:I:
Aomine Daiki was not a morning person.
He enjoyed the invigorating kiss of the sun through his curtains. The bustle of townspeople summoned to the halls of the temple and downtown marketplace weren't unwelcome. The allure of freshly prepared porridges and embellished biscuits from the dining hall was anticipated with childlike fervor.
What designated him as an anti-morning person was now yanking his covers from his supine form, sprawled haphazardly across a queen-sized mattress.
He groaned and rolled his head beneath the pillow. "Go away, Tetsu."
Kuroko Tetsuya was nothing if but persistent to an almost nauseating degree.
Not that Aomine didn't appreciate the effort.
Just not when it meant he would be so rudely roused each morning.
"You've assigned me to wake you in time for your meetings with the War Administrator, Aomine-kun." The matter-of-fact tone and hidden message of I told you so didn't please him.
He gripped the pillow and his body curled tight. He waved a dismissive hand.
"Five more minutes."
The shadow swatted down Aomine's hand defiantly, undaunted when a narrow glare was sent his way beneath the marginally lifted pillow.
"You've flaunted your status enough this week, have you not?" With careful and almost expert ease, Tetsu removed the pillow with a quick whip of his arm. "I've already allowed you an extra ten minutes, anyway. I figured you could use it to will away your impending headache."
Aomine visibly winced. Tetsu wasn't titled his shadow for nothing.
The man knew him better than he knew himself.
Of course, the fact that he was a literal shadow only amplified the irony. Despite his fair skin, hair, and eyes, Tetsu was born among the Shadow, a race of the Apparitions who existed among the darkness. Quiet creatures with passive tendencies, they were designated by their dark hair and usual black irises—sometimes ranging from violet to cerulean. Notably a powerful race among the running of five other candidates, the Shadow's power was so feared that the entire population was reduced to one-tenth its original size. Today, most are contracted into servicing those of higher power among the dominant races in the Apparition hierarchy.
Aomine was not among the superior half. Yet Tetsu was hired little over thirty years ago and hasn't left his side since. Many times in the past, Aomine was grateful for Tetsu's loyalty.
But not today.
Or any other morning for that matter.
"I didn't drink that much," Aomine protested, rolling on his back. Since the shadow removed his bedding, there was no longer the soothing lull of sleep to attract him. He may as well rise.
He threw his legs over the edge of the bed—easily doable given his stature—and swooped to stand. A spell of wooziness washed over him and his brain throbbed lightly.
There it was.
Damn Tetsu and his astuteness.
A small, almost indiscernible, snort told him Tetsu hit the nail on the head.
Which momentarily irked him.
Aomine reached and popped his finger against the shadow's forehead, "Shut your hole and grab me some clothes."
The assault went without nurturing and Tetsu turned to the bedroom's armoire, one of few outlets for Aomine's wardrobe.
It was a spacious room. A master bed, without the usual ostentatious ornamentation of silk drapes and towering bedpost columns, centered the room. Large sliding glass windows arched above a plush lounge chair where Aomine often napped under a mountain of neglected paperwork. A tall mirror sat catty-cornered in company of a tea-table and a lavish oak armoire. Identical bookshelves, patched with sparse volumes, hugged the room's entryway. There were several offers to upgrade the décor. And several more to move Aomine to the priest's quarters, where he would be closer to his benefactor, the Dan—the sovereign of his people.
He declined each time.
The space had been his since before he could remember. He grew up here and added the furniture to his liking as he aged. There was no substitute. Neither the Dan nor the War Administrator, not even his own parents—bless their souls—could convince him otherwise.
He stretched his long, gangly arms, groaning with each satisfying pop produced from his tender joints. His left shoulder strained with an aggressive pain and Aomine wasn't dumb enough to test his luck. Maybe he had drunk too much last night. Arm wrestling the Combat Squad chief with four drinks in him seemed like a good idea at the time. His impaired judgment had allowed his confidence to fester. After all, he wasn't head of the hunter's guild and the War Administrator's Ambassador without purpose. Why couldn't he hold his own in a petty competition against the chief, even while intoxicated?
He snapped to attention when a dress shirt smacked his face. Tetsu's expression beyond the garment was stoic, as always, but with a hint of satisfaction only Aomine could detect. A pair of pants came next, which he caught while fastening the tread of buttons. Tetsu reached for a pair of well-maintained dress shoes and Aomine clicked his tongue condescendingly.
"Don't even. Boots."
The smile that creased the shadow's lips convinced Aomine that he surrendered.
He finished vesting himself.
—
The deck was alive with the faint hymn of nature—birdcalls, the trickle of the forked stream below the deck boards, and the call of what Aomine knew were a pack of wolves yipping after their pups. Streaks of white and slate raked the sky. A blanket of damp coolness flooded the area and inexplicably soothed him. People milled about. Snippets of conversation faded in and out like a radio scanning for a suitable frequency. It was usually busier around this time. Scholars hustling with scrolls and books cradled preciously to their chests. A pack of uniforms strutting self-importantly down the walkway effectively cleaving through the morning throng. Children juggling handmade leather balls compacted with dead foliage. However, this morning Aomine was grateful for the sparse company.
The path opened to a pentagonal platform where four other expanses opened. Burly temples, with the grandeur of Buddhist temples yet the simple architecture of Shinto shrines, rose in the misty distance. Satellite imaging displayed the foundation as five-pointed star with villages dusting its exterior in a mottled glow of gold, green, and mahogany.
"What does Wakamatsu have on the agenda today, Tetsu?" Aomine may as well prepare himself now. The shrill War Administrator was abrasive enough without a pitcher of liquor to exacerbate his effect on Aomine's ability to suffer eccentrics. "Aside from berating my punctuality."
Despite being of similar age, Wakamatsu reserved little respect for him.
Good.
The feeling was mutual.
Be it that the War Administrator feared his job was on the line in favor of the Dan's nephew or the man's everlasting penchant for self-preservation, Aomine didn't care.
The welfare of the Ice Apparitions, of his people, that's what mattered. As well as his opinion to preserve national security.
"I didn't intercept many details, but it seems as though the Lord isn't cooperating and negotiations to neutralize border hostilities has ground to a halt. It seems like war is once again inevitable." Despite the gravity of the news, Tetsu's expression did not falter.
Aomine's brows pinched in apprehension.
The Lord—leader of the Fire Apparitions—was a long-standing rival of the Ice following an ugly schism a few thousand years ago. The pair shared many things despite that. Language. Culture. Appearances. The fair eyes and swarthy skin of the Ice—contributions to their Inuit ancestors—and the piercing red glare of the Fire were the only discernible differences. War was a common practice between the two powers, a constant struggle between the innately obstinate and the vehemently fierce.
Rousing with the usual morning wake-up call?
Not so bad.
Add in a percussive hangover and a pulled shoulder?
Miserable.
Throw in the possibility of war with Lord Akashi Seijuurou?
An instant cocktail for a sour mood and a bleak, indefinite future.
Now he regretted getting ballsy with the Combat Squad chief last night.
The remainder of their trek across the wooden pavilion was silent.
—
The rhythmic thumping of his pen against his supine palm was the only thing distracting Aomine from his agitated brain. He kept an ear open to the debate. Wakamatsu had his moment, derailing from the middle of debriefing a report from one of his many field scouts to scold Aomine and call into question his obligation to the uniform. Against his better judgment, he resisted the attractive lull of rebellion and dipped his head in apology before taking his seat beside the War Administrator's fourth director.
An hour into the meeting, a slip tickled his wrist. On it was scrawled with a faint hand, I'm sure you'll win next time.
He shot a scrutinizing glance to the director, Momoi Satsuki. A sweet smile stretched her lips, eyes curious but not demanding. Pale pink hair swept over her shoulder in a lose ribbon. Uncharacteristic of the Ice, but the alien image had grown on them and no one questioned it. Before penning his reply, he noted how she impressively recorded the conference's goings-on without needing to monitor her hand.
I was sabotaged. He bought my last two rounds beforehand.The paper was returned in a swift motion.
A snort was her prior response and it pinched one of Aomine's lesser nerves.
Trademark of a sore loser. I knew I should have chaperoned you.
He resisted the urge to grumble, disinclined to field another of Wakamatsu's jabs with forged apology.
Tetsu was with me. If anything, it's his fault I lost and my shoulder's wrecked because of it.Part of him twinged uncomfortably for shifting blame to the shadow. Yet Tetsu was his bodyguard. Surely keeping his charge from an intoxicated arm wrestling match with a man twice Aomine's build was within the agreement. Or so Aomine liked to convince himself, at times. He didn't mull long over his petty selfishness, as the note was promptly returned.
I'll rub out the kinks for you later. Don't make a habit of my clemency, Dai-chan! He scoffed, quickly disguising it with a sniff when the War Administrator shot a look his way. You didn't give Tetsu-kun a hard time this morning, did you?
"Aomine."
His head snapped up, eyes scanning those of the directors and Wakamatsu across the table. The twitch of the War Administrator's brow told Aomine he expected an answer.
"Yeah?" A jab to the ribs corrected him. "I mean, yes?"
"We received detailed reports from scouts that Lord Akashi's contingent is showing steady increase. The rate of forest fires has jumped exponentially and an estimated twenty-four percent of our southern villages have suffered."
Aomine dropped his chin into his palm, pen tip clacking against the wood table. His eyes bounced around the room. Most of the men and women present were proclaimed pacifists. Not much was ever achieved from these grunts without approval from either Wakamatsu or the Dan. Though their expertise in their respective fields was to be admired. Aomine hardly had the patience for geography, statistics, or the social properties that dictated government. He viewed his education was more punitive than rewarding, like most sedentary tasks he was forced to partake in. His one hundred years of life tackling the exigencies of the battlefield was his certification. Surely these people were beyond his years, but their trepidation and deskbound lifestyles put them at a disadvantage that he never hesitated to capitalize. And why shouldn't he?
They hadn't experienced the panic that gripped one's heart while tangling with death. They hadn't witnessed the marring of the very earth they were born from. And they certainly had never been responsible for inflicting cruel death in the name of national security against the future light of the Apparition world.
"It's a ruse." His words were clipped methodically. As was his way. Sugarcoating wasn't his style. Especially when handling a pacifist. They were a walking gray area, endorsing the safest route without a second thought. He needed them to realize that the matter was, in fact, black and white. Either they realize the Lord's intentions and act now or they continue negating his obvious threatening advance and allow for genocide to grip the Ice as it nearly had when the Lightning similarly intimidated the Shadow. "He's bulldozing our border towns to keep us distracted from his impending invasion and all we've been doing is managing the impending civil war at the border."
"How can you be sure that's what Lord Akashi intends?" A challenging inquiry from Wakamatsu's immediate left.
The second director, a shrewd woman, who'd spend a century-and-a-half advocating that the Ice simply avoid hostilities and cater to all of Lord Akashi's demands and expectations of what Aomine and all other members of the War Administrator's collective knew would forever keep their people at his mercy. As they had been for the last sixteen years.
Something Aomine could not tolerate.
Lord Akashi was a man of action. The size of his empire and rate of his economic advancements proved that. Continuing the tyrannical tenure of the last Lord, Akashi encouraged the preservation of Akashi Seiichi's seized land which meant recapturing what the Ice had called home for over two-thousand years. Granted they secured overseas territory in the Western hemisphere, though the likelihood of conquest was minimal. After all, the Fire had no interest in what was not once theirs. Akashi hadn't the time or patience to acclimate to unfamiliar terrain.
The Ice, by comparison, appeared almost prehistoric. Their natural obstinate pride was all that prevented the Fire from violently reclaiming the region. Aomine hoped to keep it that way and if it meant providing frank, overbearing opinions against his seniors, then so be it.
These people would learn the expectations of war in one of two ways.
The choice should be obvious, even to these paper pushing jockeys.
"My seventy-five years of combat experience doesn't speak for itself?"
The second director's face remained hardened.
"No, it doesn't," she snuffed. "You've condemned every attempt at peace we've tried to achieve with Lord Akashi. Always favoring the ways of the brute. As is your nature, no doubt."
His jaw clenched and he shifted to lift from his chair. A grip to his thigh stopped him. He caught Satsuki's gaze, her eyes dissolving his aggression instantly.
"Araki, that's uncalled for," she said, returning her hand to the tabletop once Aomine settled in his chair again. "Aomine-kun is one of few among us who has experienced Lord Akashi's offensives firsthand. His insight was recommended by more than just the Dan. And furthermore," her voice dropped an octave and her brow creased," your blatant animosity is not appreciated."
Araki's lips seamed a tight line and silence encased the room.
Aomine splayed his hand across his mouth, concealing a smirk.
That's my girl.
"What then," Wakamatsu continued in Araki's wake, "do you propose we do?"
His attention zeroed in on the War Administrator. "Up our defensive perimeter for a start. Lord Akashi wouldn't hesitate to dispatch spies into our region. Traps will be necessary to snare any stragglers that slip through."
He ignored Araki's unshielded eye roll as well as the wave of groans from the row of chairs to his right.
"You want us to use your guild?" Another director, one Aomine doesn't lock eyes with.
"Those brutes catch game, not Apparitions." A third.
"You don't honestly expect us to entertain this idea when we're facing the possibility of war." Aomine scowled at the emphasis, as if the word was taboo and the director uttered it under duress. "Are you out of your mind?"
"My guild," his voice rose unexpectedly, spooking a handful of fainthearted members.
Wakamatsu even reared back a fraction.
Satsuki cleared her throat and Aomine willed himself to relax.
He folded his hands together on the table and leaned forward. "My guild is more than capable of handling Fire Apparitions. Traps serve a singular purpose. They don't discriminate prey. They capture it. Which is exactly what we want." The tense atmosphere in the room dissolved and it appeared that he had everyone's attention. "We don't have enough military strength to launch an offensive just yet. As you so adamantly protested, Araki, we are a pacifistic race. We fight only when backed into a corner with nowhere to go but in the face of danger. Wouldn't you say that's where we find ourselves?"
A dry murmur echoed around the room. Directors leaned into each other, disclosures confidential and rushed. Wakamatsu deliberated to himself, arms crossed, and eyes sewn to the strewn papers before him. Most of Aomine's proposals unfolded similarly. He would offer a frank approach and await rejection as they whispered among each other.
Seconds turned to minutes and Aomine's skin crawled restlessly.
He glanced sidelong to Satsuki and caught her supportive smile.
He wanted it to mean something. That his motion would carry. That he would, for once, catch a break from this convoluted group of halfwits.
Unable to resist, he cracked a smile back.
"Alright," Wakamatsu called, gaining silence.
Aomine redirected his eyes and straightened his back.
"Though it pains me," he began and the pressure in Aomine's chest instantly lightens. "You make a logical assertion. We need to play more calculatingly if we want to avoid any patriotic, self-sacrificing types that squeeze through our defense. This board authorizes the motion. Inform your guild and report to the Dan."
Sparse irate groans and distant muttering filtered throughout the room as directors, officers, and Ambassadors, like Aomine, prepared their things to leave.
"We will meet again in one week to settle this collaboration, Aomine," Wakamatsu called over the noise.
A wave was all Aomine offered as he eagerly bounded for the door, slipping through a pair of disgruntled directors and entered the hall.
The sudden swell of success burst from him when he heard an airy summons to his left. He managed to keep a tight hold on his materials as he sidestepped the noise with a pert skip. A blur of pale blue and black entered his vision and he exhaled the tension.
Tetsu was a clash of saturation. His complexion was fair but his style of dress was always grim, forever cloaked in neutral, muted colors. Today he donned a black dress shirt, charcoal slacks, and combat boots. A pair of sweat bands peeked beneath rolled up sleeves. Aomine knew their significance and was respectful enough to ignore them.
"My apologies, Aomine-kun. I thought you remembered I would be waiting here."
Aomine fingered a file loose and whacked Tetsu square on the head. "Don't do that."
The numb of elation faded and his headache returned with affection. He rubbed his forehead, the folders tucked to his hip.
Tetsu ignored his scolding and offered a hand. Aomine mechanically deposited the thin stack and the two started down the hall, away from the clamor of the director's post-meeting debate.
"Off to the see the Dan?"
Though the feeling was fleeting, Aomine was still in good enough a mood to offer a smile. Tetsu rarely required a debriefing and his penchant to read people went unrivaled.
"It took a bout with Araki to get the green light," said Aomine as he pocketed his hands, mindful to keep in pace to Tetsu. He convinced himself that now that he'd won the war for once, there was no need to rush. It took a lot to convince the Dan to override a decision of the War Administrator. But the directors could try if they were so desperate.
Tetsu offered a light chuckle. "Did Momoi-san have to interfere again?"
"I had to do something."
They stopped and turned. Satsuki stood behind them, papers and a thick manual cradled to her ample bosom. A breathy jade dress fell to her knees, black stockings leading to a pair of tan quarter-inch heels. Gold trim ornamented the collar of her dress and streamed beside four emerald buttons. Her beauty had always been compared to that of spring. Amaranthine and refreshing. A century hadn't marred a single inch of her skin.
"Trying your famous Tetsu impression?" Aomine snorted without remorse.
"I have no such impression, Aomine-kun." Satsuki laughed at Tetsu's usual deadpan.
She cleaved a space between the two and the group continued down the hall. Cleaning staff, assistants, holy folk, and temple residents loitered among the passages of the fifth temple, its walls nearly naked. Any and all craftsmanship was advertised in the second temple along with the library and an auxiliary wing housing the medical lab where priests and priestesses were trained in contemporary apothecary practices. .
They hook a right after threading through three nearly identical stretches of walkway. Accent lighting overtook the wider stretch of hall, cones of soft yellow cascading several stone statues carved from mountain rock of the nearby peaks. Wolves prowling snow-blanketed cliffs, howling to the pale moon, and others in the heat of killing a bulky elk complemented one wall. Aomine smiled at the symbolism. Wolves were creatures of the Ice. Royals and those of the upper tier had been awarded one to serve them since around the 6th century BCE where the familiar assisted with hunting game and balancing the battlefield. Delivering covert messages and companionship was their purpose now. They were loyal pack animals with an established hierarchy that dictated their society. Much like the Ice. The Elks, meanwhile, were subservient to the Fire. Temperamental forest prowlers, elks possessed an arrogance that led to hormonal-driven violence in the name of assertion. A trait the Fire was infamous for.
Aomine had never understood why the Fire decided to domesticate the elk until he was caught on the wrong side of a pair of antlers that gifted him with a three week reservation at the hospital and a ghostly white gash below his ribs.
They turned left to a lacquered staircase and climbed to the top. Only a pair of plain doublewide doors stood at the end of a shorter hallway, bleakly lit by florescent light strips pinned to the moldings.
Despite their orthodox nature, the Ice embraced electricity, among few modern technological achievements.
Satsuki approached and knocked.
A blurred voice beyond permitted them and one by one they filtered inside.
The room was intensely decorated. A marriage of east meets west. Brushwork paintings donned the walls portraying battle scenes, beautiful scenery, and wolves. Old-fashioned tatami mats covered the floor and a low tea-table centered the room. Two bookshelves guarded a delicately perched set of daggers and a large gilded mirror beyond the table. A faint aroma of mint and eucalyptus wafted through the room.
"Take a seat, all," the Dansaid his voice thick with Kansai-ben.
The three slipped out of their shoes, made difficult for Aomine given that he wore boots. He soon joined Satsuki opposite the Dan. Tetsu sat some feet behind Aomine, hands on his thighs and face relaxed but stony.
Imayoshi Shouichi was a man of value and customs. Keeping friends close but enemies closer. His poker face carried a badge of expert duplicity. A wise man would know to take anything he said at face value. Despite his shady disposition, Imayoshi was an experienced leader, the only one within the last century capable of contending with Akashi Seijuurou. Others abdicated and vanished into obscurity or placated the man's every whim.
Cowards.
Aomine and Satsuki waited as Imayoshi's scrawling hand danced across the page, one of many in front of him. More reports needing approval and recognition, no doubt. A subtle ticking consumed the room.
Aomine's brows pinched, hands fisting his pants. He'd already had to sit through one mind-numbing silence today and he wasn't about to entertain a second.
The words left his mouth unfiltered. "Any day now, Imayoshi."
Satsuki groaned and Tetsu hissed in desperation behind him.
They were right.
That was stupid.
The Dan's face lifted eyes narrow beneath his rectangular spectacles.
Moments stretched on.
Sure, they were family. But the man didn't suffer fools.
Family ties be damned.
Imayoshi's sudden laugh disarmed him, relieving his tension like a deflating balloon. "You never were patient, Aomine. I do appreciate the lack of tantrums, though."
"Everyone grows up," he said, trying not to be sour.
The Dan shuffled the papers together, aligning them with a few hearty thumps against the tabletop. The contents were shoved to the side and he stood, smoothing out his robes. Satsuki cleared her throat and raised a hand in protest.
"No need, Dan," she called. "Tea is too much trouble for a simple report and delivery."
The Dan slipped his hands into the robe's wide sleeves, a hooked grin claiming his lips. Against Satsuki's wishes he turned and padded to the corner where a kettle sat steaming over an electric burner. He crouched and reached for a pale blue tea cup beside the burner.
"I'll accept your account of the meeting, Momoi-san. Thank you for your diligent efforts." In all their years together, Aomine couldn't acclimate himself to Imayoshi's sickly-sweet formalities.
Satsuki slid a handful of papers across the table and rolled to her feet, aligning her dress. She stepped into her shoes and slipped out of the door only after offering Imayoshi a parting bow.
The Dan returned to his seat and tabled the tea cup with a decisive clack. "Kuroko-kun, may you step outside? I'm certain you're already privy to the meeting's turnout."
Without retort to the obvious jab, Tetsu rose and left in the same motion as Satsuki.
Once the door clicked shut, Aomine said, "Jealous that you're not the only one with a keen eye, Imayoshi?"
The words were unguarded and a smirk followed.
Imayoshi's stern countenance crumbled as a humble smile graced his wicked mouth and the two erupted in friendly laughter.
"Impatient and impetuous." The Dan's voice calmed, throat soothed with a sip from his cup. "Why allow him to hear what he already knows?"
Point taken.
Aomine flicked a stray bead of moisture from his eye and slouched. The air of familiarity would allow it now that it was just the two of them.
Though, forcing blood to his already aggravated brain reminded him of his menacing headache. He palmed his forehead but the marginal difference of temperature wasn't enough to allay the bothersome thumping.
Imayoshi sidled to the kettle and produced a cup for Aomine. "I thought you learned your alcohol tolerance twenty years ago."
"I stopped drinking religiously twenty years ago."
A dipsomaniac, he was not. An appreciator of fine liquors and a night of forgiven negligence to responsibility, he once was. Drinking revived unfriendly memories.
He bargained with the steady drumming of his head as Imayoshi prepared him a suitable remedy. "Wakamatsu actually overrode Araki."
"That's rare. She's ballsier than most on his board." The Dan's solecism was reassuring.
"That's probably because she's got 'em." It was hard not to laugh at his own joke and his brain thumped hard for good measure.
Imayoshi seated himself again and tenderly set the cup in front of Aomine along with a single pill. He pitched the pill in his mouth and tipped the cup against his lips to down it.
"He's authorized me to utilize my guild to set border traps to catch whatever rats manage to weasel through our barriers. I have plenty to dispatch even though all of them wouldn't hesitate to offer their availability. I'm to meet again with the board in the week to set up a collaborative offensive with the chief." Wakamatsu may not have disclosed it, but Aomine knew well enough how the eccentric's brain worked. When you spent enough hours of the day needling the man just for pleasure, idiosyncrasies revealed themselves.
"Much less barbaric than your past proposals," Imayoshi replied over the visor of his cup. "Why couldn't you have made it this easy to handle you as a child?"
Aomine snickered almost vindictively, briefly recalling his petulant resistance in his younger years. Not going to bed on time, shooing away attendants who tried to usher him to bathe or dress, and stealing food from the kitchen afterhours. His proudest achievement was participating in the hunter's guild entrance exams. Imayoshi had quarantined Aomine in his room and detailed a contingent of guards to keep him withdrawn. His escape was guaranteed after sliding a licentious piece of erotica—one he'd secured from his confiscated stash—through a crack in the sliding door. A quiet hop out the window and experienced trekking through the surrounding greenery led him to the guild headquarters. He passed with flying colors, which did not go unannounced to Imayoshi.
The punishment, though severe, was entirely worth it.
Considering that Aomine now headed the guild.
"It wouldn't have been fun that way."
Imayoshi seemed to register Aomine's moment of nostalgia and his face softened. His fingers daintily cradled his cup.
"Your parents would have been proud of you."
The words, rarely spoken, hit hard.
Aomine winced, gaze falling to his murky reflection.
He never knew his parents. According to Imayoshi, they met their fate to war. He was told that they weren't considered influential people in the Apparition world. His mother was a priestess who fell out of favor with many due to her crass indifference to tradition. She met his father, a government official, and the two disappeared to evade the public eye. But they were exactly the types to fall on the blade. Innocents that only whispered their dissentions yet still withheld intrinsic patriotism. Ones that were targeted by the thousands just to prove a political point and force surrender. The thought made Aomine's blood boil. He had always wanted to learn the character of his parents. Had they been good people? What were their hobbies? Did they even want a child?
They were Ice folk, as Imayoshi had told him, dark skinned, haired, and eyed. Just like Aomine. Even at one hundred years old, Aomine would reserve time on sleepless nights and think about his parents. If one asked, Aomine would say with certainty that Imayoshi was the only family Aomine had. And he'd loved the Dan like a father. He raised him to be intuitive, quick-witted, and decisive. Of all the studies Aomine labored to achieve, there was only one he could not grasp. And the pain followed him every day of his life.
He could not wield ice.
A birth defect, Imayoshi told him.
Ugly envy sprouted as he'd watched other children utilize their nature-given gift. Producing beautiful flurries that graced the winds. Conjuring sheets of frost that glistened off their flesh. Embracing the world around them in a freezing wisp of ice. Connecting with the very essence of their births. To be an Apparition was to be Ice. Or Fire. Or the Shadows. The dire realization that Aomine was an Apparition yet at the same time not burdened him. It compelled him to exercise greater effort to be taken seriously by those around him. He refused to be a pity case and a source of gossip.
He'd heard it in the halls most of his life.
What if he's lying?
A birth defect that rare would have been documented and researched. Surely Dan Imayoshi is lying for his benefit.
He's got to be a Neutral.
His jaw clenched.
Neutrals.
The very word spiked his blood pressure.
A deceitful lot, they were.
A product of poor Apparition breeding, Neutrals were Apparitions who lacked the ability to utilize their inherited power, much like Aomine. Birthed from a hybrid and pureblood Apparition, Neutrals were theorized to be genetic waste, withholding their parents' powerful genes to be squandered with their inability to produce legitimate offspring. Every recording in history noted that Neutrals possessed black hair and eyes. Surely they stood out among the Wind and Earth, inferior Apparitions like the Ice. The denomination was coined by the arrogant Fire and Lightning Apparitions nearly ten thousand years ago, or so history dictates.
The Ice was not inferior. They were patient and attacked methodically. Not in a whirlwind of untamed violence.
Faint warmth to his hand broke the spell of concentration clouding Aomine's senses.
"You know what you are. Apparition heritage, in light of your other successes, means nothing," he said and Aomine straightened. "You've my authorization to punish them. With non-lethal means."
Aomine smiled at the hasty correction and shook his head. "That's not necessary. Feigning indifference allows me to practice self-restraint. No form of my punishment is non-lethal, Imayoshi." He brought the cup to his lips and swallowed the rest of the now lukewarm tea. "It wasn't how you taught me."
Imayoshi laughed and firmed his posture as well. He set the cup aside and reached for Satsuki's report.
Aomine intercepted the signal and rose. "Summon me if you need anything."
A familiar smirk hooked the Dan's mouth as the papers were observed. "Absolutely."