Mikoto's Legacy
Summary: Genderswap. As his Sword of Damocles continues to deteriorate Mikoto thinks on what he wants to leave behind besides a giant crater. To this end he asks his loyal vanguard to perform one last service for him.
The barroom was full well past capacity with loud clansmen, but today Kusanagi didn't mind. They all had a right to be here tonight, and Mikoto deserved to be sent off in style.
Munakata had finally authorized the return of Mikoto's body three days before. It had only taken Kusanagi a few hours to arrange for their king's funeral, and the cremation had been completed earlier in the day. Tonight, they celebrated their king's life.
Kamamoto was entertaining a group in the corner with a fictitious story about how he saved Mikoto's life during some encounter with the Blues. Yata was helping herself to a third helping of whatever was on whichever tap she came to first. Eric and Kousuke were playing cards with Bandou, and Anna was watching them all through one of her marbles.
Kusanagi had been keeping a close eye on Anna all evening. She seemed to be doing better now than she had been while Scepter 4 was still holding on to Mikoto's body, but that wasn't saying much. For all intents and purposes Mikoto had been her father, and Anna had already lost one of those before. Tomorrow he would need to see to the instructions for her care that Mikoto had left. Mikoto hadn't made a will, since all he really had to his name was a single bank account and Anna, but Kusanagi knew that Mikoto had gone and had something notarized a few weeks before his death.
A flash of movement brought his attention back to Anna. The girl was halfway across the barroom before he had time to wonder what she was up to. She ducked behind the bar, pulling one of the stools behind her. Still curious to what exactly the girl was up to, Kusanagi didn't stop her as she climbed up on the stool and grabbed a beer mug off the shelf. Anna set it on the counter, and then carefully climbed down from the stool. Once her feet were firmly back on the floor, Anna took the mug in her hands and held it out to Kusanagi.
"Some of that please," she asked, nodding toward the tap.
Kusanagi was still somewhat lost as to what Anna was thinking, shook his head. "You're not old enough for that, Anna."
"Neither is Yata, and she's already had three glasses full."
Ah, so that's where this was going.
"Yata's a big girl, Anna," Kusanagi replied. "She knows her limits."
Yata, with her third glass sitting empty in front of her, huffed. "I'm done growing Anna, you're not. Beer isn't good for growing girls."
Anna shook her head. "If Yata can have three glasses, why can't I have one? Yata's not that much older."
"Yata's switching to tea now anyway." Kamamoto plucked Yata's glass off the bar, and replaced it with his own glass of tea.
"Hey, give that back!"
"Shut up and drink your tea, Chihuahua," Eric said. Other members of Homra joined in with similar sentiments.
"Three glasses really is enough for someone your size," Kamamoto insisted. "And we all need to set a good example for Anna."
Around the bar glasses and bottles vanished from sight among murmurs of discontent. Chitose downed what was left of his in one swallow before upending his glass on the table. Eric pushed his cup to the side and went back to studying his hand of cards, while Kousuke reluctantly handed his glass over as Kamamoto began to make his way around the room collecting the cups.
Once the last glass was emptied down the sink, Anna handed her mug over with no fuss.
Yata hated how Kamamoto took his tea. It was too milky and not sweet at all.
Though she wouldn't admit it, her head was fuzzy from the beer. Kamamoto was right that she didn't have the size or bulk to be a heavy drinker, even the weak beer Mr. Kusanagi kept on tap was too much.
The alcohol wouldn't help anyway. Mr. Mikoto had avenged Mr. Totsuka, and hadn't sacrificed a single one of his clansmen in the process. It was how Mr. Mikoto had wanted things to be. That didn't change the fact that he was gone, and getting drunk wouldn't help her forget it.
Yata should be thankful Kamamoto was forcing her to switch over to tea. The others were already giving her strange looks because she had broken down and sobbed after Mr. Mikoto's sword vanished. She didn't need to get drunk and make a further fool of herself.
She took another sip of tea, and grimaced at the taste. There was no pleasant numbness to go with the fuzzy feeling. Just that ever present weight that had settled in her chest when she threw open that door and saw Mr. Totsuka lying in a pool of blood. She'd only just stopped getting sick every time she remembered the feel of Mr. Totsuka's blood on her face, how it had soaked through her shirt and coated her chest with a disgusting layer of coppery liquid.
Yata'd realized the first night Mr. Mikoto asked her to join him upstairs, just how deeply losing Mr. Totsuka had cut their King. That he intended to die once the Colorless King was taken care of. That was why she couldn't deny his request. The gossiping men she called her fellow clansmen had always debated whether she and Saru were more than just roommates, and even Mr. Mikoto had thought she was sleeping with Mr. Totsuka. But no, she didn't lose her virginity until Mr. Mikoto. How could she? Saru would never touch her, and anyone who showed an interest before she joined Homra had quickly been introduced to Saru's knife fetish. And after Homra… well, a girl who could hold fire in her hands made men nervous.
The last of Kamamoto's tea went down with a swallow and a grimace. "Can I get something that doesn't taste godawful?"
"Like the beer was so great," Eric muttered.
"That beer was imported from Germany," Kusanagi said.
"It tasted like Windex."
Yata couldn't argue with that. Judging by the murmurs of agreement, nobody else could either. A glass of water appeared in front of her, and she figured that was the only thing Kusanagi would be willing to serve her for the rest of the night.
Looking around, Yata noted that Anna had disappeared. It was after midnight, so Anna was probably off getting ready for bed. Mentally, Yata wished her sweet dreams, but doubted any of them would sleep well for awhile. Mr. Mikoto might be at peace, but the rest of them weren't.
Deciding it was probably time to head out herself, Yata pushed herself off the barstool and tried to stand. After a wobbly start, she got her legs firmly under her. She nodded to Kamamoto as she made her way to the door.
"Wait!"
Yata froze and every head in the turned toward stairs.
"Who…?"
There was a little boy standing there with a duffle bag at least as large as the child over his shoulder. But his voice, Yata could have sworn…
"Anna?" Kusanagi sounded lost, but Yata was just as confused, so yeah. "What are you wearing?"
A red hoodie and shorts three sizes too large if Yata had to guess. Actually, she was pretty sure Anna was wearing a pair of shoes that Yata had forgotten at the bar last week too. She resembled any number of boys that frequented Yata's apartment complex,
"Anna," Bandou spoke up, "just because Yata's technically a girl, doesn't mean she should be your role model."
"Hey, what's wrong with the way I dress?!"
Nobody dignified that with a response, and if Yata wasn't so unsteady on her feet she would probably be punching a few people.
"I was wondering about the bag myself," Kamamoto said. "Are you planning a trip Anna?"
Anna shook her head. "I'm going with Yata."
Yata felt the need to sit down. So she pushed Chitose out of his chair and took it for herself. "Umm, what?"
Anna skipped down the last few steps and was at Yata's side before she answered. "Mikoto said if anything happened to him, I was going to live with you."
"Does that strike anyone else as questionable judgement on our King's part?" Chitose asked, still sprawled on the floor.
"Maybe he thought Yata's motherly instincts would make her the best candidate for taking care of Anna," Kamamoto said.
"Yata? She's only a girl because she has the parts, not because she actually is one," Bandou insisted.
Flame sprang to life in Yata's clenched fist. "What?!"
"Not in my bar!" Kusanagi yelled. "And Anna isn't going anywhere tonight, especially that cesspit Yata lives in."
"It's not a cesspit," Yata muttered.
"Last time I was in that neighborhood I saw five prostitutes and two drug dealers," Kusanagi said.
"Kaho's girls are good people, and I chased those dealers off ages ago," Yata argued.
A moment of silence followed.
"You know your local Madame by name?" Chitose asked.
"She's my neighbor and some of the local guys try to give her trouble. I make sure they leave her alone."
"So you moonlight as a bouncer for a whorehouse?"
"Not the point," Kusanagi interrupted. "Anna's not going anywhere tonight. Mikoto left some documents in the safe that I'm going to look over tomorrow. We'll go from there.
"Anna, take that bag back upstairs. I'll be up in a minute to help make up the bed in the blue room. Yata, you'll be staying the night."
"What?"
"Anna seems to think Mikoto wanted you to act as her guardian. If nothing else, you can stay the night for her sake."
"But the blue room?" Mikoto's room.
"It's right next to Anna's."
And where she'd slept most nights since Mr. Totsuka died. Kusanagi didn't say that part out loud, but she knew he knew.
Kusanagi sighed. "For tonight. If you need to stay longer we can shuffle rooms."
"Stay longer?"
"I meant what I said. Anna isn't going anywhere near your neighborhood. If Mikoto did leave you custody of his daughter, our princess, you'll be finding new accommodations in a better part of town."
After Yata and Anna disappeared upstairs for the night, the atmosphere in the bar turned speculative. Many of the more periphery members of Homra had left for the night, leaving only the regulars behind.
"So, Yata and Mikoto, huh?" Chitose asked.
"Looks like," Kousuke agreed.
"They were sleeping together, yeah. But I didn't think it was serious," Souhei said.
Kamamoto remained silent, glaring at his drink.
"They weren't serious, not on Mikoto's part," Kusanagi agreed. "And I doubt Yata considered it a relationship either. Despite her appearance, she's a grown woman. She knows what she's doing …most of the time."
"If she didn't mean anything to him, why did he leave her Anna?" Kamamoto asked. "Yata is my friend, my sister. If he took advantage of her like that—"
"Were you not listening to me? Yata's not some naive innocent—"
"How do you know that?!" Kamamoto stood, his chair screeching as it was pushed back. "Yata worshiped Mikoto. How could she possibly tell him no?"
"Give her some credit. She's loyal to a fault but if he'd tried to force her to do anything she didn't want, she'd have brought the building down on his head."
Kamamoto didn't look convinced. "Still, she's our sister. How could Mikoto even ask her that?"
Kusanagi sighed. "I don't know why Mikoto risked so much just for a few weeks with Yata. Especially when he was the one who warned everyone off after things ended so badly between her and Fushimi."
"I thought it was because he had a thing for her," Chitose said.
Kusanagi shook his head. "You saw how bad things got after Fushimi left. Yata was picking fights with anyone just for the hell of it. Mikoto had to bail her out of jail twice in under a month. Then she ended up in the hospital, those two Scepter 4 guys ended up with third degree burns, and Tatara and I had to go grovel to Munakata to get the charges dropped. After that we couldn't let Yata go anywhere without Kamamoto, and Mikoto decided Yata was off limits to everybody."
"Yata really burned the Scepter 4 guys that bad?" Kousuke asked.
"No," Kamamoto answered. "Mikoto did that. He tracked them down after we got Yata back from the hospital. We've all seen what kind of damage Yata can take. You don't put her in the emergency room by accident."
"Luckily Munakata agreed, which is why our King wasn't tossed in a cage at Scepter 4 and left to rot," Kusanagi said. "Anyway, we can go round and round about what Mikoto was thinking in those last few weeks, and still not have a clue. For now, we need to focus on taking care of Anna."
"And Yata?" Kamamoto asked.
"Yata's one of us. If she's struggling, we'll be there for her." Kusanagi paused. "We'll need to stick together."
Eric frowned. "Why wouldn't we?"
Kusanagi shook his head. "Just a thought. Anyway, I'm sure you're all tired, so let's finish this in the morning. You can stay here for the night if you want."
"Do we get our own rooms?" Bandou asked.
"You can fight over the couches. If I catch anyone sleeping on my bar, they'll be scrubbing floors for the next three months."
Author's Note:
So, from what I've read clansmen keep their powers even after their King dies. I'm assuming the powers Kuroh was showing off in the anime were the result of his being the previous Colorless King's clansman, not some unexplained superpower he just happened to have.
Some of these guys are unreliable narrators. Mikoto's motivations aren't clear to any of them at this point.