Disclaimer: I don't own Yugioh 5D's.
Rated M for non-explicit sex, bits of violence and strong language.
A/N: This story sat on a flash drive for more than three years, but I think it's time to get this out in the open. I had initially wanted a Divine x Kiryu fic, and this is what became of that. It was written before a lot of backstory was established and can get a bit confusing at times. I considered revising that, but then, I thought, that's the nature of a fic like this. After all, it's darkfic with a Spring theme.
Of the Flowers
As far as Divine was concerned, the Public Security Maintenance Bureau was comprised of a bunch of half-wits and idiots. He had never concerned himself with them much in the past - never needed to - always being one step above the law. However, he was led to them on a thought - on a hypothesis - (and, when dealing with an army of psychics, thoughts were the premise of the entire operation), and even if it meant wading through the garbage of society, he would research his theory. After all, his research had gotten him so far. Now it was up to the garbage pickers of society to lead him farther. And that's exactly what he thought about Security, worse than the scum they picked up from the street.
Yet, even now, he let them lead him down the muted halls of the prison, the simplicity suppressing him. Every beaming white wall as generic as the last.
And to think, it was such a beautiful spring day outside.
He loves the spring. The flourish of flowers in the city's parks, the exotic little blooms that arrive on his desk and the relief that winter's cold grasp of death has finally subsided in favor of something much more pleasant. Something to make his grin a little less of a forgery.
She loves the spring too. She stays in his office longer than she needs to now, admiring the many overflowing vases of flowers.
"I trust you like my new arrangement."
"It's like a garden in here."
He chuckles. "I was talking about my visit to the prison."
"Divine?" She always says his name when she can't quite follow him. It's so feminine of her.
"You didn't know I was going?"
"Why go there for?"
A call to explain himself? Better now than never.
"Well, my dear, it's really just research for a little theory of mine. I asked myself what if we're not all inherently born psychics? We already know that through our team's research. However, what if there are psychics born from the heat of passion- hardened criminals could have already unlocked these powers. It could revolutionize the movement!" He strikes every word with a perfected, articulate touch. He's always fought- oh no, no- convinced this way, through rhetoric.
She seems unsure yet says nothing, futile objections left floating in the air.
The first prisoner was a frantic, grizzly man, his thoughts going a thousand miles a minute under his hideous moving eyes. It was obvious he had unlocked some irrevocable version of psychosis, but did he have it?
"I understand you killed a man?" Divine went straight to business.
The man shook and looked at him, as if disseminating every living cell. It was a siege on his organs, every drop of his blood and beating heart, but Divine remained calm in the onslaught of the blood-curling stare. It was the only way to handle people such as this.
Gradually the prisoner cooled down, sensing no hostility.
"Now then..." Divine started.
"Alright! It's true, every word of it." The crude mouth spoke. "But I needed the money."
At that Divine stood and left the sorry man, followed by the guard's cheers, "Finally got the bastard to admit it."
He pursed his lips. A thief when he was looking for a madman? He would be damned if he started working for them, getting their prisoners to confess.
"I need a convict that committed murder in a full rage." He nearly snarled to the guard. "Thieves won't do."
The guard said nothing, just led him down the excruciatingly bright corridor to another room, which turned out to be another confession.
By now, he was sure the whole system was toying with him. The jokes needed to cease. "I need to speak to your Warden." He finally demanded. He never needed to demand anything while inside Arcadia. The real world, however, was some kind of new monster he couldn't control. Not quite yet.
The guard, a bit off centered from his tone, hesitantly nodded and turned on his heel. He was the authority when it came to the prisoners, but those outside his jurisdiction were to be held in respect, or useless contempt.
"Arcadia is doing well. New members are joining all the time, but we need to expand our influence as well as our number." He explains to her.
"The bureau knows we are doing that."
"I wouldn't worry about them. They have no power over us."
"But being surrounded by them, going to one of their facilities, you could be imprisoned yourself." Genuine concern laces her voice.
He chuckles again. "Arcadia has reached a pinnacle where even Godwin fears to touch us." He shrugs off her concern like it's useless and focuses his attention to the window. Green spots litter the city under a peerless sky. Whiffs of clouds, whispers of winter, float by, convinced that Divine is the perfect onlooker to their innocence.
"It's a beautiful spring day. Why don't you take a walk outside? It could prove good for you."
"But you-"
He puts a finger to her lips in a soundless hush. Her fiery eyes melt into adoration like that of a feral cat when it's fed by a human.
"Bring me back something from your walk. I'd like that."
He feeds this stray something it wants to hear.
The Warden's office had a menacing sterility to it, something subtle at first; it was now becoming more blaring as Divine observed the excuse for a room. It was enough to drive a person crazy, so many white, unembellished walls. If he couldn't find any madmen here, he might be forced to start creating some himself using such techniques.
The Warden himself, who had come up to date from the guard's banter, was eyeing him and patiently waiting for a response. For all he knew, Divine could be one of Godwin's snitches and would report back to the boss if he saw any discrepancies. Not that there were any.
"I trust the tour of our prison has been quite satisfactory." The Warden was using a forced, polite voice and Divine knew it. Fabricated lights, fabricated people.
"Actually," Divine asserted his power, "I was a bit disappointed you imprison men who haven't even confessed yet."
"A precautionary measure!" The Warden spoke cheerfully, as if to abate Divine's anger. "Besides, the safety of the citizens comes before the mere fate of a law-breaker. Wouldn't you agree?"
Divine refused to take the bait. "I understand there are men here that have committed more violent crimes. I don't mean just murder, but the motive behind it. Crimes in the heat of the moment, the people who enjoyed it- that's what I'm interested in." He resisted the temptation to curl his lip, to go from apathetic to sinister would be a fatal error.
The Warden narrowed his eyes, his gracious façade fading into his true, skeptic nature. "Just who are you?"
Divine returned the man's look with one of triumph. "I believe you'll witness the effects of my work soon enough." He could tell the man didn't like him. He would use that as an advantage, just as he used the world's contempt of people like him as his own personal strength. "Until then, I'd like to see what I'm here for."
The Warden, powerless to argue with him, shot an eye signal to one of the guards. Divine left with the guards, guided down the muted halls of the facility or the confines of hell itself.
The flower lay on his desk next to the little note that he doesn't have time to read. Speckled yellow blossom with voluptuous curves that could have come from any florist in Neo Domino but are somehow so much more unique when he places it amongst the vases and other bouquets. So unique, in fact, that it clashes with his office altogether.
He can only grant the bouquet the solitude of his desk.
Down and down the tiers of the facility he was led so that, even when every corridor looked exactly the same, he could feel himself descending to the underworld.
The pressure built around him when he realized that not only was he coming to the bottom of the great bowel that was prison, he was also far, far below the streets of Neo Domino. It sickened him.
"Almost there." A guard alerted him. He quickly averted his thoughts in favor of keeping his composure.
"We keep the worst ones down here." The guard explained. Divine could only assume the worst ones were people who had killed public figures. Neo Domino hadn't known a serial killer for years; public morale had transformed enough to regard the city as a Utopia, and, theoretically there is no reason to murder when life is supposed to be as good as it gets.
It led to a boring existence, which made the only reason to murder someone a necessity for the martyr or a delicacy for the insane.
"Has this man made a confession yet?" He didn't want to be led so far down just for a repeat of last time.
"We didn't need one from that scum." The man scoffed, a stark contrast to the cheer he heard earlier. Divine was pleased with his reaction.
With the same abhorring attitude, the guard opened the door.
This cell was a little different from what he had seen before. This one had no bed, or much else for that matter, aside from an intense, all-consuming light bolted on the high ceiling. The prisoner sprawled out on the floor only glared at the both of them. Divine couldn't decide if the man's hair was naturally white or if the lights had bleached it that way.
He wasted no time deliberating on such an unnecessary detail. "So you've committed a murder?"
The man smiled deviously. "Yeah, I'd kill that fucker again if I could."
Taking the taunt, the guard stepped forward in effort to restrain the man. Divine stopped him. "I think it's best if I continue my research without such distractions."
The guard, understanding the subtle yet domineering command, nodded. Traces of something deeper and more hateful than anger were still etched on his face. "For security purposes, I will be locking the door. I'll be back in fifteen minutes."
Divine's power play had worked on the entire prison staff. He liked the feeling of privilege, but he still had work to do.
The prisoner, who had been lying idly, raced up to the door as soon as it was closed and yelled, "You're afraid of me, aren't ya? All of you are afraid. I knew it!" His teeth grinned on a jaw full of expressions.
"He can't hear you." Divine informed him. He had studied the prison plans extensively before coming. Even if he were to be detained here, he knew a way out. "The doors are soundproof."
"Who are you- a damned city architect or something?"
"You could call me that, though I don't design buildings."
But the man had no interest in what he said. "If I killed you right now they wouldn't be able to hear your screams."
"You won't kill me though."
"Why not?" And the white haired man approached him, grinning. His eyes, just like the first prisoner, seemed to peer into Divine's soul. However, with this one, it was as if he was looking for something entirely different than Divine's own motives.
"You'd gain no pleasure from it, and neither do you need to. It won't get you out of this cell."
"So now you're a psychic?"
Divine smiled. "You're on the right track."
The prisoner slumped back to the floor, his carnal instincts vanishing under his laughs, or perhaps becoming more defined. "A bona-fide psychic in my cell? The bureau really are a bunch of idiots."
"I'd have to agree with you."
The prisoner seemed offset with the remark but didn't let it faze him.
"Well, sit down and work your magic on me. It gets too boring sitting here all alone." He patted the ground.
He was quite friendly, this convict of hell. Or at least, he acted that way.
"Rest assured," Divine said, taking a seat on the floor, "I'm more interested in your powers."
The prisoner just seemed to shrug him off.
"I received the flowers you sent me, as you can see." He notions to the little vase on his desk. The single flower beams happily at the both of them, it has a personality all its own. She doesn't seem to take notice.
"You're going to the prison tomorrow?"
He gives her one of his clever smiles.
"Be careful." It comes out like a whisper.
"So do we start on the palm reading first?" A dark grin grew on him. It was quite fitting to the cell and the ragged hair but it still seemed to betray his personality.
"I have no intention of reading your future, if that's what you wanted."
"Eh, figures. It's already planned out for me as you can see. What're you here for then?" The man rolled onto his side, foot tapping from eagerness or impatience.
"Specifically I'm recruiting."
"Like a program or somethin'?"
"You could call it that."
"Sounds like a drag."
"Primarily, my program is focused on dueling."
That piqued his interest.
"What do I need to do?"
"Prove to me that you have the abilities for it."
"Then I'm in?"
"Simple as that."
"What is it?"
"The Arcadia Movement, a brotherhood of psychics."
The man glared, changing from friendly to hostile in a split second. "I don't need that shit."
So the illusion of a family wouldn't work with this one. He needed something more.
"Together the Arcadia Movement will tear down the structures of this city. We shall rule and more importantly represent the minority."
"Satellite was more of a challenge than that seems like."
He needed to change tactics altogether.
"Tell me about Satellite."
"A privileged citizen who's interested in that shit hole?"
"I'm interested in everything in this city and its limits."
The prisoner looked at him, yellow eyes in a permanent scowl.
"There ain't much to tell."
"I'm sure there's something."
The guard let himself in, letting out a sigh of relief at the sight Divine still alive and not in pieces all over the walls, or that was what it looked like.
"I'm sorry Sir but this is all the time you're allowed for today. It's the same for every visitor."
"Very well. And what's your name?" He addressees the prisoner.
"Kiryu. You?"
"Divine."
Kiryu smirked. "What kind of name is that?"
It was a reaction that Divine had become used to.
He calls them skeleton trees. He still does, even when he was little he called them that, when the trees lost all their leaves and remained black and dull and ugly.
He can't stand dullness for too long.
But something, like Spring, is obliterating that grayness.
He fumbles for something in his coat pocket. It's a watch and though it is already set he pretends to start it, the beginning of his project counting down to Doomsday.
Divine couldn't keep himself away. Kiryu Kyousuke, he made such an interesting study.
"So I'm in your Movement now? So what?"
"Technically you aren't. These are still the trialing stages."
"Pff."
They played Duel Monsters in fifteen minute intervals. They never finished a game, but that left Divine to start a new one each time. He tested strategies and came at his opponent hard and fast and viscous. Each game was a new exercise, but Kiryu didn't flinch. He was a strong player and deadly focused.
Divine liked that in a duelist.
It starts with a feeling, instinctive and pesky, like a fly buzzing around his office. It starts when her eyes say We need to speak, but her mouth doesn't open.
He ignores it for now, tending to paperwork and bouquet alike, the unnatural process of writing up documents- propaganda for the movement – and the natural exercise of sitting in a garden.
She comes in again, entirely not requested for but not entirely unexpected.
"And so this one time, we're trying to be real quiet see, and Crow is just such an idiot that he yells to us to see if we're actually backing him up, which of course alerts the gang of whose base we're trying to steal. But the funny thing is nobody can stop laughing, even the rival gang." Kiryu reminisced. His eyes gleamed with the truest happiness Divine had seen in the man since he met him.
"I'm guessing you beat those guys, laughter and all."
"Yeah, kicked them to a pulp."
Divine smiled. "You might not even have to be psychic. I'd let you in my Movement even if you didn't have any powers."
But Kiryu didn't take the compliment. "Those days I dueled because I thought my life depended on it. If we ever lost, I knew I'd be the one to take the heat. I'd just be bored in your pussy duels if I joined."
"Dueling like your life depended on it; it must have put a lot of pressure on you."
"Well, the leader's supposed to carry all the burdens and not seem like he's cracking his back because of it. Sometimes I still feel like that, like I'm holding everything in. You know what I mean, right?"
Divine nodded. Kiryu needed someone to relate to, but in truth, Divine never felt that way. He was the leader of an entire movement instead of just some gang, and yet he lived in the luxuries of the top without ever having to fall into the pitfalls of responsibility. Maybe he just knew how to play it safe.
He loves the spring. The watch he keeps beats in time with his heart.
He feels a spring in his step on the way home and he bites his lip because it's such a bad pun.
There are even more green spots in the city now.
He thinks he'll change the water in the flower vases, and it humors him because he doesn't think to change the flowers themselves.
"And why didn't you?"
"Kill that guy for giving me and my friend a brush with death? Well, I guess I really didn't need to. I just didn't think it was worth it at the time."
"It's no different from that security guard."
"Dammit, ya sound like one yourself now."
Even though Divine felt he had tamed Kiryu, there were still some subjects that the prisoner snapped at.
"Calm down, I'm just trying to educate you on morality."
"What about it?" The other man leered.
"That it's entirely optional."
He sees her from time to time, just at the side of his vision. Standing there like some fabulous bud waiting to bloom out of its self-induced oppression. What color would she be? Yellow? Orange? Red?
Or should he nip the bud before it proclaims his malice to the world?
Powerful hands gripped his lapel and he was, in an instant of fury and a grudging glance, flung on the cell's floor.
Darkness settled in though he fought it. When he came to a smile as crazed as daggers greeted him.
"Calm down!" He hoisted himself, breathing hard and furious.
"Fuck, why should I?" Kiryu screamed, laughter filling the breaks in his gasps.
"What's wrong with you!" Divine held onto his injured arm, shouting louder than the other, to display what? Dominance?
"What's wrong?" Kiryu mimicked, his eyes displaying fear and anger and happiness all at once. He turned to the wall, as if to hide his grotesque face. "Just don't bring it up." He growled. "That morality bullshit."
Divine brought himself to his feet and was just about to- what? More shocked than angry that he'd be punched in the face and not expect it beforehand. There was something mysterious about Kiryu. Divine's powers couldn't penetrate it. A dark shadow that hovered around and around the small cell, something right at the corner of his eye.
The guard came in then. "Is that piece of shit getting rough again?"
Divine shrugged. "I've had enough for today."
He left without turning back.
Divine bites his lip. He should have played it safer. He knows the reason she keeps pestering him. He knows that Kiryu has absolutely no psychic powers but a whole lot of psychosis. He knows that Security is beginning to scrutinize him.
He doesn't want to think about it now though. Not among the beaming purity of the flowers. He focuses on the familiar tick, tick of his watch.
He closes his eyes and dreams without substance.
But Divine knew he couldn't stay away.
Kiryu sat on the floor, head bowed and expression unreadable. Divine reasoned that even if he tried to use his powers it would still be unreadable.
"You said this place was soundproof?"
Divine nodded.
"Can't you hear that?"
"What?"
"It sounds like something beating, pulsing."
Divine was never sure.
"Like a watch?"
"Sounds louder."
However, he really liked to pretend he was.
"Let me tell you about my office. There are flowers from all reaches of the globe in it."
"Sounds like a nice place." Kiryu said, still distracted.
"I didn't think you'd say that."
"Yeah, I wouldn't. It sounds like something a pussy would do."
"That's more like it. Do you still hear the beating?"
"Not so much anymore."
"Now we can begin."
There was nothing of that outburst from earlier, at least not that Divine could see.
It begins by him talking to her of a paltry matter.
It ends in an argument.
"But they're children!"
"Come to my office tomorrow if you still don't understand!"
"They let you have this cell for the day?"
"I won a game of Duel Monsters for it."
Kiryu's white, white body glowed with the moon. His chapped lips spoke, his speech was rough and dry. "The heart is beating. It's louder than it's ever been. It wants to consume me."
Divine tried to form words. He tried to say something, but it had become too apparent that he had melded a bond with the other far too deep than he had ever planned to.
He played with the watch in his pocket.
"I want to play Duel Monsters." Kiryu said impulsively.
"I didn't bring my deck." Divine said unapologetically.
He hates the spring. The wretched season has made him think of the prisoner locked up in that cell. How he would never see any of it, nor would he even recognize it if he saw it.
He hates the idea of a failed project.
The feeling rising up in him was something he couldn't have. It would destroy everything he had worked for: Guilt.
The feeling needs to be put to some other use- rage, hatred.
He always concerned himself with the illusion of power, strength, brotherhood, love. This love is no illusion.
He heard the clock ticking once. He heard it only slightly, expecting uniformed beats. When he honed in on it the sound was incessant, irregular.
The cold afternoon winds whip his back as he makes his way back from the prison. He could have taken a car back to Arcadia, but he needs to be outside right now. It feels like any small place might collapse on him, the small spaces like the walls of a prison.
A yellow flower is crushed in his breast pocket.
This is the end, he told to himself, whatever this damned thing was, this is the end.
"I didn't bring my deck."
And she is waiting for him in his office. Just as he told her to.
Her lips part when the idea strikes him. Faster than a heart beat you can't hear: To take her among the roses. The ultimate turmoil.
He grabs her and shoves her to the ground.
And Kiryu was underneath him, moving his body to the crazy rhythm of his soul.
She cries. She utters curses.
Kiryu laughed and laughed and laughed.
She stares at him, anger and tears welling in her eyes.
Kiryu's eyes had flecks of gold in them. Gold in the form of dust from pollen off a yellow flower.
She knocks down a vase so the shards and water and petals fall around them like a crying universe. In one moment, everything before Divine's eyes is the chaos of spinning, sparkling teardrops. They cut him like a sharp rain, his blood mixing in the pools of water, mixing in with the scent of spring flowers. She struggles underneath him, unable to escape from the debris. It cuts her, each time she tries to get away from the pain. Her movement makes his heart race.
He sunk into a kiss, every muscle twitching, and embracing the feeling. Cold lips like ice water tingled on his tongue.
And he takes all of these senses into him, feels every last bit of pain and pleasure in both of those worlds until he can't feel anything anymore.
"Yuusei, that sonava bitch."
"I hate you!" She pushes him off of her, his body lavished in water and sweat and blood and petals. She's covered in all of this too, but her eyes shout rage. Shout anger. His eyes whisper nothing.
Kiryu laid there. Cold sweat, unmoving, but his eyes smiled, as if he saw something just out of his vision. His laughter faded but never weakened, as if the first burst were as potent as the very last. Very last.
She runs.
It doesn't matter to Divine. He would make sure she will never live in the city again. Besides, there's a more promising girl in the Movement now. An Izayoi Aki if he remembers correctly.
"He came again today, Mr. Godwin. The same guy that has been talking with that murderer from Satellite."
...
"So it's as I thought, he wasn't working for you."
...
"Rest assured. If he comes again we'll do a full investigation on him."
...
"About the satellite scum?"
...
"Yeah, we executed him this morning. All taken care of."
...
"Anything else you needed to know?"
...
"Well, have a nice spring Shoukan."
End