notes - What if Byakuran's original motives were benevolent? This fic attempts to explore this theory and completely butchers it at the same time. I just wrote this and it is 3:00 AM. I have somewhere to go tomorrow what am I doing up.
-x- He is the ivory king on the delicately crafted chessboard, in command of the slightly chipped and scratched chess pieces that wait to be burnt and then recreated. -x-
It all started with tiny dissatisfaction, scratching, itching away at the delicate framework of the human mind. He would ignore it, of course- it was not out of his power to do so, and the constant tickling was no cause for concern.
Then he realized that it grew stronger whenever something wasn't right. Any large screw up would have him figuratively ghosting over the back of his head as if the itch was actually real, not just an unwanted figment of his imagination that he subconsciously conjured up.
He recognized the feeling as dissatisfaction and disgust when one day he saw another report of another person dying come up on the news, and from there he realized that he hated this world for all it was worth. There seemed to be only death and despair and other depressing things of the sort in this world. He rarely heard of any news that was beneficial to the population as a whole, only beneficial to one particular and selfish being, maybe one raising himself politically or something equally stupid and uninteresting.
Another day, another abduction of some sort, another death. Nothing good ever happened. He hated it, he hated everything about it. He wanted to change it, because in his eyes he was the only one that could picture in his mind an earth that had reached its full potential.
And he questioned himself. Maybe he could be the one to change everything for the better.
These ideas were buried deep in his mind, seemingly never to be touched upon again. The world continued it's cycle as peacefully as it possibly could, and all was well. As well as it could be.
A boy with red hair and scared eyes happened to run into him one brutally fateful day, and he could feel his head tingle with curious excitement. He scratched the back of his head and wondered aloud what this little boy was doing in such a place.
When the boy was gone, he thought nothing of the matter and continued on his way. He forgot him completely, almost as if he had never existed in the first place. It was if some greater power had wiped out any lingering memory he had ever had of a red haired boy who looked frightened out of his wits, and he would never know.
Maybe a year passed. Maybe it was two years, or was it a month? He didn't remember or particularly care, for that matter. No red haired boy had ever existed, and that was all that mattered.
When an oddly familiar looking red haired boy indeed did exist, his scared eyes staring in front of him one day, he had vague recollections of meeting a similar looking boy some time before. Had he met him in a dream? It had seemed all too real, though, as if playing out in his mind like some dimly lit phantasmagoria.
But there was a lingering feeling that another part of him, maybe even another him, had seen this boy. If that was the case, he wanted to meet this other him, have a chat, share a cup of tea and maybe slap him across the face for making his head rack with confusion. But no, that was impossible.
The boy vanished before he could ask him any questions. His arm reached out, fingers gently flexing and contracting and relaxing as if grabbing the empty air that weighed in front of him.
Then there came a time, for just a single day in his life, that the earth stood still. He was staring into the crystalline purple eyes of another him. There was no mirror or distorted shard of a looking glass in front of him. Just him. Just the two of them.
The other him smiled and asked him if he's never traveled to a different world before, as if it was as commonplace as telling the time. The real him (or was he the fake?) did not say anything before breaking out into a smile. The buried ideas he had forgotten (like how he had forgotten the red haired boy) were flung forward to the front of his mind, and he asked his reflection a very simple question.
"What do you have in store for me?"
He left that world with knowledge he had never seen before, ideas he had never even dreamed of dreaming. He ignored the chilling laugh that left his mouth as he returned to his world, the world he recognized.
A next meeting with another him meant knew knowledge. Knew knowledge meant a better understanding. A better understanding would lead to solutions for a perfect world. A world he could create with his own hands, his own discovered power that nobody else had which meant that only he could do it.
On his next visit to a new world, he returned feeling completely and utterly terrified. The him he had seen was gone. There was no one there.
He could not find the one that looked like him or spoke like him. He was nonexistent; that world had no him. Why was he not there? What had he done wrong? Was it possible that he would do the same thing and end up like him, nonexistent?
Paranoia racked his brain, and for that one time in who knows how long, he cried. He cried because he never wanted to stop existing.
Ever.
When he visited another world some time after, he was edgy and excited and ecstatic. But even then, there was no trust behind the questions he asked the other him. He could not even trust himself, it seemed.
Wait, that was wrong. How could he not trust himself? Was it not himself? Of course he was. He was himself and that other he was somebody else. And he did not trust that somebody else, only asked questions.
Itch itch itch.
But wait, that was wrong too. They looked alike and talked alike and even had the same mannerisms. Which one was the real him? Him of course, but which him? He? Us? Which one did he trust and which one didn't he trust? The him that was he? Himself? The him that was somebody else?
Scratch scratch scratch.
Scratch.
Scratch.
With each new visit the fanfare for his perfect little parade became more distorted. His visions of a new world were bent and insane. His head would scratch and tickle and itch like it used to, every visit making it worse and almost unbearable. Almost.
He had to ignore it for the sake of his perfect world. (There could be no one else if it wasn't him.)
As Byakuran lay bloody on the cracked ground, he barely had time to wonder.
What went wrong?
It was perfect. It was well thought out and beautiful and carefully planned out and and-
It was all his fault. That stupid boy with his warm eyes and unkempt brown hair and the drive to save his friends from him. What had he ever done?
All he wanted to do was recreate the world into something perfect. For he was god of this world and him alone. Him. The world was so depressing and so full of unnecessary death, couldn't they see it? What could be wrong with trying to fix it? All of the destruction caused by him had to be done for the bigger and better picture. It was completely and totally necessary.
They all wanted to kill him, to stop him. To prevent him from creating his perfect world.
But why? Couldn't they see that only he could recreate the world? From the ashes a phoenix is born. The world was the phoenix and he was the ashes.
Itch itch. Scratch scratch.
Tsuna's flames left Byakuran burnt and broken.
end.