A/N I'm sorry it's been so long! I've barely touched my computer all summer, but now that school's starting back up I'll definitely be writing more! Because procrastination is totally the name of the game. Anyways, as I sit here doing "homework" I present you with Complexity chapter 4. Enjoy!
Black*Star #4: "We All Need Somebody to Lean On"
Keep me safe inside
Your arms like towers
Tower over me
Yeah,
'Cause we are broken.
~We Are Broken; Paramore
Prelude:
They're connected on a much deeper emotional level than most people realize. Sure, he's loud and obnoxious, but he has things in his past and reasons in his present that make him that way. And sure, she never really disagrees with him, she always goes with the flow, but that doesn't mean she never speaks her mind.
They confide in each other; others just don't see that part.
Tsubaki knows that her meister is the strongest, most capable person in her circle of friends, and probably in the entire school. He may have a big mouth, but she knows any secret she tells him will remain between the two of them until the day he dies. She knows that, no matter what, he's there for her to confess to.
She can lean on him when she needs someone strong to hold her up.
She tiptoes out to the living area. It's nearing 2:30 in the morning, but she needs to do something to keep her mind away from the images it keeps throwing at her. She can't sleep, and she just can't stand to see her brother's face in her nightmares anymore. Maybe she can watch TV.
His assassin's hearing wakes him, but by the time he actually forces himself to sit up and rub the sleep from his eyes she's already dripping silent tears as she sits on the couch arm by his feet. He had fallen asleep watching the TV, but Tsubaki must have turned it off when she came into the room because now the only sound for miles is the faint chirping of a single cricket.
"Yo, what's wrong?" He scoots up to kneel on the other end of the couch and stuff his face between her down-turned one and the cushions. She moves back, surprised by his sudden proximity.
"I'm sorry I woke you, Black*Star. Go back to sleep; I'm fine. I'll leave." She moves to leave, but his arm darts out.
"Tsubaki…" he pauses before continuing, "Don't forget you can depend on me. I've told you once, and now I'll tell you again: I swear I'll be there for you." She sits back down. She knows it's time to talk—has been since midnight—and she's so relieved that he's prepared to listen. He smiles at her.
"Remember when you told me we could talk once I straightened everything out? I think I'm ready now," she speaks quietly, the darkness of the room playing directly into the volume of both their voices.
"Okay," is Black*Star's awkward response. He scratches the back of his neck. He really doesn't know how to deal with emotional girls; he supposes he's a bit like Crona that way.
"You already know he was my brother, right?" Her voice is shaky, but she's confident that now is the time to have this conversation with him.
He nods, not really trusting himself to speak again in the quiet room. All that matters for the next hour-and-a-half is Tsubaki's voice as it weaves around the cricket's lonely song.
"He understood in the end, but there was no way to save him. It just doesn't make sense!" Her eyes are filled with half-angry, half-grieving tears. "Why, Black*Star? He could have lived a good life from then on! It just…it just isn't fair!" she is sobbing into his shoulder now, unable to stifle the tears.
With her head on his thick, unyielding shoulder, he can't help but remember his own time of coming-to-terms.
"What du'ya mean I can't go home for Summer Break, Sid?" the little boy looks up at the teacher towering over him. The man is barely old enough to have a teaching position, yet he's stuck here, tending to this over-difficult child.
"You are home. You never left; technically, Shibusen is your home," Sid tries to explain it on a four-year-old's level, but it doesn't register with the kid.
"No it's not! Home is where your mama and your papa are; that's what Maka told me!"
That little girl, while still not as hard to handle as the rebellious young assassin, was still more trouble than she was worth.
"That's what most kids call home, but there are many different kinds of homes. You're different, Black*Star: you live in a school. Not many children have that kind of opportunity!" Sid tries to put a positive spin on the situation, but it's pretty nearly impossible. He does an admirable job of it, considering the circumstances, but it still doesn't satisfy the little meister.
"That's not fair! I want to live with my mama and papa! I do, I do, I do! Why can't I? It's not fair! Not fair, not fair, not fair!"
Then, without really knowing exactly what snapped inside him, Black*Star is holding his weapon partner close, promising her a world of growth. He can't throw false promises of never hurting or constant joy, but he can promise to always be there. He can promise to help her learn from the pain, the way he's begun to.
He clutches her to his chest, vowing that she will always have a home with him, as they cry on each other's shoulders.
Black*Star knows that he can always tell his weapon partner what's on his mind. He doesn't have to convince her that he's going to surpass God some day; she already knows it. He doesn't need to keep up that tough-guy attitude in front of her, because she won't think any less of him if he doesn't.
He can talk to her when something's wrong.
Like that time when he fought Mifune for Maka:
"Tsubaki?" He's leaning in her doorway, relieved to have gotten there at last. She looks up from the bandage she's wrapping around her ankle and immediately knows that something is incredibly wrong with her meister.
She is on her feet in a moment and half-dragging, half-carrying him over to sit on her bed. She knows how many injuries he has, knows how badly it must hurt to walk; she had felt his muscles tense and spasm every time the samurai landed a blow.
As soon as she's made sure he's as comfortable as he can be, she sits beside him and waits. He'll talk when he's ready.
The blue-haired assassin fidgets, staring at his hands as his bruised elbows rest on his cut knees. Tsubaki gently places one of her hands over both of his clenched ones.
"Tell me, truthfully. Why didn't you leave me after we dealt with Masimune?" he is motionless now, not even blinking: he's just staring, staring, at those damaged hands.
"Why would I do that?" Tsubaki whispers. She knows her meister, and so she knows he would never want her to leave. The only option is that he thinks she might want to leave.
She can't deny that she thought about it, even dreamed a little about being free from the incredibly over-demanding, clingy child. But, God, she was so sorry for that! However many times she'd dreamed about leaving him, she nearly cried from nightmares of him leaving her. The knowledge that she had ever thought kindly about abandoning him haunted her for days after she first thought it.
"You thought about it; you hesitated when I asked you, right after we killed him, if you planned on staying my weapon." She is about to cut in, but his quietly unrelenting voice won't stop for anyone, even her. "Do you really think I'll ever be able to turn you into a Death Scythe? We have one soul Tsubaki: one. And it's the one you fought for." She listens in horror as he takes a deep, shaky breath.
"You don't need me."
She can't take it anymore. It's too bad that he's bruised and hurt, but there only ever seems to be one way to get through to this boy, and she refuses to let him feel so self-deprecating any longer than he already has.
So she smacks him in the back of the head.
Hard enough so that there's no doubt in her mind that he'll come back to his senses ten-times over.
"Black*Star, I would never leave you. You're…you're one of a kind. I could never find another meister like you." She means it lovingly, but he doesn't see it that way.
"Yeah, it's like everyone says. 'It's Black*Star, he's "unique"', or 'Black*Star's the "special" meister'." His head sinks to rest on her hand, on his hands. In his hands in her hand; in her hand on his hands.
"No, Black*Star!" She can't even think of what to say to that. She's so taken-aback that he would think something like that about her, that she can't think of how to respond.
But that's okay, he actually understands. He waits for her this time.
"I…I meant that I could never find another meister who would…who would brighten things up the way you do." She shakes her head. "I don't know how to explain it, not really. Something like a partnership as great as ours or soul resonance can't truly be explained in words.
"What I'm saying is that even if I found your perfect duplicate, your exact clone, I wouldn't switch meisters. And even if I found your calmer, more soul-collection-focused twin I wouldn't change meisters."
"ARGH!" he cries out. She's startled, worried that she's jarred one of his broken bones, but that's not the problem. It's not physical pain that's attacking him, it's emotional.
"Black*Star…?!"
"I…I just…I just don't know anymore! I don't know who I am anymore! Am I still Black*Star, great assassin, if everyone's telling me I can't keep my mouth shut?! Am I still Black*Star, man who will surpass God, if I can't even collect a single soul?!"
He finally looks up at her, his eyes possessed by fear and heart-tearing confusion. He sits there, breathing heavily in terror and near-desperation. She waits for him to calm down, focusing on keeping her own eyes clear of worry or unhappiness, allowing him to believe, if only for a second, that she knows that everything will turn out for the best and she's serenely at peace with the outcome.
"Tsubaki, what do you see when you look at me?" The question is curious. It holds none of the previous panic. Still, she chooses her words with care. It would be indescribably cruel of her to allow him to misunderstand the next words of her.
"I see Black*Star, man who chooses what he is and will become."
A/NSo there you have it. Watch next week for Chapter 5, the final installment of Complexity until I come out with Maka and Soul's "Fusion" installment. I swear I'll ACTUALLY get it up on time now that school's going and all. I love you guys! Don't forget to review!
~Rhythm Weaver~
