Summary: A king has his duties, but even the slightest of events can trigger the conversion of reason into madness.
Directed at Fai's father if he was the emperor instead of the younger emperor. It is of similar line to canon with some AU details added in.
Spoilers for the Ceres arc.
Written in second person.
Disclaimer: I do not own Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles
You are a king, the emperor, the highest ruling body of these lands. It is a magical land and the blood of the mages runs deep within your veins and the citizens'.
You are the most powerful. Should you decree anything, it will be carried out, no matter what it is.
If a simple minister is deemed untrustworthy you drop him in the timeless prison. Should the peasants become rebellious you suppress them with brute force, at times destroying entire villages. You make sure to leave some, so your fearful legacy lives on. After all, what is a king if he doesn't have obedient subjects?
Even if you are ruthless, you have found a source of pleasure, happiness, pride. A wife, one of the greatest mages in your kingdom, one of the strongest. Her hair the golden yellow color of the sunlight that occasionally shows its face upon the earth. The eyes of a purest blue, a sign of the most able magic power. She was your greatest treasure, the only anchor to keep your sanity.
Upon receiving the news of your wife's pregnancy, you were ecstatic. Children meant an heir. An heir meant that the legacy and bloodline of the kingdom would continue. Children were the physical representation of love and a symbol of the connection between you and her.
Still, to find the child was not actually one boy, but two threw all into a state of confusion and apprehension. Twins. The word was a curse whispered through the castle walls and echoing into the street. Twins of misfortune was the phrase from legend, a bad omen. The abrupt death of your wife after the childbirth only fueled that notion. They killed her was the only thought regarding them, your own flesh and blood. She told you as she lay dying to take care of them, to love them, and to not scorn them. But that was impossible for you. You wonder how she could possibly expect you to love those twins, those...monsters. Instead of the love you expected to feel for your children, there was only rage, scorn, disgust. It did not help that their very features were the exact same as the loved one you had lost. Like an image of her ghost they shared the same yellow hair, and their eyes held more magical power than possibly expected. Together they could be more powerful than you, the king.
The years that followed had famines, torrential blizzards, earthquakes, droughts. The calamities were all blamed on the twins of misfortune.
You could rid yourself of these beings but the consequences of terminating both of them would inflict a calamity much greater than the ones that the country was currently suffering. So you offered them a choice that seemed heartless, painful. But your heart had died along with your wife.
Upon being the presented the decision to kill off one or to be placed in seclusion forever separated, you predicted the outcome correctly though you strongly wished otherwise. Did it not pain you to force two children to choose between great hardship and life, both choices not excluding plenty of suffering?
There was a disturbed feeling as you watched the two share a look with those sapphire eyes which seemed to reveal wisdom and understanding misplaced in bodies this young. That feeling only amplified as they grabbed each other's hand and looked at you revealing no emotion yet causing you to feel as if under scrutiny. In a way you were disappointed, but it did not matter what they chose, it was a punishment either way—a punishment for being born.
Into the tower, the timeless prison, they were placed, one on the ground level where the sinners were dumped and the other placed in a cell higher up the tower. They would never be able to reach the other, never be able to touch the only other in this world who actually accepts them.
There was no notable effect on the kingdom with this act. The disasters continued as did the aura of suffering that befell the kingdom.
Your insanity built up as your last link to sanity had gone with the birth of the twins. As a king no one could defy you. You were the final word. And the calamities seemed to not stop for they were a cloud of illness on your heart. Without knowing of your alterations and instability, you saw everything as an enemy trying to bring your throne to ruin. You were without a heir, without a wife to bear more, without a trustworthy ally to depend on. Anyone who spoke against you was considered in opposition to your rule.
Thus began your vendetta, the dumping of even more 'sinners'. There were the peasants who came to complain of their situations and seek better resources for their villages. They were dumped into the tower of sinners, alive, but to soon be killed by the height of the fall.
Gone were the farmers who failed to produce suitable crop. Gone were the advisers, the people, the country never to be rebuilt again. Punished they were and sent to repent for the sins they did not commit, for your own selfishness and irrational mentality. The bodies piled up within the prison and no one could mourn the loss of the innocents.
Soon you were truly alone. Before the fall of the last subjects you learned of the rumors of an invasion or an intervention from the neighboring countries hoping to terminate your madness. Now you have nothing to stop them with and they have nothing to stop. After all a king's power is determined by his subjects and with no subjects to reign over, you have become nothing. The sole survivors in this country are you and the two you had locked away several years ago to prevent the land from going into disarray, but that could not contain the spread of your own decay. Still, there is one more citizen in this country who the sentence that terminated all others did not fall on.
As your final act of punishment on yourself, on the twins, on your former country, you too fell into the tower of sinners with your sword in hand. A lump you fell in, but had survived due to your magic. You stood, the madness evident in your eyes, and looked at one half of what you had forsaken those years ago. Dirty, haggard, sickly. The features that once originated from someone you adored were sullied from time. The eyes had lost their past luster and the hair was mottled and dull. You could see the surprise and fear evident in those crystals and rose to end everything.
The sword you dragged down with you was gripped tightly and you could almost hear the screaming of the other child viewing the events below, incapable of doing something to help his other half. How laughable. Even when you were alone with no allies, they were not the same. They, although separated, had each other, had the unbreakable bond of siblings formed by blood. Despite trying to make them suffer for the supposed well-being of your country, you only worsened your own suffering. Did you truly expect the future to change through measly actions of selfishness? Through the act of forsaking your own blood?
Raising the blade, taking careful and slow steps closer to the child, you took in a breath with a sharp gasp…
...and plunged the blade through your chest.
"It's all your fault…" the murmur was soft as you crumpled and shuddered, blood pouring out against the fallen snow. How fitting that your life should end surrounded by the death and punishment that you yourself inflicted. No, it was never their fault from the start. It was never their fault that you lost all ability to love and the light that guided you.
As you lay there, bleeding from the wound you inflicted on yourself, watching the boy cry, you remembered their names. She always wanted two sons, two princes that would grow and learn together, and would soon rule the kingdom. To the firstborn she wanted the name Fai, and to the second…
"Yuui..."
The last words on your lips, escaping as a hiss so minuscule in volume that none could possibly be able to discern it. One of her wishes had been respected, but the other… Did you ever feel any sort of compassion for them? Did the regret of your actions sink in during these final ephemeral moments of your life?
You had destroyed. Torn apart your people for your kingdom. Torn apart your kingdom for yourself. And for whom did you tear yourself apart for? For the kingdom you desecrated? For the people you eliminated? For yourself?
Perhaps it would have been different if the twins were treated differently. Perhaps it would have been different if your wife had not died. Perhaps it would have been different if you were not king.
But a king is what a king is, and as a king, sacrifices must be made.
Thanks for Reading.
I really do adore Fai and Yuui. It was quite enjoyable to write this, criticizing and giving a background to the character that sentenced them to their fates.