Summary:
When introducing themselves, the first thing he says is, "My name is Kuroko Tetsuya." The second thing he says is, "I am not a very good liar." And the third thing he says is, "I value promises." [AU] [In which Kuroko is a spirit of sorts and does not take kindly to being betrayed, or having oaths broken.]
Disclaimer:
I do not own Kuroko no Basuke, or the cover image.
[13]
Teiko's basketball team is large.
Admittedly, too large for all of them to know each other by name, if they aren't in the same string.
But their coach occasionally proposes such 'bonding' activities nonetheless, because a. he is a hopeless idealist in some ways, b. he is a selective sadist in other ways, and c. the principal is always hounding after him to 'improve moral' for publicity (and thus financial) purposes.
Thankfully, the activities usually cluster around the first waves of new applicants, and are relatively simple and painless, if dreadfully boring, 'sit-in-a-circle-for-a-meet-'n-greet' activities.
"Alright. Full name, one fact about yourself, and one thing you value. Short and simple, please, we've got to get past around 50 of you, I think, although I bet at least half of you will drop out by next week," Kouzou Shirogane announces more or less professionally, making sure to mutter the last statement a bit quieter, and then gestures to the first-year sitting on his left
(Him being the only one with the privilege of a chair, by virtue of being the only one who is a coach.)
One of the gyms has been specially cleared out for this 'first-day introduction' activity, with the new appliers sitting in a relatively circle-like circle.
Most of them first-years, as it's exponentially more difficult to get anywhere when one applies as a second- or third-year, since they've missed a year or two of possible practice.
A first-year, dressed in a loose cotton T-shirt and knee-length mesh shorts of white and gray, his clothes giving the impression of dwarfing his bird-like bones and emphasizing their thinness, listens quietly to the others speak, awaiting his turn patiently.
As far as he knows, he has never forgotten anything he's heard, and rarely is his patience lost.
When it comes to him, he startles more than a few people with his sudden 'appearance,' on account of his naturally low presence.
(It is low because even if his form is human, humans automatically pass over him, their blindness to the inhuman translating to a blindness of what is really there.)
He knows, observing their microexpressions and feeling out their emotions, that they do not think highly of his potential basketball ability.
They believe that he will be part of the 50% who cannot take the pressure and pain, based solely on their impression of his skinny body and weak musculature and blank face, his sky-painted shoulder-length strands tied back into a neatly combed ponytail, his straight back and folded hands and trimmed nails and crossed legs with pristine chalk-clean sneakers underneath.
Perhaps he will take pleasure out of proving them wrong, but it is far more likely, he privately thinks, that he will take nothing at all.
Oh, well.
"My name is Kuroko Tetsuya," he says, calmly and steadily, maybe too steadily, and crossing over into serious and solemn.
He still isn't very practiced at discerning the difference, despite his 12 years of nothing but practice.
"I am not a very good liar," he says next, after pausing for the assumed appropriate amount of time between introductory sentences, based on the averaged number of milliseconds those gone before him had used.
And it is a true statement, because Kuroko Tetsuya has never ever lied in his existence.
He cannot.
"I value promises," he finishes finally, a bit of unintentional emphasis pressing down on his words, a surprisingly human instinct that he is content to have learned.
Emphasis means adding importance, correct?
And promises (oaths, contracts, deals, agreements) are indeed quite valuable to him.
Without promises, the being known as Kuroko Tetsuya would not exist.
.
.
.
[1]
It awakens.
The first thing it sees is sky.
It is colorless, it is empty, but it has form.
It knows, somehow, that it must fill that form.
So it takes the sky and takes the color and fills up the emptiness as best as it can.
The second thing it sees is sand and pebbles.
Now it is less colorless than before, but though it has sky-painted hair and sky-mirrored eyes and sky-rimmed lashes, everything else is blank whiteness.
It reasons, logically, that it must continue filling that form until the form is completely filled, intrinsically knowing that it must perform this task before it will receive answers.
So it takes the sand and pebbles and fills up its curiously firm flesh and its curiously hard nails.
Its form is now colored, and thus, it receives answers.
Ah.
It remembers, now, what it is, who it is, where it is, when it is, how it is there, and why it is there.
It remembers many things, and sets about shuffling those memories into a coherent order.
What it is:
It is a spirit.
Or maybe a demon.
The memories are not very forthcoming on that subject, as apparently, it itself has never been quite sure.
It is still a spirit/demon, albeit one put into the vessel of a male human toddler.
Who it is:
It eats dreams and nightmares and makes offers for payment, delivering great deeds done with terrible power, fueled by great prices at terrible costs.
Ambitious humans, mostly, but it is a moderately well-known and respected being, known for level-headed clarity, and sometimes sought out by other beings as an advisor or judge of sorts.
Where it is:
It is standing on a grassy hilltop looking down at sand and pebbles by a small stream.
In the human realm, for only in the human realm does the sun shine so constantly and the sky is so clear and the wind does not carry the giggling whispers of sylphs.
When it is:
It is around the 2000s in the human calendar, the last it remembers, and likely it is still around the 2000s now, as only the very high-ranked spirits and demon and angels may turn back or turn forward time
Although it is always possible that the cause of this situation has placed it into a different world within the human realm, as timelines often differ from world to world.
How it is there:
It has been put there into a blank vessel by a demon acquaintance.
Why it is there:
It made a favor exchange with the demon acquaintance in order to gain aid in placating a higher-ranked irate spirit who had not appreciated his judgement.
The demon acquaintance had, in turn, requested that it be put into the human realm to live out the life of a human, for his personal entertainment.
It, harboring a neutral attitude towards the proposal, had agreed.
The demon acquaintance promised to take care of the legal matters concerning his existence in the human realm, as he (demons frequently choose genders, a curious quirk of 'independence', although they reproduce asexually) spends more time among humans making demon deals, and also agreed that 'living a human life' just meant experiencing human experiences at a natural rate for humans, which means it can use its powers if it so wishes, although of course they will be somewhat limited by his human vessel when within the human realm.
And it knows the demon will uphold his promise, since every spirit/demon/angel knows the consequences of failing to go through with a deal, which is what a promise counts as.
It, being used to telling only the truth, also knows how to lie without lying, since spirits/demons/angels cannot outright lie, and being the de facto advisor/judge of the spirit realms, it also knows how to find a loophole in every agreement.
Thus, it knows that the demon implied its human vessel would not follow it if it crossed over to the spirit realms.
But it thought the proposal sounded like an interesting idea, and agreeing to it is a promise all in its own, so it decided before the transplantation to stick to the spirit of the agreement, more or less.
(No pun intended; it freely admitted it had a very poor sense of humor, which, as something freely admitted, cannot be a lie.)
It is about time it got to understand humans better, so perhaps it should think of this as a vacation from its normal duties, it reasoned.
With a thought, rather than merely an inclination, it faded out of the visibility spectrum, and set out to explore the area.
Probably, it should start referring to itself as 'he,' so as to conform to the human practice of assigning definite genders.
A weary and tiresome observance, in its opinion, but a necessary one to 'blend in.'
That . . . might take some practicing.
It frowned rather clumsily, feeling the unaccustomed weight of flesh and the momentary pause required to translate a formerly spiritual and mental action into a physical one.
Although, by the looks of its human vessel's maturity, it will have plenty of time to learn and cultivate human tics before testing its prowess in interacting with other humans in human society.
It smiled, with noticeably less clumsiness.
.
.
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I wanted to finally clear this story out of my Google Docs, in all of it's disjointed, unfinished glory, so I'll probably be working on finishing this. It's all in 'opposite-time', and the last chapter will make the 'ends' meet. Kinda. There's also a sequel to this, 'Wroth,' which I have kinda-planned and also clogging up my Google Docs.
But until then, Troth should update more or less regularly, unlike my other stories (which I am so sorry-not-sorry about not updating).
What can I say? Undertale and AO3 have ensnared me for the past few weeks.
(There's a tentative promise about me finally updating some of my stories, though . . .)
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