Chapter Text
The world was quiet today.
It tends to happen after a heavy snowfall, doesn't it? The air gets trapped in the ice blankets, they absorb the sounds of the street life like acoustic foam. It makes the town silent, eerie almost, with the way the usual hustle bustle all of a sudden seems to come to a still. And so the cars and the people hurrying down the road sounded so very far away now, as if he were watching the world from behind a glass wall. It was bright, too. The winter sunlight reflected off the fresh snow and mercilessly bore itself into his eyes, dry and tired from the countless sleepless nights.
Kazuma stood by the window and watched.
A woman on the sidewalk below had spilled her coffee when she lost her balance on the ice, then continued walking. A puppy outside the convenience store had a little green vest on, lovingly wrapped around its torso to keep it warm. A small demon imp had hitched a ride on somebody's shoulder, whispering profanities into their ear. Another hid behind a vending machine. A child sat on a bench with her mother and tried to catch the falling snowflakes on her tongue. It was silent. He watched, but wasn't looking.
He was looking inwards instead, replaying the memories of better times the way someone may watch their childhood's VHS for the hundredth time, looking back at the time they were playing in the garden and someone brought out a handheld camera. He should look at those memories with fondness, he thought. He should cherish them - like when the first two little girls of the Ha clan appeared; or the way the skies embraced them when they first flew with Kuraha; or the snippets of many joyful glances exchanged between him and Viina.
He looked at the memories and couldn't recall the feeling. Something must've been very important in these moments, he was sure. He must've felt happy in these times. Now all that was left was unease, an unsettling feeling of inadequacy. Somewhere along the way, between the lies and the loss, he forgot. He missed the joy.
The thing about Resound, Tenjin once told him when he was first asked for help in extracting information from Kugaha, is that you should only use it when you have absolute certainty that the interrogated has the information you're trying to find. Naturally, he remembered the way the god scratched his nose to hide a fluster creeping up on his face, you shouldn't use it on anyone. But there is a difference between prying specific answers out of your mind, and trying to pry out something that isn't there. What that does to a person, his face looked clouded with concern then, I can't even begin to imagine.
Kazuma didn't need to imagine. Between the horrific nightmares assaulting his senses every time he closed his eyes and the way the world itself swam around him, he could only guess that what was stolen from him was far older than anything regarding the Sorcerer, or Viina, or even the earliest of memories he possessed. No, this was different. Something ancient, something knitting the thin line between human and beast. The link which tethered him to reality itself, perhaps. The switch, now flipped and waiting for the power to surge through it. Maybe, he wondered, this was the reason for the way he was. Or maybe it was his penance.
Sometimes, when the world got too quiet and Yato wasn't around to ground him, he was back in the cell. Today was one of those days.
First, he remembered the smell of stale water and cold stone in his nose. Then the mismatched eyes of the heavenly regalia. The way his fingers scraped against the floor when the spell hit, and the smudge of blood they left behind. And then he couldn't see any if it. His vision exploded with white sparks and his mind turned inward, contorting in on itself. Next, the pain. No, it wasn't pain, not really. That he was used to. It was something worse. A thousand clawed hands prying open his brain like a crowbar does a door. Metal and bone, tearing, crushing, searching. Undoing the delicate balance of sanity, neurons misfiring. They tore open every wound gently stitched with patience, every safe place they left in ruin.
Is your master working with the Sorcerer? No, of course not, the thought came rushing to the surface like a tide, breaking the door off the hinges.
He wouldn't find the words for the agony if he tried.
The claws combed and tore through everything that made him, like starving wolves searching for a scrap of meal. But there was none because he didn't know and so they grabbed what bore any resemblance to one. Countless memorised emergency protocols, he faintly remembered, spilling out of his mouth like a fountain, the operational passwords to his vessel, locations of safehouses. Then the warm domestic memories from before the war and grief took over came rushing out violated, distorted, wrong. They weren't his anymore, they bore no warmth and no love and his whole body shook with the realization of what was taken from him.
Tears stung his cheeks. He couldn't even lift his head. His throat seized painfully and before he could stop it, a terrible cry escaped his mouth, a sound he didn't even know he could make.
There was white all over, just white which pierced his eyes and bore deep into his brain, an intrusive cold light and it made him so terribly dizzy. Was he in the cell still? What was there beyond it? He tried to call for his master but realized with horror he couldn't remember her name. Who was there, anyway? He heard screams, visceral, helpless, like an animal screams in a cage. Were they his? Who was he, anyway? Some servant, or a mindless object, or a thing made to obey, he didn't know. And what did they want with him, what was so precious to be worth holding onto, what could they possibly find in this cold, surgical light he could never escape?
A wisp of resignation shot through his tattered mind. He will never get out of this light. He will die here, among the shattered memories of things he couldn't name. There is nothing else, there never was, there never will be, and he will float like this for eternity and welcome death as a forgiving fate-
He was laying on the icy stone floor. He thanked it for its mercy. The stinging cold made him shiver - probably. He couldn't feel what his body was doing. They were gone.
He didn't know how long he laid there motionless. Time passes differently when one's mind is shattered. When the cell door finally opened and intrusive sunlight crept into his eyes, his head exploded with pain. He couldn't move, he just laid there and a faint broken sound escaped the throat which wasn't his anymore.
He remembered only snippets of what happened after. A guard wiping his face, wet with drool and tears. Another forcing him to his feet even though his legs gave out immediately. Then the road back home, how the ground escaped them and earthly fields stretched far below. He thought about how he couldn't stand before his people, his family (although the word stung foreign in his chest), and couldn't shine like guides always should. There was darkness spreading through his mind (was it darkness? Or was it this icy light again?) and he wondered how long it would take before it reached his body.
When they reached the mansion, Kinu raced to meet them, her face dark with worry and something else he couldn't quite name. Then the others arrived. A dozen souls, scared and helpless, and he saw it in their eyes: shining brightly, the trust into a man equally as scared and helpless as them. The guards released the restraints, pushed him forward and he nearly collapsed when his knees buckled under him. The heavenly guard Ōshi said something in a voice dripping with contempt, and they left.
He let himself look into Kinuha's eyes. They mirrored his own. But there was something else peering through them, something that scared him because he couldn't reciprocate. She was quiet for a long time, scanning his face with worried frown between her brows.
He combed through the ruins of his mind trying to anchor himself in the reality which demanded a leader, not a victim. Don't fail them, a thought echoed in his head, Don't fail them like you've failed her. And so he put on a mask, the one he always did when fear and grief settled on his shoulders like a giant feathered thing. It took every last thread of strength not to fall apart, to not collapse and cry until the world went dark.
But he didn't. Instead, he straightened and addressed his family (though the word made him gag) with a voice carrying authority, a strength he didn't have.
"I will bring our master back." Then he turned to Kuraha, who was arguably in better shape than himself, and donned a smile that didn't reach his eyes.
And so they flew, and they fought, and he nearly lost everything. The darkness spread. The world swam in and out of focus. And when the dust settled, only then did despair shake him to the core.