Archive of Our Own

Rain patters heavy down onto the soaked and drowned, overflowing surfaces of the city below thick storm clouds. The incessant rhythm of it has been going on from what should've been sunrise but was obscured, to what should be a bitter-orange sunset. But not even that gets through the colossal structures in the sky. Time doesn't pass virtually, a constant of darkened grays hazing over the surroundings and passerby. It has a numbing quality to it, the cold and dimmed atmosphere. It slows or speeds up the paces of children and businessman alike, people of any age seeking solace under staircases, bridges, roofs. The pros of umbrellas are outweighed by their cons, turned inside out by the howling winds that chill the soaked skins and clothes.

In the midst of an alley, Yuji's hands find the slippery, rusted metal of a staircase as he swings himself up. Hopping over the edge of a building to reach the rooftop, he settles his hands into his pockets. The warmth has long since leaked out of them. But he's not there for warmth, as his hands close around a familiar crushed cardboard box and a plastic flat cylinder.

As his jacket eventually gave way to the storm, forgetting its water-repelling qualities, so has the blood caked into the bright fabric started to leak down it. Bright red smears that flow down, staining Yuji's dark pants, if those weren't already filled with the same hues. He can't bring himself to care, either way. He hasn't seen his reflection in a while.

Pulling his hood further over his face and deepening the shadows in his features, he flicks the lid of the little container open and pulls a cigarette out. Not the usual brand he prefers, not harsh or needling enough to truly scratch the insistent itch in Yuji's throat. He presses the rolled paper between his cracked lips, cups his hands over the other end. With a quick slide of his thumb sparks come to life and Yuji takes a deep breath through the filter before the cigarette is even fully lit. He fills every inch of his lungs with the invisible weight of smoke, distaste in the twitch of his lips at the hint of sweetness present. Damn this brand. But it was the most favorable alternative, strong enough to make a difference. Everything else has started to be infuriatingly stale.

Looking down with his hands back in his pockets and a mouth taut with slow, deep breaths, he faces his visage in the mirror. Strands stay separated atop his pounding head, moisture soaked into the pinks and crimson-brown grime covering them. He got caught in a mudslide somewhere between the fifth and… He stopped counting, but between two of the more agile curses he faced on this stormy day.

Those have started to become stale too, curses. They fail to truly challenge him nowadays.

He scratches at a rather large patch of dried blood on his cheek, covering the marred skin of the deep scarring there. It crumbles beneath his slightly overgrown fingernails, causes blood to rise to the surface of his skin with irritation. He should get himself cleaned up. Maybe. His hands and arms, his clothes, they're full of blood. He's been avoiding civilians as to not give them a fright. But that isn't really something he takes issue with.

After he had surpassed the age of his grandfather, of the oldest people to have ever lived, he has stopped feeling human. So not associating with that group isn't much of a grief to shoulder. Each funeral he attended, each birthday he spent equally uncaring as any other day, he lost part of his humanity. Not that tools, cogs to a greater cause need morals.

What he sees in his reflection fails to stir anything, even recognition. His eyes are dark and void of light as he keeps staring at the pooling water by his feet, ripples running through it in circular forms that collide as he steps back a little. The wind catches in the hollow of his hood, slides underneath his collar and makes itself home in the emptiness cascading behind his ribs. The cigarette is done too soon, and he crushes the bud beneath his foot only after the next one to follow is pressed against his teeth.

He finds the other edge of the building, closing the distance to the ground way down below with the speed of gravity taking its toll. He breaks his fall about two meters or less before the inevitable impact, opposing forces of his hand and foot pulling and pushing into the width of a flickering street lamp. Somewhere, a stray cat hisses at his feet in startled anger.

He should get home.

In silence, he leaves the sounds of the bustling evening life of the city behind him as he heads for the outskirts. A nearby edge of a forest grows taller with increased proximity. His route is familiar, learned by rote. He's able to sink into the comfortable nothingness of his meaningless flow of consciousness, as he continues through the trodden path his feet have carved into the grass, the dirt below. The second cigarette comes to its end, the stump having been worn so small the tickling pain of fire reached his chewed lips.

He debates crushing the remaining embers of its vessel in the gravel path the soles of his boots are now crushing, calling out a crunching sound that barely reaches through the static in his ears. But he's rather adamant about not leaving traces, not soiling the path he holds to higher standards of up-keeping to than himself. There's a tired blink in his eyes, but in truth the rain pelting into his face is a bigger bother than the burn that sizzles the skin on the back of his hand as he snuffs it out there instead. The ash crumbles and sticks to his wet skin, his surfacing veins pulsing sluggishly beneath the dissipating light. He doesn't bother to heal it.

Once positive it's no longer able to carry fire, he sticks the crumpled remains into the box with five remaining, unlit ones. Where the other thirteen were left, he isn't quite sure. But perhaps there where four left on that rooftop and not just one, and three more scattered in the alleyways, and perhaps two right out the door of that gas station with the jagged-mannered employee that gave him a wordless, vacant nod as he slid his change across the counter. Still there would be a count of four missing ones that were lost somewhere along the way, and Yuji is irritated. It really is a shitty brand, if he's left smoking them unconsciously end-to-end and still doesn't get his money's worth out of them. Not that he's a miser, he's just trying to get his fix.

He presses out the air between his lips. He'll get more tomorrow, the actual ones he prefers.

It's been decades, no, a century of loyalty to that brand. One or two offers of them by a stranger was all it took for him get hooked. Truly, he doesn't have anything to lose in an addiction. Time, as in that of life, is the one thing he doesn't run out of. Even if the act of chain-smoking would put a dent on his lifespan, it doesn't matter greatly. As long as his body can continue to do what it's made to, can exorcise curses and fulfill its purpose, no foul play is done in additional harm to it. The only thing he will leave to this world is the cursed object of his body, his fingers.

Yuji picks at the skin of his right forearm, a faint itching sensation bothering him. He can't tell what, between the blood and gore, the fabric of his jacket, the mud and oh, four circular burn marks. Those were not there a few hours ago.

The incline the path before him takes on influences the friction and security of his step. The ground beneath him unsteady as he weaves through the thick brushes of lush, overgrown fauna. He increases his pace, his breath coming out in curling clouds. Fog clings to the surrounding trees similarly. Rain doesn't usually bother him this much, but when the nicotine doesn't aid in the way it usually does and he had countless run-ins with weak curses his patience starts to run thin.

Mild inconveniences, the entirety of it. He's been fighting curses and curse users for so long, he has covered all bases thrice, has seen variations of the same few fighting styles tens of times. No surprises, no challenges. The same moronic blather, the same threats. He thinks there must be a universally used guide book they rely on for their verbal slander. Sometimes, he just stops fighting, or stops using cursed energy entirely, save for the final blow. But even that bit has grown old. He could've sworn curses and curse users used to be stronger than this.

At least when he's up against durable curses, he can let off some steam. No such luck today. Now it's left pouring out his mouth in irritated heaves, in tandem with the too-sweet, too-weak smoke. With icy stabs in his trachea he breaks out into a sprint, letting barbed bushes and nettles whip against his skin. Voicing his anger through a quiet grunt, he tries to channel his excess violence into the thunderous rhythms of his feet that still remain light on the ground and life beneath him.

He follows what he knows, takes short-cuts he discovered through taking walk after walk there. It's isolated, abandoned. But it's home, vacant and silent.

Yuji greets the broken-down stoop of the temple with a bow of his head. It's disintegrating and rotten wood, the roof leaks and the stairs leading into the terrace are tilted, sinking into the ground with each relentless season of harsh weathers. Climbing those said steps, he rips the hood off his head and ducks into the core of it. pillars and three walls, a slightly pathetic excuse of a sanctuary. But shelter nonetheless.

Once, it must've been beautiful. It must've had accents of gold and red paint, had intricate carvings in its pillars and pretty shingles on its sloped roof. However most of those have broken or fallen off, and any paint that wasn't bleached through sun, hasn't melted off or begun to chip, has been reclaimed by nature and covered by overgrowth. So have the hypothetical art pieces cut into the wood. But once, years and years ago, there were humans to care for it. Now an entity neither entirely curse nor human resides in it, billowing smoke out of its mouth that in any other facility would've stained the color and scent of the structures it coats.

It's not an effective shelter by any means. It's resistant to neither wind nor rain, and a fire after a drought would rip through the thing in two minutes flat. But it's what Yuji needs, what has kept him sane and given him a place of solace in solitude. As he sits cross-legged atop the moss-ridden flooring that creaks beneath his weight, he finally settles and sinks into the familiar ridges and opens — with some difficulty due to the zipper catching fabric — his soaked jacket. The air whistles through the thin gaps in the walls, cools his body down that thrums with shackling weight. He doesn't feel like moving any more today.

He reaches into his pocket once more, the rapidly draining brightness of nightfall leaving the lighter as the only torch in his vicinity. He still has his phone, but its battery succumbed long ago. And with no one to contact, he fails to make use of it anymore. All it carries now is old memories, pictures and videos he will never delete.

He sucks in a rattling, nicotine-laced breath as his head thumps backwards into the wall. He turns his still pounding skull just slightly to sit more flush against it, nestles his back further into the dead wood. Besides him are empty and sealed bottles, put in rows against the far corner.

A mental note is made to himself to dispose of them soon, maybe tomorrow. He only leaves them here since he has the security of knowledge, could swear on the fact that he's the lone existence that still passes by, except for occasional fauna. Again, his principle is no traces left behind.

He grabs a bottle by the neck, doesn't really bother to read the label. As far as he's concerned it's most likely sake, a high enough alcohol content for it to numb him appropriately. He's not heading to the dormitories to sleep, which makes it his… a night out of undetermined count. Once again, he's not been great with dates and time recently. All days and all nights have started to blend together. The more his timeline stretches, the more the rises and falls start to flatten into mundanity.

Despite having bought it all, or been gifted it, drinking didn't stick how smoking did. The alcohol is a temporary solution, to bridge the differences of quality in the cigarettes. Yes, he's still peeved. It was something he was hoping to turn this day from utter tasteless boredom to something with a warm, pleasantly bitter aftertaste.

"Shut up. I know it's not good for me." Yuji mumbles to no one in particular after sipping the — what he now recalls as — Honjozo sake. His voice carries a rough edge to it that could only achieved through means of prolonged silence, of mutism. "But I just need it to sleep." He can imagine the concerned, nagging tones of the ones that were closest to him. He's sure when Nobara gifted him this liquor preceding her death a few years later, that this wasn't what she had in mind for it. Despite the lack of expiration date, Yuji fails to see something that its use would be better saved for. Immortality fails to have new celebrations after you lived through your own generation. And it has been well over twenty years since she passed on.

It takes on quickly. The rush, that is. The drunken stupor and paralysis, the slowness in Yuji's movements and the loss of fine motor skills. He feels it when he comes to stand and grab some discarded fabrics left behind by the last human to ever tend to this place. It must've truly been decades ago, as the red worn-thin cloth he picks up is ridden and rotten with growth of moss. Nonetheless, it's a slightly less soaked option for him to wrap himself in.

And then he sits, immovable. The storm doesn't let up, and he doesn't feel tired enough for sleep to take him yet. He thinks on what to do tomorrow, sipping the sake to the halfway mark, then gulping the rest of the way down. He decides to gather the emptied bottles tomorrow morning, patrol, visit the graves as quite a few are due for a new count of flowers and other offerings, such as snacks. He wouldn't want them to grow hungry, though he himself has lost the way of truly tasting something good, the satisfaction of curbing his hunger. It's things that are left to mortals and are none of his concern anymore.

The woman that used to be in charge of caring for the cemetery used to give him a commiserative look when he came as frequently as he did, though wouldn't speak with him. He knew her since she started her life-long career, watched her hair grow out longer and longer through her adulthood, metal glints on her ring finger come and go. He witnessed the bow of her back grow, the disturbed look in her eye boring through him with increasing intensity. By the time she was to retire and he still stood, tall and undisturbed by the passing decades, she must've figured he was a spirit haunting the grounds and was wary of his presence. But spirits wouldn't carry flowers and presents, wouldn't look so unmistakably human.

Or well, Yuji assumes he still does look human. He's sure that when he entered those metal gates a few days past to tend to Yuta's grave, he didn't look much different as to now. His breaks between butchering curses are few, and laundry is tedious and meaningless if its only bound to be stained once more. He does wash them, enough times. However he doesn't bother changing every time he shows his face to society. Regardless, he isn't blind to the way parents clutch the hands of their children when they see him clean the graves of those he lost. He doesn't blame them.

His body has toughened to the extent where he has fallen asleep against the grave stones a multitude of times. With rather high confidence he can claim that he has worn a slight indent into the right side of Megumi's one, on the top edge where he likes to rest his head. But it's always so cold to sleep there, in a way that sinks deep into the marrow of his bones.

He's not cold now, he tells himself, as his teeth clatter despite him tensing his body, curling into himself. All feeble attempts to conserve energy and warmth. And yet still he's too warm at his core, unpleasantly tipsy, growing drunker. His mouth and ears are filled with cotton, as he only comes to notices when a strike of lightning filters through the leaves of the trees outside and roaring thunder sounds about seven seconds later. He has to strain to hear it.

"Damn cigarettes." He speaks with a poisonous tongue of intoxication-lead, yet lights another one of the dreaded drug with trembling hands. Two more left after this one. He fails the strike of the lighter twice due to being too slow, and the light flickers out from the vicious breeze another time. On his fourth attempt where a deep crease started to form between his eyebrows, he finally manages. It has ceased to make an impact on his agitation, he's doing it for the sake of forcing himself to take deeper breaths now. Getting his hand busy with anything else, lest he wishes to scratch open the scabs covering his forearms.

Oh right. He almost forgot he never healed those.

He really did go easy on that last curse user. They were strong, but naive. The plan they had failed spectacularly once the sorcerer got a taste of Yuji's blood. Just a small hit of piercing blood has enough to finish the fight. A poison that curses through his veins, shared with him by the brotherhood of the Death Paintings. The human died a humiliating death. He watched their blood boil and bubble out of their body, watched them scream instead of breathe and claw at the ground beneath them. They died slowly, and Yuji let them. Because they failed to truly hurt him. The only thing it left was a a few shallow scratches, and it was disappointing and underwhelming.

In recent years, Yuji has severed the mental connection to his own body frequently. His arms have grown into nothing less than weapons, his body part of the cog and machine he so spoke of. He has one mission above everything else. As long as his body can function, he will live that life that was set out for him.

So when he slides the last burning cigarette across a scabbed over cut in his arm, he can blame it on morbid curiosity. He's not putting himself in danger, could heal himself if the situation actually called for it to be done. But nowadays, healing such small injuries leaves his skin itching and crawling, like his skin stitches itself together with threads of stinging nettle. Being entirely unscathed is uncomfortable.

With a plan in mind for what tomorrow brings, he lets his body rest, lets his muscles mold themselves anew against the creaking bunker surrounding him. Sleep comes rather easily.

Yuji wakes to warmth, to golden sunlight filtering through swaying branches and rushing leaves. Cicadas buzz nearby, but not too loud. And Yuji is warm. So warm.

It's too bright.

He blinks, tries to pry his eyes open with sheer willpower. But for now he can't, is left squinting heavily. He sees the interior of the temple he's lying in, can only see blinding white past the intact and spotless pillars outside. There are screen doors, open to let in the gentle breeze. None of the floorboards creak when he turns from his back to his side, and there are no gaps in the three walls. The wood is vibrant and sturdy. His head sits on two warm hills that cradle his skull. Too heavy to move properly, he settles back onto how he originally laid there, stretches his legs and turns his ankles until they crackle with a content chuffing sound filling his mouth.

A tender, low rumble sounds from above him, in the foreground of the now fixed roof and rays of sunlight that cast through the screen door. Something shifts beneath his head and his vision darkens, blocks the sunlight in a way that enables him make out most things. Some spots are incredibly blurry, but he pieces together what he can.

A person is making the sound, the silhouette of a torso and head looming above him. Their thighs pillow his skull. They chuckle. "Good morning. You fell asleep again." Something strokes through his hair, carding it into softer bundles and brushing out knots. It's their hand.

This tired body tells Yuji he's safe to lean into it, and so he tips his chin up and rubs the crown of his head into the person's hand. "Please stop working so hard." Their following words are spoken with the same lilt, warm as the sun they see and gentle as the wind that caresses the nature and their skins.

And he knows that voice. Knows the hands that holds him, the one not in his hair but resting on his chest as well, above his heart.

Yuji's mouth suddenly grows dry, and his vision darkens to nothing. The hand he reaches out disappears into opaque void, fails to grasp anything. "Megumi."

That was Megumi. He would've known that voice anywhere.

Yuji wakes to the darkness of the night. He wakes up to his right arm outstretched, and glass shards buried in his curled up fist. Where he tried to reach but couldn't, tried to grip but felt no resistance, but in reality still grasped the bottle he emptied. Because none of that just now was real.

"No. No no no no no." Yuji gasps, his heart picking up a speed that he hears all the way up to his ears and clenches in his chest painfully at every other pulse. "Go back to sleep." He clutches his bleeding hand close, disregards the needs to heal it now. He can't lose that dream. "Sleep. Just sleep." The commands he gives himself are useless. He is aghast, bordering on hysterical.

"Go back to sleep." He hits his other fist over his head, makes his vision explode into colorful spots and resurfacing his migraine. "Megumi…" Yuji's voice gives up, reduced to a whisper. He curls up as tightly as possible, buries his face into his hard knees. He nuzzles them, attempts to calm his heart that still races. "Right there. He was right there. I need to get back." He shivers, his throat drier with each swallow. And he's hot. So hot. Sweating for reasons he can't name, because the decaying temple he's back to is frighteningly cold. "Please let me back there…" He whimpers, the noose he feels around his throat too tight not to.

Yuji lifts his head and brings it down on his knees forcefully. He runs a trembling hand through his hair, but it fails to work as substitute. It misses the warmth and assurance of Megumi's hand and is missing two fingers. Even more distressing, rather than the comfort it meant to cause.

"Fucking dammit." Yuji curses, fingers curling around the shard still buried in his right palm. The bleeding is pulsing, an artery in his hand cut. A serious bleed, one that finally manages to sway him to feel some pain. But he can heal it later, once that dream was carried out to its end.

But he can't fall asleep. He's too frazzled, all over the place. His body is trembling and suddenly the pain is everywhere. He's sober, he's way too sober.

His hands wander away from his heart and he rips the glass shard out of his right with vigor, splattering blood across the floor with a gruesome sound that is ultimately drowned out by the last of the storm. "Dammit!" He now yells, throat raw and eyes burning, stinging with tears as he chokes. "Why… Why did you do that?" Sadness turns to panic, turns to wrath. Wrath turned inwards, for his actions, for reaching out and breaking the illusion. Like bringing ripples to the mirrored reflections in a sea of water, because he got too greedy and wanted to touch beauty.

It all comes too fast. Yuji knows it all too well. The point of no return, the ebb and flow back and forth, being swallowed by the flood of emotions only to be left ashore and dry. Right now he's winded with the weight of his emotional burdens. The person he grieves most, spends night after night reminiscing about. The person of his lost affections, love with nowhere to go, never able to blossom into something more than a bud.

He buries his right hand in his hair, the dirty strands tugging at the still heavy bleed. Utilizing enough cursed energy to just about keep up with the blood loss, he combs through the knots, before deciding to give up. He winds a fist, tighter and tighter, burying parts of his hair in the creases of his red-handed right. It's not gentle, it's not loving. A tool that has been sharpened dutifully throughout just past a century now, it won't chip, won't fall on dull times. It will cut every time, will injure every time. Yuji's hands have long forgotten the parts of life that aren't violent. Even the bouquets of fresh zinnias he leaves on Megumi's grave time and time again have bloodied, broken stems.

He drags his hand down the side of his face, smears crimson like paint across his the flushed skin. His forehead burns under his fingertips as he comes back up to touch it. Having to close his eyes due to the intense heat in them, he claws at his throat externally while internally the scratches have long done their work already. He coughs. He must've caught something, maybe a fever. It's the least of his worries at the moment.

Another rush of wind bursts through the temple, blows across the empty bottles and causes them to hum. But the sound is distorted, everything moves too quickly and then too slowly. Yuji doesn't know what to do about it.

Instinctively, he makes himself small. Curls further into himself, hugs his arms to his chest. Reluctantly, he heals the cuts on his hand and forearms. It alleviates some of the symptoms, but the constant mental loop of Megumi is non-negotiable. Yuji doesn't remember the vague, blurry appearance, only remembers Megumi's touch and voice from it. Parts of his features were completely blotted out, indifferent from the ever-shifting background. But even in blindness, he'd know him.

Yuji has picture after picture of him on his powerless, ancient phone, but lacks the hyperphantasia needed to construct an image out of his mind. He can find pieces of Megumi everywhere, can make a collage of the greens that resided in his eyes and the warm blacks of his hair, but he'll forget if he doesn't have the references to rely on. He wishes, so deeply, to have more to remember Megumi by.

He reaches into the collar of his shirt, fingers brushing a cord and hooking into it to grasp the charm dangling at its end. He presses the metal to his palm, warm with his body heat. Usually above his heart, the second button of Megumi's uniform. He runs his thumb over the ridges in the emblem, untarnished due to his repeated and frequent fiddling with it, polishing it. Besides his memory, besides this, there isn't much of material that Yuji still has of Megumi. There isn't much left of himself, either. Half his soul is resting alongside Megumi in his casket.

But his words, his voice. Yuji has seared it into his rotten mind, the ones from his imaginations as well, even as it leaves him unfeeling now. Even as the fall from the high of his emotions leaves him gutted and pure gore, he commits the dream to memory. Oh how he has spent years, hoping to dream. Hoping to feel. And now he was left seething, unable to cope with the intensity, failing to manage a true grasp on it. Failing to reside in the moment and enjoy it, savor it.

Defeated, Yuji falls to his side, breathing heavily. He's calming slowly, but still feverish. His breaths sound labored as they leave his mouth.

He's left in the dark, the cold. There's a blink of brightness as lightning strikes, followed by a five second pause and thunder. It's not warm, it's not safe. But this is what remains of Yuji, as well. A rotting shell of what it once was, cared for and visited by others. Offering safety, offering blessings. Now all he brings is death.

Megumi is dead. Buried six feet under breathable soil, is kilometers from Yuji's current location. The blooms on his grave have scattered in this storm, and there is already debris from the surrounding nature sticking to his recently cleaned grave. Yuji would run to him now, if he could.

But he can't.

He's just… So tired. Too tired.

Tomorrow, he promises. "Tomorrow I'll visit you."

The flowers are gone.

Just over fifty years ago, on the one year anniversary of Megumi's death, Yuji planted some seeds in fertile soil, close-by to the cemetery. Or at least close for Yuji. An hour or so of walking is nothing with the abundance of time he has. Plus its on the path he routinely peruses.

They're zinnias. Rather low-maintenance flowers, but Yuji still did plenty of research. Nutrient-rich soil, a lot of sun. He plants them in that dedicated spot, has propagated some but most are grown from seeds. He buys varieties, each year something slightly different. It's to give Megumi's grave a better diversity of color, and to not bore him with repetition. Single, semi-double or double blooms, different sizes and heights. After he made it through pretty much all the varieties he could get his hands on, he repeated the loop.

And his work pays off. Each year, summer through fall, he has pretty bouquets that he can place on the otherwise depressingly muted colors of the cemetery. And sometimes he chuckles, thinking of how Megumi would probably hate the bright, vivid blooms at his headstone.

"You must get sick of seeing all this gray," Yuji muttered once, a bundle of pink blooms in his hand. It felt like a bit too much, sometimes, showing himself so openly. "And no complaints. I picked them myself." He never told Megumi that he grew them, too.

While the other graves have blooms as well, the majority of the site is drowned in monotonous hues. And you can't make a cemetery not feel like death. So maybe Megumi's soul is somewhere, annoyed with him, but the thought of that is pleasant and dulls the loneliness.

Those are gone. The flowers meant for this year have died, their blooms scattered across the fields.

But it's not the only thing scattered across the vibrant greens surrounding the vast field. There's red, dripping from the blades of grass, contaminating the soil with the trampled plants.

It happened in an instant. One hissing voice, a silenced warning shot as "dismantle" fell from Yuji's lips and the curse user was diced to liquid, spread across the fields like fertilizer before they could get a word out. And Yuji, Yuji doesn't move long after the blood had begun to seep into the soil. The one he knelt in for over fifty years, fed with nutrients and water with utmost care. It only took a moment, even his sub-second execution too slow to stop the death of his work.

It's just a field. One year of flowers. Next year, he can plant new ones.

But it's not. No, he wishes it was only that.

There isn't a death cruel enough to fulfill his want for that curse user to suffer. Not now either way, since his remains fail to even have a form now.

Yuji didn't know the motif, didn't know the reason why the sorcerer was there in the first place. But all he knows is that the life was sucked out of his flowers and the blooms are gone, ridden with browns and rot. No longer did they carry the vividness they once possessed.

Yuji walks the field with a face blank, eyes dark and reflecting the red pooling beneath his feet. There are some blooms that were still alive, but now the crimson drenches their delicate petals, are stained with the identity of that vile being that dared to destroy something dear to Yuji. One of the only solid connections to Megumi, a way for him to show his emotions.

A barely there flick of his fingers and he cuts a white semi-double zinnia from the rest, taking it into his calloused hands. "I'm sorry. You didn't deserve any of that." He whispers, wiping at the petals ever so gently to get some of the blood off it. "Forgive me for not getting to you sooner."

"A bit excessive, don't you think?"

Yuji's eyes flicker to his right and his hand moves in the fraction of the following second. He mouths the words dismantle once again and the person that spoke those words loses both their legs from the knees down.

"Fuck!" The person groans, gasping in panic as they fall to the ground. They get pale at the sight of their blood, though seem to be able to staunch the bleeding with RCT. Not that it will be their saving grace. "You diced my partner to bits huh. Didn't think the myths would somehow manage to undersell you..."

"What do you want." Yuji speaks, impassive to the display of pain before him. He truly doesn't know why he's entertaining a conversation with this person. But then again, he enjoys seeing them wriggle beneath his grip. They would pay. He doesn't plan on being merciful a second time.

The man bows, forehead to the ground, touching the blood of his murdered companion. "Consider me a humble fan, an avid follower. You see, people have failed to witness you for decades now." He lifts his head, and Yuji considers beheading him swiftly. The look in his eyes is crazed, out of his mind. The blood of his comrade is dripping down his face, yet he looks at the murderer of said person as if they were a god. "We are a group who would love to-" His hands shake as he lifts them, palms open and facing up.

"I'm not interested," Yuji cuts him off. "In any of you or what you're here to tell me."

The man smiles. "We had a feeling you'd say that." He sits back, hands on his thighs. He's swaying slightly with the blood loss, voice trembling with each depraved word. "Truly, I am only a messenger. Just being in your presence, I feel honored."

Yuji finally turns fully to him, steps closer. He twirls the zinnia between his fingers, glancing at it before looking down at the man practically bursting out of his forced seat with excitement. Yuji curb-stomps his disgust, leveling his voice. The ties and knots he restricts his anger with creak in his ears as he grinds his teeth before speaking. "You were a group, you said."

"Y-yes. A small handful, but we're devoted." The man answers, eyes wide, probably in shock at being asked a question in return. He's paling rapidly, due to fear or blood loss Yuji can't tell. But his cursed energy is depleted.

There's a very easy solution to this nuisance. And Yuji hates a change of schedule, but he hopes the dead are forgiving. He'll meet their graves a little later today. He hums, swallows the bile clawing at his throat. "Okay, I'll humor you." He decides. He heals the ailments, the man falling forwards as his body winds itself at the growth of two new calves and feet.

"What?" The man breathes in disbelief. He blinks, probably doesn't believe his ears. So Yuji reiterates, caressing the blossom of the flower in his hands in a silent apology to Megumi.

"You heard me. Bring me to your group." Yuji smiles, and it does take a lot of willpower to do so. This is the quickest solution to never deal with this again, to make sure no one dares to lay foot on his grounds in the future. The perfect revenge for disrespecting his peace for the sake of seeking him out. "You can walk now, can't you?"

He watches the man stumble to his feet, bowing once more at his hip. "Y-yes of course. Thank you for the honor, truly." He folds his jittery hands behind his back. When he stands up straight, his eyes bore through Yuji in a way that makes his skin crawl. Nonetheless, the pay-off will be worth it.

"Spare me the formalities, please. Just lead me there." Yuji insists, taking the man's side. He unzips his jacket just enough to slide the zinnia into one of the lining pockets, it's petals curling against the button dangling from his necklace. He settles his hands into his pockets, cracking his knuckles as a way too smooth over the fraying bundle of nerves burning in his spine.

"Of course." The man nods eagerly.

The walk is not too long. Yuji spends it in silence, feels the mans nerves practically choking the air around them with its intensity. He gets even worse as they approach an unmarked building. In the midday sun, it's inconspicuous as it can be.

The front door opens to a small reception, a rather young person working the counter. Their inattentive posture does a complete flip when she sets her eyes on them, their eyes wide and blinking away initial skepticism, disbelief. The man that lead him here gives her a stern look, nods towards a pair of wooden doors that are shut. The entire place is lifeless, sanitized. No furniture, nothing that would give away the actual intention of this building. He assumes the woman working the desk is trained to keep anyone unauthorized out, by any means.

She looks down and seems to press a switch, as the doors open for them. What was previous silence now echoes through the room they stand in with loud chatter, rows of seats visible through the frame of the door. Maybe thirty, maybe less. Regardless, Yuji will make sure none of those seats will remain occupied.

They step into the hall, their steps loud even among the lively conversation that is now dying down. Yuji feels dozens of pairs of eyes take him in, leering unapologetically. Once again, he wishes to end this quickly. But truthfully, that would only be satisfying for those few seconds. He plans to make it count.

"Toku." They stop before a platform, ever so slightly raised. The air is tense. A man in robes regards them with squinted eyes. Perhaps they deem him a possible new follower. "Who have you brought with you?"

Yuji almost wants to laugh. Taking him for a god, yet unable to recognize him. Perhaps it's similar to a religion, a rule in place to not make idols of your person of worship. He'll bring them to salvation soon enough as a thanks for adhering to it.

The man, named Toku, bows deeply, but before he can speak, Yuji decides to interrupt him. With a calm hand, he frees his face from the shade, pulling the hood of his jacket down. "Apologies for showing up unannounced. But… Toku-kun told me you were looking for me." He locks eyes with the man in robes.

It's an instant. Like someone pulled a gun in a bank and raised it high. He hears chairs creak and shoes squeak, here's breaths knocked out of the people to his side and behind him. As he spares them a glance, finds them with their heads to the ground like Toku before.

The man on the platform does the same, apologies rattling from his clumsy tongue. "You have come at last. We are truly overjoyed to be in your presence." A choir of voices say this in echo and Yuji rubs his thumb over the nubs of his left ring finger and pinky. It's truly unsettling, how sick humanity can become when faced with power. They blindly worship someone they don't know, bring them to their home.

As he assesses the crowd, he feels a brief relief to not find any children among them. No, this is just the work of very sick, creepy adults, ranging from early thirties to way into elderly years. He's seen enough, now.

"Toku." He regards the man who still stands next to him, the only one with his head held high. The one who brought him here. The next words are nothing but deceit. "Thank you."

Toku doesn't respond. One can't respond if they're missing their head.

The sound of a skull crushing with the amount of force Yuji possesses is quieter than one would think. But in this otherwise empty hall, it rebounds gruesomely. So does the thud of Toku's headless corpse, hitting the ground. No cursed energy, nothing they could even begin to read or expect.

He won't give them even a sliver of satisfaction.

"Perhaps you'll allow me to demonstrate. A proof of identity." The man in robes lifts his head, color draining from his face. But no one moves, or dares to. He's their idol. Dare they defy him, they defy everything they stand for. He figured such would be the case. Perhaps after the third death they'll start to question who they put their beliefs in. "But I have to disappoint you. I don't plan on showing my technique."

His prediction reads correct. The first people start running to the doors after two more people lost their legs and are left yelling at the ground as they bleed out. Their 'leader' doesn't move, but bears witness to all of it. So do some of his followers. They stay in their cowering bow, still and unmoving. But Yuji can feel their unease.

And then there's a third type of person. Yes, some people start to fight back. Skeptics perhaps, who were waiting for their leader to be proven wrong somehow, who seethed in jealousy at the display of power, the injustice of not being an equal to every other person of the cult.

Or perhaps, they are the ones most eager to see his power, wish to agitate him to perform as expected. That they are like the sorcerer that destroyed the vibrant blooms as bait. And by that association, he decides he should leave the more painful deaths to them.

A strike to the gut, like how it felt to watch his hard work wilt against his efforts. The sorcerer curls into his arm as Yuji's fist impales them, pulls at his clothes. Their eyes lock onto his, a demented but forced smile on their lips. It dies, as they aren't hit with the cursed energy they expect, they want. A cough of their blood splatters across Yuji's collar. He pulverizes their spine apart in his palm, and they die after a few breathless cries of pain.

The deaths don't feel good. They're justice, in Yuji's eyes, but the violation still exists, won't be made up for. No one will be able to undo the disrespect that fell upon Yuji, and by extension Megumi. The latter being the greater sin.

His hands crush organs and bones, gore spilling onto the diligently cleaned wooden floor. Yuji's brief look down to his own reflection is interrupted by another disemboweled corpse he had taken care of a breath before.

Another man that loses his right arm due to the close proximity falls back onto the ground, facing him with pure horror and despair carved into his features. Yuji leans over him, letting the disgust find its way out through his words, every syllable dripping with his discontent towards this abhorrent collection of people. "Please be aware. This isn't me at my worst. If I weren't aware of my higher duty, I'd leave you to rot." He snaps the man's femur like the stem of a young flower, crushing the meat beneath his foot, grinding the limb down into curds and powder. "But I have somewhere to be." He explains over the screams of agony before him. "So I will be merciful. Because I quite honestly have better uses of my time."

Two other people that run to the wooden doors are gripped by their heads. Yuji smashes their skulls together, with an amount of force that requires multiple collisions to fully crush them, for the simple sake of inflicting more pain. When he can fit their heads into one hand, he lets their limp corpses drop down below.

The numbers dwindle quickly, especially as it's left to the people that still bow at his feet. He decides to simply crush their heads beneath his steps. He wasted more than enough time. His hands are encased in warm red as he pushes them back into his pockets. The floor he crosses ripples, stained and flooded with blood of a little over twenty people. Yuji counted casually, so he might be off by a few.

The leader still kneels, but his head is only lowered slightly. His body shakes with an intensity that undoes the binds of his robes, bares his collar, part of his chest. Yuji truly wonders how he will die. But first he has a few words for him.

"I've met people of your kind before. And I truthfully wasn't planning on entertaining this at all." The muscles at his core tighten, a snarl curling his lips. "But when your people came and destroyed what was still good of me, I only saw this fate for you. I hope this is the last I see of this behavior." Stalking, Worship. He wishes to ban those ideas from the world. Or any matter that closely concerns him at the very least. He's sick of people chasing after him so obsessively.

The man by his feet doesn't die the most painful death. Yuji doesn't leave him to bleed. But it's not painless, how he breaks open his sternum. The pause he leaves after said action is the sole reason it isn't quick. Once he reaches in and rips the man's heart out, he succumbs before he even crushes the warm bundle of vessels and muscle.

Blood pours down his forearm, falling from his elbow into the open hollow of the corpse. The last of the cult, fading to its humiliating end. Rotten to the core, consumed by the very identity they chased after.

"Sorry to keep you waiting, Megumi." Yuji's tongue curls fondly around the name engraved on the headstone, speaks it calmly and sweetly. He pulls his hood down, showing a content, disarming smile. "Something came up and I needed to take care of it." He crouches in front of the Kanji, lifts a hand to run across the smooth stone. Gingerly, he realizes that his hands are still stained with blood, and he tries to brush some of it back off. "Ah, I didn't mean to get that disgusting blood on you." He pulls his lips into a displeased line, reaches for the zipper of his jacket to open it.

Reaching inside, his fingers find a plastic bag and a flower stem. He pulls both out with a sigh. The zinnia's head flops over in his hold, too warm next to his heart and dehydrated. But the blooms are still white, except the stains of blood. "I saved this one for you. I will bring more next time," He promises, also sets down the bag on Megumi's grave. A packet of ginger cough drops. He straightens the red bow on it, carefully. "And these are my apology. But you don't have to forgive me just yet."

He had left the scene of murder behind him under an hour ago, his steps the only sound as he walked out of the building. The blood clung to his soles all the way outside, only used up a few paces out the door. His mind was wonderfully quiet. His newly bought favorite cigarettes remained untouched, sealed in plastic still.

Until now. He unpacks the box he brought this morning at a konbini, before all of that bloodshed happened. He lights one and keeps his hood down against his back, exhaling rings of smoke. He falls silent until it's almost done. With a small hiccup in his breath he settles his cheek atop Megumi's headstone, ignoring the harsh friction against his cheek as he nods into it.

He takes the bud from his lips to speak, presses out the ember in the gravel beneath him. "I saw you in my dreams. But you weren't there for long." He explains, his voice unwavering regardless of the water that gathers in the bottom of his eyes. "I'm sorry." He whispers. "I'm sorry for everything." He glances at the wilting flower next to him. How tragic, that white flowers can turn pink when they're stained with blood. "I wish I could've done more for you."

His breath falters with his next inhale, but he pushes through it. He turns more towards the stone, resting his arms and chin on it. It's steadfast beneath his weight. Megumi has always been able to carry things so beyond himself. Yuji wishes he could've at least died unburdened, died peacefully. But Yuji will always remember, will always feel utter disdain for the sickness that took Megumi from him. Megumi died too early, died in suffering. Yuji will never stop thinking about what else he could've done to make up for, or even stop such injustice.

"I miss you so much." He whispers, his chapped lips catching on the rough texture of the material he speaks against. "It's way lonelier than I could have ever worried it'd be. So please…" A small sound claws up his throat between his words, and he silences himself by pressing a kiss to the spot on Megumi's grave that's dark with his tears. "Visit me soon, if you can. I'll be waiting while I sleep."

With slowly dissipating tears, Yuji falls asleep in the warm, golden light of sundown. And for that moment, the same warmth from his dreams envelopes him.