What I Wouldn't Sacrifice
A Shadow of the Colossus Fanfiction
Irritating was only one - very generous, in his opinion - word to describe the task of climbing out of the lake.
Upon reaching the spiral tower again, Daijoudan walked up until he was level with the crumbling bridge that led back to dry land, holding Faulklin's arms around his neck as he carried the unconscious kid on his back. He felt and heard Faulklin choke a cough against him as the man landed, bringing with it a few beads of crimson that dribbled from the corner of his lips, but there wasn't much to be done for it now until they could get back out of this place.
He considered the use of his white blade, but a little voice whispered in his head against that, and he knew better than to ignore it, especially now when there was calm and peace, no immediate rush to get out of the way of danger. Besides, this was a course the boy had chosen for himself. That included all of the consequences which came with the task.
He heard the clack of claws above him and an irritating croak, glancing up to see that tame crow of Faulklin's peering down at him from a higher ledge on the spiral, the bird having disappeared at some point during their trip there.
It had a tendency to do that, follow the boy for a while and then disappear to Gods only knew where, probably scavenging for food.
It puffed its feathers at him and cawed angrily, but he ignored it, up until the corvid took a dive at his head as he was climbing up the moss clinging to the bridge. He only growled, swatted at it, and continued higher. Both horses waited just at the edge of the bridge anxiously for the return of their masters and Daijoudan had to motion them back.
Rebel sidled towards him and nosed Faulklin lightly with a worried nicker, but he didn't deposit Faulklin onto the stallion's saddle this time, settling him on Ayametsuki before he climbed up himself. He didn't want the stupid, undersized savage to end up falling from his horse and add "head trauma" to his increasingly growing list of injuries.
Rebel snorted at him in protest, but he only rolled his eyes and guided Ayametsuki back to land, trusting that the dark brown Friesian-Shire cross would follow of its own accord. Neither it nor the bird ever wandered too far from the boy, as far as he had seen. Faulklin was terrible with people. Anyone who had spent even ten minutes around him would know that. Animals seemed to like him though, and he was likewise drawn to them, so it was no surprise. Even less surprising was that the horse he chose to ride was equally as volatile and disliked most people. The crow wasn't so much a pet as a rescue that had become acclimated and bonded to him, but with everyone else, it was still wild. They made somewhat of an odd yet perfect trio.
They made it off the bridge and onto dry, cracked soil that had likely once been moist long ago, but time had evaporated all that might have been there. Coming back to the wide stairs just before it and passing a few thick, stone columns, Daijoudan squinted into the distance. Not terribly far was a small, stone shrine. Even further, he could make out the Great Bridge into these lands, its legs towering high and proud a good hundred or more feet straight up. He didn't want to bother with winding his way through the canyon again, so he decided they would just cross the desert toward the bridge, then make their way to the Shrine from there, nudging Ayametsuki into a walk.
In the distance, he could make out pillars of light, almost seeming to cluster from their current position, except for one that was further off to the side. Then he glanced back and up, noting as he did so that there was one behind them now, a beacon to the resting place of the 7th, growing brighter the further they moved away from it, whereas before he hadn't seen it at all. Once again, he couldn't help but think of how strange and supernatural everything here was.
He swiveled back around in his saddle and glanced down at Faulklin, who was lying limp as a ragdoll against him, his expression pained even in unconsciousness. If not for the rise and fall of his sides, albeit shallow and labored, Daijoudan might have thought him already dead. At this point it was an uncertainty whether or not he would end up that way before they could even make it back. He might be lucky just to wake up at all, with how much blood the boy had spit up, and that was probably only a fraction of how much he was really bleeding on the inside.
Daijoudan sighed, deeply and audibly. He hadn't signed up for this just to watch some half-wit punk destroy himself so selfishly for something that probably wasn't even possible. Even if his intent was to do this for someone else's sake, it was selfish. The dead were meant to be left in peace, and did the kid really think that what Mamoru would have wanted was to lose two people thanks to his clan's morbid traditions? It was a suicide mission, plain and simple. He knew that, and he knew that Faulklin had known when he'd agreed to it as well. Talking him out of anything once he set his mind on a goal was damn near impossible. It had taken Mamoru a full year of seeing and experiencing the boy at his very worst for the deviant to even begin to trust or extend much of any amount of cooperation. Mamoru was really still the only one who could garner it out of the boy, too, and it still took an endless amount of patience on the man's part.
Outside of his two animals and Mamoru, Faulklin really didn't trust anyone. Mamoru had told Komeko, and in turn, Komeko had told him, that it wasn't simply a voluntary choice. That Faulklin was incapable of putting his faith in people, for one reason or another. No one but the boy himself and Mamoru knew the full extent of why, but it wasn't entirely impossible to guess. The loss of one of his eyes and scar on his face alone gave hint, as did the way the kid neglected to take care of even his own basic needs like eating and how he skittishly avoided most human contact like a domesticated cat that had gone feral.
And no one jumped headlong into danger so readily, perpetually taunting the embrace of death like it was a petty game of Chicken, who hadn't been through enough Hell that such a fate probably seemed more of a relief than a tragedy.
More than once, the extent of Faulklin's self-destructive tendencies had managed to churn his stomach, and he was not an easy man to make ill. He couldn't even begin to fathom the daily stress Mamoru must have had to endure for the last three years, always needing to be vigilant for when Faulklin might relapse and afraid that one of those times he might be just slightly too late. It wasn't so much that the boy went out of his way to find a way to kill himself - not anymore, at least - but when the opportunity presented itself, he wasn't one to resist it and fight explicitly for survival either.
That was what worried Daijoudan about this quest most.
It wasn't that Faulklin didn't know the possible consequences of his actions, whether it meant he died in the attempt, or what might happen to him in the afterlife, once Dormin got what he wanted out of the boy. It was that he flat out didn't care.
Someone who was simply ignorant could be reasoned with. Someone who knew the full implications and spat in the face of that danger was whole other world apart.
At this point, it might not matter. There was no telling just how quickly Emon and his men would be on their trail. He glanced skyward as they passed the cracked land that had probably been a marshland at one point and into orange sand, the shadow of the mountains falling over them, rather than the heat of the sky. How long had they been here? It was impossible to tell. The sun had yet to move - he assumed it to be the sun, anyway - despite that they had traveled a great distance between the Colossi territories, and the time it had taken to fight the Colossus themselves.
It had to have been days, at least. Yet the light in the sky never died. Was it even the sun? He didn't imagine this Dormin being had the power to hold it stationary. Even the three primary Gods of his family line, the In-you-ko dragons, didn't possess the power to hold the sun from moving. Perhaps it was something else, but he couldn't place what.
However long had passed, it hardly mattered. With Faulklin's injuries, if the brunette survived, he would take a long time to heal. Weeks, certainly. They didn't have that kind of time to doddle. Emon would reach them long before then and put a stop to this, and Daijoudan didn't intend on finishing the task for the stubborn boy. He knew better than to strike such a deal when he didn't fully know what this Dormin thing was capable of or what it wanted.
Their path sloped downward, the sand making up small valleys and rising dunes. The bridge was lost to sight, but he knew they were still heading the right way, so he didn't bother himself with rushing to get the great bridge back into view.
Faulklin groaned softly against him and coughed, red once again faintly staining his lips, and the boy's single eye fluttered halfway open, blinking dazedly. He looked ahead with puzzlement etching his features before looking up at Daijoudan, who only frowned at him passively.
"...the Hell...?" he rasped, another weak cough interrupting his words, the boy hissing and scrunching his eyes in pain, sinking back against Daijoudan involuntarily. Daijoudan already knew what the boy wanted to ask before he voiced it.
"You're too injured to ride on your own." A fact that the man was equally if not more so peeved about. He took no pleasure at all with having to share his seat with the kid, and already predicted accurately that Faulklin would give him no gratitude for the act of consideration at all.
"Let me down."
"Not a chance."
Faulklin tried to sit up further and wheezed in anguish, not making it very far.
"See?" Daijoudan at least had the sense not to sound smug about it, letting his tone fall flat and matter-of-fact instead.
"Are we going... back to the Shrine?"
"No." Daijoudan caught the look that Faulklin gave him, but looked forward instead as they crested the top of a dune, the Great Bridge coming into sight again. "Not yet. We're going to find somewhere to take a rest first, whether you want to or not."
"I can't stop," Faulklin gasped.
"And you can't keep going, either. You can't even sit up properly, but you think you can take on another one of those Colossus?" Faulklin didn't answer, and he took it as the closest thing he was going to get to an admission of defeat. They trudged onward slowly, Daijoudan being mindful not to push Ayametsuki into anything faster since it might jar Faulklin's wounds further.
Over another dune where the sun finally reached them, he could see a tree not far off, deciding they would rest there. Beyond that, he could see a gaping hole like a canyon beneath the legs of the bridge, and far beyond that, the silhouette of several pillars in a row, too perfect to be natural. It was probably another Colossus lair, but he didn't think Faulklin noticed it right now - thank the Gods for that.
He was even happier to find that there was a pond next to the tree, only a small one, but a pond none the less, and patches of grass that the horses could feed off of. This would be a good place to stop for rest. Both they and their horses could drink and eat. They could lay in the sun and warm themselves as they rested, and if the heat proved too much, they could shelter in the shade of the tree. If the sun stayed as still as it had the past many hours or days that should have come and gone as well, they wouldn't need to worry about moving with the angle of the shadows.
He slid down from the saddle and pulled Faulklin down, the brunette surprisingly docile, but he could only guess that it was because Faulklin was too wounded to have the energy to extend towards being combative. He set the boy down against the trunk of the tree where he could sit up and then went to Ayametsuki's saddlebags, retrieving the leftover fruit from near the bird's territory, dropping some of it for the horses and the rest for himself and Faulklin. As luck would have it, the trees here bore fruit as well, though not nearly as much as the last one had.
They both ate in silence and Daijoudan consider himself incredibly lucky that Faulklin fell asleep, too battered and exhausted to stay conscious for any great length of time while his body tried to cope and heal from the seven taxing battles. They were almost at the halfway point now, but the end of this journey, if they would ever see it at all, still felt such a long way off.
Seven down, nine more to go.
Whether they really did finish this or not, he would admit that what Faulklin had done so far was more than impressive. Were he to admit with all honesty, he was somewhat shocked the kid hadn't ended up dead already by the third or fourth fight. Equally as impressive was that the boy hadn't lost his nerve and turned tail during any of them, but then again, Faulklin was a tenacious idiot-and-a-half.
He was starting to wonder if the only reason he'd even followed Faulklin was because of morbid curiosity, even though he fully knew his reasons better than that, even if Faulklin hadn't the slightest clue why he was here helping and actually looking out for the little bastard's well-being, even if it was only sparingly so.
As if somehow reading his mind, Faulklin stirred and blinked at him sluggishly, still looking worn-down and defeated, but the silverette knew it was only going to be a fleeting state of being.
"Why are you even here?"
Daijoudan stared sidelong at him for a moment before turning his gaze heavenward, reclining back comfortably. It was nice to finally have a breather after they had taken down nearly half of the great beasts without much pause between.
"Why do you think?"
Faulklin snorted condescension. "As if anyone could get into a mind that doesn't exist."
Again with the intellect insults. And not very good ones this time either. Faulklin was definitely not in any condition to go into another fight any time soon. "Excuse me for mistaking you for someone with any smarts. I forgot you have about as much brains as this desert probably sees rain."
"I'd kick you in the teeth for that but I'd hate to improve your looks," Faulklin rebuked. His comebacks were still weak, but Daijoudan felt no need to curtail his own insults to make it fair.
"First you'd have to be able to reach my teeth, short-stack."
"You really have to stoop to using short jokes again?"
"Why not? I couldn't possibly stoop any lower than your height, and if your list of insults is equally as small, anything you try against me in a battle of wit won't be much of a battle at all."
Faulklin narrowed his eye. "Being short is natural. Being stupid is not." He paused for a moment, before adding, "Except in your case. And there is no battle of wits because I never pick on an unarmed man. Now answer my damn question."
Daijoudan only snorted and smirked, making Faulklin want to wipe that smug look right off his face. Turns out he didn't have to as it disappeared on its own, Daijoudan sobering from the satisfaction of their never ending war of insults.
"During the treaty negotiations, one of the terms was to be rid of human sacrifices entirely, but they took it as a violation of their religious rights." He paused and sighed, looking like he was deflating where he lay, his monochromatic silver eyes carefully guarded in a way that Faulklin recognized as shielding his emotions from view, schooling his expression so that it was unreadable. "I refused to let the matter rest, and they refused to sign the treaty under those conditions, so I'm guessing that in sacrificing her, they were trying to spite me."
"Their sacrifices are because they believe it will bring them some sort of blessing," Faulklin corrected. Daijoudan angled a brow at him.
"You don't really believe that."
Faulklin huffed admission. "No, I don't." In a lot of ways, he was ignorant, but he knew human nature too well to buy into such garbage. Daijoudan was no stranger to the real purpose behind it either. "They do it for control."
Daijoudan nodded both approval and agreement, turning his gaze towards the clouds again and resting his arms behind his head. "It's a manipulation. The only reason she died was so that Emon could thumb his nose at me and the Sanryuu Empire. Saying that its to please the Gods is a head-fake used out of desperation." He sighed again, this time through his nose. "The problem is that he's both a religious and political leader to his people, and they buy into it."
Faulklin hummed, before speaking again softly. "That still doesn't answer my question."
Daijoudan didn't even look at him, focused on the clouds above as if they were the most interesting thing in the world.
"I'm outmaneuvering his ploy," he answered finally. Faulklin raised his brows.
"Come again?"
"His actions were entirely political. I told him that the terms of the treaty were to end human sacrifices, so the first thing he does is commit one as an act of refusal," he explained simply. "If we bring her back from the dead, it undoes his intended effect entirely."
Faulklin's brows rose higher. "So this is just some fucking bureaucratic game to you?" Omission was the man's answer, and Faulklin couldn't help but scoff a disbelieving laugh. "Are you fucking serious? You came all this way over one dead girl to play politics? And I'm just some damn pawn in your game?"
"It was your idea to bring her back."
Faulklin shook his head in amazement. "And you have the nerve to criticize me. Of all the fucking-..." He rested his head back against the tree, staring up through the branches. He snorted and shook his head again. "Everyone has the right to be stupid, but you're really abusing the privilege."
"Look whose talking," Daijoudan shot back.
"That's exactly the problem. If I have to be the one to tell you what an idiotic idea it is, then you have to know its fucking stupid as all Hell."
Was that actually an admission wrapped in amongst his insult?
"And it'll be a cold day in it before I ever take the advice of someone who keeps digging down after he's hit rock bottom."
Faulklin laughed sardonically. "Well the one perk to digging down that deep is I never have to worry about you being beneath my contempt."
"At your stature, nothing could be beneath you anyway."
Faulklin turned a glare on him. "You shouldn't tempt vultures. They have a nasty habit of ripping things apart."
Daijoudan couldn't help but cock a brow. "You?" The fact that Faulklin would call himself as much was no surprise at all. The boy at least didn't have the arrogance to consider himself anything superior to others, he simply hated all of humankind and lumped each and every one together as the same level of scum. He didn't even spare himself from such groupings. "You're not a vulture. You're something a vulture would eat, then shit back out."
"And you're something they wouldn't even try to digest," Faulklin spat, pushing himself to his feet, breathing a little harder as he stood, but he stayed at least somewhat steady. "Because they'd have to throw you back up."
"Just where the Hell do you think you're going?" Daijoudan demanded, sitting up and narrowing his eyes. "Sit your ass back down."
"No," Faulklin returned, walking to Rebel and climbing onto his saddle where Khu was perched in wait, the crow crackling at him and shuffling on his perch, then deciding Faulklin's shoulder was the better one and climbing up his arm with the aid of its beak. "I need to get to the next Colossus."
"In your condition?"
Faulklin rolled his eye. "Do I look dead to you?"
Actually, now that he really looked, Faulklin did look better. His skin had become less pale, his movements less weak, and he was breathing easier, no longer coughing blood with every slightly-too-hard breath.
But the fact of the matter was that he shouldn't.
He shouldn't look as recovered as he did, and that once more fueled his suspicions that something was wrong.
"Even if you think you feel fine, you should rest," Daijoudan told him sternly, standing.
"I already took rest." He glanced up the legs of the bridge, as if expecting Emon and his elites to come riding in that very moment. "And we're running out of time."
"It won't matter if you die in the attempt before you can finish what you started," Daijoudan pointed out, not for the first time. "You may think you can just keep charging ahead and pressing your luck, but reality doesn't work that way. It will catch up to you no matter how much you try to convince yourself that it won't."
"And I already told you it doesn't matter," Faulklin snarled, his blue eye slitting. "I already know my chances of success without you trying to educate me about it all the damn time." He turned Rebel away, about to kick the horse into running.
"Do you want to leave Mamoru entirely alone?" Daijoudan's words made him freeze before he could follow through. "Because if you fail and die, he'll have lost both of the only people he calls family. Is that really your intent?"
He saw Faulklin's shoulders slowly slump, his head bowing slightly. "Don't talk as if you know a damn thing about what I'm doing."
"Don't insult me by acting like I'm too dim to realize," Daijoudan snapped in return. "I know that you're doing this for his sake, not yours or hers. Even Komeko knew that when it came down to it, the only person you really gave a damn about was him." Faulklin still didn't move, not to look back at him or respond, but not to run on ahead either.
With this, he might as well have the boy chained, and he wasn't going to relent until he'd managed to talk some proper sense into the reckless little shit.
"If you die before you finish with all sixteen Colossi, Komeko won't come back to life, and it'll be as if you've done absolutely nothing. Even worse than nothing, you'll force him to go through a second loss he didn't have to go through, because you never stop to fucking think about what that'll mean for once in your pathetic life. You really expect me to believe you'd willingly hurt him like that? Even you aren't that selfish."
Faulklin was silent for several long beats, before finally letting out a shuddering breath. "And what exactly do you expect that I'm supposed to do, then? Just forget about all of this and go back, with nothing to show for it?"
"No," Daijoudan snapped impatiently, taking in a deep breath and letting it out, trying to steady his nerves. Even when he wasn't trying, Faulklin knew just how to make him bristle in the worst of ways. "I didn't say give up. I said take some time out of the day to take care of yourself properly. Your chances are slim but they aren't non-existent."
At least Faulklin was actually - truly - listening to him for once, his head angled back faintly to hear his words more clearly.
"But they become even less when you don't give your body the proper attention that it needs. That means resting... tending to wounds... eating and drinking. All of it between these fights. Emon might reach this place long before any person, no matter how competent or tireless, could ever realistically take down all of the Colossi, but you certainly as Hell aren't doing yourself any favors by ignoring your own basic human needs. Give yourself a break, for fuck's sake, or the only thing you'll be accomplishing is a pointless, premature death!"
Faulklin only continued to stare down at Rebel's neck and towards the ground, his shoulders sagging and head bowed, looking every bit the part of the scolded child. He was silent and unmoving, before he finally blew out a long-suffering sigh, what tension remained in his muscles leaving it and the adolescent tracing a hand to his side, massaging it idly. Even if he was recovering far too quickly than was natural or healthy, the eldest between the two didn't doubt he still had to be in a lot of pain from the injuries plaguing his body.
"Alright..." the shorter male finally relented, his voice laced in reluctance, but also a hint of agreement. There wasn't even a hint of bite or sarcasm, so much so that Daijoudan almost thought the sky itself would start falling. "Alright. You're right. So, what now? I already slept, drank, ate..." he glanced back at Daijoudan and once again he was surprised by the boy's willingness to even attempt accepting, much less seeking out, his council.
"We return to the Shrine," he ordered crisply, climbing onto Ayametsuki's back and nudging her forward until their horses stood side-to-side. "-and go after the next Colossus."
"But I thought you said-"
"I said take care of yourself between fights," Daijoudan cut him off impatiently. "We've done that. On the way, we'll stop when we find food and water. And after the next battle, we'll rest and eat again and keep our strength up."
Faulklin nodded mutely and Daijoudan nudged his horse ahead, Rebel and Faulklin soon following just behind them in shocking obedience.
