July 15, 2009
This was the kind of spot he used to smoke at. Shiro could almost see it: the smoke curling and puffing into the night air, shimmering gently under the light of a lamppost a few yards away. The itch was always there, but he ignored it whenever it cropped up. Fifteen years clean and he was too old to go back to bad habits.
Shiro sighed and rubbed his bottom lip as phantom sensations of smoke curling on his tongue returned to his memory. He didn't need this right now. Ghosts of his past definitely weren't welcome especially not now that he was meeting with a certain someone. He exhaled and slumped on the park bench, scanning his surroundings. His eyes lingered on the few people who were taking advantage of the empty park. Mrs. Kawasaki was walking her dog, Koro, on the other side of the field. A few teenagers were huddled underneath a tree, hiding from the streetlights as if the lights themselves would reveal the cigarettes they were definitely too young for. Near the water fountain closest to him, a young woman was taking a break from her evening run, splashing some water over her face.
The light chill of the evening air was nice and refreshing. After a day like yesterday… Shiro just wanted to be home. But he had bigger fish to fry.
"Why, yer early, Shiro! I'm flattered."
When Shura waltzed in, it was with a sway of her hips and a six pack of beer dangling from the tips of her fingers. She was no longer wearing the disguise she used to pose as a student. Instead, she let her tattoos be on full display, choosing to wear a skimpy bikini top, a short pair of jean shorts, and pair of boots that covered more of her skin than the rest of her outfit combined.
She dropped down on the bench with a casual smile on her lips, leaning in close to Shiro as she dropped off the pack of cans on his lap.
"Here."
Shiro pursed his lips and picked up the cans. He barely thought about it for a moment before he pulled one out from the plastic rings and shifted a bit to place the remainder of the cans between them. "You trying to get me drunk now?" he asked as he pulled the can open. It hissed satisfyingly and Shiro took a deep drink of the cheap alcohol.
"Hah! Have ya become that much of a lightweight since I last saw ya, Shiro?" Shura opened up a can of her own and took a long sip. A loud, satisfied sound emerged from her lips as she pulled the can away.
Shiro let out a huff of similar satisfaction. There was nothing like a cold beer. "No, but you've been known to underestimate me." His lips curled up in a more easygoing smile as he took a more modest sip from the can. He stretched out his leg. It was still tense every once in a while from the demon attack in Mepphy Land the previous month. The injury had been in his calf and maybe it was the electricity, but he found his muscles unusually incompetent for the past few weeks. He grimaced and chose to drink more rather than dwell on it.
"So… What questions have you got for me?"
Shura's ponytail swung behind her as she shook her head. "Skippin' right past the foreplay, huh? Sheesh, where do I even start?" She took another long sip before setting the can down between her thighs. She tapped her index against the rim once, twice, and her head tilted next as she examined Shiro silently out of the corner of her eye.
"I didn't think to watch the kid, yanno. Ya did a real good job keepin' his little secret under wraps. I didn't even flinch at his ears after reading the initial report. Sloppy of me really." She tapped her nail on the can again. She'd had enough time to wrap her head around it, but even now she wasn't sure how to start asking the right questions. She closed her eyes briefly, and Shiro's voice rang in her head, his words just as clear as they had been on that day.
"I'm creating a weapon."
"Tell me one thing, Shiro. Just how dangerous is he?"
"Hoo, Shura. A loaded question." Shiro smirked as he touched the rim of the beer can to his lips again. He gave himself time to think as he took a long drink of the bubbling alcohol, letting it dull the edges of anxiety and panic, allowing him to think just a bit more clearly. "Right now? Not very dangerous. That boy is too soft to hurt anything." He did his best to sound a touch disappointed. "But he's slowly gaining control of his power and he's got a good enough heart not to use it the wrong way. So he's not dangerous to us. That's for sure."
"To us, huh?" Shura let out a quiet hum. "And so? Am I to believe he's the key to the final boss? 'Cause that's an insane idea, Shiro."
"Well, that's the aim, isn't it?" Shiro stared at the rim of the can, giving it an almost dubious look as he spoke. He tried, as ever, to veil how he truly felt. "You can't make this shit up, Shura. Rin's got something no one else has, after all."
An execution order waiting right around the corner? Shura thought, holding back a snort.
"This is crazy," she repeated again. "That runt's fifty years too early to be of any use right now. Just how much of a long con were ya plannin' to run here?"
"A long one," Shiro admitted before gulping down more beer. He drained the can in a few large gulps and let the influx of alcohol properly warm him as he pushed in at the empty can with his fingers. He made a decent dent which allowed him to bend the can in half. "A really long one. As long as we could have held it out. But that's it. We gotta work with what we got now." He looked at Shura, properly inspecting her expression. "Counter question. What does the Vatican know about Rin?"
Shura took a long gulp of her beer before answering. "Not a damn thing, ya lucky bastard. They're really more concerned about you."
And wasn't that something. Considering the circumstances, Shura really did think Shiro must have an angel—or rather, a meddlesome demon—watching over his shoulder.
"I don't think anyone ever thought to connect the dots. Hell, I never connected the dots. You, pickin' up a pair of orphans? Nothing strange there, ya never really brought it up until years after the Blue Night." She shook her head. "If it wasn't for the little hiccup they had me huntin' down, I think ya would have been in the clear."
Shiro let out a soft sigh of relief. He was more than happy to block out the eye of the Vatican and keep Rin safely in his shadow. He grabbed an extra beer as Shura spoke and something she said made him pause.
"Hey, what do you mean there's nothing weird about me adopting kids?" Shiro sneered as he cracked open the new can. "I used to be absolutely terrible. That's definitely something that's weird!"
Shura's nose wrinkled dismissively, as it always did when Shiro said anything remotely self-deprecating. "Yes, yes, isn't that why ya kept them hidden for the first eight years of their lives?"
And hadn't that been a shock. When Shura first met Yukio, she had bristled at the little usurper who had taken her place. She'd taunted him, showed off how much better she was at any given opportunity, and still, it was that little four-eyed scaredy-cat who ended up heading home with the man of her dreams.
She'd hated him for a long time, even more so when she started seeing parts of herself reflected off that bratty, determined gaze. Yukio's thirst to prove himself matched her own. She never understood it until she learned he had a brother.
"Counter question. Why'd ya ask me to take care of that kid?" Just what were you up to, what were you planning for, thinking you were going to die?
The initially insulted sneer on Shiro's face softened at the question. He looked at Shura with a gentle gaze, one that was only recently learned in the last decade and a half. Shiro sighed heavily, taking a gulp from his beer.
"Because I knew I could trust you." The older man fiddled with the metal tab until it snapped off from the can. He stuck the rounded end between his teeth, chewing on it with an oral fixation that never quite left his system. "I knew that if anything happened to me, you'd be smart enough and good enough to keep an eye on him, to teach him how to use a sword, and anything else he needed." Shiro looked at Shura. "Am I wrong?"
A rush of affection swelled in Shura's chest, warming every inch of her body. Shiro's eyes were piercing; he always looked right through her, in a way no else ever managed, and she had never felt more exposed.
"Ya know that's not what I meant," she said softly, swallowing back her long-held longing. She looked away, finishing her can and picking up another just as quickly. "If ya really trust me, if ya want me to be a part of all this, I'm gonna need a lotta more info than that." She asked directly this time. "What's yer plan for the kid, and where do ya fit into all of this?"
Shiro chewed roughly on the metal for a long few seconds. "I'm gonna be honest with you, kiddo. I'm not completely sure." The answer was unlike him. Shiro always had a plan and, if he didn't, he pretended he did until a plan showed itself. This, however, was almost uncharacteristically honest. Perhaps the beer really was lowering his guard. "Right now, I'm just focused on Rin himself. I want to get Rin confident in his powers." He sighed. "I'm not stupid. I know we've got time but I'm not delusional enough to say that we'll be able to hide Rin from the Vatican indefinitely. Something's gonna give somewhere. Right now, my plan is to get Rin to the point where, when the Vatican does find out, I can argue that he's not a threat to them."
Shiro pulled the thin metal out of his mouth and stared at the deformed and bent shape caused by his stressed chewing. "At least, that's what my plan is. Once we get there… I don't know. I'll figure it out."
Shura let out a small snort. "What a mess you've gotten yerself into." She took another sip of her beer and wondered just how exactly this was going to blow up in their faces. "Ya should've started him off way earlier. That kid ain't easy." She smirked slightly, thinking about everything she had observed about Rin. He was all guts, no thinking. They were doomed.
"And so? What's Mephisto's angle?"
"Who fucking knows." Shiro gave a grousing grumble with that comment. His brow twitched before he decided to drown his irritation in an extra couple gulps of beer. "He's always been damn cryptic, never giving a straight answer. As soon as I feel like I understand his motivations, he finds some way to fuck me over." He narrowed his eyes at the ground. "But he wants Rin alive and he won't hurt the other kids. The school is important to him, that I know. So the kids are safe and that's as best as I can hope for from the asshole."
"Counter question." He paused to take another sip from the can before popping the metal tab back into his mouth to chew between his molars. "Now that you know, would you be willing to follow through on what I asked before?" He looked at Shura. "I want you to train Rin how to use a sword properly. You can take him on as an apprentice and I'll tell you what kind of training we've been doing. Then build up on that."
Shura shook her head almost immediately. "Me? Take on that snot-nosed brat?" The idea was laughable, even more so now that she was taking the request seriously. She had never before taken on an apprentice. She didn't even know where she would start.
"I've got way too much on my plate right now. Didn't ya hear? I've been recruited to take over Neuhaus's old post."
Shiro choked and promptly spit out the piece of metal in his mouth. "What?!" He looked at Shura as if waiting for her to call a joke. When she didn't, his eyebrows raised expectantly. "You?!"
Shura scowled at him. "What the hell's with that reaction? Weren't ya just asking me to teach yer brat?!"
"Yeah! I mean, I trust you with Rin, sure. That's not changing… But a whole class?!" Shiro leaned back to sip at his beer and looked at Shura skeptically. "Are you sure you got the patience for a group of teens? You barely had enough patience with Yukio when you two were working together."
"Tch." Shura waved away his concern as she slumped back in her seat. "That's what yer worried about? That part will be cake! It's the paperwork that I'm dreadin'," she complained, already dreading the homework and tests she would have to grade. "Trust me, this was far from my idea. But that damn clown really twisted my arm, and I needed a good excuse to hang around here, yanno, now that I ain't undercover."
"Oh please. You've been an exorcist for how long? You're going to be fine at paperwork." Shiro shook his head and chugged the last of his beer as Shura mentioned Mephisto.
Mephisto. No matter where Shiro looked, that clown seemed to have a finger in every pie, an opinion in every ear. Shiro huffed out an exhale as he crushed his second can and placed it next to him on the bench beside his first. "What did he say to convince you?"
"Tch. Standard bullshit. I'm sure ya can imagine."
It was what he didn't say that worried me, Shura thought darkly, thinking back on her meeting with the Chairman. The Demon King had looked all too pleased by her sudden appearance, not perturbed in the slightest by the accusations she threw at him, nor the demands she made of him. She hated to play to his tune, but what other choice did she have if she wanted to uncover whatever it was that he was planning?
"I ain't Shiro, yanno. Don't think I'll fall into yer plays just as easily."
"My, those are such harsh words to throw at your mentor. I think a softer touch might entice him more, don't you?"
Her jaw clenched just thinking back on their encounter. What a loathsome pest, he was.
"Counter question." Shura licked her lips, the movement slow, careful. Here was a grand question she hoped to uncover, though it was a personal curiosity more than anything else at this point. "What happened to Yuri Egin?"
Shiro's eyes widened and his breath halted. It was a name he hadn't heard in a long time. It was a name that sometimes he wished he could forget, and yet he had done his best to never do so. There were still times, at his weakest, when he saw her in the boys, and he needed to step away and collect himself before he fell apart once more. Now, he sat on a bench far away from people who didn't know her and he was two beers deep.
"She…" Shiro's voice croaked a bit and he shook his head. "You've read the reports, I'm sure." He grabbed a third beer.
"The reports are shit," Shura said bluntly. She fiddled with the tab of her empty can, examining Shiro from the corner of her eye. "What really happened that day?"
Shiro sighed heavily. He opened the beer and slowly began chugging it down. What really happened that day? So much. God, so much. He could never forget the day the twins were born, the day he turned his gun on his colleagues, the day he tried to spirit Yuri away and instead had her die in his arms, her last breath exhaling over his lips. His heart ached over the memory in a way no alcohol would ever numb.
Shiro threw the empty can on the ground and stomped on it this time before picking it up and placing it next to his other two. He couldn't forget and he couldn't tell anyone what actually happened. He never could. Not when he had so much to lose.
"I can't tell you that, Shura. It falls under..." He shook his head. "Just don't ask me. I can't answer."
Shura's sharp teeth dug into her bottom lip. It was an answer she had been expecting, but one that left her dissatisfied nonetheless. She couldn't resist digging further, despite knowing Shiro's answers would be restricted by the Morinas contract she had discovered he was under.
"Is she alive?" It felt almost cruel to ask, and she regretted it when she saw the flash of pain that crossed his face.
"No." Shiro's eyes closed as he leaned forward, his elbows braced on his knees. "She's not." Even saying those words was difficult enough. Shiro's expression screwed up in concentration as he tried to banish the images from his mind. The feeling on the back of his neck from the weight of the cloth holding two infants seemed all too real.
He took a deep breath and let out a heavy sigh as he looked aimlessly forward. Another thought burned at his mind. "Counter question. How many years are left?"
At that, Shura let out a humorless bark of a laugh.
"Does it matter?"
She grabbed the last can before Shiro could snatch it for himself and gulped it down in a single, long gulp, enjoying the way the fizzy liquid warmed her body and the fast buzz the came along with it. She let out a loud aaah of satisfaction as she slammed the empty can back on the bench.
"I'm livin' to the fullest extent, just like ya said. That's all that matters 'til Hachiro comes callin'." She looked almost proud about it, and she bumped her shoulder against Shiro's, giving him a sly smirk, the leer curling at the corners of her lips. "Only got one last thing left on my bucket list."
Shiro rolled his eyes but an amused, fond smirk stretched his lips. It was like in the mall. There was a warmth in the familiarity, a nostalgia that gripped him with their old prattle and comments coming to the surface again. He would never deny that Shura made him feel young, but despite the amazing woman she'd grown into, he'd never forget the little girl he first met. It never sat right with him and it never would.
Still, innocent comments like these were fine enough. In moderation.
"Sorry to disappoint." He looked at her warmly, though there was a hint of heartbreak in his eyes. "I wish there was more I could do for you, Shura. Honest." The comment was a little stilted, as if there was more that Shiro was saying under the surface of the words. He was offering Shura more. His assistance, his skills, anything to free her from the generations of curses to her lifespan.
All she needed to do was ask.
But Shura only shook her head. "Aaah, ya sure have been a hard conquest." For once, there was no bitter undertone in her words. She did lean her head on his shoulder, this time, as she pressed closer. "That's just another damn thing about ya I like, I guess," she said with a sigh that could almost be mistaken for a laugh.
Before he could say anything in response to her confession, before she herself could stop herself from doing otherwise, she continued on, told him the words that she had long-held close to her chest.
"Thank you, Shiro," she murmured. "I really am grateful for everythin' ye've done for me."
Shiro's smile grew, though it trembled with a powerful emotion. His arm shifted and moved around her shoulders, pulling Shura in close. They sat there for what felt like hours. Shiro let his mind mull over Shura's words, taking them in, absorbing them. Maybe it was the beer, but they touched him in ways no one's gratitude ever had before.
From the time when Shura was just an insistent brat, following his every step, to the years she spent growing, becoming stronger, more powerful, more independent, Shiro felt what he always knew more intensely than ever before. He was proud of Shura. This tumultuous emotion that welled up in his chest was a fierce pride that nothing could ever replicate. There was nothing and no one in this world like her and Shiro had been there to not only watch her grow, but help her. Maybe he hadn't been the best at the start, but to hear her say those words, to offer that gratitude to him despite everything...
How many years did she have left? How old was she? How much longer did they have?
Shiro's glasses fogged up a bit and his hand gripped her shoulder tightly. He took a deep breath before he spoke in a low voice. He schooled his tone, keeping it even as he turned his head away to press his fingers against the bridge of his nose.
"Me too, kiddo. Me too."
We'll be back next week with more Forever Yours! Hope you enjoy!