Lying in a puddle of his own blood, Kamui tries not to choke on the rapidly congealing liquid (much too pathetic of a death: a nice, clean kill-shot would've been much appreciated; and is all this stuff seriously coming out of his head?) and feels, for the first time, the sheer weight of the air, the rain, the clouds, the unseen stars shining blissfully unaware above his head and out of his sight.
(He's becoming poetic. Definitely not a good sign.)
The next time he regains consciousness he's lying in what passes as a bed on the planet of never-ending rain (better known as the planet of the damned or simply: home). It's so dirty they might as well have just left him outside.
(Well, fine, at least it isn't raining indoors.)
There are no tears. There are no comforting words. There are only a few bandages wrapped slapdash around his head and torso and, face it, his entire body, and a nasty, graying "bed" to be bored stiff in. Sympathy isn't something that's encouraged to bloom on the planet of the damned.
(You get freaks like his sister every so often.)
Of course, the very fact that he's still alive to complain silently (his mouth isn't cooperating at the moment) about being bored stiff a flea-ridden hospital and not dead on the streets somewhere (the next body clean-up day isn't due for another week) is some sort of a sad, paradoxical testament to the fact that someone out there had some sort of a heart.
(This hospital is clearly not Yato-run though. The Yato don't run hospitals; they give hospital workers work to do. Hospitals are places to die. The last place any self-respecting Yato wants to end up in is a hospital.)
(Clearly he's lost some degree of respect then.)
The walls are plastered with what probably used to be wallpaper but has long since turned into a disgusting, dripping layer of mildew. He makes up a game trying to find shapes in it. So far he's counted three disembodied heads, a few loose fingers, and a handful of legs.
(Make that four heads. There's another one by the far corner of the doorway. Quite interesting, this one. It appears to have five eyes and no nose.)
Two days later, he's in as good of a condition as he was before the fight. Definitely a good sign. He's getting better at this healing thing.
(Can't wait to test out if anything has atrophied while he was immobilized. Highly unlikely, but still, it never hurts to check. And he's been itching to get in a good fight for the past two days.)
He has a piece of paper in his pocket, but it's soaked through and the ink's run into a messy blob (possibly stained his clothes too, but that's not a priority). According to the contact Housen gave him (some guy named Abuto; what self-respecting guy has the character for "bunny" in his name?), the ship isn't due to land at the terminal for a few hours. That gives him some time to grab a few bites to eat.
(It's not stealing if it's from a dead person. The only tricky part is making the second part of the statement come true, but thankfully being alive is a state that is incredibly easy to reverse.)
The food is good, though there isn't nearly enough of it and he's never really learned how to cook. So he tries after he finishes what food there was in the run-down shack. It looks simple enough, but a good two hours later all he has is some burnt black matter. He tries eating it anyway, but there exist a few things in the universe that can defy even the iron stomach of the Yato clan. Sadly, this is one of them.
(He congratulates himself; he has discovered yet another way of killing people.)
His few hours are almost up. A new life full of exciting adventure and mass destruction awaits him, wrapped up in a layer of shiny metal spaceship and glittering with the reflection of distant stars.
(Vermicelli noodles sound good. He'll see if there are any on board the ship.)
"Nii-chan!"
(The Yato have no need for hearts.)
"Nii-chan!"
(No need.)
"Don't leave!" Tears are in her eyes. It's very much like the crybaby she always was. Always is. Always will be.
"Weaklings like you," he says, barely even bothering to turn around to face the tiny girl he knows is crying for him, "are only going to get in my way."
And that's it.
(Later he wonders if it's just the rain blowing into his face, but dismisses the thought. Vermicelli noodles are far more interesting than some half-formulated thought.)
(Really.)
The good news is that Abuto's actually quite strong, bunny in his name notwithstanding (He's rather paradoxical though. No, the Yato don't need hearts. Just what is that man thinking?). It's been a while since anyone's been able to hand his ass to him, as narrow as the victories are.
(Not that it's a good feeling, but at least he knows there's still some purpose in his life.)
The bad news is that space is much more boring than he thought it would be. It's the same black void copied and pasted ad infinitum, that kind of nasty-flea-infested-not-Yato-run-hospital type of boring. It drives him crazy.
(Of course there are arguments to be made that he had lost whatever shreds of sanity he possessed long before he ever joined up with the Harusame, but that's beyond the point.)
Day after day trudges by reluctantly, like a child unwilling to go to bed. He lives for the few, rare moments when the Seventh Division Thunder Guns (he still doesn't understand the name: they don't actually use guns; they just have bullet firing mechanisms built into the standard parasol) is let loose to wreak havoc. He competes with Abuto sometimes, tries to see who can rack up the most kills, but Abuto has more experience with effective methods of quickly disposing of large numbers of opponents.
(He still has much to learn.)
Then one day the leader of the Thunder Guns (he doesn't remember a name; the guy never seemed very strong: never went into the battlefield, spent his days eating bonbons and watching trashy television shows, completely wasted precious Yato blood) ups and leaves. Gives no notice of it. Here one day, gone the next.
(Rather like what he did back then.)
The Harusame is in an uproar for the next few weeks (they don't leave loose ends, though Housen is somewhat of an exception). Oddly enough, the higher-ups are much more worried about the vacant captain seat than the actual seventh division is. They track his ship down to some cold, dead planet where he is properly disposed of.
(He volunteers to help in the clean-up. It proves him right: the fight is no fun at all.)
The problem of succession weighs heavily in the political atmosphere of the Harusame, though the Yato still don't care. As long as they get to fight, it doesn't really matter under whom. Even so, the higher-ups decree that a visit to the founding captain is necessary. A group of representatives, accompanied as always by a few Yato bodyguards, is chosen to meet with the great and mighty Housen, Night King.
He's chosen to go with them to this "Earth" place.
(The sun does not agree with him.)
Yoshiwara. It's rather pitiful, really. Weak little creatures indulging weak, transient desires.
(Disgusting. Gray hospital mildew trumps any day. Copied and pasted black void trumps any day.)
And absolutely nothing happens. After a stalemate of several days, during which the Night King's patience clearly wears dangerously thin, no decisions whatsoever are made regarding succession. Finally, they're kicked out after the Yato bodyguards consume half of the city's food supply.
So life moves on. The higher-ups apply a democratic technique in an attempt to inspire more loyalty. It doesn't really achieve that end, but somehow he's almost unanimously elected captain of the seventh division.
(The youngest ever. Well of course he's the youngest ever. There have only been four captains so far, and the first three were all old geezers far past their prime.)
(He suspects Abuto might have had something to do with the decision.)
Battlefields. Rain. Adrenaline raging through his veins. Voids. Black, heartless voids.
He's getting poetic again.
(The craving. He has to satisfy it soon, satisfy it now.)
Under Abuto's careful tutelage (it feels a bit nostalgic), he begins blooming as the new leader of the Thunder Guns. It's odd at first, having such popularity and undisputed authority. Not that he cares much, but now he gets to send himself to the front line at the head of the front line and it's exciting.
The first time he beats Abuto in a sparring match, he almost kills him.
(He's not going soft; it's just that Abuto's still useful. Paperwork doesn't get itself done after all.)
And after a few grueling months, the higher-ups get some sense into their head and actually use the Thunder Guns as the weapon of mass destruction they were meant to be. The days pass in a blur. His division is sent to participate in an ongoing war on some distant planet. His division is sent to "persuade" a competing drug cartel to throw in the towel. His division is sent to secure a new base on a far-off planet. Space is finally becoming interesting three years after he leaves home (well, it's not really so much "home" as "the godforsaken place he hails from").
Captain Kamui. One word tacked onto his name and now he doesn't have to worry about responsibilities or being ordered to stay on board the ship during a raid for "strategic purposes."
(And he has Abuto to do all the paperwork afterwards, of course.)
The seventh division gets almost no rest. It suits them well, suits him well. He likes forgetting everything in a whirlwind of limbs and bruises and blood clotting in his nose. Likes feeling like his life could be snuffed out any minute whilst knowing full well no one could even touch a hair on his head. Likes living up to his name - godly strength - because there was a reason his parents gave that to him.
(The only thing he'll ever accept from a dead woman and a balding old man.)
And by now he kicks Abuto's ass every time he forces his subordinate to spar with him, but he never does let himself go too far because he still needs someone to take care of all the trivialities and cleaning up. And by now space feels like home the way the planet of the damned never did. And by now maybe he doesn't always mind when he waxes poetic because he knows that's when he's about to die, when he's really living.
(No, he's not going soft.)
(The Yato don't need hearts.)
(He doesn't need a heart.)