Title: and all the lovely angels sing
Rating: M
Summary: You are born in a body that's wrong, in a world gone wrong. It's a disaster from the very beginning. [OC, AU, dark, heavy warnings]
Warnings: Violence, gore, disturbing elements, etc. Additional trigger warnings for coercion, sexual abuse, descriptive violence/body harm in future chapters. Please note that certain views/actions of the characters portrayed in this story are not necessarily reflective of the author's own beliefs, and are not socially acceptable in any way, shape, or form.
AN at bottom.
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and all the lovely angels sing
"2. with voices lost to bitter wind"
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Higuchi Ryuuya is the young leader of the Morningstar, a cutthroat criminal organization that he inherited from his grandfather after the 'unfortunate' death of his father.
Apparently, the purple flames you can summon at will are called Cloud flames, and that means you're a Cloud. Higuchi's flames are an ostentatious orange, and mark him as a Sky. He also proceeds to inform you, shortly after you've finished regurgitating the contents of your stomach on his carpet, that he is your Sky, meaning that he's now the most important person in your life. Since you're now bonded to him and are considered one of his Guardians.
… What a joke. You, Higuchi's Guardian? A child, guarding a twenty-something grown man?
Ridiculous.
"This is Yamasaki Hirohito, my Lightning," the smiling man gestures amicably at an elderly man who doesn't so much as even twitch from the corner, and you're not fooled in the slightest. "Nakajima Minoru, Sun." The towering mass of muscle hovering behind him gives a low grunt. Unbothered by the lack of response, Higuchi turns to the side. "And this is Otsuka Ren, my Rain Guardian. You were previously a ward of his men, and it was he who brought you to my attention, once he received the reports."
Otsuka Ren slips you a crooked grin, waggling his fingers. "Yo, kid. Ryuu-kun, glad you finally found a match."
Match, indeed. You think of the disgusting way Higuchi's flames had curled over yours, the overwhelming sense of sheer violation that you still feel even now, and say nothing.
(Something burns in your core, bright and strong and ugly. Its name is hate. You haven't felt this strongly about anything in a long, long time. Laughable, isn't it?)
"Everyone, this is… Tsukiya." You barely even bat an eye, no reaction whatsoever to the impromptu naming. In comparison to the disgustingly cloying sensation of Higuchi's flames roiling beneath your skin, this is nothing. You could care less what they call you. In fact, it would be best if no one ever called you at all, but… but that's just wishful thinking. Your hands twitch, wanting to clench into fists at the thought. "We Harmonized earlier. He is my Cloud."
No. You are not his.
… Except you are, you are, and there's no changing this fact; you know it in your bones, even though it's repulsive and wrong and–
And–
There's nothing you can do about it. What can you do?
… You haven't been keeping track of your age, but there's no way you're any older than eight or nine at this point. Run? How? Where to? There is no escape. There had never been any escape, not from the first moment you opened your eyes to this strange new world where you don't belong, will never belong.
Punishment, perhaps, for usurping a body and life that were never yours. That you never asked for, in the first place. But that doesn't matter; intentions never matter.
Only actions.
"Welcome, Tsukiya," Higuchi's Guardians tell you, and you want to scream. But screaming solves nothing, and so you remain mute and allow your silence to speak for you. That none of them notice your obvious discomfort, your resentment –more likely, none of them care, why would they– speaks volumes for what you can expect from your imminent future.
You're not looking forward to it.
.
.
Things change, now that you are considered one of Higuchi's Guardians. His Cloud Guardian. What an eight year old kid can even do to guard a grown-ass man and one as ruthless as Higuchi, you have no idea. But that's what they say you are, and apparently, that's what Higuchi wants you to do.
And what Higuchi wants, Higuchi gets.
He sends tutors your way –mostly other scarred men of varying degrees who work under him in his organization that you're still not quite clear on the details of– and at Higuchi's behest, they teach you all sorts of things. Mathematics and literature and chemistry. How to pick a lock or forge someone's handwriting or lie convincingly to the authorities. You have zero interest in complying with Higuchi's wishes, zero interest in developing a skillset tailored for organized crime–
But your wants have never mattered now, have they?
The lessons range from mind-numbingly boring to mildly interesting, and for all your quietly simmering hate of Higuchi and everything related to the man, your body still soaks up everything like a sponge, despite your reluctance. And it's. Maddening. Maddening, how every sign even remotely close to rebellion that you express is met with swift punishment in the form of immediate violence, how even the twitch of a finger at the wrong moment earns you a heavy kick to the ribs.
"You are my Cloud," Higuchi says to you, stroking your bruised face with warm, calloused hands, but his eyes are frigid and cold. "You are allowed to be distant, but you are nonetheless still expected to obey me in all matters. Is that understood, Tsukiya?"
Is that understood, he says. Commands. You're not a dog. But all you can do is sit there in silence, as the man leans in and presses a soft kiss to your forehead, an endearment void of all affection, and you close your eyes. Higuchi cares far too much for your purple flames to destroy you –or allow you to destroy yourself.
Suicide is something you attempt in the first month after being branded by Higuchi, when everything finally gets to be too much for you, and you just want it all to stop. Death might not have taken the first time, but perhaps a second try would finally do the trick. And even if it doesn't, anything is better than Higuchi.
Suicide is something you attempt once and only once. You don't like to dwell on the memory of the failed aftermath.
Higuchi-sama is a cruel man.
… It's how you learn that Higuchi has you watched at all times, and it's not a pleasant realization. But there's nothing you can do about it. What can you do?
It's only the little things left in your power now, and you retaliate by ignoring your lessons. You're punished for it, of course, but you don't care. You feel cheated. In a rare brazen recklessness, you make it known to Higuchi that even though he can control every aspect of your life, the only way he'll have your compliance is over your dead body.
Higuchi responds by upping the ante, and the contents of your lessons change. Interrogation. Torture resistance.
You're not broken, because you refuse to give Higuchi the satisfaction of breaking you. But you do not come out of this ordeal unscathed, and maybe that's the entire point of Higuchi doing this in the first place. Higuchi doesn't care how you feel, as long as he can bring you to heel.
Higuchi-sama is a cruel man.
It works.
… Eventually, you stop resisting. Not because your hatred for Higuchi has faltered any, but simply because of the sheer pointlessness of it all. Because you are forced to admit to yourself that these futile attempts at resistance have never accomplished anything for you, save for garnering more punishments, and while you don't care about the punishments, there comes a point when a person finally becomes tired enough to just… stop caring, period. Free agency, free will? What's the point, when you're leashed and collared like a dog?
Higuchi-sama is a cruel man.
.
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You don't have a birthday. Certainly, you know that you must have a birth certificate somewhere out there, but it had been lost to you the day you were stolen from your crib. Higuchi magnanimously gives you a birthday: The date of your Harmony with him.
You have absolutely nothing to say to the disgusting man about that. Luckily, Higuchi does not expect you to, only pressing another cold, cold kiss to your forehead and telling you that he has a lovely surprised planned for you.
For your birthday, Higuchi has your instructors take the last step, and teach you how to kill.
Turns out, you're a natural.
.
.
(Must be something about the whole dying and being reborn business, you think. That, and the being raised in a criminal organization situation and Higuchi.
Intellectually, you know that an aptitude like this is wrong, and all it does is make you even more disgusted with yourself, which you didn't even realize was even still possible at this point.
Higuchi and his men are always teaching you new things. Always.)
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The first time you kill a man, you plant a bullet in his skull from the rooftops. Perfect headshot. Blood and bits of broken skull paint the ground, in a disgustingly gory burst, scarlet and fleshy. None of it feels real. Nothing has felt real to you for a long time, especially not since the day Higuchi forcibly claimed you as his Cloud Guardian. Nothing ever does.
This body of yours moves like a dream; aim, fire, reload. Smooth in completion, and flawless in execution.
See? There's no doubt about it. Tsuki-kun here is a natural.
You look at the prone, bleeding corpse of a once-living man with your instructors' empty praise ringing in your ears, and wonder what it's like to be alive.
.
.
Time passes.
Somewhere along the lines, you just… close your eyes and give in. Killing is easy. Apathy shrouds you like an ever-present cloak, and you blankly listen to the commands you are given, mechanically obey Higuchi's orders to kill and kill and kill.
It's easy to kill, when you don't feel anything about it. It's so easy that it's almost scary, and it is for this reason that you eventually take a sword into your hands and put aside your guns. There's something a lot more personal and visceral about holding a blade and cutting someone into bloody chunks than standing from afar and mechanically firing bullets at them. More real, and you can almost pretend that you're still alive, instead of puppeteering a dead body.
It doesn't last, unfortunately.
You kill your sword instructor by accident one day and entirely on reflex alone when the middle-aged man attempts to murder you. It's a shame, because he's one of the few people you've actually grown to like –or at least, tolerate more than the usual kind who willingly associate themselves with Higuchi. You don't know where Higuchi found this particular instructor and you don't know what he promised him to teach you, but he's been one of the few people perfectly aware of Higuchi's monstrous nature and more than willing to call him out on it.
Unfortunately, he's dead now. Dying.
The man coughs, mouth wet with blood, and mutters something about disgracing his ancestors' sword style. Something about being unable to resist temptation, when presented with such terrible talent, and something about creating a monster. You listen to his blood-flecked words without really hearing anything at all.
The swordsman dies cursing you and cursing Higuchi, and it's the closest you ever feel towards any of your instructors.
You leave a bowl of sake for the man on his grave.
.
.
Before you really notice it, "Higuchi's little boy-killer" becomes a Thing, which is… not wrong, exactly. You gain a reputation for being Higuchi's youngest, most vicious attack dog; other men might just put a bullet in his enemies or slit their throats in the dead of the night, but the little boy will leave them in bloody pieces.
You even get a name out of this –Youtou, demon blade. It's needlessly dramatic, but Higuchi seems pleased. Higuchi has been very pleased recently, and that never means well. You resist the urge to shudder.
(Seven years, from toddling child to cat-footed teen, pressing down upon you with all the weight of seven decades. Not a day goes by that you don't wake up wanting to crawl out of your own skin and leave this hollow husk of a shell behind.)
"You monster!"
You're a monster, yes. Of course you are. Higuchi has made you into one. You're a monster in the hand of a monstrous monster. You look the young, trembling boy directly in the eyes –he's scared, that much is obvious. Perfectly reasonable; you'd just decapitated his father in front of him, after all, before proceeding to slaughter everyone else in the meeting room. Higuchi's orders.
You turn and walk towards him, carelessly pulling out your late instructor's sword and leveling it in the boy's direction. No survivors, Higuchi's words echo in your head, the ghostly imprint of a blank kiss, and it makes you want to reach up and claw his voice out of your skull. If only it were that easy to escape him.
Higuchi's flames coil around your own beneath your skin, and it makes you see red.
"D-Don't come any closer! I'll scream!"
Doesn't matter; there's no one around to listen. You tell the trembling boy as much, voice flat, and he… loses control of his bowels.
It's ugly, messy. It always is.
You've never cared for it, and never will.
"D-D-Don't kill me! I-I haven't done anything! I-I-aAAAAAaA–"
…
Soon, the little boy's corpse is utterly unrecognizable, against the ten-odd other men in the room.
You look down at your hand, pale and pristine. Just like Higuchi's.
You sheathe the sword you lifted from your late instructor's corpse with a loud click, before you give into the urge to chop off your own hands.
You're not that far gone yet. Soon, perhaps.
But not yet.
.
.
"You're such a good boy, Tsuki-kun."
Cold words, accompanied by a colder kiss.
You open your eyes, and feel nothing.
.
.
Seasons change, summer dying into autumn bleeding into winter. Your body grows from an awkward teen into something more settled in its own skin, as your face becomes sharp angles and your body gains more muscle definition, smooth and lithe, and you deliberately work to keep it that way. It's not exactly a vanity thing so much as it is your eternal unwillingness for this body to be more stereotypically male than it already physically is, one of the few aspects of your life that you've retained control over, somehow, over the years. You've never quite been able to come to terms with the bodysnatching, but… but it helps.
Or so you think.
.
.
Your first warning comes the day when Higuchi pauses as he catches sight of you. You've been gone only a month and nothing should be different, but somehow everything has changed. His eyes rove up, down, up, and then he plasters a charming smile onto his face and turns back to continuing conversation with the man sitting across from him without skipping a beat.
You tell yourself it's nothing, even as his lips linger on your forehead a heartbeat longer than usual. Unfortunately, it's not.
Your second warning is when he suddenly catches your hand when you set down a stack of paperwork on his desk. Usually, the most he'll do is just just pat you the way one might a particularly well-liked dog. His hand is warm and scalding and makes you almost as uncomfortable as his Sky flames do, and you'd cut his entire arm off, if you could muster up the motivation to.
"Such scarred hands, Tsuki-kun," Higuchi murmurs, eyes lidded and lowered. "And all for me, isn't it?"
You're distantly disgusted, revolted by his apparent attraction to this body of yours, but you're careful not to let it show. Or perhaps, it's more accurate to say that you don't care enough to let anything show. There's very little that you care about nowadays, if you've ever cared for anything in the first place. Higuchi-sama is a cruel man.
Higuchi strokes your hand for a few moments, then finally releases you.
You abruptly turn on your heel and leave.
… There are several other instances, of course. The last and worst of them all is Otsuka.
It's Otsuka's slow, sly grin as he saunters over to your room one evening right after you've collapsed from a month-long mission, and informs you in no uncertain terms that Higuchi is looking for you, the swagger in his steps as he follows you to Higuchi's room.
When you open the door, however, it's to find the normally immaculate Higuchi-san lounging languidly with a woman in his arms. She's a pretty thing, all long lashes and full lips and curvaceous body, and it's not exactly a surprise to find Higuchi-san like this. In some ways, all men are the same. But given the timing…
Alarm bells blare in the back of your head, and you're suddenly acutely aware of the way Otsuka stands behind you in the doorway… sealing off your only exit.
"Tsuki-kun?"
"Just 'Tsuki-kun?' I'm hurt, fearless leader," Otsuka drawls from the side. "What, not gonna invite us in?"
Higuchi's eyes narrow even as he sits up and promptly shoves the half-dressed prostitute off his lap. She falls to the ground, and hurriedly flees from the room. You'd flee, too, but Otsuka has a death grip on your shoulder, and with a start you realize that he's doing something to you with his flames and you can't–
"C'mon, Ryuu-kun," Otsuka cajoles in a sing-song tone. "Don't think I haven't noticed the way you've been looking at Tsuki-chan here for the past year. He's always been a pretty little thing, and he's an even prettier little thing nowadays, isn't he?"
No. No. For the first in a long time, something stirs in your chest, burning and freezing all at once. The pieces are starting to come together, painting an image that is horribly, terribly clear–
"Ren–"
"You know you want to, Ryuu-kun," Otsuka bats his eyes in a way that fools no one, and Higuchi swallows. Roughly. After the attentions of the prostitute earlier, he's already halfway there. Men like him have never been good at curbing their desires, nor have they ever had any need to.
When he reaches for your paralyzed body, you jerk back, somehow forcibly breaking through the sluggish haze that Otsuka's flames have imposed on you. There is very little will that you have for anything nowadays, but –there is no other word for it– horror trickles down your spine, ice-cold, and something very much like clarity washes across you, and–
And none of it matters, when Higuchi lets out a tired sigh, then leans in and kisses you.
It's a soft kiss, right in the center of your forehead just as he's done a thousand times before, and you freeze.
(You know what Higuchi wants from you. You know that it's repulsive, and you refuse to be violated –except, the second that his lips press upon your forehead, everything fades away. Intellectually, you know, but you don't feel, and it's–
It's–)
Otsuka lets out a low whistle from somewhere behind you. "Damn, it's always so unnerving to watch you do that. How many times does it make this?"
Higuchi huffs in amusement, straightening. "Does it even matter? Tsuki-kun here is a wild one. I'll do it as many times as I need to in order to keep him in line."
You hear what they're saying. Your mind processes everything perfectly fine. But somehow, the words mean nothing to you, and… and that's wrong. You know that's wrong.
"Your mother certainly taught you a very scary trick from her repertoire, Ryuu-kun."
"My mother was a very scary woman," Higuchi agrees idly, stepping back and letting his eyes roam over your body. You can't muster up the motivation to move, to leave, to run. Why? "It's lucky that Mist is my secondary alignment; otherwise, her tricks wouldn't nearly be half as effective in my hands."
… You hate Higuchi. You hate Higuchi. This is a fact that has never changed. So why–?
"Come here, Tsukiya."
Your body –this body that you happen to inhabit– moves forward of its own will, and you're pulled along with it, marionette tied by strings.
You're terrified. Or at least, you would be, if this body were still capable of experiencing terror. What has Higuchi done to you?
Higuchi-sama is a cruel man.
"Kiss me," your Sky commands, and your body mechanically obeys, the way it's been doing for years, even as something in you breaks and screams.
.
.
Choice is just an illusion, freedom a delusion.
.
.
(This body was never yours in the first place. It's not you. It's not you.)
(… But by now, it might as well be.)
.
.
Higuchi is not a good man. You know this. You've always known this, from day one. Higuchi is proud, Higuchi is cruel, but even then, somehow you failed to realize that there are no limits to Higuchi's depravity. It makes you lose whatever little remaining faith you've ever had in the man, and it's a bitter pill to swallow when you realize that, over the years, for all your hate of the man, you've also come to grudgingly respect his strength. His ruthlessness. Yes, you've always disliked the sinuous edge to his flames, but over the years, you've learned to… tolerate it. For all the flaws in his character–
Or maybe that's just the kisses talking. Who knows?
If there's anything you learned from this, it's that you cannot even trust the thoughts in your own mind. How long has Higuchi been messing with your head?
(Since day one.)
…
You stare down into the damp, dark sink. Early morning. Higuchi and Otsuka are both still asleep, from last night's activities. But you cannot afford the same reprieve, nor do you want to.
You think of the blood on your hands, of your newfound inability to sympathize with anyone aside from Higuchi. The throbbing pain still screaming, pulsating in your body, red and raw, the way your legs refuse to support your weight. You should be furious, you realize. Anyone in your situation would be furious. But despite knowing this, you still draw a complete blank in terms of your emotions. Even the hate that you so desperately cling to –how much of it is just a mantra you repeat to yourself each day, and how much of it is something you still feel?
You are empty. Hollow.
Funny, how you once swore to yourself that you wouldn't let Higuchi break you. Seems to you like he's broken you pretty thoroughly –maybe only mentally at first, but now physically as well. He's broken you. There is no denying that.
… Well, no matter.
This… turn of events, is… eye-opening. Very enlightening.
Because you're not as empty as Higuchi thinks you are. You are now consciously aware that you have a burning desire, a wish, a goal: You're going to kill Higuchi if it's the last thing you do.
You're going to kill them all.
.
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…
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EDIT 10/11: Corrected age mistyping.
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Author's Notes:
Ta-da! The result of a KHR binge over the past few days. I swear I'm still working on ocean waves here.
On this chapter: Hustling along the storyline for angels; the entire thing should be around 10 chapters. Probably?
Cheers,
XxZuiliu