Title: Arising
Chapter: 1-1||Words: 1,500
Characters: Kiryu, Ccapac Apu, Guard #1 (OC), Guard #2 (OC)
Genre: Angst||Rated: PG
Notes: This is set in 5Ds, but in an AU that's my Healer & Firestarter setup. Non-consensual drug usage is mentioned, as is violence and death, though not graphic for any of it.
Summary: Before, he'd been a Healer. All about life and growth. But now he lay in prison, drugged into insensibility, starved, and worse. Kiryu looks forward to death. Death is quite looking forward to him as well. [[MORE]]
The needle slid into his arm, carrying with it the load of drugs. The official name was something tame and ordinary – but he'd heard it called something else by the officials here. Something that twisted at his heart even as the drug seared through his body, cutting off his ties to the earth and his hidden garden.
They called it Weedkiller – the opposite of Firedamp, the drug that sealed away a Healer's powers. He wanted to fight, but two things kept him from moving. One was the sedative they'd injected just before this – one of the more powerful ones. The other was the fact it didn't matter. Thick depression wrapped around him, keeping him dragged down and unmoving.
"Think we should bring him a cactus?" One of the guards joked as Kiryu was dragged back to his tiny, dingy cell. "Might cheer the place up a bit!"
The other guard laughed as well. Neither of them were Healers or Firestarters. None of those were allowed to work in the prison here. The few rumors he'd heard – all before he came here – leaned to the thought that Healers or Firestarters were simply too kind-hearted and too delicate to work in such a place.
That was, after all, one of the reasons why Healers were forbidden to live in Satellite at all. Those who had the gift were quickly located whenever it displayed – children weren't very good at hiding what they could do – and taken out of there. Rumors about that abounded too. About how the children were drugged and brainwashed to forget their past and given to new parents. Sometimes they were even given entirely new names, to make the break complete.
Kiryu never knew if he should have believed that or not. Part of him didn't want to. He was – had been – a Healer himself, and he'd Budded at an early age. But he'd kept it secret, refusing to let anyone else know what he could do.
At least, they didn't know what he could do and kept on living. He'd killed more than one person who found his secret garden. The garden that he wasn't even certain existed anymore. How could he tell, when the earth didn't speak to him and the plants did nothing at all?
This was all Yuusei's fault. He'd thought at one point they might bond – he'd wanted that so very much. So had Yuusei – or so he thought.
He could never, ever forget seeing Yuusei standing next to those officers, one of them patting him on the shoulder, saying something Kiryu couldn't hear thanks to the rain. Probably praising him for what he'd done. Maybe even offering him a place in the city one day.
That didn't happen often. But Yuusei was a very strong Firestarter. If anyone could find a way to make it out, it would be him. Probably he would bond to a rich Healer and live out the rest of his days in luxurious comfort, forgetting everyone else, especially Kiryu. Perhaps even laughing at that foolish Healer of his youth.
The guards tossed him onto the bed and headed out, locking the cell behind them. They didn't give another look as they left. Kiryu didn't move. He saw no reason. He had nothing – no cards, no duel disk, no plants, no friends, nothing at all.
He didn't even have light in here. There was supposed to be a light bulb, but it was burned out more than it wasn't. Right now was a burned out time. But he didn't care. Darkness was better. Darkness filled the entire room, such as it was.
Yuusei. Yuusei. Yuusei. There weren't many drugs that could hurt a Firestarter, but Kiryu could easily devote months to developing one that would rip Yuusei inside out – slowly. He didn't think of much these days but he thought about that. About how much he hated Yuusei and what he would do to gain his revenge. It would happen someday. Somehow.
Kiryu daydreamed of having Yuusei bound up in the thickest, tightest vines that he could nurture, with long and sharp thorns that would sink into Yuusei's most tender parts and then slowly, ever so slowly, he would torment him to death. A quick death wouldn't do it – not when he'd been forced to suffer like this. Yuusei wouldn't have it any better.
I like the way that you think.
A voice as deep as the earth, as old as time, that shook him from the inside out. Kiryu wished he had the energy to sit up. But perhaps he didn't need to. The shadows wrapped all around him and sank deep into him and he wasn't sure if they kept him from breathing or if he just hadn't been since he laid down.
You haven't been. You are dead.
… dead? He'd died? But he was still there. Still in the cell. He knew it. He tried to move and nothing happened.
Your heart is full of hate. I approve. I call to you – I choose you, above all others.
There wasn't a face there. There was merely an awareness that something looked at him, and approved of him.
Your touch will bring death to all who stand against you. No longer can death touch you, for you are mine, and I will not have it.
Kiryu couldn't ask a question. No part of him would move. But whatever this creature was, it knew what he thought.
I am Ccapac Apu. You seek vengeance – you seek death for all those who have harmed you.
He couldn't deny that. Hadn't he just been thinking the same thing?
I will grant you that vengeance – for a price. You will belong to me. You will duel as I wish, against the Signers.
Kiryu didn't know who those were. But he didn't care. He saw no reason not to do as Ccapac Apu wanted.
New strength burned through him even as the acceptance crossed his mind. He slowly pulled himself to his feet. He blinked – the shadows hadn't changed, but he could see through them, as if they weren't there. He wasn't wearing the simple pants and shirt that he had been before. He felt different. As if he were a new person.
A person who could feel the call of the Earth underneath his feet, but it didn't sing among in his blood the way that it had before. He slowly walked to the cell door and opened it. It had been locked. Now force flared along his arm and perhaps "opening" wasn't the right term.
Perhaps "tore it open" would have been better.
Kiryu smiled. On his arm there glowed a strange new mark, one that formed the shape of a man. His mark – that of Ccapac Apu. He could feel the God's strength inside of him, enabling him to do as he pleased. As long as he obeyed, he would be maintained.
That was fine with him. He would be guided to his revenge. This was only the beginning.
Lights and noises, alarms, rang out as he walked out of the cell, and the sound of scurrying booted feet resulted in the guards appearing around the corner. They pitched to a halt, staring at him.
"No way," one of them whispered, the one who made bad jokes about bringing him plants. "He was practically comatose!"
Something about the expression that turned Kiryu's lips upward – he wasn't sure if it registered as a smile – sent them stumbling back as he moved forward. They pulled their guns and started shooting without another word. Kiryu didn't even flinch. The bullets hitting him caused no pain at all. He'd already died. What could they possibly do to him?
He sank his fingertips into the neck of the other one, who'd only laughed. He liked the sound of the guard's neck snapping and the way he went limp before Kiryu threw him across the hallway and turned to the other.
"What do you want?" The guard babbled, trying to fire again and not succeeding. "What do you want?"
"Revenge," Kiryu answered simply. "But we'll start with my deck. I want it. Now."
The guard trembled, gun falling from his useless hand. Kiryu ignored it, stalking closer to the guard. "Give me my deck." This had been the one who had taken it. He remembered. He remembered everything.
"Will you let me live?" The guard squeaked. Kiryu smiled his sweetest smile.
"No. But there's a difference between dying fast and dying slow. I can show you that."
His grip tightened around the guard's neck. "So show me."
He didn't ask again. He didn't need to.
What he did need to do was meet with the other Dark Signers. He didn't know who they were, only that they existed somewhere out there. Ccapac Apu would show him, he knew. And perhaps he'd blow up a few things along the way.
It would do to send a message. Kyosuke Kiryu lived again – and soon Fudo Yuusei wouldn't.
The End
Notes: Kiryu died of starvation, being beaten, and an overdose of a drug meant to keep a Healer's powers blocked off. Frankly, the guards didn't care enough to make sure they didn't overdose him. Just sedated him and shot him up and that was it. I love world-building in my Healer/Firestarter Aus! Anyone curious to see what else would happen in this world in that AU?