Misaki x3
A K Project oneshot.
Summary: Alternate Return of Kings. What if Saruhiko Fushimi failed to stop Sukuna Gojo's sneak attack, resulting in a grave injury the Homra's vanguard may not recover from? How can he proceed with his infiltration into JUNGLE when all his thoughts were consumed with thinking of Misaki, Misaki, Misaki?
Warning: Rated T for injury, language and strong themes. I rate everything T just to be safe, but this probably just the lower end of K+.
"I still haven't thanked you yet, did I?"
Hm?
"I'm talking about the time when the Green Clan kidnapped Anna before she could awaken as King. If you hadn't tipped us off, I wouldn't have rescued her, let alone found her."
"And?"
The world lost all its colors, only comprehensible in shades of grey. Misaki Yata, apologizing to him? That was… laughable.
And yet, he looked at his face, and no matter how much he willed himself to laugh, he didn't. Being earnest had been the crutch to his stupid rashness. Fushimi swallowed his sharp remark hard.
"Huh? Listen, I don't like you," Yata sputtered defensively, but his guard was laid out at Fushimi's feet, and bitterly, the blue thought, so was his own. "It's not like I've forgiven you but… but I'm grateful for that one time."
The vanguard lowered his eyes. This was what years of friendship resulted in. Candid feelings on the school sidewalk.
How pathetic.
Fushimi tilted his head away, his world still reflecting ugly and dull colors. None of this was real. All of it was fake.
And when the vanguard shifted, he barely saw the streak of green against the screen of gray as the world suddenly erupted into colors again.
Only, the green hadn't been from the trees or the grass.
None of this was real. All of this was fake.
"I still haven't thanked you yet, have I?"
The lips that spoke the words seared into Fushimi's brain twitched, then turned red, an awful, ugly red.
Misaki stared at him, in shock, probably just on a delivery for his stupid clan the blue knew one day would kill him, only for it to coalesce into one day at the school where they already lost so much, in the form of a frothing green scythe halfway embedded in the vanguard's throat.
How did he not see him? How did he not see him?
"Oops. Didn't think my sneak attack would be super effective."
A knife was in Fushimi's hand before he could think, his brain spinning so hard and struggling to keep up that it continued to churn his thoughts and prevented them from settling.
Misaki, Misaki, Misaki.
Misaki made no sound when he fell, no groan or creak until he hit the concrete and his perpetrator appeared in the blue's view like a magician with a stupid smirk on his face.
He was just a kid. A twelve-year-old at best. How did Fushimi not sense him?
The blade on the scythe dispersed as the child raised it, tilting it to rest on his shoulder. The blue's brain screamed not to look, but he did anyway, and seeing the crumpled body like a piece of paper in acrylic paint spurred the fire in his body he had tried so long to deny. The knife went up in flames.
The child laughed. Fushimi knew his name, had gained as much information on JUNGLE as he could. Long hours after his shift with Scepter 4 was dedicated to it. But he would not utter his name.
He aimed for the child's throat when he threw the knife, but he popped his staff off his shoulder and swung it clockwise to block the attack. Fushimi tched, pressing his glasses to the bridge of his nose. The glint hid his eyes.
His mind started to settle.
"Huh, that's an interesting trick, but don't think you can beat the final boss easily with it," the child laughed, but Fushimi would not play his game as his eyes wandered to his feet.
Misaki, Misaki, Misaki.
Grey. Red. Grey. Red.
Misaki's not dead. Of course, he's not dead. But he's going to be dead if you let him bleed out and die.
The blue tched again.
Why was everything with his so complicated?
"I still haven't thanked you yet, did I?"
It burned.
The blue pulled two more knives and threw them in quick succession. Unfortunately, though not able to kill, he was able to duck and scoop up the vanguard, even though he was heavier than their last fight on the school grounds.
"Now you decide to cheat!"
The kid charged, and Fushimi was forced to take a blunt blow to the shoulder, all for the sake of keeping the pressure on the artery blown in Misaki's neck. He staggered, exhaled hard, and jerked the red onto his shoulder so he could run.
Fushimi couldn't say he had ever run from a fight before, and now he was, two fingers in the bloody neck of his ex-best friend and running from the Green Clan's toddler. His adrenaline made up for his lack of athleticism. He felt nothing more than a faint and manageable burn as his mind began processing again.
Misaki, Misaki, Misaki.
What was closer, Scepter 4 or the hospital? What would be better, should he warn someone a Green was at the high school? But each one not concerned about Misaki was shut down as he changed the route for the hospital. The Black Dog would surely figure out there was a trespasser on his turf.
Fushimi had more important things to deal with.
How did he miss him?
He miscalculated the distance to the hospital by a block. A whole block. He stumbled through a district of clothing stores and shocked people as he went past, unable to pull his phone out. He would have wandered even further from the radius had he not heard an ambulance taking flight. The hospital had been just feet in the other direction, and Fushimi cursed himself every foot he had to make up as he sped to the front entrance.
The sensors on the door didn't read him fast enough. He slammed his bad shoulder into the glass and released a noise his pride would never admit as pain before the sensor triggered and allowed him inside.
Saruhiko Fushimi didn't have to say anything. The triage nurse dropped her files and called for help, and suddenly there were swarms of white coats on white walls, and his head spun, but it didn't matter.
All that mattered was Misaki, Misaki, Misaki.
He didn't follow when they took the vanguard further back into the ER. He didn't listen to the triage nurse insisting that he seek medical treatment too. He wordlessly filled out Misaki's information—name, date of birth, and medical history he could still recall. He signed Kusanagi's phone number on the contact information and left the paper at the desk. He was gone before the triage nurse had come back to check on him.
How did he miss this?
Emergency surgery. Fushimi read the bright document on the LED screen more than once. The screen left a hard glare of his glasses as it swelled the small section of the dark room with light, but it made no difference. He adjusted his shirt at it settled and irritated his bruised shoulder and continued to scroll through the file again.
He frowned deeply. Why do I always hack something for Misaki? Even if it was conditional, like finding Totsuka's murderer or locating Anna, his actions always seemed to respond to the vanguard, and he hated it.
"I still haven't thanked you yet, did I?"
He opened a second tab and logged into JUNGLE. He was nowhere near breaking the gap between E and L, let alone making the jump to J rank and Sukuna Gojo. He rubbed his bottom lip with his thumb and ran through the mission updates, his image still listed with a bounty. He couldn't be certain about the skill set of a twelve-year-old child, but he could assume it was at least at a level playing field as Misaki—but he had caught them both off guard. He tched quietly to himself. He couldn't be confident to say he could beat him one-on-one.
He checked his phone. Still no messages from Munakata. What was he up to?
A blue flash on the screen drew his attention again, the tab of Misaki's medical records throbbing a dark blue.
Fushimi's program to inform him of page updates.
How ironic.
He opened the tab and scrolled to the bottom, past the pre-op and attempt at a history, to the tiny little paragraph listed as an operative report.
"Surgical complications, currently code blue."
Fushimi slammed the laptop shut, his world snapping suddenly into complete darkness. It was the first time he never wanted to read the color he betrayed Misaki for, in that way, in that context.
Misaki was dying.
The blue stayed like that for a long time, his head lowered, his fingers clutching the sheets of his bed tightly.
Then his phone began to ring.
He didn't want to answer it, but he had no choice. He jabbed the answer button and flung all his malice into one word. "What?"
A chuckle on the other end. He felt his eye twitch.
"I have a proposition, Fushimi," the Blue King's voice rumbled. Fushimi had to hold the phone away from his ear. "About how to deal with the emergence of the Green Clan."
He stopped there, baiting him, and it pissed Fushimi off to no end.
"Well then. What is it," the blue snapped, yanking his laptop open again and quickly switching to the JUNGLE tab before he stared too long at the records.
The green screen tangled in his thoughts, a color he had now come to bear more hatred for than he did for red. The screen hovered on the logo for a moment, before returning to the log in screen.
He knew at that moment what Munakata wanted him to do.
Fushimi was already in a bitter mood when he woke up, robbed of any sleep and coffee as he cursed and slammed the empty cupboard shut. He was in the middle of ordering more when his phone rang again, and he answered it as he scrolled through his coffee choices on his laptop at the kitchen counter.
His usual greeting. "What."
His unusual reply. "Hello, Fushimi."
His posture straightened instantly. This couldn't be good.
"Never thought I'd have a red call me other than Misaki, let alone their babysitter." He paced across the kitchen tile, his curser still on the Add to Cart button.
"You know I'd always keep you up-to-date with anything important," Kusanagi paused. Why did he pause? "So… how have you been?"
"Fine."
He was sharp as he leaned against the doorway, staring into his living room. Of course, his eyes settled on the controller perched on top of the gaming console. Everything was making him think about that stupid vanguard.
Kusanagi gave a small chuckle. "Seri's not giving you trouble I hope."
The blue turned his back to the living room.
"I hope you didn't call to make small talk because I'm not in the mood."
He heard the red sigh. "Sorry. I didn't, I just wanted to let you know how Yata was doing."
"Let me guess," Fushimi said, "Our Misaki went and died on us, didn't he?"
He could feel his heart thudding in his ears, moments and years passing in seconds. Video game nights, failed study sessions, arcades and sodas and music and laughter and Misaki, Misaki, Misaki. He dug his fingernails into the palm of his hand, but it would never end.
How did he miss it?
"No." Everything shattered, all the memories scattered like broken shards around his feet. And for a moment, Fushimi remembered how to breathe. "He pulled through, so he's going to be okay. They were able to repair most of the damage, he's just in recovery now. Should be home soon."
He digested the words, probed each one until he picked the rotten one from the healthy bunch: most. Not all. Just most. His lips couldn't form the words, to demand the answer. His throat contracted around his words and held them tight. Most. Why most?
He hung up on Kusanagi without so much as a goodbye and went straight to his laptop. Within a few keystrokes, he hacked into the vanguard's medical record and sloshed through the more foreign medical terms of the complete operative report. He had to open a second tab just to translate. He was so absorbed in deciphering it that it took him ten minutes to scroll far enough down the page that he could see the top of a video tacked to the end of the post-op.
He frowned and clicked the video, maximizing it.
It was Misaki.
A nurse was filming as a doctor slid into the frame on the opposite side of Misaki's bed. The red looked like a child, small and frail and consumed by everything that was bigger than him, the bed, the gown, the IV line. His throat from chin to collarbone was wrapped in thick, coarse bandages, and his wild untamed hair clung to it. His eyes could only see Misaki, the way he cringed when he swallowed or how his left hand kept fiddling with the IV line.
Leave it alone Misaki or you'll pull it out and give yourself a heart attack when you see the blood.
"This is patient 9856," the doctor began, his voice muffled by the medical terminology to follow.
His diagnosis, the blue concluded.
Another male talked, so close to the camera speaker that his voice distorted, "please state your name and age."
Misaki wrapped the IV line partially around his index finger, before fixating his eyes on the camera.
You're going to cut off the supply of medicine, Misaki.
The vanguard opened his mouth and closed it for a moment. Fushimi blinked at the screen, imaging standing behind the camera person, saying something provoking like "Mi~sa~ki~" just to listen to him scream.
"My name…" Fushimi dropped his phone. It thudded so hard against the cabinets, it could have been his heart. "Is Yatagarasu…"
He was only whispering. Misaki couldn't speak above a whisper. He was trying, the strain was evident, but each word that escaped was soft and barely detectable to the audio.
Fushimi walked away from the computer, away from the vanguard's face, away from the whispers that would haunt him like screams.
How did he miss this?
The next two weeks slid by in comprehensible chunks. Homra, Scepter 4, and whatever the hell the Silver King decided to call his gang of only three people were now in full cooperation—he was spending long hours at Scepter 4 with his king, plotting their next act to deal with the Green Clan and fulfill Fushimi's wrath to slit Sukuna Gojo's throat out.
Fushimi was a great magician during this time. Anywhere the vanguard turned up (on light duty as Kamamoto unasked had explained), the blue always put on a great vanishing act. He managed to evade him through all their talks, either leaving just as he was entering or assigning himself a duty somewhere else entirely.
From the medical reports, he made little progress in his therapies, and there was little hope a surgeon could fix the specific damage present preventing him from raising his voice. Fushimi didn't think he could hold a conversation with him if all he could hear was a puny form of his once lively Misaki. It would only be a reminder of how badly he screwed up that day.
Unfortunately, sooner or later, he would miscalculate something (as he was prone to do as of late) and would be forced to meet the red face to face. And unfortunately, that day would be today, a day he was most unprepared, on a day he was most caught off guard, on a day he wished for nothing more than to disappear into thin smoke like a real magician.
He tried to bolt out the door first; but the Red Clan had sat closer to the door, and before he could make it, Misaki cut him off. He then tried to fade backward, but Seri chatted with Homra's bartender and blocked his escape route. There was no place to run as the vanguard looked at his blue equal, his head tilted back and his arms holding his skateboard straight to his side.
He looked like he could be a poster. There was no way he was real.
"Saru," Yata said.
He gained some volume in his voice, but not much. It was only slightly louder than the hospital video, but it made him grind his teeth all the same.
He couldn't say a word, afraid that maybe he would start speaking in whispers. His best tactic was to stare and glare as Kamamoto buzzed behind Misaki and placed a hand on his friend's shoulder.
"Uh… Yata…" He murmured worriedly. He was a fool if he thought this thickness in the air was tension. It was too frothy, too bitter, too disgusting; and with a frown, Fushimi realized what it was—pity.
"Yata, maybe we should go. Escort Anna home and all," the idiot continued babbling.
The blue consciously pushed his glasses up so a hard glare would hide his eyes and not betray the ugly thoughts he had.
"You should listen to your mother, Misaki."
He cursed himself when he forgot to add malice, the finished product looking more like a deflated statement than a snarky jab. The vanguard didn't even need to roll his eyes.
"Really Saru?" Fushimi winced, but not in preparation for the retort. Misaki shouldn't be speaking like that. "Because I think your daddy's calling for you right now."
His mouth fell open, but the words never left his brain. As a sign of grace or pitiful timing, Munakata began to call for the members of Scepter 4 to assemble. Fushimi mumbled something, and before he could turn, Misaki snatched his arm so fast, he was caught defenseless, off guard, his fingers fumbling for a knife that wouldn't give to his fingers—
Yata grabbed his collar next and yanked him down to his level. This was how Sukuna did it, how he caught him off-guard, how he was able to injure Misaki while Fushimi stood oblivious at his side.
"I'm not broken Saru," Yata spoke very clearly, each syllable cleaving through the blue's thought process in chunks. "So stop looking at me like I'll shatter. I can still kick your ass."
He was still a spark, but the flames were already out as Misaki left, Kamamoto fast on his heels. Fushimi let his retort sour to a "tch", scratching hard at his collarbone, trying to forget.
But he'd always remember.
He tried not to think about how terrible, how uncharacteristic, how pathetic he acted in the last meeting—but it haunted him even into the shower as his fingers hastily scratched his scalp, and his eyes squinted to the read the shampoo bottle. Now Misaki would have ammunition. If he had a voice, that is. And all his thoughts would just make a brutal cycle around, ending wherever they began, always on Misaki, Misaki, Misaki. He lowered his hair into the spray and felt the suds slide down the contours of his face.
Why did he have to dedicate so much thought to the stupid vanguard? Had he simply blocked Sukuna's attack, or better yet, thrown Misaki to the ground, he wouldn't spend every moment of every day dedicated to killing Sukuna and philosophically questioning his relationship to the vanguard. He was nowhere near forgiving him for worshipping Mikoto—but now that he put him in this situation, is he obligated to put it behind him? He snapped the shower off, his hair dripping in a steady stream as he stared at the blur of his hand still clutching the metal handle.
Why did he miss it?
He grabbed a towel and started drying his hair when heard his phone ringing on the sink. He slipped his glasses on and clicked his tongue, reading the caller ID. He always had a bad sense of timing. He dried his hands and answered, hitting the speaker button so he could start getting dressed.
"What do you want this time?" He asked, slipping into his jeans with some difficulty.
"To give information," Kusanagi replied. "The Greens are on the move. We'll have to react soon."
"I already know…" He grumbled something along the lines of "just as slow as Misaki" as he unbuttoned his new shirt off the hanger.
"You know, you and Yata are going to have to work together." The stupid bartender was testing the waters, he could hear it in his voice. He was dipping his finger in to see if the water was too hot or too cold. "Without yelling preferably."
Fushimi sighed. Loudly. "If you are going to waste the time to call me, I prefer you tell me something I don't already know."
"Alright then. He wants to talk."
His fingers stopped at the last button, and he stared at the partially-opened shirt like it was a mouth about to swallow him whole.
"Why?" He asked, quietly, defensively. Finally, the familiar protection of being on guard was there; why did it take so long for his sense to correct themselves?
Why did I miss it?
"I don't know," The bartender admitted. Fushimi didn't like that answer. "But it's Yata. I'm sure it has something to do with you saving his life."
"No," the blue thought, before he realized he said it out loud, "I didn't save his life."
He tried to smash the end call button and ended up knocking the whole phone instead, and it slid through his slippery fingers as he tried to save it. He grumbled when he recovered it and discovered a small crack forming in the corner from its face dive.
He didn't save his life. It would be a different story if he was uninjured, then Fushimi would gladly hold it over his head for the rest of his life. This was different because he felt responsible, even though he didn't influence the attack; it was like he was the one who idolized Mikoto and forgot all about his middle school friend. And something about that soured in the blue.
A message came soon after he redressed and secured the final button of his shirt. A time and place from Homra's bartender for tonight.
Strangely enough, he felt obligated to go.
"I'm not broken, Saru." The voice in his head repeated, but he doubted it, and doubted himself, as he began to get ready to meet his ex-best friend again.
He was on call for Scepter 4, of course; free to move until JUNGLE shifted their chess piece. As he was walking to the street corner Kusanagi assigned him, he almost wished his phone would go off, that the Greens would make their move and Misaki would forget all about this—but the call never came, and he arrived at the lamp post five minutes early, wondering why the hell he was there late at night to meet his ex-best friend.
Why is everything with his so complicated?
He leaned against the lamppost and stared at his phone, willing it to ring, willing for Munakata to once in his life be useful to Fushimi. The only notification he received was a JUNGLE update, and he opened the app, chewing on his bottom lip. A new mission was on the boards, but the points awarded made no difference. They were pocket change in comparison to what he now needed to make the L to G jump.
"I still haven't thanked you yet, did I?"
The more he tried to distract himself, the more he thought about the reds, about Homra and Mikoto and Anna and Misaki, Misaki, Misaki. He remembered the way Yata looked at Mikoto, and how much it made him want to puke; how Yata's eyes churned as he burned his Homra tattoo; how he cried when his king went and died; how he begged him to find Anna, how he nearly got his ass kicked by a girl finding her.
Lost in the swelter of memories, he didn't hear him when he walked up, only felt the arm on his shoulder and the sudden spiral in his mind when he realized he was defenseless with no sword, no knife his fingers could grab.
But it was only Misaki, wearing a black shirt that faded his body into the night, and Fushimi cursed himself. This had been a foolish idea.
"You know, I thought it was a joke when Kusanagi told me you wanted to talk." His fingers instinctively drifted to his scar, but he hesitated to relive those emotions. "When I realized he was seriously asking for you, I couldn't help but laugh."
He wanted yelling. He wanted Misaki to scream at him, to charge at him, to smirk and piss him off to get an even louder reaction. But the vanguard just stood there, a lion without its teeth, his eyes burning with a rage his voice could not respond with.
"Then why did you come, if you thought it was that stupid," he asked, the slight wind cherry picking words from his sentence. The blue frowned and reconstructed it in his head as best as he could. The delay gave him a perfect opportunity to change the conversation.
"Just hurry up and tell me why I'm here Misaki, we both know I'm busy."
He looked everywhere but the vanguard, the distant street lights, the lone car that passed, the dead store fronts. But the silence lingered on and on, and finally, he was forced to look him in the eyes and pretend he didn't see the scar that slashed his neck in two.
Two small words that rang louder than bells. "Thank you."
Two simple words. But it wasn't that simple. The events of the past weeks couldn't just be dissolved with a "thank you".
"Why thank me," he said with a bitter undertone, "When you can barely speak loud enough to say those words."
His body screamed to run away, his mind whirling and spinning; but all his life he had been running from something, and he was just too tired now to keep up the pace. For once, he just wanted a break.
"I could have died."
Fushimi shook his head and shoved his hands in his pockets. "You basically did."
Of course, Misaki didn't understand what he meant. The blue scowled when the vanguard quirked an eyebrow. This was why he was the smart friend, he thought, before he realized what he had insinuated.
None of this was real. All of this was fake.
"You're known for your loud, annoying voice," he explained slowly, so he would get it, "You're basically not the same Misaki."
And that was his fault.
The dots were finally starting to connect. He could see the ancient dial-up in Misaki's eyes as the paper flew to the folder and everything made sense. He didn't expect a frown, didn't expect him to cross his arms and square up to Fushimi like he was going to correct his thinking.
Yata spoke, in a louder octave then he had heard previously heard on the tests the surgeons conducted. "You think I'm simple. That I'm too stupid or I'm too loud. I'm more complex than that I think, and I think I'm more than just a voice. I'm Yatagarasu. I'm Homra's vanguard. I'm a skateboarder, I'm a friend. I'm not only something loud and obnoxious. I'm not dead because I have no voice."
Before Fushimi could say anything, he continued to drive the nail hard into the wooden shield that protected his heart.
"Everyone changes, like you, and like me too. I know not to be rash or hotheaded now. That I got to think and keep my eyes open and stop burning the bridges I leave behind. So, what I'm trying to say is, I don't want to hate you. Not anymore."
Fushimi's natural defense was to belittle his words; but there was nothing he could find, no hole he could poke, as it all began to sink in. Yata was right, in his assumption. He had changed, for better or worse, and he wasn't the same single-minded devoted dumbass as he was before; and Fushimi had always comprehended him like he was as black and white as a medical report.
How did I miss this…?
The change in the vanguard started after he tossed the glass bottle. Fushimi had seen that and wished he could manipulate it, but Misaki didn't change after Fushimi left. He was still the same Misaki, being prideful and hotheaded and oblivious. And then he changed again, after Mikoto died, after Anna was kidnapped and he got down on his knees and groveled for help he had never wanted before. The blue had seen that change too, and yet, somehow missed this last growth. The spurt where his height lacked was made up in his maturity since Sukuna's attack.
But he hadn't changed that much, not really. His behavior shifted, but he was still Misaki, still the Misaki that fought for the first player controller and drank more sodas then he should.
He just changed from Misaki, to Misaki, to Misaki. The blue hadn't nearly gotten him killed; he was just there to witness him changing into another version, a better version, of the same Misaki.
Fushimi couldn't help but laugh.
How did he miss that?
Misaki was still watching, still waiting for an answer, stripping the heart he always kept on his sleeve and laying it at his feet. It was a peace offering, and though Fushimi hesitated to take it, he felt like there was at least something there he had chosen to ignore before.
"We'll have to see, Mi~sa~ki~"
The vanguard didn't scream at him, but when he wound his bat over his shoulder, the blue ran off laughing, knowing one day they could be friends again, but first he will have to change himself too.
He might still kill Sukuna Gojo, he might not. Who knows what change the next few days will bring, with his infiltration looming in. It will affect Misaki, probably piss him off all over again, but he doubted it would do the same damage as before.
This was what years of friendship result in.
A bridge they could rebuild. Together.
I planned on killing Misaki in the beginning, but my best friend strongly convinced me to stop murdering characters I love, so this mess was the result.
I hope you enjoyed reading.
Soul Spirit