A/N: So. I was re-reading some of my TRC manga the other week, and while reminiscing about how much I used to love this fandom and looking through some of the fanworks I made for it, I found this little Kurogane-centric drabble that I subsequently cleaned up and decided to post here. It was originally written around the very beginning of 2008, and takes place shortly after the group's return from Celes to Nihon. Also, I have no idea if I'm ever going to update that K/Bl drabble series again, honestly.
Sometimes he had to wonder how it could have come to be like this. Hitsuzen, fate, destiny: all words thrown around as if their inexplicable gravity did not weigh them heavily, dragging them back down to reality with a tremendous sense of the significance of existence. Sometimes he had to wonder if Hitsuzen truly existed at all, though. Of course the witch believed, as did the kid, and maybe even the mage too, but it was never a tangible concept for himself.
As a ninja he had always needed to be perceptive and aware, chose to be self-righteous and independent. He made his own decisions, thought his own ideas, felt his own emotions. Yet everything, supposedly, was preordained. Is it possible for one to be so independent yet so shackled at the same time?
In the end, he decided that, yes, it is. So many years of encountering the repetition, the continuity of the things he saw on his journey proved this to him. It could not all possibly be coincidence on a majestically cosmic level. Death was only a natural part of this cycle, and it eased his pain marginally to view it as just that. However much it hurts, it would still be as necessary as any other occurrence.
So when the mage-no, not the mage anymore, vampire, the result of his sacrifice-comes in that night to see him, the grief and guilt weighing him down, the only thing that he himself can do to share that weight is to just remember that everything is Hitsuzen.