Hyuu! Back again, this time with an AU. This is my first attempt at a serious story that isn't centered on any one character (Like Syaoran, heh), so wish me luck.
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From the ashes - A TRC AU Drama/Sci-fi fic
Rated T for blood/language/later chaptires
Chaptire 1 - Recovery
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It began and ended with a flash. The beginning of one life, the start of another. The alteration of paths, a coincidence that happened to bring total strangers together. But is there really any such thing as coincidence?
Can the world truly be ruled by such chaos?
- - - - - - -
"T-tou-san?"
Rubble was everywhere. As far as the eye could see, black as coal, the remains of a once great empire. They still smoked, even days after...
"Tou-san! Where are you?" The hoarse voice of a boy in pain. Scared, trapped beneath the ruins of what appeared to be a chimney, he let out a soft whine. No... he couldn't really die here, could he? He was 14, old enough, strong enough, it was his job to help support the family - his sick mother, if Tou-san was... gone. He wouldn't allow death to take him. He had a job to do.
But how to escape? He couldn't tell where he was all of a sudden... was he dead already? Were they dead too?
- - -
A sturdy man sat, hammering at a hot slab of metal, struggling to keep steady despite the loss of blood and open wounds. He had to do this. He had promised her he'd come back one day, when he was truly strong. When he could truly protect her...
He winced and griped his right shoulder. Blood had begun to run through the bandage where his arm had been severed. Not only there, he noticed, as his left knee too had become stained crimson. His red eyes flared, and he continued to work harder... he had to be able to move again. His years of metal-working experience couldn't fail him now, for his own sake.
- - -
The blonde slowly began to regain consciousness after the last tremor. First the total destruction, and then the earthquakes. My, what a splendid course he was headed on. His blue eyes widened, remembering what he had been watching so diligently.
He crawled out from under a beam that had once supported the school house roof, and stood. He opened his mouth to call his new found 'followers' - the few remaining children of the town, but felt no sound come out. He tried again, screaming this time - still nothing.
He let out a long sigh, and gave a weak smile. It had been getting worse since the whole mess began, and now he couldn't even whisper. And he found to his dismay his laugh had also been silenced. Now it would be exceptionally impossible to laugh about the unkind effects the radiation was having on him. Brilliant.
But he had to find the survivors. He had nothing else to do, but to save as many as he could and then... Well, what happened to him in the end didn't really matter, did it? In the wake of another earthquake, there would be even less to find than last time.
- - -
"Tou-san... Kaa-san..." he opened his amber eyes, but strangely, saw naught but black.
He managed to wriggle an arm lose from beneath a piece of debris. He strained his neck to look back at it, and found that he couldn't see. Was it night already? Why did he swear he could still feel the rays of the sun, even through the ashy cloud?
"I can't see you, Tou-san, Kaa-san!" His voice cracked, panic in his voice. Had he become blind? There was no way he could escape from his predicament if he couldn't even see. He felt tears form at his eyes, and whimpered, a wolf cub in pain.
- - -
"Tasukete..."
The thin man's ears pricked up, hearing what sounded like a voice. If he wasn't mistaken, hearing things, or insane, this would be the only person he'd found. But how to communicate with him?
He climbed over a fallen light post, if that was what the mangled strip of metal was, and over to a mound of crumbling stone, amid stray wood splinters. A blood-stained hand extended at an awkward angle among the chunks of stone and charcoaled wood.
He cast aside the tattered brown trench-coat he wore, and rapidly began pushing the stones to the side. He smirked at how slow it was actually going - his light hands weren't used to such heavy work. When at last, bruises and cuts all up his arms, he spotted a head of tangled chocolate, and he shoved the restraining beam off of his back.
"Tou-san? Where are you? I can't..." The man noticed the boy's legs were still pinned beneath more stone, and his arms were gashed and bleeding. Despite this, however, he reached out his hands in front of him, not seeing the sharp edges of the wood splinters until they scraped at his hands. His brown eyes were wide, unblinking.
He can't see? The older man mouthed, and then sighed grimly, not used to his lack of voice. Communication would be difficult, and the longer he took to decide what to do, the more frantic the boy may become, injuring himself more.
Reaching once more into the pile of rubble, he loosened the larger stones pinning the boy's legs, and gently gripped them, sliding them forward, to the boy's obvious alarm.
"Who's there? Are you going to take me away? I can't die yet, don't take me, please..." Apparently the blonde had been too quiet in his work. With each passing second, the boy thrashed to get away, and more blood dripped from the matching slices on his arms and legs. Without the use of sign language, how was he to warn him?
Slowly he squatted beside the boy, and reached for his left hand, taking it in both of his. Then he drew it close to his face, resting his palm on his cheek as he exhaled, letting the air pass between the younger one's fingers. I'm not here to bring death, he mouthed, See? I'm warm...
- - -
The boy gasped as his hand was raised. Perhaps this was how souls were taken to the other side, by the icy hand of the devil. But this wasn't cold... his palm was being pressed against something warm...alive. Warm air... a cheek? He lifted his other hand and brushed the back against the source of warmth. Two pits, eyes... a nose... but no sound but his chest heaving in and out.
"You saved me?" he whispered, keeping a hand on the man's cheek, as he felt it move up and down - a steady nod. "Can you tell me your name?"
The man's head moved from side to side, and the younger one's face fell. He wouldn't speak for some reason, but still, he needed a guide... "I am called Syaoran, and... I'm afraid to say I can't see you..."
He felt the man sigh, and the corner of his lips rose, slightly. A smile.
"Will you help me? I need treatment, and I don't think I could find my way on my own."
- - -
The blonde man reached behind him, running his fingers through his unkempt hair. It fell back to it's usual position, grazing his eyelids, as he stood up. He watched the boy's - Syaoran's eyes flash at the loss of contact, and patted his head reassuringly, as he sidestepped over a cluster of rocks, to retrieve his coat.
Scooping it up, he walked over to the wide-eyed boy, and placed it over his shoulders. He was nearly an adult - too large to carry, so he draped the boy's arm across his shoulders, and hoisted him up. All he could do was offer the blind child assistance walking until he could find a place where his wounds could be treated. And hopefully, someone who could provide him with a voice.
Wandering through the streets looked like something out of a horror film. Everything turned to black or gray, a result of the toxic bomb. What little remained of solid structures was crumbling by the day, for who knows what reason. One couldn't really call it atmosphere for cheery conversation, not that either male was equipped to do so - one being mute, the other unable to see the mute and losing consciousness fast.
- - -
clank, clank, clank
The rhythmic pounding and screwing noises echoed in the silence, as the man finished the last additions to his metal creations - An arm, and a leg. They weren't the most glamorous, but since when had he cared? He was raised by a hard working family, for most of his life: Glamour was meaningless.
Now... he had to fasten them on to his body. He'd made false limbs before, but only for others. And the pain of connecting metal to his living nerve system... he could only hope he was ready for it.
Gritting his teeth, he clamped the arm onto his shoulder socket, and quickly snapped the lower leg replacement in just after. Blinding pain. Brilliant, blinding pain shot up his arm and leg and seeped all the way through his system, as it struggled to resist the foreign object.
Through this whole affair, he trembled, and closed his eyes, but refused to cry out in pain. This was nothing...
- - -
The boy was getting heavier by the second, he could have sworn. The nearest standing building would have to do if nothing else, to nurse his injuries. Syaoran, was it? He had held out longer than most would, but still, the man could see the pain getting to him.
There... a crumpled metal hut, still tall enough to duck into. Hyuu! At last some luck, He mouthed, laughing soundlessly. He nudged Syaoran with his free hand, attempting to alert him of a nearby resting place. He merely whimpered, and stumbled to the ground. Determinedly, the blonde squatted, carefully hoisting the boy on to his back. He was almost his height - much too large to carry, but the child had gone most of the way on his own, and now there was no option left.
The man stumbled, ducking into the metal shack, and slid down a slight slope into the cave of sorts, and landed face first at the feet of a red-eyed stranger. This would certainly be hard to explain.
- - -
"Who the hell are you people? I don't have room for squatters... augh!" The older of the men had gripped his pants leg, just above where the metal began. It still hurt, and he sat down on a makeshift stool behind him, grinding his teeth.
Please... the blonde mouthed. Was that what it was? And why the hell couldn't he just say it? There was no way he'd help a bunch of freaks from out there. Did anyone help his mother and father when all he could do was watch his childhood home up in flames?
He needs help. The piercing blue eyes met the sunken red ones. Fire and Ice... They sat for a moment staring, neither refusing to back down. Until finally, the flame-eyed man stood.
"I have bandages. The kid's in bad shape, can you get him on the table yourself?" He stumbled deeper into the cave-like shed, looking for the old 'first aid kit' that was really some rubbing alcohol, cotton balls and strips of sheets. Who was he to be helping these radiated strangers? They were nothing to him. But then again, if they were nothing, what did that make him, who had one real arm and less than 2 real legs?
- - -
The blonde carefully slid out from underneath the boy on his back, and stood. He was dripping in sweat, from a combination of exhaustion and fear of the intense eyes of the black-haired man. Was it fear he was feeling, though?
He shook his hair out, and bent to lift Syaoran again into his arms. He was barely awake now. If he went to sleep, it could be for the last time. Gracefully, he laid him on the table the other man had gestured at, as he approached holding a wad of bandages and clear liquid.
"This'll sting, kid..." He heard him whisper as he dripped the liquid onto the streaks at his legs and arms. The boy tensed, and let out another wolf-like whimper, but said no more. His wounds were clean, and the black-haired man began wrapping them tightly with the sheets.
The whole while, the narrower man watched, chin in his hands, elbows resting on the table at the boy's feet. The boy slowly loosened himself, and fell asleep, his cuts still being wrapped. When the job was completed the red eyes fell on him once again.
"Why don't you speak?"
He looked down, wistfully, and moved his hands animatedly, remembering slight bits of sign language he had learned and once knew fluently. The lack of comprehension on the red-eyed man's face caused him to sigh. He placed a hand on his throat, and shrugged, while turning to face the door leading into the ruined streets.
"You can't, can you?"
He glanced upward, at the man, his blue eyes mirroring the curiosity in the red ones. Perhaps the stranger wasn't as ignorant as he looked. He nodded, Letting out a soundless laugh while closing his eyes. Some joke it was, wasn't it?
"Your name?"
This one wasn't the sort for words, hmm? He glanced around, looking for a tool of sorts, and carefully picked a long, sturdy stick up off the ground. He squatted, and neatly wrote in the dirt:
Fai D. Flowright.
He stood, and faced the man, as he stared at the characters in the dirt. He pointed at him, mouthing And you?
He sighed. "Well as long as we're stuck together, Fai, you could call me Kurogane."
And smiling, Fai nodded his head.
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Ack... Kuro-tan has automail! XD That was a total accident, I swear, but isn't it kind of cool? Heh, anyway... This story has a Chaptire 2 almost finished - the more reviews, the sooner it's posted. And if anyone has a better idea for a genre for this thing, do let me know. I'm not sure how to classify it.
I didn't notice until I had finished that Syaoran used quite a bit of Japanese in this fic. ; And now, japanese for dummies:
Tou-san - Father, dad, daddy. What a child would call their father.
Kaa-san - Mother, Mom, Mommy. What a child would call their mother.
Tasukete - Help, save me.