Okay, so I usually write authors' notes at the bottom, but I don't want to take away from what is hopefully a good end. I'm sorry for anyone who reads Touya Hikaru, but it's been on a temporary hiatus due to writer's block, death in the family, school, jobs, etc. So, for now, I hope this will tide people over. I'm sorry I'm such a slow fanfic author, but we're getting near the end, so you all won't have to put up with me for long.
As for this story, it was original concepted as a fanfic, written as an original, then trashed, recycled, edited, and now posted as the fanfic it was supposed to be. Enjoy it and please feel free to red ink the crap out of it. I love red ink more than reviews, honestly.
Disclaimer: Don't own Hikaru no Go. Not creative enough to even think of a comedic way to prove I don't own HnG.
Why? Why have we been killing?
I trudged through dirt and rocks, leaning down to make myself smaller. My eyes slid around like a cat looking for its prey, slitting and taking on a feline appearance. My head shook slightly as I spun, believing I had heard a noise in the endless abyss of sand. I clutched the cool metal in my hands tighter, my knuckles growing white with the effort, and my breathing grew shallower.
That beating!
I tensed. My ears pounded, knocking against my brain as I realized the origin of the noise: the beating of my own heart. Once I realized what it was I found the beat to be calming. I was still alive. A feral smile danced upon my lips.
Like a crouching tiger, I crumbled to the ground, barely able to move my legs now. My green eyes narrowed even farther, trying to see past my golden bangs and blaringly white dunes to notice any slight movement.
The wind picked up, kicking sand and dirt into my eyes. Tentatively, I reached up and slowly wiped the grains out of each eye, careful to keep one eye on the immense area around me at all times. I grinned. It was my first time on the field and it was exhilarating. I swept my blonde bangs out of my eyes, readjusted my helmet, and continued onward, my gun lying in my hands, ready to shoot at any time.
A glance to the right and a glance to the left reminded me of the other, more experienced men around me in my platoon, ready to fight the enemy on command. The idea of being surrounded by comrades helped ease my amateurish excitement.
We advanced like crawling cats to the site of what appeared to be a deserted town, but they knew better than to assume it was, and cautioned me to do the same. We spread apart, each person taking his own path; oozing platoons of soldiers floated from house to house.
I followed their lead and kicked in the first door, gun instantly rising to my chest as I remembered all of the cop movies I had watched as a child. I crept inside, scanning the rooms as quickly as I could before continuing to the next. I ran through the house, only to find it deserted. Dejected, I left the house and continued down the road, stopping at each house and repeating the process.
After five houses, I was ready to recite the floor plans of each house in the village. Every house had the same blueprint. I entered the sixth house. The entrance led to the foyer. Past the foyer, a set of stairs leading up, and a hallway leading to a small kitchen. I glanced through the kitchen, quietly opening and closing the cupboard doors only to find empty shelves or expired food.
I sighed and returned to the front. I glanced at the doorway before sighing once more and trekking up the stairs. Trying to enjoy the monotonous work, I kicked open the first door and stuck the muzzle of my rifle through ahead of myself. When I didn't hear any noise from inside, I stuck my head around the doorframe. Once again, no person occupied the room. Nonetheless, I mechanically checked under the bed, in the closet, and even stomped on the floorboards to make sure the floor wasn't hollow.
Exiting the room, I nearly ignored the second bedroom door. A decision I wish I had made. It was easier than the alternative.
The door fell in. The bed was peeked under. The floor was stomped upon. The closet doors swung open. And a child sat at the bottom. I felt my stomach drop.
The sea green eyes looked up at me in fear from beneath his shaggy green bangs as his lips moved to the foreign language. The small boy spoke too quickly and his words were too fumbled and blubbered to make out a word, but the message was clear.
"Please, don't kill me."
I swallowed the lump in my throat, finding my rifle to be heavier than I remembered. The familiar metal warmed as my hand sweated. I didn't have the background to relate the boy to a son or daughter of my own. As an only child, I didn't have a younger sibling to remember either, but I still felt my heart pang at the slowly tearing green eyes. So close to my own, yet bluer. Purer.
"Shindou, have you found anyone?" my commander called.
"Not yet." We never spoke again.
We've lost our purpose.
With more fighting and killing the days of battle were becoming weeks, months, and years. The days never changed, the same as history repeated itself. Never did one learn from his superiors in life.
He shook his head. Once again, he was sent on a mission with his platoon. Promoted to commander, he called the greenhorns that made up his platoon. The new recruits assembled. Hastily and clumsily, the twenty- and thirty-year-old cadets lined up, guns in hand, and proceeded in their march. Even after all the years, it was the same men with the same guns, following the same orders.
The commander led the way, ushering the cadets to follow him as they dodged between dunes like mountain cats searching for their prey. For most, this was their first field attack. For some, their last, if the platoon was unlucky.
The commander glanced around his platoon, the name of each man running through his head. Tatsuya, Kakou, Kazuma…All of them in over their heads. He could see the same terror and anticipation in each soldier that he himself had once had as they marched.
On the horizon, a dusty old town of tents and makeshift houses dotted the area, a dozen houses wide and thirteen houses deep. The commander clicked and split his men down the twelve different roads, ordering them to kill whoever they saw. Even children would only grow to be used against the army in this bloody war that scarred the earth.
He crept across the row, slowly entering the houses one by one. His eyes slid across the rooms and furniture while he imagined what his own house looked like. It had been years since he was last home. What with the bombs falling and the soldiers invading each others' countries he could not even be sure it still existed.
The door to the sixth house was kicked in and he pointed the muzzle of the gun in, his eyes roving behind the scope. He shifted around the house, taking in the familiar two story room he'd seen in the past five houses. Lack of materials, time, money, and creativity.
Monotony.
A few kicks here and there, and snooping in the corners. Sighing, he blew away his now dirty blond bangs and exited the house, turning his head and expecting to see Toshimori coming out of the adjacent house. Up until now, Toshimori had kept perfect pace with him.
"Toshimori, have you found anyone?" he called.
"Not yet." The commander nodded and headed to the seventh house as a chill made its way up and down his spine.
Unlike the last six, this had a curtain in place of a door. His anxiety rose. He pushed away the cloth. His heart sped up. He swallowed the bile in his throat. He recognized the feel of the place, yet it was different from the other six houses.
The building was two stories high and large enough to house a hallway and staircase. The commander peered around the foyer, but it was large and empty. There was no place for a human to hide. To make sure, he stamped the boards on the floor, moving on when he heard the muted thud of dirt below.
He slithered into the kitchen, his eyes roving around the counter and the pantries. He slowly advanced on the cabinets, trying to keep his boots from clacking on the tiles too loudly. His hand lay on the wood, measuring it for a moment before roughly jerking it open, his gun instantly sliding inside.
No movement.
He moved on, jerking open each of the other doors to find them also empty. As his heart kept thumping as loudly as before, the commander only grew more nervous. In a war, instincts were to be relied on. They saved lives.
Returning to the staircase, the commander ascended the stone stairs slowly and quietly, creeping along. He reached the top and snuck off to the right, entering the main bedroom. With every footstep his heartbeat increased as if to make up for lost time. Drumming the tune of the drummer boy. He gulped the feeling away and checked the underside of the bed and the floor as usual.
Turning to the closet, he felt his brain tugging against him. Begging him to leave the house be. However, his orders did not allow that.
He hid to the side of the closet. Grasped the doorknob. Taking a deep breath, the door swung open. The gun stabbed forward. His finger stroked the trigger.
Clothes swung in the breeze. The blonde sighed, the air whispering through barely parted lips. He shut the door and headed back to the door and into the hallway. He felt much lighter, even if his heartbeat was abnormally quick. He was getting worked up over nothing.
Finally he stood in front of the last door of the house. He kicked the door in, checking the underside of the bed, stomping on the floor, checking the corners, and ending at the closet as he had before.
The door swung open and no one lay inside. The commander moved in, kicking around clothing to check the floor.
"Stop."
The commander froze at the foreign language. He slowly turned around; his eyes fell upon the teenage boy far faster than it took the rest of his body to face forward.
The stormy eyes stared hard at him while he looked down the barrel of a stolen rifle. He opened his mouth to try to calm the child in front of him.
"Don't," the child said coldly, cocking the trigger.
The gun and its wielder stood fifteen feet away. Plenty of room to attempt escape, yet the commander's mind was not on leaving. Not ever.
He stared down the barrel of the gun as the past years of fighting washed over him. The death of so many people he had known. The destruction of his own home. The demolition of the world. What had started the war again?
He dropped his gun, and took a step forward.
"Don't."
The eyebrows creased and the feet continued forward.
"I will."
His green, military eyes softened, and deepened until they appeared almost teal in color.
"Too late."
Green swirled blue. The drum stopped beating.