It's a nightmare. It has to be one.
He reads the names on the gravestones again and again.
Kagami Soubi and Kagami Rin.
He screams. He cries.
He wakes up.
The nightmare persists and Taiga decides to drop out of high school at the age of 16. He spends night and day training with his guardian, Alex, and adoptive brother, Tatsuya. Two years later, at age 18, he roams the country as a ghoul hunter, even though there aren't as many ghouls around there. The nightmares stop for a while.
It starts again when he reaches 21. The nightmare has changed. Now he's there when it happens. He sees a faceless ghoul ripping apart those two important people to him. He screams, he tries to defend them, but, as it happens in most dreams, he can't do anything but scream.
He decides it's time for him to leave for Japan. He wants to find that ghoul more than anything. Revenge clouds his mind and, not matter what Alex or Tatsuya say, he's not listening.
He finds himself in Tokyo, walking down on Seirin's gates. When he learns the methods the people there use, he wants to leave and never look back, because Seirin's philosophy doesn't suit him, far from it. It's not late to try and see if he's accepted to Toou, there's a high probability they'll take him –probability being the keyword– but the people are determined to keep him. They even assign him a partner.
Kuroko Tetsuya is far from what Kagami had imagined for a partner. He's just so painfully small and weak, he can't help but think of him of someone he needs to protect.
It doesn't take much time for Kuroko to reveal his true abilities; he might not have been as physically strong as others, but his talents rested on stealth and espionage, both fields which he excelled at.
Kagami wants to hear stories about Kuroko's time in Teikou, but Kuroko refuses, most of the time. However, when he does, Kagami finds himself excited and mortified by the practices taking place in the supposed safe and prestigious Teikou Academy.
One example is when he hears from Kuroko that there were ghouls that attended Teikou, being let there on purpose. The students participating on the 'Special Course', like Kuroko, had to find them and eliminate them before it was too late. Sometimes, innocents died, being thought to be ghouls, but everyone simply shrugged it off, whenever it happened. Teikou was never involved in name. After all, the only rule that applied was to not kill anyone on school grounds.
Kagami wonders if Kuroko ever killed someone innocent, so hesitantly, he asks. Kuroko replies that no, neither he or his former teammates ever made a mistake like that. They're not simply skilled at the act of killing; they have good observational skills and instincts. They work hard for it, least they become the victims and get killed.
He then asks if Kuroko was ever accused of being a ghoul; to his horror, the shorter male replies that yes, he's been accused, and in multiple occasions. There were times it was just whispers, others it was in front of his face. They wonder, who someone so small and weak as Kuroko could be one of the top students. The accusations often were aimed at their Captain, claiming that the other boy was simply protecting 'one weaker of their wretched kind'.
He's left awed when he hears Kuroko saying that their former Captain is as skilled with words as with a Quinque, if not even more dangerous. 'A tongue that possesses no bones, yet can break them'. It didn't help in any way to quell the rumours; he was seen as an even scarier person.
It's those moments that make Kagami think if humans are as kind-hearted as he wanted to think they are. Many of them are ugly, so ugly, but he has hope. There are kind humans he knows; there's Alex and Tatsuya, there's Kuroko and the others in Seirin, and he's convinced he'll meet even more people like that.
What Kagami is more curious about is the reason Kuroko was separated from his teammates. It could be something serious, like some sort of disagreement. Kuroko calms him down, and claims it was a decision they took together. They were strong, indeed, but if each one took their own way and joined a different team, they could help in a different way. It's better to have five strong teams in existence, than one overpowered and five average. Charizard syndrome never helped anyone.
He learns Kuroko has lost his family a while ago. His mother died in an accident, his stepmother due to decease. His father was murdered just a few years back. Kuroko claimed that his father wasn't alive, but simply existing after his mother died.
(What Kagami is unaware of is that Kuroko's parents never married; he's a bastard. The one he refers to as 'step-mother' actually died two years before his mother. She's the woman his father was forced to marry. Despite that, he doesn't loathe her; because she's the mother of his half-brother who, even though he was older by exactly 43 days, was something closer to a parent when their father wasn't there for them.)
Kagami feels Kuroko hero-worships his former Captain. Kuroko doesn't deny, nor affirms it. He does state, however, that in the off-chance he requests for his, and their former teammates' presence, they won't deny him.
Kagami grunts as such response, and deems the unnamed person a dictator. Kuroko objects that he'd never pursue such course of actions if he didn't deem it necessary. He's a man of reason and he's proven to them, countless times now, that he cares for their well-being. He even claims that, their former leader could prefer to set the world ablaze than watch them suffer. He reprimands him for claiming someone could go to such extremes, to which Kuroko lowers his head and apologizes.
What Kagami doesn't understand is Kuroko's motivations. That the shorter wanted was something unattainable: humans and ghouls co-existing. Kagami believes that's something that can never be achieved; Kuroko disagrees. Both are too stubborn, which could have made them unable to cooperate as partners properly.
Kuroko promises Kagami that it's going to happen. Kagami only wishes he could be even a bit little more optimistic, like Kuroko was.
After all, there isn't any greater gift than peace.
(chapter end)
Finally! I'll have you know, I've been trying to work on this chapter by July 31st, which makes it almost two months already. I had no idea where exactly I wanted this chapter to end up, but I did it.
Today, September 24th, is the second day I have no internet connection. From the time being, I'm updating at home and posting whenever I visit friends, which I thank for allowing me using their internet for such purposes. And I have lost contact with almost all my friends. Apparently, I spend too much time sitting on a computer (attention: on computer, which hell, I'm not using a computer, it's a goddamn laptop, there's a difference), so my punishment is an unpaid telephone bill and no internet connection for who knows how long. There have been threats flying around for an unpaid electricity bill, but that's perhaps a bit too extreme.
Anyways, enough of my troubles, enjoy the update. If you have any questions, feel free to ask, just don't expect a quick reply. I'm sorry for that!