"In Your Name"
Disclaimer: The Twelve Kingdoms belong to Fuyumi Ono and er, Mediablasters. This is a fan work which is in no way intended for profit.
(A/N: This 'fic is a sort of "what if" situation.... The result is sort of like a Crossover with Camus' The Outsider and the movie In the Name of the Father.... this is not how the novels end! This is just something I wrote for fun to tide me over while the translations come out! If you want to find out what really happens to Taiki, go to and visit Harunako's translation site--see my bio for the link. He is a wonderful human being and we all must go to the forums to give him encouragment so he'll keep on going!)
Chapter One
Takasato couldn't help but feel as he sat through another day of trial that he had become some kind of zombie; rising to give answers and sitting down again. Up and down, up and down, like a paper-mache marionette. The lawyer for the prosecution asks the jury, does this boy seem repentant to you? Does he even have the conscience to admit to his crimes? The words become a blur of meaningless sound, of little substance. He is called stubborn. His memory takes him back, and he remembers his grandmother had also called him that. Grandmother had also taught him never to lie, and he never had, even when he felt people wanted him too. Takasato Kaname is alone and distracted. By his feet he can see a puppy is playing with some fallen papers. Something tells him, the dog isn't really there. Tentatively, he examines his defence lawyer's expression. Rogata-san's forehead is beaded with sweat; the dog still frolicks in the corner of his eye. The high school student blinks several times, the light in the courtroom is bright and he finds it hard to focus. He looks again and the dog is gone.
Hallucinations again. Maybe he did kill those people. Maybe he should be locked up.
In fact, the more he thinks about it the more the notion appears to make a twisted sort of sense. Takasato had been raised to never think highly of himself; he knew people wanted him to pretend he cared about things but he could never bring himself to. He was a useless human being, a cursed individual. He was strange and ungrateful, disapearing as a child and causing distress to his family only to reappear again with no memory of where he'd been. A blinding pain seared his temple as he tried in vain to remember--but it was always the same. One minute, in the garden behind his house, in the next, naked and bleeding at the entrance to his grandmother's funeral. A feeling of overwhelming helplessness washed over him. He knew he somehow was the cause of all these peoples' despair. Each time it was the same--he never actually set out to hurt anyone, but somehow something knew and before he could take it back it was too late. Part of him thought this wasn't fair--all people had bad thoughts, didn't they?
No! He was different. Always in the way, never of any help to anyone. He deserved to be put away. Then nobody would get hurt anymore.
The verdict comes in.
As he is led away, Takasato's mother can be heard sobbing. He isn't sure if it's in despair, or relief. He seeks her out, gives her a faint smile. There are many people from his classes in the audience--many more from school that he doesn't even know. As he smiles at his mother, he can hear some people whisper bad things about him. He can't make out their exact words, but he's pretty sure he hears the terms "deviant", "faggot" and "horrible." His face goes blank again and he follows the guards meekly. They had asked him about the nature of his relationship with the student art teacher. He had of course answered truthfully, although he didn't see what that had to do with anything. They accused him of deceiving Hirosei- sensei. Rogata-san had tried to turn it around, saying that it had been sensei who had taken advantage of him. Kaname had objected. They had been in love.
Something hit him in the back of the neck. Whatever it had been, it was hard and damp. "Pervert!"
Why look up?
Some time later, a guard comes by. The boy shrinks back instinctively, his usual method of escaping.
"Takasato, you've got a visitor."
"Kaname!"
The boy looks up from the ground where he is. "You again."
"Takasato Kaname, you can't just let people do this to you! Don't you realize those things that happened aren't your fault? And the things they accused you of... the things they said about you and Hirosei-sensei, aren't you angry about that at all?"
The former classmate remained on the floor, wrapped his arms around himself, a pathetic creature in the dust. His response came slowly and in a thick monotone as if he were speaking from behind a curtain meant to obscure his true expression, his feelings. "If tricking someone into loving me, like they say I did, is a crime, then their words must be true."
The dark haired girl's face screwed into the very picture of rage. "Idiot! Don't you realize what you are? Don't you see by now that you're special?"
One corner of the boy's mouth raised slightly and briefly raised his brown eyes to meet hers. "Maybe you should have been my defense lawyer."
"You're beyond lawyers, don't you see? You don't even have to be here if you don't want to! Why won't you remember, Kouri? Why are you doing this to yourself?"
The boy freezes. That name. It seems... familiar. And wrong somehow.
Wrong....
"You need to leave now," he says, sounding distressed for the first time, more distressed than he had been during the entire trial.
"Wh--why? Kaname, I'm the only person in this world willing to visit you. Can't you see I'm trying to help?!"
The former student stood shakily, pressing one hand on each ear, eyes wild. "No. I don't want to remember.... Please leave!"
"I was there, too, you know, and I think I heard about you. I'm not sure but I think there are people who care about you and they're looking.... I have no way to contact them Kouri, but they're looking...."
"You're... you're lying. Go away!"
"It's your world I'm telling you about! How can you just tell me to...."
"I SAID GO AWAY!"
At this, all the lights in the bright hospital green corridor outside the cell where he was being held wavered and flickered on and off, the metal door beginning to bend. Huge scratch marks appeared on the front of the door menacingly close, centimetres away from where Yuuka stood. She backed away fearfully as a familiar shadow image appeared. She was prepared this time, though, and she had questions. If she was right, and these were Kaname's youma, she could talk to them, and maybe tell them to stop hiding themselves and help her to convince him of what he was, and that he needed to go home.
Unfortunately, it was then that a guard, hearing the commotion, rushed up and brusquely intervened. He eyed the gigantic scratch marks and the recent warping of the cast iron cell door with no small amount of trepidation, but he quickly hid it.
"You heard the man, lady, said the visit's over. Let's go."
"But wait!! I'm not done telling him yet! He needs to know what he really is--"
"Yeah, lady, I think I speak for all of us when I tell you the press'll be doing a great job'a that over the next few weeks."
"You don't understand! He has magic! He doesn't belong here!"
The guard snorted. "I swear, I don't know what it is with you chicks. Be a nice guy, lead an honest life, and nothin'. Seduce an innocent high school teacher and kill twenty people in cold blood and you'd think he was a bleedin' unicorn."
So that's chapter one. Questions? Flames? Constructive criticism? Reviews, even violently angry ones, are most welcome! Oh, about Yuuka using the "Kouri" nickname: it's something that happens in Episode 13 in the dub (although in the sub she calls him Takasato Kaname)... I thought it implied she knew about his past even though he didn't, which is entirely different than how I felt when I watched that episode subbed. That influenced me to put her in here, although you guys are correct if you think her motivations may not be entirely pure. She's a weird girl. And yes, 20 people is just a random number I came up with... we need to wait for Rurata (a helper on Harunako's site) to finish translating Son of the Demon to find out how many people actually die because of Taiki... can't be too many, I hope. Never mind the fact that I know absolutely nothing of the legal system in Japan, hence the tv-style trial situation....
