Disclaimer: I do not own X.
Author's Thanks: goes out first of all to my beta Lani Reaper, To Lady Multi, Sakura (who directed me to X Character Files for better understanding of what Clamp are trying to say to us), Tanuki-dono and Lani-chan from Clampasque board.
Author's note: this story is an attempt to draw some kind of a background story for parts of X's character's lives that Clamp did not light for us. It is not a statement but a mere opinion.
Shiyuu Kusanagi: Nature's Sounds.
A mechanized scythe roared angrily across the large lawn stretches at Shinzaka children's hospital. It's pair of rotating plastic wires mercilessly cutting through the freshly grown grass shoots, mutilating the plants to suit the hospital's patience and doctor's aesthetical wishes.
Up on the fifth floor, behind lock and key, strapped to his bed, thirteen year old Kusanagi could do nothing to block out the screams of pain from the grass. He couldn't even cover his ears because his already powerful arms were tied securely to the bed's frame.
This is how life's been for Kusanagi since the first plant spoke to him.
At the age of five, little Kusanagi and his parents took a stroll through Kusanagi's grandfather's large farm land (and the home for Kusanagi as well). His grandfather was one of the few farmers who still kept and grew rice fields all on their own with little help from his descendants, kind neighbors and friends.
They settled down for a small picnic on grandfather's backyard lawn, allowing Kusanagi to roam free as he wished.
Nothing pleased Kusanagi more then running around freely. He was always an energetic boy, happy to go playing rather then sitting to draw or learn how to read or even watch television.
Roaming free on grass, around a nature resort or in the park was better then just roaming around. Kusanagi loved feeling the soft grass under his bare feet, he loved climbing trees, swimming in ponds and crossing the nearby stream.
When he'd walk across the large forest by the village where he lived the animals would crawl out of their dens and observe him. He'd draw near them and observe them curiously, patting and cuddling them if any would come near enough for it.
His parents noted this mutual fascination between nature and their boy and they always admired and praised him for how well he's behaving himself around the animals.
They never wondered why this was happening. They were simple people, without much education and with little intellect to begin with. But they loved Kusanagi and they were content as long as their son was happy and didn't harm anything or anyone else.
Kusanagi was such a good boy, such a big boy, always busing himself with learning how to work his grandfather's field like his father, always trying to help his mother around the kitchen before supper time.
The days before Kusanagi discovered his powers were happy and golden.
They ended when, as he roamed the grass happily, Kusanagi found an old tree stump.
In its better days the tree must have been quite big because what was left of it's trunk was wide and complicated, it's roots changing the landscape around it into little hills and holes between the wood.
But now it lost its glory; it was crippled beyond repair. Along the rims of the chopped part the bark was swollen, where water from the tree's roots were caught against the new mutilation and froze there over the long years since the tree's destruction.
Kusanagi stared at the stump, fixated. He never noticed it here before but now he had to, now that the tree spoke to him.
"I can't grow" it said. Its voice was that of an old man, older even then Kusanagi's grandfather. It had a low moan, its voice hoarse from years of silence, suffering and old age. "Why can't I grow? Why can't I feed off the sun?"
Kusanagi's eyes filled with tears, his heart pounded pain in his little chest. The poor tree….it can't grow anymore. ….it's crippled…it's hurt.
He neared the tree and wrapped his small arms around it's rough dry bark "I'm sorry Mr. Tree….I'm so sorry for you" he burst into tears as he leaned his forehead against the stump.
"I….I can't grow…." The tree moaned on, baffled and confused in his misery.
Kusanagi cried, apologizing to the tree over and over again.
His parents found him in a state of childish hysteria, refusing to let go of the tree no matter what. He was screaming and kicking when his father picked him up and carried him away at last.
"No! Let me go father! The tree is crying! It can't grow anymore! Please let me go!"
At dinner time that day, after Kusanagi had a bath and an afternoon nap, his family sat to dinner with him and kindly asked him to explain what had happened to him.
Kusanagi told them.
They stared at him, puzzled.
"What? That old stump by the tool shed?" his grandfather asked finally, coughing the words out (he was an old man and his health wasn't all that good anymore) "I cut it down when I first bought this farm! But it was before the war, it was such a long time ago Kusanagi-kun, surely the tree died since then"
"No! it's not dead!" the boy screamed, pounding the table with his little fists, his eyes streaming with tears again "it's still alive and it's in pain grandfather! It wants to feel the sun again, it wants to grow but it can't…." He curled himself into a sobbing little ball "Grandfather, why did you cut it down? Why did you do such a thing grandfather… why?"
His mother wrapped her arms around him and his father ruffled his hair awkwardly but to no use.
Kusanagi never spoke to his grandfather again. Only on his deathbed, as the dying men called for his grandchild did Kusanagi come to say his farewell, but nothing more.
Why he held such blazing anger towards his grandfather, because of one tree which he spoke to once, Kusanagi didn't know. All he knew was that from then on he simply could not look at the old man with the same affection as before; everything changed.
Kusanagi's ability to hear nature speak to him was not always such a horrible torture as it started. Often it made the world around him into a magical kingdom, a happy place for a happy child to grow in.
In summertime the insects would come to his bedroom window and buzz about their search for mates, of the flowers and dung they fed on that day, of the wonderful sun heating them during the day, of the sunflowers with their heads held high.
In spring the sakura petals would rain down on him, singing a silly "Tiddle, tiddle, tiddle tiddle" as they descanted to the ground in small circular movements. Kusanagi loved spinning on his bare toes with the petals falling all around him.
The cherry trees would tell him about their upcoming sweet fruits and of their pride in how the humans regard their blossom and of a far off tree amongst them who lived in a city and ate human souls.
Kusanagi loved flowerbeds most of all. He loved to sit by a flower and listen to its idle chit chat, mostly incoherent drabble about silly things that made Kusanagi giggle loudly.
He liked bushes and their strange pride of how they're not quite simple plants and not quite trees but they're big and strong and surviving. He liked how they'd "psst" at him whenever he was playing hide and seek with his friends, offering him a sanctuary amidst their small branches.
Kusanagi loved climbing trees (constantly reminding himself not to scratch their barks or snap any of their twigs) and cuddle on a branch, listening to the tree's slow humming about the breeze through their leafs, the birds amongst their branches and the little rodents nesting in their bark's cavities.
Animals spoke to Kusanagi as well.
He loved sitting at a riverbed listening to the fish, snails and underwater insects make a whole cacophony of different tongues and conversation dimmed by the flowing water.
The fish spoke of nothing much, their miniature minds allowing only some creativity beyond everyday survival.
Cats fascinated Kusanagi with their cunning, scheming minds and their constant bipolar behavior between loyalty and love to humans and the same love towards themselves.
Dogs often gave Kusanagi a headache as they could spend hours on end talking about the things that excited them today and of how wonderful their owner is and about the latest scent trail they discovered; on and on they went.
Birds sang beautifully about the insects and worms they caught today and of how beautiful it was to hover in the sky with the sun on their wings.
From the birds Kusanagi developed a dream for his future: He wanted to be high in the sky, all alone in mid air between heaven and earth. He promised himself that one day he will be there and spread his arms sideways to feel the sun on them like the birds.
Kusanagi spent many school recesses at a far corner of the schoolyard, where a huge wisteria tree slowly plotted to take over the school fence completely.
At first, like any other child in his school Kusanagi was sure the long draping branches only hid the tree's trunk. But as soon as he walked past it the wisteria beckoned him over, inviting him into her embrace.
Inside was a small room surrounded by wild flowers and branches. This was heaven for Kusanagi and some of his happiest moments he spent there, embraced by nature.
He sat listening to the insects visiting the tree's breathtaking flower clusters, to the birds twitting amidst the branches and the silent fungi that lived on the tree's bark.
Of course hearing the sounds of nature bore a pain filled side as well.
Every winter Kusanagi would become a gloomy silent child, his head bowed with the heavy load of so many frozen plants under the snow, so many animals too weak to survive dying of cold and hunger.
No matter how much he sat under the trees asking them if they were cold and how could he help them, they never answered back. Nature only spoke to Kusanagi but it never answered his words to it.
Autumn was hell. All around him the animals would disappear, preparing for hibernate or slowly dying.
The rustling, brilliant bright green leaves he so adored lost their color, shriveled and died. When other kids would go and kick around in the piles of fallen leafs, Kusanagi would silently kneel at their side to mourn for them.
Eventually Kusanagi began realizing that all this pain was a part of the cycle of nature. He realized that what shriveled and died was soon replaced by a fresh new being which will die in time and be replaced all over again.
This understanding calmed Kusanagi and lessened his pain every year when the weather grew cold around him.
There was one pain Kusanagi was never able to block out; the pain humans inflicted upon nature.
When he hiked across the nearby hills around his grandfather's farm Kusanagi would often encounter a tanuki. These raccoon like creatures would sit and speak to him of their dwindling territories, of the mange human's pet animals spread around them, of the prowling cats and vicious dogs unleashed upon them, of the city suburbs spreading into their homes like cancerous tendrils.
Whenever a tree was cut down or trimmed to ease the life of the humans around it Kusanagi would suffer pounding headaches from the screams and whimpers in his ears.
Lawnmowers were his mortal enemies, exerting such agonized shrills from the grass they hurt. Kusanagi would make a long detour around his village's big park whenever the municipality unleashed gardeners upon the park.
His parents grew to be constantly weary of their son's mood swings.
They thought it must be because of school exams that their son constantly swung from happy and cheerful to sad and miserable.
He developed the bad habit of throwing tantrums whenever something cruel happened to nature around him earlier that day. He'd lock himself up in his room and sit there, pouting, breaking into tears about the misery he heard today.
He was a fast growing boy, expanding in width as well as height. Helping his father in the field turned him into quite a muscular young boy at the age of 12.
He used it to bully other kids. Well, bully is a rather ugly word to describe the Robin Hood type of boy he was.
He shooed kids away from abusing a puppy or kitty might he run into such a scene.
He'd tackled kids who maliciously danced on ant mounds to squash the poor insects.
He once terrorized a teenage couple who insisted upon carving their names on a tree's bark in the park, chasing them wherever they tried to leave their mark.
Kusanagi's parents heard about it from his teachers and acted as any other parent would do with a slightly violent yet still relatively good at school child. They'd ground him, scowl at him, lecture him and deprived him of television/sweets/a trip to the cinema if the felony was serious enough.
When Kusanagi was thirteen the village municipality, along with a panel of worried parents, decided to cut down the big wisteria tree Kusanagi so dearly loved.
They said its bark was covered with fungi that could proof poisonous to children roaming the schoolyard.
Kusanagi burst into a fit of anger.
As soon as he heard his beautiful wisteria's first panicking shrills he shot to his feet and tried to dash out of his classroom.
His home teacher would have none of it, blocking the door with her own body.
Kusanagi rampaged. He grabbed tables and chairs, hurling them powerfully at the windows to try and hit the lumberjacks hurting his tree and worked under his class's window. He punched and kicked any classmate who tired to stop or reason with him. He ignored his teacher's shouts to calm down and stop.
He was shouting, roaring like a wounded animal, foaming at the mouth. This big bulky boy, his eyes almost popping out of their sockets with anger, his forehead creased with pulsing swollen veins, his words maddened, was a terror to look at.
Usually he was such a silent and calm boy when he wasn't kicking other kids to behave themselves, his teacher was too shocked at this complete change in his behavior she simply stood and stared at him.
Other teachers soon came into Kusanagi's class, trying to grab hold of the child and calm him.
As soon as Kusanagi noted the opening door he shot out of the classroom, kicking and biting his way through whatever teacher coming against him and trying to stop him.
As he reached the ring of workmen attacking his beloved wisteria Kusanagi discovered yet another power within him.
As he stood trembling with anger before the pack of tree haters he felt energy gathering into him.
The energy came from the ground he stood on, the very earth that fed the trees and plants to which he was such a tentative listener and loving friend. It was a power given to him by what only he could know, understand and love. It was nature finally speaking back to him, finally answering all those questions he gave it. Nature was giving him this power in gratitude for recognizing and caring for it's creatures.
The energy streamed from his feet, through every fiber in his body, flowing into his fists as he clenched them.
"Leave her alone!" he roared at the working men who turned to see a maddened young boy screaming at them.
The men's manager put a kind smile on his face and neared Kusanagi "Little boy" he said with his fake sweet tone "this tree is not good for you so we're cutting it down"
"But….but…." Kusanagi tried to clear his vision from the anger blinding him "But I love that tree….she's a good friend of mine…"
The man ignored his words, filing them as silly kid's talk, though Kusanagi knew nothing of it.
"She has birds amongst her branches now, with three eggs in their nest….If you cut the tree down they'll die mister" Kusanagi started begging, telling nature's energy in his fists to wait a little bit.
"And….and there is a nest of ants under her; it needs her roots to keep their colony's walls firm…."
"And how would you know such a thing boy? Reading a lot of kid's nature books then?" the man's fake smile began fading as this chat began boring him and lunch break drew nearer.
"…No…" Kusanagi never encountered such scorn for what he said. It stung like acid.
The kids in his school feared his might and agreed to anything he said. His parents wished for a happy calm domestic environment and nodded at anything their son mumbled about.
But this man….. And the other work men….they looked at him like he was crazy….they didn't believe him….and worst of all…..
They were going to cut her down!
"DON'T HURT HER!" He roared at the top of his lungs, launching the gathered energy from his fists to the ground.
A huge slit opened in the earth, splitting the ground under the working men's feet, hurling some of them down the pit, throwing them off their feet, breaking their equipment and scaring away those who remained unharmed.
Kusanagi ran to his wisteria and hugged her bark, refusing to let go no matter what, crying and screaming at anyone who tried to reason with him.
They didn't reason with him much. After the work party was thoroughly evicted in ambulances and cars the only people Kusanagi encountered were policemen and strict angry teachers.
They forced him off his wisteria; they dragged him violently away, dodging his raging fists and calling his parents over immediately.
Kusanagi was in the hospital's psychological ward before he could gather his wits together again.
Japan is not a nation with the highest tolerance for mental problems. As a mere child the doctors treating Kusanagi tried to do all they could to keep him away from being sent to a real mental hospital.
For now he was strapped to his sickbed, constantly visited by his frightened and ashamed parents, looked down upon suspiciously by frightened nurses and agitated doctors.
They reasoned with him and tried calming him with words as best they could.
All he gave in return was constant demands to know of his wisteria's fate. No one around him had the courage to tell him the truth and start him into another violent tantrum.
Much like an imprisoned animal, Kusanagi soon learnt that if he will not behave himself he received a needle prick and was sent into chemical induced slumber or into a foggy zombie state where he couldn't formulate a single coherent thought.
He calmed down and learnt to control his anger, to shut his mouth about any more sounds from nature, to suppress any need to help what was calling him from the other side of his sickroom's well locked window.
Any doctor sent to interrogate him about his nature hearing ability received nothing from Kusanagi. He either refused to cooperate at all or denied what he said earlier, claiming it was all a dream he had once and tried to hold on to.
After a while they untied him, even allowed him to take a stroll around the hospital garden. He had to fight himself to stop trying to talk to plants and animals when other people were around him.
He was released back home a month later. He came back older, wiser and a lot sadder.
When he was still strapped to his bed in the hospital he came to a realization that saved his life from turning into long imprisonment in a mental hospital.
Those who have "powers" not those of normal humans have "pains" different from normal humans.
But, there is "happiness" that he'll feel because he has those "powers".
After being hospitalized like that Kusanagi's life could never return to the easy going countryside way it was before.
He was sent to a boarding school mostly containing semi-criminal youths so he won't repeat his violent acts and to ease the burden off of his frightened parents, already at their wit's end with his behavior.
Despite the fact that he grew to be quite a big strapping guy Kusanagi kept his core of innocence and tenderness within him, despite constant offers to join this gang of youths or the other in the strict, prison like school.
After he graduated with medium to low scores (he wasn't very good at many subject, often a victim of day dreaming during class and the deafening sounds of nature interrupting his education) there weren't many places he could go to.
University was out of the question, he didn't even consider it.
Working in a store, in a horse farm, in an amusement park, even in a cemetery, all passing seasons in his life that flew by too quickly, starting out nice and hopeful only to end in bitter disappointment. Kusanagi would forget to do something and screw up something important for his boss. He'd be a little too rough on an important piece of equipment and break it…..so many mistakes Kusanagi felt like an elephant in a china store, constantly rampaging around unable to stop destroying things.
The defense force, or the brute squad as Kusanagi liked to call it, was just the place for him.
Filled with able bodied men and women with big warm hearts and little to none formal education, helping citizens with tasks for titans. They'd help dig up rocks where machines couldn't reach them, shoveled snow for snow festivals, helped in disaster areas, aided firefighters might a forest blaze erupt.
Amongst these men and women Kusanagi found his home and friends, all of them a bunch of kids trapped in giant's bodies. They were hardly as tough as they seemed and the only drawback they ever had was their random boozing outs.
Until the year 1999 Kusanagi found a place to work, socialize, get a date or two over the years and most importantly; always be at nature's earshot.
And his childhood dreams of hovering above the earth, letting the sun shine down upon his arms as if they were the wings of a bird?
If you'll look at the various framed pictures Kusanagi brought with him to his barrack wherever he was stationed you might stumble across a picture taken in his first parachuting drill.
You can see him under his round canopy of white silk, his eyes close serenely, a sweet smile on his lips and his arms stretched sideways like a child in an amusement park slide.
It is the picture in which Kusanagi looks the happiest, even if you can't really read it off him; believe that he's the happiest in his life there.
The happiest until he met Yuzuriha…
(end)