Foresight

At times, Shura could still barely believe he was there. He had seen him with his own eyes, fighting a losing battle with the power-crazed Chiaki. He had stood powerless to help him, held back by the three seraphims, as he fell one last time and didn't get back up, crimson spreading through his simple grey robe.

And yet, there he was.

Futomimi sat still in the dark corner of the room, his back to the wall, legs folded, eyes closed, breathing a little quicker than usual. Shura frowned slightly. What kind of future could the Manikin be seeing behind his closed eyelids? Was he seeing anything at all in the first place? Was he still disturbed by his... I guess one could call it a resurrection? Shura remembered Futomimi had looked quite bewildered to find himself alive and standing atop the altar of the Cathedral of Shadows, if only for a moment. Futomimi was not what one would call very expressive.

Opening his eyes just enough to look at Shura, Futomimi watched him as he sat down by his side. The marks on his body shimmered in the darkness of the room, faintly lighting Futomimi's robe and hand in shades of green.

"Saw anything?" Shura asked after a moment, when he realised that the Manikin's eyes were open.

"Not really," Futomimi answered softly, opening his eyes fully and turning his head to look at Shura. His expression didn't change, always the same, always serious.

A soft, tattooed hand undoing his hair, caressing the silky strands, cupping his cheek... a gentle fingertip outlining his lips...

"Not really," Shura repeated, a little dumbfounded. "How do you 'not really' see something?"

A lesser man would have smiled, or maybe even snickered. Futomimi, however, remained impassive. "Nothing you do not already know," he answered, turning his head to look in front of himself again. "The great power at the Amala Temple. The other at the Diet building. And..." His lips tightened, for a moment. "The woman promoting Yosuga."

Warm lips pressing against his, insistently, while strong arms embraced him... the hardness of a horn meeting the softness of the flesh of a nape under his fingers...

Shura scanned Futomimi's face for a reaction, but of course, he was back to his zen self already. "... I'm sorry. I wish... I could have..."

But Futomimi raised a hand, silencing him. That same hand, running down Shura's warm back, caressing his spine, making the demi-fiend shiver... "Don't. Even you could not have saved us all," he said, a hint of sadness in his voice, still looking ahead. Nothing short of an army could have saved his people, he knew. He had known the moment he had seen the massacre in his visions.

"I could have tried," Shura argued, frowning. "I could have saved you, at least."

Futomimi sighed. They didn't have time for regrets. Already, gods had been summoned. The hour of creation was at hand. "It's not that important. What is, right now, is to establish the Manikins' Reason. Our world without hierarchy." He turned to look at Shura again, his gaze boring into the demi-fiend's. Those grey eyes, filled with desire, maybe even love, looking down at him like he was seeing Heaven in his... "Will you help us?"

Shura blinked, shocked by the intensity of Futomimi's look, like back then, at Mifunashiro, when the Manikin had told him he knew his heart was unlike any other demon's... There was something about Futomimi that kept impressing him when he least expected it. "Huh... sure, of course."

A warm smile briefly lit up Futomimi's face and he reached out for Shura's hand, squeezing it. "Thank you, Shura. I knew I could count on you." That hand in his, slipping out of his, sliding between his legs, caressing, teasing the heated skin as slender fingers gently press into his flesh...

"I... huh... thanks," Shura stammered, not knowing what to say suddenly. It was as if the sight of Futomimi's genuine, affectionate smile and the feeling of his hand on his had blown all the words out of his mind. He forgot the competing Reasons, the war about to break outside, the very fact that Futomimi may not even be able to conceive a Reason at all, even his bunch of mismatched but faithful allies and their crazy antics in Nyx's Lounge. For a moment, his entire world was the cold marble floor of the Lounge's salon room, the velvet draperies scratching his back, Futomimi's heat so close to his bare arm, his soft gaze in his, and their hands in each other's.

Soon, too soon, a loud "YOU'RE ON, FUCKER!" from the other side of the door startled them both, breaking the moment. Shura groaned as he instantly recognized Loki's rather powerful voice. Probably another of Dante and Loki's drinking contests. How these two managed to get up the next morning fresh as roses was a thing of wonder. Shura had tried it once and his magatama had tried to crawl its way out of him by using his horn as a jackhammer. The damn thing had throbbed for two days, he remembered as he instinctively reached for it.

"Does it hurt?" Futomimi asked as he saw Shura stroking the strange horn/fin protruding from the back of his neck.

Shura blinked at Futomimi, not understanding for a second, then he grinned. "Only when I lay down on my back with my head straight."

"Oh. I'm sorry," Futomimi said as he reached for Shura's horn, but he stopped himself in the middle of his move and pulled back his hand. That very same horn, hard and smooth between his lips, tasting faintly of Shura, sweat and the dust of the Vortex World as he suckled on it...

Frowning, Shura leaned closer, trying to see Futomimi better despite the feeble light in the room. "You all right?"

Already, Futomimi was back in control of his emotions. "Yes, I'm fine."

Shura frowned even deeper and leaned in again, his nose almost touching Futomimi's. "You wouldn't see freaky things without telling me, right?"

Despite his quickening heartbeat, Futomimi did not move an inch. "I would not."

"Good," Shura said firmly, his breath caressing Futomimi's lips. "I don't want you seeing your own death or something like that and hiding it from me again." Then, seeing the corners of Futomimi's mouth twitch in a touched smile but mistaking it for amusement, he added, growling, "I'm very serious, Futomimi."

"I know, Shura. I know." He knew since he met him, but he feels it stronger than ever in that moment, with Shura buried deep inside him, his powerful arms holding him so possessively, so protectively, fingers tangled in his loose hair, mouth on his neck, devouring it...

"Great. Glad that's cleared," Shura said, before he got up and stretched, offering Futomimi a delicious view of the curvy lines of his tattoos moving with the muscles under the skin of his back. "Wanna take a nap before the party boys come back to keep us awake?" he asked, turning around and offering his hand to Futomimi.

Again, that hand, always that soft, gentle hand, brushing his hair delicately as they rest, sweaty but happy and satiated, Shura's body weighting down on his on the narrow sofa of the Lounge's backroom.

Futomimi's smile was a little wider than Shura expected as he took the offered hand in his. "Certainly. Let's."