

"What?" Misaki asks, and despite the zillion times Fushimi has already rephrased his words the last two weeks, made them a little easier to understand, a little easier to process, Misaki still exhibits some fleeting episodes of confusion where it takes him a bit more effort to assimilate what Fushimi is saying.

It's not his fault, though. And Fushimi still tries. He tries because it's easier like this. "They're not working."

There's another pause, a much shorter, quick beat of silence, before Misaki is staring at him agape, seemingly understanding that better.

"But you can fix it, right?" he asks, a frown wrinkling his forehead and just the slightest hint of doubt in his voice, but beneath which lays the twitch of a smile, ready to break out the moment Fushimi indulges him.

Fushimi wishes he could really fix anything, or at least the things he can benefit from. As of today, he occasionally wonders if this isn't as much a benefit as it is delaying something inevitable. But he's learned, as soon as that nagging suspicion begins to crawls its way into his head, to push it into the deepest corner of his subconscious as far as he can.

It'll come back to him again later, and he'll push it away again. And it'll repeat, again, and again, and again.

Realizing he's been quiet for a while, he's just about to answer when he sees Misaki part his lips, and Fushimi lets him go on.

"I mean... you can fix anything, so..."

Fushimi's eyes widen, his gaze settling on Misaki for a moment before he takes a brief glance at his phone, and then back up at him.

Moments like these are... special.

Fushimi stares at him; when he's sure Misaki won't say more, he lets a small smile tug at his lips, and finally replies, "Yeah. I can fix it."

There's only so much the weakened influence of the Slate can give and stop giving and he doesn't know how much longer he has, but if hope was something Misaki's always brimmed with, he's come to like to pretend he has some of it, too.

As long as it makes him feel like he really can fix anything.

After another brief moment of silence, this time a bit shorter, Misaki grins toothily. "I knew it!"

Fushimi returns the smile, albeit more weakly, and as he flips his laptop open, keeping his new acquisitions close by and getting ready to work, he hears the word before it rolls of Misaki's tongue.

Next comes... 'Awesome', doesn't it?

"Awesome!"

Sure.

"You're amazing, Saruhiko!"

Misaki, who's always been impatient, has... mellowed, in a way.

There's still the same small delay in his speech, like he's choosing his words and actions carefully now, lest it cracks Fushimi's patience or something.

It was a bit odd at the beginning, honestly, considering he's always been the type to spit the first thing that came into his head, but Fushimi's gotten used to the newness. What are some unnerving beats of silence and confusion against an infinite interlude, anyway? Moreover, Fushimi has all the patience in the world, and he can't stay mad at Misaki anymore.

He. Just. Can't.

"Cola?" he asks, peeking his head up over the door of the compact refrigerator. Misaki's seated on the floor, his back against the bed and his handheld console suffering in his hold, his quick fingers pressing the buttons like a madman. "Misaki."

Misaki frowns and tilts his head a bit toward Fushimi, acknowledging him without turning his gaze from the screen. "I told you to not call me that, Saruhiko!"

Fushimi's face scrunches up in a grimace. He ignores that one, thinking he'll have to fix that later as he holds one bottle of cola in each hand and walks over to where Misaki's seated, lowering to settle next to him.

Their shoulders touch, in a way, but he feels if he leans too much he'll actually collide with the floor, so he keeps a small distance between their arms, and places Misaki's bottle in the gap between their thighs.

"You lost again."

"Shut up!" Misaki barks, never taking his gaze off the screen. "I can do this! Just watch me!"

"You have to be able to beat that game by now. It came out six years ago."

"Hah? It came out a month ago," Misaki grumbles, throwing Fushimi a half-lidded, mocking look. And then, for good measure, "idiot," before turning back to his game.

It's a long while before Fushimi responds, ruefully, "Yeah, it did."

It's a bit longer before Misaki speaks up again. "Shit. I died again."

Fushimi tilts his head, taking a quick glance at what's making Misaki hunch his shoulders and his brow twist into a prominent frown.

"Try completing at least one combo to unlock your special move."

"Ah..." Misaki straightens a little then, the tensed muscles on his forehead loosening. "I don't think I understand any of that anyway. Geh, he keeps blocking my attacks!"

"Hm. It's called self-defense — you should try it sometime," Fushimi scoffs. "Just saying."

"Damn," Misaki grits out, suddenly forming a fist and slamming it against the floor. "How the hell was that self-defense?!"

Fushimi's heard it all before, but the reminiscence still stirs a brew of indomitable sensations inside of him.

He quickly pushes them all to the back of his mind, clicking his tongue and leaning back with a sigh.

Even after they stop playing and go to bed, Misaki's bottle still lays by the bed, capped, full and lukewarm, the droplets that ran down its body leaving a dark stain on the carpet.

"Who's the picky one, now?" Fushimi mumbles to himself, lips heavy and a bit shaky against the pillow.

Fushimi's made the effort of bringing the few things he had in the dorms because Misaki would have hated it if he didn't.

Curiously enough, for once, he owns more things than Misaki does. Then again, he isn't really surprised.

Despite the little display of instability on Jungle's servers he told Misaki about four days ago, they have shown signs of reliable constancy. It's a relief. He's contented, in a way, almost hopeful and ready to take a step farther.

It strikes him that he wants a change, which is a lot coming from him.

The resolution comes along with the remembrance of the first time Misaki asked for his help to decide on a new haircut, just a few weeks after joining Homra and Misaki's pride was branded into their skin on the same side as their hearts.

This time, however, Misaki hasn't brought any scissors with him, and neither has Fushimi. Unless they feel like giving Fushimi's knives a chance, he supposes there must be a pair somewhere in the room, in case Misaki wants to do something 'cool' and 'stylish' to his head.

Instead of looking for them, Fushimi's sitting at the desk, busying himself with his laptop and his phone at the same time when he runs the patch he's been working on for the last couple of days and immediately feels a surge of electricity coursing through his fingers. Green and warm, like growth and life.

He doesn't remember ever voicing his thoughts out loud or getting the scissors and a towel ready, but when he looks up, he finds that the scruffy bangs at the sides of Misaki's face are gone, and so is that one lock of hair that usually fell over his nose.

Not only there's less of that, but there's more muscle, more definition, more contemporaneity. It has Fushimi's heart racing at full speed, much like the first time he saw Misaki standing by the two big windows that open onto the balcony, glowing like the stars dotting the night sky behind him.

"Oi, Saruhiko!" he says, voice as boisterous and lively as ever. The whole alteration has expunged that puerile aura around him. He doesn't look boyish anymore, but more manly. A young man, like Fushimi.

He really looks like he's grown up, unlike Fushimi, who has the nagging feeling he's growing stagnant, or not at all.

He can't find the scissors anywhere though, and that may as well be his cue to kill the tiniest desire he felt to give trimming his own hair a try.

Fushimi hasn't seen Munakata since he left the dorms, which makes it five weeks now. He knows the Captain is out there though, enduring meetings, and signing papers, and enduring more meetings. But he's cut out for that, so there's nothing to concern himself about, for Scepter 4 will live on and everyone else associated with it.

It briefly makes him wonder what would have changed had Misaki associated with them as well, had followed him to Scepter 4, gratifying the small, hopeful part of Fushimi that thought — wished — he would.

Well, there's no point in dwelling on that now.

He still can't ignore the fact that he's a bit curious about what Munakata will think — about him, about Misaki — if he knew. As his King. As his employer. Even as just an influential acquaintance.

His heartbeat falters with anxious indecision when he thinks about it.

Truth be told, he hasn't seen anyone else, except for Awashima, on his way to the mall. Twice.

The first time was a coincidence. The second time, he suspected was her expecting to see him again, in the same place, in the same intersection, at the same time. Both times, their eyes met for a fleeting instant and he walked away before her lips could form his name or she gained enough momentum to push through the crowd to reach him.

Those encounters felt almost inexistent, but surely good enough for Awashima to keep Munakata posted. More often than not, she would try her luck on the phone too, and he would always reject her calls instead of sending her straight to voicemail. It's a message in itself, in a way, to let her know he's there; reachable, but not quite at the same time.

That Sunday, he does see Kamamoto — when he runs out of cola and batteries and takes a quick stroll through the shopping district, because the last time he ordered four batteries online he only got two. There are some sales he's interested in as well; despite his three years worth of savings, he's better off not pushing it.

Moreover, he finds he needs the fresh air. Loafing around in the room doesn't feel as good as curling up under the sheets while Misaki spent most of the day in Homra way back when. Incidentally, Misaki hadn't asked to come and help him with the shopping, and in turn, Fushimi didn't ask him to, not ready to have Misaki following him every-single-where he went. They still need their space.

Kamamoto doesn't see him; he's busy moving some boxes into the convenience store a couple of stores away from the electronics shop Fushimi just walked out from.

Fushimi never knew him enough to form a proper judgment, but he looks tired.

He can see Homra from the van, all bundled together, restless like everyone.

Way more restless than anyone.

Kamamoto looks enraged, completely out of it and ready to go back to that mess of a hell, two other guys holding him back. It's not until Kusanagi intervenes and steps in front of him, pressing a hand on his shoulder, that he stops fighting. Kusanagi's arm is shaking.

It takes something that he and Anna say to finally make Kamamoto's body slacken, and then he falls on his knees.

Fushimi thinks he's nuts. Why would anyone want to go back down there? Didn't he hear the bombs? He should just give up, before Misaki sees him and beats him to a pulp for throwing a fit in front of everyone for no apparent reason.

Oddly enough, Misaki is the only one that isn't reacting to the fuss.

Because he isn't even there.

Awashima walks up to them then, and Kusanagi steps aside a bit to talk to her. When she turns her head toward the van, Fushimi wishes he didn't meet her concerned gaze.

The gash in his thigh throbs so much he feels the swelling in his throat.

The stretcher squeaks under his weight. He winces when the tips of his feet touch the floor, his knees following soon after, weak and heavy, but the pain is nothing compared to the asphyxiating heat dulling his senses.

Someone holds him by the shoulders. "Fushimi-san!"

A moment later, Awashima is kneeling down right in front of him. She says something, about Homra and the Silver King's plan, and Yata Misaki is—

"Saruhiko!"

Misaki is staring down at him, wide-eyed and lips parted, as if ready to yell his name again. Fushimi rises up before that, his breathing coming out in gasps as he feels for the nightstand and turns on the small lamp on it.

One of his hands closes around his thigh, feeling the ghostly dig of his knife. He presses the other against his chest, his heart quick and steady like it's drilling its way out of his ribcage.

"Saruhiko! You okay?"

Fushimi stills, taking a moment to inhale and exhale through his mouth. The scar on his thigh hasn't stopped aching, but when he convinces himself of the impossibility for it to burst open, he brings his hand to his forehead, pressing the heel of it against one of his eyes.

"A nightmare," he says in a murmur, immediately trying to swallow around the dry lump in his throat.

"Was it a nightmare again?" Misaki sighs before asserting with something like a scowl, "That's what happens when you don't eat properly."

Fushimi lifts his hand just enough to peek at Misaki from the corner of his eyes, his chest still rising and falling in frantic pants. "What?"

"Y-yeah... when you eat too many sweets you end up messing up your sleep."

That earns him a click of tongue, however dull it sounds with how dry Fushimi's mouth is. "Who told you that?"

"M-my mom told me!" Misaki raises his fists slightly, ready to fight, his cheeks blushing to the ears.

"I'm fine," Fushimi mumbles out as he turns off the lamp and lets his head fall back onto the pillow, burying himself under the thin sheets again. "Go back to sleep, Misaki."

Misaki hesitates for a moment. "Okay."

Awashima's eyes widen as Kusanagi moves his lips and utters something that Fushimi can't decipher just by looking at them from where he is. Judging by the sourness in his face and his slumped stance though, it can't be good.

And then, when everything is said, Awashima gives in to the instinctive reaction of glancing toward Fushimi's direction with a pained look, and that's as much as a flagrant revelation.

There's no way for Fushimi to know what it means, but he decides he doesn't like it.

The nurse seated close to him, monitoring his vital signs, has to drop everything in his hands to hold him by the shoulders. "Fushimi-san!"

Awashima looks even more alarmed than before as soon as she catches the ruckus inside the van. Without wasting another second, she breaks into a quick jog toward Fushimi, and before he realizes it, she has one knee on the floor of the van, one of her hands on the grip of her saber to keep it out of the way, the other reaching up to his shoulder.

"Fushimi—"

It's four a.m. when Fushimi snaps out of his nightmare and opens his eyes to Misaki still sleeping soundly next to him, on his side, his back facing him. His hair is messy, pointing at every side and bending at every angle, in stark contrast to the neat pillow beneath them.

As Fushimi brushes his fingers along the curls falling over his nape, the little tingle of static he feels is telling about Misaki's essence. Misaki is just so full of energy, after all, now more than ever.

He lets his hand drop until it touches the pillow, thinking this kind of contact is all he needs.

"Fushimi—"

"Where is he?" he asks.

There's a pause. Awashima utters his name again.

He ignores her, and asks again, louder.

Awashima stays quiet for a moment. She gives up, eventually, and is concise in her explanation — something about how Homra scattered across Jungle's base to carry out the Silver King's plan. How everyone immediately retreated after the Damocles Down occurred, Kusanagi sticking to his post to make sure no one got left behind.

How Yata Misaki was the last one, having been sent to one of the undermost levels. How Kusanagi met up with him, and how the vanguard was right behind him when the ceiling collapsed between them and they were forced to split ways.

Fushimi doesn't feel his arms, his legs, his body. He's reduced to his vision, blurring out as everything his eyes are fixed on begins to spin erratically, and to his ears, which struggle to assimilate Awashima's words and the outcome they're implying, one he can only expect from one of his nightmares, not from the real world and definitely not from a world where Misaki exists.

He doesn't know how he manages to register her last sentence.

"They lost contact with him."

Today marks two months since the Slate's destruction, and there's something Fushimi wants to know.

"Misaki," he begins, afraid of asking but doing it anyway. His gaze shifts to the floor. "Do you miss them?"

"What do you mean?

He pauses for a moment. "Homra."

Misaki falls quiet for even longer.

Fushimi understands; there's just too much to say about Homra, too much information stored about the Red Clan, everywhere. It's natural — no, it's logical, he bitterly reminds himself, that Misaki wouldn't know where to begin.

"Homra," Fushimi says again, voice low and unsure, "the Red—"

"Red Monster!"

Fushimi almost chokes, the sudden nostalgia hitting him like hailstones and rockets — especially rockets. The air that rushes through his mouth makes his lips go dry and there's something like a big, cold stone clogging his throat when he looks up and finds Misaki's eyes wide open in horror.

"Red Monster!" Misaki's voice shakes with impotence, and suddenly, it feels as if that weak, scared, young kid full of dreams had come back to make Fushimi feel weak and scared and inexperienced all over again.

"Misaki..." Fushimi says, their gazes locked, but Misaki is gone, a shine of tears welling up at the corners of his big eyes.

"Save him! Please! Save―"

"Misaki!" Impulsively, Fushimi rushes forward and reaches out to him, on instinct, to make him stop.

The dim light of the room flickers as the hand that's just passed through Misaki's chest stills.

"Misaki?"

The knot in Fushimi's throat swells. The absence of a reaction makes his pulse throb painfully.

Slowly, Fushimi draws his hand back and seats back on the floor. And waits.

It's a long while before Misaki's body vibrates with a jolt, once, twice, like he was a pond Fushimi had thrown a rock at.

"Misa—"

Suddenly, Misaki's blinking at him, and despite the initial puzzled look on his face, he gives Fushimi a toothy grin that sends a shudder through Fushimi's bones.

"Why are you staring at me like that?" Misaki asks, voice taunting.

Fushimi can't help the heat that rushes to his head, like his blood had found its way back to his brain, and looks away, somehow managing to click his tongue without vacillation. "I'm not staring at you."

"Right."

Fushimi can still feel that smug smile on him as he leans back against the edge of the bed and runs his thumb along the edge of his phone.

There's an examination going on at headquarters. They're running some tests on the aura levels of a sample of individuals. It's been done to him while he was in the hospital, and now he hears Homra is going to be there.

It's been two weeks since the Slate's destruction. Officially, the alliance has been done for for a long while way before that, but it makes sense that Homra has the closest non-blue clansmen they're going to find who are willing to 'volunteer' for this in peaceful terms.

Fushimi honestly hopes he doesn't have to meet them; he just got released from the hospital three days ago and isn't swift enough to hide in the corners were he to run into them. Crutches might have made his limping faster but not any less clumsy, and he's only used them once, minutes before his reinstatement, if only to get the ceremony over with fast.

He's in the lobby, because it's the closest route to the corridor leading to the dorms, looking down from the top of the stairs where he'd picked up Misaki's desperate call four months ago, where he was told there was no one else to aid him in finding Anna's whereabouts, no one left to turn to but to him, a traitor.

It frustrates him greatly that there are people in the lobby already, at the bottom of the stairs.

Homra.

It's the first time Fushimi sees them ever since... Jungle's demise.

Awashima's with them, holding a tablet and uttering their names, confirming their attendance. Without counting Kusanagi, there are four of them — Dewa, Chitose, Bando and Akagi, if he remembers correctly. They don't look exactly uncomfortable, but not quite laid-back either, glancing around the building, taking in the porcelain and the pillars and the kind of lifestyle that's too foreign and far from their reach.

This was once enemy territory, after all.

Misaki isn't among them, obviously, and Fushimi's heart gives a tiny squeeze. Maybe it's a good thing he isn't. Otherwise, he would have been subjected to this, and after an hour of going on and about how ridiculously huge everything is, how they could feed an island with each light bulb they light up an empty room with, with his sneakers squeaking on the floor as if approving every word, the natural scowl on his face would have stuck permanently.

Now, that would have been a sight.

Awashima signals toward the stairs. "If you'd come this way, please." She raises his gaze, meeting Fushimi's eyes.

Fushimi thinks of turning around and going back, but he's taken too long, and at Awashima's sudden pause, Kusanagi turns around and glances up in his direction as well.

There's a long moment's pause.

Fushimi doesn't move as Kusanagi goes up the stairs slowly, the other four clansmen and Awashima following after him somewhat warily. They all meet at the top.

"Good to see you're in good shape, Fushimi," Kusanagi says with a fond look.

Fushimi doesn't answer to that. Instead, his eyes skitter away from the pity in that gaze, toward Awashima's tablet.

"Did he not make it to the list?" is all he manages, tongue thick with mockery and bilious denial.

It takes a moment for the words to sink in. When they do, there's a huff of breath and a rustle of movement.

"Hey!" someone snarls, but Fushimi doesn't care enough to raise his gaze and see whose voice the outcry belongs to. It's hard to tell by looking, anyway; they're all equally fixing him with not-very-amicable looks when Kusanagi speaks again and Fushimi lazily drags his eyes back to him.

"Ah, let's not do this, guys. We know why we're here, right?" It goes for everyone, and Fushimi can't help but wonder — does Kusanagi even remember how he subtly promised to beat him up all the way to the hospital?

That should be the last thing on his mind right now, but the memory somehow crawls before his eyes, because that was the first and last time he saw both Homra and Scepter 4's seconds-in-commands, as a green clansman, before he saw them again when everything was over.

There's something about this reunion that can't cease to feel nostalgic, but the spite feels just incredibly easier on his tongue.

"You know my excuses," Fushimi mutters, low, and glowers at them all, and asks — he doesn't know whom exactly he's asking, but there's him on one side and there's Homra on the other, and he asks, "What are yours?"

Kusanagi stares at him for a moment, puzzled, and then it all settles in.

Awashima's eyebrows shoot up in realization. "Fushimi," she begins, but Kusanagi beats her to it.

"I see," is all he says before allowing himself a moment to summon that composure he always gets from who knows where. "Fushimi, you're within your rights to feel the way you feel, and to let your anger speak for you."

If anger was all he felt...

It's annoying how Kusanagi reasons that much just because Fushimi doesn't suppress the antipathy he's been known for harboring toward them. He can't deny that if he still wears the uniform and gets out of his room to distract himself with paperwork, it's because he's beyond lying around on his bed, angered, restless, lost. He's even allowed to leave the offices earlier. It's pathetic. Not even Hidaka had that luxury. Fushimi doesn't know how he did without that privilege.

There's no way that that, along with Kusanagi's words, don't make him feel a bit pathetic. Fushimi wants to say something, but he can't bring himself to. He's aware that he should be intelligent and know better than to take it out on someone like Kusanagi, whose best friends were killed. By Kings.

"I understand the pain you're dealing with, and whatever you feel like saying right now — to whomever of us... well, I won't hold it against you."

At Fushimi's silence, Kusanagi goes on. They tell him that Misaki always fought like no other, like it was supposed to be a reassurance, like it was supposed to bring content to Fushimi's soul. But he doesn't need to be told — he knows. Misaki saved his life, twice, from the two biggest bogeymen he's ever met. He's been there, seen Misaki's back facing away from him, seen his semblance, determined and powerful despite the sweat sticking to their skin and the dirt dulling the starch of their clothes, with his skateboard under his arm, enduring so much yet ready for more, as if picking up the pieces of the mess left by the upheaval driven by the capricious dreams of the powerful was an everyday occurrence.

Just... not fit for anyone to take the burden.

"It wasn't enough," Fushimi says, eyes falling absent-mindedly somewhere that isn't anyone's face.

For all the animosity that the four behind Kusanagi have probably garnered toward him, that traitor, they don't bother condemning him or the dissension in his words now, because this has nothing to do with feelings; it has to do with facts and they know his rancor is justified. They keep their heads down instead as Fushimi's words skid on venom.

"He's always been late. Everywhere," Fushimi mutters, the edge of a wry smirk creeping across his lips. "That idiot."

"Fushimi, that's enough," Awashima warns, her tone just slightly reprimanding but not enough.

He doesn't stay to hear the rest, fixing his eyes on the floor as he watches his steps, leaving Awashima, Kusanagi and the other four clansmen far behind him.

"Fushimi!" Awashima tries again, and Fushimi feels her taking a couple of steps towards him. "The therapist says—"

"Don't need it."

It isn't until he reaches his room and digs his nails beneath his collar, leaving trails of red spears in their wake, that his scar stops tingling to pulsate with bitter satiation.

He doesn't know why he still hasn't gotten rid of the burner phone he's been using to log in to Jungle, but when he turns it on and sees the green icon there, still online and functional, a particular thought roots itself in his mind. And he thinks he might really have the answer before his eyes.

'I'll keep your account active.'

He's always been late.

But he's always turned up before anyone else.

"'Room service'?" Misaki asks upon catching sight of the bills that Fushimi tossed on the desk. "That's a lot of money!"

"It's not, really."

"I don't have any money."

"I have enough." Fushimi crouches by the refrigerator, pulling a bottle of cola. "You don't have to do anything."

"But I wanna do something!"

When he looks up, Misaki has his cheeks puffed up. Fushimi pushes the refrigerator shut and walks over to where his friend is sitting on the bed.

"It doesn't matter. You can't get a job anyway."

"I'll get a job!" Misaki declares, raising his fists in front of his chest, eyes lit up and rivaling the vibrancy of his grin.

Fushimi scoffs. "Who's going to hire you?"

"Is that a challenge?"

"You wish."

"What was that?"

"What do you think?"

It almost feels normal.

Fushimi leaves the dorms a week after he saw Kusanagi at headquarters — that is, three weeks following the Slate's destruction.

He doesn't grab more than he can carry by himself alone — it helps that he doesn't own a lot of things in the first place — and picks a nice hotel two buses away from Scepter 4, Homra, and everything he's become used to.

It's not really far, but not that close either; somewhere where any encounter with a familiar face would be purely accidental and highly fortuitous, if not improbable.

He keeps his old phone, and burns the other. He doesn't need his saber either, so he leaves it behind without really giving too much thought to whether he'll need or not a third reinstatement ceremony when he returns. Because he will return to them, eventually. But for now, he needs this.

He still doesn't regret not going to the funeral, back then. He couldn't, not bedridden as he was, and doesn't think he would have gone even if he was released in time for it, anyway.

Formally, he finds out, the eldest son of that family had been caught in one of the many underground explosions caused by the generalized turmoil that had taken place on the twenty-eighth of January.

It's not that far from what really happened. But, yes, that's what his family is told, more or less.

Jungle, the very same little game Yata Minoru was told to stay away from, craved for a freedom that was dismantled at the expense of his older brother's. But they don't tell them that.

They don't know about Homra either. They don't know what Misaki helped achieve. They won't remember him as the hero he wanted everyone to rely on, save for those who knew the truth. He's to be just another number among many, another victim of collateral damage like in any other war.

Whichever words they use to disguise reality, it doesn't change the fact that it took the whole night to find Yata Misaki and pull his body out, that Homra's vanguard found his bane in the concrete that scraped his knees and ate away his soles, his body nestled in a cradle of debris and failure.

Fushimi locks the door of his new room and knocks his head back against the wood. His hand tightens around his phone, making sure it's still there.

"Geh, I lost." Misaki pauses the game with a sigh and waves the console toward Fushimi's direction. "Here. Wanna try?"

Fushimi can't help but instinctively reach out to take it, only to stop halfway before his fingers can graze the warm edges of the case.

Look but don't touch.

"No." He pulls his hand back, focusing on the screen instead and nodding toward it. "You go on."

The layout reading 'Game Over' is still blinking rapidly, and it takes Fushimi the same amount of time that Misaki's been holding the console in place, hand suspended in the air, to realize Misaki hasn't moved at all, hasn't even blinked.

Fushimi swallows. He hasn't seen Misaki go this quiet so easily in a long time, not a single sound or vibration making it out of his lips, not a minuscule movement shaking his limbs.

So serene. So patient.

"Misaki?" he asks, and Misaki just stares, eyes on Fushimi, or rather somewhere through him, fixed in the same look he had when he offered Fushimi his console like a glitch frozen in time, regarding Fushimi with rapt attention but completely blind to the despair stirring up his insides slowly.

Fushimi pats the floor beside him, feeling for his phone. He looks away from Misaki for just a couple of seconds to type something on the search box, running the first program that comes up.

"Wanna try?"

Fushimi's muscles unwind. Hearing that voice again feels like sucking life into his being, and he perks up instantaneously, gazing back up at Misaki and swallowing thickly.

"You go on," he replies, voice strained and small.

Misaki leans back with a shrug. "All right."

'The codes you write are beautiful, too beautiful.'

'I recommend you write them even more complex.'

'You're pretty talented, but you're inexperienced.'

'Come back when you're stronger and smarter.'

'If you don't...'

No matter how many years it's been, the echo of that synthesized, soulless voice is still fresh in his ears. And it still sounds like a taunt, but right now it sounds terribly encouraging as well, and he can't explain how it happens, but suddenly the oddly quelled desire of revenge is completely overridden by the impulse to try something.

What moves him... he doesn't want to call it hope, so he labels it as genuine, innocent curiosity. Interest. Deep inside though, there's nothing innocent about it. Deep inside, it might be a twisted form of hope, one that could only be suitable for someone like himself.

He's smarter now. He can make his entrances sneakier — not that that matters a lot, since there's no King to monitor his steps or tell him how little he knows about the world — and his codes more complex.

There's the 'beautiful' part left, but if this works, it'll all unravel on its own.

He doesn't plan on finding something useful, to be honest. His fingers dash all over the keyboard almost involuntarily without really knowing what they're actually looking for. For all he knows, Hisui Nagare's death could have very well put an end to everything that was his to control as well.

But it's as automatic as easy, so easy for him, it's in his blood, and ten minutes later he's inside, breaking through the virtual walls of Jungle's mother server and finding it perfectly operable despite the Slate's physical destruction and the fate of the Green King and the dreams that shattered with their demise.

And it's a whole world on its own.

There is everything, and everything is there.

From birth certificates and school records to social networks profiles. From online photo albums to attached files on e-mails. From status messages to chat logs. From short texts to entire conversations and voicemails.

There are words. There are sounds. There are images. There are directories for every single individual.

Everything is measured, quantified and organized by date, by age, by persona, and by many other standards that anyone would find impractical; anyone that isn't a King, of course.

The influx of Jungle users has diminished considerably. It isn't crazy to think they've lost interest, or gained fear, or deemed it a waste of time after weeks of not receiving any hopeful messages of future missions or updates. Effectively, the last activity shown in all directories are from the twenty-eighth of January, and it doesn't take a genius to assume Jungle has stopped updating and supplying itself with new knowledge the moment the Slate or Hisui himself stopped nurturing it.

However, its network somehow keeps fueling itself and what's already there, feeding on what little power it can absorb from all the devices and clansmen it's lodged in. Nothing's been destroyed and there's way more than enough to keep anyone busy.

It borders on creepy, but it might just be what Fushimi's been looking for.

"I have to fix your head," Fushimi resolves, not really sure if he actually can. It's not like he has any other choice though, so it doesn't matter.

"Why?"

"Because you can't do it yourself."

"Wh-why?"

He snorts. "Because you're an idiot?"

"Wh-why?"

Fushimi glances up at Misaki with a puzzled scowl, eyebrows scrunched up in disbelief, and only then he realizes how static Misaki looks and sounds.

There's a strange glow around him, too, the kind that only exudes from beings that don't belong to this world.

"Just because."

"Wh-why?"

"Stop."

"Wh-why?"

I don't know. Stop.

"Wh-why?"

Misaki's voice becomes background noise as Fushimi shakily reaches for his phone, brings up the task manager and force-quits Jungle's application.

God, the cameras. They're everywhere.

In schools, malls and arcades. In museums, parks and fairs. In computers, video game consoles and all the phones, tablets and computers Jungle has infected.

All it takes is a click, and he's down there, on the streets, watching the Minato twins sneaking out of his and Misaki's loft through their emergency escape route four years ago.

Another click takes him to a rooftop, with Totsuka's body and the blood he's lying in before Misaki arrives, cradles him in his arms and stains his clothes with it.

They've been hijacked all this time, always have, recording an endless flow of information from whatever angle they could. There are places out of their reach, though. He notices how there isn't a single recording of headquarters or the Mihashira Tower, among other areas, and he figures it has something to do with Kings and ethics.

It's still impressive. There even was a sort of recognition software going on, which helped linking every single individual's face with their records and their presence in their networks, in the city, in the country, in the universe, in this world and in the virtual world, and in the world ruled by Kings — a ridiculous sum of worlds Fushimi's lost count of.

It's scary.

It's nothing he hasn't seen before, nothing that much different from how any intelligent search engine administers its clients' data. But seeing it here, all stored up in the same place like this... is remarkable.

He still can't fathom what they could possibly do with so much knowledge, until he comes across Aya's ID.

There's a directory named 'Blacklist' which makes things way easier. Fushimi would have laughed at Hisui's straightforwardness if he wasn't so caught up in what he's finding.

Aya's history is there. Her movements. Her points. Her achievements. Her map of connections is almost nonexistent, but figures she didn't have many people to send friendly e-cards to.

However, there's one connection, one single node that stands out amidst the sea of infinite nothingness and cyberspace, and links her account to a disposable address, which in turn links itself to the address Fushimi recognizes as the one he used when he was sixteen, weak and angry.

He doesn't plan on going further, but tracing Aya's e-mail from a couple of years ago is just easy, and so is finding what links them together.

A single file. Unnamed. Heavy.

An autorun. He's smarter now, and recognizes one when he sees it.

But he hasn't learned to quell the way his belly twists with anticipation, to cancel fear.

Allowing himself a brief respite, he lets go of the mouse to curl his fingers in and stretch them out, clenching and unclenching his fist to stop the shaking and make the blood flow.

He's cautious when he closes his hand around the mouse again and inspects the file, careful of not doing anything that might activate it.

As he accesses its code, he's faced by endless lines of text and numbers. It doesn't mean much at first, but there are specific paths ingrained in them, leading to specific directories of information belonging to a very specific individual.

There are patterns, descriptions.

There are sizes.

Colors.

Voice.

Image.

A match.

Laughter.

A face.

A voice.

His laughter.

His face.

His creaking laughter.

Chanting. 'Monkey'. 'Monkey'.

That house.

That window.

His bedroom.

It all matches.

There's pure knowledge, and this is what it is for.

And there's just so much of it in here it's overwhelming, nauseating Fushimi until his vision blurs, specks of black and white rocketing in his eyes, and he's never shut down his laptop faster, vaguely surprised that the screen doesn't shatter when he slams it against the keyboard.

He doesn't touch his laptop for three days.

"Hey, Saruhiko."

"Hm?"

"Is that complicated?"

"Not really."

Fushimi shifts on the chair, but never takes his eyes off the lines of code splayed throughout the screens of his laptop and phone. He can already imagine what he's going to answer the next time Misaki asks something anyway — something along the lines of what he's doing, why he's doing it, how—

"What'cha doing, huh? Saruhiko?" Misaki asks, proving his point, but his voice is just so soft and closer than anything Fushimi's heard in a long time that it makes him start, choking back a breath.

He nearly breaks his neck when he whips his head around and meets the side of Misaki's face, his cheek a brush or two apart from the tip of Fushimi's nose, because Misaki has suddenly no sense of space whatsoever. Maybe he just can't determine the distance between himself and another person anymore. Maybe he just doesn't care. The possibilities are a lot to process at the moment; whichever it is, Fushimi thinks he can almost feel his calculated breathing like this, and it sends chills down his spine.

By now, Fushimi's become highly familiar to most physical details that make Misaki's existence unique. But this is, somehow, too much.

It all washes over him at once.

He can't stay in that room any longer, the walls stifling him, Misaki's closeness haunting him, his collar stuck to his neck when he claws at it, his face flaring up when he cups his mouth with his free hand — but there's an important revision he's transferring to his phone and he isn't sure what would happen if he were to interrupt everything to make Misaki stop just because he can't find the will to fight his own weaknesses.

He's been careless.

So he does the only thing he deems manageable at the moment and leaves everything behind — his laptop running, his phone charging, the chair that produces a nasty thud as he rises to his feet and practically storms out of the room, shutting the door behind him, knees buckling until he's slumping down against the wood, running his hands through his hair and digging his nails into his scalp.

He doesn't want to come back inside to Misaki studying the furious blush on his cheeks, and tries not to focus on the memory of the slope of his smiling cheeks, the curve of his lips and eyes. But the more he tries the stronger it all closes in on him and the world only keeps speeding up with each repressed realization.

This isn't what he wanted.

Three days later, he returns, more cool-headed and temperate. He doesn't waste any time, barely making himself comfortable at the desk before heading straight for Aya's e-mail and the virus attached to it without giving much thought to the rush of adrenaline coursing through him as the voice inside his mind tells him, 'You're really doing this'.

The moment he disassembles the file, cascades of text and raw information unfolding before his eyes one more time, the knot that's been twisting in his stomach untwines with the deep breath that pushes out of his clenched teeth.

He immediately whips his head around and to every side, guarded eyes scanning every corner of the room, searching for something that might give away a second presence besides his own, be it a glimpse of silver earrings, the sound of chained necklaces jingling at the smallest movement, or the small echo of a snicker.

There's nothing.

You aren't that terrible like this, huh, Fushimi Niki...

Slowly, Fushimi slumps back on the chair, turning his focus back to the screen, his confidence renewed and dampened by a layer of satisfaction. Knowing he can launch it right here if he wanted to though, summon it like the demon it impersonates — knowing he can control it, this time, empowers him.

'If the world bores you, why not construct it yourself?'

There's something about those words that sounds incredibly fitting but wrong at the same time. He can't allow himself to dwell on the latter though, there's no place for doubt for what he's about to do, and stretches his fingers. Filling his belly with a last, deep breath, he begins to work.

It's a challenge, to figure out which commands correspond to the voice, to the movements, to the taunts. Some of them are enciphered, but it's not that much different from some of the games he's played, and the thought of what the reward would be, and how it would match his expectations, propels Fushimi to keep going.

He'd thought it would be hard to trace Misaki's movements after they stopped using Jungle, but he comes across the directory of the time they relied on the encrypted application Fushimi designed for them, thinking it to be safe, and when they joined Homra together, including the little incident during the surprise party. It's like rewinding time and watching everything from a bird's perspective — they way Aya pushes her way through the crowd after pulling that dirty move on him, Misaki's broken voice begging for the 'Red Monster' to save Fushimi, Totsuka Tatara's body shielding his from Suoh Mikoto's vicious flames.

And while years after that Misaki's presence in Jungle's database is scarce, Jungle's recognition software is just so fucking unreal; there really are logs for everything, and with a little more probing into their surveillance system, Fushimi reaches restaurants, parks, alleys and parking lots, finding recorded bits of Yata Misaki scattered throughout the whole city. There's Yata Misaki hanging out with his friends, and Yata Misaki walking out of a convenience store, and Yata Misaki skateboarding at the park, all of them bright and in good shape like pieces of a puzzle he can't wait to assemble.

One of the last recordings linked to Yata Misaki's directory is from a security camera in a parking lot just outside a convenience store, where Fushimi recognizes one of the other six people — all school students — that are with him as Misaki's younger siblings.

They're arguing about Jungle, apparently, until Misaki confronts them, his body exuding the unmistakable glare of the red aura, and effectively chases them away.

It's not long after before Misaki's mom makes it to the scene and the timbre of her voice as he scolds her sons momentarily transports Fushimi back to the past. He's about to close the directory, regarding the encounter insignificant and not wanting to meddle in any family reunions, until—

"And promise you'll bring Saruhiko-kun with you."

He could have done without hearing that.

The skate park is empty.

The second Monday of April was welcomed by an unexpected downpour, and apart from the puddles splattered all over the place, there's nobody to use the ramps. It doesn't keep Fushimi from wondering though — what Misaki would look like up there, how much progress he's made on his skateboarding, how high he would fly now.

If Misaki was out there...

This isn't exactly what he thought of back when he decided Misaki needed more space, but it's not something that hasn't crossed his mind either. He's thought of it, he really has, of unleashing it outside. But he's been scared of what he would see, of letting it run about somewhere he doesn't have any authority over, of being unable to stop himself or to stop Misaki or to keep it all restrained. Controlled.

There's a limit he's been reticent to cross, because seeing Misaki everywhere would be... distracting at best, but highly chaotic and dangerous at worst.

There's a small flame lighting the fuse leaning toward the former though, and it's the reassurance that if he's seen through the illusion once, he can do it again, and again, and again.

That's why he's here, his phone firmly clenched in his fist, because he didn't need to go to the mall or get any supplies.

He's here to meet up with Misaki.

He breathes in, his eyelids falling. When his eyes drift open again it's with his deep exhale, and the realization that the sun spreads so much light and Misaki's just so clear, crystalline like glass, that there isn't even a shadow where he stands, as if the star has chosen to bathe him, out of everything, in radiance from every angle.

Misaki remains still for a brief moment, standing next to one of the ramps as if getting used to his surroundings.

There isn't any hurry, but Fushimi still decides to give him a small push. "You didn't forget how to use a skateboard, did you?"

This time, the reaction is almost immediate, and in the blink of an eye Misaki is producing a skateboard he might have carried with him all this time and starts his routine.

Fushimi sees him performs the tricks he's more familiar with first, then ones he vaguely remembers having seen in the recordings of Jungle's database. He's glad he hadn't paid much attention to them back then, because seeing them now is a real spectacle.

"Did'ya see that last one, Saruhiko?!" Misaki beams on their ride back to the hotel, and Fushimi can't help the smile that tickles the corners of his mouth.

"I did," he replies, a whisper against the buzz of rustling bags and clothes of the other eight people in the bus, deliberately ignoring the way a middle-aged woman three seats away from him throws him a sideway, mistrustful glance.

Five weeks after the Slate's destruction, Misaki stands by the two big windows that open onto the balcony, glowing like the stars dotting the night sky behind him.

Fushimi's body shakes to the beat of his pulsation. If the human heart was smaller, he would easily cough his out of his chest.

Tousled, spiky hair. Long bangs falling over his forehead, over his nose, and a bit longer at the sides. Every contour, curve and lump is carefully sculpted to match the real thing — it's the most accurate visual representation of him that Fushimi managed to recreate. There's just more of that period of their existence in Jungle's database than any other time of their lives, after all.

"Mi... Misaki."

Misaki's reply doesn't echo in the room until a few seconds afterward, eventually coming in the form of a rather lengthy statement that Fushimi can't quite process, mind oscillating between believing his eyes and denying Misaki's existence in any form whatsoever. But the sound of that voice alone — so close and so him — is like a slap in the face and a kick to his chest that hauls him toward the former and robs him of any chance of swinging toward the latter.

"Right, Saruhiko?"

Fushimi doesn't cry, because there's no one to mourn for.

"Sa... Sa... Sa..."

For a brief moment, Fushimi sees red.

"Damnit!"

The overwhelming numbness mixed with anger and exhaustion that washes over him clouds his brain, makes him scream his throat out and leaves his body to react on its own. He momentarily stops feelings his limbs.

He isn't that far gone to miss the dull echo of something landing on the carpet though, and he somehow registers the sound almost instantaneously; it shoves him back to reality, and he feels himself shifting his weight, regaining equilibrium and balancing back on his two wobbly feet.

Suddenly, he's able to feel himself, his body, his legs. He can feel one of his hands again, and the awful emptiness in it, causing him to blink away the haze in his eyes to stare at his trembling fingers in horror, his gaze shifting from them to the blurred, rectangular outline of the phone he just hurled against the wall.

Fushimi's body trembles as he crouches down and lifts his phone carefully, finding it dented on two corners. Broken, broken, a voice inside him croons, but a fleeting thought reassures him — that he's weak, that he can't harm this with brute force alone, that it takes unimaginable power, outworldly power, to destroy this world he's shaped. By himself. For themselves.

"Saruhiko."

When he raises his gaze, Misaki has his hands on his hips, and his grin is just dazzling.

"What's the matter, Saruhiko?"

Fushimi releases a shaky rush of air, but his chest hurts.

Misaki is not being serene, or patient, or mellow.

He is not.

It's. Not. Working.

The Misaki-of-middle-school's words sound a little mechanic, as if they had been carefully arranged to fit next to each other and develop a coherent sentence, each with a different rhythm like that of the automated personal assistant installed on most mobile devices and some cleaning robots.

He doesn't react as fast as that guy. There's always a brief delay between what Fushimi says and what Misaki replies, as if he was taking his time to process a command and choose the right answer. But Fushimi supposes it has something to do with the exceptional power of a King, a force that the wrecks of a rock which influence is gradually depleting to the point of becoming obsolete, cannot rival.

But it's something, and while far from being the kind of perfection and sophistication only a King can conceive, it's good enough. And as the days passed he's become used to it, and to the deliberate interval between what he says and what Misaki processes before he replies back, until he can't tell the difference between Misaki and... whoever his family cremated. Because how can Misaki be dust, if he's what stands before Fushimi, what speaks to Fushimi, what listens and responds?

When Fushimi gets ready to go to the mall, he offers Misaki to join him.

The ride back to the hotel was almost flawless, but the way an old man took Misaki's seat without so much as batting an eyelash might just be one of the rudest things Fushimi's ever seen.

It's been six weeks since the Slate's destruction and one week since Misaki's 'moved in' with him, and the only thing that still pains Fushimi a little is that he's memorized almost every phrase and every pattern, that he usually knows what to expect as an answer and what triggers a specific reaction.

It's fine though. Misaki's working on it. Fushimi's working too; there's always something to fix in his code, to test and modify. He confirms it himself when he thinks he sees a flicker of an emotion he hadn't seen before, as if Misaki was trying, and upon digging into the code deeper, throwing an equation here and there, Misaki somehow finds the way to deconstruct and construct his speech, to say new things he's never said to anyone.

Some of the results are amusing. The next day, Fushimi is asking Misaki if he wants chicken for dinner and being told that 'Those chickens they saw at the zoo during their school field trip were scary-looking'. Fushimi forgives the little glitch though, because Misaki would keep playing his video game and forget to nag him about how small his dinner is.

It still doesn't keep his breath from faltering when they're together.

"These powers we got are great."

Fushimi looks up from the screen of his laptop. "What brought this about?"

"What, you don't like them?"

"That's not what I meant."

"What do you mean?" Misaki ask, confused, looking at Fushimi with a frown as Fushimi leans back against the pillow on his back.

"Have you ever thought about what would happen if they were gone?"

"Where are they going?"

Fushimi sighs. "Just don't depend too much on them."

"What!" Misaki sounds energized as he climbs up the bed and settles by Fushimi's side. "I'm always gonna have your back, and you're gonna have mine, right?"

Fushimi doesn't respond, letting Misaki fill the room with the warmth of his promises.

"We're always gonna be partners. Saruhiko, you're my partner," he declares, and that manages to draw a tiny smile on the corner of Fushimi's downturned lips.

"Always, huh?"

"Always!"

As if to seal the pact or something, Misaki raises his hand clenched into a fist, offering his knuckles which Fushimi meets with his own.

It's as if the last couple of episodes he'd gone through hadn't affected him at all.

It seems to be still working just fine.

They're working it out.

Perhaps... their powers aren't going anywhere.

"The servers are getting unstable."

"What?"

"They're not working."

"But you can fix it, right? I mean... you can fix anything, so..."

"Yeah. I can fix it."

"I knew it! Awesome! You're amazing, Saruhiko!"

Awashima can't hide her surprise when Fushimi calls her to tell her he's ready to come back, under the condition that he won't be sleeping in the dorms yet.

She spends the next twenty seconds alternating between silence and suspicion, Fushimi can sense it, and he spends the same amount of time reassuring her that she's heard right.

"And when would that be?" she asks, voice a delicate and cautious thread, far from the bossy and cutting edge known in her scolding.

Fushimi keeps himself from giving a shrug. "Soon."

Awashima sighs and her tone becomes firmer, back to business. "All right. I'll inform the Captain, then, so we can—"

The rest is interrupted by a guttural scream; it doesn't stop Awashima from finishing his speech, but Fushimi freezes up, his free hand tightening around the rails of the balcony on instinct before he turns around and quickly heads back inside.

"Misaki?!"

"Ugh..."

He finds Misaki kneeling on the floor, bent forward with his forehead and elbows pressed against the carpet, like in a weird praying position. His forearms are up, his hands gripping his handheld console over his head, a raging 'Game Over' taking over the screen and mocking Misaki's frustration.

"Agh! I lost again!"

"... Idiot." Fushimi gives a snort as he lets his arms fall to his sides, only aware of the phone in his hand when he gives it a squeeze.

It's not long before he hears Awashima's voice again. "F-Fushimi..."

As he raises his phone to his ear, the tremor in her tone becomes clearer.

"Fushimi?"

"I'm here."

There's a deliberate silence. "Who are you talki—"

"It's nothing."

It's nothing.

When the automatic doors slide open, Misaki is the first to head out to the sidewalk.

"Hey, Saruhiko."

"What?"

The stranger leaning against a handrail along the footpath just outside the electronics shop Fushimi walks out from isn't wearing Scepter 4's uniform, so Fushimi almost misses him.

He has to do a double take, because something about the man's stance looks familiar, and that's when the world crashes down on him.

"Where do we go now?" Misaki asks, words Fushimi can barely register with how loud his pulse begins to thrum in his ears. Despite the vernal warmth in the atmosphere, the air that manages to reach his lungs is cold and sharp as frost, freezing his blood, as if between Misaki and Munakata, the latter had the most chances to be a ghost.

When it dawns on him that there really is no ghost, he feels like he's suddenly jolted awake.

Munakata is, more often than not, a wake-up call in himself.

"Saruhiko?" Misaki's still calling for him, and Fushimi knows it's his turn to respond, but Munakata's eyes are fixed on his, eyebrows upturned and smile nonexistent, and Fushimi hates that he knows there's surprise in that look.

His fingers tremble around the phone in his pocket as he blindly scrambles to find the buttons at the side. Next to him, Misaki attempts to draw his attention again, but as his thumb holds the power key long enough to turn his phone off, his lively voice dies away between the engines of the passing cars before he can finish uttering Fushimi's name one more time.

And it pains him to pressure Misaki into silence like this. But it also pains him that he can see those sharp, violet eyes catching the shaky motion of his wrist and shifting to the pocket of his jacket before his attention is stolen by something by Fushimi's side, where Misaki used to stand.

Fushimi swallows hard, his knees feeling like giving out; few times has he felt so hopeless.

"Captain." His voice is a tremulous whisper.

When their gazes lock again, the lines of Munakata's face loosen and he looks at Fushimi fondly, his lips curling slightly at the corners, like a gentle shepherd who always knows where to find his most difficult stray sheep.

It doesn't quite reach the small tinge of melancholy in his eyes, however, as if he's found it wounded.

Their eyes linger on each other for a brief moment until Munakata props himself off of the handrail and stands upright with crossed arms, his palms cupping his elbows.

"I needed to see it with my own eyes," he simply explains, and it says absolutely nothing at all about what he's just found out.

A small part of Fushimi wants to know, just to make sure, but he doesn't want to ask what he saw. Or what he saw Fushimi doing. Or what he saw Fushimi talking to.

"How are you doing, Fushimi-kun?"

Far from finding the company comforting, Fushimi just wants to disappear.

"I'm busy right now," he manages to say in a rush, bowing his head in a nod and all. He doesn't know how, but he manages to take control of his legs, spinning halfway to head back to where he came from. "If you'll excuse me—"

"Oh, it looks like we're going in the same direction, then."

He doesn't make it far after that, his feet reluctantly rooting into the ground as soon as the implication reaches him. He's surprised to find that despite the weeks apart, before and after the Slate's collapse, he's still able to recognize the nuances of emotions behind that deep voice. It's all there, exactly like he remembers it, and right now Munakata's diction drips with perseverance.

When Fushimi tilts his head just enough to look at him in the eye, gaze flat and deliberately uninterested, Munakata takes the chance to add, "If you don't mind me walking by your side, that is," like Fushimi has a choice.

Fushimi's momentarily conflicted with himself, not sure whether he's comfortable with the fact that Munakata's not overwhelming him with inquiries right away or if he wants him to get straight to the point. Normally, he would appreciate the latter, but he's feeling antsy, and what he does know is that the moment he exposes an opening, doubt and disappointment will claw their way inside, so he bites the inside of his cheek and clenches his fists in his pockets.

"Don't you have work to do?"

Munakata has the nerve to chuckle. He bends one of his arms, bringing a hand to his chin. "Certainly not. It appears I have..." He pauses, as if looking for the right words. "Days off now." And the smile that plays on his lips as he says it is genuine, like the concept and the newness of it all fascinate him.

Fushimi bites back a snort. "Us mere mortals have them." At the manner Munakata's eyebrows twitch up curiously, he clicks his tongue and looks away. "Do what you want." Either way, it's not like he has what it takes to stop him, King or simple human.

King.

His King. Does it make sense to call him that now? It all happened so fast he hasn't had the time to deal with that aspect of his life.

As soon as he resumes his march and Munakata begins following close behind him, footfalls as soundless as those of a skilled burglar, Fushimi's trying to come up with different ways to avoid any possible attempt at idle chitchat, because there's no way that man came all the way here not to talk. He must want them to talk.

They don't talk, actually.

Instead, it's a long way they're wrapped in silence until their stroll halts to an end when they reach the beginnings of the woods surrounding that ridiculously big institute to the southeast of Shizume — there are twenty hectares of green life for study purposes, a small jungle amidst civilization and concrete.

It's a strategic stop; beside Fushimi is a segment of the fence bordering the whole area that's shorter than the rest, and which he's jumped over a few times before. A shortcut.

He just isn't ready to let Munakata know where he lives now, even though Munakata probably knows, always looking like few things escape him.

"Awashima-kun informed me about your decision," Munakata's voice cuts through his musing and Fushimi turns until they're standing face to face. "We might have to discuss on your working hours before assigning you back to your regular activities. And I can also request a reinstatement ceremony to be arranged for your return — that won't be a problem," he reassures, but Fushimi doesn't react, simply accepting the influx of formalities he's receiving. It doesn't bother him, though. These are all things he's used to, after all.

But then Munakata tips his head downward a bit, his voice lowering to a more private volume. "Your room is exactly as you left it."

Fushimi feels his stomach swirling uncomfortably, his toes curling in his boots, no longer feeling the pavement underneath but the beginnings of a quicksand.

He's about to comment on what Munakata said, but Munakata straightens up, brings his hands behind his back and beats him to it. "You can move in whenever you wish, if that's what you want."

"Hm."

"Things are still quite hectic, and we need everyone on top form, so don't hesitate to define your boundaries."

"Right."

There's a brief moment of silence. "Are you on top form?"

"I wouldn't have asked to return otherwise," Fushimi answers, permeating his voice with as much determination as he can.

Munakata lowers his eyelids and nods. "I see." There's yet another pause, longer, before he turns his gaze back on Fushimi. "Are you taking care of yourself, Fushimi-kun?"

Fushimi doesn't know if it's a paraphrase or another question, but the reaction is the same; finding the question redundant, he answers with a shrug. "This speaks for itself, doesn't it?"

"Certainly." Munakata allows himself a moment, his smile turning coy. "On the surface."

"Captain," Fushimi exhales, "We've already had this conversation before."

"I apologize, Fushimi-kun, I didn't mean to question your judgment. But I shouldn't remind you that if something is troubling you, you can always come to us."

It feels like a suggestion shrouded in inquisitive regard, but it's not, and it lacks ignorance. Caught aback by what seems to be a very off-protocol offer, Fushimi's eyes widen a little. "I thought Scepter 4 had no place for refugees who couldn't deal with their own problems."

The fact that that alone is enough to draw an immediate reaction out of Munakata's face is telling about how much everything has changed.

"True, it doesn't," Munakata acquiesces, "if there isn't any space left in you to grow," he says, while still managing to look unfazed on the outside.

Something in Fushimi's chest snaps at that. To grow...isn't that what he's been trying to do?

"But," Munakata goes on, "in the event that you think of yourself as a refugee with obstacles of your own to overcome, it can be overlooked for the simple fact that this is a new Scepter 4, and we can afford to bend some old rules."

They fall silent for a moment. It's not the most they've talked since the Slate's destruction, since Misaki's death, but it's the most speechless he's been left for something that Munakata said.

"I'll keep that in mind." Tilting his head down a little, he signals his patience running out with a pronounced sigh, his shoulders slumping slightly. "If that's all, I'll be going back now."

Fushimi turns, the muscles in his legs aching to be used. But as much as he tries to move, something stops him, a brusque warmth seeping through his arm, running all the way down until it reaches the hand in his pocket. His fingers have never ceased to move along the edges of his phone until now.

His eyes dart upward slowly, from the ground to the hand that's closed firmly around his elbow.

He doesn't attempt to move again. He stands where Munakata keeps him, immobile and conflicted, one side of his instinct telling him to get away, fast, that he isn't ready to hear what he's been avoiding the past two months. The other side tells him he needs it.

He assimilates the sensation for a brief moment before dragging his eyes back up, from Munakata's hand to his arm, and to the stern lines of his face.

Munakata's grip remains effortless but inflexible. "I'm not speaking to you as the superior I no longer am. I'm speaking to you as a friend."

Fushimi can't help his eyes from widening a bit; to think Munakata would allow such proximity.

Things really have changed, yet something about the way Munakata speaks reveals a residual familiarity. Munakata's aura is gone, but his intuition is not. It's become something like a second skin, a trait that's walked alongside him for a long time. Munakata's been so imbued in it that anyone would have a hard time telling if it's been a result of the capricious decisions of a rock or if it truly belonged to him all along. But Fushimi fears it's the latter.

But it's just late. What good does Munakata think he's doing by showing up and saying all of this now?

He'd said that anyone could turn their back to the world, that it was easy to do so. He'd said that if the world was boring, one should be capable of deconstruct it and construct it from scratch. He'd urged Fushimi to shape the world he wanted to live in by himself, and if Fushimi is framing the order he needs, he can't be expected to allow having this... this thing he's built with his own two hands snatched from him.

He doesn't see the point of it.

"A... friend?" Fushimi huffs a snort, raising his head and facing Munakata with a crooked smile, chagrin blearing his eyes. "Does any of what happened tell you something about the friends I make?"

Fushimi can feel more than hear the sharp intake of breath from Munakata in the way the strong grip he has on Fushimi's arm lets up considerably.

Munakata's eyebrows curve downwards, eyes softening. "That was an accident. What happened was unfortunate—"

"An accident," Fushimi scoffs, robbing Munakata of his words. "Jungle has no place for unforeseen parameters such as luck." He doesn't know why he's bringing Jungle into this. In a way, it feels cathartic to say the things that have been weighing on his mind; for each clan he reluctantly admits there are retrievable traits.

And despite everything that happened, Jungle's functionality is quite the attraction, something that appeals to him even up until now and even though he rejected it, because what he admires from a distance is not always what he truly needs.

"Everything is built on facts, not emotions." Fushimi really believes that; no one predicted they would be ready to blow up their place were their goal to fail, because with the celebrated support they had, how could they have not succeeded?

As unexpected as that was, there's an element of calculation behind that decision, too.

That's not how he imagined the world to end.

Fushimi should have suspected something. He should have known they would attempt to erase what physical traces of them were left. If he had told Misaki to hurry as soon as Homra carried out their plan, then maybe—

"And that was its demise, to think of humanity as numbers thrown into a unique equation, seeking the same result — power, to blind us."

Fushimi's gaze trails from Munakata's face to his hand, until he finds himself unable to gather the strength to straighten his neck, his head lolling down.

His eyes narrow at the ground. "Aren't we?" he grits out, voice low and bordering on hysteria. Numbers, he means. "You can't keep a sand wall from crumbling, but their servers are still running and more stable than any Beta-Class Strain that's left."

For a brief moment, there's silence, and an understanding undertone in Munakata's voice the next time he speaks.

"Fushimi-kun," he begins, "it's not going to be long before the powers that have been bestowed upon the rest of you disappear from this world for good as well."

Fushimi knows that. They haven't pinpointed where the Slate's power came from or how it generated it. Maybe there's more than one Slate, waiting to be awaken. Maybe if he can prolong the wait, work on it, mimic its functioning, he'll find a way.

"Along with everything that's been feeding on it," that composed voice slices through his thinking, as if it hasn't said enough, and Fushimi feels like his head is swirling endlessly around its axis. "Fushimi-kun," Munakata tries again with careful inflexion, and goes on when Fushimi denies him yet another reaction. "Are you still using Jun—"

"No," Fushimi growls.

As he lifts his gaze, blaming the ardor prickling his eyes on the wind, something about him has Munakata recoiling slightly and allowing Fushimi to jerk his arm out of his grip. Before he could regret freeing himself from the unmistakable feeling of skin and warmth he feels he hasn't felt in ages, he dashes toward the fence next to him and climbs over into the woods.

He isn't muddled enough to not be aware that Munakata isn't following him, but he can't stop running, leaving the sounds of tires and people behind until he becomes aware of the shaking in his legs, his feet tripping over each other, and has to plant a hand against the trunk of one of the many trees towering over his miniature presence.

It's not the first time he's run away from a King, and with that notion in mind, he forces the adrenaline in his nerves to quiet down.

It's been almost three months since Misaki left this world.

The servers are getting worse.

It's curious, how he barely feels the impulsive electricity of the green aura inside of him, as if merely brushing the surface of his body. Beneath it though, on a second level, deeper, lays the blue aura, like crisp air breathing into the pores of his skin, keeping him cool-headed and stable. Lastly rests the heat, the one that started it all and brought him into this world of Kings and swords, blazing up in his core as if ingrained deep within, harder to dig out.

It's a beautiful mix of recklessness, temperance and passion, and they're fading away one by one, leaving only vestiges of the place they once occupied in his world in the form of memories.

Memories.

What place does Misaki have in them?

He doesn't need Munakata to remind him where their powers are going to end up, but hearing it from him somehow makes it more real.

Fushimi knows this. It's inevitable. The atemporality inside Jungle's core is only a façade; in the real world, time runs out, renews and kills. Isn't that what the Green Clan has always advocated for? Changeability. Impermanence. Transformation. Things Fushimi's always had a hard time dealing with.

Misaki... this is information, is numbers, is words and is code. There's perfection in that, obviously. There's stability. Time can't touch it, can't kill it.

The problem is, there's no humanity, no life. It's not real.

Fushimi is flesh and blood. Misaki is dust and stars. Nothing will change the fact that his name ended up in an archive and his body where no one can't ever see it or touch it again.

A twinkling star. Dust and energy.

Misaki isn't this.

"You're not real."

Misaki's eyes widen, then lower, then go wide again and lower, in an endless loop that makes Fushimi look away, because he can't bear to see Misaki's holographic face morphing into a ridiculous wide range of emotions and aiming to pick the right one to react to Fushimi telling him he doesn't exist.

Fushimi grabs his phone and shuts the virus down before he can get an answer.

It doesn't take much preparation. In the same fashion he did it in that alley years ago, he just stands in the room and readies himself to end it all.

He can't feel the green or the blue anymore, only feeble sparks of red puncturing the side of his brain in charge of his emotions. The Slate's influence is reaching its limit. Jungle's servers are going to close down soon. Everything they've stored over the years will be deleted. The power that his virus feeds on will be no more.

"Misaki..."

He clutches his phone to his chest.

He doesn't know how but the flames dancing around his fingers never felt warmer. And it feels like Misaki.

It also feels like moving in reverse all over again, rewinding that cycle of destruction, to ruin before he's ruined.

It feels like giving up. Either he destroys it himself or has it snatched away from him.

No... he owes Misaki this.

"It's enough."

He doesn't know if he actually hears it or if he's making the words up in his head, but it says, gentle, and too good for this world, too full of soul to be a machine's, that—

"It's enough, Saruhiko."

And it goes on.

"Saruhiko."

And on.

"Please."

"Stop."

"Stop, all right?"

Fushimi can't breathe, only squeezes, and squeezes, and begins to feel the ashes, scalding and soft against the skin of his palm until the smell of burnt plastic is slowly rushing through his lungs and settling in his stomach, and he inhales it like a tonic.

And so he gives up.

But it also feels like liberation, like getting rid of a big weight, of keeping Misaki's memory alive in the most damaging and poisonous way. He understands that — he might always have, while lacking the will to act on it.

But he needs to do this. He owes Misaki the rightful place in his memories he's been denying him of since his death.

And when it's over, he wants to believe it's Misaki who's uncurling his fingers, exposing the ashes that managed to persevere and stick to the sweat on his palm, the rest a thin thread of smoke swirling in the air that Fushimi follows with his gaze, feeling it tickle the tip of his nose before fading into oblivion.

His eyes fall back on the gray speckles on his palm.

"Even when you're gone you have the nerve to tell me what to do."

There's no response.

And that's good.

Fushimi snorts, once, twice, until it twists into a breathless laughter he chokes on, his throat clogging up.

There are tears scalding his eyes, which he tries to blink away by digging the heels of his hands against them before they can reach his cheeks.

"I need a new phone."

There's a considerable moment of silence on the other side of the line as Fushimi fiddles with the cord of one of the pay phones scattered around the mall.

Munakata sighs, and Fushimi can almost hear the small smile that comes with his response. "Very well."

On the second Sunday of May, amidst the singing of the cicadas, blossoms reaching their peak and trees bearing their fruit, Fushimi finds himself walking down a street he's never walked alone, standing in front of a door he's never faced on his own.

The date is a genuine coincidence, but the symbolism behind it doesn't bother him as he thought it would. It's suiting.

He wants to knock harder, but his knuckles rap against the door with feeble intent, barely brushing the wood, emitting a sound that only sharp ears could pick up on.

After a while, however, the door opens, revealing a woman poised in such a way that the resemblance strikes him immediately. She brings a hand to her chest, slowly, as if bemused by the sight, her hazel eyes taking on a glazed shine.

Fushimi looks down; he attempts a nod, but it's more like his head is hanging low and heavy.

"I'm sorry." His voice is hoarse and chipped like a fork had been clawing at his throat. "I didn't come before... I..." he trails off, unable to grasp any of the few words he'd thought of before coming here.

The silence stretches on.

When he dares look up, the small smile he gets in return is tender, compassionate, and intensely familiar. Her cheeks are pushed up ever so slightly, but just enough to make her eyes squint, the same way Misaki's used to.

And then, both of her hands, warm and strong like Misaki's, find him — one on his shoulder, the other curling around the nape of his neck.

And she pulls him in, welcoming the feeble weight of his body against her shorter, yet much stronger carriage.

And Fushimi lets her, unaware of how much he needed this until he's in her arms, and despite being taller, it's her who's fighting gravity for him in the most fierce yet sophisticated way, adamant on not letting his knees give out with the very same weak breeze that caressed his and Misaki's hair during their adolescence.

As exhausted as he is, he still manages to wrap his arms around her back.

He sees her son in her eyes before hot tears are swelling in his own, heavy and weighing a million downpours. And only then does he let them out.

Thank you so much for reading!

This was a real challenge to write! I feel that, if faced with a situation like this, Fushimi would be able to move on, but having him developing the same kind of virus that Jungle used on him as a coping mechanism was a 'what if' scenario that appealed to me from the very first moment it just popped up, so, yeah. And, well, he did move on in the end. ;)

Thanks to misarumi and messier-45 on tumblr for providing translations for Lost Small World, and to SilverThunder for the idea of the aura examinations!

I hope you enjoyed it! Don't hesitate to tell me what you think! ^^