K: Midnight: A K Project Fan Fiction

Chapter Three: Tatara

December 7, 2012

Lately, I had taken to gazing long hours at the world, though never without a marble resting in between my flame-imprinted pupil and the scenes I looked upon.

There was a sort of vague peculiarity I recognized, staring with an ever-watchful eye. Dimly I saw something, or rather, a sort of nothingness. My vision through the glass was foggy and obscure, as though the world did not entirely exist. A bit of it was fading, had already faded. How much more was destined to slip away? This feeling that I had of ill tidings come to meet me with an uninviting grip: it made me weary to think of it.

I sensed a grand upheaval, one whose repercussions would undoubtedly sever the very fabric of the Slate; and yet, for all my suspicions, I could not find a certainty to it. The future was as hazy as the images I saw inside my marbles.

I sat on Homra's sofa, wrought with contemplation over all the puzzling things I saw (and strictly did not see), when the sound of nearby voices broke the muted silence of my thoughts and Tatara strolled in from the kitchen, followed by Izumo.

"They arrived this afternoon," Izumo was saying. "But we'll have to wait to pass them out until she — "

He was all-at-once cut silent by a giant shushing noise, and a nudge from Tatara stopped them in their tracts. Their features, bearing faces of the accused, wallowed in suspicion, their conversation dying into awkwardness on sighting me not fifteen feet away.

A not-so-subtle parade of gestures, fractured syllables, and stark, insinuating glances sent Izumo in a push across the bar to tidy aimlessly about while Tatara, putting on a smile, whirled around and strutted over to me.

"If it isn't our lovely Princess!" He announced, as though the prior scene had not occurred, obvious as it was. It appeared he meant to keep my birthday celebration a surprise, despite the fact that everybody knew about it.

He plopped down on the coffee table opposite me and my marble. "Better watch out," I saw him say in full (albeit heavily blurred) color through the glass.

I lowered it to look at him, frowning a little. "Why?"

He produced a sprightly grin, the kind he always got when he was having fun with me. "Because if I didn't know any better —"

The door swung open then, cutting off his speech as Saburōta and Shōhei marched uproariously in, Eric trekking several paces behind. While the former pair commenced in animated tones, Eric kept to himself, his hood up, head down, his hands stuffed neatly in his pockets.

Tatara winked at me, conscious of their presence. Holding up a hand, he cupped his mouth as though he meant to tell a secret. "I was going to say, if I didn't know any better, I'd say our princess is already a queen." He paused a moment, watching as I blushed, though not because he flattered me but that he spoke the truth. Nor was I embarrassed that the others might have heard and so discover that same truth. He was careful to have spoken so that only I could hear him, as was subsequently proven by Shōhei. Oblivious to my presence, he hailed Izumo in a yell across the bar.

"Mr. Kusanagi! We just talked to the cake shop! They said it should be ready by — "

Another shush invaded us, yet this one came (to even Tatara's surprise) from Eric, the only member of the three whose face, dipped low, perceived my seated figure on the couch.

Izumo blinked long, perfectly annoyed. "Seriously, boys. Is it even possible for you to take a look around you once in a while?"

"You're one to talk," Tatara smiled at him.

Across from us, Shōhei finally saw me. He stared wide-eyed, crimson with embarrassment as Eric and Saburōta waltzed past him, Saburōta sending off a palm against the back of his head. "Nice going, Pal," he said, chuckling.

"Just sit down," Izumo sighed wearily, waving tired fingers at them. "And try not to mess things up, okay? I swear these boys'll be the death of me someday," he added to himself. Somehow, no one else could hear him, but I did.

At this point, Tatara turned back round to me. "So Anna, are you ready for tomorrow?"

Once again, I drew my marble up, peering at his everlasting smile. It was fuzzier than before. "Are you?" I asked.

He laughed at this and he knelt in close, chin in his palm, beaming at me. "You always seem to know whenever I'm hiding something, don't you, Anna?"

"Everyone knows when you're hiding something, Tatara."

He uttered out a dramatized guffaw, but I only stared at him, stoic of expression, doing everything I could to hide the fact that I was laughing underneath.

"Oh fine, you win," he said at last, brushing off my challenge with a deferential wave. "I admit it's possible that I may be hiding something, but you won't catch me spilling any trade secrets, Princess. Some things are meant to be a surprise. Besides, you only turn eleven once, am I right?" Again he winked and formed an impish grin as I began to roll my eyes. But then I paused, a sudden thought emerging and I looked at him with hopeful curiosity. "Are you going to play a new song?" I asked.

This evidently moved him and his head tipped jovially to the side, his eyes lost inside a sea of happiness. "You'll just have to wait and see, Princess. But it's nice to know I have such an adoring fan."

I couldn't help but blush again. I was indeed a massive fan.

"As far as passions go," he reflected, "I have to admit, music has been one of the more enjoyable ones I've picked up this year. Even King seems to like it. I think it soothes him." He looked at me, his tone direct. "But what about you, Anna?"

I blinked at him. "Me?"

"Sure," he nodded. "New years bring new passions. Have you thought of what you want yours to be?"

I contemplated a moment, though it wasn't really necessary. Gauging my priorities was easy and I nodded. "I want to make new memories," I answered. My cheeks flushed inadvertently, emotion welling up inside me.

"Well of course we'll make new memories," he laughed. "Lots of them!"

My eyes grew wide. "Do you mean it?"

"Sure, he means it," Izumo spoke up over the liquor cabinet. "We all do. And the guy's got a point. We may have our rough spots, but we're not so unpolished that we'd let a fancy girl like you get overlooked when we've got Tatara, here to capture you on one of his clunky old video cameras. Isn't that right, Tatara?"

"Vintage video cameras, if you please," Tatara said, lifting up a finger to correct him. "And that's true. Because you see, Anna, we've had the pleasure of knowing who you truly are in here." He pointed that same finger to the bow atop my dress, his deeper meaning striking every chord that I possessed. "We won't let a second go to waste," he announced, "which is why we're going to make sure tomorrow's a day you'll never forget."

I teetered on the verge of tears, so warmed was I by this, and Tatara perceived me with another little laugh, this one more consolatory. His smile, likewise, turned comforting and he reached up, cupping my cheek in his hand — his warm, fluttery hand that always melted me in such a way as Mikoto's touch could never do; but that was what made Tatara so special: his touch was from the heart.

"But if we're going to make it memorable, I'd better be off!" He added happily. "You should be too, Anna. It's getting kinda late and princesses need their beauty sleep." He rose, relinquishing his hold on me with one last Tatara gleam. "Pleasant dreams, Anna. Until tomorrow!"

I watched him go, my gaze drawn after him inside my ball of glass. Still, I felt the softness of his hand against my cheek, as though he never left, as though he lingered everywhere, in every little thought, in every touch. As long as one was thinking about him, Tatara was there. I believed it then and now I still believe it: aura or no aura, that was Tatara's true gift.

Waltzing through the door, the bell above it chiming as it opened, I could see him clearly then: the clearest bit of color, beautiful and pure, that I had ever seen. He crossed into the street, the door jingling shut after him, his image slowly fading until life and color drained to ambiguity once more.

I went to bed happy that night. Even when the dreams came — those dreams that never left me, even in my waking hours — I wasn't nearly so afraid nor lonely anymore, perhaps because that night, Tatara was there. Though I couldn't see him, surrounded by the darkness of my sphere, I felt his warmth of presence burning in my heart and smiled in spite of ever-roaming Shadows flaunting midnight power over my depleted form. My solitude was gone. My joy felt indestructible with Tatara beside me.

But then something odd happened: I grew conscious of a life form entering the sphere. The Shadows intermixed with it. Their midnight auras, normally alone and monstrously dark, were morphed inside a myriad of colors swirling all around.

I stood, gazing out at the abyss, the endlessness of space within the realm of dreams. What once was but a sea of midnight power turned to something more. I sensed a further darkness deeper than the night, for this strange bit of darkness took the form of light: a polychromatic stream, sickening flirtations of translucence running with an empty lustre striking to the eye, yet horrid to the soul. A foul flavor lingered in the air and with it, the hollow traces of a voice came trickling to my ears, threatening Tatara's hold inside my heart.

I clutched my chest and urged him not to go, to stay with me instead. Still, the voice grew over him, masking him from me, trilling like a breeze until I realized what it was: a humming, singing voice, a melody of song, though every bit as vile as that same light it sang upon. It chilled me to the bone, filling me with dread.

By then, the light had wrung through midnight's hold inside my sphere, its many colors reigning over black. What aura midnight grasped was shrouded in familiar pigmentations and I felt my heart beat violently against it. I recognized the sight, moreover, the feeling of it. I'd felt it somewhere before: I knew exactly where! Then all at once, a loud crack as that of a gunshot sent me flying awake with a gasp. "Tatara!" I cried.

I whirled around, out of breath and searching for my marbles. They lay where I had left them on the table next to me, yet in the splitting instant I had woken, one of them had shattered.

I stared, transfixed. My eyes, unblinking, shook inside their sockets.

Violently, I threw the covers off and raced my bare feet out the door, down the hall, and into Mikoto's room without so much as a knock. "Mikoto!" I called out, scratched and broken in a whisper. "I think something's happened! I had a dream that Tatara — !"

Eerily I was silenced as I encroached upon the scene, the feeling of it noxious and the air itself infected with decay. It was an aura I sensed, though I somehow failed to see it. More than that, I realized it was our aura and yet I didn't recognize it. By means I couldn't fathom at the time, it had altered itself, feeling strangely different: not a constant heat but stagnant and unbreathable; not comforting but curiously alone. It wandered about aimlessly without a given course, and in the midst of it, I glimpsed Mikoto seated on his bed, his phone mechanically withdrawn from ear to lap and then allowed to plummet to the floor. Vacantly, he stared, neither here nor there nor anywhere at all, just like the aura circling throughout. He seemed so far away, inside a trans of sorts, and when he spoke his voice was like hollow vacuum, sucking me inside. "Tatara's dead," I heard him say to me.

I felt as though a lightning bolt had struck me from within. With a tiny hand, I clutched my chest, seeking to retrieve the breath that vanished at the words. Tatara. Dead. Tatara is Dead. It's true that I had known and yet I hadn't, or rather I wished I hadn't, as though I'd been suspended in mid-air, knowing I would fall, and yet I was surprised when I came tumbling down to earth. Witnessing Mikoto still and silent on the bed, I saw in him as well: the heart descending swiftly from the chest and plunging through the earth to somewhere far away. I saw his lids dip slowly to a close, his brow intensified. His shoulders hunched and tightened, every bit of force he carried boiling to the surface. He wasn't apt to keeping it contained, never in the past and certainly not then. His fiery red came surging from within, consuming every outlet, intending to explode, to burn, to kill, to slaughter until nothing else remained.

My inability to speak, to move, to think, was severed, and I leapt to him at once. I threw my arms around him, clinging to that red I so adored. Desperately, I pulled him close, burrowing my tear-soaked cheeks into the hollow of his chest, extinguishing the flames and willing him to rest. His aura, having risen once in potency, began to lose effect, receding seconds after to a stale current sinking over me.

When I was certain, following a moment or two, that every bit of red had crept its way back into Mikoto, veritably (or thereabouts) at peace, I looked at him. He hadn't moved. His eyes still lingered on ahead, blank, heavy; his arms hung limply at his sides. Then, as though he'd been extinguished as completely as his red, his head keeled forward slowly, dropping on my shoulder with a thump. I felt his steady breathing, faint, warm, brushing on my neck. Kneeling there alone with me inside the dreary darkness of the room, he made no sound, and yet, I heard him scream.

"You saw," he said at last to me. His voice was thick, strained. He knew we shared the dream, just like all the rest. He knew what I had seen, what I had felt. He'd felt it too. He cringed against the sudden recollection. "I wish you hadn't," he said. "No one should have to see that."

"It was the same as before," I whispered. "That person..."

"The Colorless King," he supplied in perhaps the lowest voice I'd ever heard.

I trembled at the sound, my eyes drawn wide. "A King?" I stammered out. I couldn't believe it.

"He's behind it," Mikoto answered, and I understood his meaning. The word 'it' implied more than just Tatara. This man's presence with the Shadows made it clear. So that was why, I realized. That was why they kept on slipping through our fingers. It was all because of him: the Colorless King. And this, what happened to Tatara: it's the signal we'd been waiting for, only now, I wish it never would have come.

"I know what I have to do now," I heard Mikoto whisper, and I pulled apart from him, feeling oddly anxious. He didn't look at me but continued frowning downward. Subtly, I followed with my gaze. His hands were drawn before him, resting in his lap. He clutched them into fists and opened them again, a set of flames enveloping his palms.

Something about his look frightened me. "But your Sword," I warned him. "It can't take much more."

Mikoto didn't hear, or else he chose not to.

"Just one more ought to do it," he said, staring at his hands, entranced. He tightened them again, stifling the flames. "That should be enough."

"Enough?" I repeated, horrorstruck. "You're going to get revenge?"

He gave a little 'humph.' "It's not as nice as how you say it." It appeared he was listening, though only to what he cared enough to hear. "Either way, it'll be worth it," he mumbled out, and I sent a sudden slap across his face, angered in my sorrow.

Mikoto hardly flinched, resuming his blank stare across the floor. I thought perhaps he didn't care, but then I saw my words had struck a chord. Wearily he shut his eyes and slumped down to his knees. He cowered to my height and knelt his forehead onto mine, letting loose a shaky little sigh. "What's the difference?" I heard him whisper. "It's inevitable, it'll happen anyway. Why not make it count?"

I frowned at this, though not so much in anger but with sudden understanding. Mikoto wasn't asking in his normal, careless way. His tone, in fact, was genuine. Somehow, at the end of him was gentle authenticity, the remnants of a raw, unguarded soul, and there, just there, I saw him at his end.

For the first time then, he looked at me and I saw that nothing whole resided in his gaze. I found him sad to look upon. As for him, he must have caught my evident discord and, thinking to console me, said, "Don't worry. I'll still keep my promise to you. I'll just have to find a way to do both, that's all."

"Then you know nothing of that promise, Mikoto!" I shot back, raising my voice at him for the first time since I'd known him.

Shocked, he looked at me, confused. "What do you mean? You don't think I meant it?"

"If you do this, Mikoto, you'll be giving up that promise. That's not what I want, and it's not what Tatara would want either!"

At the mention of Tatara's name, Mikoto noticeably flinched, as though by merely speaking it, he'd somehow died again. I, too, caught the power of my words and felt my anger wallow into sadness once again.

Sinking back against him, I gave a heavy sigh; he gave one too. He closed his eyes and so did I, his forehead gently brushing against mine. Together, we remained, the pair of us silent. Several moments passed this way, then a few more. It wasn't that we felt peace, more that we were looking for a way to forget. Searching in the other, neither one of us found it, but the closeness gave us comfort at the very least. We felt each other's pain and suffered it as one. I suppose that accounted for something.

"You made a promise, Mikoto" I whimpered softly after a while. "You promised me that you would do anything to help me. I know you meant it; I never doubted you, but..." I sniffled shakily, "it isn't what you think." Slowly, I began to cry, rubbing fisted fingers on my eyes to wipe away the tears. Mikoto simply sat there, peering down in silence.

"Then tell me," he said at length.

Between my sobs, I froze, peeking out at him.

"Tell me what to do."

He neither looked at me nor seemed to look at anything. He was, as I could see, a shadow of a man, lost to life or purpose, shattered to the core, though not completely gone. A bit of hope snuck back into the darkness of the room.

With another sniff, my breath a fractured ripple coming in, I drew his face in tiny hands and cupped his cheeks as Tatara cupped my own cheek not twelve hours before. Mikoto seemed quite fragile to me then. It was foreign and somewhat lovely. But for my small fingers resting lightly on his face, I could have sworn that I was fully grown, and that he was the child peering back at me.

Gently, I drew near to him, and in an earnest whisper, I said, "Live."

Mikoto stared, dumbstruck, and afterward his gaze began to waver. Inwardly, I felt his strength, or rather, his firm walls, deteriorate, then slowly shrink away. He knew that I had trapped him and he said so with a scoff, almost with annoyance, as he turned his face away from me and stared down at floor; and in his natural brooding voice, he softly whispered, "Damn it."

Chapter Four: Tōru Hieda