Author's Notes
Sorta winging it for the time being. I hate doing that. Anyway…
You know, this is kinda random but I never realised how weird my name was. In English, it's Juliet. In Greek, it's Akiza. And in Japanese, funnily enough, it's actually Izumi, and some people resort to calling me Z as a shortcut to the complexity of it all. So Ive got Izumi's real name in Japanese and her English dub nickname. Not to mention her French name.
On a more important note, Lucifer translates to "Morning Star" or "Star of the Morning". It is used to refer to the dawn appearance of the planet Venus, and Venus is also said to be the Roman Goddess of Love. The quote towards the end from the mouthpiece is a part of a Christian hymn. It's latin translation is "light-bearer". The term "Morning Star" is also used as a reference to Jesus, and as a central figure in Christianity, he is seen as somewhat of a Messiah. Ignoring the religious connotations, it seemed somewhat fitting with the current chaos in my head.
Enjoy.
Shinjitsu
It all began when Kouichi disappeared. Then suddenly, their reality was warped beyond recognition. Desperately trying to save the future by uncovering the truth of their pasts in the midst of lies, they find the darkness in them and what it's caused…
Kouji M/Koji & Kouichi K/Koichi
Rating: M
Genre/s: Friendship/Angst
Bitterness imprisons life; love releases it. ~ Harry Emerson Fosdick
Chapter 2
He sat alone, just staring out the window. There really wasn't that much to look at, but he looked at it all the same. It wasn't like there was anything better to do. Not here.
Someone came in, but he ignored them. Since he had left his bed that morning he sat in the wooden chair, the window shades just barely tweaked back to let only the barest light through. The room remained clouded in grey; he left it like that. The light switch was on the other side of the room, but it didn't matter anyway. He didn't want it on. What use did he have for it? He wasn't going to touch the papers sitting on the otherwise barren desk.
The room was clean. Unnaturally so. He was sure he hadn't cleaned it. He couldn't remember being bothered to do so. He couldn't remember ever doing so. But it was always clean. Someone cleaned it. Probably while he slept.
He didn't like that. But no-one would listen to him.
'What are you doing?'
It was his father, but he ignored him. Not for long. It would never last long. He didn't really care either way. It wasn't like there was any love between the two, despite how they were tied by blood. To the latter he was a burden who would never carry the title of heir. To the former he was a brick that had solidified the bitter wall in his heart.
There was a sarcastic: 'Well, you're certainly doing a good job wasting your life.' A pause. 'Just because you've been excused from school today.' Of course, he wasn't the one who had gotten him that brief reprieve. It was his stepmother, though he never thank her for it. She was as much to blame as him. Most of him could honestly say he hated them both. It was because of them that his mother was dead. Because of them that he had to carry that heavy weight in his heart that grey heavier by the day.
His eyes screamed at the dryness but no tears came. He had spent them all.
It was their fault. Because he loved her. Because she loved him. And it was partly his own fault as well. The extra load she had to manage.
He could barely feel the soft and warm embrace around him, could barely hear the sweet and gentle voice singing softly in his ear or asking him about his day. Someone who carefully cut his sandwiches into little bite sized squares and made soup for his lunch whenever he lost his tooth and treated him to strawberry shortcake once a week, knowing it was his favourite. His father barely knew him; he was too busy with his business and his associates. He wasn't the perfect son. He didn't like company in general.
No-one knew him well. And no-one cared enough for that.
'For once in your life, would you give your assignments in when it's due?' his father half-growled, before softer footsteps on the stairs interrupted them both.
'Lunch is ready,' Satomi said quietly.
Kousei growled in annoyance before turning his back to his son and walking away.
The blue eyes that looked nothing like those brown ignored him utterly, still staring down on the dim street, the curtain's fabric clasped in a single hand.
'You know your father loves you,' she said, coming a few steps closer but keeping her distance all the same.
He turned his head in utter defiance, eyes noting the polished neighbourhood. How he hated that place. Often he wished he could just leave…but where would he go? That alone brought him back day after day. One day, even that wouldn't be enough.
'It hurts him when you get into trouble,' she continued, somewhat reprimanding. 'It hurts him when he watches you throw away your life for nothing. Isn't there anything you enjoy doing?'
'No,' the other said coldly, suddenly standing and letting the curtain fall back. It swayed from the force before settling, veiling the outside wall from the inhabitants of the room.
'Kouji…'
He walked past her, towards the stairs.
'Don't get into trouble again,' she pleaded.
He ignored her.
It had been years since he had last jerked from a dream that he remembered nothing of except pain and anguish. It felt sometimes, during the small moments that hovered between his waking and sleeping states, that he was reaching to a part of his heart he had long sealed away, but all that had ended when the frame that had held his mother's portrait, his last memories of her, had shattered into hundreds of pieces, utterly ruining the last image.
He slipped the glove off as he walked, flexing his fingers loosened from the slight restraint before looking at those scars made permanent. Once, they had been dripping with blood from the accident that had destroyed his life. Then, the very same lines re-carved when the last remnants of it had been the result when his own nightmare had vanquished the last pieces of his heart and the image he had clung to. That had shattered his last resolve; the flowers he had so carefully wrapped in his closet remained there, drying, decaying…they were still there, as far as he knew. He couldn't face digging them up again.
Those scars would never fade now. Something about them had meant they were engraved there forever, a mark of anger, betrayal and bitterness…and above all, emptiness. After all, the final cursive had been carved by his own other hand. How ironic that it had been the left one, the bringer of evil to deface that which was supposed to represent good.
Or so those monasteries wandering the street and spreading good will told him. He didn't bother arguing with them unless they pushed far enough. He didn't believe that anyway. If there was good and evil, there was someone or something governing that. Something humans like them called a God. And they didn't deserve respect if the only reason for them creating the world and everything in it was to watch the suffering thereof to play out like a movie, offering no guidance. They claim the Prophets and Messengers came with a message; he didn't see the message. He didn't see their benevolent wisdom. He didn't even see the people of faith following, so how could he, a faithless, do so?
There was no love in such a world except foolishness and betrayal, and time and time again he wondered why he still bothered living, a hostage to those rules. Ultimately, it came down to himself. As a human, he was held hostage to the same things that drove all humans. The search for truth, the unwillingness to accept the end of the quest in all the drowning sea he had floundered in for years, and above all else, fear of the unknown. Fear of death. Fear of not knowing what was there, what one was losing, and what came next. Fear of wasting the one and only chance they would ever get.
The rest of him said it was foolish, but he still kept little things. Things that mattered under a world of ice so firm that not even a sledgehammer would break through it. He was a bit of a legend amongst the streets, held in awe by some, in fear by others. But they knew now not to approach him; he wasn't the type of person who was approachable. The small glass shards that once made up that picture frame had been dumped into a box and tossed on top of the rotting flowers. The receipt was still somewhere in those fragile stems. So was the ruined photo. They were all in the reattachable base. It seemed somewhat ironic that the closet had two bottoms, and what remained was trapped between them. But that was how he had left it for years. There was probably nothing left of the flowers now. The glass and paper was more enduring, but who knew what the darkness had done to the latter.
Someone hailed him, and though he recognised the voice well, he ignored him.
The thundering footsteps caught him anyway.
'Yo, Minamoto, where are you wandering off to?'
'Nowhere,' the other snapped, shrugging the hand off his shoulder and walking forward.
'You always say that,' the other laughed, a little humorously. 'Did you think about my offer?'
Of course he had. Just the way he thought about everything nowadays. Forget everything else; if there was something to be gained…
He came closer, latching onto the scarred arm
'The world nowadays is governed by one of two things,' he said softly, into his ear, before the other yanked his arm out of the other's grip again. 'Money, and-'
'-love,' the other all but spat. 'If you don't have anything new to say Kakuzawa, then don't say anything.'
'Harsh,' the other laughed, well used to the various attitudes that littered the streets. He, himself, preferred to get as many kicks out of a shortened life as possible. After all, living on the wild road would only last so long.
He pulled a packet out of his black jacket, flipping it open with one smooth motion and withdrawing a white wrapped cigarette from its confines. 'Want one?'
His face twisted slightly in disgust, but he accepted the stick, allowing the other to light it for him before inhaling the almost tasteless smoke. For a while, when he had first accepted it in a rush of defiance against the expectations of his father, when he had decided to bitterly and utterly rebel against that parental authority after the final blow, it had tasted bitter. His mind had spun, as if in the grasp of a sudden euphoria; it felt like his heart had jumped into his mouth, and that same bitter taste that he attributed to that pulsating organ.
Of course, once you stepped onto a slide, it was exceedingly difficult to get off. Not that it really mattered to him. Cancer or no, he would die one day, unaccomplished. They all would.
'Hmmph, not even a thank you. Kakuzawa snorted, taking a deep breath and inhaling the now familiar, almost tasteless scent. 'So…'
He let his eyes slip shut, before shrugging almost carelessly.
'Is that a yes?' He sounded a little concerned, but not overly so. Everyone knew what they got themselves into.
The other opened his mouth to state the obvious, but something stopped him. It was true that there wasn't much regard left in him for the value of human lives; it seemed like an endless sprawl and whoever targeted had no doubt done something to deserve the ultimate punishment. That had angered him at one stage; innocent people suffered while the guilty wondered free, but that was before he finally learnt the harsh cold truth: no-one, not even a baby that dies without ever being conceived, was truly innocent, for all the pain it brings to its parents. Perhaps at that stage not even gender is distinguishable. And to think they, in some circles of belief, wander up to heaven while leaving the suffering earth below.
He couldn't help but remember that had been a time when he had cared. When was the last time he had cried, or felt anything above neutrality in the face of another person or thing? Ookami, the German Sheppard that had been his only companion for years, had eventually had to be put down, and that had been the end of it all. His father yanking the chain from his grip; those marks had faded from his hand. And unlike the scars from glass, sharp, shattering…he couldn't make a chain's grip come back exactly the way it was. Now he lay rotting under a mound of dirt…or what remained. Anything useful had been torn from the body soon after the deed had been done. Like an animal for slaughter. That was all he was. That was all they all were.
He opened his eyes again, narrowed. Cold. Yes, that was all they were. Pigs for slaughter, for the amusement for the one who had created and cursed them to this very existence.
All one could do was find a way to exist. If it meant sacrificing someone else, someone who didn't matter much like him…well, it came down to human instincts in the end, didn't it?
'That's a yes,' he muttered, turning his face.
Above them, a crow squawked.
The more easy going of the two, in so far as one would go to call him the foil but they would be utterly wrong, looked at the other's cold set face before shrugging. 'It's your funeral,' he said, and he meant it. There was a pause, before he continued. 'If you're wondering why I passed the offer onto you-'
'I couldn't care less,' the other cut him off roughly, the ashes falling through his fingers as the remains were crushed under a heel, before turning to walk off.
'Hold it Minamoto.'
He stopped. 'What?' he snapped.
The other reached into his jacket pocket again and withdrew a picture, before tossing it to the other.
'Don't get caught.'
Why bother? They were all stuck in fate's net after all.
'Whatever.'
'Stop! You-'
He half turned, piercing the one who hailed him with a disinterested glare before turning away.
He could hear the footsteps stumbling after him so he paused. No sense wasting meaningless time running away.
He harrumphed. He wasn't running away from anything. All roads ended at the same, so he took it to a leisurely pace. It didn't matter what was done because the same thing happened at the end. So he might as well be comfortable, or he should try and change things as well he could.
Being the Messiah; that was a laughable concept. Angel-like? No. Black hair fluttered through his vision before the soft wind blew it away in a gentle caress that could sooner turn into a harsh slap, revealing the set blue orbs that would be described as mosaic glass before being seen as human eyes.
A woman's nails dug into his skin as she clung almost desperately to him.
'You!' she shrieked, clinging tight. 'What did you do to him?'
He shrugged her off easily. 'Nothing he didn't deserve,' he said coldly. 'He cheated someone, so he payed the price for it.'
The sudden faltering of her grip and the ensuring gasp told him she knew exactly what he was talking about.
Still, she tried to put on a brave front. Foolishness.
'I-I'll report you,' she declared.
He half-turned to her. 'For what?' he asked, seizing the wrist that had grabbed him before pinning her easily against the wall.
'I'll scream.' But her voice was faltering.
'You attacked me,' the other pointed out in a monotone. Past the scars on his right hands, both could see the nail imprints. 'No matter what you say, you'll never hold me.'
He released her, letting her collapse against the wall.
'He'll wake up soon enough. Don't you want to be at his bedside when he does?'
She glared, but it quailed under the truthful jibe hidden under the innocent words, but she didn't move until the other vanished from sight.
Even as he left, she considered the situation. But he was right she realised. Anything she could say to any figure of authority would dig them into a grave far deeper than it would him. Already, all she could see was those frozen blue eyes and that raven black fluttering behind him, almost like a black winged angel…or demon…
In his pocket, the proof jingled with each step. Not of punishment; the poor guy's lumbering brains would provide enough entertainment before someone figured out exactly what had happened…if they ever did.
Sure enough, the clean-up was pretty pathetic. No wonder the world kept deteriorating, with fighters for justice so lazy and incompetent as them.
'I don't see why this doesn't became a passion for you,' a deep voice laughed, tossing a wad which the other easily caught. 'Your hand is already stained with blood.'
'My blood,' the other said. 'No-one else's.'
'I was thinking…' the former mused, tucking blonde hair behind him. 'Does that bother you?'
'No.'
'Hmm…how would you like to be our executioner then?'
The blue eyes regarded him unequivocally. 'For what?'
'Whatever you want. You name the price.'
It was truly a generous offer, provided one could be held to that word.
'What are you?' came the rhetorical question. 'Some God trying to straighten out this hell-hole of a world.'
'Somewhat,' the other said. 'Truth be told, I'm just the mouth-piece. A mouth-piece really.' There was a pause, then a smirk. 'Lucifer-sama.'
'Excuse me?' The seventeen year old actually managed to sound vaguely surprised, however if one was not familiar with such a tone, it would get lose in the underlining monotonous drone.
The mouthpiece smirked.
'Mary Immaculate, Star of the Morning,
Chosen before the creation began,
Destined to bring, through the Light of your Dawning,
Conquest of Satan, and rescue to Man.'
The other turned away. 'I'll think about it.'
'Don't think too long,' the mouthpiece advised. 'It's a be-killed do-kill world.'
He turned back. 'Is that a threat?'
'A simple stated fact.' There was a pause. 'Face it. You can't stop a world in its tracks. But you can slowly unpick it at the seams and resow.'
Behind the pair, the wind howled.
