Author's Note: So sorry for the long wait. I just started my new job and things have been hectic trying to find time to write. Sorry! Thank you all for your kind words! Forgive me! Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I own nothing!
Warnings: Nothing much, just dark themes such as talk of suicide.
Word Count: 4,316
Mikoto ordered Anna to talk and so she did. She gave them as detailed a recollection of the events as she could that followed Tatara's death all the way up to Mikoto's, making sure to keep her opinion out of it, just straight up facts as she saw them and learned about them. After those times, Anna admits that the next few years leading up to when she woke up wasn't as clear as she would have liked them to be considering the time between Tatara and Mikoto's deaths are so clear to her, even right now, when that was almost four years prior in the vision and almost a week away from present day.
Everyone listens in silence. There was a little bit of nibbling on waffles, but after a few minutes, there is just a little bit of moving food around the plates and listening intently. She tells them about how slowly but surely over the following four years, she watched Homra splinter and break apart. She describes watching Izumo go through the stages of grief alone, since he was her primary caretaker after Tatara and Mikoto passed. Watching Izumo progressively get sadder and sadder until he became unable to feel anything at all. When not even the rarest gathering of all living Homra members could extract any sort of real, fully genuine emotion.
Izumo looks uncomfortable about being the new center of the story, but also unhappy about where his own future is heading.
"To answer your question, Yata," Anna says, looking down the row to the young red head. "It was Eric who taught me. About a year from now. It was his way of trying to get my mind off of Homra slowly falling apart."
"So, does that mean that you can understand this, Anna?" Eric says in English, looking at the young strain.
Anna nods. "Yes," she responds in English. "You taught me enough to be able to..." her eyebrows furrow, trying to recall the proper words. She looks around the room as if the words will just suddenly come to her, but after about thirty seconds of silence, she shakes her head and finishes in Japanese, "...hold a semblance of a proper conversation." She shrugs her shoulders. "Somewhat."
Eric smiles a little. "In spite of this entire thing, at least I can hold a conversation with someone in my native tongue," he says in English, then switches back to Japanese. "Sorry, keep going, Anna."
"I eventually left the bar," Anna continues, looking down at her lap, not wanting to see the judgment in their eyes. "It was my birthday. I didn't say goodbye to Izumo other than a note. I didn't know what to do." Something wet lands on the back of her right hand. She gently touches it with the tip of her left pointer finger and wipes it away. "I knew what I was doing was wrong, and yet I still did it. I remember feeling constant shame in myself through out my time wandering the city, avoiding anyone I knew both Red and Blue clans." She shakes her head as another water drop hits the back of her hand. She wipes that away too, still not looking up.
"Anna..." Tatara says softly from behind the bar directly in front of her.
She shakes her head, not wanting to hear anything just yet. Her story wasn't over. "I don't remember what happened. But somehow, around six months after I left Homra, something happened. I don't know what, though."
"That offers us nothing," Chitose says.
"I think I met someone..." Anna mumbles, closing her eyes now. The chill of fear returning. It crawls up her spine, making her shiver. Kamamoto, who sat himself right next to Anna, reaches out and rubs her back soothingly.
"It's okay, Anna," Kamamoto says softly. "It's okay."
"Who was it?" Mikoto asks, softly prompting her to continue. His face remained completely impassive through all of this, honed in on the side of her face, listening to the entire story through.
"I don't know who they are. All I know is that I don't like them. Whoever they were..." Anna swallows thickly, squeezing her eyes shut, trying to avoid the darkened figure that reaches out to her, trying to pull her under the surface of her own mind, delve deeper and deeper into the vision, getting lost in the untraveled places. The places that she, for some reason, forgot. But now, Anna is beginning to fear that part of her mind, where the remainder of the vision sits. Quietly lurking like a predator to prey, waiting for her to drop her guard before it jumps out and her and pulls her into that dark and dangerous place.
She brings her hands up and covers her face with them, trying to push back the panic swelling in her gut. She can feel her power bubbling up in her chest too, racing passed her rational thought in favor of panic and the power beginning to swirl around her.
"Anna," Mikoto's voice pierces the building vortex around them. At first it was a burst of pressure around them, but then it started to spin around her, tossing everyone's hair, before Mikoto's voice, broke through and halted everything. "Anna, you're safe," Mikoto says, calming voice helping her pull her powers back into herself again.
She lowers her hands a bit and looks up at Mikoto, finally feeling the wetness on her long lashes. "I am afraid of them, Mikoto... they hurt me. Drugged me. I woke up in a basement..." Mikoto's eyes narrow dangerously. Tatara looks suddenly ill, the lukewarm coffee half way to Izumo's lips falls to the counter. Yata grits his teeth in anger while Kamamoto yanks his hand that was still touching Anna back away from the young stain as if burned, mouth open in shock. Chitose and Dewa both share dark looks while Fujishima had to physically turn his back on them, shaking his head. And Eric, his eyes narrow a bit, mouth pressing into a straight line.
"Oh, Anna," Tatara says, shaking his head, looking torn between going to Anna's side and trying to give her a bit of space. Anna doesn't know what she wants. She does want comfort but she also just wants to curl up into a ball and forget about it. Every word she says on the issue takes that piece of memory with it until there is nothing left in her head.
"They hurt me, Mikoto, worse than before! Worse than-" she trembles, eyes widening. "I killed them and myself. I-I shook the foundation of the building we were in... it was all around me, crackling like lightning..." she wraps her arms around herself. "I brought the building down into it's footprint... I killed them. I-"
Tatara walks around the counter and pulls Anna into his arms, hugging her tightly and whispering softly into her ear, "It's alright, Princess, it's alright. Put that from your mind. You are safe, here and now, with us. We won't let anything hurt you, I promise. Just please, don't cry, okay Princess? Just let us protect you." He pulls her up into his arms, keeping her close, and rocking back and forth slowly, soothingly.
Anna obeys, pushing the memory as far away from her as possible, hearing the internal locks on the door of her emotions, sliding back into place, sucking in everything until she's left limp in Tatara's arms. Eyes wet but face blank. The emotions drained from her body like cup without a bottom. She let herself be held by Tatara because, in a way, he needed this too. She basically told him that his death inevitably causes the death of Mikoto and the disband of the Red Clan. That's a lot to take in.
Anna feels bad for Tatara and all of Homra. In a way, the long, white haired girl has had time to start to deal with the loss of her family. But she's just kind of dumping it on them fact by bloody fact and Anna doesn't know how to express that she feels bad. Once again it's like the emotions are safe and secure locked tightly behind that large steel door once more. She knows just giving the straight up facts is majorly impersonal, especially considering the topic of conversation, but Anna doesn't know how else to say it.
"I'm sorry," Anna finally says, not knowing what else to do with the painful silence.
"Don't worry about it," Izumo says, shaking his head, voice holding a slightly disturbed undertone to it. Like Anna, it seems like his emotions are locked up too. He seems more interested in focus on what to do, rather than drowning in the mega overload of tragic future events. Anna can't blame him in the slightest.
"What do we do now?" Eric asks, reaching up to rub the back of his head.
Yata jumps up, face twisted into a scowl. "I say we find this fucking Colorless King and kick his ass!"
"Language, Yata," Tatara says, not unkindly, nodding toward Anna when Hazel eyes flickered over to the tall brunette. He sits her back onto her seat and smiles down at her, trying to look comforting, but he's obviously greatly unhappy about Anna's story. All elements involved.
At the very least, Yata had the decency to look apologetic. "Sorry, Anna," he mumbles, looking away. Anna didn't have the heart to remind any of them that while she still appeared to be a little girl, her memory extends to that of a teenager. She had heard a lot worse things in her life. But they will come to get used to it in time, Anna thinks. But at the same time, it's not so bad in relishing in the familiar-ness of them treating her like a child again.
Izumo makes himself some coffee, hands wrapping around the hot mug as if he was suddenly chilled. If anything, he looked extremely unnerved.
"We aren't going to do anything right now," Izumo says, laying down his coffee and running a hand through his long blond hair before ruffling it a bit. "This is bigger than just us. The new Colorless King is trying to do a major power play here and he's involving the Red, Blue, Silver and Colorless clans and Kings. And, if it's really getting that big, then ultimately the Golden King and clan will be involved. That is a lot of major players." He sighs, looking tired. "This might just be more than we can handle alone."
"Might?" Shohei says, brown eyes wide. "I think that's the understatement of the century."
"That was quite the vision," Kamamoto says, looking down at Anna, eyebrows pulled together. "Does that mean Anna's powers are growing as well?"
"Well," Tatara says, tugging at the bottom of his long light brown hair, "She's probably the most powerful strain I've ever met and she hasn't even gone through puberty yet, so probably..." He didn't sound sure.
Eric looks around the room with narrowed light blue eyes. "Does this mean we'll be turning to the Blues for help? They have better connections with the government than we do." Much to everyone chagrin, there was no way any could refute that. There was a few minutes of silence, where everyone was looking around at everyone else with nothing more to say.
Anna looks down at her little hands on her lap, letting out a soft sigh, wondering if there was any way to really somehow make this okay. Can they save Tatara? Can they stop the Colorless King? Can they save Mikoto? Does Mikoto even want to be saved?
Anna stands in the doorway of Mikoto's room, looking in on the Red King. He's laying on his back, arms behind his head with his eyes closed. Anna doubted that he was asleep and slowly walks into the room, closing the door slowly behind her so that it's only open a crack. She walks over to the bed and stares down at him, tilting her head to the side. He cracks a golden eye open for a brief moment and stares at her, before closing his eye again. That was all Anna needed.
She crawls into bed with him, being careful when climbing over him before settling into his side, laying her head on his left forearm and snuggling close to her King. She is immediately bathed in his familiar warmth and red. It sooths her frayed nerves better than anything ever could. Anna's glad Mikoto didn't turn her away. She needed to be by his side right then and there more than she cared to admit.
Mikoto had always had a calming affect on her. He was her King. Her guardian. Her protector. Anna has no idea how she was ever able to sleep at night without him there. Snuggling even closer, Anna puts her arms between the two of them, letting the little limbs absorb the warmth. She closes her eyes and, despite the bit of light filtering in from the slight part in the curtains, Anna is able to easily slip into slumber. After her restless vision while sleeping the night before, Anna's been feeling a little weighed down.
After the unpleasantries of breakfast, Mikoto made the decision to not make a decision yet. He ordered Anna to not disclose the Colorless King's location or his features until he thought more on what to do. He was reluctant to go to the Blue's for aid and looked unhappy when Izumo off-handedly mentioned that they probably will be expecting a visit soon from the Blues due to the amount of power that Anna gave off that morning. They've jumped at far less.
Mikoto sat around for a bit, listening to his clansmen grumble begrudgingly at his orders to wait before finally standing up, having not finished half of his breakfast before scratching the back of his messy red hair and turning for the stairs. Anna waited for almost ten minutes before pushing off from her chair and following after him. Anna could feel the eyes on her back as she climbed the stairs.
Anna dreams that she's sitting alone in the Homra bar. She was older, in the new outfit she had come to adore. A simple black dress that was tight around her small breast with thick straps over her shoulders. Under her bodice is a bright red bow wrapped around the back. The dress goes to her knees and it's flowing and silky, cool against her skin. Her little hat is gone and her long white hair is half pulled up and braided, tied back with a long, black and red ribbon at the bottom. Her bangs were still cut short over her eyes, framing her face.
Her feet still dangled above the floor, swaying slightly back and forth. She had simple black slip ons with small dark red bows over the toes. She just looks around the empty bar. Every time she blinks, she can feel her bangs getting caught on her lashes. It doesn't bother her. It just makes the dream - that she knows is a dream - feel more real.
She turns in her seat a bit, turning her head around to look at the row of windows in the front of the store, the mid-morning light is filtering in through the window. It takes a moment for Anna to realize that there was someone standing in front of the door. Obviously a man, with his large body creating a dark space in the doorway, a shadow cast across the floor. Anna's eyes lock onto the head on the shadow right in front of the legs of her chair and follows it's body all the way to the person standing in front of the door.
She recognized the figure of the man before her as someone she could easily pick out in a crowd. Surrounding him like fire was the red aura that, while supernatural in nature, seems to fit him so perfectly that Anna is surprised that a moment had ever passed where he never had that red glow around him. Being a strain, Anna has been unnatural her entire life. No body knows really much about where Strains come from and why exactly Kings can do what they can do and how they're chosen.
Yes, it was originally an experiment done by the now Silver King a long time ago but it continues to pop up around the world with people who have no connections with the Silver King. How do the Kings come into existence? How are they chosen? What criteria must be met for someone to become a King? Is such things predetermined? If so, how? If not, then how does only one of each color exist at once? What gives people these powers and how does it know when one King is dead so that the power can move on?
So many questions with no answers. Or at least, if there was answers, Anna knew none of them.
Anna pushes herself off of her seat, the soles of her shoes lightly slapping against the hardwood flooring before she follows the shadow to the back of her King. He's wearing a tight white muscle shirt and blue jeans. Whereas 11 year old Anna was about to Mikoto's waist, this Anna, in the body of a 16 year old, stands with the top of her head is level with the middle of his upper arm. The real Mikoto wasn't alive long enough for Anna to see exactly how tall she would have been next to him as she grew older, and she had to wonder how accurate her mind had made this.
She wraps small arms around Mikoto's waist and lays her head against the center of his back, closing her eyes. She can feel the familiar warmth of his body warming her up. His distinct smell of soap and tobacco. Every time Mikoto shifts slightly, the muscles in his back move about under his skin. Pressing her cheek against his back she could feel the body heat seeping into her body.
"Mikoto..?" Anna whispers, closing her eyes. "Why did you want to die?"
There wasn't a response for a long time. She felt the back expand a bit as Mikoto takes a deep breath, before releasing it with a breathy, "I don't know."
"After Tatara died... it felt like all you wanted was to die..." she says softly. Dream Mikoto could never know because Anna had no idea why Mikoto felt the way he did, but it was something that she had asked Fake Mikoto so many times and was never satisfied with the speculated answers, for they were different each and every time.
"..." There was no response to that. This Mikoto didn't have an answer for her, which she expected at some point. She doesn't know that real answer and she's running out of alternatives.
Anna doesn't know how long she stood there, holding dream-Mikoto tight. Being able to touch Mikoto earlier has helped her be able to hold tightly to the memory inside of her dream. But like all good things, dream-Mikoto fades away and Anna is left standing alone in the doorway leading out into a blinding white light outside the Homra bar.
Anna closes her eyes and falls backward, arms outstretched like she's flying. She feels herself fall, but she doesn't hit the hardwood, instead, she slowly opens her eyes, feeling warm and safe. She looks up to see Mikoto, with his eyes still closed and his breathing slow and even. She adjusts herself a bit onto her side to just stare up at her King.
Her mind hadn't been back to this time for long, but she was already getting used to having her King back by her side. As much as she hates that it isn't the case, it feels like her vision was just a horrible dream. She knows that it isn't, now, but for just a few moments, she can sit in her King's presence, listening to his deep, even breathing and imagine the world isn't nearly as scary as she's come to fear that it is. Anna knew from a young age that the world could be scary and unfair, but her time with Homra has hidden her away from that fact, but not actually destroyed it in the real world.
As wonderful and amazing as the world seems, within Homra's walls and surrounded by the fellow members of the red clan, it's not reality. Out in the real world, it sucks. People get hurt, hurt others and die. That's life outside of Homra.
But not quite, is it? A small, evil, but not untruthful, voice in the back of Anna's head whispers. Tatara and Mikoto died. No one is immune. Everyone will die one day.
And in a way, Anna was one of those people. At the end of her vision, before she even really lived her life, it ended. And it's not that far off. Just a few short years from now and she could be in that position, somehow locked down in a basement with a light hanging over her. Swinging, back and forth. Her powers whipping around her like a maelstrom, pulling at her hair and clothes until the ceiling collapses-
No!
Anna shoots up, her entire body shaking. She must have dozed off again and was having a nightmare. Her heart is beating loudly in her chest and her eyes are flying around the room before a heavy hand settles on her head and pulls her down to his chest. He lays his arm across her back to keep her there. Mikoto doesn't say anything. He doesn't have to, his presence is enough. He can keep her safe. He will keep her safe. The protective arm around her shoulders made sure to convey that to her clearly.
Anna rests her head on Mikoto's chest and closes her eyes, letting her breath equal out. After a few minutes of silence, Anna whispers, "I don't want to die, Mikoto... I don't want you to die, or Tatara... I don't want anyone to die..."
"..." Mikoto doesn't answer, but wraps her arm tighter around her, sucking in a deep breath before letting it out slowly. "We are a family, Anna, and we'll stick together until the end."
He sounded so sure, so confident that Anna didn't want to say anything, but she did. She whispers it, so softly into his chest, "Do you promise?" She didn't want to believe it, but a part of her still believes that Mikoto wants to die. She has yet to even guess as to why that is, but the feeling is still there and it's strong. The way that Mikoto reacted when he heard that Tatara was going to die...
It was a little surprising.
He was ready to go, ready to fight to protect Tatara. If it wasn't for the pacifistic Tatara and the level-headed Izumo, Mikoto and the rest of Homra would have left the building guns ablazing. They don't even know what the Colorless King looks like, but they were ready to hunt him down and stop him from ruining their family.
Don't sugar coat it, Anna, that nasty little voice in the back of her head whispers, kill. They were going to go out there, find the Colorless King, and kill him.
"Mikoto," Anna whispers softly, tilting her head up to look at the seemingly sleeping face of her King.
"Ah?" Mikoto grunts, peaking open his left eye to peer down at her.
"Mikoto, will you kill the Colorless King?" She asks softly.
Mikoto stares down at her for a long moment, studying her face before opening the other golden eye. His lips part slowly, as if he wants to say something, but he didn't quite know what he was going to say. Anna wondered, briefly, if he was going to lie to her, and he looked like he might, but at the last moment, he doesn't. He says, "Yes."
Anna's not sure what she wanted him to say, or what she even expected from him, but she doesn't say anything. She lays her head back down onto his chest and closes her eyes. She doesn't want to think about Mikoto being a killer. It's one thing to have someone she loves die. Then there is someone else for her to blame, someone for her to silently hate for messing up her life and taking away someone she loves. But it's something else entirely to have someone she loves take a life of their own.
Anna isn't sure she condones any sort of murder, whether it be others onto the people she loves, or the people she loves onto other. But maybe, in the back of her mind, Anna is willing to be okay with it, so long as the people she loves doesn't die. She would rather everyone else in the world than the people she loves. Anyone else but them.
For the Reviewers:
1. MikotoAnna Fan: Thank you! I'm so sorry about the wait!
2. levi97100: Yes, it is an Anna xMikoto pairing. I just think they are so adorable. :3 And you don't have to worry about that. I'm not about that sort of thing, don't worry.
3. All'roundCowgirl: Sorry for the wait!
4. Loopy: Thank you so much for the compliment! Sorry for the long wait!
5. Hn: Thank you very much!
6. Indochine: Thank you!
7. Guest 1: Sorry for the wait!
8. Guest 2: Sorry for the wait!
9. zhaneee: You read some of my other stories? Thank you! I know, I rewatched the entire series twice and loved it just as much the second time. I haven't seen Missing Kings yet, though so no spoilers! Thank you!