After the Great Tokyo Earthquake, it's only Toto and Yosuga left. She just holds him close and murmurs in his ears, "We'll live. …Maybe."
Toto learns to fight because the other option is to die. He's gifted with a natural grace and a talent for reading the movements of others to make up for Yosuga's lack. He keeps her safe in the anarchy left behind by the earthquake, a form of stability in a time where there's none. It doesn't matter how many there are, what weapons they carry, Toto can read them all and beat them all.
He lightly steps back from a swipe of a knife, bends his knees and leaps, planting his feet on his assailant's face and catching the knife as the brute goes down.
Sometimes, just beating them isn't enough.
"How are you doing?" Toto drops down from the roof and hangs from one of the steel supports with his legs. He's all bright smiles and easy waves. "Alright?"
Yosuga looks up at him from where she's resting against a pillar. "… Isn't that dangerous?"
As if hearing her, the support slips out of its rusted and damaged joints, bringing down that part of the roof… and Toto with it. But Toto lands on his feet, cat-like, and darts to her side before the rubble can land on him. He grins at her like he hasn't just narrowly escaped serious injury, all white teeth against the splash of dry blood across his face. Sighing, she pulls out a rag and spits on it before reaching to wipe his face of blood, expression neutral. But she does glance down at a shallow cut across the back of his hand that he never noticed.
He raises his hand to lick the blood from the wound and seal it shut - wisdom from watching stray dogs - before he grins and says, "It's okay." Twirling his new knife, adds lightly, "I can't die, see?"
It's the numerous charges of manslaughter that lands Toto in Deadman Wonderland, dragging Yosuga with him.
At first, Deadman Wonderland seems boring to him, all straight walls and immaculately clean floors. An endless expanse of steel and concrete without even rubble or half destroyed buildings to provide any kind of visual interest. But once they get out of the corridors and see the prison's vast fairground, Toto's eyes widen and he claps his hands in childish delight at the sight of a Ferris wheel. It's all sparkly lights, but what really interests him is how high it goes. "I want to ride that!"
Yosuga doesn't reply, just quietly shakes her head and goes back to reading the rulebook as the captain of the guard walks past. Her voice is clipped, immaculate like the prison she keeps. "Prisoner 489. Park rides are off limits for all prisoners. Deadman Wonderland won't allow any compromises in its visitors' safety."
He huffs at her retreating back, unhappy. He decides he will ride the Ferris wheel some day, and spends the end of his first day in Deadman Wonderland waving at the captain of the guard from atop a pile of other prisoners who thought he'd be easy pickings.
At that demonstration of acrobatics, Toto is quickly recruited to work in Deadman Wonderland's circus, though because he's on Death Row, there are always guards present at his shows. He doesn't mind it, enjoying the opportunity to show off to a crowd that isn't out to get him. The crowd loves him and the guards grow complacent at his friendly and easy-going demeanour. For Toto, his 'work' at the circus is a new form of relaxation, wowing the tourists and honing his skills in the same moment, just in time for him to kick an angry prisoner in the face because he happened to look at the guy the wrong way after hours.
But one boring, lazy afternoon, he decides it's time to ride the Ferris wheel and abruptly leaves his post, guards failing to catch him before he's out of their sight. They're left fumbling in their uniforms for the controller to activate the taser in Toto's collar - he throws that in a bin he passes - while he vaults over fences and lands lightly on one of the wheel's gondolas slowly beginning its ascent. He can hear yells from the ground, panic and confusion from the tourists seated in the gondola beneath him. He ignores the noise in favour of looking down, a wide smile spreading across his face as he claps his hands in childish delight. "Wow! Everything looks so small from up here!"
But he doesn't have long to admire the view; there's a shriek of metal and a mechanical whine as the Ferris wheel comes to a sudden shuddering halt near the peak of the ride, sending him stumbling all over the metal roof of the gondola when it swings violently from side to side. A sharp jolt of electricity is applied from Toto's prisoner collar and his muscles seize and spasm while white hot agony shoots through his body and black spots dot his vision.
It's enough to make him lose his footing off the edge of the gondola - the screams from the gondola's passengers rise in intensity - but he shakes off the momentary lapse in concentration long enough to push off with his remaining foot, changing the direction of his fall. Some cabling burns through the skin on his arm as he brushes past the rough, twisted metal in his descent to slam down hard into one of the ride's metal supports. Before can slide off and back into free fall, he grabs hold of the support with his hands and hangs on.
He can't help but laugh a little as he swings his legs up to wrap around the support, too. "Oops. That was a bit dangerous, huh?"
Dangerous, but not deadly; he still has control of the situation. Looking down, he sees a crowd has gathered along a large cluster of distinctive navy blue uniforms. Guards. But he's not prepared for the second jolt of electricity - longer, this time - that shocks him from his precarious perch, his body hitting metal supports and shattering Ferris wheel lights until he's back into free fall.
His eyes close for a brief moment of pain - something's broken on the way down and he's sure there are shards of Ferris wheel light stuck in him - but it seems to take an agonising eternity to open them again. And when he finally does, the ground is rushing up to meet him faster than he'd like. There are no supports within his reach any more, not when his fall pushed him off and away from them. There's nothing he can use to slow his fall. He has no control, no way he can think of to get out of this sutation. But he refuses to die - he can't die - and the blood from his injuries flows out of him and snaps around the nearest steel support like a whip.
He stops falling.
But the sudden stop in his decent from the blood yanks his grazed arm back hard, and he can feel the flesh at his shoulder stretch and tear and the bone displace from the force. It's all the breather he needs - though his body is screaming in hurt, hurt, hurt - so when the blood breaks as abruptly as it had halted him, he isn't falling nearly as fast when he lands on the concrete, feet first, knees bending and rolling on impact.
He's not in the best condition when guards haul him away to the medical clinic and Yosuga, but he's still alive.
Both the doctor and Yosuga pick out the shards of glass from Toto, and the doctor smacks his head when Toto tries to lick the wounds left behind. It takes the threat of tasering and sedation from the doctor before Toto finally sits still enough for him to fix Toto's dislocated shoulder and broken arm. However, before he can take care of the rest of Toto's more minor injuries, the doctor is called away to take care of an accident at the shooting range, leaving Yosuga to finish the job.
"It's lucky we ended up here," Toto says to her once the doctor is out of sight.
Her expression is impassive as she dabs alcohol on his graze. He doesn't even wince, leaning back against his chair and idly swinging his feet, giving a small laugh. It's no lie; he really thinks they're lucky to be in Deadman Wonderland, where food is routine, bedding is constant and there's such thing as medical care. He doesn't regret allowing the police to take Yosuga and him into custody. "It's easier for you, don't you think?" he explains as she puts gauze on his graze, fingers spreading to gently apply pressure at the corners. "The people here are simple and have their eyes on meaningless things. They're not gonna hurt you when there are other birds to chase."
In some ways, Deadman Wonderland isn't much different from his old life; he still gets caught up in fights, he still comes out unscathed. Yosuga struggles, born caged in a weak body, but determination keeps her on her feet. He's airy and lighthearted, born free in an athletic body, and does what he wants, when he wants, because he always gets away with it. And that always seems to attract trouble to him like a magnet - and away from Yosuga - but again and again, he proves he's untouchable. It's hard not to, when the prisoners don't have the weapons they're used to while all he needs is his body.
Yosuga stays silent for a moment before she suddenly blurts, "What about you?"
He cocks his head to the side, index finger on his uninjured arm half curled near his cheek. "Me?"
Her gaze slides to the collar on his neck, the creeping death that approaches every three days.
Toto just laughs and attempts to clap his hands out of habit, but quickly realises he can't when one arm is in a sling. The Death Rule can't touch him, not when cast practically falls into his lap with every special event for the tourists he participates in. The crowd loves him, Sakigami Toto, their beloved favourite. He has more than enough Cast to last both of them a long time. "I just survived a fall from the Ferris wheel." With all the confidence he's learnt over the years, he says brightly, "I can't die, see?"
Yosuga just bows her head and dabs more alcohol on his other cuts, mumbling, "You're enjoying this, aren't you?"
He can't help but curl his lips back and bare his teeth in a grin. A little bit, maybe.
He naively forgets all about that moment when his blood had moved in that unnatural way.
The first time he's entered into the stage of blood and carnage is the second time he feels fear. Toto doesn't understand why he's performing in this Carnival Corpse when he doesn't understand anything about his 'Branch of Sin' that landed him here in the G-block. Toto had thought he knew his body - its capabilities, its limitations - knows it with such harmony that he has absolute trust in it. But he doesn't know what his Branch of Sin is capable of, doesn't know how to control it, doesn't trust it at all.
He misjudges the thrust of his opponent's blood spear - a completely foreign concept - and is rewarded with a new cut across the length of his arm. It hurts, and he lightly jumps back before he's punished with another wound to his already cut up body.
"Ohhh! This is looking like a one sided match! Can our newcomer do anything against the Heron?"
Here in the Carnival Corpse of bright lights, noisy distractions and unusually forgiving footing, Toto don't understand the kind of control his opponent has over her blood, doesn't understand the way it unpredictably moves, doesn't understand how it can strike him from so far away. He doesn't know how to read Heron's blood spear, and that scares him; dying here is suddenly a very distinct possibility, and he moves, abrupt, jerkily, like a terrified bird trapped in a cage.
He pivots, heel of shoe grinding into the concrete, narrowly avoiding the jab that would have pierced through his chest. But Heron grins, and suddenly the blood spear has sharp flanges that cut deeply into his side. Again, Toto retreats, clutching his bleeding side, lips curled back in an irritated snarl. He's bleeding all over the floor, all over the walls, all over his foe, and that's not how this normally goes. There's no place to hide in the Carnival Corpse, no place he can rest and gather his wits, no stopping until one of them can't move any more.
"What's the matter, Mockingbird?" Heron jeers from the centre of the arena, the place with maximum reach for her weapon. "When are you going to stop being a Chicken and use your powers? Or…" She levels a pitying look his way, the blood spear breaking apart and slipping back into her body. "Are you not actually a Deadman?"
He doesn't have an answer to her questions, just rasping breaths as his vision swims. He's jealous of her understanding of her own blood ability, jealous of the spear she wields as an extension of herself, jealous that she can do something more than just move her blood around like a useless, fangless cobra. He doesn't understand what his power is supposed to be able to do, doesn't understand hers, and as she reforms her spear in her hand, all he can feel is chilling fear, fear, fear.
"Boy, do I feel real bad for you." Her blood twists back into that spear as she grins and shows far too many teeth. "I'll make it quick. You won't even suffer." And that weapon is arcing towards him, moving in that unnatural way that keeps throwing him off.
But a part of him shrieks inside, I can't die, I can't die, and as he steps forward to meet the attack, his blood arcs from his open wounds, twisting in that unnatural way as it flows from his body but never leaves it.
Heron's eyes widen and she cackles mid-swing, "Now that's more like it!"
Toto doesn't know how to use his blood powers, but he does know how to use his body. It's something he's always done, something he can trust, something that's always net him victory. And he trusts, and the fear flees from his movements. He's been fighting longer than Heron and he's always been nothing but untouchable. So he trusts and flips onto her blood weapon - her surprise rings out in a shocked gasp at his sudden burst of speed - and jumps before Heron can dissolve it beneath his feet. He's too close for retribution now. He knows it and she knows it - there's nothing but fear in her eyes - when he grabs her head and shoulder and violently shoves in opposite directions. It's a familiar crack of bone bending and skin stretching before Heron's body hits the ground, neck snapped.
The cries of indignation from the digital crowd at his weaponless victory hammer the insides of his head relentlessly. He's bloody and hurt, but he's alive - he can't die - and ignores them in favour of licking his wounds. But when he tastes sweet blood that isn't his and feels his blood twist into a spear, he grins.
With every subsequent Carnival Corpse, he obtains a new Branch of Sin and regains more of his old confidence. He stops fearing the stage of blood and carnage; there's nothing to fear when he understands how the blood powers work, see? And when he just keeps on winning his matches, he never has to think I can't die when he feels it so keenly within himself. It's almost like performing for the circus amidst a crowd who loves him again. Fight in Carnival Corpses, play with the other Deadmen when he's not fighting. It's a simple and easy life for him.
But sometimes he misses his old circus life. Just a little.
He meets Owl once, four hours before a scheduled match between himself and Bush Shrike.
"You're… Mockingbird, aren't you? I didn't know you were so young."
Toto cocks his head to the side, not understanding the purpose of the comment. Owl is more than willing to elaborate when he takes a seat across from Toto's own seat on a table. "Sorry. It just seems wrong for this place to imprison children, too."
He smiles at Owl, friendly, curious about the direction of this conversation. He's not used to pity from adults. Idly swinging his legs, he asks the older man, "Why's that?"
Owl jerks, as if surprised - shocked - by the remark. "You don't find anything wrong with this place? You don't want to get out?"
"Me?" Toto thinks for a moment and just shrugs. "It's the same out there. It's easier here." He pulls his legs up onto his chair and leans forward against his knees. There's a pitying look in Owl's face, but Toto doesn't let him even start whatever spiel the older man has lined up. "But it sounds like you have a reason to go back outside, Owl."
Owl pauses, before he gives Toto a warm smile. "Yes, you're right." The older man tugs at the scarf around his neck. "Why do you fight? You must believe very strongly in something to have survived for so long."
Toto tilts his head as he thinks, finger tapping the corner of his mouth. Why does he fight? Because the other option is to die, and he's not about to die when he can't. But he's seen enough of Owl's first few fights to know Owl isn't a fight loving man, so he dodges the question and asks instead, "Why do you fight?"
The answer is given to him without hesitation. "My daughter. She's kept in a hospital outside DW." Owl smiles and lowers his hands in the motion of cradling a baby. His eyes are distant, as if recalling fond memories. "I want to see her. Hold her."
Toto makes a disgusted face at the gushy expression Owl is wearing while Owl isn't looking. Gross. Adults and their babies. He's thankful he doesn't remember ever being subjected to that. But the talk of familial relations makes him think of Yosuga, outside of G-block. He's convinced himself long ago that it's better he stayed here, where the trouble he attracts has no way of reaching her. But sometimes, he wonders if that's true at all.
"She'll be alright. She'll live," he says, closing his eyes.
It's supposed to be a routine Carnival Corpse. Observe the opponent, give the crowd a good show, then tear into the bird who thinks he can win. But when Toto sees the figure in red and rusted metal burst into the arena, he doesn't even need to see Bush Shrike's body warp and stretch as he's ripped from limb to limb to know fear once more. He doesn't understand this intruder's foreign Branch of Sin, only understands that it's the most unpredictable one he's ever seen. But he mirrors that too wide too toothy smile and defends himself against the windswept assault, because the other option is to die, and he can't die.
The intruder's blood induced winds lash at him, but Toto's blood shields him - Dove - from the initial assault. Toto doesn't scream when the figure in red smirks - it's accompanied by a sharp, unnatural sound that speaks to the fear in his heart - and a sudden blast of compressed blood breaks open his skull; he just uses the opportunity to close the distance between them with a leap, twisting blood around him - Peregrine Falcon - to pierce through the hurricane and spear the intruder - Heron - right through the heart.
It should be over, but it isn't.
The fear of death is put back in him as a sickening feeling in the pit of his stomach that reaches into his throat and chokes him. The red intruder pulls their lips back in a wild, feral smile and rasps, "Why hello there, little Mockingbird. Nice playing with you," and cuts him out of the air.
His body hits the ground, his hands and legs following soon after.
He can't hear himself think over his hoarse shrieking as all his senses scream in a pain beyond anything he's experienced. But even as he breathes and spits blood and feels the dark fingers of death creeping into his mind, he refuses to close his eyes and just let himself die. He's bleeding everywhere and he pulls blood - Dove - over his wounds as if it will actually help him when his body is broken like a doll thrown at a wall. The smell of his blood fills his nose, clogs his throat, but he still tries to fight, his blood freezing - Emperor Penguin - around the intruder's limbs. The figure in red shakes off the assault and Toto snarls and forms rarely used projectiles - Osprey - that are his only means of fighting when he doesn't have legs he can use to run and dodge and run. But the wretched intruder only laughs at his pitiful last ditch efforts and leaps away.
It's silent when the intruder is gone, deathly silent, as Toto shivers and sweats and breathes out blood, dark dots spotting across his vision.
"…And the winner is… Mockingbird?"
The announcement is like some cruel joke at his expense as he lies there, broken and bloody and dying in the rubble while he feels cold air blow through the hole in his head and rest its chilly fingers on his exposed brain. He thought he'd grown used to pain when he fell off the Ferris wheel, or during his first Carnival Corpse, but those times were nothing like this, where everything hurts, all of him, even the parts that aren't a part of him anymore.
He can hear some kind of distant chatter, and heavy footsteps closer. Guards, undoubtedly here to pick up the pieces. He tries to find the energy to push himself off the ground, but all he can do is writhe pathetically like a bird that's lost its wings. The winner is… him? No, this is the first time he hasn't won. The favoured face of the Carnival Corpse, finally fallen.
The guards recoil from him, a mixture of shock and horror colouring their voices. "Shit! He's still alive!"
"Call backup!"
It's a small comfort the guards decide to come for him with a stretcher instead of the corpse cleanup crew with a body bag. But he's never been carried like this, never been really hurt, never been so cold. He barely has the energy to talk, barely has the energy to keep on breathing - breath rapid, uncontrolled breath -but his mind is loud enough, screaming, I can't die, I can't die, I can't die, but when the limits of his body finally overwhelm his mind, the last thing he hears is an old man's voice, "You'll live on."
"…Your body will, anyway."
Author's Notes: Ridiculous amounts of headcanon about what the real Toto was like and his relationship with Yosuga. Now watch canon debunk everything I've written when Chapter 48 is released. Thank you for reading my little story!