Hey look, an author's note!
So I started this fic because my stupid mind thought it'd be a good idea and then someone encouraged me to write it out so I did. I just sort of thought it would be a LOL fic that would get no support but then BOOM! four reviews in two days and seven follows. Thanks to everyone who supported me!
Enjoy!
"Sorry, Tetsuya. I got too carried away."
My body felt sluggish and heavy, like every one of my limbs were made of lead. I opened my eyes and found my eyesight blurry with fatigue. Lights shone above me and all I could see was white, making my heart race for some reason. The smell of antiseptic told me that I was in the hospital wing of...the InterHigh stadium.
The InterHigh!
I sat up sharply, making the room around me spin alarmingly. Nausea hit me like a storm and I grabbed the sheets of the bed I lay in to keep from vomiting. Memories swirled around me head, not allowing me to deny them. My hands...I looked down at them; they were raw and pink and stung like crazy. These hands had just tried to kill someone. Vile rose up out of my mouth and onto the sheets. I tore them off. No one had bothered to change me into my normal clothes, so I still wore my jersey, making the air feel ten times colder than it should have. I wondered how my team had reacted when they watched me ditch the game and attempt to strangle Hanamiya. Guilt and shame settled into my already burdened head. Where were they now?
I looked around the hospital wing and realized I was not alone. In one bed lay an unconscious Hanamiya, his neck bandaged up. In the other bed a smaller figure was sitting up, staring at me.
"Kuroko?" Akashi-kun asked tentatively.
"Akashi-kun!" I gasped and scrambled out of bed. "Are you okay?"
"Kuroko...you tried to strangle someone."
"I…" I stopped dead in my tracks. Akashi-kun's head had been wrapped in bandages, covering one of his eyes and giving him a rather ragged look. "But...he tried-"
"I'm not trying to accuse you of anything," Akashi-kun said evenly. "I don't know a lot of things about my friends, but I know that Kuroko Tetsuya wouldn't try to kill someone, even if they hurt me or anyone else. Kuroko…" Akashi-kun looked dead into my eyes with his red slitted pupil eye. "Who are you?"
"I…" I stammered again. "I...I don't…"
"Kuroko, what are you doing out of bed?"
I nearly screamed as a hand clamped down on my shoulder, large masculine fingers digging into my skin. I turned around and saw a man I'd never seen before. He was tall and lean, his hair starting to turn grey and his face gaunt and stretched with a fake smile. Just looking at the man made me feel uneasy, like something in his cold grey eyes would jump out and attack me.
"Um...I'm sorry, who are you?" I asked, trying to calm down. My hands were shaking, something that only happened before a basketball game. I far too riled up and on edge. Something wasn't right.
"My name is Shi Karito," the man said, maintaining his false smile. "I am the coach of Kirisaki Daiichi."
"Oh...oh!" I looked around at Hanamiya and bowed in apology. "I'm sorry that I tried to injure your player…"
Even though he injures other people without provocation.
"...during the game," I finished, biting back a retort to the voice in my head. I had gotten so into the habit of replying to the Shadow out loud that I could no longer fight my own conscious in my head.
"Oh, not at all," Shi said, waving his hand. "The boy is always injuring other players with provocation, he got what he deserved."
I stared at Shi incredulously. Was this man seriously just waving off the injury of his player so indifferently? Behind me, Akashi-kun cleared his throat. From the way he inhaled, I could tell that he too was feeling angry.
"Do you need Kuroko?" Akashi-kun asked. "If so, please hurry up. I want to talk to him."
Akashi-kun was showing disrespect to an elder. My unease for this man increased tenfold. Shi laughed and tightened his grip on my shoulder, making me cringe in pain.
"I'll just take him for a second," Shi said and then steered me towards the door. I glanced back at Akashi-kun helplessly and he returned the look, his eyebrows knitted together. I just hoped that Shi would finish quickly. At the moment, I needed rational moral support that only Akashi-kun could provide.
Shi led me down the hallway and deeper into the gymnasium, his hand guiding me through the maze of halls and corridors. It occurred to me that I had not seen my team ever since the game. I figured they would have been there when I woke up. A horrible thought struck me: What if they were scared of me?
I'm sorry, Tetsuya.
"I suppose you're wondering what it is I want to discuss with you, Kuroko," Shi said conversationally, although his voice was unmistakably cool. Further and further into the gym we walked, a silence blooming between us as I refused to respond. Even though I didn't know this man at all, I'd observed enough of the man to not trust him. We reached a hallway with no one in sight. I only just registered the fact that the end of the hall was a dead-end when Shi slammed me into the wall by my shoulder, pain shooting into my arm. I felt it go limp. "Well, it just so happens that I have a bit of a knowledge of your past. Specifically, little acts of violence that wouldn't sound too far off from the little scene you've just caused."
Panic flared in my stomach. Shi's steely grey eyes bored into my skin as I refused to meet the man's eyes. How did he know? No one knew, the Shadow had made sure of that.
"The earliest scene that I can recall is a little incident that happened in the courtyard in front of Sakura primary school?" Shi went on. My hand was starting to hurt; I was digging my nails into my palm to keep the memory from coming up. A second hand came clamping down on my other shoulder. If I tried to run, Shi would be holding me down. Panic flared in me. "Two little boys had their throats mutilated by a little boy they had been bullying. A little boy who had a habit of talking to himself, as if there were someone listening to him..."
Tetsuya, this man is...!
"Get off of me!" I screamed and tore out of Shi's grip, his grip tearing the sleeves of my jersey. The fabric of my jersey fluttered to the ground, a hot liquid trickling down my shoulders. Blood splattered on the ground, echoing unnaturally loud in the empty hallway. The arm that Shi had dislocated swung around stupidly. I grabbed it with my other hand and squeezed it tightly. My breathing had become shallow and erratic, my heartbeat following accordingly.
"What are you doing?!" I gasped, pain choking my throat. Shi looked down at his hands which were stained with my blood at the fingertips. He put his middle finger between his teeth and licked the blood off, making a disgustingly horrified face.
"I can just taste the Shadow in your blood, human child." Shi's voice came out as an ethereal hiss. The man began to advance on me, a white opaque mist rising up off of his body.
The Light! The Light is possessing his body!
"Seems like you've figured it out," the Light snarled. "Stupid boy. You let your emotions get the best of you. If you could have suppressed the Shadow's power, I may have let you live until the end of you short insignificant life. However..." The Light clapped the man's hands together and pulled them apart, revealing a long thin saber. A saber whose glow was all too familiar. I started to back up, wanting to keep as much distance between me and the point as possible. The pain of having the saber pierce my body had been burned into my memory, something that would never just disappear. "The Shadow is starting to take over."
The back of my foot scraped the wall at the end of the hallway. Cornered, I watched in horror as the saber was lifted up above the Light's head.
Tetsuya!
Anger. I needed Tetsuya's powerful anger. He managed to sidestep the first attack, the blade of the saber grazing his bare human skin. At this rate, we were going to be killed.
Anger. Tetsuya needed to betray his natural behavior and become angry.
I delved into Tetsuya's memory bank, searching for a particularly invigorating memory. I could feel the boy's fear and panic seize his mind and body, rendering him useless to defend himself or use my power.
Anger
Anger
Anger
The game against Kirisaki Daiichi. Hanamiya Makoto raised the ball above his head and swung it downwards with every intent of hitting Tetsuya. I wanted to kill him. He wanted to kill him. Injuring out teammates, trying to injure us, trying to steal our spot in the Winter Cup...
Tetsuya kept refusing the emotion, instead trying to drain himself of any emotion. The boy, bless him for it, was too controlled and calm for his own good. Just as his friend Kagami had pointed out...
"In the face of overwhelming odds, just working together won't be enough."
"NO!" Tetsuya screamed and narrowly dodged the blade again. Sadness and rejection took place of the fear and panic, just enough for me to take control of one arm and grab a hold of the Light's host's arm and twist it backwards. A sickening 'snap!' shook the bone jarred Tetsuya back into reality, taking the control of his arm from me. The Light stumbled, watching the broken arm flop uselessly to his side.
"This body fails me," the Light muttered. With one swift motion, he tore the man's arm out, taking the sleeve with it and leaving a bloody hole where the shoulder should have been. Nausea rose up in Tetsuya's body as blood spurted from the open shoulder, the joint jutting out from the torn skin and fabric. "Now it will look like the little deranged basketball player from Seirin went on a second rampage today and killed Shi Karito by tearing his arm off. "How's that?" The Light tossed the amputated arm at Tetsuya's feet. Vile rose out of Tetsuya's mouth, burning in his throat.
"Monster..." Tetsuya gasped, wiping the vile from the corner of his mouth.
"How can you call me a monster, you demon?" the Light hissed. "You disgust me, you human that allows the Shadow to cling to himself. And you don't even lift a finger to protect yourself!" A flash of light and Tetsuya is knocked to the ground. Spasms of pain grip his legs as he looks down to find stumps where his feet had just previously been. Nothing was left in Tetsuya's stomach to throw up, so instead he screamed, his soft calm voice contorted so terribly into the expression of terror.
"My feet..." Tetsuya moaned. "My feet..."
The Light used the man's foot and kicked Tetsuya against the wall, staring down at us with a murderously triumphant air. He rested the point of the saber on Tetsuya's heaving chest and pushed in slightly, making blood appear on the smooth white skin.
"What do you think, boy?" the Light cooed, twisting the point of the blade, making Tetsuya gasp in pain. "Do you think I'll be able to kill you this time around? Or will it fail again? Will I have to wait for you to bleed yourself to death in order to pull the Shadow from your corpse? I don't have that kind of patience to find out."
My scream mingled with Tetsuya's as the saber was thrust through Tetsuya's chest. The power of the Light surged through the saber and curled around me, cutting off any power I had inside Tetsuya's being. Through Tetsuya's fading vision, I saw the Light's twisted smile, mocking Tetsuya's pain.
Anger
Pain
Anger
Anger
Death
Death
Death...
"Kuroko?!"
Through my fading vision, I saw the blurry outlines of a crowd of people. Somewhere in my fading mind, I recognized the voice that had called out to me. Someone...someone who had been very close to me...my light...my wonderful friend, nothing like the being that possessed the poor man in front of me...my wonderful light...
"Ka-gami...kun-"
"You insignificant human!" the Light screamed, stabbing the hole with a frenzied air about him. "Die! Die already! Let go of the damn Shadow-!"
"Get away from him, you insane bastard!" The sound of skin on bone boomed out in front of me, made ten times louder by my failing hearing. A blur of bloody redness hovered in front of me, joined shortly by another smear of red, pinker in hue and smaller. Akashi-kun...
"Oh my gosh, oh my gosh..." Kagami-kun breathed. The blade was gone from my chest having dis-materialized once separated from the Light. "What the hell...your feet, Kuroko..."
"You're not dying," Akashi-kun said frantically. Even in my befuddled state, I registered the panic and fear in his voice. Since when had Akashi-kun ever been panicked? "You're not dying...you're going to be okay, Kuroko..."
Behind the blurs that were my friends, a large dark figure walked up behind them.
"Be...hind-you..."
Barely a second after my warning, Kagami-kun and Akashi-kun were kicked aside by the Light, landing with heavy crashes on the floor. My friends...
My...friends...
"I will kill you..." the Light said, swaying unstably on his feet. "I will...kill you...And no one...will get in my way..." With his one hand, the Light pointed to the red blurs on the ground a few feet away. "I'll kill anyone...who does...even them, your lights..."
You will not...you will not lay a single finger on any of my friends...
A strong surge of power jolted through my body, making my vision clear so suddenly, the outlines of the old man's body were shiny with color. My body no longer felt weak, rather stronger and better than it had ever been in my life.
"Kill my friends...?"
I lunged out at the Light's legs, knocking the body down. Power. Power coursed through my veins, filling me with an overwhelming urge to let someone know exactly how I was feeling, exactly how I wanted to kill them...
...because no one, no one, was going to kill my friends before I killed them first.
I forgot how good it feels to write supernatural! Man, it feels really good to take a break from writing angst and all that crap that really takes a toll on your emotional stability.
Anyway, I hope the format isn't too confusing. If you haven't figure it out, it's most likely due to my incapability to make it more clear. I'll try to make it obvious who's talking and whose POV the story is currently being told from. If there are any problems, please let me know and I will try to clean up my writing for your reading convenience.
Hopefully the story is keeping you guys intrigued! I have no idea how long this will be, but I'm definitely continuing this!
-Joy Goldenpine