Disclaimer : Kuroko no Basket and the story concept aren't mine. I'm sure you've known it.
The tests began after lunch. Himuro Taiga sat at the long tables in the school cafeteria, and the test administrators call ten names at a time, one for each testing room. He sat next his brother, Tatsuya, watching him chatting with Kazunari who sat across him.
He and his brother did not look alike. Taiga was fierce while Tatsuya was a soft-spoken person. He had maroon hair, as his brother was black haired. Between his family, Taiga was the odd one. He was born into a Yosen family, but he did not feel like he belongs in Yosen. Not like his brother, Taiga did not see himself as naturally selfless.
Since forever, the society divided its residence into five factions based on their dispositions. Yosen, for the selfless. Shuutoku, for the peaceful. Kaijou, for the honest. Seirin, for the brave. And Rakuzan, for the intellectual.
Himuro family was a Yosen, but Taiga always felt wrong with his status as a Yosen, so unlike Tatsuya who inherited their mother's talent for selflessness.
And today, he was going through aptitude tests to define where he would belong.
The test administrators were mostly Yosen volunteers, although there was a Rakuzan in one of the testing rooms and a Seirin in another to test those of them from Yosen, because the rules state that they could not be tested by someone from their own faction. The rules also said that they could not prepare for the test in any way, so he did not know what to expect.
Taiga's gaze drifted from Tatsuya to the Seirin tables across the room. They were laughing and shouting and playing cards. At another set of tables, the Rakuzan chattered over books and newspapers, in constant pursuit of knowledge.
A group of Shuutoku girls in orange and white sat in a circle on the cafeteria floor, playing some kind of hand-slapping game involving a rhyming song. Every few minutes he heard a chorus of laughter from them as someone is eliminated and has to sit in the center of the circle. At the table next to them, Kaijou boys made wide gestures with their hands. They appeared to be arguing about something, but it must not be serious, because some of them are still smiling.
At the Yosen table, they sat quietly and wait. Faction customs dictated even idle behavior and supersede individual preference. Taiga doubted all the Rakuzan want to study all the time, or that every Kaijou enjoys a lively debate, but they could not defy the norms of their factions any more than he can.
Tatsuya's name was called in the next group. He moved confidently toward the exit. Taiga did not need to wish him luck or assure him that he shouldn't be nervous. He knew where he belongs, and as far as Taiga knew, he always has. Taiga's earliest memory of him was from when they were five years old. His bother scolded him for not giving his basketball to a little boy on the playground who did not have anything to play with. Tatsuya did not lecture him often anymore, but Taiga had his brother's look of disapproval memorized. Taiga had tried to explain to his brother that his instincts were not the same as his, but Tatsuya did not understand.
His stomach wrenched. He closed his eyes and kept them closed until ten minutes later, when Tatsuya sat down again.
His brother looked plaster-pale. He pushed his palms along his legs like Taiga did when he wiped off sweat, and when he brought them back, his fingers shook. Taiga opened his mouth to ask him something, but the words did not come. He was not allowed to ask his brother –or anyone- about the tests results, and Tatsuya was not allowed to tell him.
A Yosen volunteer spoke the next round of names. Two from Seirin, two from Rakuzan, two from Shuutoku, two from Kaijou, and then: "From Yosen: Takao Kazunari and Himuro Taiga."
Taiga got up because he was supposed to, but if it were up to him, he would stay in his seat for the rest of time. He felt like there was a bubble in his chest that expands more by the second, threatening to break him apart from the inside. He followed Kazunari to the exit.
Waiting for them outside the cafeteria was a row of ten rooms. They were used only for the aptitude tests, so Taiga had never been in one before. Unlike the other rooms in the school, they were separated, not by glass, but by mirrors. He watched himself, grinning nervously as he walking toward one of the doors. Kazunari slapped his back painfully before he walked into room 5, and Taiga walked into room 6, where a Seirin woman waited for him.
She was not as severe-looking as the young Seirin he had seen. She had wide, looking cheerful, green eyes and wore a black blazer—like a man's suit—and jeans, her blond hair was tied into a bun. Probably the woman was too beautiful for a Seirin. It was only when she turned to close the door that he saw a tattoo on the back of her neck, a black-and- white hawk with a red eye. If he did not feel like his heart had migrated to his throat, he would ask her what it signifies. It must signify something.
Mirrors covered the inner walls of the room. He could see his reflection from all angles: the gray fabric obscuring the shape of his back, his long neck, his knuckled hands, red with a blood blush. The ceiling glowed white with light. In the center of the room was a reclined chair, like a dentist's, with a machine next to it. It looks like a place where terrible things happen.
"Well, well, you look like shit," the woman said in a teasing tone. "Don't be afraid, it doesn't hurt."
"I'm not afraid." Taiga grumbled.
The woman chuckled as she continued doing what she did. "Here, have a seat and get comfortable," she said, patting the chair. "Oh, and my name is Alexandra Garcia. You can call me 'Alex'."
Clumsily, he sat in the chair and reclined, putting his head on the headrest. The lights hurt his eyes. He glanced sideway, seeing Alex busied herself with the machine on his right. Twitching, he tried to focus on her and not the wires in her hands.
"Why the hawk?" he blurted out as she attached an electrode to his forehead.
Alex looked at him in intrigued. "Never met a curious Yosen before," she said, raising her eyebrow at him.
He shivered, and goose bumps appeared on his arms. His curiosity was a mistake, a betrayal of Yosen values. Humming a little, she presses another electrode to his forehead and explains. "In some parts of the ancient world, the hawk symbolized the sun. Back when I got this, I figured if I always had the sun on me, I wouldn't be afraid of the dark."
He tried to stop himself from asking another question, but he could not help it. "You're afraid of the dark?"
"I was afraid of the dark," she corrected him. She pressed the next electrode to her own forehead, and attached a wire to it. "Now it reminds me of the fear I've overcome." She shrugged.
She stood behind him. He squeezed the armrests so tightly the redness pulled away from his knuckles. She tugged wires toward her, attaching them to him, to her, to the machine behind her. Then she passed him a vial of clear liquid.
"Drink this," she said.
"What is it?" His throat felt swollen. He swallowed hard. "What's going to happen?"
"Can't tell you that. Just trust me."
He pressed air from his lungs and tipped the contents of the vial into his mouth.
And he closed his eyes.
.
.
DIVERGENT
By Scarlet Natsume
Kuroko no Basket © Fujimaki Tadatoshi
Story based on:
Divergent © Veronica Roth
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Prologue
.
.
His eyes snapped open, and instantly aware that he was no longer in the test room. He was somewhere else. He stood in the school cafeteria again, but all the long tables were empty, and he saw through the glass walls that it was snowing. On the table in front of him were two baskets. In one was a hunk of meat, and in the other, a knife the length of his forearm.
He nearly jumped in surprise when a man's voice was heard from his behind. "Choose."
He blinked. "Why?" he asked.
"Choose," the man repeated.
He looked over his shoulder, but no one was there. He turned back to the baskets. "What will I do with them?"
"Choose!" the man yelled.
Now, the fear in him disappeared and stubbornness replaced it. He did not like being told with no reason. He scowled and crossed his arms.
After a long, oppressive, silence, the man finally broke it. "Have it your way," the man said.
The baskets disappeared. He heard a door squeak and turned to see who it was. He saw not a "who" but a "what": A dog with a pointed nose stands a few yards away from him. He stared at it in horror.
And the dog was looked so pissed.
He whimpered.
God damn it! It revived his worst memory!
He scared of dogs! Especially the feral one!
To his dismay, it crouched low and crept toward him, its lips peeling back from its white teeth. A growl gurgled from deep in its throat, and he now could see why the meat would have come in handy. Or the knife. But it was too late now.
He slowly stepped backward. He thought about running, but he knew that his legs too wobbly to run faster than the dog. And he was too afraid to wrestle it to the ground. His head pounded. He had to make a decision. If he could jump over one of the tables and use it as a shield… no, the tables' leg were bolted tightly to the floor, and he was not strong enough to pulled it forcefully.
His breath hitched when the dog snarled. He could almost feel the sound vibrating in his skull.
He read once –in his rare moments– in his biology textbook said that dogs could smell fear because of a chemical secreted by human glands in a state of duress, the same chemical a dog's prey secretes. Smelling fear led them to attack. The dog inched toward him, its nails scraping the floor.
He could not run. He could not fight. Instead he breathed in the smell of the dog's foul breath and tried not to think about what it just ate. Or about itself at all. There were no whites in its eyes, just a black gleam.
What else did he know about dogs? He should not look it in the eye. That was a sign of aggression. It came closer, still growling. If staring into its eyes was a sign of aggression, what was a sign of submission?
His breaths were loud but steady. He sank to his knees. The last thing he wanted to do was lie down on the ground in front of the monster… er… dog that making its teeth level with his face, but it's the best option he had. He stretched his legs out behind him and leaned on his elbows. The dog crept closer, and closer, until he felt its warm breath on his face. His arms were shaking.
It barked in his ear, and he clenched his teeth to keep from screaming.
Something rough and wet touched his cheek. The dog's growling stopped. He lifted his head to look at it again, it was panting. He shivered when it licked his face. He frowned and sat on his heels. The dog propped its paws up on his knees and licked his chin. He cringed, wiping the drool from his skin, and chuckled nervously as, still fearfully, stroked its fur.
"You're not such a vicious beast, huh?"
He blinked, and when his eyes opened, a child stood across the room wearing a white dress. She stretched out both hands and squeals.
"Puppy!"
As she ran toward the dog on his lap, he opened his mouth to warn her, but he was too late. The dog turns. Instead of growling, it barked and snarled and snapped, and its muscles bunched up like coiled wire. About to pounce. He did not think, he did not remember his fear, he just jump. He hurled his body on top of the dog, wrapping his arms around its thick neck.
His head hit the ground. The dog was gone, and so was the little girl. Instead he was alone —in the testing room, now empty. He turned in a slow circle and could not see himself in any of the mirrors. He pushed the door open and walked into the hallway, but it was not a hallway; it was a bus, and all the seats were taken.
He stood in the aisle and hold on to a pole. Sitting near him was a man with a newspaper. He could not see his face over the top of the paper, but he could see his hands. They were scarred, like the man was burned, and they clenched around the paper like he wanted to crumple it.
"Do you know this guy?" the man asked, tapping the picture on the front page of the newspaper. The headline read: "Brutal Murderer Finally Apprehended!"
He stared at the word 'murderer'. It had been a long time since he last read that word, but even its shape filled him with dread.
In the picture beneath the headline was a young man with a plain face and a beard. He cocked his head, feeling like he did know him, though he did not remember how. And at the same time, he felt like it would be a bad idea to tell the man that.
"Well?" he heard anger in the man's voice. "Do you?"
Yep, it was a bad idea. A very bad idea. He blinked, clutching the pole to keep his hands from shaking, from giving him away. If he told him he knew the man from the article, his instinct could feel that something awful would happen to him.
He cleared his throat.
"Do you?" the man repeated.
He shrugged his shoulder.
"Well?"
He twitched. He did not know why the man creeps him much. "Nope," he said casually. "No idea who he is."
The man stood, and he finally could see his face. The man wore dark sunglasses and his mouth was bent into a snarl, his cheek was rippled with scars, like his hands. The man leaned close, his breath smells like cigarettes.
The man was like a scary yakuza boss.
'It's not real,' he reminded himself. 'Not real at all.'
"You're lying," the man said. "You're lying!"
"I am not."
"I can see it in your eyes."
He pulled himself up straighter. "You can't."
"If you know him," the man said in a low voice, "you could save me. You could save me!"
He narrowed his eyes. What the heck did this crazy man mean? "Well," he said, his face hardened. "I don't."
0********************0
He woke to sweaty palms and a pang of guilt in his chest. He was lying in the chair in the mirrored room. He tilted his head back, saw Alex behind him. She pinched her lips together and removed electrode from their heads. Her cheerful face was now serious. He waited for her to say something about the test. Anything, like "it was over" or "you did well, although how could you do poorly on a test like this?". But she said nothing, just pulled the wires from his forehead.
The silence stretched for uncounted long. He sat forward and wiped his palms off on his slacks. Had he done something wrong? Alex gave him that strange look and it began creep him out.
"That," she finally said, "was perplexing. Excuse me, I'll be right back."
He blinked as he stared at her leaving the room in confusion.
Perplexing?
He scratched the back of his head, feeling more nervous as the time passed. He had to wipe off his hands every few minutes as the sweat collected. What if they tell him that he was not cut out for any faction? He would have to live on the streets, with the factionless. He could not do that. To live factionless was not just to live in poverty and discomfort, it was to live divorced from society, separated from the most important thing in life: community.
His mother told him once that he could not survive alone, but even if they could, they would not want to. Without a faction, they had no purpose and no reason to live. He shook his head. He could not think like this. He had to stay calm.
Finally the door opened, and Alex walked back in. He gripped the arms of the chair.
"Sorry to worry you~!" Alex said, cheerfully. She stood by his feet with her hands in her pockets. A wide smile spread on her face, but he still could see behind it she looked tense and pale.
"Taiga, your results were… inconclusive." She said, made a dramatic pause. "Typically, each stage of the simulation eliminates one or more of the factions, but in your case, only two have been ruled out."
He stared at her. "Two?" he asked in disbelief. His throat was so tight it was hard to talk.
"If you had shown an automatic distaste for the knife and selected the meat, the simulation would have led you to a different scenario that confirmed your aptitude for Shuutoku. That didn't happen, which is why Shuutoku is out." Alex scratched the back of her neck. "Normally, the simulation progresses in a linear fashion, isolating one faction by ruling out the rest. The choices you made didn't even allow Kaijou, the next possibility, to be ruled out, so I had to alter the simulation to put you on the bus. And there your insistence upon dishonesty ruled out Kaijou." She half smiled. "Don't worry about that. Only the Kaijou tell the truth in that one."
One of the knots in his chest loosened. Maybe he was not an awful person.
"I suppose that's not entirely true. People who tell the truth are the Kaijou… and the Yosen." She said. "Which gives us a problem."
His mouth fell open.
"On the one hand, you threw yourself on the dog rather than let it attack the little girl, which is a Yosen-oriented response… but on the other, when the man told you that the truth would save him, you still refused to tell it. Not a Yosen-oriented response." She sighed. "Not running from the dog suggests Seirin, but so does taking the knife, which you didn't do."
She cleared her throat and continued. "Your intelligent response to the dog indicates strong alignment with the Rakuzan. I have no idea what to make of your indecision in stage one, but—"
"Wait," he interrupted her. "So you have no idea what my aptitude is?"
"Well, yes and no." She explained. "My conclusion is that you display equal aptitude for Yosen, Seirin, and Rakuzan. People who get this kind of result are…" She looked over her shoulder like she expected someone to appear behind her. "…are called… Divergent." She said the last word so quietly that he almost did not hear it, and her tense, worried look returned. She walked around the side of the chair and leaned in close to him.
"Taiga," she hissed. "Under no circumstances should you share that information with anyone. This is very important."
"We aren't supposed to share our results." He nodded. "I know that."
"No." Alex kneeled next to the chair now and placed her arms on the armrest. Their faces were inches apart. "This is different. I don't mean you shouldn't share them now; I mean you should never share them with anyone, ever, no matter what happens. Divergence is extremely dangerous. You understand?"
He furrowed. He did not understand—how could inconclusive test results be dangerous?—but he still nod. He did not want to share his test results with anyone anyway.
"Okay." He peeled his hands from the arms of the chair and stood. He felt unsteady.
"I suggest," Alex said, her cheerful face was back, "that you go home. You have a lot of thinking to do, and waiting with the others may not benefit you."
"I have to tell Tatsuya where I'm going."
"No worries, I'll let him know."
He touched his forehead as he walked out of the room. It was confusing, and overwhelming too. So, he was not only had one but three statuses. He groaned loudly, ignoring the curious glances he was getting from other initiates. Fuck, it was getting more and more troublesome. He could not bear to think about the Choosing Ceremony tomorrow.
It was his choice now, no matter what the test said.
Yosen. Seirin. Rakuzan.
Divergent.
To Be Continue…
A/N :
Yup, I decide to prolong this story. You know, the KnBxDivergent crossover story in my fic, Crossing the World.
The Divergent story concept made me intrigued, and I itching to made a KnB fic based on it. So, here the story.
And I change a few things in the story, like:
Seirin = Dauntless. (because Seirin is iron heart, never let anything scare them and never give up)
Rakuzan = Erudite (because Rakuzan is excel and accomplished in studies)
Yosen = Abnegation (well, I myself don't know why I made Yosen as Abnegation)
Kaijou = Candor (because… look Kise)
Shuutoku = Amity (because despite the awkwardness between Shuutoku and Midorima, they still look more peaceful than any teams)
And please tell me if I should continue this fic or not.