AN/: So umm, this is my first fanfic ever, and it turned quite angsty. Sorry about that. Inspired by Paradise (What About Us) by Within Temptation because every time I hear it I immediately think about Wolf's Rain. And the music video fits too so listen to it, because it really is a great song. Unfortunately I apparently can't post the lyrics here, but I recommend the song anyway. Also, the formatting is refusing to co-operate, but hopefully it's readable. Written in Toboe's POV, with slight hints of brotherly Toboe/Tsume. Constructive criticism appreciated because I'm not a native English speaker, and I tend to have troubles keeping the tense constant. But anyways, please comment and like, or at least read it and tell me what you think.
A fire. Fire everywhere. I could hear my mother telling me and my siblings to run, to run away from the hunters. I had barely opened my eyes, everything was a chaos, I didn't know where mum wanted me to run or what these hunters were, so I followed my siblings. I was the runt of the litter, and I fell behind them quickly. I tried to yell for my mother in panic, but smoke got in my lungs preventing me from breathing properly. The fire burns, I have to get away from it, I realize on the verge on tears, both from smoke and fear. I found my siblings, they don't move anymore. I could barely move anymore, but still tried to nudge them to get up. I don't want to be alone, I'm scared, I don't know what's going on, you have to wake up! They never did. But luckily I was found by a human, a nice old lady, who took me home with her.
Granny raised me. But now she's dead. Dead, because of me. I killed her. When the humans noticed me they chased me out of her house, and ever since then I have lived on the streets. There's nothing in the town for me, but I still can't bring myself to leave. The town seems somehow familiar, and despite the obvious threat of wandering in backstreets alone at night, I still feel safe.
I met Tsume. In the middle of the street, we just stared at each other dumbfounded. I couldn't move, the memories of our past lives were flooding in. Judging by the look on his face, Tsume also had some trouble dealing with the memories. One of the humans he was with tried to shake him out of it, but he slapped away the hand and darted away grabbing my collar as he went. The one who tried to touch him shouted something after us, but we ignored him, immersed in our memories. Okay, I ignored him because of the memories, Tsume just probably didn't care. Hard to say with him.
We talked at Tsume's apartment, a small dirty place at the edges of town and decided to try to find the others. We recognized the town from our past, and for the first time acknowledged it was perhaps the reason we stayed. But it was weird. Before our human forms were a mere illusion, now we fully turn. we tried to think of a reason, but wound up laughing about how much Kiba must hate this.
It didn't take long to find them. Blue and Hige had met quite early in their lives, and had managed to find Kiba as well. I couldn't help but wonder how we had never passed by each other before, Freeze city wasn't really that big. Pops, and Cher and Hub remember all about before as well. Pops is actually friendly this time around. Well, at least towards me. He can't stand Hige, maybe because he is openly together with Blue now.
But no one knows where Cheza is, or whether or not this is Paradise. None of us thinks that, this might be better than before, but none of us would call this Paradise. Kiba says we might have to leave this town to find Cheza, so we're leaving here soon. Cher would like to help, but she's pregnant for Hub, so they aren't coming with us. Pops of course isn't leaving her girl with vicious wolves, so he's coming with us. Despite the lack of emergency, this still somehow reminds me of our last lives.
Kiba is desperate. We haven't found Cheza anywhere. Not even a sign she has been reborn with us. Tsume, of course, is being an ass. He is gentler here than before, and hasn't tried to piss of everybody nearly as much as before, but he's still quite negative. Fine, a lot negative, but I suppose our situation sort of calls for a pessimist. I have been trying to cheer everyone up, but eventually even Hige gets tired of it. When everyone else shouts at me I go to Pops. When I'm in my wolf form he sometimes pets me, sort of absentmindedly. Blue is the only one of the others who can sort of understand why I like it. Tsume just scoffs and Hige laughs, Kiba hasn't probably even paid attention. Blue is almost like my elder sister, watching over me, whenever she's not hanging out with Hige.
Everyone is worried about Kiba. Even Tsume doesn't tease him anymore. He barely eats anymore, and no-one knows if he's been sleeping either. Since the third town we passed without a sign of Cheza none of us has actually seen him sleep, but we just assumed he had to sleep sometimes, it just clearly wasn't enough. He even snapped at Tsume, yelling at him that if he wanted to tell them "I told you so", he should had done it already and left, instead of staying to torment him. Kiba ran off, and I chased him after making sure Tsume was going nowhere. Kiba was crying when I found him, actually crying. I waited with him until his tears stopped. He was adamant about leaving us, about going to find Cheza by himself. I managed to persuade him to come back with me, had he gone alone he would had worked himself until he collapsed, and might had died on his quest. Everything is back to normal, or as normal as it ever was here, in this life, but I don't know how long we can keep this up.
Pops is dead. He was shot by some robber, when the two of us went looking for food. He tried to protect me from being raped, but the men shot him without a backward glance, and ignoring my struggles dragged me off the main street. Not that they would had had to, nobody bat an eye as they shot Pops. There were hands everywhere, ripping off my shirt and groping my behind. I panicked and couldn't turn into a wolf, all I could think about was Pops' face as the bullet had hit him, and what would happen to me if I didn't get out. Tsume, who had been walking outside, not standing to stay inside four walls with two lovebirds and depressed Kiba, somehow heard my screams and rescued me. All I could do was sob as he dragged me back to the hotel where we were staying. Blue was devastated, and too lost in her own grief to care much about me, but Tsume proved to be a surprisingly good caretaker. Kiba hasn't spared a glance since Tsume brought me back sobbing my eyes out to his shirt, and I don't think Tsume has forgiven his indifference. Not that he's forgiven Hige either for only having for Blue, but I understand him. Blue was raised by Pops after all, she too needed someone to look after her.
We buried pops near a forest, if you can call that small patch of dying trees a forest. His wallet had disappeared, as well as most of his clothes and gun, but no-one had touched the body. Kiba couldn't bring himself to care, but Hige and Tsume helped me and Blue to keep going. Both of them were quite mad at Kiba for not caring, and for being adamant about moving to the next town as soon as we had concluded there was no trace of Cheza here. They had a huge fight, but it was resolved, when Kiba pointed out that I had barely been outside after the incident, and that a change of scenery would be good for all of us. That doesn't mean things are okay between them, but we're still moving together which at this point can be considered a victory.
None of us even thinks about the possibility of this place being the Paradise anymore. If it wasn't for the circumstances, I could have considered the chance, for Tsume has allowed me to sleep with him, if only to keep the nightmares at bay. Now I'm too haunted by my guilt of getting Pops killed to really appreciate it enough.
Hige found Darcia's smell today. We left the city as soon as we managed to bury Pops, and we're staying in a forest for the time being. Tsume made sure I never left his side after that incident, but now he's keeping me even closer. It makes me sort of happy. All of them are worried for me, maybe because I was the one who died after Pops last time as well. Though it could be because I'm the runt of the pack, and they don't believe I can fight for myself. But I'm not the runt anymore. I can hunt better now, I'm not as useless as I used to be. Fine, I can't really fight, and if I were to face Darcia, I'm pretty sure I would be immobilized by fear immediately. And I'm not entirely sure I could actually kill anyone, even a normal soldier for that matter. I understand their worry, I don't want to see any of them die either. But we might still have to fight, none of us wants to let Darcia gain power in here, to ruin the closest thing we have to a Paradise right now, no matter how terrible.
We found Darcia. Or he found us, rather. Apparently he's still a noble, with lots of resources. At least judging from the amount of men and weapons outside the warehouse we're hiding in. Somehow, he has managed to convince himself, that this is all our fault. Our fault that the Paradise never opened, that he never saw his beloved Hamona again. Kiba wants go outside and face him, but we can't even stick our head out without being shot at. That doesn't mean Tsume didn't have to punch him out of the idea. He's currently sulking in the corner, Blue and Hige are huddled together, and I snuggled to Tsume. Tells something about the seriousness of the situation that he hasn't pushed me off. There's only one exit, and the walls are too thick for us to break through. Our only chance is to try and break through the soldiers outside the door, but we have no long range weapons, and while they haven't brought out the big guns yet, we'd all be dead within seconds should we try that. Everybody knows that this is goodbye.
If we stay inside, he won't be satisfied with killing us. He told us as much from outside our warehouse in a very descriptive speech. He said he'd kill us all slowly, and have the others watch. I couldn't stop trembling after his little speech, flashbacks from pop's death causing me to bury myself into Tsume's embrace. We can't let ourselves get caught, even if it means we have to die. Kiba has already given up hope, and I can see Tsume is losing his too. There's a small ruckus outside, the soldiers are ready to break in. Kiba shoots Tsume a glare, a challenge to try and stop him again, but Tsume only glances away and helps me to my feet. I'm still trembling, and it's hard to stop the tears from falling, but nobody else is crying either, so I'm not going to either. Tsume actually ruffles my hair, "Sorry I got you into this, runt." I can only offer him a watery smile, losing the fight of keeping my tears from falling and shake my head. "See you in Paradise" I offer a hopeful wish. "Of course." Blue strays from Hige's side for long enough to give me a hug. "Of course." None of them wants to deny me my tiny speck of hope, but I can see they don't believe it'll happen. With one last look at our friends, family, we run outside to the guns.
I've lost count how many times we've done this. It's always the same, yet always different. I always find Tsume first, then Kiba, Hige and Blue find us. And we always look for Cheza, never find her, and always die in the same order. But everything else is different. Once I was the eldest, all of us have been of different sex, once I was even a cat, but I could still keep up the illusion of being a human. Once we were actually all human, Kiba likes to pretend that life doesn't exist. Though we die at the same order, the time between differs. Sometimes I die before meeting Tsume, before ever remembering, and the memories hit twice as hard when I do remember in the next life. Sometimes I live for decades after we've seen Pops die. Cher, Hubb and Pops usually remember only the first life we had together, and we don't always find any of them.
Some lives are better, some worse. There was a life, where there were actually gardens, and I lived with my family till I met Tsume. And another where you could barely breathe in the streets because of the exhaust fumes, and I had an abusive foster father. The environment and the humans are connected somehow, and apparently the better everything is, the closer we are to Paradise. But no one really knows what causes things to get better or worse. Kiba is convinced it depends on how close we came to finding Cheza, Tsume believes its chance. In any case, everything has been going to the wrong direction. It has been slow, but little by little everything has been getting worse. The better times have gotten rarer and rarer, and well, less good. And the bad ones get even worse and more frequent. Cher often works for the government, so she has access to all kinds of information. Somehow, with the help of Kiba's memories of his first fight with Darcia she dug out that all of this could be the cause of Darcia's eye poisoning our Paradise from this world, preventing it from opening- Which is why we are reborn again and again, to get rid of the poison. And we try, try, and try again, time after time, maybe we'll make it one day. No, not maybe, we'll do it, somebody has to stay positive, Tsume is negative enough for the rest of us. Though Kiba would probably do it all on his own, he's sure Cheza will be waiting for us once we're done. We'll make it, and Paradise will open. There is still a long way to go, but we'll make it. We will.