Even Out of Battle Mode
Chapter 4
by Laly Konstantin
Disclaimer in chapter 1
the established reincarnations:
Ron - Suboshi
Sean - Amiboshi
Rose - Soi
Seit - claims Nakago, but others disagree
Natalie - claims none, but others disagree
---------------------------------------------
Voices drifted through the wall, speaking a language Jacob could almost understand at full volume. Muffled as they were, he couldn't figure out their words, which he supposed was just as well. Hearing his guests puzzle over their situation would only add to the guilt that was starting to weigh him down. And as he thought of the twisted history that had brought him to this point, he couldn't let anything - guilt, impatience, anything - prevent his repentance.
He'd accidentally met Duke Prio on an East Coast road trip two years before, and Duke - Chiriko - had been flustered by his declaration that they'd met, a long time ago. It actually took Jacob a while to realise that the 'long time' had been centuries at least; but by then, he had intrigued the young scholar far enough that he had to confess why, exactly, he'd recognised the kid.
Just as well that he hadn't tried holding out, and left the kid to think he was a child molester or something. Jacob grunted, and turned a pillow over. Cooler fabric leached a bit more of his headache out, and he drifted back into contemplation. Prio had been helpful enough when Jacob said he'd like to apologize to Suzaku no Miko, but apology wasn't really what he'd had on his mind.
A guy can't help being curious, if it's in his nature. And Jacob figured, he just had to go with whatever he could get. In calling Miaka, he'd had some pleasant conversations with Keisuke; because of that, Miaka had agreed not to mention who Jacob was. With Keisuke came an excuse to visit Tokyo; with the trip, came meeting his friends, including Yui.
With meeting Yui... Jacob gripped the pillowcase in fists. When he met Yui, he knew his mind wasn't settled. He couldn't quite forgive himself, and he knew she had something to do with the reason.
What, he idly wondered, would happen if she figured him out? Jacob closed his eyes for the twenty-eighth time. He had time, no matter what, judging by how much trouble they had figuring themselves out.
He concentrated on the names that fell out of the indistinguishable dialogue in the next room. It had to be almost midnight, by now. They'd better get some rest soon.
-----------------------------------------
earlier
-----------------------------------------
Arriving at Ron's house, both he and Sean stopped. The girls approached from halfway down the block, and they heard Rose describe a bit of her past life to a horrified Natalie. A few incredulous comments, and it was back to Rose, but in a moment the other girl waved her silent, looking ahead.
'Are you two both stopping here?' she asked.
'If you don't mind,' Sean responded, only looking at her for a moment before he gazed at Rose again. Ron sighed. Somehow, he suspected she would be the topic of most of their conversation tonight. He turned to the door, and pulled out his house key just as the door swung open.
'Ron!' his sister exclaimed, throwing her arms around his waist.
'Hi, Jayleene.' He smiled, even though his head suddenly felt as though it had been slammed into a wall. The girl wrapped around him, and the doorway, and exactly which way was up, became a little bit fuzzy. He needed to get inside and sit down. Without dislodging Jayleene, he made half-aware goodnights and convinced Sean to stop giving Rose that mournful look and come in with him.
'Is everyone here?' he asked, and Jay shook her head.
'Just me and Doug. You came home early!' This provided enough happiness-fuel to make Jayleene bounce out of the room and up the stairs, sliding gleefully past the 15-year-old version of Ron who stood at their foot.
'Oh, I thought you might be Mom,' he mumbled. Rather drowsily, he walked into the front room and collapsed on the couch anyway. 'Hi, Sean.'
'Hey Doug, good to see you.' The other boy returned something that didn't quite pass for a grin.
Frustrated, Ron turned around. 'Sean, let's go.' They couldn't talk there, obviously, and there was a park only a block away. Besides that, he suddenly didn't want to be around his family. Since it suddenly didn't feel like his family.
Sean followed his friend onto the porch, a little stunned by his sudden chill. 'Ron? Are you okay?'
Ron took a deep breath. 'I'm okay. Suboshi's getting a little confusing, though, and I think he just told me that Jayleene and Doug aren't part of my family, really.' They're just part of my apology, he fumed.
Funny. He'd spent years being dutiful, stable, keeping himself from getting emotional because there had to be *someone* stable in his family. Now he fumed, because he suddenly felt like he wasn't taking care of his family.
Hitting the asphalt with Sean, he continued, 'They're Tamahome's family,' and raised his eyes to his first, oldest brother. 'I don't know if I ever told you what I did, but as Suboshi...' he scuffed his shoes against the near curb. 'I think I claimed the family I have now, when I killed them before.'
It had been an untouchable memory, but now that he'd said it, a sudden freedom fell over him. After that, it couldn't get worse, could it?
He looked as Sean's face, though, and the shock threw his world back into a spin. 'Aniki? Come on... we're going to talk about it, okay?'
Desperation. How was he supposed to be stable when his brother - his real brother - looked so sad?
----------------------------------------
late, again
----------------------------------------
'So they just drew each other together, so they could meet, even without remembering, and then what? I'm still wondering how they'd turned up exactly where *we* came.' Tetsuya, temper flaring a little, kept forgetting to hold his voice down. He could just see Jacob waking up and kicking them all out, and he'd rather not wind up paying for a hotel after all.
On the other hand, Jacob would probably let Keisuke stay around, which might explain why the other man never bothered to lower his voice. 'Because Yui's with us! I thought we agreed on that.'
'But that isn't why we came here, right? You just happened to know Jacob, and he happened to invite all of us here...' Yui wasn't really focusing on what she said. Seit's phone number was sitting on the table, and when she wasn't picking it up to look at it again, she was watching it from afar. 'I know he's generous, but just because we wanted to come?'
Keisuke shrugged. 'Jacob didn't know any of the kids we met today, he says. It's all just a fluke. I don't think he even knows what's going on. He's been very unobtrusive about the whole thing.'
'So he doesn't know about "Universe of the Four Gods?"' Tetsuya blinked. 'I thought you met him when he was calling Miaka about it.'
Keisuke shook his head. 'I think he'd met Duke Prio or something, and wanted to talk to people in Japan. Something like that. And he visited and liked you, so he invited you to come with me.'
'Or so he says,' Tetsuya added.
Yui shook her head, registering the conversation. 'I didn't mean to sound suspicious, I just wondered. He's nice. I just feel... weird... about this whole thing now.' She picked up the phone number. 'Not that I'm sorry I came.'
'Makes you wonder why we stopped where we did, though,' Tetsuya mused. 'I think you're rubbing off on us or something, Yui-chan.' Smiling at her, he added, 'Let's all get to sleep before we wake the master of the house.'
Keisuke shook his head as the others stood up. 'I still need a while to think about this, if that's okay.' General good-nights were had by all, and he wound up alone with the coffee table and the number-covered envelope.
A sudden thought left his scowling slightly. 'They're not sharing a room, are they?'
-----------------------
Seit, always better at dreaming than he supposed most people were, actually used the night hours to call up a few more memories from his subconscious. They were too weird to just be dreams built around his and his friends' alter egos, after all.
The warriors gathered to the priestess, but they couldn't all meet her immediately. And because they met Nakago first, they mostly lay their loyalties with him.
Even Nakago couldn't figure on some things.
Even Nakago wasn't a perfect sadist. Just a very efficient killer.
The world of illusion... was incredible. More incredible to a foreigner, as he had been, than to one born to it.
But at the end, only that shell was left.
--------------------------
Even though they'd passed Natalie's house on the way, she walked Rose all the way to her house. Rose knew that, for the sake of an interesting conversation, Natalie would always walk a few extra blocks.
On the other hand, if she couldn't make her friend believe the stories she'd told her, had it all been a waste?
Rose was at her computer no more than two minutes after the girls hugged good night. Precious little of what her searches turned up was in English; one of her regular chat friends knew Japanese, but he wasn't around to translate for her. So she listed names for herself: Soi, herself. Suboshi/Amiboshi... she sighed. She couldn't think of Sean the same way, if they'd only been drawn together as warriors. She might have thought it was love, when he spoke to her last year and she saw so much of herself in him. But if he had been Amiboshi, could she, having been Soi, possibly leave her heart with him? Rose was a romantic, but she was practical, after all.
Nakago. Maybe she wasn't so practical. Thinking of Nakago still ripped her into pieces. She wouldn't love anyone just for having been Nakago, but she remembered how she might have spoken quite differently if Soi, living, clinging to the general's side, had been asked. In that life and all others, she'd thought, nothing could matter more to her.
As drawn as she was to Seit, too, sometimes, she would certainly never think of him as she had Nakago. She couldn't help being haunted by speaking to a boy with a face so much like the man she'd given her life to protect. She wondered if that ability to devote herself completely had died, too, back then.
She moved on to the last names. Tomo, her rival, and she couldn't be sure... she might have found Tomo, again. Miboshi, who she'd never really known. Why should she know him now? And Ashitare... poor Ashitare.
It was such a cruel world, she mused, finally turning off the screen she'd been staring blankly at. As bad as this one.
Still, she was eager to remember, before she saw Yui again. She'd have to call Seit tomorrow and get the phone number, too...
----------------------------
'Why aren't you being honest with her?' he asked himself.
'Because I'm not safe,' he finally answered.
He caught himself talking to himself a lot, when he had no one else's mind to look into for answers. That lack of knowledge made him uncomfortable sometimes, and he told himself so.
'And the others?' He didn't even have to answer that. They never really knew him, anyway.
Besides, he shouldn't let himself speak out loud at this hour. Couldn't he even keep his own thoughts quiet?
---------------------------
AN: I hope I got Chiriko's Sequential Story name right. I haven't been able to find many translations, and I haven't read his in quite a while.
I also messed with the timing a little. I thought Jacob deserved a little time to explain himself. I hope this thing is making some sense, at least?
Repost: I can't believe i had Amiboshi's name in place of Ashitare's for that long! that must have been confusing.. apologies to anyone who was reading.
Chapter 4
by Laly Konstantin
Disclaimer in chapter 1
the established reincarnations:
Ron - Suboshi
Sean - Amiboshi
Rose - Soi
Seit - claims Nakago, but others disagree
Natalie - claims none, but others disagree
---------------------------------------------
Voices drifted through the wall, speaking a language Jacob could almost understand at full volume. Muffled as they were, he couldn't figure out their words, which he supposed was just as well. Hearing his guests puzzle over their situation would only add to the guilt that was starting to weigh him down. And as he thought of the twisted history that had brought him to this point, he couldn't let anything - guilt, impatience, anything - prevent his repentance.
He'd accidentally met Duke Prio on an East Coast road trip two years before, and Duke - Chiriko - had been flustered by his declaration that they'd met, a long time ago. It actually took Jacob a while to realise that the 'long time' had been centuries at least; but by then, he had intrigued the young scholar far enough that he had to confess why, exactly, he'd recognised the kid.
Just as well that he hadn't tried holding out, and left the kid to think he was a child molester or something. Jacob grunted, and turned a pillow over. Cooler fabric leached a bit more of his headache out, and he drifted back into contemplation. Prio had been helpful enough when Jacob said he'd like to apologize to Suzaku no Miko, but apology wasn't really what he'd had on his mind.
A guy can't help being curious, if it's in his nature. And Jacob figured, he just had to go with whatever he could get. In calling Miaka, he'd had some pleasant conversations with Keisuke; because of that, Miaka had agreed not to mention who Jacob was. With Keisuke came an excuse to visit Tokyo; with the trip, came meeting his friends, including Yui.
With meeting Yui... Jacob gripped the pillowcase in fists. When he met Yui, he knew his mind wasn't settled. He couldn't quite forgive himself, and he knew she had something to do with the reason.
What, he idly wondered, would happen if she figured him out? Jacob closed his eyes for the twenty-eighth time. He had time, no matter what, judging by how much trouble they had figuring themselves out.
He concentrated on the names that fell out of the indistinguishable dialogue in the next room. It had to be almost midnight, by now. They'd better get some rest soon.
-----------------------------------------
earlier
-----------------------------------------
Arriving at Ron's house, both he and Sean stopped. The girls approached from halfway down the block, and they heard Rose describe a bit of her past life to a horrified Natalie. A few incredulous comments, and it was back to Rose, but in a moment the other girl waved her silent, looking ahead.
'Are you two both stopping here?' she asked.
'If you don't mind,' Sean responded, only looking at her for a moment before he gazed at Rose again. Ron sighed. Somehow, he suspected she would be the topic of most of their conversation tonight. He turned to the door, and pulled out his house key just as the door swung open.
'Ron!' his sister exclaimed, throwing her arms around his waist.
'Hi, Jayleene.' He smiled, even though his head suddenly felt as though it had been slammed into a wall. The girl wrapped around him, and the doorway, and exactly which way was up, became a little bit fuzzy. He needed to get inside and sit down. Without dislodging Jayleene, he made half-aware goodnights and convinced Sean to stop giving Rose that mournful look and come in with him.
'Is everyone here?' he asked, and Jay shook her head.
'Just me and Doug. You came home early!' This provided enough happiness-fuel to make Jayleene bounce out of the room and up the stairs, sliding gleefully past the 15-year-old version of Ron who stood at their foot.
'Oh, I thought you might be Mom,' he mumbled. Rather drowsily, he walked into the front room and collapsed on the couch anyway. 'Hi, Sean.'
'Hey Doug, good to see you.' The other boy returned something that didn't quite pass for a grin.
Frustrated, Ron turned around. 'Sean, let's go.' They couldn't talk there, obviously, and there was a park only a block away. Besides that, he suddenly didn't want to be around his family. Since it suddenly didn't feel like his family.
Sean followed his friend onto the porch, a little stunned by his sudden chill. 'Ron? Are you okay?'
Ron took a deep breath. 'I'm okay. Suboshi's getting a little confusing, though, and I think he just told me that Jayleene and Doug aren't part of my family, really.' They're just part of my apology, he fumed.
Funny. He'd spent years being dutiful, stable, keeping himself from getting emotional because there had to be *someone* stable in his family. Now he fumed, because he suddenly felt like he wasn't taking care of his family.
Hitting the asphalt with Sean, he continued, 'They're Tamahome's family,' and raised his eyes to his first, oldest brother. 'I don't know if I ever told you what I did, but as Suboshi...' he scuffed his shoes against the near curb. 'I think I claimed the family I have now, when I killed them before.'
It had been an untouchable memory, but now that he'd said it, a sudden freedom fell over him. After that, it couldn't get worse, could it?
He looked as Sean's face, though, and the shock threw his world back into a spin. 'Aniki? Come on... we're going to talk about it, okay?'
Desperation. How was he supposed to be stable when his brother - his real brother - looked so sad?
----------------------------------------
late, again
----------------------------------------
'So they just drew each other together, so they could meet, even without remembering, and then what? I'm still wondering how they'd turned up exactly where *we* came.' Tetsuya, temper flaring a little, kept forgetting to hold his voice down. He could just see Jacob waking up and kicking them all out, and he'd rather not wind up paying for a hotel after all.
On the other hand, Jacob would probably let Keisuke stay around, which might explain why the other man never bothered to lower his voice. 'Because Yui's with us! I thought we agreed on that.'
'But that isn't why we came here, right? You just happened to know Jacob, and he happened to invite all of us here...' Yui wasn't really focusing on what she said. Seit's phone number was sitting on the table, and when she wasn't picking it up to look at it again, she was watching it from afar. 'I know he's generous, but just because we wanted to come?'
Keisuke shrugged. 'Jacob didn't know any of the kids we met today, he says. It's all just a fluke. I don't think he even knows what's going on. He's been very unobtrusive about the whole thing.'
'So he doesn't know about "Universe of the Four Gods?"' Tetsuya blinked. 'I thought you met him when he was calling Miaka about it.'
Keisuke shook his head. 'I think he'd met Duke Prio or something, and wanted to talk to people in Japan. Something like that. And he visited and liked you, so he invited you to come with me.'
'Or so he says,' Tetsuya added.
Yui shook her head, registering the conversation. 'I didn't mean to sound suspicious, I just wondered. He's nice. I just feel... weird... about this whole thing now.' She picked up the phone number. 'Not that I'm sorry I came.'
'Makes you wonder why we stopped where we did, though,' Tetsuya mused. 'I think you're rubbing off on us or something, Yui-chan.' Smiling at her, he added, 'Let's all get to sleep before we wake the master of the house.'
Keisuke shook his head as the others stood up. 'I still need a while to think about this, if that's okay.' General good-nights were had by all, and he wound up alone with the coffee table and the number-covered envelope.
A sudden thought left his scowling slightly. 'They're not sharing a room, are they?'
-----------------------
Seit, always better at dreaming than he supposed most people were, actually used the night hours to call up a few more memories from his subconscious. They were too weird to just be dreams built around his and his friends' alter egos, after all.
The warriors gathered to the priestess, but they couldn't all meet her immediately. And because they met Nakago first, they mostly lay their loyalties with him.
Even Nakago couldn't figure on some things.
Even Nakago wasn't a perfect sadist. Just a very efficient killer.
The world of illusion... was incredible. More incredible to a foreigner, as he had been, than to one born to it.
But at the end, only that shell was left.
--------------------------
Even though they'd passed Natalie's house on the way, she walked Rose all the way to her house. Rose knew that, for the sake of an interesting conversation, Natalie would always walk a few extra blocks.
On the other hand, if she couldn't make her friend believe the stories she'd told her, had it all been a waste?
Rose was at her computer no more than two minutes after the girls hugged good night. Precious little of what her searches turned up was in English; one of her regular chat friends knew Japanese, but he wasn't around to translate for her. So she listed names for herself: Soi, herself. Suboshi/Amiboshi... she sighed. She couldn't think of Sean the same way, if they'd only been drawn together as warriors. She might have thought it was love, when he spoke to her last year and she saw so much of herself in him. But if he had been Amiboshi, could she, having been Soi, possibly leave her heart with him? Rose was a romantic, but she was practical, after all.
Nakago. Maybe she wasn't so practical. Thinking of Nakago still ripped her into pieces. She wouldn't love anyone just for having been Nakago, but she remembered how she might have spoken quite differently if Soi, living, clinging to the general's side, had been asked. In that life and all others, she'd thought, nothing could matter more to her.
As drawn as she was to Seit, too, sometimes, she would certainly never think of him as she had Nakago. She couldn't help being haunted by speaking to a boy with a face so much like the man she'd given her life to protect. She wondered if that ability to devote herself completely had died, too, back then.
She moved on to the last names. Tomo, her rival, and she couldn't be sure... she might have found Tomo, again. Miboshi, who she'd never really known. Why should she know him now? And Ashitare... poor Ashitare.
It was such a cruel world, she mused, finally turning off the screen she'd been staring blankly at. As bad as this one.
Still, she was eager to remember, before she saw Yui again. She'd have to call Seit tomorrow and get the phone number, too...
----------------------------
'Why aren't you being honest with her?' he asked himself.
'Because I'm not safe,' he finally answered.
He caught himself talking to himself a lot, when he had no one else's mind to look into for answers. That lack of knowledge made him uncomfortable sometimes, and he told himself so.
'And the others?' He didn't even have to answer that. They never really knew him, anyway.
Besides, he shouldn't let himself speak out loud at this hour. Couldn't he even keep his own thoughts quiet?
---------------------------
AN: I hope I got Chiriko's Sequential Story name right. I haven't been able to find many translations, and I haven't read his in quite a while.
I also messed with the timing a little. I thought Jacob deserved a little time to explain himself. I hope this thing is making some sense, at least?
Repost: I can't believe i had Amiboshi's name in place of Ashitare's for that long! that must have been confusing.. apologies to anyone who was reading.