Title: In Time
Characters: Reincarnations of Shinou and the Daikenja/Murata.
Pairing: a little bit of Shinou!girl!incarnation/Murata!girl!incarnation, (very, very lightly implied) past Shinou/Daikenja, Shinou/Murata.
Summary: Future!fic, after Shinou and Murata have died (or rather, Murata died and Shinou passed on to follow him) and are reincarnated. Earth!fic, humans, genderswap, slight f/f.
Warnings: Um, randomness.
Just a few months into their first year of high school, Shirley and (by extension) her "best friend" Kendra were already legends.
Trouble first began when their military history-obsessed teacher showed them an interactive map of a battle from the Napoleonic wars. Halfway through his explanation of troop movements—
"That's stupid," Shirley said loudly. She waved a hand at the map. "If they'd gone left instead of right, we could go around to hit the enemy's flank instead of walking straight into their best-defended front." She didn't appear to notice changing grammar in the middle of her sentence.
"Wait," Kendra cautioned her, feeling instinctively that it was her turn to speak. "I don't like the roughness of this map. We need better scouting. They may be protected by the terrain here," she pointed. "And how many times do I have to remind you? If we know the enemy's location, there's a good chance they know ours too."
"Of course. I leave the details to you, my sage. As always." Shirley gave a courtly bow from the waist without leaving her seat, her tone affectionately mocking but the words ringing true.
Then she froze, the spell broken. My sage! That was what she'd called Kendra—or used to, before they were Shirley-and-Kendra. They'd been trying to recall their names, or nicknames, since almost the very moment they'd met. Flushed with victory, she turned to beam at her friend.
Who, she slowly realized, had also woken from the trance, and was now staring around the shocked room with wide eyes.
"Um," Kendra ventured, when she noticed that Shirley's expression had shifted from joy to surprise to smug pleasure at all the attention; apparently, no help would be coming from her. "We play a lot of strategy games?"
"Indeed," their teacher managed. "Just, ah, try to keep the commentary and role playing to after school hours."
"Yes, sir."
She kicked Shirley under the table to get that stupid expression off of her face.
If they were anyone else, that exchange in front of their whole class would have labeled them freaks.
Instead, the boys invited Shirley over—and, well, Kendra can come too—to play games with them.
Of course, they went, and Shirley soundly trounced everything the game could throw at her, all the while listening fondly to Kendra's whispered outrage at the simplicity of the game's possible strategies—afraid to speak louder in case the boys overheard and asked what games she played.
Special treatment was the norm for Shirley.
A less knowledgeable observer might think this was simply because she was absolutely gorgeous, but Kendra knew better. Of course, Shirley was lovely, with blonde hair, sky-blue eyes, and a curvaceous figure that their school uniforms' tight jackets and short skirts did nothing to hide. But she also exuded confidence and leadership, handling the followers who worshipped at her feet as if she'd been leading her entire life—expected such attention, even—and ruled over them as a queen.
The females that made up Shirley's knee-jerk hate club relaxed when she demonstrated no romantic interest in the boys. Although rumors spread of her sexual orientation—how could anyone be surrounded by the crème de la crop of the males in school and not even look tempted?—if anything, this increased her popularity more, with the boys wanting to get in on the girl-on-girl action.
Despite their closeness, there were no whispers of Shirley and Kendra in a secret relationship together. It was just so…unlikely. They may be joined at the hip, but the popular, sexy Shirley with that nerdy, quiet girl in thick glasses? Never.
And Kendra tried (so very, very hard) not to care.
She knew it was their souls that were bonded, not their bodies, but she couldn't resist the ache. And when Shirley wrapped around her in the dark and whispered how beautiful she was into her black hair, the disbelieving warmth that bubbled up in her chest was comfortably familiar.
At the first opportunity, Shirley ran for student council president and won by a landslide, to no one's surprise.
Also, no one batted an eyelash to see Kendra calmly and competently take up the role as Shirley's second in command. Some, when they spared it a thought, realized that they couldn't remember voting for her in any capacity, or that she didn't seem to have a position besides "the one who does everything."
Perhaps it had been implied that anyone who voted for Shirley would automatically get Kendra as part of the package, and it was such common knowledge that Shirley and Kendra were Shirley-and-Kendra that no official notification was required.
(The only time they were ever seen apart was for Kendra's chess club meetings, and even then Shirley appeared at every one of her tournaments, a smug smile on her face while Kendra politely and expressionlessly slaughtered every last one of her opponents.)
Under Shirley's leadership, the school thrived. Reforms were made, half-hearted school events became lavish affairs, and inter-district competitions were made grand, supported, as always, by Shirley's loyal fans.
The pack of drooling boys that followed her around had changed over the intervening semesters and years. She and Kendra had unceremoniously culled the most hopeless cases, but formed platonic bonds of proto-loyalty with those who had some positive quantity of brains and brawn. Shirley inspired and disciplined them, while Kendra allotted them tasks based on careful analysis of their personal strengths. By this point, they were almost a personal army.
Kendra knew they were only testing the waters, just biding their time. She didn't know what Shirley had planned, or would plan someday, but she knew that it would be momentous, and that she would be there by Shirley's side.
Once, Kendra found Shirley flipping desperately through the pages of an encyclopedia, the table in front of her littered with history books that had been tossed aside in apparent frustration. Laying a hand over Shirley's, she gently closed the book and asked her what was wrong.
Shirley wouldn't look at her. "I want to remember. I thought that maybe if I looked through the history books, something would jog my memory, because I know we did something. Something that would be recorded."
Kendra didn't doubt that last, but she offered, "I don't think history books like these are the right place to look." Privately, she was sure that no matter how long ago it might have been, whatever Shirley had done in the past would be momentous enough that they would have heard about it by now. Events recorded only in some obscure text were not her style.
"What do you mean by that?" Shirley asked, skeptical, but always willing to listen to her strategist's advice. "We can't be the reincarnations of people who haven't lived and done anything yet, Kendra, time doesn't work like that. Does it?"
"I don't know. But," she paused to find the right words, "I don't think it was Earth's history we were a part of. Sometimes I remember things," flashes of things, explosions like no bombs she had ever seen on TV, and customs practiced by no culture she had ever heard of, "that don't seem like Earth. Who's to say there aren't different worlds, and we come from another one?"
Shirley blinked in thought for a moment, then a rueful smile spread over her features, draining the desperation from her expression. "When you say it, my sage, that…really doesn't sound as crazy as it should."
Neither girl's family was religious, so until their last year of high school, both had avoided places of worship. It was a surprise, then, when during a class field trip to a local temple, Shirley turned to Kendra and said thinly, "This feels familiar," and clamped her lips shut.
Recognizing the signs, Kendra wrapped an arm around Shirley's waist and dragged her to the closest restroom, where she was promptly and wretchedly sick.
And afterward, Kendra held her on the cold concrete floor while she cried.
A low, buzzing hum interrupted Kendra's restless dreams of torn earth and curling, purple smoke, and she rolled over and pried her eyes open to pick up her phone.
SHIRLEY flashed across the screen, and she flipped it open, instantly awake.
It had to be the nightmares.
"Shirley?"
Nothing but ragged breathing met her straining ears. She jumped out of bed.
"I'm coming over now, okay? Wait for me. Don't hang up the phone!"
"'Kay," Shirley agreed weakly, and Kendra relaxed a fraction, pulling on her overcoat and working the screen off her window. She was talking. That was good.
Kendra kept up a stream of reassurances as she wheeled her bike out of the garage and peddled quickly down the dark streets.
The sight of the dark window of Shirley's bedroom was a relief, though Shirley's sobs had already quieted to shivering breaths with just the sound of Kendra's voice. She squirmed through the open window, and settled herself beside her fretting girlfriend.
"Shhh," Kendra crooned. "You're just tired. You wore yourself out today again, didn't you?" I told you not to work yourself so hard."
Shirley clutched at her. "I have to. Someday," she gasped in panic, "I won't be strong enough, and I'll fail and you'll suffer for it. I can't let that happen, I won't!"
Kendra hushed her, pulling her closer. "That's not true. That's not this life, not our future. That's over now. We're here and we're safe. You'll never hurt me, see? We're safe."
She hummed, and combed her fingers through Shirley's hair until the girl's eyelids sagged over red-blotched eyes. She did not comment on how her fingers hesitated at the nape of her lover's neck, expecting to find short, downy curls instead of Shirley's long tresses. Or how she couldn't remember learning the lullaby she was singing under her breath, and didn't understand the language of its lyrics.
Before sleep took her as well, her last thought was the often-repeated prayer that they never recover their memories.
She wasn't sure they could survive it.
A/N: This is probably the weirdest fanfic I have ever written in my life, both inside my head or written down. Honestly, I started this just because I couldn't get the image of a buxom, blue-eyed blonde girl!Shinou, and a cute-nerdy girl!Murata out of my head.
It grew, though, and it does have some internal logic.
1) You probably noticed the naming system? Murata/Kendra was easy, since he's already got one going: the DaiKENja, Murata KEN, so…Kendra just followed naturally. Shinou/Shirley was harder, because Shinou is the only "name" we get for the Original King, and I knew I wanted something that sounded reminiscent of it. I was debating between Shirley and Shelby for awhile, but the deal was clinched when my subconscious started making lame Shirley Temple jokes. ;P
2) I wrote Shinou/Shirley as having more difficulties adjusting to reincarnated life for many reasons. First, I think that as Shinou, his desire to forget the past was largely based on guilt about his Daikenja and wanting to make things better for him in the future, not his own personal feelings on the subject, so he may have a harder time disassociating. Secondly, the Daikenja is just used to this; he's spent the last 4,000+ years adjusting his soul to new lives, while Shinou has been desperately clinging to his old identity in an attempt to contain Soushu. And lastly, Shinou is immensely powerful; I'm not exactly sure how demons in Shin Makoku are connected to their maryoku abilities, but I doubt this "death" (in which he abandoned his maryoku and was reborn as human) was easy on him or the balance of the universe.
Anyway, hope you enjoyed this little piece of randomness. ;)