A/N: So, I've gotten myself a tumblr. I have no clue what to do with it. My first idea was to use it as a link library: i.e. pretty much giving you access to all my research material, in case other writers would find it useful to have a collection of more-or-less AnE related references to pick from. However, having seen how archives on tumblr are structured: no. Hell no. I am not putting together a library with that. *first reaction to tumblr: aghast* My other idea, which is the one most likely to happen, was to use it as a Q&A page. Basically just giving people a medium to pose questions to the characters in TEotB. (Meaning that if you send questions for canon characters, answers will be manga canon as far as such exists and my own headcanons for the rest.) Suggestions are welcome. =)

If you want my tumblr, please ask. I'm not sure if I will put the address up on my profile page; I think people should have read a bit of TEotB before they go to a page that might, depending on what people ask, contain spoilers for the story.

/ Dimwit

Refs to ch: 36, 44, 111

There are few things that make you reflect on your life like seeing it packed up in cardboard boxes. Shiro swept an eye over the empty room, feeling the smell of cleaning agents tickle in his nose. His life looked apologetically small where it huddled in the middle of the floor with no place to be. Like that pile of cigarette ash he'd scooped up. Two large cardboard boxes, that was all it amounted to: one for shipping across the world and one for throwing in the garbage.

The first time Shiro had had his life packed into a box, he had been eleven years old and had just buried his last family member. Moving out of the only home he knew had not been high on his to-do list, but someone – he wouldn't be surprised if it was Satoshi – had called in people to help vacate the place. Shiro had had no control then. He was just another flotsam piece of wreckage swept along by the current when everything was cleared out. His clothes had been packed into one of his dad's suitcases, and he had been picked up and handed over to the orphanage mistress. Like delivering a mail order: sign here to accept the delivery, please, and have a good day. A single cardboard box had followed him into storage, packed with rage, betrayal, and no one to take it out on.

The second time Shiro packed up his life it had been his own choice. Everything had been on his terms: where to move, when to move, all the application forms filled out and sent by him. He had packed his own cardboard box and even transported it himself on the tram that carried students to True Cross Academy.

It had surprised him as much as anyone else at the orphanage that he applied to the fanciest school in town. He hadn't planned on going there, though then again he never made plans any further than the next day. That all changed when Kenta kicked the bucket. Shiro didn't decide to quit because Kenta kicked the bucket: nothing like that. Kenta had been a cool guy, all things considered, but they had never been close. Shiro didn't even remember how they met. It had been a long time since he thought about the guy – hadn't thought about him since he came to the Academy. It was probably Kenta who had approached him and not the other way around: gangs liked to recruit among orphans.

Kenta had introduced him to the twilight world that was the Creek's End district, with its flashy fronts and back alleys that collected every kind of stench and bodily fluid. All the dirt and filth in society washed up there, all the broken pieces of humanity left to waste quietly away between brick walls and concrete stairs. Shiro had promised himself that was not going to be him. He embraced the filth but never the drugs – at least that was what he told himself. Addicts always tell themselves they aren't addicts. He found a different drug, one the body produced for him in infinite amounts as long as he did everything he wasn't supposed to do. Crack vending machines. Shoplift. Pick locks. Pick fights. The high was invisible and untraceable but oh-so-intoxicating as it rushed through his bloodstream and set his nerve ends on fire.

Then Kenta was hospitalised. Took a bad fall when he tried climbing the downspout during some burglary that didn't go as it should have. He died from his injuries not long after, and Shiro was left with a larger share of money than he had expected along with a reminder of the risks with his chosen occupation. The risks weren't the problem – hell, they were his reason. The problem was having no other options. The problem was that the day might come when he was trapped in this life, like Kenta in that apartment.

Shiro didn't want to take a window because all other exits were blocked. He wanted doors. Money opened doors. Education opened doors. And just like that, in a split second with no further thought, he had decided to apply to a school that would give him access to a world throw-away street punks could never dream of.

Shiro still kept it up for a couple of years – the gang connection. Partly because he craved the excitement, partly because it gave him the money he needed to open up those doors. It always came down to money. Man, all the things you could do if you had money! New place, new life, new future: True Cross Academy was far from the orphanage and the streets that had raised him. He brought a single cardboard box with him then, too, holding five years of dirty money, hell-raiser confidence, and invisible addiction.

None of that had done him much good. Here he stood again: four years later, time to pack up and start over. New place. New life.

"New mess", he added dryly.

There was a pattern to it, as much as he would like there not to be. Every time he found a new place to bury his roots he ended up digging himself a pitfall instead, and once he had fallen into it he crawled out and moved to the next spot: Shiro was well aware of that. It wasn't just shitty luck either – he was aware of that, too. There was no cosmic injustice he could conveniently blame for fucking his life up time and again. No, he managed that quite well on his own. If you are addicted to trouble and advertise for it to find you, then it will. Every time.

"The one who keeps betraying me is me." Shiro finished folding his last shirt and put it in the box with the rest. The only thing left now were his trousers. "There's always that tickling feeling in my gut and I always make up excuses to go along with it. So I will."

Missions, he reasoned, should be able to give him what he required. Now that they were for real they should be enough to sate his unfortunate craving for thrills: no babysitter teachers, just his own skill and adrenaline evening the odds against the Grim Reaper. That should help him keep a level head and make good calls in life outside work.

"No different from switching one brand of cigarettes for another." Shiro tossed another pair of trousers into the box with a dry snort. It sounded like a plan – in theory. In theory you could also survive lung cancer, but very few actually did. He hoped missions would give him the proper kick, but abstinence was something Shiro had never been good at. "Mankind's true virtue is restraint, hah? I think the old goat said that once. Too bad I had to be the exception." Easy to tempt and quick to give in. "Kinda makes you wonder…"

Shiro remained standing with the last pair of trousers in his hands while his thoughts wandered elsewhere. He wouldn't say he had a lot in common with demons, no matter what mean tongues would whisper behind his back: just more in common than he wanted to and enough to sow doubt. Easy to tempt and quick to give in, and naturally good with demons: Sen – or Midori, he couldn't really remember – had asked him about his heritage once. He had replied that he was human through and through. He should be human. There was nothing but humans in his family tree as far as he knew but then again, how much did he really know about his family? Generations back, could he really be sure there hadn't been some ancestor somewhere who had a drop of demon blood in them? He couldn't, plain and simple. Not that it would matter anyway, if it was that far back in time.

"It won't matter either way", he concluded pragmatically and tossed in the last pair of trousers. "Demon ancestor or not I'm still stuck with my addictions and my poor restraint."

Ah, but it would matter, if the Vatican discovered non-human contributors to his family tree. The Italian Branch was old, and stock full of tradition, and those traditions did not accept applicants that weren't fully human. Samael had gone over the list of things he should be aware of when it came to the Italian views of demons and exorcism, in some attempt at guiding him past at least some of the pitfalls that were lying in wait for him in Rome. New place, new life, and – from what Shiro had learnt of the Roman HQ and its views – the mess was just waiting to happen.

"Done." Shiro threw some more crumpled newspaper pages in the box and deemed it ready to be sealed up.

Four years in boarding school and they fit into a single cubic metre cardboard box. Four happy, exciting years and a pitfall at the end. The box contained clothes and his stock of soap, shampoo and spare razors, the scissors he cut his hair with and his service pistol with magazines. Mostly, though, it contained books: course books, notebooks, dictionaries, scrap books. All kinds of books, though none of his porn magazines: he would be thrown out of university faster than a rat carcass if he seemed "susceptible to carnal vices".

Shiro sealed the box shut with duct tape, closing that chapter of his life with the ironic thought that the most important lessons he had learnt at that school were not from books.

Putting the tape away on the desk, he fished out a memory note from his pocket, sat down on his haunches, and uncorked a permanent marker to write the shipping address on the box. Once in Japanese and once in what Samael termed "Latin lettering by a five-year-old". Via Umbria 15, 00187, rione Sallustiano, Roma, Italia. Some of the Pontifical Universities offered dorms, some not. The University of Saint Thomas Aquinas had no such facilities, although they did provide students from abroad help to find accommodation. The apartment they had acquired for him on Via Umbria was intended for two, so he could expect the university to assign him a roommate sooner or later. That might complicate things, or it might not. Given the chicken shit luck he'd had with roommates so far, he would be surprised if his Roman roommate was a worse match than the ones in Japan.

There was a second cardboard box in the room, much smaller than the first and much dustier: the garbage box. Shiro had picked it up at the orphanage in town after receiving a mail notification that, since he had now come of age and all remaining ties to the orphanage were absolved, they would no longer store his belongings. Now it sat on the floor and shed dust on the freshly scrubbed floorboards, like some sullen kid that had been dragged along but didn't really want to be there. Shiro highly doubted there would be anything in there worth keeping… But you could never be sure.

That's another thing with life. What's worth keeping and what's just to throw away isn't always clear; in general, the true worth of something only shows in retrospect. What Shiro kept, and what he threw away… He didn't want to think of what he had thrown away, but he was sure it would fill more than one cardboard box.

"Right, let's get this over with." Shiro sat down on his knees, cut the tape with his knife and eased the lid open. He was greeted by exactly the kind of assorted mess he had expected.

His baseball glove had been claimed as a mouse nest sometime long ago. What was left of the leather was gnawed and full of droppings that looked like little black rice grains. Shiro lifted it out with both hands and made sure not to spill anything on his clean floor. It was ridiculously small, now that he was an adult: if he spread his fingers as wide as he could it could almost have fit in his hand.

Under the glove were small things haphazardly thrown into the box. A small toy car. A whistle. A miniature hand net that he remembered crawling around in his mom's garden with, hunting for insects. Colourful drawings where you couldn't even tell if he had been trying to draw houses or cars. Under those were some kind of folded fabric. A pillow case…?

"Oh man, we kept this…?" Shiro gave a snort, smiling in disbelief as he pulled the streamer up by one end. He remembered that. It was a school project from just before the Golden Week. All children had been given plain white koinobori streamers that they could paint their own carp designs on, the idea being that they could fly them on Children's Day. Except Shiro's didn't fly much, and neither was it a carp. He had wanted to make it a dragon, but apparently he was the only one who saw that it was a dragon, so he had figured out that it would be easier to see what it was if it had legs. Before his teacher could stop him he had taken a pair of scissors, laid the koinobori flat on the floor, and cut out holes in its belly. It did look like it had legs (as long as it lay flat) but the holes also made it very un-aerodynamic. His mom had still insisted on flying it next to hers and his dad's on Children's Day. It had looked like a spastic caterpillar.

Shiro folded the koinobori and put it on the floor, sniggering at his stupid child self until he saw what had been hidden under the streamer. The wave of memories that washed over him then was so intense it seemed to slow time down to a stop. At the very bottom of the box lay the most wondrous toy he had ever owned: a battery driven tin ship, as long as his lower arm. He remembered when he had gotten it, every detail of that day so clear and perfect in his mind it seemed more real than the present: it had been his Shichi-go-san, and the hakama sleeves fell down over his hands when he tore at the gift wrapping, and the shriek of joy that danced throughout his body when he glimpsed the box inside and knew that it truly was the toy he had been wishing for.

Shiro mutely stroked the tin surface with his fingertips. The ship's hull had small dents here and there from where it had collided with things, but the print of wooden boards and frothing waves was in pristine condition. The cannon that sat on the bow still moved smoothly on its hinges. The treasure chest on deck, the captain at the wheel: it was all there. It was just like when he was five years old and couldn't believe his eyes.

Shiro lifted the tin ship out of the box with what was best described as reverence. The weight of it was astonishingly familiar to his fingers, as was the cool surface of the tin and the memories it held; it set off a trilling feeling in his chest, an anticipation and excitement he had almost forgotten he could feel. The masts and the sails lay under it – there had been a smaller Jolly Roger flag for the stern, he remembered, but that he had lost long ago. That wasn't important. Hell, the only thing important right now was to get his pirate ship assembled and sailing.

It was like pressing a button and enabling five-year-old mode. Grinning like an idiot and not giving a damn, Shiro fit the masts into the holes on deck and pulled the abused sails into some semblance of shape, then paused to admire his work with mischievous satisfaction. The sails looked good with tears and crinkles, too – one could always pretend the ship had sailed through a storm. Hadn't he done that when he was little? He must have exposed those poor pirates to just about any disaster you could encounter at sea: storms, monsters, naval battles, reefs, whirlpools. It had been bloody awesome.

Batteries, he needed batteries. Shiro's gaze swept the room and quickly settled on the neighbouring desk, where Saburota had his fancy digital alarm clock, but that one ran on cable electricity. He would need to raid his roommate's wardrobe for a flashlight if he wanted batteries.

Five minutes of ethically questionable rummaging later, Shiro had not found any flashlight or other battery operated device he could pillage. He stared silently at the ship, pondering if he should ask around in the corridor's other rooms or if he should accept that he wasn't going to see it sail. Then excitement kicked in again, like a dopamine shot going straight to his head, and he walked over and nudged the tin toy with his foot: it rolled just fine on its own, changing course ever so slightly when the swivel wheel at the front crossed the gaps between the floorboards. That simple thing made the dumb grin return to his face with full force. He'd fucking loved that ship.

At that moment, Shiro felt like his mind operated on swivel wheels, too. It did that kind of skip thoughts sometimes do, when they don't bother explaining the whole string of reasoning to you and just hand you the conclusion. He knew exactly what to do with his pirate ship.

Life is funny that way. What's worth keeping and what's just to throw away isn't always clear, but there are those rare times when you know. And when you know, you know: not in mind but in heart.

As soon as he knew, Shiro went to work as if seized by mania. He left the trash on the floor and tilted the cardboard box on end and, after giving it a couple of slaps to make it acceptably clean, tossed in some of the remaining newspaper balls he had had for padding his overseas delivery. Once the box was properly packaged, he dissembled the pirate ship and laid its parts in it. He stopped at the mistreated sails, however. Those wouldn't do. Shiro gazed down at the naked stems of the masts. That wouldn't do, either. He needed to replace the sails somehow, but he didn't have-

Shiro lit up when the idea sprang to mind. His gut brain really was incredibly active today.

"That will be perfect", he mumbled, a smile playing on his lips as he stood and stalked over to Saburota's desk. Borrowing pen and paper he scribbled down a brief account of the treasure the pirates had found after a long and adventurous journey, and the storm they had been caught in on their way back to their secret harbour. The tempest had torn their sails and saw them stranded, so Midori and Sen would have to make new sails for them so they could sail home.

Shiro couldn't readily explain what the hell he was doing, just like he couldn't explain how the sight of that ship had made him this excited. He did know he was still riding that wave, and that it was invigorating like a horse kick in the ass. So yessir, he would give Midori and Sen the pirate ship.

"They'll make some crazy-ass installation with it – put it on Sen's head and use her hair to make Kraken arms." Shiro pulled a crooked smile as he wrote down an additional note that a large seagull had flown away with the pirates' flag, but that they didn't mind that much since they were getting tired of the old design anyway: Sen and Midori should make them a new one.

Shiro was still on the nostalgic euphoria high when he used his last newspapers and tape to wrap up the gift – note inside – and in another spur-of-the-moment flash of inspiration he cut shreds out of the spastic caterpillar carp to tie a ribbon around it. The final touch would be the greeting card: and since he had a pile of colourful drawings on hand, he picked out the most peculiar one, taped it to the gift, and wrote a simple Take good care of it on it.

While his creative side was at it, it decided to drop him one final idea before calling it a day. Shiro fetched himself a new note and scribbled Clearing out my collection: take as many as you want, whereupon he signed it Yaonaru Kita and placed it atop his stack of discarded porn magazines. With a pleasant grin, which felt very good on his face, Shiro carried the stack down to the entrance hall of the boy's dorm and selected a spot on the floor where it was impossible to miss.

Upon returning to his room, Shiro heaved a sigh of accomplishment. Looking at the bizarre hodgepodge of a present filled him with a curious feeling of satisfaction. It had been ages since he felt like this. After pondering that for a while, he decided that short bouts of spontaneous madness felt good – like being drunk in the best sense of drunk. He should do that more often.

There was one last thing to pack, after Shiro had gotten rid of the trash and vacuumed the floor again. Japan Airlines allowed him one piece of hand baggage, and that he reserved for the handful of things that were left on his desk after everything else was packed. The utility belt Kasumi had given him went in first, rolled tightly and tucked into the largest compartment of the backpack. Sen's calligraphy set joined it, resting inside a plastic bag just in case the lid slipped off and the ink stick fell out. Midori's steel wire lion, Sayuri's cigarettes, Ryuuji's cassette tapes, the scarf Kasumi made – all were swallowed by the backpack. Shiro didn't know how much one could trust overseas shipping, but this way he knew the important things would arrive in Rome safely.

The last item on the desk was a small, wooden donkey. It almost seemed deliberate, as if it had waited until there was nothing else for him to look at so it would have his full attention. The donkey was nothing special if given a quick glance: just a children's toy from some backwater village. But look closer and the skill of the craftsman would unveil itself in the knife strokes that, in spite of their crude cuts, brought out the form of the animal perfectly. Shiro could appreciate that skill, although he hadn't known what to do with the figurine except keep it as a paper weight. Even that had been a bad choice, since the weight was in the donkey's body and not its four delicate legs, which made it topple over every time Shiro bumped his desk. Shizuku would have laughed, like he had when he made that donkey. Complete with steel wire glasses and a mini cigarette. For his stupid-ass friend.

Four happy, exciting years and a pitfall at the end.

Shiro put the donkey in the backpack with the other important things.

The lacquered case with the lone baoding ball sat on Shiro's stripped bunk bed like a big, ugly spider. He hadn't wanted to set it among the other things but there was no helping it. He needed to be a hundred per cent certain that ball got to Rome with him, and so he reluctantly stashed it in the backpack next to Kasumi's belt and Sen's calligraphy set. In a last-minute flash of recollection, he took the switchblade knife out of his jacket pocket and slipped it into the suitcase where he had packed a week's worth of clothes. When he booked his flights the airport had notified him that security protocol had been tightened, following a series of plane hijackings in the US. Any potential weapon would be confiscated upon detection and the carrier fined.

Once he had disposed of the trash Shiro stretched himself out, extending his arms above his head until a confirming pop was heard from his shoulders. He let out a sigh and ran both his hands through his hair, stopping to rest behind his neck as he surveyed his work. All was cleaned. All was packed. All was addressed.

"Time for the hard part", he murmured. He borrowed a pen and a paper out of Saburota's notepad again and sat himself down at his desk.

Shiro had crumpled up half of Saburota's notepad before he had composed a letter he was satisfied with.

A/N:

Koinobori, if it didn't become clear from the text, is a carp patterned streamer that is flown on Children's Day every year. Typically, it's one koinobori for each family member, though it seems like it was originally only for mother, father, and sons.

Masudaya is a toy company that made lots of mechanical tin toys back in the day. The one Shiro had when he was little is a tin pirate ship that was constructed in the 1960's (couldn't find an exact date).

Shichi-go-san is this tradition of celebrating children when they turn three (boys & girls), five (boys), and seven (girls), thus the name shichi-go-san. Three, five, and seven used to be the milestone ages when children were allowed to grow their hair out (three), wear a hakama (five) and tie their kimonos with proper obi instead of plain cords (seven).

Saburota's fancy digital alarm clock because this is 1977. It's the era when digital electronical timepieces boomed: all that stuff we label vintage now was top notch modern when Shiro was young.

Shiro's bout of spontaneous madness is one of those things that just happened without me intending it from the beginning. When it comes to writing I have accepted that my subconscious does a much better job than I do, so the bout stayed. In retrospect I think I can guess what my subconscious was thinking.

I believe the adult Shiro was one of those goofy dads. He had a serious side but he also knew the importance of being spontaneous and doing shit just for the fun of it. I see it in the way he jokes with Rin and I see it in the look on his face when he's amused that Yukio is so angry at Shura that he hisses out "shit" when he thinks nobody hears him. (There is also this hilarious illustration in Bloody Fairy Tale where the twins are small, Yukio has wet his bed after a nightmare, and Shiro is holding up the soiled bedsheet and grinning like an idiot.) Daddy-Shiro does weird stuff that is embarrassing to his kids while it's somehow also an endearing dad thing. I think that what my subconscious wanted with this spontaneous madness bout was to show where the goofiness comes from. Shiro is a prankster and an instigator at heart, and when he's in a good mood (like when he rediscovers his favourite childhood toy) that part of him finds fuel. It has been a while since he was in touch with that part so I can see how this was refreshing for him.