Hi! This is for Shiranai Atsune most specifically, as they requested it, but it's also for anyone who's in the mood for Hibiki (female in this story) shipped with Yamato, because obviously you ship that because why wouldn't you? I dunno I think it's really cute, haha. This first chapter's in the Septentrione arc, and the one after it's what happens in the Triangulum.
Ahhh, enjoy!
Found
Hibiki took the grace of the moment to step back from the others and look up at the ceiling. In a way, it felt frivolous to go on and gloss this radiant chamber, larger than most she'd ever stepped into, with all of its gold highlights when there was but a fraction of people who even knew it existed. And it felt kind of funny, stepping on the gilded halls with her normal civilian friends when people overdressed in tight, official suits quickly trotted—there was no sprinting—back and forth of the corridors.
In her civilian shoes. Civilian shoes that no doubt tracked all kinds of mud in that the preened members of this government organization hardly stepped into in a month what she could find on a daily basis.
What a tall ceiling... How far did it even go?
"Kuze."
She paused and searched the open chamber for the owner of such a high-class voice. He had this way of speaking that made even her surname sound... formal. And there he was, his dark trench coat swaying as he stepped toward her, those violet eyes distantly clear.
"Mmh." She dipped her head. "Chief." Her friends hadn't quite picked up on the formalities, so much as Makoto tried. Chief Hotsuin, not Yamato, too friendly. Well, it did seem off-putting to refer to someone so... put up with such a small word. But somehow she found a bit of satisfaction in that.
Yamato halted when he found himself in suitable speaking distance to the high school girl. She noted there wasn't much of an age difference... if any at all. While he stood at least a head taller than her... he couldn't be all that old, now could he? "I wished to commemorate you for your exemplary skills. I've yet to see that in a civilian..." A small smirk creeped into his face. Somehow it looked strange. Hibiki couldn't put just how... It may have been the stilted language. Rather... pompous, he came off as.
She mirrored his smirk with one of her own. "Really. It was no much effort. There were demons... they were hostile... I defeated them." Besides, her old friend Daichi was the one who hit that damn thing with his truck and nearly blew himself up with it. Although she did find the silvery-haired boy's consideration amusing.
"Yes, well..." The smirk raised with one of his eyebrows. "I would much like to see more of this effort."
She shrugged. "I may as well." Truthfully, she had nothing better to do than stay in their overdone playhouse anyways. And it was... a little fun. Walking around the palace-like let alone secret underground headquarters. Muddying their pristine floors with her shoes.
As she stuffed her hands into the pocket of her bunny hoodie, Yamato continued to eye her. "May as well indeed." He continued on after turning away. "Goodnight, Kuze."
"Mm."
That was the first time.
She didn't hold any expectations for any others, although it hadn't be said she found herself mildly pleased by his arrivals. She found him... interesting, this Yamato. Made her wonder. He didn't waste words, just cut to what he felt a need to say and led where others failed to. She told this in passing to Io once, when the other girl mentioned a coldness that came off of him. The way Io described him made him off to be a thunderstorm of a person, though, innocent girl, she couldn't tell what she was saying.
Funny boy. Funny Yamato.
He seemed to find her funny too. She didn't know what to make of that.
They didn't speak much until she approached him on her own time. After the visit to Nagoya, after the third attack of a Septentrione, and the third fall of one as well. She more or less ran into him between explorations, as Airi and Jungo and some of the others were surprisingly loud, surprisingly amusing, amusingly so, and she was busy tracking more mud on a JP's floor when she saw him again.
"Chief." He looked up from his device. The smirk was back on his face. What a... funny boy.
Stepping closer, she asked, "What are you doing?" not quite believing he'd tell her until he turned and showed her the footage on the phone himself.
Blood, bodies... burning, ashes. Towers that snapped and crumpled with the deafening roar of some creature on the other side of it. A demon's cry—quickly silenced by the shriek of some poor soul as she joined the pile of corpses below. Members in crisp yellow uniforms scurried about the wreckage, but as far as the pixels extended there was plumes of fire and smoke and trouble... and death.
Hibiki swallowed. Her face pinched.
She didn't turn away.
"Assessing the damage in Nagoya, now that the branch here is running again," was her answer. She turned to him slowly, missing another scream as another person died, another person joined another rotting pile.
"It's a shame," Yamato murmured, turning his gaze toward her. "My workforce is trash. These people are trash. This decimated town... It puts things into perspective."
She nodded slowly. She grasped one of the ears of her hood and twisted it aimlessly.
Yamato didn't mind; he waited quietly beside her as she searched for the right words. Finally, "What makes them trash?" Not unkindly, not emotionally. Just a little question.
"They lack talent." He was quiet too. "Too many of them lack talent, some even determination whatsoever, so it's difficult to solve much of any of these crises we face. Parts of some cities have burned for days now. There simply..." He sighed. "...isn't enough skill in my hands. Unfortunate, really. I imagine there are prospects I could have accomplished, had there been enough strength in the masses. But it appears not."
He watched as Hibiki nodded and murmured a little, "Ah." She straightened herself and looked back into his eyes. "You do realize there are people serving in this facility who find this way of thinking... harsh?"
The smirk... tapered, for a moment, until it resembled something akin to a smile.
"Perhaps so. But you aren't one of those people, now are you?"
His little smile mirrored.
So she understood, then.
Well. That was one person.
Something about the way he looked at her made Hibiki giggle quietly. Something funny about him.
Funny... but he wasn't ridiculous. It was... a warm funny. A nice funny. Not a kind of funny she found in... her friends, but a different funny.
Endearing. Yes... that was it.
The next time she came searching for him was not truly a single time, but she started to find hopeful little moments where she would look around the JP's chamber, in the sea of pressed suits and fancy shoes and pale faces, because she decided she was starting to like seeing him. Yes... Yamato could be cold, and a little thoughtless toward emotions, and so far as she knew he had maybe three friends... but somehow he began to become a little endearing to her. She... craved, just slightly, for his company.
There was once not long after when she found the chief himself wandering the streets of Tokyo. Daichi was with her then and he darted after Yamato, calling, "This can't beeeeee!" loudly enough to mask her little giggles as she came after.
Yamato halted and turned. His face held a hint of confusion but otherwise there was but his smirk. "Ah. Shijima... and you." He watched as Hibiki stood by her friend. "I was searching the masses in the hopes of finding another individual with... suitable talent."
Daichi burst into laughter.
"What the heck does that even mean?" Yamato, taken aback, stood and watched as the brunette went on, gradually growing louder. "Like! Are you trying to tell us you're looking for a friend, or something? Is that what another uhhhh... another 'individual with... with suitable talent' is supposed to mean? Wow! Dude!"
Hibiki giggled alongside him. "No, that's not what he means, Daichi."
The boy stopped and looked at her. "No, no no no, that's totally what he means, dude! Listen to the way he phrased that, though! Like... damn, Yamato!"
"Shijima?"
Daichi's word choice caught up with him as he blushed. "I mean! Uh... uhhhhhh!" Wildly looking about he shoved his best friend and called, "Don't listen to me! I-I-I don't know what I'm saying!
"But, uh... really though. What are we talking about?"
Hibiki turned. "Mmmh. People like us, Daichi. Demon tamers." She smiled, though she looked in the direction of the silvery-haired boy beside them, like her words weren't meant for her best friend.
Yamato nodded. "Precisely. Talented personnel. Although I suppose my search was fruitless... I haven't seemed to find anyone of use." He shook his head. "Of no matter. I was planning for the upcoming days besides...
"Ronaldo Kuriki still is out with his racket. I of course consider for when we defeat all of the Septentriones... when we find Polaris and seek to change the will of the world."
Daichi was all but forgotten in the conversation. He didn't quite pick up on this and asked about Polaris's goals in this big 'change of the world' idea but was left unnoticed.
The chief of JP's turned, facing her slowly... carefully, when he spoke. "Hibiki." Her eyes widened for a moment as it registered. "You understand... don't you? Once we seek Polaris... and we unveil our plans for the world... things will be rather different, no? A world where the powerful are put in their rightful place is needed. One where... someone important"—the accentuation of the word and the meaningful look he gave her had her turn toward him slightly—"is lost within the masses... someone who could have been so easily... missed. This is no world to live in."
Her lips parted. She didn't gasp but she may as well have, and he reacted as if he heard it, the little smile budding.
And then Daichi was also there.
"Yeah, but... Yamatoooo! I mean... what about all the people who aren't that strong! They're gonna... are they gonna die?"
That question developed soon after into Ronaldo's statement for why not to follow into Yamato's meritocracy.
So soon after... sides began to take place. There was one extreme... there was another extreme... and there was poor, poor Daichi in the middle, because infighting was wrong, or so he felt. Of course Yamato had no qualms in dealing with those who opposed or simply couldn't comprehend his ideals, what he so wished for the world to be, and Ronaldo had something against anyone who thought similarly to a world without as much justice for all of the people... so the brunette was all but drowned out by them.
She had a choice. She could choose justice over society, or she could choose, as it was called in both truth and joke, "Daichi's third way", and... she could choose him too.
And she wanted to choose him. She did. She wanted to be a part of that "we" he spoke so grandly and yet to so gently of at the same time, she wanted to be with him when they changed the world, she... she wanted to be that someone, that someone who he almost missed.
But she didn't like the infighting either. And she didn't fully support the idea of a meritocracy, so much as she liked... the way he thought.
So she sided with her best friend.
It took some time to find him. She felt... bad. After refusing him so blatantly, after choosing a side that wasn't aligned with him. But... she couldn't completely agree either. And—no, no, she didn't feel bad... she may as well have taken the dagger and stabbed herself with it, refusing him.
Somehow... it felt... alleviating, when she learned he felt the same.
It took some time. All morning was spent in search of Ronaldo, of defeating his team and convincing them to rejoin their group. She ignored Yamato's other followers, all of those JP's members and Keita, and it wasn't until late afternoon that they encountered him again.
She was out of breath. Panting, coughing, face flushed... it mattered not. Thank goodness he was still there. Just... waiting. A strange smile had overcome him, and the afternoon sun had lit his gaze on fire.
"Yamato." Quietly. He didn't hear her.
His eyes avoided her as he picked out the members of their group, of Team Daichi's Third Way, and he whispered, "Look what you've done." Then he yelled it. "LOOK WHAT YOU'VE DONE!"
Her heart caught in her chest. She'd never heard him so... angry before.
"YOU FILTHY PEOPLE! YOU'VE CORRUPTED HER! MUDDIED HER MIND WITH YOUR INSOLENT FLUFF!" He took in breath after breath, face livid, never nearing her, never touching her, "YOU'RE HER CANCER!" and then he yelled it again for good measure, "YOU'RE HER CANCER!"
They beat him quietly. That took more time, time she was beginning to lose patience over.
When she saw him again in the aftermath... then he saw her. And those violet eyes had lost their fight...
"Please. Was it... my personality... that scared you away?"
She stepped closer. Slowly, hesitantly, then without grace and without care, quickly, quickly, until he was just in front of her. As if he could hardly believe it, he raised a hand... to touch her. Fingers gently on her cheek.
She swallowed. Shook her head. And he asked, "Then... why?"
Quiet again. Her heart beat so loudly in her chest she was sure he could hear it.
"I didn't want... this world to change." Some part of her felt so threatened looking into those sad and pained and hurt, hurt eyes, yet at the same time it was hard to turn away. It was confusing. Her heart... hurt. A lot. She must have looked similar to him, even then, especially then.
"I didn't want it to be any different. I... I like it how it is." She took in a breath, suddenly woozy. "I like you... the way you are.
Quietly... quietly she told him, "I understand that... had none of this happened, I never would have been here." She would stay a civilian with every other civilian. With all of that... trash. "But... you still found me, didn't you..?
Another breath. "I know this world is a lot of bad things... but there are good things in it. And I... I like this world how it is. I don't... I don't want..." Deep breath. "...superiority. I don't want... differences."
And then it happened.
It was all so fast.
The meager steps that separated them were done. And then he happened, and then he was right there and he held her close to him in a way that unveiled his longing. His fears. But his face, when she caught sight of it... was enraptured by a shadow of... peace. One of his hands released her to gently cup her face, and then he leaned toward her and then it happened.
His lips were... soft. It made her smile... beneath it all.
Gently he whispered, tilting back, "I understand... Hibiki."
"Yamato." She couldn't stop her smile now. He saw it and... then he smiled too.
He came with her, when they went back to the JP's quarters where the rest of them were staying. Everyone else and then their Anguished One too—or Saiduq, now. Daichi's little question about Polaris and her goals and how stupid those goals were eventually were heard by someone, so their new plan was to take her down instead of agreeing.
Everyone liked that plan more. Yamato had a bit of a struggle, giving up the dream he accepted to never see realized.
But there were good things in this world.
He didn't miss her... once he found her. And that was good.
And... Daichi, and Io... and everyone else was good too. He came to realize that most had nearly been killed, that if not for the death videos he never paid attention to they would have been killed.
That he was more thankful for them than he'd given himself credit for.
And that was a good thing too. That they weren't killed.