12; k; atropos bound
atropos bound | R for violence, death
saruhiko/misaki, kuroh/yashiro, bandou/akagi, onesided reisi/suoh
3k words
lol k project fanfic.
important supplementary reading: red string of fate, k: memory of red, and this amazing picture.
also saruhiko is a bit skewed in this fic for reasons
The world, in Saruhiko's eyes, is tangled in too much string.
Saruhiko has this habit of dragging the tip of his sword across the floor as he walks. The pressure he applies is not enough to leave marks on the concrete, but enough to wind down the sharpness of his blade, if he keeps it up.
Reisi always shakes his head, and Seri always reprimands him, but all Saruhiko is doing is carrying out his experiment. He is just testing out his hypothesis and narrowing his variables down to the ones which actually matter.
Maybe he’ll get it right, this time.
atropos bound
The moment he joins Scepter 4 and takes Reisi’s hand, bright blue with sparks, is when it begins.
A faint jolt of thrill runs through his nerves, settling in that spot behind his breastbone where something burning used to be. Homura’s flame starts to evict itself from his body like a crash-landing phoenix, dispersing on the ground beneath his shoes in a cloud of embers, and Saruhiko tries to focus because Reisi is still talking; something about pledging loyalty, and uniforms. Something about settling in.
The faint red string wrapped around Reisi’s left little finger is rather curious, though. Saruhiko’s pretty sure that wasn’t there a minute ago.
“ - alright?”
Saruhiko blinks, and then nods. “Yes, sir.”
When they go their own ways, Saruhiko walks as he always does, but the crunch beneath his soles sounds different.
He looks down to see translucent red layers of web after web after web on the floor, thread criss-crossing this way and that, messy and limp. The marble tiling is completely covered in it, and Saruhiko can’t help a surprised step back because what is this? He takes a sweeping glance at the other Scepter 4 staff in the vicinity, and why is no one else reacting? This carpet of red string that is suddenly here; varieties of silk cord and nylon rope and hemp…
This sort of romantic dream, being able to see each person’s magical string of fate - is this what he gets for being a traitor?
He looks at his own hand and laughs at the red cotton twine tied around his own finger. This is ridiculous.
When it doesn’t go away the next morning, he just keeps quiet and tries to live with it.
He can do this, he tells himself, because the thread never tangles or goes taut, no matter where or how he pulls. The strings tied to other people don’t bother him either, politely staying on the ground.
But the thought that there is someone on the other end of his own string makes Saruhiko’s toes curl. Another person to think about is just another weakness, and when it comes to people in jobs like theirs, faltering just once is a quick way to get killed.
Today is a boring, lazy day, with Homura keeping low, so Saruhiko is particularly curious.
Seri is obediently keeping her eyes trained on the monitors, waiting for signals. Saruhiko keeps his eyes on the red leather lacing tied around her pinky and follows it as it makes to leave the room, parallel to several other pieces of thread tied to some of their subordinates.
No one blinks when he stands to follow it out the door.
The moment he makes it to the hallway, he decides instead to pick up Seri’s string, because there is a huge bundle of thread leaving the building and he doesn’t want to lose track. He then makes it onto city pavement and goes where the string goes, fingers loosely curled around it. He follows it past buildings of shining steel and past little ramen shops, past crossroads and black wrought-iron gates, into a quiet field where the sky isn’t obscured by anything but clouds.
He follows the string into a graveyard, where the other end is frayed at the foot of a tombstone.
Saruhiko frowns and turns away, letting Seri’s thread fall from his fingers.
He doesn’t touch a single string ever again after that, until he sees another one unravel right in front of his eyes.
Saburouta Bandou is a bit of a weakling, but his thread frays like a firecracker unwrapping itself just as it’s about to ignite, sending a dispersed cloud of red embers into the air. His body is already a mess on the concrete when his thread turns into a lit fuse, tired ashes making their way from his little finger to the other side of the street - to Reisi’s opponent, the man with the cap and the red jacket. He’s too occupied with trying to dodge Reisi’s attacks to notice that his partner’s dead.
Saruhiko waits until Reisi is finished, and then picks up the brittle remains of the thread, two lit flames on each of its ends. It eventually burns out and disappears as if it had never been there.
Miwa’s Black Dog has been struck down by Misaki. Saruhiko wants to be proud.
Kuroh’s thread goes out like a firework, all in one rush, like the clean blow Misaki gave his head. Saruhiko’s the only one who can see all the sparks, bright motes of indigo and ultramarine and purple, but he stops and stares anyway because the degenerating, worsening expression on Isana Yashiro’s face is interesting to watch.
The braided wool around Yashiro’s finger turns a shade darker, a little like dried blood, and when Yashiro laughs, it’s pretty obvious that the Colorless King has return to stay.
Suddenly Yashiro raises his hand and then Kusanagi Izumo is crumpled on the ground, struggling on his knees and arms in something like a kneel. An invisible force grinds Izumo’s forehead onto the pavement and Yashiro laughs even harder, yells to all of them standing on this overpass, “Bow down!” Seri falls to the floor. “Down!” Neko, too.
The three swords in the sky start cracking apart, and in the corner of his vision, Saruhiko can see Reisi’s hands tightening on the hilt of his rapier, holding the blade perpendicular to the ground.
Saruhiko doesn’t need to be told - he turns around, eyes meeting his subordinates' frantic gazes, and he yells, “Fall back!”
Reisi drives his blade into the asphalt, and the sky fills with lightning.
Yashiro’s invisible aura loses its grip on Seri’s neck, and Reisi stops to carry her before taking off, leaving his sword behind. Saruhiko is right at Reisi’s heels, constantly glancing back, and past the sparks, he can see Mikoto Suoh’s team scattering as well, leaving blazing trails in their wake.
His eyes find Misaki first, skateboarding away, and the thread trailing in the air after him makes Saruhiko wonder. Who would Misaki, in a show as brilliant as Yashiro's, break down for?
(A little thought he doesn’t want to admit to thinking:
What if I cut that thread and tie the other end to me?)
They don’t expect Yashiro to put the city in lockdown, and now that he has, each of the other clans are cautious and wary. The normal citizens are in constant fear.
Misaki bravely ventures out to drop a letter at the doorstep of Scepter 4’s temporary headquarters, but he doesn’t stay for even a second, just waving a flame in front of the identification scanner and immediately speeding off.
Reisi gets to be the first to open it, and when he does, his smile is as accepting and relieved as a patient finally receiving a diagnosis. “Homura is offering an alliance.”
Saruhiko cocks an unimpressed eyebrow - alliances are things you request, not offer - but Reisi shakes his head. “I'm afraid that this is one offer we can't turn down.”
Seri leaves the infirmary to relay the decision to the others, and Fushimi scuffs his sole on the tile.
Reisi puts on his usual, enigmatic smile. “It's just a temporary arrangement while the Sword of Damocles and I haven't recovered yet, Fushimi.”
In reply, Saruhiko only hums, because the fact that Reisi’s smile actually reaches his eyes this time gives away enough. Even worse, Saruhiko remembers, is how the last time Homura and Scepter 4 had clashed, the destroyed end of Reisi’s string had tried to latch around Suoh’s finger like a lost dog.
Trying to hide his disgruntled glare, Saruhiko leaves the infirmary as well. Reisi is faltering.
They rendezvous at some random alley the next evening, dressed as they normally don’t and looking like normal people. Seri looks odd with a ponytail, and Saruhiko isn’t used to wearing contacts, but he doesn’t even need his glasses to see how uncomfortable Misaki is with a muted grey shirt and a faint forest-green jacket. The biggest change is probably the lack of a beanie on his head, which makes him nigh unrecognizable. (And another thought: He looks good.)
But Misaki is only accompanying Suoh, who seems to be in much better shape than Reisi is. It’s Suoh’s presence that keeps Saruhiko’s mouth shut, and although Saruhiko is glad to let Seri do the talking, the silence he puts on himself just makes his mind wander and he finds his eyes gravitating towards Suoh’s little finger.
There are two threads.
One of them is in a bowline knot close and tight near his knuckle, a luxuriously smooth and fluffy red that’s almost pink. The other one is barely curled around his finger, a translucent glass fiber that looks familiar.
Saruhiko and Misaki are shooed away so Seri and Suoh can negotiate in private, and when Misaki disappears to the sidewalk, Saruhiko leaves through the other end of the alley, following Reisi’s string with a careful hand.
And maybe it’s all just the wrong circumstances and the wrong time to be curious and dissatisfied at the same time, but the moment he makes a corner, he silently draws his sword, holds the thread up against its sharper edge, and -
“This is Scepter 4’s proposal, Suoh Mikoto. Do you accept?”
- cuts.
He peeks back inside the alleyway, not sure if he wants to expect anything to happen, and he swallows when Suoh’s demeanor is noticeably different, now, his hands balled into his jeans’ pockets and his posture less open. “Misaki,” Suoh calls, dropping his cigarette butt to the ground.
Misaki is there barely a moment later, eyes wide and expecting. For a moment, he looks his age, and not like a man who had bashed someone’s skull in with a baseball bat -
Suoh makes his way past Seri, the piece of glass fiber still around his finger dropping to the floor. It shrivels up and disappears in a small burst of dying sparks. “We’re leaving.”
When Misaki’s eyes slant in confusion and disappointment, Saruhiko can’t help his fists from tightening.
They return with the news, and Reisi just smiles in reply, the red of his string turning fainter and fainter and fainter like it’s bleeding out. “Alright.”
Saruhiko grits his teeth, places a hand on the wall to keep balance, because with Reisi’s decline, Scepter 4 is only getting weaker and weaker and this pathetic sort of thing - soul mates? What?
He contacts Misaki secretly, saying that Scepter 4 would like to meet again, and so they arrange to have another negotiating session with just three of them, this time.
He’ll take this matter into his own hands.
No one in Scepter 4 bats an eyelid at Saruhiko’s departure the next day.
He already has his sword drawn the moment Suoh makes a turn into the alley, and as he thrusts his rapier forward, he realizes that oh, stabbing through a shirt is much easier than trying to stab through a parka.
He thrusts again, putting several thousand volts in for good measure, and Saruhiko watches as blue sparks eat at Suoh’s string. Well, that’s great! No one needs this ridiculous thread, all it does it make things harder and worse and make people pathetic. Saruhiko’s pretty sure he doesn’t need his string either, and he gathers as much of the cotton thread tied to him into his fist -
“What… is this?”
A flame suddenly licks across his forearm, just as red as the ones building temperature around Misaki’s feet, and Saruhiko lets go of the string to drop into a crouch. He has his free arm up and ready to defend, but after several still minutes, Misaki only drops to his knees, mouth agape. He is silent, save for the crackling of the flames surrounding him, simmering and so small that a breeze would turn them into smoke.
Saruhiko takes this chance to run.
It’s not cowardly, he keeps trying to convince himself, because suddenly nothing sits right anymore, and he can see Misaki’s thread growing paler and paler and paler in time with his own and. Just. He never knew that it was Misaki all along, all this time, but now...
This is all wrong.
The news of Homura losing its king spreads quickly. The news of Izumo taking the position and Misaki rising to be the group’s number two does not.
Saruhiko being disowned by his clan is not news at all, because the topic is easily explained away. What else would you expect from a traitor, they say. Maybe Scepter 4’s standards are rising again, they say.
He remembers Reisi lying flat on his bed, arms crossed in front of his face, and Saruhiko squares his shoulders because they are so, so wrong. Scepter 4 is only coming to an end. Saruhiko’s even glad to be out.
(Maybe.)
Scepter 4 disappears quietly, and eventually, Saruhiko never hears a word about them ever again.
Yashiro clears the city’s clans quickly, and leaves the red one, the one he’s declared several times to be his ‘favorite’, for last. Through each of the city’s electronic billboards and banners, he invites Homura to the city’s suspension bridge to watch his inauguration as the king of kings, and then invites Saruhiko too because he apparently feels like it.
Saruhiko decides to show up late, because Yashiro has control over six of the seven clans’ auras, and he doesn’t need to watch the fight to know that Yashiro will gain control over one more.
He’s completely unsurprised when he arrives to see Izumo dead on the concrete.
So many broken, withering strings are strewn about on the bridge, with some of them being the ones Saruhiko recognizes to be Rikio’s, or Neko’s. Then there’s all the other dead people on the bridge, trapped inside burning cars, or the people just dead right in the middle of the road. Too many threads broken, and too many lives changed…
He turns around to look at Yashiro, who is perched on one of the bridge’s towers and raising his hands to the sky, laughing, burning reds and sparking blues swirling around him in a circle of five other colors -
Quick footsteps come to a stop right behind him, and Saruhiko turns to catch the fist aimed at his cheek, letting the flames covering it burn into his skin.
Misaki buries his fists into Saruhiko’s shirt and shakes him, roaring with a voice that’s weary and hoarse and a pair of disillusioned, angry eyes that make Saruhiko’s throat tighten, “This - this is all your fault! You killed our king, and then you - you...”
When Misaki’s knuckles turn a frail, tired white, when his head falls forward and his eyes screw shut, Saruhiko only keeps quiet.
(And the last thought:
Are we each other’s weaknesses?
…Can't have that.)
Saruhiko draws his blade with an air of finality and steadies it above the knot of wool next to his finger.
“W-what are you doing?” Misaki takes several wobbly steps back, fingers still curled.
Cut.
Something behind his breastbone, something deeper in him than his fire or his sparks ever were, falls away.
Saruhiko tries to smile, and then uses his sheath to nudge Misaki in Yashiro’s direction. “Forget about the rest of us and go.”
Misaki’s half of the string starts to fray.
Suddenly the tip of Saruhiko’s rapier is against Misaki’s chin, and Saruhiko yells, “Go!”
Misaki meets Saruhiko’s gaze, and there is so much going on in his eyes, fear and confusion and loss loss loss which would have surely paralyzed anyone else by now. But Saruhiko knows this man, and he knows that Misaki is not just anyone, and that no one else can probably compare.
He gives one last shove and tries to smile wider.
So off Misaki goes, baseball bat back in his hand, flames a red brighter and more fraught than any piece of thread Saruhiko’s ever seen.
Kuroh and Yashiro end in very similar ways, by the hands of the same person, but Misaki doesn’t register this because it’s finally over. He doesn’t notice his baseball bat falling off the bridge tower’s edge because it’s finally, finally…
An abnormal rush of power starts flowing into his fingers, and the feeling that everything in the world is his to manipulate is too heavy with many things, many regrets and thoughts that bring Misaki to his knees.
It’s finally over.
He looks at Saruhiko with a relieved, accomplished smile -
There is a rapier lodged in Saruhiko’s abdomen, the hands wrapped around its hilt Saruhiko’s own. Too much blood. Saruhiko is too still. Too quiet. Too...
No.
The world starts to rearrange itself and Misaki cradles his head in his palms, vision suddenly tearing apart, tries to pull himself back together and tell himself stop stop stop screaming because the world is changing, bending to his wishes, putting everything back, back, back -
(His only throught as the cosmos frays and strings itself back together:
Will I see you again?)
Saruhiko wakes up.
He looks at his calendar, and then folds his arms above his head with a sigh. They jumped back in time, again.
This is now the fifteenth try.
He stands up tiredly, dons his uniform again, slips his sheath into his belt like any other day of work. There’s an incident in one of the apartment districts, and so Saruhiko is off, dragging his sword along with him as he walks at a relaxed pace.
A number of threads catch beneath the blade as it scrapes along the pavement, and almost all of them end up getting cut, but perhaps, what if, maybe it doesn’t matter? Maybe these strings only give people reasons to be weak, or maybe these things don’t matter at all. It’s just fiber. Having a piece of string dictate part of your life is ridiculous.
Once he finally arrives at the scene, Reisi takes one look at Saruhiko’s rapier and shakes his head with an amused smile. Seri starts to reprimand him about his tardiness and about proper sword care, but what does it matter? All Saruhiko is doing is trying to find out if removing all possible weaknesses makes things better. It can’t possibly make things worse, and maybe an end won’t be reached at all. Maybe they’ll be able to go on with their lives like everyone else.
His eyes catch the speeding glint of a metal baseball bat, and he turns just in time to meet Misaki’s eyes, in time to see the bright red string on one of Misaki’s fingers as he skateboards away.
Maybe someday.
- masterlist + requests - watch - join -
if the wordcount is not obvious enough, i just want to say that i have too many feels for this show! it's just on its second episode, and i normally don't like writing fanfiction for a fandom this new, but... ;;
has a lot of my speculations (for obvious reasons), especially with regards to saruhiko's and yashiro's characters, but this fic largely runs on fictionium anyway lol.
am i the only one getting yandere vibes from saruhiko i mean seriously. the previews from episode 3. only yanderes make those poses pls.
also forgot to mention - the other end of suoh's string is supposed to be tied to totsuka ahahaa. and atropos is the moirae who determines when your life ends by cutting your 'life thread' where it's supposed to end. mythology go!
any feedback is greatly appreciated. <3
saruhiko/misaki, kuroh/yashiro, bandou/akagi, onesided reisi/suoh
3k words
lol k project fanfic.
important supplementary reading: red string of fate, k: memory of red, and this amazing picture.
also saruhiko is a bit skewed in this fic for reasons
The world, in Saruhiko's eyes, is tangled in too much string.
Saruhiko has this habit of dragging the tip of his sword across the floor as he walks. The pressure he applies is not enough to leave marks on the concrete, but enough to wind down the sharpness of his blade, if he keeps it up.
Reisi always shakes his head, and Seri always reprimands him, but all Saruhiko is doing is carrying out his experiment. He is just testing out his hypothesis and narrowing his variables down to the ones which actually matter.
Maybe he’ll get it right, this time.
atropos bound
The moment he joins Scepter 4 and takes Reisi’s hand, bright blue with sparks, is when it begins.
A faint jolt of thrill runs through his nerves, settling in that spot behind his breastbone where something burning used to be. Homura’s flame starts to evict itself from his body like a crash-landing phoenix, dispersing on the ground beneath his shoes in a cloud of embers, and Saruhiko tries to focus because Reisi is still talking; something about pledging loyalty, and uniforms. Something about settling in.
The faint red string wrapped around Reisi’s left little finger is rather curious, though. Saruhiko’s pretty sure that wasn’t there a minute ago.
“ - alright?”
Saruhiko blinks, and then nods. “Yes, sir.”
When they go their own ways, Saruhiko walks as he always does, but the crunch beneath his soles sounds different.
He looks down to see translucent red layers of web after web after web on the floor, thread criss-crossing this way and that, messy and limp. The marble tiling is completely covered in it, and Saruhiko can’t help a surprised step back because what is this? He takes a sweeping glance at the other Scepter 4 staff in the vicinity, and why is no one else reacting? This carpet of red string that is suddenly here; varieties of silk cord and nylon rope and hemp…
This sort of romantic dream, being able to see each person’s magical string of fate - is this what he gets for being a traitor?
He looks at his own hand and laughs at the red cotton twine tied around his own finger. This is ridiculous.
When it doesn’t go away the next morning, he just keeps quiet and tries to live with it.
He can do this, he tells himself, because the thread never tangles or goes taut, no matter where or how he pulls. The strings tied to other people don’t bother him either, politely staying on the ground.
But the thought that there is someone on the other end of his own string makes Saruhiko’s toes curl. Another person to think about is just another weakness, and when it comes to people in jobs like theirs, faltering just once is a quick way to get killed.
Today is a boring, lazy day, with Homura keeping low, so Saruhiko is particularly curious.
Seri is obediently keeping her eyes trained on the monitors, waiting for signals. Saruhiko keeps his eyes on the red leather lacing tied around her pinky and follows it as it makes to leave the room, parallel to several other pieces of thread tied to some of their subordinates.
No one blinks when he stands to follow it out the door.
The moment he makes it to the hallway, he decides instead to pick up Seri’s string, because there is a huge bundle of thread leaving the building and he doesn’t want to lose track. He then makes it onto city pavement and goes where the string goes, fingers loosely curled around it. He follows it past buildings of shining steel and past little ramen shops, past crossroads and black wrought-iron gates, into a quiet field where the sky isn’t obscured by anything but clouds.
He follows the string into a graveyard, where the other end is frayed at the foot of a tombstone.
Saruhiko frowns and turns away, letting Seri’s thread fall from his fingers.
He doesn’t touch a single string ever again after that, until he sees another one unravel right in front of his eyes.
Saburouta Bandou is a bit of a weakling, but his thread frays like a firecracker unwrapping itself just as it’s about to ignite, sending a dispersed cloud of red embers into the air. His body is already a mess on the concrete when his thread turns into a lit fuse, tired ashes making their way from his little finger to the other side of the street - to Reisi’s opponent, the man with the cap and the red jacket. He’s too occupied with trying to dodge Reisi’s attacks to notice that his partner’s dead.
Saruhiko waits until Reisi is finished, and then picks up the brittle remains of the thread, two lit flames on each of its ends. It eventually burns out and disappears as if it had never been there.
Miwa’s Black Dog has been struck down by Misaki. Saruhiko wants to be proud.
Kuroh’s thread goes out like a firework, all in one rush, like the clean blow Misaki gave his head. Saruhiko’s the only one who can see all the sparks, bright motes of indigo and ultramarine and purple, but he stops and stares anyway because the degenerating, worsening expression on Isana Yashiro’s face is interesting to watch.
The braided wool around Yashiro’s finger turns a shade darker, a little like dried blood, and when Yashiro laughs, it’s pretty obvious that the Colorless King has return to stay.
Suddenly Yashiro raises his hand and then Kusanagi Izumo is crumpled on the ground, struggling on his knees and arms in something like a kneel. An invisible force grinds Izumo’s forehead onto the pavement and Yashiro laughs even harder, yells to all of them standing on this overpass, “Bow down!” Seri falls to the floor. “Down!” Neko, too.
The three swords in the sky start cracking apart, and in the corner of his vision, Saruhiko can see Reisi’s hands tightening on the hilt of his rapier, holding the blade perpendicular to the ground.
Saruhiko doesn’t need to be told - he turns around, eyes meeting his subordinates' frantic gazes, and he yells, “Fall back!”
Reisi drives his blade into the asphalt, and the sky fills with lightning.
Yashiro’s invisible aura loses its grip on Seri’s neck, and Reisi stops to carry her before taking off, leaving his sword behind. Saruhiko is right at Reisi’s heels, constantly glancing back, and past the sparks, he can see Mikoto Suoh’s team scattering as well, leaving blazing trails in their wake.
His eyes find Misaki first, skateboarding away, and the thread trailing in the air after him makes Saruhiko wonder. Who would Misaki, in a show as brilliant as Yashiro's, break down for?
(A little thought he doesn’t want to admit to thinking:
What if I cut that thread and tie the other end to me?)
They don’t expect Yashiro to put the city in lockdown, and now that he has, each of the other clans are cautious and wary. The normal citizens are in constant fear.
Misaki bravely ventures out to drop a letter at the doorstep of Scepter 4’s temporary headquarters, but he doesn’t stay for even a second, just waving a flame in front of the identification scanner and immediately speeding off.
Reisi gets to be the first to open it, and when he does, his smile is as accepting and relieved as a patient finally receiving a diagnosis. “Homura is offering an alliance.”
Saruhiko cocks an unimpressed eyebrow - alliances are things you request, not offer - but Reisi shakes his head. “I'm afraid that this is one offer we can't turn down.”
Seri leaves the infirmary to relay the decision to the others, and Fushimi scuffs his sole on the tile.
Reisi puts on his usual, enigmatic smile. “It's just a temporary arrangement while the Sword of Damocles and I haven't recovered yet, Fushimi.”
In reply, Saruhiko only hums, because the fact that Reisi’s smile actually reaches his eyes this time gives away enough. Even worse, Saruhiko remembers, is how the last time Homura and Scepter 4 had clashed, the destroyed end of Reisi’s string had tried to latch around Suoh’s finger like a lost dog.
Trying to hide his disgruntled glare, Saruhiko leaves the infirmary as well. Reisi is faltering.
They rendezvous at some random alley the next evening, dressed as they normally don’t and looking like normal people. Seri looks odd with a ponytail, and Saruhiko isn’t used to wearing contacts, but he doesn’t even need his glasses to see how uncomfortable Misaki is with a muted grey shirt and a faint forest-green jacket. The biggest change is probably the lack of a beanie on his head, which makes him nigh unrecognizable. (And another thought: He looks good.)
But Misaki is only accompanying Suoh, who seems to be in much better shape than Reisi is. It’s Suoh’s presence that keeps Saruhiko’s mouth shut, and although Saruhiko is glad to let Seri do the talking, the silence he puts on himself just makes his mind wander and he finds his eyes gravitating towards Suoh’s little finger.
There are two threads.
One of them is in a bowline knot close and tight near his knuckle, a luxuriously smooth and fluffy red that’s almost pink. The other one is barely curled around his finger, a translucent glass fiber that looks familiar.
Saruhiko and Misaki are shooed away so Seri and Suoh can negotiate in private, and when Misaki disappears to the sidewalk, Saruhiko leaves through the other end of the alley, following Reisi’s string with a careful hand.
And maybe it’s all just the wrong circumstances and the wrong time to be curious and dissatisfied at the same time, but the moment he makes a corner, he silently draws his sword, holds the thread up against its sharper edge, and -
“This is Scepter 4’s proposal, Suoh Mikoto. Do you accept?”
- cuts.
He peeks back inside the alleyway, not sure if he wants to expect anything to happen, and he swallows when Suoh’s demeanor is noticeably different, now, his hands balled into his jeans’ pockets and his posture less open. “Misaki,” Suoh calls, dropping his cigarette butt to the ground.
Misaki is there barely a moment later, eyes wide and expecting. For a moment, he looks his age, and not like a man who had bashed someone’s skull in with a baseball bat -
Suoh makes his way past Seri, the piece of glass fiber still around his finger dropping to the floor. It shrivels up and disappears in a small burst of dying sparks. “We’re leaving.”
When Misaki’s eyes slant in confusion and disappointment, Saruhiko can’t help his fists from tightening.
They return with the news, and Reisi just smiles in reply, the red of his string turning fainter and fainter and fainter like it’s bleeding out. “Alright.”
Saruhiko grits his teeth, places a hand on the wall to keep balance, because with Reisi’s decline, Scepter 4 is only getting weaker and weaker and this pathetic sort of thing - soul mates? What?
He contacts Misaki secretly, saying that Scepter 4 would like to meet again, and so they arrange to have another negotiating session with just three of them, this time.
He’ll take this matter into his own hands.
No one in Scepter 4 bats an eyelid at Saruhiko’s departure the next day.
He already has his sword drawn the moment Suoh makes a turn into the alley, and as he thrusts his rapier forward, he realizes that oh, stabbing through a shirt is much easier than trying to stab through a parka.
He thrusts again, putting several thousand volts in for good measure, and Saruhiko watches as blue sparks eat at Suoh’s string. Well, that’s great! No one needs this ridiculous thread, all it does it make things harder and worse and make people pathetic. Saruhiko’s pretty sure he doesn’t need his string either, and he gathers as much of the cotton thread tied to him into his fist -
“What… is this?”
A flame suddenly licks across his forearm, just as red as the ones building temperature around Misaki’s feet, and Saruhiko lets go of the string to drop into a crouch. He has his free arm up and ready to defend, but after several still minutes, Misaki only drops to his knees, mouth agape. He is silent, save for the crackling of the flames surrounding him, simmering and so small that a breeze would turn them into smoke.
Saruhiko takes this chance to run.
It’s not cowardly, he keeps trying to convince himself, because suddenly nothing sits right anymore, and he can see Misaki’s thread growing paler and paler and paler in time with his own and. Just. He never knew that it was Misaki all along, all this time, but now...
This is all wrong.
The news of Homura losing its king spreads quickly. The news of Izumo taking the position and Misaki rising to be the group’s number two does not.
Saruhiko being disowned by his clan is not news at all, because the topic is easily explained away. What else would you expect from a traitor, they say. Maybe Scepter 4’s standards are rising again, they say.
He remembers Reisi lying flat on his bed, arms crossed in front of his face, and Saruhiko squares his shoulders because they are so, so wrong. Scepter 4 is only coming to an end. Saruhiko’s even glad to be out.
(Maybe.)
Scepter 4 disappears quietly, and eventually, Saruhiko never hears a word about them ever again.
Yashiro clears the city’s clans quickly, and leaves the red one, the one he’s declared several times to be his ‘favorite’, for last. Through each of the city’s electronic billboards and banners, he invites Homura to the city’s suspension bridge to watch his inauguration as the king of kings, and then invites Saruhiko too because he apparently feels like it.
Saruhiko decides to show up late, because Yashiro has control over six of the seven clans’ auras, and he doesn’t need to watch the fight to know that Yashiro will gain control over one more.
He’s completely unsurprised when he arrives to see Izumo dead on the concrete.
So many broken, withering strings are strewn about on the bridge, with some of them being the ones Saruhiko recognizes to be Rikio’s, or Neko’s. Then there’s all the other dead people on the bridge, trapped inside burning cars, or the people just dead right in the middle of the road. Too many threads broken, and too many lives changed…
He turns around to look at Yashiro, who is perched on one of the bridge’s towers and raising his hands to the sky, laughing, burning reds and sparking blues swirling around him in a circle of five other colors -
Quick footsteps come to a stop right behind him, and Saruhiko turns to catch the fist aimed at his cheek, letting the flames covering it burn into his skin.
Misaki buries his fists into Saruhiko’s shirt and shakes him, roaring with a voice that’s weary and hoarse and a pair of disillusioned, angry eyes that make Saruhiko’s throat tighten, “This - this is all your fault! You killed our king, and then you - you...”
When Misaki’s knuckles turn a frail, tired white, when his head falls forward and his eyes screw shut, Saruhiko only keeps quiet.
(And the last thought:
Are we each other’s weaknesses?
…Can't have that.)
Saruhiko draws his blade with an air of finality and steadies it above the knot of wool next to his finger.
“W-what are you doing?” Misaki takes several wobbly steps back, fingers still curled.
Cut.
Something behind his breastbone, something deeper in him than his fire or his sparks ever were, falls away.
Saruhiko tries to smile, and then uses his sheath to nudge Misaki in Yashiro’s direction. “Forget about the rest of us and go.”
Misaki’s half of the string starts to fray.
Suddenly the tip of Saruhiko’s rapier is against Misaki’s chin, and Saruhiko yells, “Go!”
Misaki meets Saruhiko’s gaze, and there is so much going on in his eyes, fear and confusion and loss loss loss which would have surely paralyzed anyone else by now. But Saruhiko knows this man, and he knows that Misaki is not just anyone, and that no one else can probably compare.
He gives one last shove and tries to smile wider.
So off Misaki goes, baseball bat back in his hand, flames a red brighter and more fraught than any piece of thread Saruhiko’s ever seen.
Kuroh and Yashiro end in very similar ways, by the hands of the same person, but Misaki doesn’t register this because it’s finally over. He doesn’t notice his baseball bat falling off the bridge tower’s edge because it’s finally, finally…
An abnormal rush of power starts flowing into his fingers, and the feeling that everything in the world is his to manipulate is too heavy with many things, many regrets and thoughts that bring Misaki to his knees.
It’s finally over.
He looks at Saruhiko with a relieved, accomplished smile -
There is a rapier lodged in Saruhiko’s abdomen, the hands wrapped around its hilt Saruhiko’s own. Too much blood. Saruhiko is too still. Too quiet. Too...
No.
The world starts to rearrange itself and Misaki cradles his head in his palms, vision suddenly tearing apart, tries to pull himself back together and tell himself stop stop stop screaming because the world is changing, bending to his wishes, putting everything back, back, back -
(His only throught as the cosmos frays and strings itself back together:
Will I see you again?)
Saruhiko wakes up.
He looks at his calendar, and then folds his arms above his head with a sigh. They jumped back in time, again.
This is now the fifteenth try.
He stands up tiredly, dons his uniform again, slips his sheath into his belt like any other day of work. There’s an incident in one of the apartment districts, and so Saruhiko is off, dragging his sword along with him as he walks at a relaxed pace.
A number of threads catch beneath the blade as it scrapes along the pavement, and almost all of them end up getting cut, but perhaps, what if, maybe it doesn’t matter? Maybe these strings only give people reasons to be weak, or maybe these things don’t matter at all. It’s just fiber. Having a piece of string dictate part of your life is ridiculous.
Once he finally arrives at the scene, Reisi takes one look at Saruhiko’s rapier and shakes his head with an amused smile. Seri starts to reprimand him about his tardiness and about proper sword care, but what does it matter? All Saruhiko is doing is trying to find out if removing all possible weaknesses makes things better. It can’t possibly make things worse, and maybe an end won’t be reached at all. Maybe they’ll be able to go on with their lives like everyone else.
His eyes catch the speeding glint of a metal baseball bat, and he turns just in time to meet Misaki’s eyes, in time to see the bright red string on one of Misaki’s fingers as he skateboards away.
Maybe someday.
- masterlist + requests - watch - join -
if the wordcount is not obvious enough, i just want to say that i have too many feels for this show! it's just on its second episode, and i normally don't like writing fanfiction for a fandom this new, but... ;;
has a lot of my speculations (for obvious reasons), especially with regards to saruhiko's and yashiro's characters, but this fic largely runs on fictionium anyway lol.
am i the only one getting yandere vibes from saruhiko i mean seriously. the previews from episode 3. only yanderes make those poses pls.
also forgot to mention - the other end of suoh's string is supposed to be tied to totsuka ahahaa. and atropos is the moirae who determines when your life ends by cutting your 'life thread' where it's supposed to end. mythology go!
any feedback is greatly appreciated. <3