The Council's Cell

"I'm sorry," Mitsui said.

Rukawa did not respond.

"You… should have someone better here with you."

After a long minute, Rukawa lifted his head. The chains on his bruised wrists clinked quietly. No one had bothered to clean him. A sour scent radiated from him, like blood and sex. Nothing about him was right. Not the haunted look in his eyes, the sallow hollows of his cheeks, nor the state of his wrecked wings where sections had been torn out in untidy clumps. There were marks and bruises down his neck and arms. Like teeth. Like bites. Hot mouths sucking hard against his pale flesh. His lip was split wide. One eye was blackened. Blood ran from the chaffing of the binds on his wrists, dripping from his fingertips.

A victim, treated like a criminal.

He looked broken and angry. The same way Mitsui felt.

They sat in a cell alone together. Two near-strangers linked by shared condemnation. Dark, and every surface cold and hard. Within hours they would be led out and sacrificed to fate.

"No," Rukawa eventually replied. "I'm glad that it's you."

Mitsui tilted his head uncertainly. "But I don't even know what to say."

Rukawa shook his head. "I don't needs words," he hissed, and his lip curled slightly to reveal a glimpse of his teeth. A snarl wound over his face though he seemed unaware of it. Animalistic.

Physically he still bore resemblance to the creature he'd always been. The marks would fade. He would heal - outwardly. He would still be beautiful. He would still appear perfect and pure and whole. But something inside him had changed. It dripped like venom from his voice as he added, "I want to kill them all."

Mitsui pressed his lips together. For a moment he wasn't even sure if Rukawa was referring to the demons, or to the Council. He shook his head. "Is that really what you want?" he queried. "Revenge?"

He looked down at his own hands, remembering how it had felt. Separating flesh from flesh. Extinguishing two hundred lives in a fit of rage. Making the hot black blood flow. Screaming his way into deadly sin of the sort their kind was never meant to know. It had been euphoric... yet temporary. Looking back on what he'd done, he felt only empty and sick. "It doesn't really help much," he admitted, "killing them."

"That's what I want," Rukawa said.

"If we don't ally with the fallen," Mitsui tried to reason, "we'll be alone. We won't last long. They'll hunt us down. We don't have a place to hide, or weapons, or… anything."

He peered into Rukawa's face, trying to judge his thoughts, but it was impossible. Once again he was struck with the misery of knowing that the boy needed something. Something more than just... him. Just Mitsui Hisashi, a self-styled brat whose primary talents were causing trouble, and riling up his elders. Rough and rude and reckless. He didn't known how to comfort him. He felt worthless. Like a stupid kid facing a reality he couldn't deal with.

All he knew was how to swing a sword, and now he didn't even have one of those.

Kiminobu would have known what to say. Kiminobu would have been able to give comfort to this boy. But the thought of Kiminobu only caused the ache to open up inside him once again. They had been separated as soon as they'd returned and they had not been permitted to see one another since. And so Kiminobu was not there with them. Mitsui's other half. His mate. His everything.

Mitsui sat in that cell and struggled to come to terms with the fact that he would never see him again.

It was overwhelming. Like he'd been unmoored. Nothing hurt quite like that. Facing the unknown. Facing a world without Kiminobu in it. Never even having the chance to say goodbye.

It was a struggle not to cry.

Behind him, his great wings had been lashed down with thick leather straps that butted awkwardly against the stone wall with every movement. Weighing him down. Crushing him. He felt angry and exhausted and sad.

"And you," Rukawa said then.

Mitsui was busy blinking rapidly at the inconvenient wetness in his eyes that the thought of Kogure had raised, and didn't respond.

"I'm... sorry too," Rukawa continued awkwardly. "It's because of me that you-".

But Mitsui shook his head vehemently. "I hate this whole fucking thing," he declared. "I regret so much. But listen to me: I won't ever regret going back to find you. And that's the truth." He rubbed his hands tiredly over his face, erasing the evidence of any tears, tugging half-heartedly at the chain that was strung between his wrists and the floor.

Rukawa fell silent.