A/N: So, this is me revisiting an old fandom. I was a huge YYH fan when I was in middle school and it's very affected my characters and my writing. I've gotten into a whole mess of new fandoms (Kuroshitsuji Manga, Good Omens), but as I'm about to depart from England in the next few days and am rushing around trying to get papers done, one of my long time RP buddies and I started to do a YYH RP. In prep for it I decided to re-watch three episodes. Next thing I know I'm almost done with the Dark Tournament. I forgot how much I loved this series, and why I enjoyed it so much. There characters have a lot of depth to their personalities, even a lot of the minor characters.
One of my biggest laments is that no one ever gets Karasu right. He's been my favorite from the first time I've seen him, and rewatching him reminds me of how much I loved him in the first place. Fortunately I'm also now well versed enough with myself to know that it's not so much as I'm in love with him (Thank God!) but that he sets my writer senses tingling. He's everything I really want in a character: Terrifying, mysterious with a great hint of backstory, lots of possibilities to play up, and a murderous mind.
In anyone watches my DeviantArt you may have seen that I wrote a play about a serial killer, and I'm very fascinated by that type of person. I have a friend who we just start gushing about serial killers and comparing them to fictional ones. What hurts my feelings the most with Karasu is everyone plays up the "love" aspect of him, when really it's just as likely that he's either just playing mind games (you know, cause it works enough to nearly get Kurama killed) or he's actually psychotic. Given that he's alive only because to Toguro's won't let him die and won't let him go, it makes sense for him to find control in taking the life of another. It's like Anorexia, only much less personally physically destructful. I'd like to find a good story that doesn't play up a sexual element.
That in mind, this fic comes from me rewatching the Team Ichigaki episodes and realizing how horrifying it actually is. I decided I wanted to explore some of the after effects.
"You having that dream again Kai?" Ryo asks me.
"Yes, but don't worry about it," I say.
"You want me to tell Sensei?" Ryo asks. I can't see his face in the dark, but I can see the outline of his head from the slight amount of moonlight through the shoji. It's dark enough that I know it must be very cloudy, but I can still see the imperfections in Ryo's normally pristine black hair, and the quiver of edges of his moustache as he talks.
"Do you want to try and explain it to him?" I ask.
"Goodnight Kai," Ryo says, lying back down to go to sleep. That was what I though. Sensei is a wise, and wonderful man. He practically raised most of us, he completely raised Yen. He's the reason that I'm still alive, that Ryo's not imprison, that Yen even exists at all. He's also the reason we returned to our training even after the Dark Tournament.
While none of us ever say it out loud it is fair to say that we love Sensei. He is the father figure that many of us never had, even Ryo who can't even be twenty years younger than Sensei; maybe even especially to Ryo. I'd thought that Ryo would have been the one to take the readjustment the worse, he'd killed a man before Sensei found him. I thought that he would have the hardest time after all the lives we took, yet he adjusted the best out of all of us. No one even questions him anymore. Sometimes I wonder if maybe the fact that he had killed someone before made people accept the murders he committed under Ichigaki's control the easiest. He comes off as a mystery, and darker and less clean of the soul.
I'd always thought of that taint as a curse, but it seems to have been a blessing for him now. Thought for sure that he would be the worst one off, but I was wrong. I am the one who is having the worst time. I realized this only a little after I realize that I didn't need to watch Ryo, that Ryo was fine on his own. The truth is that I needed Ryo to not cope well so that I would have something to do, something to keep my attention focused on.
Sensei once told me that he always thought of me as his best student, and his most likely successor. Yen had a good chance too, but he was still young, and until Ichigaki he'd had not a mark on his soul. Even with what happened with Ichigaki, I am still the presumed successor. Maybe that makes what happened to me all the harder to swallow. If I was so strong, if I was so good, why then did I fall? I do not know the answer to the question, nor do I want to find out.
When we returned Sensei told us to tell him if ever anything was wrong. Yet I don't want him to know of my dreams, the same way Ryo doesn't want him to know about his tremors, and Yen doesn't want him to know about his hesitations. Ryo is the oldest of us, newly minted thirty-eight with high hopes of wrinkles very soon. The removal of the virruchi made him lose some of his strength. His hands have quiet tremors at night now. Yen, who used to attack sometimes even without thinking, now hesitates with every attack, waiting to see if he actually has to control to stop. My problem is not so physical.
The nightmares won't stop coming. I dream that the virruchi is attached to me again. I scream and scream, desperate to make my body do what I want it to, yet there is no response. I watch while my body slaughters everyone in the dojo, including Yen and Ryo, including Sensei. Then I return to Ichigaki and he laughs about how his experiment has been a success. Normally I wake up then, my body stiff and unmoving, tense and as taught as bow. I hurt now always. I do not mind the pain, I mind the dream.
Ryo knows of my dream. Yen knows of my dream. They have had it to, but they do not have it every night. We spent over a year with our souls locked up while our bodies moved of a new will. Ichigaki made sure we were well taken care of, so we could not starve ourselves, or let ourselves be killed in a fight. The virruchi was too strong a control. It made us care for ourselves. I have never been so powerful as when the virruchi was attached to my back, even with the lingering side effects for Ichigaki's tampering.
Yet there was no control, no connection. I used to pity those people whose bodies had stopped working, though their minds worked fine, especially when no one knew that there was a consciousness in the body. Now I wish very much to smother all of them in their sleep so that they not have to suffer one more minute of thee lack of control. But there is no way to explain this to Sensei, not without people thinking that I am more homicidal than they already assume.
When I was a kid in a small local gang I had a friend whose family was Christian. He's the only one of his kind I ever met, and there are now only two things I remember about him: that his name was Mark (because of how much a fuss he made over his Christian name), and the Garden of Gethsemane. I didn't remember the same of the place, or even the story until the dark tournament. Mark made a big deal about Jesus crying blood out of fear. As child I didn't believe such things could happen. As an adult I know they can.
I can't say it was fear, or just fear. There was fear, but also agony, and desperation. We had fought for so long to be able to have any control, and yet all we could do is force those red drops. It was a sign to outside world that we were still trapped inside out bodies, even if buried. I don't know about Ryo or Yen, but I know that my tears came more from a wish to weaken my own body in any way so that I could be beaten.
I do not believe there are any words for the overwhelming feeling of betrayal when your body won't respond to you. It feels a little like the times when you procrastinate on something you should be doing, or put of training to sleep in. There's the tiniest twinge under all the guilt and annoyance with oneself. There is a tiny spark of a question, "body, why did you do this to me?" Multiply that spark into a wildfire. It feels a little like when you want to stand up and fight, but your body is too tired to move. Under the guilt of letting down your teammates there is recognizable face of frustration at your body for failing you. Change the mere recognizable face into your best friend.
I have been betrayed by myself. If a friend betrays you, then you can be angry at yourself, or your friend, but you can move on, realize that he wasn't really your friend if he betrayed you and make real friends instead. But how do you realize that your own body isn't your friend and move on. My body didn't oversleep, or get hungry at the wrong time, or be unable to move when my comrades needed me. My body slaughtered many: men, women… even some children.
Ichigaki didn't simply attack the virruchi to us and set us to fight in the dark tournament. He had to test us first. He had to know that we would do anything he ordered. It would have been bad enough seeing someone else do it, but when it is yourself, and you're seeing it through your own eyes while your body does the deed, and you have no control to stop what is happening… then, then you wonder why the doctor doesn't simply destroy your consciousness. Does he want to torturous; to feel of pain at the lives we've destroyed? Or does he simply not know how, and we're the guinea pigs from before there was anesthesia.
I am afraid of my own body. No matter how much control I have over it, I will always know that it has more power over me. Every time I need to eat, or pee, or be sick; every time I become conscious of my need to breath, at those times I feel a familiar and terrible fear. I am controlled by my body. I can train all day long, meditate all day long, but in the end my body will still do what it wants. I cannot live separately from my body, and I must live, I promised Sensei. After what we put him through… it's a promise, one that we took. We plan to repay the lives taken by saving others, but none of us are ready to go out and do anything. Not when Ryo's hands shake, and Yen hesitates, and I can't sleep.
I watch the sunrise, feeling the simple loneliness of being trapped inside enemy territory: my own skin.
I watch Yen practice. I can see the Angel blades. Only two of them are real, but it just makes the attack harder to dodge. We still have our powers after the virruchi was removed. Kurama told us that Ichigaki had tapped into powers we already had, and it was impossible to seal it. We would continue to have the spirit powers for the rest of our lives, whether we used them or not. Ryo practices with his, but he practices the same way you'd practice with a bokken. It's training. He doesn't actually hit anything, and says it's a good way to siphon off excess spirit energy. I don't use mine at all. I can't think of a way to use my ability without destroying things, and I never want to destroy anything again.
I don't understand Yen. He's the youngest in our dojo. Sensei found him as a baby and raised him, not as his son, but as another student. Yen has always been the happiest, is still the happiest. But he seems to be shining as I see him using the angel blades. Does he love destruction? I don't understand. Yen finishes and turns around beaming.
"Did ya see?" he chirps, his language becomes informal when he chirps like that. "Wasn't I great?" he asks, his wild mass of orange hair (the exact opposite of Ryo's) flopping into his eyes.
"Yes, you were very good at making things blow up," I say. He practices outside on rocks. I had to wander into the backyard to find him.
Yen frowns, "you don't think I'm still like that, do you?" he asked. Yen understands things left unsaid better than anyone I've ever met.
"It seems to me that you enjoy causing destruction," I say.
"And you don't?" he asks me. I bristle uncomfortable.
"No, I don't!" I snap.
"Don't lie," Yen says. "It feels good using our abilities, that's why we still do it," he said.
I give him a blank look.
"You really don't know… haven't you used your Grisley Claw at all since we got back?" he asks, seeming horrified.
"Yeah, so I haven't, I don't want to destroy more things, what's wrong with that?" I snap, feeling defensive.
"It's part of who we are," Yen says sadly. "Sensei always says that accepting the world means accepting yourself first," he points out. Sensei does always say that.
"You're saying that I should accept the part of me that kills people?" I ask, still defensive.
"You have to," Yen says. "Because being able to kill is part of being a human… learning not to do it is the sign of being a man," he responds. Sometimes he reminds me of Sensei so much I wonder if they actually are related. "I've been practicing because this is a part of myself that needs to see the sun… and I've been practicing because of this," he said. He turns around, raising one arm as one blade forms. "Angel blade," he says softly. The blade flies off to a nearby fruit tree, slicing off two fruit.
"When did you learn to do that?" I ask as he walks over to get the fruit. To my knowledge he was only ever able to make two angel blades, but it always looked like there were six, and the blades would have destroyed a branch instead of a stem.
"I practiced Kai," Yen says, bringing one of the fruit to me and holding it out until I take it. "I practiced so that I could have control Kai. I can materialize six at once, or one at a time. I'm trying to see if I can have them form on my fingers," he added with the smile of an indulgent child. "Kai, I'm practicing because I don't want to kill anyone ever again. I don't want to hurt anyone without meaning to," he says. "I practice so that when I do get into fights I'll be able to control my abilities even if I lose my temper. I have to push my limits now, so when I fight I won't kill someone by accident. We have enormous power now, power like Urameshi and Kuwabara… but the difference is that we don't have the happy ignorance to be able to kill a demon because they're too dark or evil," he said. "We have a duty, Kai, a duty to understand out power, and a duty to be able to control it so we don't kill again."
I feel like I'm Yen's age again, being gently chastised by Sensei for things I'd done wrong. Sensei would look so disappointed in me, the way Yen is looking at me now. I'd rather have them yell at me than have them be disappointed in me. "You're right, I'm sorry," I admit, hanging my head a little. When did I become a child again? When did I stop trying to be a man, and started trying to hide from my problems? When did I start to think again that I could hide from my problems? I was supposed to be the leader of our group, but every move I've taken has led us a bad direction.
"Enjoy your fruit," Yen says pleasantly, walking off and munching on his. I am tempted to tell him to wash it first, but I don't feel like I have the right. I go to the rocks which Yen has worn down by his blades, examining what he has done. I wonder if maybe he'll be able to make sculptures like this one day. The idea strikes me so funny that I start to laugh. I laugh and laugh until I cry. Oh, I am such a fool.
After Yen's lecture I begin practicing as well. Every day I go deeper and deeper into the land, finding rocks to practice on, and trying to hide what I'm doing. I need to be alone for this; otherwise I become too afraid of my body moving to attack another person. Killing became so common place, I fear that my body will think of it as a reflex now.
I also need the quiet to think in. Yen was right, that to control our abilities is our duty. He is also right that it is a part of us. This terrifies me the most, because mine is so much wanton destruction, wrapping up and concentrated in my own two hands. It is a part of me, and yet I can see no good in it. I can't help but wonder why this is the power I am given. Why is it that I am the only one given a power that can do nothing by destroy? Ryo can practice his without causing damage, and Yen is making his smaller so tha the can defend without causing pain.
The more I practice, the more it feels like my strikes are getting stronger. Why is that? Is there something inside me that craze to kill, maim, destroy? Is my power simply the manifestation of that? I love the feeling of using my power as much as I fear it. Will I one day have to completely withdraw from people so that I won't kill them? Will I again become that monster, who's body ran only on the want for power and destruction, while my mind is trapped and unable to control the beast?
"Grisley Claw,"I say, striking the very large stone in front of me, the one I would not be able to move even if I put all my strength in it. I slam my hand down on it and it explodes. In front of me is a bloody stump. There is no blood, but I feel as though there might as well have been. That rock would have survived for hundreds and maybe thousands of years before it was worn away. Now it is a great cracked stone and rubble, of no use to anyone and it will wear away before its time.
I sink to my knees, resting my forehead on the jagged stone. It's so cool to the touch, cool like a dead body. I have killed it. "I'm so sorry," I whisper. "I'm so, so, so very sorry." I speak the words over and over, unable to contain my guilt and shame. I primped myself up on the idea that I would one day be leader. I was the one to agree to Ichigaki first, and I was the one who talked Yen and Ryo into joining as well. I thought I was being a good leader, but I created danger and pain where there was none before. If I had been able to accept Sensei's death, something that he would have reminded us that men would do, if I had been able to be a man then those people would not have died, and Ryo and Yen would not bear the mark of such sins… and neither would I. "I am useless, a force of destruction and bad decisions. Why can't I be better than this? I want to be better than this," I beg to no one. I know no one will hear.
"I don't think you're useless Kai," Sensei says and I jump. I didn't have my guard up at all. I didn't hear him or feel him come at all. I look up quickly before looking away, feeling ashamed at my current state.
"I'm sorry Sensei," I say quietly, hoping that he'll leave. Instead he comes over and examines the jagged remains of the rock I'm now sitting against.
"You pack quiet a punch," he comments. A laugh comes out, though it's really more half way between a sob and a panicked cry.
"I just keep getting worse Sensei," I say as the elder man lowers himself to sit next to me. "Yen has learned to make his powers smaller, but mine only seem to get larger," I admit shamefully.
"It's alright Kai," he says. "I understand," he says, rubbing my back in a soothing manner. Before I got to the dojo I lived in a society where touching others was unacceptable, especially in public, and I had lived in such a way where the only time anyone touched you was to hurt you. Sensei offered hugs and kind words, things that I originally had been wary of, but now crave.
"I'm sorry Sensei, but you don't," I said. None of us had fully explained what he'd done. Sensei felt guilty for what happened to us, and none of us wanted him to feel any worse. So we kept our pains to ourselves. Now I simply can't keep it in any longer. My mouth won't let me be quiet. "You don't know what it's like to have no control over your own body, to have to watch yourself kill while you yourself are locked up so tight that you feel like you're tied to a chair being forced to watch a snuff film… but it's your own hands committing the act, and your own body feeling the terrible joy of the killing, and you start to wonder what is you, and what is your body, and how they are connected when the two are at such opposites," I say. "You don't know what it's like to have killed a man," I say, wanting to cry again. I am too weak to keep this in anymore.
"You're right," he says after so much silence that I'm sure I'd rather die than have it stretch any further. "I do not know what it's like to not be in control of my own body," he says. "Though, I wish any of you have told me how it felt sooner," he adds, looking so disappointed that I shift in shame. I hate the disappointed look. "But I do know what it's like to kill a man," he says.
My head shoots up. "You do?" I ask.
"Yes Kai, I do… and not just one man, but multiple… and not just humans, but demons too," he says, and I can't believe him. He looks at me and smiles before standing and walking over to a large boulder that I'd planned to practice with before my little break down. I watch slowly as his hand begins to glow. I didn't know he had spirit power. He punches the boulder and it explodes into so many time different pieces. What I did is both weak and kind in comparison. "As you can see, my power is very similar to yours, is it not?"
"Yes," I respond automatically. "Sensei-" I start, but he cuts me off.
"You boys have your own kind of hell, the knowledge that your body may work opposite to your wishes… but I have the opposite kind of hell. My body did exactly what I wanted, and I wanted to kill. I did time for one of the murders I committed, but never enough because of a reduced sentence. When I got out I went to find demons to kill," he explains. "One day I came across an old monk, who watched me kill a demon. He asked me what the creature had done to deserve my wrath, and I told him that it was in the way," he says with a sigh. "The old man offered me a place to stay and dinner, so I followed him, but while I was there he spoke to me about the weight of a life," he said.
"Sensei-" I start again.
"Don't interrupt Kai," Sensei chastises gently, and I shut my mouth. "The old monk told me that for an execution the price of one life is equal to another life, but after my own death I would have to pay for the other deaths I had caused if I had not repaid for them while I was alive. He asked me what kind of punishment I thought was suitable for as many lives as I had taken, as he didn't know my numbers or methods," Sensei says. "I didn't answer him, I never answered him, but the more I thought about it the more I considered the price of the lives I took, and the fact that I wanted to take them, not understand the price I would pay."
"Sensei, I had no idea," I finally blurt out. "I'm so sorry!" I say, not sure what else to say. My old master smiles at me patiently.
"I created this school of teach originally to try to atone… and then in the hopes of being able to help others who has been like me: killing without understanding… or stopping men from killing before they had the chance. We are both aware that Ryo has killed before, three men. When I found him he already felt the guilt though he didn't understand it. He clings to my teaching because it gives him a hope for a redemption, a hope for something better, a hope for himself," Sensei explains.
"I never saw it quiet like that," I admit.
"Yes, but you did get close, didn't you?" he asks with a smile and I nod. "Ryo has adjusted so well because of his faith in what I taught, because that faith is all he's had since I found him. No one can sway a faith that strong."
"I wish I had that," I say quietly.
"So did I," Sensei admits, making me look over at him in surprise. "I am a lot like you Kai. I have faith, but I am only a man, and I stumble and a fail. Yet I am the leader, and the mistakes I make hurt others, you can relate," he stated.
"Yes… I can," I admit, feeling the smallest seed of hope, though I don't yet understand why.
"There's a reason why you will be the one to take over once I'm gone," Sensei says. "It's not because you have the most faith, like Ryo, or the most understand like Yen. It's because you are the most like me. You are very flawed, as I am very flawed. You fear and you feel guilt," he says with a smile. "Men will follow you because they don't look at you and see a messiah, but they look at you and see a man, a man who has gone through hell and back, a man who can guide them out of hell because he understands it," Sensei says. "Do you understand, Kai?"
I sit quietly for a while, thinking about what Sensei said, trying to memorize it, feeling like I must remember it. "Yes Sensei, I do," I finally say. "I will take over for you because I do struggle… and the others need to know that I struggle so that it doesn't feel impossible for them to climb out like I did," I finally say.
"Very good, Kai, I am proud of you," sensei said before pulling me into a hug, one I happily accept.
"Can I ask you a question, Sensei?"
"Of course."
"Will I… will I ever be able to get over what happened?" I ask hopefully, and then sensei smiles sadly.
"No Kai, I don't believe you will. It will fade, it will hurt less, but you will always have that guilt, and always have that fear of yourself… I know this because I have never gotten over my guilt, or the knowledge that I enjoy killing," Sensei says. He walks over and offers me a hand. "But it will become a bearable burden… and there will be a day when you realize that it is okay, because if you hadn't made the mistakes you did, and suffered the way that you did, then there are people who need you who you would not be able to help," he says.
I take his hand and stand up. "Thank you Sensei," I said. "But I think you're going to need to tell me this again," I say.
"The next time you forget what I've said, or need the reassurance that I have said something? Like always?" he asks and I blush. I am just a child in some ways… but that's not so bad, because I recognize it now… and that's the first part of growing up, I think.
A/N: Yes, I know it's sweating blood, not crying blood. Christianity is the third most practiced faith in Japan (after Buddhism and Shinto), and on a good day about 1% of the population practices it. I've been to a place where 10% are Christian, but that's a huge, huge deal there. Kai wouldn't know or remember the real thing, only that he suddenly could relate it to something he'd gone through. Besides, it's great when you can get a biblical (and non-preachy reference) in a story based in Japan.
As for the monk… I've heard it said that in the olden days that Christian monks were accepted in Japan because, like the monks the Japanese already knew, they washed often and preached tolerance and acceptance. I considered making him Christian (because I am one, and have a better understanding), but I could also see the monk having an understanding of the Spirit world, because Reikai does have that kind of division based on the bad things a person's done. So to answer the question… I really don't know, so you can go with your own interpretation. The man's just a monk in general. And it's really not important to figure out what kind.
Thank you so much for reading my story. I enjoy Ryo the most probably, but Kai is very human in a way that I like. He's not so much as whining as suffering from guilt, which does delude you thinking things are worse than they are, and making you see the absolute worst thing that can happen. Kai also says almost nothing of what he feels out loud. I assure you that if you could hear everyone's personal monologue that it would sound very whiny or evil. It's out actions which define us… I think Kai agrees, which is why he's so hurt: because his actions make him a murderer, even though he wasn't in control of his body.
Anyway, For anyone who reads by Harry Potter or Tangled fics, expect updates after I get out of England (i.e.: sometime after this week is over). Also, I'm probably going to start a short Good Omens fic, mostly because I'd really like to read more interactions between Aziraphale and Crowley that don't involve romance and just friendly rivalry.